August to October............ i'm not saying y'all antis cursed them by praying for their breakup but i'm saying that's exactly what happened

Smokey brand Retrospective: The Gift and the Curse

Brendan Fraser has seen a resurgence lately and i love every bit of that. Dude has been one of my favorite actors for decades. I’m an Eighties kid who grew up during the Nineties so i was right there when he came onto the scene. I was a massive fan f all of his early work; Bedazzled, George of the Jungle, Encino Man, Airheads, Blast from the Past, and even Monkeybone. Dude hit his stride right around the Aughts and then completely disappeared. We found out later it was because of some really f*cked up sh*t but he made it through and proved he still had with Robot Man on Doom Patrol. I’m so glad this guy got another shot at this movie star sh*t but i wanted to revisit the franchise that put him on the map: The Mummy.

The Mummy

I love this campy ass flick, man. I saw this one in the theaters because, at the time, i was super into CG. It had only been a few years since Jurassic Park blew that sh*t out the water and only a few months after The Matrix made everyone sh*t the bed. The Mummy just missed that window but it was still incredibly enjoyable. This was my Indiana Jones because i didn’t care about Indy for a long time. It’s not that they were bad movies, i was just too young to appreciate them. The Mummy came out right at the time i started to really understand why i liked cinema, what a good permanence truly was, and how beautiful a film could be. The Mummy covered almost all of those bases. Fraser did an excellent job as Rick O’Connor and Rachel Weisz stunned as Evelyn Carnahan. F*cking Evie, man. I was already a fan of Fraser but this movie made me really pay attention to Weisz and she became one of my favorite actresses. It helps tremendously that she is f*cking gorgeous! Rounding out the cast is John Hannah as Evie’s brother, Johnathan and Arnold Vosloo as the titular mummy, Imhotep. Also, i can’t not mention the scummiest of scumbags, Benny, portrayed so effortlessly by Kevin J. O'Connor.

I absolutely adore this film. It’s a not the best example of Nineties cinema, how can it be, and it’s a terrible remake of the original Universal Mummy but it does what it wants to do very well. I love the ideas and the world they built with this campy clusterf*ck. It shouldn’t work, it should be terrible, but it’s one of the funnest films i have ever seen. It has it’s issues, absolutely, but they are minor compared the non-stop action, the incredible cinematography, the dated but ambitious CG effects ,and solid performances from every principal actor. They really let Fraser do his thing and that energy carried over to the rest of the cast. Evie is every bit the bad ass as Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley but is still a very girly-girl; Something that seems to be frowned upon nowadays. Imhotep id an unrelenting, vicious antagonist who controls powers from long ago, literally willing the seven plagues of Egypt into modern times. This movie is all over the f*cking place but it worse so well and every time i see it, i have as much fun as i did way back when i was a ripened fourteen years old.

The Mummy Returns

Boy, this one suffers terrible from Sequelitis. It does nothing new and is an almost exact retread of the first film but we have new characters and a new villain in the guise of... The Scorpion King! Yes, this is the first film that titular Arachno-Monarch makes his first appearance portrayed by a very young, very beefy, and later, very poorly rendered, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson! That’s right, long before he was Franchise Viagra, way before he was punching out Dom into a stalemate in them god awful Fast flicks, The Rock got his start here, in the sequel to The Mummy and he’s f*cking terrible! Oh my god, is he bad but it works. His awful, awful, performance fits right in with the utter camp of this ridiculous franchise ans, to no one’s surprise, i loved every second of it. Now, as much as i love The Rock in this thing, i have to absolutely give it to Patricia Velasquez as Meela Nais, the physical reincarnation of Imhotep’s regicide partner and f*ck-buddy, Anck-Su-Namun. I didn’t talk about her much in the entry about The Mummy but that as mostly because she was more a plot device rather than a character. She isn’t much else in this one either but at least we got to actually see her for more than ten minutes. Plus, that fight between her and Nefertiri was f*cking glorious. Sixteen year old Smokey appreciated the f*ck out of that.

The returning cast hits their points perfectly. That chemistry never falters. Fraser, Weisz, and Hannah are exceptional together and Vosloo is, somehow, both far more menacing and hilarious at the same time. There’s this scene toward the end where he is utterly defeated and it’s the funniest sh*t i have ever seen. I also really enjoy both Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay far more in this one than the last because he gets to do sh*t finally. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was also a welcome surprise as  the muscle, Lock-Nah. Dude just kinds of stands around and i think he gets into a fight with Fehr that was pretty cool but a little trite. Obviously, as a film from the early Aughts, it has it;s problems. There’s a ton of culturally insensitive sh*t that Zoomers would probably be upset about but, you know, f*ck em. It’s like a sense f humor is illegal nowadays. That said, having Rachel Weisz, as gorgeous and half-naked as she is and was, portray an Egyptian is a little much nowadays. At least Patricia Velasquez is a type of Brown? An attempt was made. This thing is a mess and i enjoy every second of it. The Mummy Returns is substantially worse that the first but, at the same time, just so batsh*t that it is equally as entertaining. But f*ck that kid, though. Every time he’s onscreen all of the good times are thrown right out the goddamn window!

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I gave this one the hard pass for years. It looked like trash. Like straight up dog sh*t. This thing came out seven years after Returns and i just didn’t care. I was one hundred percent in my hipster film snob era and couldn’t be bothered. For a full f*cking decade and some change. Seriously, i just watched this thing the day before yesterday. For the first time. It was the inspiration for this retrospective because, after seeing this train wreck, i went back to check out the first two just to get the taste of dogsh*t out of my mouth. There are several changes made to the formula that immediately take me out of this film. First, and most egregiously, no more Rachel Weisz! She didn’t come back for the third. The reason behind her absence has run the gambit from vanity, to scheduling conflicts, to literally never getting a script. I don;t really care why, all i know is that her absence was felt. Maria Bello did her best but she isn’t MY Evie. Another “choice” was to age up that awful f*cking kid into an awful f*cking adult. That’s right, this is a “passing of the torch flick” and Luke Ford’s Alex O'Connell was supposed to take over the franchise going forward. That didn’t happen because this is Rick’s franchise. The Mummy would be nothing without Fraser and the at was proven when this thing tanked. It wasn’t all bad though. I really liked the new mummy, Han. They did some really fin things with his abilities and Jet Li never once phoned in an action scene. Unfortunately, even with the strength of the brand and outstanding lead performances, this thing still sucks.

I had a time with Tomb but it wasn’t like the time i had with it’s predecessors. I don’t know if it’s because I'm so much older and hardened by life but all i see is the flaws in this one. It doesn’t have the nostalgia goggles like the first two so i can’t enjoy it like i enjoy those. I just see plot holes instead of camp. Bad CG instead of rustic attempt. Poor set pieces instead of Nineties jank. Bad character writing instead of unfortunately hilarious dialogue. Tomb isn’t terrible but it ain’t good wither. It;s mediocre and i know the first two aren’t great but they’re better than whatever this wanted to be. It’s weird to see because there are a lot of great ideas here. I can see the vision that lays outside the margins and it’s frustrating. Fraser does is in his element as Rick and Li’s Han is a physical powerhouse but that’s not enough. As awesome as this movie gets when those two are on screen, literally everything around them is dismissible and i don’t understand how or why. I think a lot of the chemistry was lost when the focus was shifted to Alex from Rick and the recasting of Eve really didn’t do this film any favors. However, even with all of my frustrations, i can’t say i had a terrible time with this thing. It was entertaining, if a little bogus.

Update Plans

As the title says, this is the plan for the upcoming story updates. Upcoming as in before 2019.

Starting with...

Destiny #042: The Reckoning.

Currently at 1000 words. I’m fairly certain I can update this before December. I’ll be working on only this until then, so... yeah. If this chapter does as well as the most recent update, then I see no reason why Destiny can’t be updated one last time during December. Especially since THAT chapter already has 2000 words of progress in it.

And this update will probably feature the MOST action from a certain character that has NEVER happened in any of my other stories thus far. Oooh...

Wings #002: The New Legend

Currently at 2000 words. The only reason why this hasn’t seen too much progress is because I’m kind of stuck thinking about what I want to do with X. Should he have his personality from before he locked himself in his room? Or should he have his personality from after that? But without sharing childhood memories with Y. Ah, thus the reason why I dislike AU. The problems of personalities caused by past events... I think for the sake of entertainment, X has to have the post-lockdown personality. As in, he’ll need to be quiet, not really active or social, and yet terrified of Y because of the three years he spent with her in the same middle school. ... And remember the rest of the Kalos kids? ... It’s time for them to shine.

Heart #003: Oblivious Heart

Currently at 1000 words. While I said that I wouldn’t be updating Heart or Legacy before 2019, ultimately, whether or not I update is solely dependent on whether or not I want to work on it. High review counts per chapter greatly increases my willingness to work on the updates, but it doesn’t solely affect it. In the case of Heart, the next chapter contains the scene that created the whole story in the first place (as in, the critical scene), so... I would want to work on it, definitely. Now, if that chapter flops as well, then Heart will most likely just end up with the Cycle treatment. As in, all the remaining content gets skipped and crammed into one final update that’ll come 8 months later.

Short Story - Covert Ops 1

I really want to do this one. Time for Rakutsu to actually do something in my stories for once. Even if that’s just on Tumblr-only short stories. Unlike Faitsu, who will appear in Wings, this guy is denied that opportunity because f*ck this guy. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any uses.

This short story series will mostly feature Rakutsu and Blue as they tackle a critical mission for the International Police... but all has to be done covertly.

Short Story - White’s Revenge

The time has come for White to take her revenge against Y! The Kalos Dex Holder had mocked her and laughed at her too much in that practice battle, and it’s now White’s time to deliver a brutal payback!

White: “Remember that practice battle that I had against Lady Platinum? Do you remember just how savagely you mocked me?” Y: “... Uh oh...” White: “Yeah. Well, the time has come for my revenge. Prepare yourself!”

Short Story - Babysitting

Still want this to happen. Not sure if I’ll have time to do ALL THIS before 2019, but... we’ll see.

SoS Part 5: Legendary Items

Yeah, this is still ongoing. And will until I find no more enjoyment out of it. I would’ve updated this a lot more if I wasn’t distracted by the likes of Heart and Wings.

I may delay the “Night of the Living Dead” event and instead have a little sabotage and robbery, courtesy of Red and Blue of all people. No one could’ve seen that coming.

Moon: “I... am sick drunk... oh no...” Blue: “... Red, did you... spread alcohol to our juniors?” Red: “Not in real life!” Y: “I can’t get up to my feet! I’m too f*cked up!” Red: “Now is the time to strike! They can’t defend themselves!” Gold: “Ohh... I am seeing some sh*t. This drink is too strong, man!”

The Gift and the Curse

Brendan Fraser has seen a resurgence lately and i love every bit of that. Dude has been one of my favorite actors for decades. I’m an Eighties kid who grew up during the Nineties so i was right there when he came onto the scene. I was a massive fan f all of his early work; Bedazzled, George of the Jungle, Encino Man, Airheads, Blast from the Past, and even Monkeybone. Dude hit his stride right around the Aughts and then completely disappeared. We found out later it was because of some really f*cked up sh*t but he made it through and proved he still had with Robot Man on Doom Patrol. I’m so glad this guy got another shot at this movie star sh*t but i wanted to revisit the franchise that put him on the map: The Mummy.

The Mummy

I love this campy ass flick, man. I saw this one in the theaters because, at the time, i was super into CG. It had only been a few years since Jurassic Park blew that sh*t out the water and only a few months after The Matrix made everyone sh*t the bed. The Mummy just missed that window but it was still incredibly enjoyable. This was my Indiana Jones because i didn’t care about Indy for a long time. It’s not that they were bad movies, i was just too young to appreciate them. The Mummy came out right at the time i started to really understand why i liked cinema, what a good permanence truly was, and how beautiful a film could be. The Mummy covered almost all of those bases. Fraser did an excellent job as Rick O’Connor and Rachel Weisz stunned as Evelyn Carnahan. F*cking Evie, man. I was already a fan of Fraser but this movie made me really pay attention to Weisz and she became one of my favorite actresses. It helps tremendously that she is f*cking gorgeous! Rounding out the cast is John Hannah as Evie’s brother, Johnathan and Arnold Vosloo as the titular mummy, Imhotep. Also, i can’t not mention the scummiest of scumbags, Benny, portrayed so effortlessly by Kevin J. O'Connor.

I absolutely adore this film. It’s a not the best example of Nineties cinema, how can it be, and it’s a terrible remake of the original Universal Mummy but it does what it wants to do very well. I love the ideas and the world they built with this campy clusterf*ck. It shouldn’t work, it should be terrible, but it’s one of the funnest films i have ever seen. It has it’s issues, absolutely, but they are minor compared the non-stop action, the incredible cinematography, the dated but ambitious CG effects ,and solid performances from every principal actor. They really let Fraser do his thing and that energy carried over to the rest of the cast. Evie is every bit the bad ass as Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley but is still a very girly-girl; Something that seems to be frowned upon nowadays. Imhotep id an unrelenting, vicious antagonist who controls powers from long ago, literally willing the seven plagues of Egypt into modern times. This movie is all over the f*cking place but it worse so well and every time i see it, i have as much fun as i did way back when i was a ripened fourteen years old.

The Mummy Returns

Boy, this one suffers terrible from Sequelitis. It does nothing new and is an almost exact retread of the first film but we have new characters and a new villain in the guise of... The Scorpion King! Yes, this is the first film that titular Arachno-Monarch makes his first appearance portrayed by a very young, very beefy, and later, very poorly rendered, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson! That’s right, long before he was Franchise Viagra, way before he was punching out Dom into a stalemate in them god awful Fast flicks, The Rock got his start here, in the sequel to The Mummy and he’s f*cking terrible! Oh my god, is he bad but it works. His awful, awful, performance fits right in with the utter camp of this ridiculous franchise ans, to no one’s surprise, i loved every second of it. Now, as much as i love The Rock in this thing, i have to absolutely give it to Patricia Velasquez as Meela Nais, the physical reincarnation of Imhotep’s regicide partner and f*ck-buddy, Anck-Su-Namun. I didn’t talk about her much in the entry about The Mummy but that as mostly because she was more a plot device rather than a character. She isn’t much else in this one either but at least we got to actually see her for more than ten minutes. Plus, that fight between her and Nefertiri was f*cking glorious. Sixteen year old Smokey appreciated the f*ck out of that.

The returning cast hits their points perfectly. That chemistry never falters. Fraser, Weisz, and Hannah are exceptional together and Vosloo is, somehow, both far more menacing and hilarious at the same time. There’s this scene toward the end where he is utterly defeated and it’s the funniest sh*t i have ever seen. I also really enjoy both Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay far more in this one than the last because he gets to do sh*t finally. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was also a welcome surprise as  the muscle, Lock-Nah. Dude just kinds of stands around and i think he gets into a fight with Fehr that was pretty cool but a little trite. Obviously, as a film from the early Aughts, it has it;s problems. There’s a ton of culturally insensitive sh*t that Zoomers would probably be upset about but, you know, f*ck em. It’s like a sense f humor is illegal nowadays. That said, having Rachel Weisz, as gorgeous and half-naked as she is and was, portray an Egyptian is a little much nowadays. At least Patricia Velasquez is a type of Brown? An attempt was made. This thing is a mess and i enjoy every second of it. The Mummy Returns is substantially worse that the first but, at the same time, just so batsh*t that it is equally as entertaining. But f*ck that kid, though. Every time he’s onscreen all of the good times are thrown right out the goddamn window!

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I gave this one the hard pass for years. It looked like trash. Like straight up dog sh*t. This thing came out seven years after Returns and i just didn’t care. I was one hundred percent in my hipster film snob era and couldn’t be bothered. For a full f*cking decade and some change. Seriously, i just watched this thing the day before yesterday. For the first time. It was the inspiration for this retrospective because, after seeing this train wreck, i went back to check out the first two just to get the taste of dogsh*t out of my mouth. There are several changes made to the formula that immediately take me out of this film. First, and most egregiously, no more Rachel Weisz! She didn’t come back for the third. The reason behind her absence has run the gambit from vanity, to scheduling conflicts, to literally never getting a script. I don;t really care why, all i know is that her absence was felt. Maria Bello did her best but she isn’t MY Evie. Another “choice” was to age up that awful f*cking kid into an awful f*cking adult. That’s right, this is a “passing of the torch flick” and Luke Ford’s Alex O'Connell was supposed to take over the franchise going forward. That didn’t happen because this is Rick’s franchise. The Mummy would be nothing without Fraser and the at was proven when this thing tanked. It wasn’t all bad though. I really liked the new mummy, Han. They did some really fin things with his abilities and Jet Li never once phoned in an action scene. Unfortunately, even with the strength of the brand and outstanding lead performances, this thing still sucks.

I had a time with Tomb but it wasn’t like the time i had with it’s predecessors. I don’t know if it’s because I'm so much older and hardened by life but all i see is the flaws in this one. It doesn’t have the nostalgia goggles like the first two so i can’t enjoy it like i enjoy those. I just see plot holes instead of camp. Bad CG instead of rustic attempt. Poor set pieces instead of Nineties jank. Bad character writing instead of unfortunately hilarious dialogue. Tomb isn’t terrible but it ain’t good wither. It;s mediocre and i know the first two aren’t great but they’re better than whatever this wanted to be. It’s weird to see because there are a lot of great ideas here. I can see the vision that lays outside the margins and it’s frustrating. Fraser does is in his element as Rick and Li’s Han is a physical powerhouse but that’s not enough. As awesome as this movie gets when those two are on screen, literally everything around them is dismissible and i don’t understand how or why. I think a lot of the chemistry was lost when the focus was shifted to Alex from Rick and the recasting of Eve really didn’t do this film any favors. However, even with all of my frustrations, i can't say i had a terrible time with this thing. It was entertaining, if a little bogus.

I’ve been oversleeping

Like a lot over this past week... Thank Goddess my mom decided to watch over my lil’ one... Today has been a total drrraaaggg... All I want, need, should do is clean & organize my home, and get my sh!t together for this month. But I’ve been dealing with pure exhaustion ...d@mn near lethargicness all day.. On top of that an intermittent headache that no matter what I throw at it...continues to be persistent & f#cking annoying.

*DEEP SIGH*  “UUUgghhh...”, today has been totally mentally exhausting as well... I mean my brain is shut down to saying sentences that involve ..” Like, and .. I mean,... I know right”. Blah blah blah, blahdy blah... lol this is most definitely a meaningless entry. 

I always have soo many thoughts and think to myself, this would be great to work out on my blog... But then by the time I log on ...boom! It all fades away. Or I overthink things, and start to worry about who might find my blog and what would they think of me? Could anything I put in here end up being used against me in my future? I’m just trying to get some mental peace; by cleansing out my thoughts and the crazy bullshit that gets traps in my brain. But I have this issue with anxiety and overthinking and depression and blah blah blah....

It has unpredictably made it harder for me to truly be free on my own got d@mn blog the way I wanted to be. OKay whatever.. *Clicks on the random switch*

Damn, I’ve been on a deep f#cking dive of binge-watching for the past two yrs...  All I can say is I’m either one of the most critical cynical ppl I know (which I f#cking know isn’t true) or there’s a lot of b#llsh!t out here these days. Almost NOTHING lives up to its hype, or even the mildly small measurement of hope to be entertained that I have for anything anymore.

I rather enjoy a good reality-tv show nowadays. Before UGH omg you couldn’t catch me even pretending to watch that sh!t. But hear me out, I can turn my brain off when I watch that mess, I always know what to expect, and I’m usually not disappointed. Euphoria (the TV show on HBO) talks about this pretty well. I don’t have to put any effort into watching the programs. 

Which is completely depressing in soo many ways. 1. Reality-tv is what I turn to when I���m bored & or depressed and even stressed. So that’s a bad sign on its own. 2. All the money & talent that goes into scripted programs I highly cherish because I’m a thespian, it was one of my 1st true loves. 3. I’ve actually been waning & waxing with depression for a while now.. (another shout out to Euphoria! I didn't say I hate all shows *Kanye shrug*) .... So what I’m trying to get at is.. 

I don’t want to use my brain sometimes, I want to do the opposite and drown out everything and just feel pure emptiness mixed w/ small bits of guilty pleasure. Thus yes reality-tv the point is not about being “good” or evening being “real”.. It’s about getting straight unadulterated easy access to those juicy mentally stimulating molecules. That ecstasy cocktail of hormones telling your brain that you are relaxed, you have no worries right now, you are happy, and entertained. 

Mix that sh!t with depression and there’s no wonder that the mass population is addicted to binge-watching series that we can now access instantly. Especially reality-tv.

Of course, the only thing that beats that category of television programs is literally everything else ...BUT ONLY when it meets minimum criteria... This brings me back to my 1st point... I have hard requirements for my entertainment to meet just to be deemed enjoyable. It’s not that I’m stuck up or in any way think  I’m superior... I don't say these things to be cute or deep. I was just born this way. 

I need my programs to not be full of cliches, there needs to be more originality to them than anything else... I know that’s easier said than done.. But just barely. There should also be enough realism to it even if its sci-fi, I hate when I have to ask many questions to make sense of some sh!t. Not in the way that I didn’t understand or can’t keep up, but in the sense that someone made an oversight on this shit.  Which usually comes with another move I hate, POOR to sh!t editing.. We’ve all witnessed it, when a movie or show does something that f#cked up the flow. Or stupid graphics badly used or placed... *roll my eyes*

Let’s just say I’ve said all of this to point out that I watch a lot of movies, YouTubers, and tv programs. Enough to predict the majority, out of everything that is going to happen, and too much to easily be truly entertained. 

Oh sh!t .. *punches the sky repeatedly...mentally that is* My best love just gave me a $20 to treat myself to one the best f#cking meals I’ve discovered thus far this yr. A Cali club from Tropical Cafe w/ a bag of healthy chips (probably plain... I’ve been going on a very plain bender lately.. talking coffee no creamer nor sugar, tea no honey or sugar, cereal no mmmiillkkk..) and one of their Bomb-f#ck-your-taste-buds-into-orgasm-submission fresh smoothies =P   ... I say that earns them some extra love (not that it's for sale but to show appreciation & gratitude), and its going to cut this entry here.

MORAL OF THE SESS: “ Sh!t changes and some things stay the same, and then sometimes you just outgrow sh!t. Don’t waste your time on sh!t that bores you without a bigger purpose”