Welcome again to We Have Always Live the Kraken, a pop culture blog transmitted directly to you from the belly of the beast. Here in the Notes we’ll show you this month’s posting schedule, but first here are some thoughts.
Just take my money now, Shinkai.
After a thoroughly disappointing end to the Oscar season, the only thing left is to lick my wounds and try my best to have high hopes for what is to come in 2019 movies. After all, now’s the time to appreciate, when you can simply enjoy watching films and not worry about how they compare to each other. Not that comparing them isn’t fun, and I tend to do such a thing every year and really all the time (after all, I write a pop culture blog), but as exhausting and frustrating as the final push through the Oscar season was, it has now freed me to finally look forward and not back. So I can finally truly be excited that Makoto Shinkai’s new film Weathering With You is being released this year (sure, only in Japan, and sure, it is going to be a pain in the ass to see it in America this year, but my excitement is still high). I can look forward to seeing how Jordan Peele follows up Get Out with his new film Us. I can wonder how something like Pokémon Detective Pikachu could actually exist and look as awesome as it does. I can fret about the end of the Fox Marvel movies while waiting for Dark Phoenix and New Mutants to come out, while also dealing with the ever-present dread of what happens as we get closer to Disney taking over a 40% share of the marketplace (okay, not all of this stuff is positive). In more positive news, I can be psyched that the Fast & Furious franchise finally accepted they were making superhero movies and are just going all in with Hobbs & Shaw. Also, I can wonder in earnest how Star Wars Episode IX: The Film With No Other Title will end things, and more importantly how it will piss off toxic Star Wars fans who have proven they don’t deserve nice things.
All of that is just scratching the surface, because it is a new film year that has much to offer, and I cannot wait to see how it unfolds. Most importantly, though, I have plenty of time to build myself back to the point that I can get my hopes up, only to be let down by the Academy again, because the Oscars are a dumpster fire that only breeds pain and suffering… I mean, umm, nevermind, I am sure everything will be fine.
–David
From the depths of the Kraken, here is what we are bringing you this month.
Oscarathon 2019 is over, but here are some of the last gasps before it ended.
- Every Single 2019 Oscar Nominee, Ranked
- David’s Oscars Live Blog
- Life in the Kraken Podcast: We Found Some More Sarcasm
- Oscars 2019 Final Thoughts
- Mystery Post???
In a rare bit of non-Oscars content this month, Kyu considers the literary qualities of… Spyro the Dragon? That can’t be right.
Catch of the Week Month:
Each and every week the residents here in the Kraken will offer one recommendation for the week that we think you all would enjoy. It might be a movie. It might be a book. Who knows? This is your… Catch of the Week Month.
David: During the final push of Oscar season, Netflix wasn’t only doing its best to get Roma all the Oscars. The company also released Umbrella Academy. As someone who has not read the comic version, I did not know what to expect, but man was it a lot of fun. The story is crisp and enjoyable, with the right amount of deconstruction of classic comic book tropes. The biggest strength of the series, though, is that each episode has a stand-out sequence set to music that really makes each episode pop. This show does a great job of showing all the issues of a dysfunctional super-powered family (even if, yes, some members of that family are kind of the worst) after their days of being superheroes are supposed to be done, and offers an exciting glimpse into the kind of things Netflix is going to make superhero-wise now that its relationship with Marvel has crashed and burned. So check out this series when you get the chance, or check out the comic it is based on, or both. You can’t go wrong either way, and if nothing else, try to watch the first episode for a truly stand-out dance scene. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.
That’s it for this month’s notes. Beware the Ides of March, because that is when the Kraken stabs everyone in their dreams 23 times with his ice-cold mind blades, just like happened to Julius Caesar. Luckily, most of us will have such horror wiped from our minds, but for a select unlucky few the cold sickening feeling left from the stab wounds will never go away and linger for the rest of your days… Enjoy March, everyone!