The article discussed “Superhero fatigue” and how people are getting tired of hearing the same type of story over and over that lack depth and creativity. It then critiqued the latest DC Extended Universe film, “The Flash” and basically said it wasn’t the best movie and it added to superhero fatigue. It said that the movie had all the elements we’ve already seen in other superhero movies and goes on to say that it was a flop. The author suggests a need for a hiatus from comic book adaptations.
The article is biased. Just because the author didn’t like the movie and is tired of comic book adaptations, doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same way. Even if there are many others that agree with him there are still going to be some who don’t. Some people will never get tired of the repetitive nature and may even find it comforting. Movies don’t always have to be about entertainment sometimes people like to play them while they’re doing homework or other tasks, and predictable movies can be perfect for that. The author talked about all the negatives and left out any positives about the movie.
10,000- step a day keeps the doctors way. 10k step has become a universal wellness objective in the quest of healthy living. Let’s dive into the origins, advantages, and possible limitations of the 10,000 steps trend, looking at how it affects physical activity, mental well-being, and the evolving understanding of daily fitness goals. “
“Adding a few thousand steps a day can be especially meaningful for someone who isn’t physically able to walk briskly, says Amanda Paluch, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led two meta-analyses linking step counts with risk of death and cardiovascular disease. She concludes that “the people who are the least active have the most to gain.””
History
We can trace the 10,000 steps a day recommendation’s historical beginnings in Japanese pedometer marketing and investigate how this arbitrary amount became a global benchmark for daily physical activity. Dr. Lee discovered that the origin of the numbers go back to 1965, when a Japanese company made a device named Manpo-Kei, which is translated to “10,00 steps meter.” “The name was just a marketing tool,” she explains. But, because the figure has become so embedded in our health consciousness (it’s frequently the default option in activity trackers), she wanted to discover if there was any scientific basis for it.
Challenges and Realistic Expectations
It’s fair to understand the difficulties that people may experience in obtaining 10,000 steps per day, as well as the possible pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all strategy and alternate viewpoints on creating realistic and tailored fitness objectives. A challenge faced when attempting to do the daily 10,00 steps is time constraints. There are individuals very demanding jobs and busy schedule, finding time to accumulate 10,000 steps daily can be very challenging, leading to feelings of frustration.
Start the steps day by day
According to a 2022 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Clinical Medicin, obtaining your 10,000 steps outside in nature can greatly improve mental health and decrease symptoms of despair and anxiety.
As the 10,000-step-a -day trend continues to encourage people on their wellness journeys, a more in depth understanding is required. This blog promotes a deliberate approach to daily physical activity objectives, acknowledging the good benefit of a greater movement while taking into account individuals requirements, lifestyles, and the ever-changing landscape of health and fitness advice.
Most of us who work in some type of office job have experienced the who work-from-home vs. in-office debate for the past three years since the COVID-19 Pandemic befell us. I, for one, have been a fervent proponent of remote work since the beginning, but I do acknowledge there are benefits to a hybrid model as well. However, I fully believe that no office job needs to be 100% in-person, and any company that disagrees is obsessed with control and worker exploitation. This is why EBN’s article, Gen Z wants the office experience — but are employers ready to invest? irked me. As an older member of Gen Z, and one of the few of my generation who did work in an office prior to the Pandemic, I wholeheartedly disagree.
First of all, none my fellow Gen Z-ers whom I know personally share the sentiment implied in the above article. They either work remotely and love it, or they are always on the hunt for a remote job. The only ones who don’t work remotely are those who work physically involved jobs that have no way to be done remotely, such as manufacturing or lab work. One of my closest friends is a young mom, and remote work has saved her from having to use PTO when her child is sick. Personally, remote work removes me from the high stress environment of office life, therefore allowing me to focus only on my job stressors from the comfort of my home. At the same time, I can get housework and other tasks done during down time so much more easily than I would after a long day and commute.
The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side
The article acts as though companies are refusing to provide their employees with office space. Yes, some surveys have shown Gen Z want to go back to the office, but I fail to see how employers are not accommodating this. Every day, more and more offices are mandating return to office policies, remote job listings are going down. One of my previous employers (Rhymes with “Fells Wargo”) went back on their word of promising we could work from home permanently and acted like they never said so in the first place. There are more than enough opportunities to work in-office every day if desired. My first thought is that we should look at the root cause for Gen Z’s RTO dreams. Most of Gen Z did not have the chance to work in the office prior to Covid-19. They didn’t have the opportunity to become burnt out on office politics, drama, small-talk, flourescent lighting and bad coffee. When they think of the office, they associate it with comraderie and relationships that form from being around the same people five days a week. Unfortunately, Gen Z have been robbed from many social experiences due to the Pandemic and now romanticize what they missed out on. They will go back to the office until they no longer want to, then what?
What I find hilarious, is that companies seemed more than happy to support working from home during lockdowns, and even acted like it was here to stay, but the second lockdowns were over they slowly started pushing the RTO agenda. We all know this is due to them needing ROI for their real estate, but all of 2020 seemed to be one long promotion for remote work from the Fortune 500. I never saw articles about average Joe’s wanting to return to the office until recently, however. Suddenly, everyone, especially the newest generation of the workforce, agrees with whatever corporate America wants? Doubt it. Generation Z, the most activist, anti-work generation yet, want to make The Man happy? Nice try. The best part is that this article flips the narrative by making it seem like it’s the workers who want to return to office and are being oppressed by their employers, who won’t allow them to. I have yet to find a single company who has banned their employees from working in-office if they truly so desire.
So go on, Gen Z. I assure you, there are more than enough offices for you to work in, go have your fill. I, however, will be writing emails in my pajamas from the comfort of my couch.
Wait, hold on, I need to place this image from Ted 2 here to finish up the title of this post.
Just pretend the bag is filled with the remaining ashes of Toy Story 4 as Ted and Mark Wahlberg go bury it in the harbor so that NO ONE may ever discover it and try to somehow piece it back together again. Okay, on with the real first image of this post.
Toy Story 4 was Pixar’s latest entry in their constantly growing library of more nostalgia based films, rather than new ideas. It was released in 2019 and sure did make some major accomplishments, such as making over a billion dollars at the box office and also winning most animated feature awards, including for the Academy Awards.
Mark Kermode, an observer film critic for The Guardian, stated he enjoyed the movie, as with the growing fears of Mary Poppins Returns that year being an example of potentially ruining a beloved nostalgic based property, he was worried for this film too as he said the last film was the perfect way to end it.
He gave this film 4 stars! He stated that the film find its “mojo” with the return of characters like Bo Peep and her new character role, the newly introduced characters of Forky and Keanu Reeves’s character (Dude Perfect? Awesome Blaster? McClain Dirtway? I genuinely have no idea what his name is as I’m writing this post. All I see is an invisible walking and talking ad for John Wick 3), praising the visual work, loving the road trip story, and also enjoying the slapstick comedy and emotional heartstrings being tugged.
If I could mind control the Key and Peele conjoined Bunny and Duck, I would have them do their usual stuff and just mock Pixar for attempting to create this film and also towards the author of the article by saying his 4 star review should be turned into an opposite 1 star review. Now, let’s get busting down on this movie for the reasons that not only in this “professional” critic wrong, but also what they forgot to put in the article to show the flaws in this “perfect” movie that viewed as, and this is being kind, “the cooldown movie after watching Spider-Man: Far From Home.”
Yes, this is the second time I’ve mentioned in a post that a Spider-Man movie was more worth it than a Disney movie that’s “supposedly” good after watching them both on the same day, BECAUSE IT’S TRUE!
Now, let’s start off with Forky, a character that shouldn’t haven’t even gotten a Emmy winning tv short form series. He’s created by Woody and Buzz’s new owner Bonnie, which not only raises questions on if she’s the witch from Brave from those online Pixar theory rumors (which I don’t believe in myself as that would mean that The Incredibles and The Boys don’t take place in the same universe), but also on why the creators of this movie thought it was a smart idea to show him a rated G flick.
Forky was created from pieces of the trash, and therefore wants to constantly jump into the trash, or any trash or any kind. Sorry to you young viewers who are reading a college rated blog post, but “trash” in Toy Story means “Death”.
Not even kidding. In pretty much all formats of the Toy Story films, being trashed or getting thrown to the trash essentially means to die or on your way to die. And we have Forky, a character who keeps constantly wanting to “go to the trash”, over and over and too many “overs” to put into one paragraph realistically.
So apparently we have a suicidal Spork who’s one of the highlights of the movie from the critic because he craves the sweet release of “trash” and most of his dialogue is essentially about wanting to be “trashed”?
…I know there used to be a rating system of G, PG, and R rated back in the old days before PG-13 was a thing, but can a multibillion dollar company that’s also a subdivision of an even larger multibillion dollar company not actually tell the difference between what should be in a G rated movie and a PG rated movie? Well maybe it’s because they want to try to squeeze a few extra cents more into the box office by making it G rated and throw out all other rational logic to support that decision.
How I love how Puss in Boots 2 is already a better movie than Toy Story 4 if it can produce so many classic memes despite not evening being a full year old by the time I post this post.
Now, let’s move onto the visuals. Before I go harshly breaking into that topic, let’s just appreciate the amazing quality of detail this film has to offer. Such as Woody and Jessie being play with by this random kid on the opening. Kinda cruel for Bonnie to immediately after some tv specials to just give the toys Andy gave to her to some other kid.
…wait…the kid in the photo is suppose to be Andy? Are we sure he doesn’t have a fraternal twin or he was shown offscreen in the first 3 films or something?
…oh boy.
That’s a big problem with the film, the visuals are too good. So much so they actually distort how some of the characters new and old may originally look. Yes, Andy wasn’t that well designed in the first two films, but he looked naturally realistic and well designed enough to look believable in the third film. I barely could recognize at first glance in the trailers when I saw this design it’s so unrecognizable.
Not only can the visuals on the characters make them look unrecognizable, but they make them too recognizable. Everyone was pointing out the dummy henchmen in this film looked too similar Slappy’s design in the 2015 Goosebumps movie. And there’s a 4 year gap between when these two movies release, so essentially Disney essentially be trying to screw Sony over…twice in the same year. The other time be when Disney was firing Spider-Man from the MCU with no more Sony collaboration.
How many times am I gonna have to keep on mentioning Sony’s Spider-Man being in the right on here as opposed to Disney being in the wrong in the same timeframe?!
Yes, the visuals are good, but having visuals looking realistic in an animated movie doesn’t mean a film is good. A road trip comedy for family members has been done for so long that there are actually more mentions of kids wanting to think of the Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip movie. Road trip comedies nowadays don’t offer anything new, especially if you’re gonna try to say that realistic animation is the default reason why a film is worth the watch.
We’ve had unrealistic looking animated films like The Mitchell’s Vs. The Machines and Up have non realistic looking people, but their styles worked better for epic adventures or good use of humor. The slapstick humor is here is pretty boring and doesn’t spark fresh new ways this franchise can breathe new life.
This is an image of an empty water jug. I would like to make a return with a receipt on it because Disney/Pixar expected me to cry bucket loads of tears. I didn’t produce any tears for this movie so I felt like I might as well save money, and if you’re asking me on the figurative comparison example of this water jug or the movie, the answer is “yes”.
Like, why am I suppose to cry? The author said it pulled on emotional heartstrings that it made him cry, so why should I give a care to cry? Because Bo Peep is taken away in the beginning of the movie? Because a little random kid we’ve never seen before is lost at a carnival? That’s as poor an attempt to make one cry as it is to try to convince someone that the 2019 Cats movie is a good film.
Bo Peep being taken in the beginning wasn’t needed. The last film was actually perfect how her story ended. Any toy at any time could be gone, much like real life, and there’s no plot armor protection for everyone. Everyone can’t be around forever, and to take away someone who meant everything to Woody was as tragic as you could expect, but they paid respect for that decision like you would honor and think of a past loved one.
And the random kid lost we see feels like a punch of air against the water. It’s not even held for long until they decide to have her found again, as they just needed a reason why the main villain of the film had a owner who’d want her. Wow, talk about “clever” connected storytelling. The only reason for a lost kid was to give a redemption resolution for the main bad guy of the film. If you ask me, that’s actually more cruel that Disney/Pixar had to play dirty like that.
, oh, oh, I know! It’s because Woody and Buzz say goodbye to each other for the very last time at the end of the movie. That’s what the writer meant by him crying so much by this movie. Oh wait, that’s not it either, because it’s on equivalent comparison to Vin Diesel’s “One Last Ride” quote, as there’s always more distance to drive in a franchise as long as it keeps making money very soulless like. They even confirmed a 5th story film is happening. The goodbye here is about as believable as the Batgirl movie being released to the public.
Yeah, let’s not kid ourselves here, the only reason this movie exists at all IS because of money. They made a billion dollars with the last movie, then bam, they made another billion again. Disney loves to keep making sequels faster than they can make a good story.
Sure, films like Zootopia made over a billion dollars too and is also getting a sequel, but there’s two very different reasons why that’s different from Toy Story 4. One is because they didn’t expect Zooptia to be that big of a hit. Sure it was gonna do well in the box office growth of hundreds of millions of dollars to make a decent profit, but the storytelling and themes are what got people so invested and intrigued by it that much like Puss in Boots 2, it actually performed better than expected.
Secondly, it’s getting a sequel, but that would be nearly a decade worths of time from 2016 to when that releases because good storytelling from the predecessors take time, and that’s something the people in charge of the sequel are planning on doing. Last film dealt with racism and law, and you can’t just automatically jump into something else without making that gradual transition.
Toy Story 4’s story had a transition that was as linear as running a marathon on land and halfway decide you need to bake a 3 layered chocolate cake before getting back to the race that everyone wanted to see in the first place.
Oh by the way, here’s a refresher on that whole ratings thing I was talking about earlier. The bunny and duck constantly have cutaways where they murder an old woman and also one by the end of the film where they turn into Kaiju sized powerful monsters and destroy the carnival in a blaze of glory and try to destroy the humans. Again, a rated G movie.
Not only is Woody’s role just to support everyone else and essentially making him less important of a character, but he’s even sidelined more for…Bo Peep. You know, his love interest from the first two movies and essentially his darling to his own self described cowboy identity. Well now she’s an adventurous and brave feminist representation of girls getting it done and being independent and be so slay about. Now that’s some serious and radical work y’all.
Oh, and she just happened to randomly reunite with toys year later with no logical or realistic way of contacting one another. Again, Woody and Buzz aren’t truly gone if something as illogical of reasoning and simple understandable like this is possible in the world that’s suppose to act realistic enough to ours.
Still, others would also say she’s anti feminism representation, because she acts tough, but she doesn’t do enough justification to make her stand out as a well written and acted women. Could be mainly in past that Disney could’ve been trying to ride the rising woke movement of the MeToo movement and tried to make their women be all aggressively confident and independent.
Take these women above for example. Atom Eve from Invincible. Starlight from The Boys. Amy Santiago from Brooklyn 99. And Nobura Kugisaki from Jujutsu Kaisen. These are woman who like to be feminine at heart, but are independent to a normal degree and trying to break down stereotypes that people assume about women or confident women in general who act with power or bravery. Something that Toy Story 4 couldn’t do with Bo Peep.
Oh, and don’t worry, nothing is added onto Jessie and her character development. She’s got none in this movie. They essentially switched the status on Jessie and Bo Peep here, where plain old vanilla Bo Peep went from minor supporting character to main supporting character, and Strawberry Shortcake Jessie went from main supporting character to minor supporting character.
Jessie’s character arc built ever since Toy Story 2 and building more of an identity in Toy Story 3 is out the window. Her biggest contribution in the movie is popping RV tires, and it’s not even in the end of the film, it’s just one of many attempts to delay them from leaving the carnival during the middle of the movie.
Im not seeing a lot of great specifics in the article about Buzz, and pretty much for a good reason. He got Thor 4’d! Or I guess the grammatical way on saying it is Thor Ford.
He’s the dumbest! That’s the nice way of describing his role in the movie. His whole character plot is listening to his inner voice. And no, not metaphorically, or rhetorically, or poetically or theoretically or any other smart way. He does it literally. Straight. Up.
At least a decade worth of time has passed or a significant amount of time has passed since he appeared in Toy Story 1 to Toy Story 4, but he’s not smart enough to remember his buttons on his body are preprogrammed voice commands of his own voice, which he interrupts as his “inner voice” or his conscious. He presses it every time in this movie when he’s confused about what to do, which is unrealistically a lot of times in the movie.
This is also a logical flaw as well because in the first movie when he realizes he’s a toy, he presses his buttons on his body and they sound off preprogrammed voice recordings, though he doesn’t turn dumb by this. He accepts he’s a toy. So how much time did pass for Buzz to somehow forget that fact? He listens to “inner voice” so much he actually doesn’t help out his friend, even though he should and presses it multiple times to get a different answer to say he should.
So, with tons of advertising thrown at it with merchandise and relying on an audience of new young age movie goers who’ve had the time to see all three films, they successfully duped and tricked them into essentially watching one of Pixar’s weakest attempts at a good movie. It’s a good attempt though at clearly showing it’s a money grab though.
Now, you must be wondering like if a film like that is so awful and so soulless, then how did it win the Oscar for best animated feature? Well, there’s a couple of reasons for that. One is because of biased reasons, as the ceremony was broadcasted by ABC, also known as public Disney. They assume most viewers with families have taken their kids to go see Disney movies like Toy Story 4 so they’d expect it to be the obvious choice for winning.
A second reason is because of unofficial legalized bribery. Studios can pay voters through “For Your Consideration” programs and influence their decision making, much like how Rotten Tomatoes have recently been outed as paying critics to give positive ratings on movies. I mean, can you honestly believe that the 2019 Kim Possible movie got a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but has a 3.7/10 IMDb score and a current 53% google users score and call it valid?
The truth or the matter is money and gifts and perks can make Oscar voters very tempted to vote a certain direction rather than a naturally flowing direction of free choice. That year of 2019 animated films had more misses than hits for sure, but when it came down to it, a lot of people gave more critical and audience liking to films like Klaus or I Lost My Body. They found recognition in popularity online and streaming, but ultimately couldn’t beat the firepower or Disney.
And this isn’t the last time Disney would try to “bribe” their way with biased voters. The year after Wolfwalkers lost to Soul. Year after that, The Mitchell’s vs. The Machines lost to Encanto.
Even this current year of animated movies of 2023, people are saying films like Elemental or Wish, which were critical failures compared to the Disney films Disney is used to having for current day reception standards, have more predicted likely odds of being nominated for the Oscar’s for best animated feature as opposed to amazing movies like Nimona or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem would be, all because of bad popularity and brand recognition.
Luckily, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the likely contender to win the award since its first film won for good reason and how the sequel connected everyone together again to see this one as a cinematic experience, there’s no way Disney can buy their way out of this one. They might next year though if Sony doesn’t allow Beyond the Spider-Verse to be a 2024 release because of the results of the former actors strike. Then yeah, Disney is gonna win the 2025 ceremony with Inside Out 2.
This isn’t just the Oscar’s though, as this can apply to most award ceremonies, including the Golden Globes, which is more biased and less logical when it comes to awards. Everyone knows who’s who on the Hollywood Foreign Press committee, so they can specifically target towards that individual with a campaign nomination marketing plan that’s made to influence the voter with influential material rewards, as long as it tempts them to have their individual or movie or movie team nominated.
Even Denzel Washington stated after winning an another award on air live at the Golden Globes that he said he was told to do so many requirements while doing a luncheon with the committee and ended up winning the award the year he won. And to make it even worse for influenced voting, studios sometimes pay around 10 million dollars for their advertising campaign strategies, on even just on specific movie itself.
It’s the policy of “you need to spend money to make money”. Movies and shows that are acclaimed are nice and all, but if they don’t have any special recognition about them for obtained accolades, then what’s the point in watching? You’d have no way of knowing just how successful a show or movie really was if there wasn’t any system of recognition, so those who try the hardest in the financial area of spending on media end up making the most money when they have brand awareness advertised for award recognition. Being called the “best” in something makes people want to view that product and also more of what the studio has to offer.
Now, who’s to say that Disney for example didn’t try influencing Mark Kermode to make a good article because it’s “Pixar”, and universally the standard association people had with Pixar was “nearly flawless masterpieces”? This author clearly doesn’t know popularity is not as important as the quality of storytelling is actually crucial to making a good film.
If he expects it to be a box office success with unnecessary realistic imagery and the same old schtick that becomes a broken stick and not really focusing on the evolutions and de-evolutions of character development, then that’s truly biased and not willing to accept this film is a mess and has flaws.
I’m not even gonna take the time to dig deeper into writing a more hopeful concluding message than that. The writer doesn’t dig deeper into the movie for a article review and doesn’t appreciate film or media culture in general. He’s stuck living in the past where the toys won’t grow as the movie audience evolves past him and his “professional” opinion.
Though hopefully the 5th movie will be the last time Pixar tries to be greedy money grabbers with Disney and stop trying to make more theatrical releases of the Toy Story movies and leave well enough alone, while it still has a chance of being remembered more fondly upon. Unless something comes around first that indicates the chance that the 5th movie has lost their audience members and have run out of ideas on how to make another theatrical release film.
Hey, remember when I was talking about the de-evolution of Buzz earlier ago? I wasn’t just referring to him as a character, but also his spin-off prequel movie, Lightyear, which resulted in…
We’re gonna be talking about the 2021 film Encanto and arguing against a film critic named Bilge Ebiri, who’s from the well known entertainment news website known as Vulture. Now, he stated in the title of his article that “Encanto is the Best Disney Animated Film since Frozen”, as he gives praise to the characters and songs as some of the best parts about it. He also states that the smaller scale narrative was a very good feature as well for the film to use. Well, these “statements” ultimately mean nothing to me.
They ideally should, but I saw this film in theater 2 years ago with another movie, and my labeling of this movie afterwards was “the extended long feature animated presentation before Spider-Man: No Way Home plays after this.” Also, setting the bar by saying it’s the best from Disney since Frozen is not really something to brag about, as that’s not a very high bar to begin with.
2 years later after having rewatched it again just to make sure if I was correct to act very negatively critical about it, I can safely say that I was right. My reasoning back then to now holds up and I have a whole load of reasons as to why not only is the critic wrong, but also the specific parts they also leave out of their article that showcases why this isn’t a good movie.
Now, before I go ruining your childhood movie innocence, let me just display this image from the Big Bang Theory here that will soften the blow for the rest of this blog post by ruining a movie you might’ve enjoyed watching from long ago with some very sound logic.
Alright, did that help? If not, Disney already ruined Indiana Jones anyways, so let’s get going and talk about another Disney property that’s about to be ruined, Encanto.
Now, the film primarily takes place at the house, and works in a sort of TARDIS kind of way, where it’s alive and can change things on the inside, either by creating pocket dimensions to newly created unique rooms, or can interact physically with the floors, walls, doors and other objects inside the house.
While a film that takes place primarily in one main location with occasional other places to visit can work in a film like Everything Everywhere All At Once, it doesn’t work here. Those types of film locations are best used for independent films or live action dramadies because they allow for greater use of storytelling told within a restricted area that helps build our characters and their background and personalities and desires and overall conclusions.
Here, because it’s animated, it has the disadvantage because you want to be able to explore multiple places in a fictional world, but because everything takes place at the house in rooms or in the town, there’s no leaving this area to explore new things, and that’s less than 2 songs worth that they show any location outside of it, which just happens to be outside of the present moment for conversations if a scene were to transition to anywhere else outside of where the movie takes place in.
Also, if the house is able to communicate and interact with people, then why doesn’t it form cracks or shapes on the walls or floors that literally spells out that the magic of the place is dying and gives them the answers and not cause them to play the blame game? Well, if that were to happen, then this film would probably be as long as a Disney animated short.
The critic talked about how the characters are good, but he didn’t specify more information for that to be clear enough as to why they are good characters, because that would show the faults in that logic outside of the fault lines that form in the house. So, let’s focus on the three main important characters to explain why.
Abuela Alma isn’t a good character, and if anything, she’s very unlikable for how she treats Mirabel in the kind of subtle way that the evil wicked step mother viewed Cinderella as. She didn’t respect her after she didn’t get her powers, and was very hesitant of her doing anything for the family and pressured everyone to live up to her expectations of perfection, otherwise they would be treated like Mirabel.
Don’t believe she’s the villain? She also has no powers, just like her granddaughter Mirabel. She’s rude and ungrateful towards her, and even when Mirabel solves the overall problem with the house and is being told about what’s happening with the house, she doesn’t even listen even to her, and thinks that every little thing she says is an insult or curse word.
Still don’t believe she’s a villain yet? It’s even pointed out in an alternate outcome, Alma originally had powers throughout the entire film, and her mood affects the colors of the walls. It was cut out because the people in charge of the movie didn’t want her to seem more antagonistic than she already was. If that’s not a confession that she’s the villain, I don’t know what a confession is then.
Also, as for our main leading character Mirabel, she’s every generic Disney Channel live action sit com protagonist essentially: She has no powers, is a weaker force of character compared to the supporting cast, and ultimately tries to stop a greater evil, even though she’s significantly weaker to try to stop it.
I get the overall message of her being special that outshines everyone else and saying to the audience you don’t need superpowers to be a hero, but she’s severely outshined by her family in the whole film because of their abilities. So pardon me for saying this, but how am I suppose to stay invested in a character like her when I’m more invested in the powers of everyone else as they are far more interesting than her being as bland as her powers?
Now it’s possible to have bland protagonists shine as main characters of a film, like say Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland for example. Alice is exploring new worlds and really embracing the creativity of Underland (yeah it’s a weird movie change, move along) and doesn’t back down in the face of danger and really steps up in a very heroic way to help the good guys win the day.
It would’ve been nice if it was hinted that Mirabel might get her powers later down towards the end of the third act of the film, but because she’s powerless, she has no attention gathering qualities outside of her dress that makes her an important character.
Characters like Marie from Gen V or Fuuko from Undead Unluck or Eri from My Hero Academia would’ve been better examples of characters to inspire Mirabel, as they are characters with powers that harm, hurt, and sometimes kill people if they ever get too close to them, which forces them to not be sociable with others and keep their distance as a means for everyone’s safety.
Imagine if Mirabel had cursed powers that acted in that way. That would’ve been so much more interesting and also would’ve been more justifiable as to why everyone would avoid being around her, and not just because of peer pressure dominance from Alma subtly enforcing that on everyone.
Unfortunately, that pretty clever idea wasn’t given to Mirabel, it was given to Bruno, and it was not handled in the right way of context. I don’t mean to say his character wasn’t intelligent, I thought he had a fun personality. I’m talking about the cast of characters outside of Mirabel who react to him.
Because Bruno’s powers involve telling people the future, people seem to misinterpret that as bad luck to enter their lives. A wedding would be rained on, a fish would die the next day, and a man would gain weight, these are all things shown in a song that people say Bruno was the reason for causing. I’d say Mirabel and Bruno are the only intelligent people in this village because everyone else is so dumb for that.
Bruno explained his powers are visions of the future that are set in glass, but they aren’t set in stone. He shows that the visions are strong hypotheticals, and with effort, they could be changed. The bride’s wedding got stormed on because her emotions are linked to her powers, a fact that everyone knew about but still blamed Bruno. Gaining weight isn’t the fault of Bruno either because he can’t control a person’s diet or decisions, only give them warnings which could be used to avoid such outcomes.
We saw that Mirabel did change her fate of destroying the house that gives her family their powers and ultimately saved the day, until you know, Alma being as stubborn as a mule causes the house to be wrecked like it was wrecked from Wreck-It Ralph afterwards.
Again, everyone hated Bruno because of his powers and most people looked down on Mirabel and sometimes out of pity because she had no powers. I’m failing to see how this is a supportive and strong community when people are this judgemental and act without listening to reason.
Lastly, a very important reason as to why this film isn’t good is because of the songs and the critic doesn’t mention enough specific information as to why the songs work outside of them being like Broadway musical numbers. Now, before you all go sending hateful comments at me, let me explain my justified reasoning.
When Encanto came out in 2021, it was during a time when box office scores, especially for animated movies, weren’t especially scoring high, mainly due to recovering box office scores post-pandemic. The highest grossing animated film of that year was Sing 2, which was financially successful with over 400 million dollars. Encanto had a budget of around 120 to 150 million dollars and only scored a little over 250 million dollars. That meant it was a box office disaster as it needed 300 million to just break even.
So, the film was ultimately moved to Disney+ shortly after on December 24th of 2021 to try to save some profit. That’s where the music comes into play.
The movie became a viral hit after people saw it on streaming around the holidays because of how many more people were able to watch it on a streaming service as opposed to the theaters. In fact, the film was such a big hit it became the most streamed movie of the following year of 2022, with over 269 million households watching it. Again, a box office disappointment become the most successful streamed film in 2022.
People really enjoyed watching the Broadway like style songs happen throughout the film because since the soundtrack was created by Lin Manuel Miranda, it was essentially listening to that type of music like his other musical works like Hamilton or In The Heights.
However, that kind of wide spread musical praise was after it hit Disney+. No one was raving about it during the theatrical release. That showed that through the power of streaming, it was able to reach a far larger audience, a common solution that Disney should’ve realized for some of their most recent animated theatrical additions to better gain more success.
Also, everyone likes to talk about it, but essentially We Don’t Talk About Bruno was the song that made it get insanely popular. Everything else at the time was considered to be “good” by most people, but the internet went wild with the Bruno song, thanks in part to how many people watched the movie and could see it being played more often rather than YouTube trying to advertise towards them for a promotional single that it effectively made the movie more popular.
If it wasn’t for that reason, the film would be a top streaming hit on the streaming service, but it wouldn’t have been a global phenomenon. Saying something topped the viewership charts is alright, but when you have a film or song reach global status like Squid Game or Stranger Things, there is no forgetting that ever. It will never fade away. We Don’t Talk About Bruno was labeled by many as the best song of the soundtrack.
Though, that wasn’t something Disney considered to be the best song. Because the Oscar deadline for submissions were closing and they could only submit one song per movie, they thought that Dos Oruguitas, the song used towards the end of the movie but yet not the last song, was a safer bet to submit.
Because they weren’t making money at the time of its theaterical release and didn’t see how it performed on the internet for the film’s digital success or music streaming charts, they chose to play for emotional songs rather than a somewhere in the middle catchy beat song.
When the Oscar’s did premiere, the winner for best original song was given to Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for No Time To Die, made for the James Bond film of the same name. That was a song that was topping charts at the time of its release and with delay for many reasons, the song grew more of a following, something that Encanto was unable to do given their time window of submissions.
Disney thought it had better odds with another emotional song competitor in the Oscar’s as 2021 had submissions that were pretty similar in that area because a silly song wasn’t going to beat Billie Eilish or Beyoncé. However, that was a wrong choice as Billie’s song was staying true to the James Bond audience for epic spy thriller music, and resonated really well for fans of the franchise.
Dos Oruguitas was a song you had to watch until close to the very end of Encanto, and since there was never any reliable data to suggest that We Don’t Talk About Bruno was going to be more matching with the film for Oscar submission since it embraces the colorful and vibrant energy of Columbia inspired music and imagery and tried to play it safe to the voters with cliche emotional song submissions, it ultimately proved to be Disney’s downfall for winning the award.
So, with that in mind, we can come to the concluded result that because they didn’t have proper faith in the soundtrack for submitting songs, they didn’t have faith in the movie. Of course, all this information stuff would be months ahead of the article that I’m arguing against, but it does prove my point because in the article, the writer only mentions one song: Surface Pressure. And they were talking about how it wouldn’t surprise them if it got some attention, implying it to be the best song on there as there’s no direct mention to any other specific song, including We Don’t Talk About Bruno.
Because the writer doesn’t talk about that song anywhere in the article, which was posted on the 24th of November 2021, that shows that he too didn’t think that song was worth any attention at that time because Disney didn’t advertise it as such. Pretty mind blowing stuff, right?
A film critic of Vulture who called it the best animated Disney film since Frozen didn’t think the “Let It Go” song of the soundtrack was worth mentioning in his article. So how can we as a society trust his “professional” opinion given that reason and also the other vast amounts of facts I present to everyone online here? The answer is we can’t.
What you can trust however is that one of the Encanto directors last directed film before this film was Zootopia, which was out 5 years before this Encanto ever released. You can be guaranteed that Zootopia was the real best Disney animated film since Frozen, and Encanto certainly isn’t better than a really great furry movie that’s both fun and complex in its subject matter and story which still holds today. So, instead of watching Encanto like that fool of a critic says, go watch Zootopia.
The genre of music known as alternative rock has occupied a unique and sometimes noisy space in the annals of popular culture for more than three decades now.
Having discovered the genre on MTV when I was still in high school, it’s safe to say that over the years, like most popular musical forms of expression, I have been able to observe how it has changed and evolved in ways that reflect the attitudes and tastes of the young people of the time, allowing the genre to become infused with the beats and sounds that the denizens of youth culture deem worthy of hearing.
However, according to Eric Fenno’s article, Alternative rock just isn’t so alternative anymore, published in The Daily Princetonian, the misguided journalist argues that alternative rock music isn’t, well, alternative enough at the present time.
Throughout the article, Fenno goes on to write that performers of the genre are no longer as edgy and experimental as their predecessors, choosing to trade in their instruments for a lack luster computer generated sound that apparently all performers of the genre now can’t help but subscribe to.
To this, I call bullshit. Though there are many performers who may be considered homogeneous and follow a formula when it comes to constructing their songs (yeah, I’m looking at you, Twenty One Pilots) there are also such cutting edge talents as Corine Bailey Rae, an artist who mixes elements of jazz, electronic and garage rock in her music.
Or the ethereally, dreamy noise of Blonde Redhead, who manage to incorporate guitars, real drums and synthesizers into their distinctively alternative yet electronic sound.
Another point of contention in the article for me is when the author accuses such bands as Portugal. The Man, Gorillaz, and Glass Animals, all alternative music bands that I have enjoyed immensely over the years, as having a sound that is now too electronic and slickly produced.
Might I remind Mr. Fenno that all of these bands first gained notoriety in the early to mid-aughts. In order for a band to not get bored and keep their public from becoming bored as well, they will often try to incorporate new elements into their sound as a means of pursuing musical longevity. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and as Fenno points out in his article, even Bob Dylan has done this.
As the article continues, the author goes on to complain that the top awards handed out at the most recent Grammy ceremony didn’t include a sub-genre for alternative rock. In my opinion, if you’re looking to the Grammy’s to quench your experimental, alternative rock thirst, then you are definitely looking in the wrong place.
In closing, I would like to relay to Eric Fenno that if he’s really tired of listening to alternative rock bands that are homogeneous and sound exactly the same, then he has to try harder to seek out what it is he’s actually looking for, because those innovative, experimental bands do exist in the present. Eric, in the words of one of my favorite alternative rock bands the Alabama Shakes, you gotta hold on.
Sports fans know that having a favorite player and team is tough, and convincing others of your logic can be even tougher. A lot goes into the debates on who is the best: skill ceiling, sportsmanship, crowd appeal, accolades, and how someone can bring everyone else up with them. When it comes to one of the worlds oldest and currently most watched sport, fútbol, those debates rage on across language, belief systems, and nationalities.
And yet, there are generational players that consistently rise to the top 10 on many peoples lists. One such player often gets more credit than he deserves, and is listed as the “Greatest of all time”, or GOAT for short. In his blog, Mamadou makes an inaccurate argument that Lionel Messi is fútbols GOAT. While it is true that Messi is incredibly talented and has many more accolades than most players can dream, this is because much of his career has been spent playing the game in weaker leagues where his presence created a bigger impact. The author of the blog incorrectly believes that the accolades earned by Messi somehow makes him the GOAT, when these achievements were often done in weaker leagues and soft schedules.
Under 35 fans need to be reminded of Pelé, the grandfather of modern fútbol who has achieved the most world cup titles (5), and the most goals scored on Earth at over 1,000. This was also during an era in which the game was a much more physical sport, where the risks of injury and violence were greater. In his career, everyone both feared and respected Pelé for his talent, ability to bring up his team, and his ability to always win. He remained steadfast for Brazil, and did not hop from league to league.
Pelé might even be the single greatest influence for the continued modern popularity of the sport worldwide, with athletes globally attributing their dedication to the game as being influenced by the real GOAT. By comparison, Lionel Messi is the “Taylor Swift” of modern fútbol: most of the fans are under 35, talented but playing in a field that’s generally weak, and is extremely overpriced.
Is it not odd that Messi joined the MLS (USA), a league that is widely mocked the World over being incredibly weak? I guess that’s one way Messi can reach for Pelé’s record of scoring the most goals on Earth: by continuing to play subpar competition. And yet, in another 30 years time, the name Pelé will still be resonating stronger and louder than Messi could imagine.
What is Pho? Pho is a very popular Vietnamese soup dish consisting of broth, noodles, meat, and herbs. Honestly this dish is not meant for shortcuts or cheat ways. Rachel Ray cheat way of making Pho is to use fortified beef broth, garlic, ginger root, star anise, cardamom, cloves, coriander seed, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, white or black peppercorns. and fish sauce. Pho broth is supposed to be clean and transparent, simmered from using beef bones, oxtails, flank steak, charred onion, charred ginger and spices. Using fortified beef broth is not going to cut it. Pho broth is simmered with meat, bones, herbs and has so much flavor. Rachel ray also used some wrong ingredients like garlic and bay leaf. Garlic will overpower the broth which is why only onion and ginger is used in this recipe. Bay leaf is not used for pho, it’s also not originated from Vietnam. This will give the dish a totally different flavor.
If you are looking for other ways to make pho, or “shortcuts,” here are some ways you can do it with Pho. The long process to make pho is usually the long wait of simmering the broth for a couple hours. Instead of simmering the broth, use a pressure cooker. This will shorten up the hours for you and speed up the process for the broth. However if you are making this for a big group, I’m afraid you will have to do it the long process way. While the pressure cooker is cooking the broth and the meat, prep the vegetables and the noodles. This will save you a lot of time!
In their pursuit to phase out disposable cups by 2030, Starbucks faces questions about the feasibility and implications of this transition. While they’ve encouraged customers to bring their cups through advertisements, there are lingering concerns about accessibility to reusable cups, the potential impact on service speed, and how this will impact mobile ordering. As a Starbucks consumer, I ponder these questions and consider the challenges of this ambitious sustainability goal.
The article from AP News talks about how Starbucks, the most popular coffee company in the world, is trying to phase out throwaway cups by 2030. This is an excellent thing because other companies would follow. They started at Arizona State University by having a program for people who still need to bring their reusable cups. They would get one from Starbucks, and then all around campus, there are places to put the reusable cups so the university will wash them and bring them back to Starbucks. This idea works great on a college campus because they have a place to clean all the cups, but only some areas do, which is the downside.
I am an avid user of mobile ordering, especially at coffee places, because I usually place my order in the morning and want this service to be the quickest part of my day. Starbucks having a throwaway cup puts less pressure on me to have a cup in the morning. If you were to get rid of throwaway cups, you would have to have an option in their app as well.
When I go on vacation, I go to Starbucks. If they phase out throwaway cups, will I have to keep one in my suitcase when going on trips? This would be a big downside, and I would then take my business elsewhere. What do you think?
A section in your app to say when you are finalizing your order that you have a reusable cup would need to happen if they make this permanent. It would be cool to show the money coming off in the app when you say you are using a reusable cup. This would slow down service if you place an order online, which is a big part of their orders. By waiting until the person ordering is there, their drink would not be ready when they get there like online ordering is for.
Due to waiting until the person is there to start making their order, you would slow down service. You would also slow down service by sanitizing and ensuring clean cups. This article shows a picture of a cup cleaner that is self-service for the customer, which would cut down this time. This would be the only solution and a significant change for America because they like people to do things for them. Another issue arising from this would be coffee shops also asking for tips.
Tipping on things has gotten out of hand. If I pay you seven dollars for a coffee, I should not have to tip you extra for technically doing your job. When I go to a coffee shop, they always ask for tips, and if you are paying in-store, you have to press a button to say you do not want to tip, and you hope the person helping you does not see. If people have to wash their cups, they will be less likely to give a tip. I don’t know how many tips are presented during a shift at Starbucks, but this could be an issue for the workers.
Starbucks will probably lead the resolution of getting rid of throwaway cups. Hopefully, everyone will follow them; this can be new in the coming years. Some of the things I have mentioned can slow this process down. As Starbucks is researching and thinking of new ways to solve this problem, I hope they also stop to think about this.
If you new nothing about the opioid crisis in the United States you’d think that Purdue Pharma and the founders – the Sackler family – were altruistically in their objectives, that they were driven towards producing good public health. Purdue Pharma under the Sackler’s sold OxyContin. You’d think that at the core Purdue Pharma as a company was rooted in a philosophy that serves to elevate suffering. You’d assume that they truly wished to make amends for harms done and that the company could be trusted. Or at least you might think that they are driven to put into place initiatives that will undo the harms that they have caused. However, if you dig a little deeper you will note that all of the actions by the Sackler family and the marketing done on behalf of Purdue Pharma is rooted in mitigating the financial losses they will experience from the endless lawsuits / arbitrations they faced. The Sackler’s have declared bankruptcy and have agreed to seeding control of the company to others – which might lead one to think that the marketing done now might be trustworthy. However, that is absolutely not the case! Purdue Pharma is not an industry leader.
This blog would be pages upon pages long if this author focused on unpacking the whole story. So, I’ll only focus on one aspect of Purdue’s current website. This statement, “For many years, Purdue has been an industry leader in the fight against opioid abuse and diversion. We are also committed to supporting healthcare professionals on the responsible use of our products.”
I would ask, demand, that Purdue back-up this claim. The statement is offensive and untrue. In which years was Purdue Pharma “an industry leaders in the fight against opioid abuse and diversion”? Was it during the late 1980’s when they started their marketing deception by using as a bases for promoting the efficacy and safety of their product from the Porter and Jick article in The New England Journal of Medicine? “That article stated that only 1% of patients treated with narcotics became addicted.” (NIH) Purdue’s marketing strategy used that article as if it was a scientific study that reviewed the use of opioids for long-term non-cancer pain. The article – which was more akin to a tweet than a study – was based on patient outcomes for the acute in-hospital use of opioids to treat pain. The “study” participants had controlled – meaning nurse administered – use for a duration of no more than two weeks. Most were burn patients. That is not the average representative of their intend market. Purdue never did do a long-term scientific study of the use of opioids to treat non-cancer chronic pain.
I’d encourage you to question Purdue Pharma’s claims. Ask – how can they justify their claim base on their behavior in the 1990’s? That’s when they began shaming doctors. Calling them “Opiophobic” if they resisted buying into Purdue’s pain management eduction. One of the Sackler brothers (their were two that founded the company) was a marketing master. Part of his plan was to move the market for their drug to primary care physicians. “They did this by the use of sophisticated marketing data to influence physicians’ prescribing. Drug companies compile prescriber profiles on individual physicians—detailing the prescribing patterns of physicians nationwide—in an effort to influence doctors’ prescribing habits.” (NIH) They coupled this with advertising that they did in physicians medical journals, with conferences and all inclusive trips, and by paying huge sums of money to doctors willing to be spokes persons and lectures for their drug. Where Purdue Pharma could not normalize prescribing practices they bought buy-in. If they could not do that they shamed… “Opiophobic” Purdue literally made up a word. Unfortunately their marketing campaign succeeded. “Between 1995 and 2001, OxyContin brought in $2.8 billion in revenue for Purdue Pharma.” Cumulative revenues had increased to US$31 billion by 2016 and US $35 billion by 2017. (Purdue Pharma – Wikipedia(opens in a new tab)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma#cite_note-latimes_Hell_oxycontin_2016-38)
Is Purdue Pharma really an industry leader in the fight against opioid addiction as they claim to be on their website? Judge for yourself but I can state without any hesitation… absolutely not… they are not to be trusted and they are not the kind of leader we should follow.
MDST 485 Class Blog 