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No Way Home:( Yet:)
Apr. 15th, 2022 01:01 pmThe bad news: Bronzini's still not back.
The better news: he's definitely around here.
The first night he was missing, it was unusually warm, so we left the front and back doors open (not the storms, derp) and an open window so we might hear him. I slept part of the night on the living room sofa so I'd be closer to any sound. None, other than the occasional rumbles of the other three remaining tenants making their midnight noises. I finally gave up and headed back for a fitful remainder of the night.
I put some food out in the garage that he could get to from the door in the back. Found it empty. Also found that the dog was perfectly capable of raiding said food, even caught her in the act once. It now gets hidden when she's out.
It got colder as the day went on, never below freezing but hardly the night for a newly-escaped cat to lie under a tree with an umbrella drink like he probably did the entire night before. I made a short workday of it and we printed up posters that I put and passed out earlier today:
-yes, with our phone numbers on them but you're not going to find him, are you, and besides I'm getting a spate of porn text messages with that number already, tyvm:P We decided to wait until today to put them up, since it's a half-ish workday for me (thanks, Jesus!)
Last night, we watched a Mostly French Film But With Chris Rock In It; nobody got slapped, but several of the characters playing Julie Delpy's French relatives deserved to (including the character of her father, played by none other than Julie Delpy's father).Eleanor then headed to bed, and I went out the back door one last time to check for the boy....
and saw a black cat five feet away from me.
I didn't have my glasses on, and at first wasn't sure if it was Zoey who'd snuck out when I opened the door. (She did that briefly in the wee smalls the night before when I was looking for B-Man; I stink-eyed her right back into the house.) But no, this was definitely him. He scooted toward the back door into the garage, and I ALMOST caught him before he shot across the patio to the far end of our house and out of sight.
Despite the anxiety, this remains great news, because it means he hasn't been roadkilled, or taken in by a Crazy Cat Lady, or shipped into the noman's cat's land of Lost and Found. (The SPCA isn't the first resort anymore; they encourage finders to foster found kitties at home because they don't have the room or personnel for all the losties.) It also confirms what most advice says: strays rarely stray far. And as one fellow cat lover (and writer of numerous cat mystery novels) was quick to point out, indoor cats that get outside are usually spooked and temporarily forget their people.
It was enough of a sign of hope that I decided to stay up a bit longer than usual last night, so I got our wireless headphones connected to the TV (they still work fine with it, just not with Windows 11 computers), and sat in to finish the other famed story of No Way Home.
----
So, Spoiler Senses will be tingling, but the thing's been out for almost four months now before it finally came out on DVD, so deal. As we all knew at this point, the plot hook of Spider-Man: No Way Home is that they've brought back a number of actors reprising their roles from previous incarnations of the Spidey franchise. As the original Kindly Old Aunt May would've said, it's compicated. (The Marisa Tomei May would've explained it more badass.) There are evil villains involved: mainly, lawyers who've split up Marvel characters over at least four studios and executives at those studios who reboot franchises if a given incarnation doesn't make them enough moolah.
In the case of Webhead, it goes back to Stan Lee/Steve Ditko's comic book character, who's spun (heh) numerous print versions in periodicals and newspapers, parodies (see the icon for this entry and its entire Lampoon-ing here), and a never-ending series of broadcast/film re-tellings of the origin story. First, for me at least, came the cheesy 60s animated series that ran Saturday mornings on ABC, which was fairly faithful to the comic character at the time but is probably best remembered for its theme song (homaged in many of the more modern versions):
The quality was nothing special, though not as horrid as the endless crankings out of Hanna-Barbera back then, and the animation was eventually taken over by future legend Ralph Bashki (Fritz the Cat and the 70s Lord of the Rings animated film). The voice talent was much the same as the other El Cheapo™ versions of Marvel characters that ran around that time in a separate one-hero-per-weeknight series in US syndication. The ABC cartoon was my first introduction to Spidey, J. Jonah Jameson, Betty Brant and many of the villains who peppered various later live incarnations, and who all came back for this latest big-budget installment. Spidey himself was voiced by Paul Soles, a Canadian best known for performing Hermy in the perpetual Rudolph the Red-Nosed Raindeer Christmas special; he only passed away last year after an acting career that continued well into the last decade.
Then Peter tried webbing up live television, one of many such attempts made during the low point of Marvel's existence in the 70s. He was one of their two future Avengers who wound up in CBS weekly sagas, and while the Bixby/Ferrigno adaptation of The Incredible Hulk was longer lasting and better remembered, the two seasons of Spidey were his first live-action rendition anywhere. Nicholas Hammond played the web-slinger, and Aunt May and Triple-J were the only other regular characters carried over from the comics; the villains here were all corporate evildoers, random terrorists and at least one ghost. It did reasonably well despite being Web-a-Moled all over the CBS schedule, but according to the series Wiki entry, the "chief reason for the cancellation was that CBS feared being perceived as merely a one-dimensional, superficial, 'superhero network.' It was already airing other live-action superhero series or specials at the time." They mention the Green Guy, but also two more recent arrivals in the MCU which I don't recall being made into live-action back then: Captain America and Doctor Strange.
None of those version's actors or even other characters made it into the multiverse, except, of course, for B-Cumberbunny's now canonical version of the Sorcerer (Almost) Supreme. But the villains, and, yes, actors from the two prior sets of big-budget film renditions all made it back Home for this reunion. One big reason for that was the final conquest of those biggest villains in Marvel-Land: the lawyers and studios.
----
As noted, when Stan Lee and friends fell on relatively hard times in the 70s, big pieces of the Marvel comics family got sent to a variety of foster homes. The TV adaptation of Hulk went to Universal, and his rights remained and to an extent still remain there. Likewise, when Spidey went live on CBS in the 70s, he became property of Columbia Pictures, and through its later foray through Coke, Tri-Star and Sony, that's where his rights remain, as do Spidey-tree superheroes such as Venom. There was a similar issue with all of Marvel's assorted X-Mutants and Deadpool, but Marvel and Fox film properties are now all under the Disney umbrella, so those are easier to sort out. The others remain subject to a weird bunch of interim separation agreements that allow limited use of the Hulk and Spidey characters in things like Avengers, but the primary character films remain with Universal and Sony, respectively.
So it took more legal wrangling than web-slinging to bring together all these assorted past arcs and actors into this single presentation. To explain it, the writers did this:
( Spoiler cut, for the last three people left in all universes who don't know (I was fourth to last): )
That's the cheesy plot device that allows the re-appearance of Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin, Alfred Molina as Doc Oc, and Jamie Foxx as Electro, among other villains brought back from the two previously-rebooted sagas of Spide directed by Sam Raimi and Marc Webb. It also tweaks things a bit so their respective SpiderStars, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, can also get pulled in from their respective universes to reprise their versions of Peter/Spidey and help Tom Holland out with the thrilling finale. It's utterly improbable, but it's massively fun. The threesome's roughly 45 minutes together are an omelet of Easter eggs to their own prior variations on the character, and they work together to fix what was broken, before and now, and leave us with a slightly plausible ending that's also a swingboard to yet another sequel.
None of this is new, of course. Picard is messing with the same conceit as we speak, bringing back actors from TNG and a minor-we-thought character from the original series. Doctor Who has always had elements of its past storylines and even actors brought in, while its 50th anniversary episode and pre-shows reunited several of them to do something similar to what we're seeing here. Still, I want more. Imagine the possibilities for multiversal reboots of other beloved start-and-stop franchises:
Batman cries out for getting the whole Bat-band back together. Bob, Ben and Bale can have an on-screen brood-off. Stick Clooney back in the nipple suit. Try to find ANY suit Kilmer can still wear. Keaton would be awesome as his much older self (and THAT appears to be on the way, along with hopes of some prior Special Guest Villain revivals). The only sad part is that this is the type of quirky plot that Adam West was born to play in, and we only lost him fairly recently. No matter: put Jason Schwartzman or Seth Rogen or Kevin Smith or somebody in the campy 60s tights. Label everything in the Batcave again. Load the screen with SOCKS and POWS and BIFFS. I'll pre-order tomorrow.
Supe is tougher, because of the bad karma associated with the lead. Reeves and Reeve define most of what I remember, and neither could be easily duplicated. But we've still got Routh, and Cavill, and the dude from Smallville, and the somewhat Kryptonited Dean Cain. Fine. Let's skip this one.
Star Wars is already on the cusps, with new performers for Solo and Fett and Obi-Wan. But why not a multiverse multitude of Anakin Vaders! Break Jake Lloyd out of his Jar-Jar of solitude! Age Hayden Christiansen up a little and put some big lug in the tin can for James Earl Jones to voice while we still have HIM! Don't like it? Hmmmm.... I find your lack of faith disturbing....
Bond. JAMES Bond. Alas, Roger's no Moore and Sean's off sucking Trebek's, but we've still got Brosnan, Dalton, the just deBonded Daniel, and even George Lazenby's still around. Fill the screen with Bond girls and let them shake, not stir, it all out!
And just in time for Holy Week, Batman!, why not a multiverse of Jesus? Ian Gillan from Superstar, Victor Garber from Godspell, Ralph Fiennes from Miracle Maker are all still with us. (Anything but more Republic of Doyle for Old Vic!) We've already got Willem Dafoe on the Spidey set, so he can redo Last Temptation Jesus and get all the Fundies out protesting; Christian Bale's in our Bat-brood so he can redo his turn. Only Jim Caviezel would be tricky, considering how it went the last time He put on the Robe.
Thanks. I'm here all Holy Week. Try the wafer. And pray the cat comes in from the cold.
The better news: he's definitely around here.
The first night he was missing, it was unusually warm, so we left the front and back doors open (not the storms, derp) and an open window so we might hear him. I slept part of the night on the living room sofa so I'd be closer to any sound. None, other than the occasional rumbles of the other three remaining tenants making their midnight noises. I finally gave up and headed back for a fitful remainder of the night.
I put some food out in the garage that he could get to from the door in the back. Found it empty. Also found that the dog was perfectly capable of raiding said food, even caught her in the act once. It now gets hidden when she's out.
It got colder as the day went on, never below freezing but hardly the night for a newly-escaped cat to lie under a tree with an umbrella drink like he probably did the entire night before. I made a short workday of it and we printed up posters that I put and passed out earlier today:
-yes, with our phone numbers on them but you're not going to find him, are you, and besides I'm getting a spate of porn text messages with that number already, tyvm:P We decided to wait until today to put them up, since it's a half-ish workday for me (thanks, Jesus!)
Last night, we watched a Mostly French Film But With Chris Rock In It; nobody got slapped, but several of the characters playing Julie Delpy's French relatives deserved to (including the character of her father, played by none other than Julie Delpy's father).Eleanor then headed to bed, and I went out the back door one last time to check for the boy....
and saw a black cat five feet away from me.
I didn't have my glasses on, and at first wasn't sure if it was Zoey who'd snuck out when I opened the door. (She did that briefly in the wee smalls the night before when I was looking for B-Man; I stink-eyed her right back into the house.) But no, this was definitely him. He scooted toward the back door into the garage, and I ALMOST caught him before he shot across the patio to the far end of our house and out of sight.
Despite the anxiety, this remains great news, because it means he hasn't been roadkilled, or taken in by a Crazy Cat Lady, or shipped into the no
It was enough of a sign of hope that I decided to stay up a bit longer than usual last night, so I got our wireless headphones connected to the TV (they still work fine with it, just not with Windows 11 computers), and sat in to finish the other famed story of No Way Home.
----
So, Spoiler Senses will be tingling, but the thing's been out for almost four months now before it finally came out on DVD, so deal. As we all knew at this point, the plot hook of Spider-Man: No Way Home is that they've brought back a number of actors reprising their roles from previous incarnations of the Spidey franchise. As the original Kindly Old Aunt May would've said, it's compicated. (The Marisa Tomei May would've explained it more badass.) There are evil villains involved: mainly, lawyers who've split up Marvel characters over at least four studios and executives at those studios who reboot franchises if a given incarnation doesn't make them enough moolah.
In the case of Webhead, it goes back to Stan Lee/Steve Ditko's comic book character, who's spun (heh) numerous print versions in periodicals and newspapers, parodies (see the icon for this entry and its entire Lampoon-ing here), and a never-ending series of broadcast/film re-tellings of the origin story. First, for me at least, came the cheesy 60s animated series that ran Saturday mornings on ABC, which was fairly faithful to the comic character at the time but is probably best remembered for its theme song (homaged in many of the more modern versions):
The quality was nothing special, though not as horrid as the endless crankings out of Hanna-Barbera back then, and the animation was eventually taken over by future legend Ralph Bashki (Fritz the Cat and the 70s Lord of the Rings animated film). The voice talent was much the same as the other El Cheapo™ versions of Marvel characters that ran around that time in a separate one-hero-per-weeknight series in US syndication. The ABC cartoon was my first introduction to Spidey, J. Jonah Jameson, Betty Brant and many of the villains who peppered various later live incarnations, and who all came back for this latest big-budget installment. Spidey himself was voiced by Paul Soles, a Canadian best known for performing Hermy in the perpetual Rudolph the Red-Nosed Raindeer Christmas special; he only passed away last year after an acting career that continued well into the last decade.
Then Peter tried webbing up live television, one of many such attempts made during the low point of Marvel's existence in the 70s. He was one of their two future Avengers who wound up in CBS weekly sagas, and while the Bixby/Ferrigno adaptation of The Incredible Hulk was longer lasting and better remembered, the two seasons of Spidey were his first live-action rendition anywhere. Nicholas Hammond played the web-slinger, and Aunt May and Triple-J were the only other regular characters carried over from the comics; the villains here were all corporate evildoers, random terrorists and at least one ghost. It did reasonably well despite being Web-a-Moled all over the CBS schedule, but according to the series Wiki entry, the "chief reason for the cancellation was that CBS feared being perceived as merely a one-dimensional, superficial, 'superhero network.' It was already airing other live-action superhero series or specials at the time." They mention the Green Guy, but also two more recent arrivals in the MCU which I don't recall being made into live-action back then: Captain America and Doctor Strange.
None of those version's actors or even other characters made it into the multiverse, except, of course, for B-Cumberbunny's now canonical version of the Sorcerer (Almost) Supreme. But the villains, and, yes, actors from the two prior sets of big-budget film renditions all made it back Home for this reunion. One big reason for that was the final conquest of those biggest villains in Marvel-Land: the lawyers and studios.
----
As noted, when Stan Lee and friends fell on relatively hard times in the 70s, big pieces of the Marvel comics family got sent to a variety of foster homes. The TV adaptation of Hulk went to Universal, and his rights remained and to an extent still remain there. Likewise, when Spidey went live on CBS in the 70s, he became property of Columbia Pictures, and through its later foray through Coke, Tri-Star and Sony, that's where his rights remain, as do Spidey-tree superheroes such as Venom. There was a similar issue with all of Marvel's assorted X-Mutants and Deadpool, but Marvel and Fox film properties are now all under the Disney umbrella, so those are easier to sort out. The others remain subject to a weird bunch of interim separation agreements that allow limited use of the Hulk and Spidey characters in things like Avengers, but the primary character films remain with Universal and Sony, respectively.
So it took more legal wrangling than web-slinging to bring together all these assorted past arcs and actors into this single presentation. To explain it, the writers did this:
( Spoiler cut, for the last three people left in all universes who don't know (I was fourth to last): )
That's the cheesy plot device that allows the re-appearance of Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin, Alfred Molina as Doc Oc, and Jamie Foxx as Electro, among other villains brought back from the two previously-rebooted sagas of Spide directed by Sam Raimi and Marc Webb. It also tweaks things a bit so their respective SpiderStars, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, can also get pulled in from their respective universes to reprise their versions of Peter/Spidey and help Tom Holland out with the thrilling finale. It's utterly improbable, but it's massively fun. The threesome's roughly 45 minutes together are an omelet of Easter eggs to their own prior variations on the character, and they work together to fix what was broken, before and now, and leave us with a slightly plausible ending that's also a swingboard to yet another sequel.
None of this is new, of course. Picard is messing with the same conceit as we speak, bringing back actors from TNG and a minor-we-thought character from the original series. Doctor Who has always had elements of its past storylines and even actors brought in, while its 50th anniversary episode and pre-shows reunited several of them to do something similar to what we're seeing here. Still, I want more. Imagine the possibilities for multiversal reboots of other beloved start-and-stop franchises:
Batman cries out for getting the whole Bat-band back together. Bob, Ben and Bale can have an on-screen brood-off. Stick Clooney back in the nipple suit. Try to find ANY suit Kilmer can still wear. Keaton would be awesome as his much older self (and THAT appears to be on the way, along with hopes of some prior Special Guest Villain revivals). The only sad part is that this is the type of quirky plot that Adam West was born to play in, and we only lost him fairly recently. No matter: put Jason Schwartzman or Seth Rogen or Kevin Smith or somebody in the campy 60s tights. Label everything in the Batcave again. Load the screen with SOCKS and POWS and BIFFS. I'll pre-order tomorrow.
Supe is tougher, because of the bad karma associated with the lead. Reeves and Reeve define most of what I remember, and neither could be easily duplicated. But we've still got Routh, and Cavill, and the dude from Smallville, and the somewhat Kryptonited Dean Cain. Fine. Let's skip this one.
Star Wars is already on the cusps, with new performers for Solo and Fett and Obi-Wan. But why not a multiverse multitude of Anakin Vaders! Break Jake Lloyd out of his Jar-Jar of solitude! Age Hayden Christiansen up a little and put some big lug in the tin can for James Earl Jones to voice while we still have HIM! Don't like it? Hmmmm.... I find your lack of faith disturbing....
Bond. JAMES Bond. Alas, Roger's no Moore and Sean's off sucking Trebek's, but we've still got Brosnan, Dalton, the just deBonded Daniel, and even George Lazenby's still around. Fill the screen with Bond girls and let them shake, not stir, it all out!
And just in time for Holy Week, Batman!, why not a multiverse of Jesus? Ian Gillan from Superstar, Victor Garber from Godspell, Ralph Fiennes from Miracle Maker are all still with us. (Anything but more Republic of Doyle for Old Vic!) We've already got Willem Dafoe on the Spidey set, so he can redo Last Temptation Jesus and get all the Fundies out protesting; Christian Bale's in our Bat-brood so he can redo his turn. Only Jim Caviezel would be tricky, considering how it went the last time He put on the Robe.
Thanks. I'm here all Holy Week. Try the wafer. And pray the cat comes in from the cold.