Better Life and Experience in 2019?

Guess I was wrong about last year's blog post being my last. Thought it be best if I could share my previous experience from last month and what I might come to expect as I am finally moving from my college life towards graduation and a potential future job that will probably be nothing like I have had before.

After watching and discussing movies that I love/hate and visiting my sister in Cleveland while letting her spend her time with my family during the winter vacation in Texas, I can't imagine what life will be like this year. I understand that I will take only two classes in spring semester at George Mason University before my graduation will start sometime around this May. Because I have very few required courses to take, I had a part-time job (every Tuesday and now Thursday morning from 8 AM to 12 noon) which is right inside the Office of Elections at the Fairfax County Government Center. However, I learned from the appointment meeting at Service Source that I may need to take another job somewhere within the Virginia or the Washington D.C. area to increase my working experience and put my computer graphic skills to great use. But that's not my only concern as far as I know. I also continue to make some paintings that are usually commissioned by my mom and dad's best friends, simply because of how talented I am with my painting skills. It's just that I'm trying to find the right time to do the painting even while I am tasked in doing important GMU assignments in Figure Drawing and Mobile App Design classes. For all I know, Figure Drawing might be the subject that I will surely need help for during the entire semester.

Outside of college or work, I am more excited to see any movies that I feel will be a game changer for 2019 or maybe even the entire industry in moviemaking history. I just couldn't believe that I am now viewing movies or TV shows through streaming on Netflix, including movies originally set for theaters (for example, the Andy Serkis-directed Mowgli movie). Is this what watching movies is going to be like nowadays besides going to a movie theater? And having just seen Bumblebee and Aquaman, I knew for a fact that both of their respective franchises are going for a new makeover after their underwhelming would-be blockbuster failures from 2017. Except now I just decide to see movies that either have actual quality writing or intrigues me unless it ends up as terrible, simply underwhelming, or just not worth buying to keep at home. I just like to watch films for nostalgic reasons to see how much better they could have been compared to the current year we are in, which is mostly filled with sequels or reboots - unoriginal, unnecessary or whatnot. The movie that I am most anticipated to see in 2019, and I'm sure the title isn't "Star Wars" after what happened with The Last Jedi. But Avengers: Endgame, rather. I only hope that it'll live up to Infinity War after Thanos wiped out half of the universe and proves to be a nice farewell to our beloved cinematic Avengers that brought us a world of superheroes created by Stan Lee create to inspire us. Yet I wonder how the Phase 4 movies will differ to the previous 3 phases that started way back in 2008 that introduced us Robert Downey, Jr.'s Iron Man? Could DC, for all its faults since Batman v Superman and "Joss-tice League", be the one taking over the superhero movie era? Will I still remain a Transformers fan since Bumblebee has certainly brought the franchise, in the lyrics of Hailee Steinfeld's song, "back to life" and that I now appear to enjoy G1 robots more than Bayformers? So many good (or bad) movies to watch, so little time!

What I have summarized brought up these interesting questions about what this year will be like. What will my new Mayuga life after graduating from George Mason University will be like besides going on a summer vacation to China, the biggest country that I have not visited before in my life? Will the new job that I will be taking be worth it? How many more works will I be doing that my parents believe will bring me to absolute fame and fortune despite my disability? And is my sister Christine still going to continue getting in touch with us? I pray that 2019 will be a fun experience for me compared to everything I have been through in the past!

How Life is Changing for Me

Hard to believe that it has been a while I wrote this blog post since last August. I guess the reason that I hadn't made a blog post is because of my worries that I might be expected to do some personal work whether from George Mason University or from my part-time job which is at the Fairfax County Office of Elections. Or the fact that I didn't make a single post about movies or what not because I was completely hurt by almost some, if not many of the so-called blockbuster movies that absolutely tainted our initial expectations and suffered a horrible franchise fatigue curse like most other films have, which are Transformers: The Last Knight, Zack Snyder/Joss Whedon's Justice League, and last but not least Star Wars: The Last Jedi. To think that I've been experiencing so many changes when it comes to turning age 25 and beyond. So maybe it's about time I highlight some of the important stuff that's been going on lately until now.


Due to the box office underperformance of last summer's Transformers 5 and the supposed cancellation of a direct follow-up, I've been attempting to sever ties between TF 1-3 and 4-5 by reorganizing my toys and getting rid of anything that has to do with both Age of Extinction and The Last Knight. Still wonder if the upcoming Bumblebee movie will make a difference.



Watching Avengers: Infinity War really struck me, the moment Thanos snapped his fingers after successfully collecting ALL 6 Infinity Stones!



I have gained some positive respect from my former Package Design teacher Prof. Hicks after successfully completing my Senior Design Project book "Different, Not Less: My Life with Autism."



My family and I have traveled to Rome, Italy and went on a Greek Isles Cruise trip to European countries like Sicily, Santorini, Mykonos, and Athens! We certainly had a fun international trip when Christine's friend Erica was around!



Solo is now the first box office flop in Star Wars history as if The Last Jedi's disastrous fan reactions aren't enough to stain the franchise! Maybe next year's Episode 9 will be even worse?



It looks as though Disney really IS going to buy Fox, at least until by early next year. Though that kind of deal might spell an end to some franchises that I know I doubt Disney would bother trying to tackle on (Alien, Predator, any franchise that feels "not safe for kids").



My sister Christine now lives in an apartment in Cleveland, Ohio.



Just when Ben Affleck's falling out as Batman isn't bad enough, rumor has it that Henry Cavill will officially STEP DOWN AS SUPERMAN! And because of that, anything that has Zack Snyder's hands all over will be completely ignored in the DC Extended Universe in the wake of Justice League's box office failure! Talk about wasted potential!


So there we have it. A breakdown of what life has been like for me during the past 8 months in 2018. But should I either not plan on writing a blog post that may probably need to be more than mostly about movies or that I forgot to do so because I was busy with other things that are more professional than this, then this could be my very last blog post I have written since I first started this blog site back in NOVA's Computer Graphic Design class in Fall 2012.

What Is Wrong With These Summer 2017 Films?

As if last year wasn't bad enough. Can't believe that the only successful blockbuster movies this summer are Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming, which are mostly superhero flicks at the start of each summer month! The most successful animated title is, you guessed it, Despicable Me 3 which I didn't feel hyped to see even after #2 following my first though underwhelming viewing of Minions. The losers? Among them are mostly franchise fatiguers, which includes Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Pixar's Cars 3 (despite being much better than the inferior and Pixar's first "lemon" Cars 2), Alien: Covenant (the needless prequel to the original Alien films and follow-up to the confusing Prometheus, which I'm glad I did not plan to see), and worst of all... Transformers: The Last Knight! There's even some laughable box office bombs, which is exactly as I predicted, like King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Then there's The Emoji Movie, which breaks the all-time record for being one of the worst-reviewed animated films of all time. Except that it still made decent money despite almost having a 0% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Thankfully, I skipped seeing that like I have with Tom Cruise's The Mummy. Speaking of which, The Mummy is the one that had trouble deciding what it wants to be, whether as a typical by-the-numbers action film or as a "horror" movie part of some cinematic universe that Universal thinks is a good idea to have classic horror monster icons appear in the modern day world and be played by aged-out motion picture stars like Dwayne Johnson, Johnny Depp, and Channing Tatum when they were a lot scarier in the oldies. That's the problem I now have with setting up cinematic universes!

I mean come on, what in the world has this come down to? Besides Spider-Man: Homecoming, Transformers: The Last Knight was like my highly-anticipated summer 2017 movie. But based on the box office figures and the critical word-of-mouth, I knew that I couldn't rely on some brilliant Writers' Room that acts as though things are going to change for the better for this already critically blasted action-packed yet tiresome movie franchise that is bringing in nearly $4 billion. To think that by not bringing in some of the most hated elements (Tessa, Shane, "Transformium", etc.) from the 2014 predecessor Age of Extinction except bringing back Lennox, Simmons, police car Decepticon Barricade and making Megatron back to his traditional and more powerful self, The Last Knight was going to bring back what we missed so much from 1-3. But to no avail, like Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Batman v Superman, it absolutely failed on so many levels by being too easily attached to the usual stuff that we now know have officially gone too far! In what should have been a franchise game-changer like Fast Five, TF5 instead relies on cutting back to very unlikeable humans like the Tony Hale Physics Engineer, not being very consistent with the even messier timeline full of previously established events from the first four films that clearly doesn't know where the whole "secret history of Transformers" events explained by Anthony Hopkins will fit in, not using the Autobot and Decepticon characters in an effective manner other than for cheap fan service (namely Dinobots that have an even worse amount of screentime than Jared Leto's Joker), as well as not being clear on what the main focus was when you have TRF hunting down both Autobot and Decepticon alike, Knights protecting the Staff of Merlin from Quintessa, some secret society covering up the hidden presence of Transformers, Optimus Prime became corrupted and almost killed Bumblebee which is all that "Nemesis Prime" does after encountering Quintessa on Cybertron, and the coming of the chaos bringer Unicron who is clearly Earth itself! As I look at the box office performance of this fifth installment, I wasn't so sure if The Last Knight deserves to be seen as canon with the first three films along with what I thought for sure was the weakest Transformers film of all time (the one with the final act set in Hong Kong) despite being mostly intrigued by the more interesting robots like Hot Rod and Cogman. It's like maybe Paramount should never have thought about making more films to expand the storyline left by Dark of the Moon, which I now believe is where the story should have ended so that we don't have to go through with all the confusing Transformer-affected history stuff and the humans (minus caring ones like Mark Wahlberg) hating the Autobots that is just becoming ridiculous! A shame that the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film made MORE MONEY (luckily with more than $790 million worldwide including $172 million stateside) than the official "franchise-killer" of the Transformers movies. At least that one was more fun and not very confusing for me. And even though there's a Bumblebee spin-off movie already on the way ('til next December to be exact), I'm not so sure how such an unfortunate box office outcome from TF5 is going to affect the future of the entire Transformers franchise, and whether or not the studio is still keen on making a direct continuation to TLK already set for release in June 28th 2019?
I was kind of hoping that aside from arriving on the first opening day of Pandora: The World of Avatar in Disney's Animal Kingdom and going a cruise trip with my family throughout the European countries like St. Petersburg and Finland, this summer would have been completely free of wasteful financially failed sequels like Independence Day: Resurgence and Alice Through the Looking Glass, since I got to see what could have been a welcome return to the once-proud blockbuster franchises (Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney/Pixar's Cars). Especially if one of them was the most despised blockbuster franchise (Transformers). Unfortunately, only the superhero ones (both Marvel and DC) made it out unscathed by what is now going to be known as the "franchise fatigue curse." Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 are both tied as my favorite summer flicks of this year.

Apes together strong!

It's Morphin' Time!

On the non-superhero side, my favorite summer movie of 2017 would have to be War for the Planet of the Apes. And if it has to be an action-packed movie, even though it didn't come out in the summer or is no longer in theaters, my other favorite summer movie would have to be Power Rangers which I now see it as a movie worth viewing for fans and those wanting it to start a new movie franchise thanks to its DVD/Blu-ray sales since June 27th despite its mediocre global take of $142 million. Still, I hope, and I mean it, that next summer will be a lot more fun since there's Avengers: Infinity War coming up unless fans aren't too bored with the formulaic Marvel stuff! But for now, let us focus on our back-to-school plans. 'Cause I'm going to be heading back to George Mason tomorrow!

My Favorite Movies of Summer 2017

My Top 9 (for the first time ever) favorite[-ish] movies of Summer 2017:

1. Wonder Woman - 93% (CinemaScore: A)
2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - 83% (CinemaScore: A)
3. War for the Planet of the Apes - 93% (CinemaScore: A-)
4. Transformers: The Last Knight - 16% (CinemaScore: B+)
5. Spider-Man: Homecoming - 92% (CinemaScore: A)
6. Cars 3 - 68% (CinemaScore: A)
7. Despicable Me 3 - 60% (CinemaScore: A-)
8. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - 29% (CinemaScore: A-)
9. Dunkirk - 92% (CinemaScore: A-)




Note: These percentages indicate how positive the critical reviews are, according to rottentomatoes.com. To learn more about CinemaScore, enter http://www.cinemascore.com/.

Pre-Summer 2017 Recap

Wow! I cannot believe it! I finally finished spring semester at George Mason University, by getting ALL A's in Advanced Painting I, Writing/Editing Sound for Game Design, Web Design & Usability, and Intro to Game Design classes for the finals! For a minute, I thought that I was gonna get a somewhat-ok outcome in one of my courses like the sound for game design class where I struggled with the Unreal Engine software that allows users to create graphics and build video game levels when working in a group. Luckily, I had a little vocal support from my mom, Jessica Machado, and of course my old psychiatrist Karen Wells. And the teachers like Prof. Matt Nolan, Andrew Sweeney, and Patricia Kruep were actually being nice to me and appreciated me for all the hard work and effort that I have given.

Since late April to early May, I have been practicing hard with my job coach Elizabeth Graviano at ServiceSource for my job interview with the Office of Elections internship that I have been applying to for the summer. On May 22nd, mom took me to the Fairfax County Government Center where I would begin my first job interview with Jill Clark, Gary Scott and Mary Lee. But then as it turns out, they didn't ask me some questions that I have been desperately preparing myself for. They were acting so nice by simply informing me of what I might do now that I am accepted to the internship.  The questions that I was able to ask them was what are the next steps in the process as well as what kind of duties that I may be given when working there. When the conversation ended, I thanked them for such a pleasant meeting and letting me know that my background will be of great help to their goals in managing the local elections for the government and applying my graphic design skills to assist in transcribing and transferring data and graphics. While working at an internship to gain some professional job experience might be new for me since working as a volunteer at Fairfax Education Association, I believe that I will have a good time serving the internship for the summer.

Speaking of summer, time to talk about what movies that I have seen so far as summer begins and my time at George Mason for the Spring ends! I have just seen Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 twice, first time was with my mom and the second time was with my sister who has just arrived back from Notre Dame to spend some quality time with the Mayuga family for the summer! Now for Guardians, I thought in my opinion that I enjoyed it more than the first one since I appreciated it for retaining the same colorful visuals and laugh-out-loud humor done by director James Gunn, as well as the fact that the soundtrack is much more enjoyable thanks to the "Awesome Mix Vol. 2" songs Peter Quill would enjoy listening to, particularly during the opening scene with Baby Groot! But I also like that the sequel fleshes out the characters we've barely known from the predecessor, especially Yondu and Nebula! What's also shocking, when it comes to sequels being more compelling than the first one since Empire Strikes Back, was that we learn that Peter Quill's father Ego is SPOILER..... actually the main villain and the reason why Quill's mother died from cancer at the start of the first film! Because of that unexpected twist, it makes the Yondu character and his death more meaningful and that he is truly the father Quill deserved even if he's a no-good greedy blue-skinned mercenary. I would definitely be expecting things to get better in the still-going-strong Marvel Cinematic Universe before the impending Infinity War next year!

As I await for my first time working at an internship until June 12th, I would deal with some incoming changes when spending time in the Mayuga's house. My sister has just gotten her first job and started attending to George Mason University, which is where I was at since 2014! During the Memorial Day weekend, we would head to Orlando, Florida where we would stay at a hotel on a nice and warm yet hot weather. The reason for such a relaxing visit was to enter the place that will surely change everything: Pandora. As many people would recall, Pandora is the name of the indigenous but dangerous alien planet filled with unique creatures (Banshees, Great Leonopteryx, Thanator, Direhorses, Sturmbeests, you name it!) including the blue cat-like natives called the Na'vi. Now, Pandora is a planet seen in James Cameron's $2 billion blockbuster phenomenon Avatar, which my mom thinks is overrated which is true but not without its visually-stunning moments and some spectacular action scenes. It is an attraction located in the Disney Animal Kingdom theme park. Except that for the first timers, there would be some very LONG lines that takes about 2-3 hours entering in the rides to see what our experience in Pandora would be like compared to what we've seen in the movie. What makes the Pandora attraction more intriguing was that at night, everything would glow in the dark, or as I would call it according to the part in the movie where Jake Sully first met Neytiri: bioluminescence. I was glad that I got to see it for myself on the first opening day after spending my fun time with my sister at Universal Studios Orlando! Perhaps the sequels (the first of the four will be released in December 2020) that James Cameron has working hard on for such a long time might be worth waiting and may not suffer the same way that the 6-year gap did to Alice Through the Looking Glass compared to its 2010 Tim Burton predecessor that earned $1 billion.

While the state of the world is pretty much in shambles due to reports that the terrorist attacks have occurred in London which made opinions on President Donald Trump and the government worsened, I tried to look at the brighter side waiting for what does the Office of Elections internship has in stores for me. As June begins, I would prepare myself for what is to come. When I watched Wonder Woman with my sister, it would appear that my initial doubts were wrong all along. The first live-action female DC superhero movie is a much better DCEU experience than Man of Steel, Batman v Superman (no matter which version) and Suicide Squad combined! I never expected Wonder Woman to finally end up a great DC movie after it was thought to be a "discombobulated mess"! I hope that this astounding success will bring some encouragement to a lot of fans to expect the same for Justice League, which I can only hope will truly redeem the DC characters despite suffering the loss of a great one (specifically Superman). But there's only one word that comes to mind now that summer is finally here: Transformers. It seems that the promotional marketing and the toys for Transformers: The Last Knight is somehow improving, and may be attempting to prove to the fandom that it was going to be a major improvement over Age of Extinction, the sequel that I now know is what turned moviegoers and fans away from the action-packed robot-fighting franchise that made me a huge fan of Transformers since 2007. While I am relieved that the return of familiar faces such as Megatron and the mention of references from any of the five films will mean that it might somehow bring back what I know is the reason why the first live-action Transformers film is my favorite movie of all time, I am unsure if it'll be enough to regain some fans to restore the studio's desire to start their own cinematic universe despite AOE suffering a major dip in domestic grosses (even with $1 billion thanks to China) and critical ratings. If Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (which I thought was entertaining and so much better than On Stranger Tides) from what was considered to be the "worst Memorial Day weekend" indicates something, and when it comes to being the fifth installment of the franchise that people believed should have retired no matter what exciting moments it may have, I fear that what if The Last Knight might not achieve the same amount of success as any of the four predecessors, with or without some much-needed support from the international countries that the studio appears to be making it lean on to more than the Americans. What I truly want is that it would be more like the first film where everything was so simple and more fun, and that the characters were more likable instead of always treating each other like dirt (especially the Autobots that deserve the same love as the Avengers and the Justice League)! Even if I may have to see the day AFTER it was released since I have work and that my family and I are getting ready to head for Philadelphia to visit our old friends from Vancouver. I hope that Summer 2017 will be better than last year, despite the bad stuff happening in the world we now live in!

Regretful Throwback Review of 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation'

First The Amazing Spider-Man 2, then Transformers: Age of Extinction, and now this? Man, I hate it when I have to keep re-evaluating poorly-reviewed movies that I thought I "enjoyed"! Pretty soon, the DCEU Suicide Squad movie might be next! I remember the time when I discovered the updates and the trailer of what I can expect from the sequel, well technically more of a "soft reboot," to the action-packed yet maligned G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, I thought that it would finally please some fans and put aside this whole debacle about how wrongfully handled the once popular G.I. Joe characters are by instead making them an international task force and being too reliant on sci-fi technology like Delta-6 Accelerator suits, sonic cannons, and the cheap but wicked holograms. I have yet to see the Best Buy-exclusive Extended Cut Blu-ray again at home (if I want to) now that I finished watching The Rise of Cobra in my basement, but from what I saw which I can really recall without having to wait, I knew almost every part that makes me wonder if Retaliation was the live-action G.I. Joe movie we deserve no matter how "better" it was than the predecessor that was released (coincidentally due to being made by Hasbro) in the same year as Michael Bay's awfully-upsetting Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

As the G.I. Joe: Retaliation (whether theatrical or extended) movie starts, it was starting to become obvious that it was gonna feel different from The Rise of Cobra given the more militaristic tone and less dumb-but-fun sci-fi campiness. While retaining Duke, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow (spoiler alert, he's alive no questions asked!), Cobra Commander and Zartan (in the guise as the U.S. President), gone were the popularly recognizable G.I. Joe characters such as Scarlett, General Hawk, Breaker, Baroness, and of course Destro (not counting his useless cameo). Erasing them from the clean slate, we got newbies like Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson!), Lady Jaye, Flint, "original G.I. Joe" Joe Colton (Bruce Willis, everyone!), and Jinx (Elektra from Season 2 of Marvel/Netflix's Daredevil). And if I remember correctly, despite some claims that Retaliation was "better than The Rise of Cobra," there was that one particular moment that will surely upset a lot of fans...

DUKE DIES!

That's right, folks. Because Channing Tatum claimed that he "hated" the first G.I. Joe movie that he did, he wanted his character to be killed off. The first time it happened, well almost, was in the 1987 animated movie but due to fan complaints at the Optimus Prime death in the 1986 Transformers cartoon film, they made Duke simply "went into a coma." But 26 years later, this time Duke is now seemingly dead for real! It was at that moment since then, that G.I. Joe: Retaliation has been plagued by a lot of hate for killing off a very popular G.I. Joe character like Duke even though nobody likes Channing Tatum's acting ability despite his screentime with Dwayne Johnson's Roadblock being considered as one of the major highlights and his success with 21 Jump Street! Now that I think about it, what's the point of having him around during the first 30 minutes of this so-called "sequel" and boom! he's dead without so much as giving him a proper pay-off?
So the plot of said sequel was about the remaining Joes (Roadblock, Lady Jaye, and Flint) being forced on the run and framed by "President Zartan" as public enemies of the United States, similar to that of The A-Team and The Hub's short-lived G.I. Joe: Renegades animated show, it was becoming less of a direct sequel but more of a standalone movie even with some direct ties with the 2009 predecessor, which I'm okay with yet unsure of. The only good parts were the action scenes with Snake Eyes and his archenemy-later-turned-ally Storm Shadow, such as SS breaking Cobra Commander out of prison in Germany (but leaving Destro behind because of course, no Christopher Eccleston - WASTED!) and the kick-ass mountain fight between Snake Eyes & Jinx and the Red Ninjas. With those sweet ninja fight scenes like that, and the way that they at least corrected the Cobra Commander look, I just don't quite understand why G.I. Joe: Retaliation was such a big deal for people, especially the fans, to complain about even though the new director was a die-hard G.I. Joe fan! However, since time went on and still we never got the third G.I. Joe movie like we were promised despite grossing over $375 million, I am now starting to wonder if they were right all along. While the over-the-top explosive action was fun to watch, it's still too bad that perhaps the only way it would feel like a G.I. Joe movie is if none of the characters were either killed off like Duke, disappeared with no explanation like the missing ROC characters, or lazily abandoned like Destro in favor of newcomers that will be hard to easily recognize. And I'd hate to say this, but while it is more of a sci-fi super spy movie and less of a military-themed war movie, as well mishandling the Cobra villains like Destro and the Baroness, at least seeing the Joes in action in The Rise of Cobra felt like the G.I. Joe team we were meant to see on the big screen and actually had that "Yo Joe!" and "Knowing is Half the Battle" feeling instead of ending up as a generic and formulaic Fast & Furious-styled wannabe! Plus, mediocre acting aside, at least Channing Tatum had a more expanded main character role and arc in which we see how Duke would do what a soldier would have done when in battle, and that's to never leave a man behind (especially his good friend Ripcord)!

Ever since the Hasbro Cinematic Universe was announced with the writers' room already prepared in the wake of the oh-so successful Transformers Writers' Room and upon learning that a G.I. Joe 3 will only be made when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson isn't too busy with films like the upcoming 2017 titles Baywatch and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, I was starting to worry that instead of getting a continuation to tie up some loose ends left by the 2013 follow-up, there may have to be a complete (you guessed it) REBOOT from scratch (by taking a more "millennial approach") to better tie with other lesser known non-Transformers Hasbro properties without making the continuity so confusing when using events established in the first two G.I. Joe films! Like everyone's gonna care about a cinematic universe of G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., ROM the Spaceknight, Visionaries, and Micronauts since they were unsurprisingly outdated and forgotten! Which means that we will no longer get to see Roadblock and the reinstated G.I. Joe team hunt down Cobra Commander and bring him to justice for what happened to Duke! How unfortunate.
With Paramount Pictures already suffering from financial disappointments and failures last year (TMNT: Out of the Shadows, Zoolander 2, Star Trek Beyond, Ben-Hur) and the box office misfire of the belated sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass, maybe it is far too late to be getting a direct sequel to the two G.I. Joe films, whose total worldwide box office combined is below the 2007 Transformers movie's $709 million gross. It's no wonder that after 2013, we hardly see any more G.I. Joe toys in several stores.

Even though I am more of a Transformers fan, as of now, I feel like binge-watching (not through Netflix or DirectTV sadly) the entire 1980's G.I. Joe cartoon, just to see how Hollywood, especially Stephen Sommers and Jon Chu (whose Jem and the Holograms movie is now a massive plagiaristic failure after an abrupt 1-week theatrical run!), should do the G.I. Joe vs. Cobra action done right! At least the cartoon made them act like REAL AMERICAN HEROES!

Cue the theme song! YO JOE!

Quick Review of 2017's 'Beauty and the Beast'

Twenty-six years ago, Beauty and the Beast was the first movie that I remember seeing during my birth. At first, I was quite concerned that despite the enchanting trailers promising to be what made the 1991 version a Disney masterpiece, it was said that neither were the characters living up to the original selves through acting and singing and that politically-forced themes such as feminism and a gay character almost hurt the latest live-action film of the "tale as old as time" based on the initial 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I was hoping that it would be in the 80-90% range like 2015's Cinderella and last year's The Jungle Book. However, as I look up on the early reviews on Facebook and learning that it was the "fastest-selling family film on Fandango" and the box office projections being $120-150 million or more, as well as listening to the memorable songs on the soundtrack that was already up on iTunes and YouTube, I was now starting to feel confident that it might be the Disney film worth being brought to life through live-action scenes and CGI-animation the same way as my other favorite childhood Disney classic The Jungle Book. Today, I finally got to see it at AMC Tysons Corner with mom and dad and what I have to say is "wow!" Sure that the animated film is way more than popular than the one that I've been waiting to see since last year, but at least it still retained the same story without changing it so much like what Maleficent did, despite not keeping parts that we were so used to!
Emma Watson, my celebrity crush from Harry Potter, is just so stunningly beautiful as the main heroine Belle no matter what others say about her "wooden acting" or her "autotuned singing." While different from Paige O'Hara's Belle character, Emma Watson proved me right by making Belle such a brave and strong girl and was actually able to smile in some situations that really cheered her up even when being held prisoner by the Beast in the enchanted castle! Aside from the so-called uncanny valley of the motion-capture facial look, Dan Stevens really did an outstanding job making the Beast more tragically human on the outside despite his monstrous appearance and for his song "Evermore" when he regretfully allowed Belle to head to town to save her father. The best part are the enchanted objects that were also cursed by a spell that turned the Prince into a horrible Beast: Lumiere (Ewan McGregor), Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson), and Chip (newcomer Nathan Mack)! The part where Lumiere sings "Be Our Guest" was just as visually amazing, no maybe even more, than the animated version, and really demonstrated Ewan McGregor's singing ability! But I was more amazed with Emma Thompson's Beauty and the Beast song during Belle and the Beast's ballroom dance, which was on par with Angela Lansbury! I only wished that the Ariana Grande/John Legend version of that timeless song is more like how it sounded in the second trailer 2 months ago, which while they had talent, can't outmatch Celine Dion (was brought back for the newly-written "How Does the Moment Last Forever?" song) and Peabo Bryson's! Luke Evans and Josh Gad have also proven to be great as Gaston and LeFou, as does Kevin Kline's Maurice who was actually able to stand up to himself despite being deemed by the village townsfolk as insane for raving about the Beast! I also like that there was some depth in Belle and the Beast's backstories, along with the Enchantress' expanded role as a mysterious woman named "Agathe"!
After seeing the bloody but tearful Wolverine swan song Logan with my dad two weeks ago, maybe 2017 might be off to a good start even while I was getting to complete my web design and advanced painting assignments from George Mason and trying to apply for job internships by meeting with my office counselors to discuss my possible job recommendations. I was glad that flaws aside, this year's Beauty and the Beast was finally able to live up to my expectations that it really was as the Rotten Tomatoes consensus would say, "a faithful yet fresh retelling that honors its beloved source material."
The second most anticipated film that I'm now looking forward to see, while anxious for a possible miracle to cleanse my stress and concerns, is Michael Bay's Transformers: The Last Knight. I am happy that the latest Beauty and the Beast movie is an enchanting and charming experience in my spring break! If only my sister Christine could have seen that! Thank you Disney, Bill Condon (you are forgiven for The Twilight Saga's Breaking Dawn Pts 1-2), and the rest of the cast for bringing the timeless romantic fairy tale story to life!