Performer Spotlight: Loki @ Heroic Encounter: Thor and Loki

To no one’s surprise who has read this site during the past few months, a major highlight for me of going to the Disneyland Resort is getting to visit to the Heroic Encounter: Thor and Loki Meet & Greet at the Hollywood Backlot in Disney California Adventure. And while I have had a delightful time with these divine brothers whenever I go, my best moments are those I’ve spent talking with this fellow with his ever-so-dulcet tones:

Hello, Loki!

Now, I will readily admit that Loki is my very favorite in all the Marvel Universe. I love his multi-facets and his depth – he is a shining diamond to me, beautiful and cut from a strong compressed core. I love that he’s a tragic trickster with many guises and that you can experience various aspects of this when you go visit him at Disney California Adventure. Some days he’s strong, others sweet, others sassy.

But my favorite times are experiencing the irresistible charm and attentiveness of this fellow who makes you feel like you’re the only person in the world and the most fascinating one to him at that. It’s this tremendously bewitching and beguiling ability of his that would have me happily follow him to the farthest reaches of the Nine Realms and beyond if he merely asked it of his humble Midgard servant.

The stage is his to command – as are we!

In my opportunities to speak with him, it has been so special to me that he has taken the time to discuss topics ranging from the Disney clothing I wear to my pin collecting to his perceptions of the other Marvel characters (though especially hilarious is the constant badgering from his brother, Thor, who is always quite irritated by my devoted attention to Loki, which of course pleases Loki further!).  Yet I think there’s an even longer-reaching effect for me in having met him, as my interactions with him are opening up a whole new world for me at the parks that I had never really considered before.

Three Years of Mousertainment

I don’t know what seems stranger and more amazing to me – that I’m kicking off my fourth year of writing this blog, that I got introduced to Disney Parks entertainment more than seven years ago with ElecTRONica at Disney California Adventure and as a result of that experience have been regularly following various performances, performers and groups for almost six years, that it’s been almost two years since the Diamond version of the The Mad T Party ended and I’m still hanging out at the parks several times a month going from show to show to show… or that some of you have been reading my articles since the beginning and others are still coming aboard to find out more about my favorite part of Disney Parks – the Mousertainment!!!

So I’ll start with a thank you – to those who’ve followed for months or years and to those who are just discovering the blog for the first time. Some of you found the site by your interest in shows and performers, others through watching some of the hundreds of videos I’ve posted on my YouTube Channel. For those of you who haven’t checked out those videos yet, please do so! I try to get video of many of the folks I feature here. Keeping an eye on my YouTube Channel may sometimes give you a sneak peek of who and what I will be featuring as time goes on.

But before we look ahead, I’d like to take a look back at last year – the first completely without my beloved Mad T Party. I honestly wasn’t sure my enthusiasm would stay high without weekly nighttime bands to enjoy. Fortunately, Disney brought the bands back for the summer to Tomorrowland Terrace, and then throughout much of the rest of the year to the main stage in Downtown Disney. And while out there, I found even more musical talent filling the area! And the holidays brought further seasonal joy to the hotels as well!

Mousertainment Movies: What’s Worth Watching in 2018?

Today I get to look ahead and anticipate which movies I will go see in theaters in 2018, which ones I’ll wait to catch on home entertainment releases, and which ones I’m guessing I will like the most!

It’s actually a really busy film year, so narrowing down my choices of the Top 10 I most want to see is weirdly knocking out a few films that I will very likely go see anyway!

There’s also a strange phenomenon of a couple of films being high on my want-to-see list, for which I haven’t yet seen the previous film but still really want to! (Noted below.)

Here is my list in order of how much I want to see them!

10) Winchester (Feb 2)

Reasons I want to see it:

• I’ve always been fascinated by this house and its story.
• Rose Red is an underrated mini-series and maybe now I can remind people to watch it!
• Helen Mirren

9) Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (June 22) ** still haven’t seen the previous Jurassic World film!

Reasons I want to see it:

• Continuation of the Jurassic Park storyline
• Chris Pratt & Jeff Goldblum together – let the silliness commence!
• Dinosaurs

8) Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Nov 16) ** still haven’t seen the previous Fantastic Beasts film!

Reasons I want to see it:

• More of the Harry Potter universe
  
• The cast

7) Ant-Man and the Wasp (July 6)

Reasons I want to see it:

• Michael Peña as Luis since he completely and utterly stole every scene in the first film!
• Continuation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) storyline

6) X-Men: Dark Phoenix (Nov 2) ** still haven’t seen the most recent X-Men film nor Logan!

Reason I want to see it:

• Continuation of the X-Men universe storyline

Mousertainment Movies: What Was Worth Watching in 2017?

This week and next week’s Mousertainment Movies posts are always some of my favorites of the year to write. For today, I’ll be taking a look back at the movies I anticipated watching in 2017, note what I wound up seeing or missing and why (films I actually saw are marked with an *), and what I thought of the ones that I sat through.

Below were my picks in January 2017 in their original order of my interest in seeing them. At the end of this article, I’ll put them in the order in which I actually liked them best!

Here was what I was looking forward to a year ago:

10) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 *

Reasons I wanted to see it:

• Drax
• Baby Groot
• Kurt Russell as Ego
• Chris Pratt as Star-Lord
• Continuation of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) storyline

Reasons to see it:

• The cast
• Yondu for the win in this film!
• Continuation of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) storyline
• Another fun soundtrack
• Its popularity helped inspire my favorite new show of the year at the Disneyland Resort: Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Dance-Off!

9) Cars 3 *

Reasons I wanted to see it:

• Pixar
• Another visit with the wonderful Cars characters
• Really hoping it’s better than Cars 2

Reasons to see it:

• It was way better than Cars 2 (though still not as good as the first Cars film for me)

8) Stephen King’s It

Reasons I wanted to see it:

• Love the original source material
• Love the original mini-series – it’s absolutely perfect and this will have a lot to live up to but I’m strangely rather optimistic about it.
• Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise – nobody can compare to Tim Curry in his defining take on this role, but it looks like they’re going for a different style here and I am a big fan of all of the Skarsgards – Bill was terrific in the wonderful Netflix series Hemlock Grove. He can definitely do menacing and creepy.

Reasons I didn’t see it:

• Waiting for home entertainment release (but I REALLY still want to watch this one!)

7) Kong: Skull Island

Reasons I wanted to see it:

• Tom Hiddleston
• I’ve yet to see a King Kong movie I really like but I am intrigued by the concept and origins of the character.
• I miss the amazing banana-breath audio-animatronic version of King Kong at Universal Studios Hollywood.  Not sure anything digital will ever top anything practical, however.

Reasons I didn’t see it:

• Waiting for home entertainment release

6) Murder on the Orient Express

Reasons I wanted to see it:

• Director Kenneth Branagh
• Agatha Christie stories are always fun
• Stellar cast

Reasons I didn’t see it:

• Waiting for home entertainment release
• Branagh’s excessive mustache was REALLY bugging me in the ads for the film – I don’t know if I want to stare at that thing for a whole movie length (shallow reasoning but truth)