2017

2017 was a terrible year.  The last thing I wanted to do was dwell on more racism, sexism, and Trump.  Doesn't really make you want to type things, you know?

Let's focus on the good stuff! I made my dad's lifelong dream finally come true: Hawai'i.  It's a beautiful place with a beautiful spirit.  And for a $600 plane ticket, it was a no-brainer. All four of us went, with Jadek spending 15 days with the 'rentals.  I was worried - I shouldn't have been.  Everyone got on and we had a lot of fun.

2017 also had us knee-deep in house stuff.  The basement flooded in late 2016 and so we spent a lot of 2017 recovering physically and emotionally (mostly emotionally) from that.  New roof, stonework out front... it was nesting in all its glory.

So, 2017 slithered away.  Despite some significant highlights, it was a trying year that I'm happy to see the back of.

timeless love

A Point of View: Is there still any point collecting books?

-Howard Jacobson

“floating in public drains” 

… that would contribute to the smell, for sure.

I have a house full on judgemental books that tell me to read them and I always reply “someday, my loves, someday” – but it doesn't much matter.  A house doesn't become a home until the books are there, keeping you warm and insulated from the brutish world.  And I loved the “detritus” comment too – my books are full of ticket stubs and train passes and upside-down notes of plans with friends long gone.  My books are, simply, mine – stocked full of the ephemera of a life lived often too quickly.   They are not precious museum pieces – they are battered, travelled, loved.  You can absolutely tell a book read from a book merely owned.  My collection would never be accepted at the public library.  I think the judgemental books are just jealous, wanting a dog-ear to call their own.

still alive?

Who can tell?  A bit of an existential crisis led to a great shutting of the up.

Now Playing: Edge of Tomorrow

Why is it that Tom Cruise gets so many good goddamn movies?  His agent must be phenomenal.  But, I won't repeat myself, as I've talked about this before.

Enter: Edge of Tomorrow.

A film that uses many video game images (Jim Raynor's skull helmet in Starcraft, Cloud Strife's sword in Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear's exoskeletal suits....) and then does what most video games shy away from: put them on a woman.  There are notable exceptions (Metroid and Mass Effect among them), but rare.  The real hero in this story is the Rita Vrataski, the Angel of Verdun or the Full Metal Bitch, depending on who you ask.  Ably played by Emily Blunt, Rita is simply amazing.  She's tough, smart, quick, and brave.  She drags Cruise's Bill Cage along with her, chagrined that his cowardice rewards him with the gift of time travel.  She makes hard decisions, sacrifices herself over and over (and over!) again.  She is, simply put, awesome.  The kind of poster-hero that every little girl or boy can look up to.

Aside from the one lingering question, at the very end, which Jadek and I worked through on our quick walk home, the plot and pacing is solid.  A nice rental, if you don't want to waste warm spring afternoons inside a chilly theatre.  4 out of 5 stars.

Now Playing: Maleficent

I've been waiting for Maleficent for what seems like ages!  I mean, it combines so many things I love: Angelina Jolie, a "true evil" villain in the titular character, reverse storytelling, special effects, fantasy, an amazing title song...sigh. So, I had high hopes.

The only real disappointing part was just how short the movie was! Clocking in at only 97 minutes, I felt there was so much more we could have explored ...alas.

What there was of it, was beautiful.  It made the little girl inside me very happy indeed.  4 out of 5 stars.

And for your aural pleasure, Lana Del Ray's Once Upon a Dream, below.

Now Playing: X-Men: Days of Future Past

100-word review!

I liked X-Men Days of Future Past a lot; it did a pretty good job retconning all the previous movies.  Left some good questions to chew on too – like, how did Professor X recover after his adventures in X3? And what happens to all those timelines after the last scene? I really enjoy the star-studded cast, the insane amount of cameos, the subtle nods for long-time fans… really, any movie with a lineup that includes McAvoy, McKellan, Stewart, Fassbender, Lawrence, Jackman, Berry, Paquin, Dinklage, Ashmore, Page... pretty much unstoppable.  It was great; you will have to see the other five movies to really get everything out of it though.  4 out of 5 stars.

Now Playing: Godzilla

Sixty years ago, Ishiro Honda’s iconic classic Godzilla (or, more accurately, Gojira) came out.  The King of Monsters has reappeared dozens of times since, sometimes serious, sometime silly, every time entertaining.

Flash forward to 2014, and Godzilla is back on screen.  Having watched the one remade in the 1998, (which was a straight-up monster movie with heroic humans), I was pleasantly surprised by the movie’s more serious turn as well as its indictment of WMDs, human hubris, and the general attitude of “shoot-first, investigate-later”.  I didn’t expect science (science!) to be a factor and I certainly didn’t expect a coherent storyline, but both were present and accounted for. Not to mention a cast of very capable actors, with Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, and Juliette Binoche adding their usual panache.

I won’t go into too many details, because spoilers would actually ruin the movie.  Suffice it to say that if you’re Sci-Fi geek, you’ll love it.  3.5 out of 5 stars.  (And while the trailer is good, it was the teaser that got me going)