DCEU Rewatch: “Man of Steel” (2013)

The movie that launched a thousand Zack Snyder fans, and crippled the DCEU before it began.

Part of my DCEU Rewatch. First Watch? No.

3.0 Acting
4.0 Production
2.0 Story
3.5 OVERALL

Good Lord. It’s been a decade since this film came out. That feels … way too long (it was just yesterday! or the day before!) and way too short (this movie has been one of the definitions of super-hero films forever).

A brief digression

So … the infamous Zack Snyder flick that started the whole … Zack Snyder DC thing. Stray thoughts scribbled during viewing.

So here’s my 30-second Zack Snyder thing. I loved Watchmen. I enjoyed and appreciated 300. I’ve had problems with all of the DCEU stuff he’s done that I’ve seen because it’s been relentlessly grim — or, when hopeful, it’s been about hope in a sea of grimness and human frailty. Administered with a bunch of (truly beautiful) explosions.

I would rather not watch a DCEU that Zack Snyder was running. That’s an aesthetic choice, not a moral judgment.

I’m also of the opinion that an activist core of Snyder fans (in the most fanatical meaning of the term) did more to bring down the DCEU than either Snyder or people who had creative visions different from Snyder.

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the movie?

¶ The whole thing sets up life-as-struggle, starting with Lara-El suffering through the first childbirth in centuries on Krypton, alongside her husband, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Action Scientist!

(To be fair, Russell Crowe makes for a great Action Scientist. It’s just that Superman’s origin tale is usually more talky-shouty than punchy-kicky.)

The presentation of Krypton and Kal’s origin is nicely re-imagined, with some new bits to add to the standard narrative.

¶ “He’ll be a god to him.” The movie tees up its conflict of Clark-as-alien-monster vs Clark-as-Christ vs Clark-as-human early. And often.

¶ Kevin Costner does a decent job as a Jonathan Kent who is … a man driven by fear, but love, but fear. Scared for his kid (based on how bad humanity is), to the point of being willing to sacrifice his own life to keep his son’s identity from being exposed.

This was a red flag for me. Jonathan Kent should be inspirational. What he’s inspiring here is Clark staying in the closet.

¶ Trademark Snyder serious HDR-level contrast, with dimmed/tinted light, deep shadow, and suppressed color.

¶ I mean, bottom line, this movie is like a Superman story, but one framed to be sad, depressing, cynical, and unhappy. Yes, it all ends (mostly) well. The accusations that Zack Snyder doesn’t believe in super-heroes is wrong. But he also doesn’t love myth, and wants to complicate every tale with shadows and disappointment and flaws and cynicism and fear.

This is an Elseworlds tale of Clark Kent’s life as a tragedy.

¶ Clark is meant to be a force for good. But here he’s been raised in isolation, alone, fearful. He spends the first part of the movie as much in hiding as anything else. His dad really did a number on him.

Man of Steel - Henry Cavill — Henry Cavill as Superman

¶ Given the film, Cavil really does a hell of a job. Big bravo there.

¶ And, for what it’s worth, the movie is beautifully crafted. The visualizations, the FX, all of it is done with a dear love for portraying the worlds that are encompassed. Big bravos there, too.

¶ “If the world figures out who you are, they will reject you.” Thanks, Dad.

¶ “I’m worried they’ll take you away from me.” Oh, Martha …

¶ The very powerfully visual connection between Jesus (in stained glass) and Kal-El in the pew is … a bit on the nose.

¶ Mad props to Edna Mode: the capes in this film look … dorky. It’s all so hyper-focused, high-contrast, gritty-reality feeling of a film, that someone wearing a cape (esp. when it’s not blowing in slow motion) looks goofy.

¶ The one FX shot that looked unreal: the CGI Kryptonian ship jets away from the human military defenders, blowing sand and dust in their face in a reverse shot … and nobody told the extras to flinch.

¶ Michael Shannon really does a fine job as Zod. He’s a bad guy, clearly, but he very much fits that “Everyone is a hero in their own head” mold, and his speech about being existentially, genetically tasked to protect Krypton, and how that’s now been taken from him, is beautifully done (and beautifully chilling).

But why, WHY, if we have Zod, do we not have as the female and big male Kryptonians who get into prominent duke-outs, Ursa and Non. WHY?

¶ While the movie is criticized (not without justification) for the Disaster Porn of the Kryptonian attack and the El/Zod fight in Metropolis, it’s worth noting that it’s the US military that fires the first cityscape-destroying shot in Smallville.

¶ Best human touch of the film: MAGNETIC PHOTO ALBUMS from the Kent farm for the win.

¶ With all due respect to the Daily Planet, I’ve visited New York City: nobody has a vista that shows everything going on in the city like the offices of the Planet.

¶ Nice parallel struggle between Kal El vs the World Machine and Perry White trying to save his intern.

¶ As mentioned above, Disaster Porn. The visual destruction and implied multi-thousand body count in Metropolis is beautifully crafted, fits with the story, and is very, very real, except for the lack of bodies and the weeks of sifting the rubble to find them.

¶ Sorry. Spidey failing to save Gwen has made me very sensitive to the physics and physiological impact of Superman rescuing a lot of people laterally at super-sonic speed.

¶ “They say it’s all down-hill after the first kiss.” This move is, if not actually deeply cynical, set in a deeply cynical world. Also, after the mass destruction, Clark smooching Lois just calls to mind Niven’s classic essay, “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.”

¶ Superman kills Zod. That was the breaking point for a lot of people, and with reason. It violates the mythic role of Superman. The point of which is not that Superman would never kill anyone, but that no writer would ever put Superman in a position that to kill someone is the only solution.

Yes, yes, we want “impact.” We want this to be burned indelibly into Clark’s mind as the most horrible moment of his life (the mass casualties around him notwithstanding). Which might make more sense if we got him moping around with guilt for the rest of this and the next few movies he was in. Except that doesn’t happen, so … I guess it wasn’t the most horrible moment in his life.

¶ After all that disaster porn, plus some murder, the denouement moment with the US military feels … unjustifiably glib and light-hearted.

Net-net, a thoughtfully and beautifully crafted film that fails to satisfy me because I simply don’t accept the tone, the message, the forced narrative. “Man of Steel” is a gorgeous diamond with deep, value-draining flaws.

Do you want to know more?

An earlier version of this review appeared on LetterBoxd.
My review from my first viewing is also on LetterBoxd.
Man of Steel (2013) – IMDb
Man of Steel (film) – Wikipedia

DCEU Rewatch

A last look before the DCEU goes off to the recycle bin of movie history

To be fair, I’ve never been a big fan of DC’s movie-driven logo, either.

UPDATES BELOW

Given it’s slow, tottering, if self-inflicted, demise, and with a fresh DC Universe coming on line (which I face with both anticipation and dread), I thought I would take the opportunity while my wife is away this week to watch (in a few cases rewatch) the DCEU.

I’ll kick that off by asking, once again, what the heck this is:

While the initial appearance of a standard DCEU intro clip for all its movies got me excited peering at the fuzzy images in the final tableau to figure out who they were, I very quickly got kind of ticked off that they weren’t actually making use of the characters in the form they were making movies of them.

That’s not Henry Cavill as Superman. That’s certainly not Superman’s suit. (What is with those gauntlets, people?) That’s definitely not Jason Momoa’s Aquaman. Nor is it Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern (own it, DC!).

DC Films Intro - Aquaman — This is, in fact, your father’s Aquaman.

Now, obviously, they are meant to be generic versions of these super-heroes, perhaps alluding to DC’s rumored liberality with how their characters are visually represented in comics. But why introduce an Aquaman movie — heck, an Aquaman sequel movie — with an image of Aquaman that doesn’t align with the movie the audience is about to see? Especially when only a small percent of that audience has ever seen or read the comic book version of Aquaman?

Branding, people! That’s why you have this universe in the first place!

(Marvel, for all its sins, understands this. It’s studio intro is, itself, too long, but there’s never any doubt that it’s focused on the MCU, complete with scripts, and, more brilliantly, it evolves with time as new movies come out.)

Anyway, with that off my chest for likely the last time, on with the movies!

Update!

And, eleven movie (re)watches later, I am done.

Here’s an index to the reviews here on the blog, linked to the individual entries. Due to time constraints, I did not rewatch Aquaman (2018) or the first Shazam! (2019); I have included links to my previos Letterboxd review to them.

Bolded movies are ones I had not seen before.

Movie	Year	Acting	Production	Story	OVERALL	♥️
Man of Steel	2013	3.0	4.0	2.0	3.5
Batman v Superman: DoJ	2016	3.0	3.0	1.0	2.5
Suicide Squad	2016	2.0	2.0	1.0	2.0
Wonder Woman	2017	4.0	4.5	4.0	4.5	♥️
Justice League	2017	3.0	3.0	2.5	3.0
*Zack Snyder’s Justice League**	2021	3.5	4.0	3.0	3.5
Aquaman**	2018	–	–	–	3.0	♥️
Shazam!**	2019	–	–	–	3.0
Birds of Prey: … Harley Quinn	2020	3.0	3.0	2.5	3.0	♥️
*Wonder Woman 1984*	2020	3.0	3.0	1.5	2.5
*The Suicide Squad*	2021	3.5	4.0	4.0	4.0	♥️
*Black Adam*	2022	3.0	3.5	3.5	3.5
*Shazam! Fury of the Gods*	2023	2.5	3.0	3.0	3.0

* 4-hour event; ** Did not rewatch; numbers from previous viewing

Do I have any conclusions from all this?

¶ The above judgments are my own; your mileage almost certainly varies.

It is ironic (and wholly unintended) that the top two and bottom two are Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad films.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed some movies I hadn’t seen before, and also by how much I disliked some of the movies I hadn’t seen before.

¶ The DCEU ultimately failed because there wasn’t a strong leader guiding the creative and meta-creative process, creating an actual shared world, analogous to a Kevin Feige on the Marvel side of things. They had Zack Snyder, who wanted that role, and de facto sort of held it (but never officially, in WB’s eyes), but whose vision was not shared by a majority of the viewing audience (just a very vocal and dedicated fraction of it).

As a result, the DCEU became more about creative wrangling, toxic fandom, and nameless suits in the studio trying to micromanage creativity in the worst possible way: as a reaction to the previous film released, not in pursuit of a coherent narrative. “Order, counter-order, disorder” became the DCEU way, and the desire to create movies people would want to watch was thrown overboard in trying to avoid more losses.

¶ Executive turnover at WB didn’t help things any. Some of these movies went through three different regimes at the studio, each with its own priority, budgeting, and desire to tinker. Creativity and good movie-making is not improved by all that.

¶ The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic — in terms of delaying movies, delaying the release date of movies (surely the plague will be over then and people will want to go out to the movies!), and the mish-mosh of theatrical and streaming releases certainly hurt any creative momentum and net profits.

¶ Ironically, just as I do my (re)watch, one of the ultimate DCEU films is finally dropping into theaters, Blue Beetle, and its predecessor, the much lambasted The Flash, falls into streaming in a week. Aquaman 2, assuming it is ever released and isn’t simply written off for taxes by WB, comes out later this year.

Ah, well, grist for future viewings.

Movie Review: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (2023)

A more-than-worthy successor to the first film, full of fun, drama, and spectacle.

I won’t talk specifics, but this is a sequel that is at least an equal of the first film, possibly its superior.

By having a commitment to a third film, the creative team could lean into richness of characterization, and creating a cast with depth and texture. Presumably the production was all of a continuum (the third film comes out next year), and that allowed some powerful development to be teed up and fulfilled.

Visually, the film is stunning, playing with color, texture, medium, style, focus and orientation. The animation is amazing in its variety and quality, truly cinematic in everything from quiet dialogue scenes to crazy four-dimensional action sequences.

Writing-wise, the story arguably more complex than Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — again, leaning into having two films to follow up from that first film. But the through-lines are strong — growth, autonomy, destiny, truth, lies, identity. All the primary characters (and there are several) face challenges and conflicts, sometimes with each other. The dive into Spider-Man lore and creating a meta-narrative out of is brilliant.

At the same time, as serious as things get (and they do get damned serious), there is also a tremendous amount of fun, playing with a vast array of Spider-folk (many from canon, many invented for the purpose), as well as others people and places. That contrast between fun and wonder and gut-wrenching drama makes this a pretty special movie, even without its merits as animation or as a super-hero tale.

The music isn’t necessarily my personal cuppa, but it works with the imagery and the action. The voice talent, as with the first film, is top-notch.

All in all, I couldn’t ask for anything better, other than that “To Be Continued” at the end.

This review first appeared, in an earlier form, on Dropbox.

Movie Review: “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” (2023)

As a D&D player, I had a lot of fun. But this was not a great movie.

I’d heard that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was a brilliant homage to the classic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, full of easter eggs and fun and great action and lovely bits and bobs.

I’d also heard that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was a scattershot fantasy action that had some nice minutes but awful quarter-hours, with an incoherent plot, poorly sketched characters, and little for a non-player of the game to latch onto.

Which have I learned is the truth here?

Yes.

For someone who’s been immersed in D&D since the early 80s, D&DHAT is so steeped in lore and in-jokes and setting that it all begins to precipitate out like a passing, meaningless shot of rust monsters arguing over a scrap of metal. From funny spells to dire threats to factions to cities to name-drops of famous figures throughout the history of Faerun, D&DHAT tries to out-LotR LotR in its eye to detail and endless, endless fan service.

And, heck, I’d love to make it a table requirement that every player in a new game of mine watch that movie as a means of setting tone for the sort of game I want to run.

At the same time, desperately taking a step or three back, the movie is something of a narrative mess, from flashing back in sometimes confusing fashion, to throwing new obstacles and perils in just because they are cool, not because they are needed or pay off. Things happen, jokes are japed, battles ensue, banter is banted, the heroes win by the skin of their teeth, and we move on without any meaningful consideration of what it all meant. In a very real way, that’s the worst part of D&D, an endless series of Random Encounter Table rolls, with only the most threadbare plot to go with.

Alongside that threadbare plot are characters whom we root for because they are the characters we are clearly meant to root for, and who have backstories that, with maybe one exception, are simply sketched in, hand-waved, and thrown into the action. It’s less the stereotypical “Let me share with you my novella about my character’s origins (the index is on the last five pages)” and more a Pick-Up Group’s depth.

Even the main character — Chris Pine’s Edgin — who gets more backstory time than all the other characters combined, is such a fast-talking nobody that all the dramatic beats that the movie pretends to provide — love, loss, self-sacrifice, parenting, oath-breaking, regret, redemption — feel rushed and shallow in order to get to the next incredibly geeky-cool action moment.

The acting is all fine for the roles (one of these days, Hugh Grant is going to wake up and realize he’s been a laundry list of character actors over the decades), the SFX are quite good, the attention to lore is astounding (see your reviewer squealing “OMG IT’S GRASSY FIELDS OF THE DESSARIN VALLEY!!!!!”), and I had a tremendous amount of fun watching it. The Rotten Tomatoes scores for critics and viewers were both highly respectable.

But this is not a great movie. This is not even a great fantasy movie (compared to, say the Lord of the Rings trilogy — indeed, one might easily argue it’s a bit more The Hobbit trilogy in tone and content). I enjoyed it, and it’s arguably the best D&D movie I’ve watched since Conan the Destroyer (1982). But the folk who were surprised that it didn’t do better in theaters shouldn’t be: I strongly expect that, were I not someone steeped in D&D myself, I’d not be nearly as likely to have watched it, nor to want to watch it again.

Do you want to know more?

“Trees Can’t Run!”

A random, yet gobsmacking, book encounter

I collect and research quotations, to a degree that some might deem obsessive. The fruits of my amateur labor are stashed at my Wish I’d Said That (wist.info) website.

The other day I was doing a deep dive into quotations by Judith Martin, a one-time journalist who shifted into a columnist and bookwriting career as “Miss Manners.” Martin’s etiquette work is witty, thought-provoking, grounded, and delightful to read.

I’d pulled together a (large) number of quotations by her, grouped by books she’d written, and decided to find URLs to those books online so that I could provided proper, linked citations for them. A quote without citation is nearly useless; a citation without a link to prove it exists is merely problematic.

While I’m a longtime fan of Google Books, I’ve of late become an even bigger fan, as a researcher, of the Internet Archive. Among its many other invaluable resources, its online collection of scanned eBooks is invaluable in finding or confirming the existence of quoted text, in a way that access to the biggest research library would find challenging.

So I searched at IA for books by “Martin, Judith,”, and amidst the various Miss Manners books (and books by other people with that name), I ran across a volume that made me do a double-take:

The Tree Angel — An oddly familiar cover

Huh, I said, looking at it. That reminds me of a play I was in back in … 2nd grade, I think.

And it was, in fact, my stage debut. Not that I have an extensive theater career, but I did a lot of plays in school, and in college, and even a couple of things since then, and this, this reminded me of that very first play.

I didn’t remember the title, but I remembered cardboard cutout trees that looked like that.

And I opened the book — and, by golly, this was in fact the book (and script) for that play. The Tree Angel, published in 1962.

It’s a frothy bit of children’s theater silliness, about a trio of trees chopped down by a woodcutter, rescued by an angel who gives them legs, letting them out-run the woodcutter who comes back to drag them off.

While written for three kids (as trees) and a couple more as the angel and woodcutter (which can actually be performed by a single person), it can also be expanded to fit a full class, with three speaking trees, a bunch of relatively silent trees, and (in the case of Mrs. Bogosian’s class) two woodcutters.

I was Woodcutter #2. And I had one line. And here it is, as illustrated by Remy Charlip:

“Trees can’t run!”

Of such lines are great theater careers made. Or not, but it stuck with me all these years, so we’ll say great memories of theater careers, instead.

We woodcutters didn’t have actual axes, of course, but painted, corrugated cardboard cutouts (I had the green-handled axe, much less exciting than the red-handled axe, but I was, after all, only Woodcutter #2.)

Fortunately, given the fragility of corrugated cardboard, and the propensity of 2nd grade boys to want to chop at things with a prop like that, it was a one-night show, suitable for parents. I have to wonder if there are pictures lurking in my Mom’s photo albums somewhere.

As it turns out, the author of the play was not Judith “Miss Manners” Martin, but a child theater artist named Judith Martin who passed away a decade ago. She co-founded the Paper Bag Theater in 1960, focused on contemporary theater for children using everyday themes and props. It looks like she had a marvelous career.

I was a bit disappointed to learn in the end that a seminal literary and theatrical experience for me wasn’t actually crafted by “Miss Manners,” providing some sort of subliminal influence over me all these years — but it was still amazing running across the book unexpectedly, and the backpaths of memory it took me along.

Do You Want To Know More?

Movie trailers before “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3”

Because the trailers are sometimes half the fun. (Though the movie was definitely a lot of fun.)

Trailers that were showing before our Friday-of-opening-weekend showing of GotG3.

Elemental – A charming-looking Disney film about anthropomorphic figures who live in a fascinating city and society that resembles our own, but cunningly adapted to the traits of its denizens, who must learn to live in harmony and perhaps, even, love. Which, if it sounds a lot like Zootopia, that’s the reaction I have every time I see the trailer, which is cute, but not enough to really motivate me.
The Flash – You might be confused if you thought this was a Batman movie at first. Or … multiple Batmans. Batmen. Or maybe Superman, er, Superwoman. Fighting Zod. Oh, yeah, the Flash is in there, too, and supposedly it’s his movie. Oh, and there’s a bunch of Flashpoint stuff in here, too, the series that really screwed up the DCU and the Flash, and which Warner Bros. hopes will unscrew-up the DCEU, or whatever they are calling their movies these days. Also, Flashpoint was done on the Flash TV series, and a number of DC animated movies, and can we please move on from this storyline? Unlikely to go to this, even without considering the Ezra Miller drama.
Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – I’m not sure who thought the idea of a HG prequel was a good one, and whether they are any more clueless than whoever thought this was a title that would attract an audience. This is the movie I am least likely to see this year.
Fast X – If this were a series I watched, I would probably be highly interested in it. As it is not, I am not. At all.
Dune, Part 2 – I have heard plenty of admiring things about the first one, except that it all seemed to be a setup for the second one. So maybe once the dust settles on the second one, I’ll do a Dune-a-thon weekend with the two new movies, the classic Lynch, and the Syfy mini-series. Or maybe not.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – I am seriously jonesing (ha!) to see this. Yes, I was burned by the The Kingdom of the Glass Skull (which, to be fair, had a much better title than this one), but the Indy series is clearly in a “odd movies good, even movies bad” cycle, so we should be due for a final hit.
The Marvels – The most predictable trailer for the set (hello, MCU!), but, y’know, I am so there for this. I like the three title characters, I like the quantum entanglement that gives them an immediate problem to resolve, and I like that we don’t know much more than that right now. Plus I want this to succeed to spite the fanboiz who hate these three characters for a variety of disturbing reasons.

So … 2 out of 7. Not great, but not all that bad.

Movie Review: “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3” (2023)

(NO SPOILERS) A fun, frenetic, somewhat frightening finish to the GotG saga.

The Series in Review

GotG 1 was about a band of misfits thrown together by chance to form a family. There was humor, and there was banter, and there was some crazy space stuff, and there were some dark moments, too, but it was a great intro.

GotG 2 was about challenging that family, re-defining it, expanding it. But it was also about cranking up the already-high level of humor to 12, and going bananas with the special effects. It had some serious threads, too (salute to Yondu), but it was overall pretty frothy.

(Insert a few other appearances here and there — holiday specials, cameos in other MCU movies, and so forth. Fun, but relatively shallow, leaning into the tropes, music, the mayhem, and the humor. )

GotG 3 … brings us back to the first installment in a good blend of tone. It’s dark in a lot of places, especially toward the beginning, to the point of being sort of even grim in tone. I would hesitate to bring a kid to this one, and people sensitive to body horror should probably steer clear.

Repeating that note: this is NOT kid-friendly.

The violence, suffering, and (I’ll use the word with consideration) atrocities that are shown or hinted at, and the level of (cartoon) violence in some of the battles, are very intense for an MCU film.

But it’s not gratuitously not-kid-friendly

A lot of the more gut-wrenching stuff is setting the stakes, teeing up the villain and one of our hero’s reactions toward him. That ties into a theme here: paying off past outstanding threads, some going all the way back to the beginning of Vol. 1 (Quill’s flight from his Earth family, and the tight-lipped secrets of Rocket’s origins), others being shaped neatly for the other characters.

It’s not always comfortable to watch, but it serves the narrative.

By the end, after trial, travail, confronting old ghosts and getting ready to confront new ones, we reach a satisfying set of reasons as to why this is the final volume of the Guardians, at least as we know them. Stories are wrapped up — or, if not wrapped up, set on new courses, some of which we may never see, others of which … who knows?

Heroes need a villain

The MCU hasn’t always done well with villains, and GotG as a series is an example of that. Vol. 1’s Ronan (Lee Pace) was a grim non-entity (and a lackey at that). Vol. 2’s Ego was, with the rest of the movie, equal parts humor and jerk.

The main heavy here is (I doubt this is a spoiler) the High Evolutionary, a self-created mad genius of great power and greater ambition to produce perfection in living things. What that looks like, what he’s willing to do, re-do, discard, try again, etc., makes him in his own way a deeper, darker adversary than your Thanos or your Ultron (or Ego, for that matter), perhaps because in some ways his motivation reverberates off of too many of humanity’s own darker moments.

But it also tees up a bunch of Marvel backstory fun, including places and groups that the High Evolutionary of the comics is associated with (i.e., Easter Eggs a-plenty here). The HE of Marvel Comics has always been a mix as a villain — very much the “everyone is a hero of his own story” and more of a bad guy because of his dispassionate pursuit of perfection than because of twirling mustachios. The HE here (Chukwudi Iwuji) plays up the zeal and ego a lot more, and it works pretty darned well.

Indeed, all the actors play their roles well, in parts great and small. There are no real weak links in this ensemble. And I have to give a big shout-out to Bradley Cooper, whose voice work for Rocket is a key to so much here, and carries so much of the (superbly animated) character.

The Special Effects

Fun and detailed and much more transparent, in many ways, than in Vol. 1 and 2. Practical, makeup (a world record in prosthetics), and CGI all blend together delightfully and such that I really stopped noticing it, even with creatures and characters that were a mixture or were all-CG.

We watched in the theater in 2D. There was stuff that I’m sure was very cool in 3D, but it wasn’t necessary to pay the extra money or headache.

The Music

The film score was done by John Murphy, replacing Tyler Bates from Vol. 1-2. The ever-present pop songs seem to have trended a bit more modern (though there are still some good rock classics in there).

Openings and Closings

The Marvel Studios opening sequence is a tribute to the GotG, rather than the current standard. It’s nicely done.

There are two credits scenes, at the usual spots. Both are worth watching for their own reasons (esp. since the credits themselves are a nicely done scrap book of photos — from the movies and not — of the characters we’ve come to know and love over the series.

A few minor bits of glee

1. After getting just a passing glimpse in the Collector’s collection, I am so glad to see Cosmo the Space Dog getting some decent screen time.

2. Rocket learning his secret origin — not just the origin that he remembered but never wanted to talk about (and with reason), but the origin behind that — was delightful, esp. in its payoff.

A few minor quibbles

1. I’ve follow Adam Warlock’s career from the beginning (as the cosmic “HIM”) to his Roy Thomas Counter-Earth Christ-figure days, to becoming another Jim Starlin cosmically wise / clever / menacing type. Will Poulter’s rendition here is pretty much nothing like any of those, which is kind of a pity — but the character does line up well both with his Vol. 2 origins and with the general theme of the Guardians.

2. I love the Guardians comic-style uniforms, and to the extent that they have been trying to be an organized force to protect the galaxy, sure, makes sense. That said, they do seem to come out of nowhere during the film.

Overall

I was a bit worried about Vol. 3 continuing the trends from Vol. 2 (make it louder! make it funnier! make it more psychodelic!), but James Gunn has made a movie that is both a great wrap for the saga, send-off for our characters, and a good film in its own right. Bravo.

Do you want to know more?

(A draft of this review was posted to Letterboxd.)

Movie trailers seen before “Quantumania”

Time for another review of movie adverts at the movies

So, what sorts of movies do Big Media think will attract possible customers who are there for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania? Here are the trailers we saw this evening:

Super Mario Bros.: The Movie — This just looks plain silly, but neatly crafted in its silliness. A moderate chance we’ll see it when it comes out (if my son has any say in the matter).
Air — (a) Who would have thought that the decision of a struggling Nike shoe company to back untried rookie Michael Jordan would lead to so much money being made? (b) Who wants to see a movie about it? (c) So, which is a bigger number, (a) or (b)? (d) Who cares?
John Wick 4 — I saw the first JW film and decided that, while it was fun, it was about all the John Wick I needed for a lifetime.
Flash — I’m more and more convinced that the only reasons this movie is finally being released are (1) it’s already complete and probably fully depreciated by WB, and (2) James Gunn is too much of a geek to miss the chance to provide a canonical excuse for the DCEU timeline being changed. I have no interest in seeing this in the theaters, but I might stream it some time.
Fast & Furious 10 — I’m sure the trailer will excite F&F enthusiasts. I just see a franchise that’s both winding down and is becoming its own self-referential parody.
Elemental — A new Disney/Pixar flick about a world just like ours, except everyone is made of earth, air, water, and fire. Amusing hi-jinx and a heart-warming forbidden love ensue. Um … for whatever reason this just didn’t do it for me.
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 — This trailer has been out for a little bit, but it’s nice to see on the big screen. Another sub-franchise winding down to an exit (along with its writer-director), and I am very interested in how it turns out.

We also saw two different segments in the pre-show and an ad during the trailers tied into Creed 3, which I have utterly no interest in.

There was also some pre-show chatter for Shazam 2, which I would be a bit more interested in if they had actually pulled in some of ~~Capt. Marvel’s~~ Shazam’s classic villains for, rather than … “the Daughters of Atlas”? Which, even with Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren, doesn’t get me excited.

So, net-net, only one real win for me (GotG 3), though some mild interest in a couple of others.

Movie Review: “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (2023)

The final installment of the Ant-Man franchise is flawed but fun

An earlier version of this review appeared on Letterboxd.

A few spoilers, but nothing too serious.

+ ♥

Ant-Man and the Wasp - Quantumania poster — My favorite poster of the bunch

So here’s the bad news: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (AMWQ) is not one of the best Marvel movies of all time.

But, and unlike the early press and folk who are beginning to enjoy piling on Marvel, it is not one of the worse.

Instead, it falls pretty square in the middle: entertaining without influencing the genre; pretty but sometimes too in love with its own prettiness; some humor that works, some that doesn’t quite; too much of some things, too little of others; decent integration with the MCU; a great villain but too many faceless mooks getting killed; some nice personality moments but a rocky plot; etc.

If I had to compare it, I’d say Guardians of the Galaxy 2, or Shang-Chi, or maybe Captain Marvel. Good, not great. But not bad.

Plot

So take first a reminder that the Ant-Man franchise has always been — well, not lighter, but not pompous or overly serious. Drama occurs, but plenty of humorous moments, too. AMWQ doesn’t balance this quite as neatly as the earlier two installments, but it has its moments, and it helps explain why the aside vignettes during action scenes feel to me like they largely work here, where they would have to be a lot fewer and shorter in a more conventional MCU film.

There’s a lot going on in this film: The Lang/Pym extended family is five all by itself, and that doesn’t account for a ton of secondary players, a major villain with lots of backstory, a significant side villain, multiple rescue missions and guilt trips, a big battle, and a gorgeous world to explore.

There’s about 15% too much stuff here, which ends up somewhat short-changing some of the characters and some of the “family matters” arc that it starts out with. As it stands, there are some occurrences in the film that seem to reference stuff that isn’t there in the release any more. It makes matters a bit rocky in places when you try to catch a breath and consider what’s going on.

Further, from a suspension-of-disbelief stance, there are odd scaling issues. Kang has amassed a massive army, sure, but nothing he could actually conquer the universe with, given his opposition (and, well, the sheer size of the universe). Conversely, it does seem like he has an army in at least the hundreds of thousands, given the size of his fortress complex — and there’s no indication that the doughty refugee / rebel alliance has anywhere near the numbers to take that on, even with the assistance they receive. Kang’s forces are simultaneously too small and too large to be believable (ironic in a tale of super-heroes who shrink or grow huge).

In short, the plotline for AMWQ does not hold up under close scrutiny any more than the physics and biology do. Just go with the flow.

Acting

The main players all do a decent job amidst the flurry. Michael Douglas feels a bit more relaxed, having gotten all the shoutiness out of his system in the previous two films. Michelle Pfeiffer makes up for it by being positively grim and driven. Paul Rudd is his normal amiable self, still the grounded, sane guy amidst a bunch of zanies (though, sadly, we get no more of his San Francisco buddies). He’s become a bit more of a parent/worry-wart than before, but it feels in character.

Kathryn Newton, taking over as Scott’s daughter Cassie, fills the role well, and the movie provides support for what one hopes will be an eventual Young Avengers movie. Evangeline Lilly gets something of the short end of the stick here — she’s present, and she does stuff, but her character arc is pretty flat.

Everyone is express rave reviews for Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror, and they are well-deserved. Majors plays the alternately world-weary, egomaniacal, manipulative, and frustrated-beyond-all-understanding super-villain in a way that makes him a top-tier MCU antagonist. He picks up and seamlessly expands on the multiversal metaplot of the MCU from his variant in the first season of “Loki” without dropping a beat. Majors makes us mostly hate, kind of fear, but also occasionally sympathize with Kang, no easy feat.

I applaud the job he’s done here. He’s a great catch for Marvel, and a great lynchpin for the whole “Kang Legacy” focus of the upcoming MCU phase(s).

Beyond all that, there are, as you may have heard, some unexpected cameos. They worked well, even the one I most worried about.

Production

AMWQ is visually stunning, and that’s almost a problem. The early time in the Quantum Realm harkened back strongly to Disney’s unjustly lambasted Strange World, only a lot more photo-realistic and, therefore, a lot more distracting. When everything looks amazing, nothing looks amazing, if you will.

But besides that, the imagination and execution of the alien wonders of the Quantum Realm (and a coherent look for the dark blot that is Kang’s presence) are impeccably done, as are the shrinking/growing being done by Team Lang/Pym.

A nit to pick: everyone who had one of those quick-deploy helmets (Scott, Hope, Cassie, Kang, and MODOK) spends way too much time with it off when it should just stay on (complete with zippy deployment / undeployment). Yes, I realize that’s a conscious decision to let the actors’ faces be visible to emote but the masks on to more easily stunt / CG the action, and perhaps it was even the right decision, but it also happened with such frequency as to create a distraction.

Comic Bookiness

Most of the focus here has to go on Kang, whose costuming and make-up are as exquisite as Jonathan Majors’ portrayal. The only thing missing are his gigantic inter-changeable super-future-guns.

Tip of the hat to the renditions of other Kang-related characters, recast into the framework of the MCU from their original form.

Another tip to the way the MCU has pulled in elements of Marvel’s Microverse to make its Quantum Realm, both conceptually and in the form of characters like Jantorra.

The MODOK character looked pretty cool, though almost entirely divorced, besides his final appearance, from the comic book version in identity and personality. Still, it was a better revision than, say, “Black Widow”‘s Taskmaster, and infinitely superior to choosing a near-nameless mook to be the obligatory lieutenant / hatchet man.

In Sum

I’ve no regrets springing for movie tickets. I’m not sure if it’s in 3-D anywhere; 2-D was just fine.

There are the standard mid-credits and post-credit scenes. They are worth staying for, just for their MCU tie-ins.

The headlines for early reviews of the movie have been brutal, but if you look at them carefully, they are largely coming from critics who think anything superheroic of coming from Disney/Marvel is commercial hackery from the get-go, and are therefore happy to point out every cinematic flaw in detail without going into the basic popcorn enjoyment of the thing.

For viewer ratings, we’re getting a grade of “B,” which isn’t a sign to me of “Marvel fatigue” or the demise of super-hero films, but of the end of the amazing 15-year cinematic honeymoon the public has had with the MCU. A “B” is an accurate, but quite respectable grade. That this is somehow a wildly embarrassing flop seems greatly exaggerated.

I enjoyed going to AMWQ. I expect I will this film again at home. ‘Nuff said.

Would you like to know more?

TIL: “Ant-Man” is in the middle of the word QuANTuMANia. Huh.

The Unbearable GOPness of Being Earl

Earl is the recipient of more GOP awards than you can imagine. Also, he’s a deadbeat.

Some time in the shadows of the past … the Republican Party decided I was Earl.

I am not, in fact, Earl. But, based on my mobile phone number, receiving texts, they think I am. Oddly enough, they also think I live in the ZIP code where I work.

After a week or two of getting 5-6 texts a day, I set the texting number to spam, so it didn’t show up in my notifications … but it continued to download, and when I upgraded my phone, the spam setting got lost, meaning I was subject to a flood of Earl texts.

Looking at them this time around, they’re actually kind of fascinating. Yes, I have gotten enough Democratic Party texts to realize that this is not just a GOP thang. But on reviewing them in bulk, a few fascinating trends still stand out:

MONEY. The important thing is getting money. Not swaying Earl to particular partisan positions, or rooting for (or against) particular people, but getting Earl to send the GOP … MONEY.
But, for the most part, that’s not done by appealing to Earl as a recruit in ideological beliefs. It’s done by making Earl part of the team … the few … the chosen … the elite.
There’s lots of urgency, though. Earl must donate right now or else he, and the country, but most importantly he, will lose something important.
There’s a fair amount of shaming that goes on. When Earl doesn’t answer the call, the disappointment, the sadness, the bewildered loss, is palpable.
On the other hand, there’s plenty of carrot to go with the shaming stick. No matter what Earl does (or, in this case, doesn’t) donate, the GOP is always willing to honor him for purported past glory and as someone really important to the cause.

In short, it’s a campaign very little about politics, and very much about tribes, and the shame of not supporting the tribe, or the righteous and acknowledged joy of doing so.

Bear in mind, Earl’s texts have been coming to my phone for months, 4-5 times a day. Unless he’s giving through other paths, he hasn’t been a Loyal, Stalwart Supporter from this firehose. But the algorithm throws out carrots and sticks regardless of what Earl does. Earl is just a cog in the Great Money Machine that is the Republican Base.

Here is the saga of Earl over the course of January, with links and other identifying markers (except the name!) scrubbed.

Ronna McDaniel: Happy New Year from everyone at the Republican National Committee!
May 2023 be a year filled with blessings & good fortune.

One of a passing few messages without a link to send money.

You’ve been given a 30 MINUTE EXTENSION to activate your 5000% IMPACT INCREASE! What are you waiting for?? CLAIM: (link)

Only 30 minutes more to give money? Noooooo!

Guess what Earl?? YOU WON! Accept your Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase NOW >> (link)

Wow! A Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase! I’ve always wanted to make an impact …

In recognition of all you’ve done for the GOP, please accept this GOP Golden Elephant! It even comes with a 300% IMPACT INCREASE: (link)

Oh, no! I lost my 5000% impact increase. Oh, wait, three hours later …

Your 5000% IMPACT INCREASE was just extended. Claim it NOW & help CRUSH our Extended End-of-Year Goal! Act NOW >> (link)

You’ve been granted access to our 2023 Platform Audit before almost ANY OTHER PATRIOT. Make your voice HEARD >> (link)

I guarantee that, after I audit the platform, the party will ask me for money.

Earl, YOU’VE BEEN UPGRADED! To confirm your Republican Diamond Club Status, press HERE >> (link)

Republican Diamond Status! Wow! I wonder what it takes to actually confirm that …?

Guess what Earl?? YOU WON! Accept your Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase NOW >> (link)

Again?

We CRUSHED our End-of-Year fundraising goal! To show our gratitude, we’ve EXTENDED your 5000% IMPACT until MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. ACT: (link)

Hey, I’m back to 5000% Impact!

OFFER EXTENDED! There’s still time to claim your 5000% impact increase & help CRUSH our Extended End-of-Year Goal. Act: (link)

INFORMATION REQUESTED: Your response to the Republican Verification Canvass will represent the ENTIRE (ZIPcode) area! Answer: (link)

I find it interesting that the GOP thinks I (Earl) live in the ZIP code of where my office is. It is, indeed, a fairly high-income and likely Republican population. Which makes it a bit weird that I (Earl) will get to represent the entire ZIP code’s population in myh answers to the Republican Verification Caucus.

Republican leaders have selected YOU for our Lifetime Achievement Award! Your award even comes with a 250% INCREASE! 1 HR to ACCEPT: (link)

Only one hour! Eek!

You’ve been given a 30 MINUTE EXTENSION to activate your 5000% IMPACT INCREASE! What are you waiting for?? CLAIM: (link)

Wait, that’s a bigger impact, but a different time of increase, but it isn’t part of a Lifetime Achievement Award. I feel so confused!

DON’T MISS OUT! We need YOU to take the Presidential Preference Poll & help select our NEXT Republican Presidential nominee. ACT >> (link)

Are you suggesting that the national party actually selects the candidate, not the state primaries and caucuses? Weird!

EXTENDED OFFER: Claim 5000% IMPACT on ALL contributions to prepare the Republican Party for 2023! DEADLINE: MIDNIGHT >> (link)

My 5000% is back! But with a new, even closer deadline!

In recognition of all you’ve done for the GOP, please accept this GOP Golden Elephant! It even comes with a 300% IMPACT INCREASE: (link)

Another GOP Golden Elephant? Or is this the same one? Is it 300% of 5000%, or is this a different offer? It’s all coming too fast (or too slowly, every 3 hours or so).

Your 5000% IMPACT INCREASE was just extended. Claim it NOW & help CRUSH our Extended End-of-Year Goal! Act NOW >> (link)

FINAL REMINDER
Your Republican Advisory Board offer will be REVOKED unless you ACT >> (link)

Oh, no! I will be thrown out of the tribe!

You won! The GOP selected you to receive a 5000%-IMPACT extension! We only give out a few per month! Active for 30 MIN. CLAIM PRIZE: (link)

I feel very special. One of the very few to get that 5000% Impact Extension Prizes!

CHOSEN, Earl. The Republican Party chose you for a personal 5000%-IMPACT Extension. Are you going to claim it? Donate NOW: (link)

At last, an actual call to Donate.

We trust that YOUR opinions represent the ENTIRE (ZIP code) area! Take the 2023 Republican Platform Audit NOW >> (link)

I suspect MY opinions, in fact, do not.

ATTENTION CANDIDATE: Complete the GOP’s Official Survey to join the Republican Advisory Board. DEADLINE: MIDNIGHT TONIGHT >> (link)

The Republican Advisory Board? I will be able to advise Republicans if I just complete an Official Survey? Wow!

You’ve been given a 30 MINUTE EXTENSION to activate your 5000% IMPACT INCREASE! What are you waiting for??
CLAIM: (link)

What, in fact, am I waiting for?

You didn’t respond to our last text. We selected the BEST PATRIOTS for a 50X-IMPACT Extension. You’re the last 1 remaining! Donate: (link)

Oh my God! Of all the BEST PATRIOTS, I am (and I am sure I can believe this) the only one who didn’t respond to that 50X (or 5000%, whichever sound more impressive) impact extension. The shame of it!

Guess what Earl?? YOU WON! Accept your Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase NOW >> (link)

But even if I didn’t give any money from this number for many, many months, I get a Lifetime Achievement ( and all-important Impact Increase) … this feels like a mixed message.

Is this still Earl’s number? You STILL haven’t told us. Who do you want to see in the White House?
Respond HERE>> (link)

Oh, no! They’re onto me!

Membership Pending: Complete the GOP’s Official Survey & secure 1 of the last remaining spots on the Republican Advisory Board. >> (link)

But I’m still being offered one of the last remaining spots!

PLEASE CONFIRM
To accept your GOP Gold Club Membership, press HERE >> (link)

ABBOTT OR BIDEN: Who do YOU think is handling the border crisis better? Tell us HERE >> (link)

Ooooh. Tough call. I’m sure that Earl would be a much more impartial observer of this than me.

You’ve been given a 30 MINUTE EXTENSION to activate your 5000% IMPACT INCREASE! What are you waiting for?? CLAIM: (link)

Take the Congressional Agenda Survey & tell us what Republicans should focus on! 1 HR.
Act NOW >> (link)

You are officially invited to join the Republican Diamond Club. Claim your membership HERE >> (link)

My cup runneth over.

This is your opportunity to provide the GOP with critical insight into YOUR AREA! Complete the 2023 Platform Audit HERE: (link)

Better late than never! Welcome Biden to the border for the FIRST time by signing our Southern Border Postcard! Add your name NOW: (link)

INFORMATION REQUESTED: Your response to the Republican Verification Canvass will represent the ENTIRE (ZIP code) area! Answer NOW: (link)

As a respected conservative leader, we need to hear from YOU. Fill out your Republican Sample Ballot NOW: (link)

Republican leaders have selected YOU for our Lifetime Achievement Award! Your award even comes with a 250% INCREASE! 1 HR to ACCEPT: (link)

Looking to make a HUGE difference for the Republican Party? Join the GOP Gold Club before your invitation EXPIRES: (link)

Audits! Post cards! Sample ballots! Lifetime Achievement Awards! Gold Club invites! Who can possibly deserve all this attention?

Is it time to end Biden’s FAILED POLICIES & secure our southern border? 1 HR to respond. Take the poll NOW >> (link)

I suspect this may not be a broadly representative poll.

Border numbers are in, and the crisis is continuing to spiral out of control! Is it time to END THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS? Vote NOW >> (link)

Gosh, if the crisis is continuing to spiral out of control … well, yeah, I guess it’s time to end the crisis.

Earl, it’s time to fill out your Republican Sample Ballot. You can do that HERE >> (link)

Guess what Earl?? YOU WON! Accept your Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase NOW >> (link)

I am, in fact, a winner! The GOP texts tell me so!

Are you awake, Earl? We chose YOU to join the Republican Advisory Board, but you FAILED to accept the spot! Hurry & claim: (link)

I feel so ashamed!

Republican leaders have selected YOU for our Lifetime Achievement Award! Your award even comes with a 250% INCREASE! 1 HR to ACCEPT: (link)

Wait, I’m down to only a 250% increase! Oh, no!

We are sending results from the Presidential Preference Poll to GOP leaders in 1 HR. Can I include your name, Earl?
Act: (link)

Wow … the GOP leaders will see my name? Wow!

This is SAD! We selected YOU to complete our 2023 Audit, but you NEVER RESPONDED. Take the Platform Audit NOW >> (link)

I feel so ashamed. The GOP doesn’t love me any more.

Earl, YOU’VE BEEN UPGRADED! To confirm your Republican Diamond Club Status, press HERE >> (link)

The GOP loves me again!

As a respected conservative leader, we need to hear from YOU. Fill out your Republican Sample Ballot NOW: (link)

That feels a bit blunt.

Is something wrong? You were SELECTED to represent the GOP in your area & never responded! Fill out your Republican sample Ballot: (link)

OMG, I was SELECTED but never responded! What madness seized me?

Your Congressional Agenda Survey is ENCLOSED. We need your response in 1 HR! Complete HERE: (link)

Guess what Earl?? YOU WON! Accept your Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase NOW >> (link)

They love me.

IS YOUR PHONE OFF? You were HAND-SELECTED to represent the (ZIP code) area & NEVER RESPONDED! Take the 2023 Platform Audit NOW: (link)

They love me not.

LEVEL UP!
You’ve reached ELITE company by qualifying for the Republican Diamond Club! Join NOW >> (link)

They love me.

We’re sending results from the Presidential Preference Poll to GOP leaders in 1 HR. Can I include your name, Earl?
Act: (link)

Again, my name!

This is SAD! We selected YOU to complete our 2023 Audit, but you NEVER RESPONDED. Take the Platform Audit NOW >> (link)

I am ashamed!

You satisfied all the criteria for an RNC MERIT BADGE! Accept your award, and 200% INCREASE, before it EXPIRES >> (link)

Republican leaders have selected YOU for our Lifetime Achievement Award! Your award even comes with a 250% INCREASE! 1 HR to ACCEPT: (link)

As a respected conservative leader, we need to hear from YOU.
Fill out your Republican Sample Ballot NOW: (link)

Earl, YOU’VE BEEN UPGRADED!
To confirm your Republican Diamond Club Status, Press HERE >> (link)

We chose YOU! As our BEST PATRIOT, we want you to represent your area & take the Congressional Agenda Survey. Take it NOW >> (link)

Ha! Even though I never responded to the 2023 Audit (SAD!), I got a merit badge, a Lifetime Achievement Award, a Sample Ballot, A Diamond Club Status, and was chosen as a BEST PATRIOT! So there, 2023 Audit!

MISSING INFORMATION: Your response to the Republican Verification Canvass will represent the ENTIRE (zip code) area! Complete NOW: (link)

This is SAD! We selected YOU to complete our 2023 Audit, but you NEVER RESPONDED. Take the Platform Audit NOW >> (link)

Wait, has the 2023 Audit seized control of GOP opinion of me?

Guess what Earl?? YOU WON! Accept your Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase NOW >> (link)

Nope! I won! HA!

Should gas stoves be BANNED!?! 1 HR to take the official GOP Poll.
Act NOW >> (link)

So is this policy decision to be based on … polls? Let’s take a survey on the speed limit, too!

But, credit where credit is due, this is an actual policy question. Wow!

Is something wrong? You were SELECTED to represent the GOP in your area & never responded! Fill out your Republican sample Ballot: (link)

Are you awake, Earl? We chose YOU to join the Republican Advisory Board, but you FAILED to accept the spot! Hurry & claim: (link)

They’re onto me!

Republican leaders have selected YOU for our Lifetime Achievement Award! Your award even comes with a 250% INCREASE! 1 HR to ACCEPT: (link)

I get an increase? Wow! Such a gift for my lifetime achievement!

We are sending results from the Presidential Preference Poll to GOP leaders in 1 HOUR. Can I include your name, Earl? Act: (link)

Did Biden LIE about the “misplaced” classified documents? Poll closes in 1 HR! Vote NOW >> (link)

I’m sure that poll will be considered very important.

And the award goes to … YOU, Earl! Accept your GOP Golden Elephant HERE >> (link)

This is the HIGHEST rank the Republican Party can bestow, Earl. Accept your RNC Merit Badge HERE >> (link)

The HIGHEST rank!

INFORMATION REQUESTED: Your response to the Republican Verification Canvass will represent the ENTIRE (zip code) area! Answer NOW: (link)

Wow!

This is SAD! We selected YOU to complete our 2023 Audit, but you NEVER RESPONDED. Take the Platform Audit NOW >> (link)

Oh, no!

Jim Jordan has announced plans to investigate Big Tech’s COLLUSION with the Biden Administration. Sign the petition NOW & SUPPORT >> (link)

I’m sure that Jim Jordan will base his strategy on what Earl has to say.

Is something wrong? You were SELECTED to represent the GOP in CO & never responded! Take the Republican Verification Canvass: (link)

Oh no!

You satisfied all the criteria for an RNC MERIT BADGE! Accept your award, and 200% INCREASE, before it EXPIRES >> (link)

Tell me more about those rigorous criteria!

The (ZIP code) area will be KEY to taking back the White House. Will you take the Presidential Preference Poll? 1 HR: (link)

Conservatives are working to EXPOSE the Radical Left & need your help. Sign up for the Republican Diamond Club before it’s too late! (link)

Are you awake, Earl??
We chose YOU to join the Republican Advisory Board, but you FAILED to accept your spot! CLAIM >> (link)

This is the HIGHEST rank the Republican Party can bestow, Earl. Accept your RNC Merit Badge HERE >> (link)

INFORMATION REQUESTED: Your response to the Republican Verification Canvass will represent the ENTIRE (zip code) area! Answer NOW: (link)

Earl, we’ve never done this for anyone. We reopened the Patriot Life Membership list for the next 20MIN. Claim your spot: (link)

“20MIN!”

The results you provide us will play an important role in our CO strategy. Help stop the Democrats’ agenda! >> (link)

We’ve texted you SO MANY TIMES! Please, Earl, we NEED your name on our Petition to FIGHT Big Tech COLLUSION!
Sign HERE: (link)

Republican leaders have selected YOU for our Lifetime Achievement Award! Your award even comes with a 250% INCREASE! 1 HR to ACCEPT: (link)

There are those mixed messages again.

Have a drink on us! Celebrate America & the GOP by showing off these elegant GOP Whiskey Glasses! There’s a limited supply, so ACT: (link)

There’s actually been a remarkable lack of swag solicitation until this text. Kind of weird that the GOP is pushing drinking as their gauge of elegance.

MISSING INFORMATION: Your response to the Republican Verification Canvass will represent the ENTIRE (ZIP code) area! Complete NOW: (link)

Wow. so not asking many people, I guess.

We’ve texted you SO MANY TIMES! Please, Earl, we NEED your name on our Petition to FIGHT Big Tech COLLUSION! Sign HERE: (link)

Should gas stoves be BANNED!?! 1 HR to take the official GOP Poll. Act NOW >> (link)

Guess what Earl?? YOU WON! Accept your Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase NOW >> (link)

HOW MANY TIMES ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO ASK? Submit your Republican Sample Ballot! We’ve asked you SO MANY TIMES!
Act NOW >> (link)

But will you ever stop asking?

Do you want Pres. Trump to return to Facebook & Twitter? Vote NOW >> (link)

Wait, I get a vote on that? Has someone told Zuck and Elon?

To: Your GOP Nominee
From: Earl
Happy Valentine’s Day!
*Autograph your name HERE -> (link)

Wait … how do you know who my choice of nominee is?

Republican leaders have selected YOU for our Lifetime Achievement Award! Your award even comes with a 250% INCREASE! 1 HR to ACCEPT: (link)

Can I get a list of those leaders?

This is SAD! We selected YOU to complete our 2023 Audit, but you NEVER RESPONDED. Take the Platform Audit NOW >> (link)

This is the HIGHEST rank the Republican Party can bestow, Earl. Accept your RNC Merit Badge HERE >> (link)

Mixed messages, Ronna.

Earl, we’ve never done this for anyone. We just reopened the Patriot Life Membership list for the next 20MIN. Claim: (link)

Never done it for anyone!

Guess what Earl?? YOU WON! Accept your Lifetime Achievement Award & Impact Increase NOW >> (link)

Understandable how I won such an award, since you also reopened the Patriot Life Membership list!

Republicans MUST achieve success in 2024! Support the BRAND-NEW Take Back the White House Fund! Donate NOW >> (link)

This message seems positively pedestrian.

We’ve texted you SO MANY TIMES! Please, Earl, we NEED your name on our Petition to FIGHT Big Tech COLLUSION! Sign HERE: (link)

Is something wrong? You were SELECTED to represent the GOP in your area & never responded! Fill out your Republican sample Ballot: (link)

Oh, no!

This is the HIGHEST rank the Republican Party can bestow, Earl. Accept your RNC Merit Badge HERE >> (link)

This MUST be wrong, right? We have you marked as “Not Listed” for holding Big Tech ACCOUNTABLE. If this is wrong, fix it here: (link)

GOOD NEWS: A spot opened up & you’re officially invited to become a Patriot Life Member. Claim offer NOW >> (link)

Are you awake, Earl??
We chose YOU to join the Republican Advisory Board, but you FAILED to accept your spot! CLAIM: (link)

Getting whiplash here. Am I a disgusting, unawake (un-Woke?!) layabout, or am I a recipient of a Merit Badge, an invitation to be a Patriot Life Member (filling that rare open spot!), and an invitation to join the Republican Advisory Board?

FIRST Democrats wanted to BAN your gas-powered vehicles, NOW they want to BAN your gas stove.
Had enough? ACT: (link)

And those disgusting Democrats managed to do those things without actually doing them! The nerve!

Is something wrong? You were SELECTED to represent the GOP in CO & never responded! Take the Republican Verification Canvass: (link)

We’ve texted you SO MANY TIMES! Please, Earl, we NEED your name on our Petition to FIGHT Big Tech COLLUSION! Sign HERE: (link)

You were nominated over almost ANY OTHER PATRIOT in CO for the GOP Golden Elephant! Why haven’t you accepted? CLAIM >> (link)

This is SAD! We selected YOU to complete our 2023 Audit, but you NEVER RESPONDED. Take the Platform Audit NOW >> (link)

I feel so ashamed, because you wanted me so badly and I never called.

The RNC Award Committee selected YOU for our highly coveted GOP Golden Elephant! Claim your benefits HERE: (link)

All is forgiven!

Ronna McDaniel: I’m proud to share I was re-elected to run the RNC for another cycle! Will you help build momentum for 2024? ACT >> (link)

Why is it you’ve lost momentum, Ronna?

Is something wrong? You were SELECTED to represent the GOP in your area & never responded! Fill out your Republican sample Ballot: (link)

Earl! Where’s your response to the Presidential Preference Poll?? Complete HERE: (link)

Uh-oh!

You’ve been PRE-SELECTED! Claim your 600% INCREASE & help CRUSH our End-of-Month Goal! 1 HR >> (link)

Well, if you’re only going to offer a 600% Increase, rather than a 2000% Increase like earlier this month, why should I pay any attention to you?

You were nominated over almost ANY OTHER PATRIOT in CO for the GOP Golden Elephant! Why haven’t you accepted? CLAIM >> (link)

HOW MANY TIMES ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO ASK? Submit your Republican Sample Ballot! We’ve asked you SO MANY TIMES!
Act NOW >> (link)

I’m beginning to think you’re onto me!

We’ve RARELY do this, Earl. You’ve been CHOSEN to become 1 of the FIRST to receive the GOP’s 600% IMPACT Offer.
Claim: (link)

I’m not sure it’s all that rare, to be honest, looking at your history over the course of the month.

Are you awake, Earl? We chose YOU to join the Republican Advisory Board, but you FAILED to accept your spot! Claim NOW: (link)

Oh, no! Will they still have a quorum?

NOTICE: The GOP upped your impact to 650% for 1 HOUR. Don’t share. This special link is for you only, Earl. Donate: (link)

Oooh … I get my own, special, unique link, which is incremented one tick from the link on the previous text message.

Is something wrong? You were SELECTED to represent the GOP in CO & never responded! Take the Republican Verification Canvass: (link)

How exactly would I have represented them?

For the FIRST TIME in 2023: We’re activating an End-of-Month IMPACT INCREASE!
Find out how much: (link)

Yes, it’s incredible how at the end of the first month in 2023, you are activating an end-of-month fundraising thing for the first time in 2023!

Earl, we never do this for anyone. We just reopened the Patriot Life Membership list for the next 20MIN. Claim your spot: (link)

“20MIN!”

We just released our FINAL LIST of Lifetime Achievement Award Nominees! See if you made the cut >> (link)

I’ll betcha I did, if I donate something.

You were nominated over almost ANY OTHER PATRIOT in CO for the GOP Golden Elephant! Why haven’t you accepted?
CLAIM >> (link)

Does it come with an actual elephant? Because that would be awesome.

Earl, Our End-of-Month goal is CRUCIAL to taking back the White House. EVERY CENT counts. Will you chip in? 700% Impact: (link)

That is a remarkably mundane fund-raising request.

HOW MANY TIMES ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO ASK? Submit your Republican Sample Ballot! We’ve asked you SO MANY TIMES! Act NOW >> (link)

You’re in the 95th percentile of ALL our supporters. Will you keep your TOP spot? Contribute ASAP for a 700% IMPACT! HURRY >> (link)

Oh, no! I might lose my top spot of contributors! Eeek!

Earl, we never do this for anyone. We just reopened the Patriot Life Membership list for the next 20MIN. Claim your spot: (link)

Didn’t you just do that a few days ago?

Make your FIRST EVER contribution of 2023 & help Republicans keep pace so we can CRUSH our fundraising goal. Act NOW >> (link)

So it’s good (for certain values of “good”) to know that the texts aren’t completely random, but that there’s some tracking of contributions going on.

We’ve authorized a 750% IMPACT for the NEXT HR to help CRUSH our End-of-Month goal! This offer is for YOU, Earl.
Claim: (link)

Where’s that 2000% one? I know you can do it, GOP!

Earl! Where is your response to the Presidential Preference Poll??
Complete HERE: (link)

This is the HIGHEST rank the Republican Party can bestow, Earl. Accept your RNC Merit Badge HERE >> (link)

Is something wrong? You were SELECTED to represent the GOP in your area & never responded! Fill out your Republican sample Ballot: (link)

And again with the mixed messages.

One final note. The link on each text was slightly different, incrementing alphabetically (/aca, /acb, /acc, /acd …). Thus, if Earl clicked on a given text, the GOP would know which one made him actually click.

I’m sure there’s nothing they’d do with that information.

At any rate, while I suppose I should feel faintly guilty for keeping Earl from his Very Important Texts and Opportunities to Accept Rewards and Respond to Surveys and Give Money … I can’t also help feeling that Earl might be a bit more relaxed without the GOP sending his text messages every 3-4 hours.

Until he sends them money and gives them his actual mobile number.

B5 Rewatch: 5×08 “Day of the Dead”

Neil Gaiman works some magic … as do Penn and Teller

There are two main threads. The A-plot has a dozen subplots to it, most of them delightful. The B-plot is more straightforward, and a bit more difficult to grok.

A-Plot

The Brakiri on B5 arrange to rent part of the station, in a such a way that it legally becomes “their territory” for one evening, sunset to sunrise. This isn’t just a diplomatic embassy kind of thing — weird magic stuff is going on for the “Day of the Dead,” which only happens every few centuries, son one of the Brakiri on the station want to miss out. As part of the process, that section of the station will be somehow metaphysically moved to Brakir, so that it partakes in the festival. As this includes some sleeping quarters sections (a weird thing to rent out around), some of the crew members learn a lot more about the Day of the Dead than they wanted, as they are visited by ghosts left behind during the show.

Lochley: Lochley is visited by a friend, Zoe, from when they were teenagers. Lochley apparently had quite the while JD life, living rough, involved in petty crime and drug use.

LOCHLEY: We were cold, sick, and we were hungry all the time. We did thing to survive I’ve done my best to forget. We lived in that burned-out hotel. I was scared all the time my father was going to find me. No, it was bad.

ZOE: Yeah, but … we still had fun.

It was only when she found Zoe dead of an OD (and covered in cockroaches) that she got “scared straight” — back to her overbearing Space Marine dad, back into school, and then into the military, and into the world’s most stiff-spined, upright life. It’s still a trauma that haunts her (we learn her sooper-sekrit passcode is “Zoe’s dead”). The visit ends up serving as a reconciliation between the two, and closure for Lochsley when she finally confirms that Zoe’s OD was suicide, not her being a good enough protector and friend.

ZOE: Lizzie, I do remember my death. I didn’t want to hurt you, but … yeah. I did do it on purpose. I just couldn’t go on. Don’t hate me, okay?

LOCHLEY: I could never hate you.

One added creepy note here is Zoe passing a message for Sheridan on from Kosh (!): “When the long night comes, return to the end of the beginning.” It’s been so long since we got some of Kosh’s unintelligible warnings, I’d forgotten how much I both loved and hated it.

Garibaldi: Our erstwhile security chief is visited by Dodger, the Marine that he loved and lost in ep. 2×10, “GROPOS”. As then, she’s looking for a good time, he’s busy being paranoid about what’s going on. Eventually they both relax and spend time … demonstrating you can recite Emily Dickinson poems to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

Londo: Just as Garibaldi is visited by a former lover, Londo meets with Adira, the Centauri dancing girl he once, truly, loved (ep. 1×03 “Born to the Purple”) … before she was assassinated (ep. ep. 3×15, “Interludes and Examinations”). She was killed (by Refa, probably, possibly with Morden’s connivance) to snap him out of his personal funk and back into leading the Centauri to greatness.

It’s a tragic re-meeting, even as Londo takes it all much more at face value than any of the others. It gives us a final chance to see Londo before his trip back to the Centauri homeworld and throne change him forever — something he is very much aware of, and rues. Because the fact is, Londo could probably have been very happy being a minor, fringe noble at a thankless diplomatic posting, if he’d had Adira by his side.

ADIRA: Normality will return soon. And when this night is done … so am I. And you? You will go on to become Emperor Mollari.

LONDO: I don’t want to become emperor. I want to stay here with you.

ADIRA: Londo, I’m a dream. In the morning, I’ll be gone. And you will rule 40 billion Centauri. But not one of them will ever know you the way I know you.

Lennier: Lennier, taking a quick break from training to actually see the long-rumored Brakiri “Day of the Dead” (and, not-incidentally, wanting to visit Delenn), shows up on B5 … and is visited in the night by Mr. Morden (Ed Wasser with sharp but distressingly short hair). After learning he can’t punch the ghost out, Lennier is informed that he will end up betraying the Rangers and, by extension, Delenn, and likely die in the process. Lennier is either the smartest or dumbest person in the tale, because he chooses to ignore everything Morden has to say and sits down to meditate, leaving Morden to read the newspaper.

Interestingly enough, dead Morden actually gets an answer from Lennier that he was unable to get from Delenn, so long ago: What a Minbari wants.

LENNIER: Why did you come back here?

Mr. Morden
MORDEN: I’m dead. It’s my job. Why did you come back here?

LENNIER: I came for wisdom.

MORDEN: You don’t come to the dead for wisdom, Lennier. […] Wisdom. Let’s see … Delenn does not love you as you love her, and she never will.

LENNIER: I know that.

MORDEN: No, you don’t. Not in your heart. That’s the problem, you see? No one should ever want to talk to the dead.

LENNIER: Go away.

MORDEN: Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. You raised a ghost, now you have to listen to him.

Interestingly enough, most of the ghosts — Morden, Zoe, Dodger — deny they’re actually ghosts.

Sheridan shows up a bit in this story — interrupted from the B-Plot, he personally investigates the un-enterable Brakiri zone (since apparently Security is all asleep), and nearly gets beaned by a fire extinguisher he throws at the interface. Okay.

One of the weirder, less explicable parts of the plot here is G’Kar, who has some funny moments, but … well, he seems to know what’s going to happen, warning Lochsley not to “sell” the station to the Brakiri (even if it violates their religious rights), warning Garibaldi, and finally choosing to sleep in the bridge rather than his own quarters … but he gives no details, no actual reason to listen to him, just portents and alarums. To make matters worse, he later expresses regrets about having missed it all. It’s kind of sloppy writing for the character.

B-Plot

Babylon 5 5x08 Day of the Dead - Rebo and Zooty — Rebo and Zooty

The most famous entertainers in the galaxy, Rebo and Zooty, come to visit B5. They’re played by Penn and Teller, and knowing them from thirty years later, they haven’t changed much. The show does a nice job of modifying their schtick, slightly, for a different pair of stage magicians.

The pair charm everyone on the station, except for Capt. Lochley, who apparently doesn’t enjoy humor and silliness (there should be some time here to her A-Plot, but there really isn’t). Even the aliens all enjoy the stage-magical hijinx of the pair (in part because R&Z have widely studied alien humor); all you have to do is say “Zooty-Zoot-Zoot!” to anyone on B5 (except Lochsley), and they burst into the equivalent of laughter.

In reality, R&Z are here to talk with Sheridan and Delenn about … going into politics. Giving up being comedians and doing something “worthwhile”. It’s an interesting take, looking back over the decades, as we see folk like Jon Stewart becoming political forces, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy leveraging a career that has included comedy to become President of Ukraine — and holding it together under their darkest hour.

Ultimately, it’s the least effective part of the episode, as we get a little homily about how important humor is, both socially to hold people together during hard times, and politically, to speak truth to power (and to serve as a canary in the coal mine). Not bad lessons, and some of the personal interplay in the scenes works well, but in the end it’s all a little preachy.

Other Bits and Bobs

As a guest-written episode (and one that written early days in the season, before Joe had the full timeline charted), it wisely avoids tying too much to live troubles in the B5verse. The telepath problem, political stresses in the Alliance … all are put into a soft focus in the background, making this a somewhat standalone (if prophetic) tale.

Meanwhile …

If this seems very non-Joe Straczynski — being a guy who is okay with writing about telepaths and aliens who wield the power of gods and technomancers who create magical effects from technology and the like, but who would never write about straight-up magic — well, you’re right. This is the single episode in seasons 3-5 which wasn’t written by JMS. Instead, it was a long-term commitment fulfilled to have fabulist Neil Gaiman write it. And Neil Gaiman writes magic.

In the end, it’s not too glaring of a matter. Suspension of disbelief — hey, we all believe in destinies prophecies and Centauri seeing their death, after all — is already established. It does create a different tone for it all, but I was able to handwave the more overt use of “magic” for purposes of an episode.

Babylon 5 5x08 Day of the Dead - Zoe — Zoe

A bit of trivia: Gaiman has noted elsewhere that Lochsley and Zoe were also former lovers (perhaps another reason she ran away from home). There’s certainly that aspect to be read into their interplay, but anything overt, if it ever existed, was filed off by JMS on editing the story. If it were so, it would make Lennier the only one not visited by an ex-lover (likely because the only one he’s ever loved is still alive and otherwise involved … which then ties to Morden’s prophecy …)

There is some controversy as to where “Day of the Dead” should be placed. It was written early in the season, after only four scripts had been completed by JMS, and before all the detailed chronology was figured out; it was originally shot 11th, but shuffled to 8th during the original run because of conflicts with the NBA playoffs, and so as to let a more solid sequencing of episodes occur. This creates some minor continuity conflicts, and some oddness with G’kar and Londo being (still? again?) on B5, but other recommended options have their own inconsistencies as well. Since it’s all relatively trivial, I’m going with here, as in the original broadcast and on the recent HBO Max run.

Not only does this ep give us an opportunity for a long-promised Gaiman episode, but series consultant Harlan Ellison “shows up” as the electronic voice of Zooty (thus allowing Teller to remain mute).

Moments

Most Dramatic Moment:

Lochley — who is usually a staid rock — practically falling apart talking to Zoe about what their life together was like, how bad it was — and about finding her body.

Most Amusing Moment:

SHERIDAN: Okay, captain, let me get this straight. You sold Babylon 5 to an alien race for the nighT, who somehow transported a square mile of this station to their Homeworld, while apparently filling it with people temporarily returned from the dead?

“I thought it was a metaphor, sir.”
LOCHLEY: Yes, sir.

SHERIDAN: Well, do you have an explanation as to why you did this?

LOCHLEY: Yes, sir. I thought it was a metaphor, sir. I’ll try to be more literal-minded from now on, sir.

Most Arc-ish Moment:

Surely Morden chatting with Lennier.

LENNIER: I know what kind of a man you were.

Morden and Lennier
MORDEN: Give a dog a bad name and you can hang him with it. You shouldn’t listen to everything Sheridan tells you. I’m surprised he’s not here tonight, since he died at Z’Ha’Dum. […] So … do you like being a Ranger, Lennier? Would you like it any better if I were to tell you that you will betray the Anla’shok?

LENNIER: You are lying.

MORDEN: I wish I were. No?

LENNIER: Sheridan did not die at Z’Ha’Dum. If you do not know the present, how can you know the future?

MORDEN: I’m talking about the future. So what if I’m not up on recent history? I’m prophetic, not infallible.

LENNIER: I think you are neither. But at least you have shown me there is truly life beyond death.

MORDEN: Not necessarily, but you’ll find that out soon enough.

LENNIER: I am Anla’shok and shall remain so until I pass beyond. I could no more betray the Anla’shok than my fingers could betray my hand. Our talk is done.

MORDEN: Your loss.

The Bottom Line

Some great dialog, some dubious plotting, a welcome break from Byron and the Telepaths.

Overall Rating: 4.5 of 5.0 — Good-to-Great stuff in the A-Plot, Interesting but Mixed stuff int he B-Plot, great lines, but also a clear sense of filling in.

(Rating History)

Other Resources for this episode:

Lurker’s Guide
Babylon Project Wiki
IMDb
AV Club (covers eps 6-10 of the season)
Babylon Five S 05 E 08 Day Of The Dead / Recap – TV Tropes
MUSINGS OF A SCI-FI FANATIC: B5 S5 Ep8: Day Of The Dead

Previous episode: 5×07 “Secrets of the Soul”

Next episode: 5×09 “In the Kingdom of the Blind” — The Telepath Problem heats up, and Londo learns there’s something rotten in the heart of Centauri Prime.

Stage Review: “Theater of the Mind”

David Byrne’s interactive show about unreliable reality was fun

theater of the mind - david byrne birthday — David Byrne

My wife, being a fan of David Byrne of Talking Heads from way back, had her attention caught by an article and ads for his (and Mala Gaonkar’s) odd-looking show, Theater of the Mind (directed by Andrew Scoville). It had its world premiere in Denver last September and, we found, was carried over into this month before moving on to new locations.

Three things to know about the show:

While it’s a DCPA production, it’s not held downtown. Instead, it’s at the York Street Yards, a light industrial area off Steele, north of City Park.
That’s because this is an interactive show, with small groups of sixteen moving from room to room over 75 minutes, delving into the (light) story and (fun) perceptive experiments / neurological parlor tricks.
We’re glad we went.

theater of the mind - david byrne thesis statement — David Byrne and the thesis statement

Without going into spoilers, the show is about questions of identity, reality, and personality. That sounds very deep, and while there are deep questions raised, the audience is encouraged to do most of the raising themselves “over a coffee or a beer.” (The show provides a digital program after the fact, talking about the science involved.)

The experiments and demonstrations of how our perceptions, memory, and worldview are both unreliable and change over time are relatively simplistic, especially in the social media world of today. But in aggregate, and in context of the narrative (which seeks to engage the audience by giving them all new names and a bit of slowly developed backstory), it leaves a sense both of unease (who am I now, and how might that be different tomorrow?) and encouragement (we have at least some control, if only of acceptance, as to all of that).

theater of the mind - one of the davids — One of the “David”s in an early scene

Again, while the tone glides from breezy to absurd to briefly serious, it’s meant mostly to be thought-provoking, not gut-wrenching, and it succeeds in that. That’s helped by a large and (presumably equally competent) case, each playing the single role for a given group: a semi-autobiographical David Byrne (even if none of them, quite intentionally, look like him). Our “David” (Steph Holmbo, I believe) was quite good, and I expect all of them are.

An enjoyable show and experience, worth going to see.

Do you want to know more?

Giving (up) the Bird

A Farewell to Elons.

Like a lot of other folk (“all the cool kids are doing it!”), I’m suspending use of Twitter for the indefinite future. I’ve already been cutting back substantially the last month or so, but between the likelihood that the system is going to crash and burn technologically, if not socially, and that most of the key folk I followed on Twitter have departed — well, there are not much reason to be here, and many reasons not to be.

So my @Three_Star_Dave Twitter account, and the automatic quotation tweets to @WISTquotes will go silent unless things substantially change on Twitter. That’s unfortunate, because Twitter (while always having had problems) has been an amazing global resource, and an avenue to contact people in an remarkable array of walks of life. It’s been a precious news and communication channel in a way I think we haven’t realized. I’ve learned a ton there, and stayed in touch with a lot of people there. It wasn’t as satisfying as my previous social media community on Google+, but it had many great moments.

But the onset of Elon Musk — who I’m convinced got sucked into taking over Twitter in as inadvertent and self-inflicted a fashion as Donald Trump turned a publicity stunt into an unexpected term in the White House — has ruined the place for me. The growing, free-wheeling hatred and deplorable culture that Musk is so amused by (and that he is encouraging so as to drive up numbers and sell lots of advertising) is too reprehensible for me to support by even my small sliver of traffic.

A number of thoughtful people have suggested continuing to fight the good fight there. Don’t give up. Don’t let the bastards win. And there’s something to be said for that. But as a tactic it assumes that actually being there can make a difference, and that it isn’t actually hurting the cause by keeping up the numbers Elon keeps waving at advertisers to bring them back.

It’s still a legit tactic. But not one for me.

So … where to now?

My own blog here has lain relatively fallow for a while, except when I choose to make long-form writing stuff (usually reviews). I have utterly no desire (still) for Facebook — if Twitter is turning Chaotic Evil, FB has for a long time been the social media face of Lawful Evil (as a company).

Instead, for the last few weeks I’ve been using Mastodon. It’s a marginally clunkier version of Twitter, stylistically, but its diverse federated nature means it’s less vulnerable to take-overs like Elon’s, and elements of its design — most particularly, a lack of “algorithm” to drive the most infurating info directly into your face — make for an experience much more pleasant, and a culture that’s a heck of a lot more civil (in my experience) and less doomscrolling than Twitter has been for a long while.

It’s not perfect, by any means, but it’s pretty decent. As a small pond, still, I’m getting a lot more engagement from others than I have on the birdsite. And a lot of the voices I was most interested in following on Twitter have shifted full- or part-time to Mastodon.

All the cool kids are doing it.

I’m not deleting my old Twitter accounts — at least not yet. I may still poke my head over to see what’s going on (or to steal some material). But going forward, my former Twitter @three_star_dave sort of content can be found at https://mstdn.social/@three_star_dave, and my WIST stuff is being rebroadcast to https://zirk.us/@WISTquotes. Running on different instances means I can keep both accounts open in my browser, which is handy.

And I’ve figured out a decent RSS feed of the Mastodon stuff in the right margin of my blog here, too. So … commitment!

Hope to see you there.

Movie Review: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (2022)

A movie that allayed fears and more than fulfilled expectations.

With the untimely death of Chadwick Boseman in 2020, MCU fans were unsure what would happen next. Would Boseman be replaced by another actor playing T’Challa? If not, would we just get some sort of mawkish memorial at the beginning — or, worse, mawkish, weepy memorials all the way through, “That’s what T’Challa would have wanted …” — or maybe, without Boseman, we’d get something that was just vapidly action-oriented without the depths he would have wanted.

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is none of those things.

It is a movie suffused with grief, with people dealing with the untimely loss of a loved one, a leader, a geopolitical figure. A lot of that “dealing with” leads to errors in judgment that lead to further complications, but the dominoes that tumble by all of that that feel logical and realistic. As much as the viewer wants to yell at the people making bad decisions, much is because we understand where those people are coming from and sympathize, even as we want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them.

There are a ton of features to admire about the movie. Wakanda remains a remarkable society, with a complex polity and a realm as complex as their highly advanced technology, and the internal politics of Wakanda are themselves a significant factor in the action. But it’s brilliantly done that Wakanda is also a vulnerable society — not through simple brute force (as in “Avengers: Infinity War”) but through applied tactics against the strengths of the opponent (this is true both for the Atlanteans attacking Wakanda as well as Wakanda’s counter-attack).

Namor’s people and their profound grounding in Meso-American heritage is a delightful expansion of their pulp fantasy origins in the comics. While one can pick nits at their tech / lack of tech, they (and Namor) are delightfully rich.

(And I give a thousand points of credit for the film’s leaning into Namor’s ankle wings, calling them out explicitly and making them part of the plot. The most ridiculous thing about Namor’s character, and they went with it. Bravo.)

The movie actually makes sense (in terms of cascading bad judgments) in creating the conflict between Atlantis (okay, Talokan) and Wakanda, and uses the relative powers of both nations in imaginative and believable ways.

And there is a mid-movie cameo that was both unexpected and completely believable — and which drove forward Shuri’s evolution as a character.

The weakest parts of the movie relate to events outside of the Wakanda-Talokan conflict. The shenanigans related to Everett Ross and Val de Fontaine were all amusing, but felt like an add-on. And, sadly, Riri/Ironheart never quite fit into the emotional heart of the movie, despite being a significant part of the physical action. She’s a prop, more than a character here, and as a character she deserves much more.

But, again, that’s because this movie is really about grief, fear, dealing with T’Chala’s death — and the mistakes and misjudgments that stem from that. That grief is palpable, in both the drama and the meta (the Chadwick Boseman-focused Marvel intro sequence), and that is infused beautifully into the entire narrative, and into, ultimately, Shuri’s character arc.

This is a much more sophisticated tale than most MCU entries, because it is more about internal conflict than external, about finding one’s place in the world vs. blowing up the bad guys, and because so many characters are proceeding along parallel arcs that lead to conflict, and so many plausible ways that conflict can play out. And, at the end, we have no true resolutions, but anticipations, potentials, and possibilities.

Very much like real life. Which makes this a particular gem in the MCU.

ProTip: There is only one mid-credits scene. But it’s excellent. But when it’s done, you can head for the exit.

[This review was initially posted at Letterboxd]

The Early Post-Midterms View

Things actually went pretty well in Colorado, and a lot less dire than expected nationally.

So looking at Colorado’s races, I’m pretty happy. the Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and AG, all went pretty strongly blue.

On ballot measures … most of what I voted for (link and link) passed. Some important ones, like school meals funding were a pretty resounding success.

Of course, we also cut the income tax rate. 🙄

The three liquor bills look like they are going down to defeat, although 125 is still very close at this moment.

Dems won for the US Senate seat (soundly), and US House Districts 1, 2, 7, and my own 6 (go, Jason!). The usual gang of idiots took 4 and 5. The new district 8 looks like it might go blue, but it’s pretty tight.

Most importantly, from a state reputation basis, House District 3, a West Slope country-conservative area, just might be sending Boebert home, which would be a real relief no matter how the House overall goes. We’ll see.

On a national level, it’s still unclear how the House and Senate will end up — very tight in each chamber, which will hamper either side from extremes. Still, I’ll hate to see Jim Jordan and MTG doing their committee chair zaniness with even the barest sliver of a majority.

It’s clear, regardless, that the people who kept it from being the predicted “Red Tsunami” were, on the one hand, Donald Trump and his coterie of sycophants who not only endorsed some of the worst candidates out there, but forced all the others to bravely nod in support of his daftness. And, on the other hand, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, through their Dobbs ruling, mobilized a lot of turnout against GOP candidates who were, at best, trapped into being stridently anti-abortion (or who were).

Democracy, and our nation, are by no means out of the woods. But things are looking quite a bit less bleak than they were a day or two ago.

Another Look at Colorado Ballot Propositions 2022

As I sit down to vote, any changes of mind?

I pretty much stand by what I originally evaluated for my votes on ballot propositions this year. There are two that I was not sure about, though, and one other I wanted to reevaluate.

Proposition 122 – Access to Natural Psychedelic Substances
YES

One proponent framed the question very well: is adult possession of magic mushrooms sufficiently dire enough to warrant destroying someone’s life through criminal prosecution? Hard to understand how.

On the other hand, the critiques of the proposition are inane. “It’s fentanyl all over again!” No, it’s not, in any way, shape, or form. “Ordinary people shouldn’t do these drugs because they won’t treat them as a spiritual sacrament!” Sorry, I eat bread and drink wine, too, outside of Mass. “It’s all a Big Pharma plot!” While not discounting Big Pharma’s ability to plot, this controlled access proposal seems a reasonable first step.

I’ll be voting Yes.

Some further reading:

Proposition 124 – Increase Allowable Liquor Store Locations
NO

Basically increases the number of liquor licenses which may be held by an individual or company. I wanted to give this one another look because there are some inequities in the current law that, in the coming several years, will disadvantage independent liquor stores.

Net-net, Prop 124 is a good thing if it helps local liquor stores expand and stay competitive with supermarkets, which will soon begin to get more licenses than they do. It’s a not so good thing if it helps big outside liquor companies (e.g., BevMo, or Total Wine) come into the state and supplant local liquor marts.

Give that the Trone brothers, who founded Total Wine, have each dropped almost a million dollars into this tells me that’s the intended direction.

I think there are better ways to help local liquor stores compete, so I’m going to vote No, but I strongly suspect that it will be voted in as a Yes.

Some further reading:

Proposition 125 – Allow Grocery and Convenience Stores to Sell Wine
NO

Should grocery stores be able to sell wine, too? (Also sake, mead, and hard cider, but wine is the biggie here.)

The issue being presented to consumers is, of course, convenience — though the donations from Albertsons Safeway, Kroger, and Target make it clear they see it as a big windfall for themselves.

The argument against is the impact on independently owned liquor stores. The best counter is that the same claim was made about grocery stores carrying beer, and today there are more independent liquor stores than there were when that proposition passed. I’m not convinced that actually applies, though, esp. given how independent stores have said their beer sales have dropped; kicking out the second of three legs from those stores (beer, wine, hard liquor) would have, I think, a more serious effect.

I will likely vote No, though I suspect it will pass.

Some further reading:

Oh, and that other stuff to vote for?

I’ll be voting a pretty straight Democratic ballot this year, as far as candidates go. While I’m not a rapturous fan of Polis or Bennet, for example (though I do like my US Rep, Jason Crow), their opponents are either lunatics or clearly disingenuous in their intentions — and my presumption in 2022, without strong proof otherwise (which would have kept them from getting on the GOP ballot in the first place) is that any Republican candidate is or will be a Trump supporter, happy to work alongside MTG and Jordan and Goetz and Cotton and Cruz, and enthusiastic to see civil rights protections rolled back, increased church-state entanglement, and democratic norms and governance broken down.

Vote!

And that’s a wrap for Season 1 of “Rings of Power”

A beautifully crafted, long, slow simmer of Tolkien’s Second Age.

Definite Spoilers for S.1 and the Season Finale

Rings of Power Season 1 is a wrap. Since my original review, two eps in, has my opinion changed?

Rings of Power Posters — So now we know who these folk all are. There will be a quiz.

It’s a show that has been simultaneously wonderful, intriguing, and maddening. Let’s break it down.

The Bad — Too Much Time On Their Hands

Rings of Power - Tree Blight — Viewers, unlike Elves, are not immortal.

By having a “guarantee” for five seasons, it felt like a certain sense of time pressure was lifted from the creators. That “we have to get pulses pounding so that they will renew us!” gave way to “We have all the time in the world, so let’s not be hasty!” The result? Tons of slo-mo, so many lingering looks, and …

… well, to paraphrase Emperor Joseph from Amadeus, “Too many notes.” Or, rather, too many stories, too many characters. Lindon, Eregion, Khazad-dûm, Numenor, the Southlands, the Greenwoods … the Elves, the Dwarves, the Humans of Numenor, the Humans of the Southlands, the Harfoots (and not to mention the Orcs) …

Rings of Power - Durin — Sorry to leave you hanging, guys.

Stories came and went, and the viewer never knew what they’d manage to wedge into a given episode. Remarkably enough, even the Big Season Finale just left some of them dangling in the dark, not even giving us a passing look to acknowledge them. The family conflict in Moria. The fate of Bronwyn and the Southlanders. Well, folks, we hope we remember you when we do a quick catch-up whenever Season 2 rolls around.

And I’ll add into the “Bad” the delay to S.2. Given that the first season (even with COVID) took 18 months to produce, and that they just started filing S.2 this month, I expect we won’t see anything more until early 2024. Which is … damn. Even the LotR movies kicked out reliably across three Christmas seasons.

The Good — Gorgeous and Occasionally Clever

Rings of Power - Stranger Things — Stranger Things

That said, the last handful of episodes really did start paying off all the long, loooong passages in the beginning, and the finale split story between the Stranger/Harfoots and Elves/Rings was awesome. (Yeah, the Numenorean bits were fine, too, but very much played third fiddle to the overall episode.)

Indeed, given how slowly things had been moving, I didn’t think we’d get to actual Ring Forging until next season. Instead, it fit in quite neatly here (even though, honestly, if Sauron hadn’t acted, he might have done away with the elves altogether, at least in this world’s setup).

Rings of Power - Numenor — I would watch this show just for the visuals.

Which, thinking of all that forging stuff, causes me to consider the elvish forging equipment, which makes me think of the visual worldbuilding here, and what even its biggest critics have had to admit: this show is drop-dead gorgeous. Numenor and the Numenoreans are design wonders, evocative of what the West (Gondor) eventually turns out to, but with rich overlays of ancient Middle Eastern tones and artistry. Exquisite.

There were also, by the end of the episodes, fine setups for S.2 — we are off to visit Rhun (which is a massive blank canvas, so the Middle-Earth pedants will lose some traction), and Numenorean politics is about to heat up, esp. with Miriel blinded (and so unable to use the Palantir up the attic), and the whole “Only old-fashioned race-traitors like the elves” sentiment simmering under the surface. Speaking of whom, not sure what the elves will be doing, aside from maybe arguing over who gets to wear the Three (Gil-Galad might have something to say about that, as he did in the original), and clearly there’s more to come about the internecine struggle amongst the dwarves, even if it wasn’t even acknowledged in the finale..

The Okay

This saga takes fairly significant liberties with the original material. Even if you acknowledge that they could only play with the Appendices of LotR, not the actual Silmarillion, we have tremendous time compressions and lumping together of storylines across the Second Age to show that the story itself is clearly being altered.

But to that extent (and to the end of having a single coherent show, not an anthology across those 3,400 years of Second Age), I think they did pretty well. Sure, they ended up with Galadriel basically walking, sailing, and galloping from one end of the western world to the other (I almost expected to see her riding a horse through a landscape, that would then open up after her passage to reveal our favorite Harfoots hidden from her eyes), but it all turned out … pretty okay.

Rings of Power - three rings — Three Rings. Why three? Now we know.

Did it all make sense? Sometimes. Usually. The finessing around Sauron’s reveal and the forging of the Three, for example, was very neatly done.

On the other hand, the idea that rerouting a big reservoir of water across twenty miles of earthen tunnels to pour into a volcano’s caldera to create a massive explosion and pyroclastic flow that destroys the landscape but doesn’t kill everyone nearby, so as to create a “nuclear winter” localized landscape and weather system, perfect for orcs … well, that’s just silly, but it’s beautifully set up and executed and it beats any story Tolkien gave us about the founding of Mordor, and it’s a goddamned story about elves and orcs, so I can live with it.

Rings of Power - Two Trees — I mean, WARS have been fought over trees in this mythos.

I’m slightly less sanguine about the plague on the Tree and the origin of mithril and all of that — except, again, it replaced centuries of kingdom-building and elvish (and dwarvish) politics. A big goofy, but within parameters (especially given how arboreal health seems elsewhere in canonical Tolkien to be so damned portentous).

So, yeah, the books talk about the Istari arriving by boat from the West, greeted by Cirdan (who gives his elven-ring to Gandalf), and all of that a thousand years into the Third Age, not falling from the sky thousands of years earlier. But … whatevs, it kept people guessing and doesn’t effectively change the dynamic. (And despite utter confidence that that’s Gandalf there in the burlap robe, for a variety of reasons, I’m holding out hope that it’s actually Saruman. Or maybe one of those Blue Wizards who actually traveled to the east …)

Rings of Power - Galadriel Warrior Princess — Canon or not, I enjoyed Galadriel, Warrior Princess

As to whether Galadriel was a warrior princess … again, it works here, even if it’s not quite what our known background info would suggest. Again, adaptation, and, let’s face it, with the pacing problems the show had, having a damask-robed slow-motion Galadriel looking somber the whole time as she walked from grove to grove would be … damned boring.

In Sum

Rings of Power - Harfoots — Safe travels and fair roads until we meet again.

Overall, it’s not quite as Peter Jackson-mesmerizing as I had hoped, and it suffered from too much material presented too slowly, but I would much rather have watched Rings of Power than to have never seen it. I hope, eventually, to enjoy at least another season of it.

So that’s a wrap on “She-Hulk” …

Some fine, fun, comic book action and self-mockery, but never really finding it’s spot.

Spoilers for She-Hulk ep. 9

Watched the S.1 finale for She-Hulk tonight. As mentioned before, at length, I love this character, and I really looked forward to an MCU comedy that capture that light-hearted, highly meta, but underlying dramatic creation I’ve come to love.

Ultimately, I got something that didn’t lean into its 4th Wall meta until the finale, then did so to excess, while at the same time trying to be a rom-com lawyer show, with a zany cast and so many situations to be comedic about.

And, fundamentally, I’m not a standard sitcom kind of guy. And this felt soooooo standard.

So, bottom line, I was disappointed by She-Hulk, but it was moderately entertaining, and I appreciated its willingness to drag in big and little MCU characters. There was humor I did like, but so much must popped rather than banged.

I’m reluctant to get too critical, because there’s been from pre-Episode 1, a contingent of “Ugh, strong woman bad, can’t we get more Punisher?” viewers out there. Many of whom then morphed into “How dare Matt Murdock smile, let alone sleep with a skank like Jen?” crew. And, I assume, those same folk were cheering for the Intelligentsia at the early climax of the show, and actively wishing that Zack Snyder were directing this.

And none of that has any resemblance to my reasons for being a skosh disappointed. Even though I don’t regret having spent any time watching the series.

I thought the rather heavy-handed “K.E.V.I.N.” sequence was … well, yeah, heavy-handed. It should have been funnier, and it wasn’t, and it was frustrating.

On the other hand, the opening titles, riffing off the classic Incredible Hulk TV show, was delightful. Bravo.

I’d love to see She-Hulk come back in the MCU. Despite the solo aspects, Jen can work in a straight drama, too. And I’d be happy to see an S.2 of She-Hulk, maybe with a different writing vision.

Jen Walters — and She-Hulk — are great characters. Here’s to more of them, better executed, in the MCU.

A First Look at Colorado Ballot Propositions 2022

Eleven proposals to change the lawbooks or the state constitution.

We’ve quite the crop of ballot proposals this year. I just received the family’s state ballot guide, which gave me a first thorough look at them. I’ll be interesting to see which are snoozers, which get a lot of ad spending, and how the voting on them will go.

One thing of note is that there aren’t any real Culture War issues on here. Not even any Personhood Laws (a rare treat). That’s kind of nice for a change.

Anyway, here’s my first pass, after reading the summaries, the pros/cons, etc. I’ll revisit this before the actual election, when various wiser heads have analyzed them more closely.

These three Constitutional Amendments, proposed by the Legislature, require a 55% supermajority to pass:

Amendment D – New 23rd Judicial District Judges
YES

So we have an new judicial district in the state, but the mechanism for putting judges on it seems a bit sketchy. This solve that by actually defining a clear process. The arguments against seem kind of vague.

Amendment E – Extend Homestead Exemption to Gold Star Spouses
YES

Currently, if you are over 65 and have been in your house for 10+ years or vets with a service-related total disability, you (or your surviving spouse) can claim a partial exemption on your property. This adds surviving spouses of service members killed in the line of duty or of vets whose death results from a service-related injury or disease.

While I think sometimes we go a bit nuts over supporting vets (“Wanna teach in school with no training? No problem!” as they say in Florida), this seems a reasonable thing to do.

The arguments against are basically that it doesn’t help everyone and it might help someone who doesn’t need it. Neither argument is convincing.

Amendment F – Changes to Charitable Gaming Operations
NO

Didn’t we just fend something like this off an election or two ago? This would basically drop the age of non-profits able to run bingo or raffles from five years to three years, and let them hire paid workers to run the games.

The basic result would be more profit-making operations in-state “helping” non-profits run these games. I don’t think we need that.

The following two statutory amendments were proposed by the Legislature and require a simple majority to pass:

Proposition FF – Healthy School Meals for All
YES

Rather than operating a bureaucracy of tracking which kids get free lunches and which don’t, and stigmatizing those who do as the poor kids, and letting families on the edge of eligibility rack up lunch costs … why not just make lunch available to everyone? Makes sense to me.

The arguments against are basically that families with income over $300K shouldn’t have to pay more taxes, especially for meals for freeloading middle-classers, and shouldn’t we just give more money to schools instead of doing this? (Worth noting the people making these arguments never argue in favor of more money to schools when those ballot propositions come up.) None of that sways me from the good this will do.

Proposition GG – Add Tax Info Table to Petitions and Ballots
NO

Every election, we get a nice thick booklet about all the ballot propositions that includes tables with tax impacts. This proposal would add those tables both to petitions (which might make sense) and the ballots. Ugh. We don’t need longer ballots, esp. since the goal here is to try to dissuade voters at the last second about all the scary taxes. Bah.

The following six statutory amendments were placed on the ballot by citizen petition and require a simple majority to pass:

Proposition 121 – State Income Tax Rate Reduction
NO

Brought to you by the usual gang of strangle-government-in-its-bed idiots.

Proposition 122 – Access to Natural Psychedelic Substances
Yes?

This is one I’ll want to read up more about. While the arguments about Magic Mushroom Madness aren’t very convincing, neither are the arguments that, hey, it’s natural, therefore safe and groovy for psychiatric treatment.

Tending yes, but tentatively.

Proposition 123 – Dedicate Revenue for Affordable Housing Programs
YES

By and large, esp. with Colorado housing and rental prices climbing so high, I’m inclined to go with this specialty program. That the opposition argues that this will cut into TABOR refunds in the future is an even better argument for it.

Proposition 124 – Increase Allowable Liquor Store Locations
NO

The first of three ballots over Colorado’s commercial normalization over alcohol and transition away from the old Blue Laws. This one accelerates / expands the ability of retail liquor stores to own more locations, ostensibly in competition with supermarkets. That’s only likely to help bigger chains, though, and I tend to think the transition process that was established previously is just fine. (I could be argued around on this one, but that’s my first impression, at least.)

Proposition 125 – Allow Grocery and Convenience Stores to Sell Wine
No?

I’ve been going back and forth on this one, honestly. On the one hand, convenience! On the other hand, not sure I want more of my grocery store dedicated to wine space, and the impact on existing liquor stores, large and small, is concerning.

Leaning No, but may change my mind.

Proposition 126 – Third-Party Delivery of Alcoholic Beverages
YES

This does two things. First, it allows for third-party companies (e.g., DoorDash) to delivery alcohol alongside groceries and take-out food and everything else. Second, it permanently allows take-out and delivery of alcohol from bars and restaurants, which was first introduced in the early COVID days and is currently scheduled to end in 2025.

Both of those things seem like good conveniences to me, so I’m a solid Yes.

I have to confess, I’m not enjoying “She-Hulk” as much as I wanted to

And I definitely wanted to.

I wanted to enjoy the current She-Hulk series on Disney+ a lot, boiling down to two reasons:

Always fun.

I really like the character in the comics, esp. in incarnations where there’s humor involved (i.e., starting with John Byrne’s famous run). I wanted something that captured that fun.
There was a lot of early criticism of the show, far too much of which boiled down to “Powerful female character? Ugh! Gimme more Punisher!” The first episode’s monologue about the problems/risks that women professionals have — a sentiment that every woman professional I’ve talked with about it agreed with — were met with scorn and derision and disbelief from much the same criticizing audience. I wanted this show to be a real hit just to show those yahoos off.

Unfortunately, we’ve ended up with a show that is … okay. Not horrible. Not great. The humor, including the fourth wall bits, feels kind of awkward, with maybe one good laugh an episode. The action sequences are so-so. The CG feels definitely budget. The courtroom bits are mostly more mildly funny humor. The characters are walking bundles of tropes. The storylines are kind of silly and clunky.

As I said to my wife last week, if this were a non-super-hero show, or even a non-MCU show, I would probably have stopped watching by now.

I’m not sure where the problem is. The actors, including star Tatiana Maslany, seem like they should be good. Writing? Directly? Something is just not clicking, leaving me with an amusing, but not uproarious, interesting but not gripping, legal dramedy in spandex.

Worse, at a time when the MCU really needs to be stocking up its bag of heroes for the next Phase, the so-so nature of She-Hulk makes her being part of that action less and less likely.

Here’s hoping they pull something big out of the bag in the last 4 of 9 episodes. If not … well, I don’t regret the time I’ve spent watching it, but I don’t see myself watching it again.

A brief digression

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the movie?

Update!

The Series in Review

Repeating that note: this is NOT kid-friendly.

But it’s not gratuitously not-kid-friendly

Heroes need a villain

The Special Effects

The Music

Openings and Closings

A few minor bits of glee

A few minor quibbles

Overall

Plot

Acting

Production

Comic Bookiness

In Sum

A-Plot

B-Plot

Other Bits and Bobs

Meanwhile …

Moments

The Bottom Line

Proposition 122 – Access to Natural Psychedelic Substances YES

Proposition 124 – Increase Allowable Liquor Store Locations NO

Proposition 125 – Allow Grocery and Convenience Stores to Sell Wine NO

Oh, and that other stuff to vote for?

The Bad — Too Much Time On Their Hands

The Good — Gorgeous and Occasionally Clever

The Okay

In Sum

Amendment D – New 23rd Judicial District Judges YES

Amendment E – Extend Homestead Exemption to Gold Star Spouses YES

Amendment F – Changes to Charitable Gaming Operations NO

Proposition FF – Healthy School Meals for All YES

Proposition GG – Add Tax Info Table to Petitions and Ballots NO

Proposition 121 – State Income Tax Rate Reduction NO

Proposition 122 – Access to Natural Psychedelic Substances Yes?

Proposition 123 – Dedicate Revenue for Affordable Housing Programs YES

Proposition 124 – Increase Allowable Liquor Store Locations NO

Proposition 125 – Allow Grocery and Convenience Stores to Sell Wine No?

Proposition 126 – Third-Party Delivery of Alcoholic Beverages YES

Proposition 122 – Access to Natural Psychedelic Substances
YES

Proposition 124 – Increase Allowable Liquor Store Locations
NO

Proposition 125 – Allow Grocery and Convenience Stores to Sell Wine
NO

Amendment D – New 23rd Judicial District Judges
YES

Amendment E – Extend Homestead Exemption to Gold Star Spouses
YES

Amendment F – Changes to Charitable Gaming Operations
NO

Proposition FF – Healthy School Meals for All
YES

Proposition GG – Add Tax Info Table to Petitions and Ballots
NO

Proposition 121 – State Income Tax Rate Reduction
NO

Proposition 122 – Access to Natural Psychedelic Substances
Yes?

Proposition 123 – Dedicate Revenue for Affordable Housing Programs
YES

Proposition 124 – Increase Allowable Liquor Store Locations
NO

Proposition 125 – Allow Grocery and Convenience Stores to Sell Wine
No?

Proposition 126 – Third-Party Delivery of Alcoholic Beverages
YES