Schlock Mercenary

It’s that time of year again, when our family room is full of boxes and the game table is covered with books.

The 2019 Writing Excuses Retreat is setting sail from the port of Houston this September, and you’re invited! I’ll be there with other Writing Excuses hosts, and some amazing guest instructors. The event begins on Friday, September 13, 2019 at 2:00 PM, and runs through Sunday, September 22, 2019 at 11:00 AM (Central Daylight Time). The button above has all the details. This is one of my very favorite events ever, which is probably why I keep doing it. Hanging out for a week with people who like to create worlds and tell stories in them is fun. Doing that on a cruise ship in the Caribbean is unforgettable. On January 31st the posted prices will go up, so now is a good time to make your late summer plans.

I survived 2018 and at the end of the ride there wasn’t even a kiosk selling “I survived 2018 and all I got was a t-shirt.” Happy New Year, everyone. I hope 2019 is good to you, but my hope is couched in counsel: 2019 can’t be good to you if you’re not good to it. Sandra and I have lots of big goals for the next twelve months, but they’re not resolutions we’ve arrived at in the last twelve hours. They’re things that we have been planning for, and on, and toward, for almost eighteen months now. And this post is not where I’ll trouble you with them. You’ve got your own plans for this year, and to that end I hope that the entertainment you find here helps lighten the load in some way. It’s January 1st. Time for me to go to work.

I saw three movies in twenty-four hours. It’s possible I’m on vacation. Of course, I just spent an hour reviewing all three of them, so it’s also possible I’m actually working. My job is weird. In the interest of not pushing anybody below the fold, here are links to all three.

Filmmakers, especially those working on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, have done a fine job of showing us what super-hero movies can be. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, shows us what a comic-book movie can be. Also, it demonstrates the difference. A super-hero movie might be based on stories told in comics, but a comic-book movie tells its story the way a comic-book tells it, using tools that movies don’t often use. Marvelously, no, miraculously, it did that without being silly, or looking down its nose at the art form in the way the 1960’s Batman TV series seems to. I could say more, and do so at great length, but to my mind this film expands the very syntax of cinematography, making it difficult for me to describe the experience to anyone who hasn’t experienced something like it. As I can’t think of anything else like it for you to experience, I guess you’ll just have to go see it. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse clears my Threshold of Awesome, and additionally clears my “let’s spend enough money so all four kids can see it in the theater” threshold.

On the one hand, Jason Momoa is frighteningly formidable, so I would never tell him to his face that Aquaman was anything short of awesome. On the other hand, Mr. Momoa seems genuinely nice, very much not the sort of person to punch people for rude and uncalled-for comments. As it is vanishingly unlikely for me to meet Jason Momoa in a circumstance where I’d feel even remotely tempted to diss any of his work, none of this is relevant. Besides, Momoa’s work was my favorite part of the movie. My only complaint is that Aquaman was far longer than it needed to be in order to tell the pair of stories it set out to tell. It is an origin story whose inciting incidents take place before the events of Justice League, and it is a hero’s journey story which takes place after the DC super-team-up. That may seem like a lot, but it didn’t need to take two hours and forty-three minutes. That’s not to say that the film wastes any time. Everything happening on screen was interesting and/or beautiful and/or exciting. I was never bored. And really, how do you tell Nicole Kidman that she’s going to appear in a mere thirty-seconds of flashback? The woman deserves serious screen time, and she makes the most of it. I suppose I could complain about the world building here, but DC comics has always pushed me out of the story with “Gotham,” “Metropolis,” and “Central City,” so I shouldn’t expect Atlantis to somehow make more sense. It might be best, then, to compare Aquaman to the other DC Snyderverse films: it was far better Batman Vs. Superman, and Man of Steel. It wasn’t quite up to the level of Wonder Woman, but it did have five times as much Momoa as Justice League. I think it fares pretty well. Aquaman doesn’t clear my Threshold of Awesome, but I’ll be picking up the Blu-Ray and watching it again when I can pause for trips to the restroom, and if you think it might be unfair for a relaxed bladder to be what puts a film over the top, well, you’re not wrong.

As a kid I watched the original Mary Poppins a great many times. The film is indelibly etched in my brain. Did adult me have doubts that Mary Poppins Returns could be worth my time? Of course. But Sandra and I both plunked down our ticket moneys and saw the movie on Wednesday. Before I talk about how much I liked it (hint: a lot) I’ll tell you about the previews. There was one for the upcoming CGI+live-action Dumbo, and one for the upcoming CGI+live-action Lion King. SANDRA¹: “That’s… a lot of CGI remakes.”