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Dept of Scattershot
Short Takes
"Captain Marvel"
I had worried that I'd find this bland - blonde white hero after the strength of Black Panther - so I was happy to truly like the movie. I'm not familiar with Brie Larson's work, but I found her an excellent Captain Marvel, and certainly not "wooden," which I believe was one of the shots aimed at her. I thought the plot did a fine job of weaving the various Captain Marvel histories together, and I loved the twist at the end, which I should have seen coming, as likable as the putative villain and his buddies were. (Also, every time I saw Jude Law in this film, I had to fight the suspicion that he deserved nothing so much as a punch in the nose.) There were a few threads dangling here and there, which is almost to be expected at this, the end of this generation of MCU stories. They've all gotten so dense, multifaceted, and connected to each other that the general quality of the story telling and pacing is a bit of a minor cinematic miracle. Samuel Jackson was a joy to watch, as always, and I think that the MCU finally has a heavy hitter that can take on Thanos.
"Logopolis"
Tonight BB and I and a friend took in the special showing of the final Tom Baker Fourth Doctor adventure in the theater. It was digitally remastered, so that the bad quality I've seen when television gets transferred to the big screen wasn't a problem. Before and after the actual story (which flowed pretty well as a movie) we got to enjoy bits of banter between Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton, and separate conversations between Baker, John Leeson, and others. At the end of the story, they showed a brief little featurette in which Fielding and Sutton visited the Lovell Telescope in Cheshire, England, which was the model for the Pharos Project radio telescope in Logopolis. I was struck by a few things. 1) I'd forgotten that Baker could be a very good actor. This reminded me of that. 2) After watching Ainley's performance I wonder why anyone complained about Simm or Gomez being too hammy. I seem to remember that he came off better in some of his later appearances; perhaps it was the direction? 3) I adored the horrible production values - you can see the paint spatters around the lower half of the TARDIS console, and the paint doesn't hide the fact that the console is knocked together out of some unseemly blend of two-by-fours and balsa wood. I love the classics .... 4) I had expected the theater to be quite full; we're in a big urban area, full of fans of the show ... but there might have been 30 people in the theater. BB noticed that they were older, like us, so perhaps even a famous story about the end of the most famous Old Who Doctor couldn't coax younger fans out. It disappointed me.
Vincent
He has now been fostered out, and Opie is gradually returning to whatever is his version of stability. I miss Vincent; I wish it had worked. But I comfort myself with the knowledge that the group that took him (Precious Pets Almost Home, for those in the Chicago area who are curious) will find a good home for him, and that I will no longer have to pull a large, furry, rugby ball out of the lower reaches of my refrigerator every time I open its door.
"Captain Marvel"
I had worried that I'd find this bland - blonde white hero after the strength of Black Panther - so I was happy to truly like the movie. I'm not familiar with Brie Larson's work, but I found her an excellent Captain Marvel, and certainly not "wooden," which I believe was one of the shots aimed at her. I thought the plot did a fine job of weaving the various Captain Marvel histories together, and I loved the twist at the end, which I should have seen coming, as likable as the putative villain and his buddies were. (Also, every time I saw Jude Law in this film, I had to fight the suspicion that he deserved nothing so much as a punch in the nose.) There were a few threads dangling here and there, which is almost to be expected at this, the end of this generation of MCU stories. They've all gotten so dense, multifaceted, and connected to each other that the general quality of the story telling and pacing is a bit of a minor cinematic miracle. Samuel Jackson was a joy to watch, as always, and I think that the MCU finally has a heavy hitter that can take on Thanos.
"Logopolis"
Tonight BB and I and a friend took in the special showing of the final Tom Baker Fourth Doctor adventure in the theater. It was digitally remastered, so that the bad quality I've seen when television gets transferred to the big screen wasn't a problem. Before and after the actual story (which flowed pretty well as a movie) we got to enjoy bits of banter between Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton, and separate conversations between Baker, John Leeson, and others. At the end of the story, they showed a brief little featurette in which Fielding and Sutton visited the Lovell Telescope in Cheshire, England, which was the model for the Pharos Project radio telescope in Logopolis. I was struck by a few things. 1) I'd forgotten that Baker could be a very good actor. This reminded me of that. 2) After watching Ainley's performance I wonder why anyone complained about Simm or Gomez being too hammy. I seem to remember that he came off better in some of his later appearances; perhaps it was the direction? 3) I adored the horrible production values - you can see the paint spatters around the lower half of the TARDIS console, and the paint doesn't hide the fact that the console is knocked together out of some unseemly blend of two-by-fours and balsa wood. I love the classics .... 4) I had expected the theater to be quite full; we're in a big urban area, full of fans of the show ... but there might have been 30 people in the theater. BB noticed that they were older, like us, so perhaps even a famous story about the end of the most famous Old Who Doctor couldn't coax younger fans out. It disappointed me.
Vincent
He has now been fostered out, and Opie is gradually returning to whatever is his version of stability. I miss Vincent; I wish it had worked. But I comfort myself with the knowledge that the group that took him (Precious Pets Almost Home, for those in the Chicago area who are curious) will find a good home for him, and that I will no longer have to pull a large, furry, rugby ball out of the lower reaches of my refrigerator every time I open its door.
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