Monthly Archives: January 2024

“Ferrari”: The Big Race Not in the Oscar Race

January 28, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Adam Driver playing the white-haired Enzo Ferrari, sitting at a dinner table with his hands held out palms-down, staring into the camera as he explains what happens when two particular engine parts don't line up perfectly.

What this pic and movie really need are some Photoshopped 3-D Force-lightning.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I tried starting my annual Oscar Quest three weeks early by catching several potential nominees before the Academy’s official announcement, in hopes of reducing my eventual legwork. Two of those screenings proved useless to my Quest in the end: Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon (which was on the Best Visual Effects shortlist, but got justly bumped by Godzilla) and Ferrari, a vehicle for Adam Driver to explore a matured variation on his House of Gucci accent. Rendered irrelevant like that, this entry could’ve been procrastinated another week or two, but then I realized maybe it’d be a good idea to slot something between the entries for American Fiction and The Color Purple, which really would not work as a double feature.

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I Would’ve Voted for “American Fiction” Three Times If I Could’ve

January 27, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jeffrey Wright as an author sitting at his laptop in a very nice house, thinking hard about his next sentence.

“It was a Black and blackly night…”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: as a lifelong lover of satire, I was annoyed at missing American Fiction when it played the Heartland Film Festival months ahead of the current Oscar season, but its one and only showtime and location were lousy for me. The drive would’ve been a nearly-hourlong construction-zone slog to Central Indiana’s most upscale area, arguably a breeding ground for the very crowd that the film’s most withering commentary targets.

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My Oscar Quest 2024 Quick-Start Scorecard

January 24, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in one of the black-and-white flashbacks. He's seated at a table, incredulous during testimony and reaching for his coffee mug.

“Now I am become Oscar, the booster of careers.”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: every winter is my annual Oscar Quest, during which I venture out to see all Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, regardless of whether I think I’ll like them or not, whether their politics and beliefs agree with mine or not, whether they’re good or bad for me, and whether or not my friends and family have ever heard of them. I’ve seen every Best Picture winner from Wings to Everything Everywhere All at Once, and every Best Picture nominee from 1987 to the present, many of which were worth the hunt. You take the good, you take the bad, and so on.

Starting in 2020 I upgraded to the Oscars Quest Expanded Challenge, in which I see how many nominees I can watch in all categories before the big ceremony. Thanks to the expansion of streaming services I’ve seen every Oscar-nominated feature and short for the years 2021 and 2022, even in minor categories like Best Original Song. I enjoyed surprises and suffered regrets. Sometimes I have to wait for smaller nominees to arrive at the art-house theaters here in Indianapolis. Sometimes I luck out and they’re on our subscribed streaming services of choice. Sometimes I go for a streaming rental. In extreme cases a Redbox disc rental might be warranted. I go wherever the Quest takes me.

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“Poor Things”: Terry Gilliam’s Frankenhooker

January 21, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Poor Things movie poster on display at a shopping-mall theater. It has the logo, Emma Stone with dark hair and thick eyebrows, and weird stuff at the bottom.

Winner of two Golden Globes! Too bad I’ve never cared about the Golden Globes.

Show of hands, who wants to hear opinions from a prude who avoids buying any Criterion Collection releases about “sexual liberation” or “sexual awakening”, who went to see a shamelessly, zealously “sex-positive” film?

No? No one? Understood. G’night! See you next entry! I’ll let y’all know when I post some more Disney World photos!

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2023 at the Movies at My House

January 20, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed sit expectantly on the floor in front of a wall-mounted microwave. Two of her fingers are bandaged.

Time once more to gather the family ’round the appliance of your choice!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: : in 2023 I made 24 trips to the theater to see films made that same year. Meanwhile at home, I kept up with select new releases depending on what was conveniently available through our family’s streaming subscriptions, what sounded most watchable, and/or what felt like potential future Oscar nominees that should be gotten over with in advance to ease my annual Oscar Quest time crunch. For value-added fun, as an anniversary gift from my lovely wife Anne we now have Amazon Prime, which expanded our options without expanding my available TV free time. I did what I could within the time slots allotted.

Hence the fourth annual installment of the MCC tradition borne of the pandemic: a ranking of all the brand new films I saw on comfy, convenient home video in their year of release. Sure, they could’ve been 24 separate entries written in real time as I consumed them, but that’s not how I roll. The Academy Award nominations announcement is coming up January 23rd, which I’ve been keeping in the back of my mind as the deadline for this listicle, so that incentive to get these done clearly worked. On with the countdown!

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Disney World! Part 5: Disney Easter Eggs

January 17, 2024 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Large egg with nearly two dozen Disney characters painted on it.

No, I mean this kind of Disney Easter egg.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

During the late afternoon of my one-man tour through the Grand Floridian grounds and around the Disney Resorts’ monorail track, in their main lobby I came across what’s apparently an annual Easter feature in their Main Building: an exhibit of egg-shaped sculptures honoring their companies’ films and theme park rides. Some weren’t egg-shaped, instead containing egg motifs. Some were new for 2023; some were holdovers from the past. A few were works-in-progress. All were a gentle admonishment to myself that, yes, I’m sharing these pics well outside the Easter 2023 season when we took them, but in plenty of time for Easter 2024, skipping right over Valentine’s Day and getting ahead of Hallmark for once.

Not all the pics are mine; Anne finally got a chance to peruse the Grand Floridian for herself Wednesday afternoon when she found some unexpected free time between activities and I was several miles away. Between the two of us, we found most of the Easter eggs, which of course weren’t really “hidden”.

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My 2023 at the Movies, Part 2 of 2: The Top 10

January 14, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Four main cast members from the Dungeons & Dragons movie step into a medieval arena, booed by the crowd.

Over 300 films stepped into the 2023 arena. Ten step out.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s listing time again! In today’s entertainment consumption sphere, all experiences must be pitted against each other and assigned numeric values that are ultimately arbitrary to anyone except the writer themselves. It’s just this fun thing some of us love doing even though the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.

Of those 24 releases, 15 were sequels or chapters in an ongoing universe or venerated popcorn-flick IP. Eight were superhero films. Two were animated. Two were entirely subtitled. Ten had scenes during or after the end credits. Four were screenings at the 32nd annual Heartland Film Festival, not all of which have received wide U.S. runs as of this writing.

Here’s the annual rundown of what I didn’t miss in theaters in 2023, for better or worse. Links to past excessively wordy reviews and sometimes bizarrely construed thoughts are provided for historical reference…

And now, on with the Year’s Best Movies countdown:

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My 2023 at the Movies, Part 1 of 2: The Year’s Least Best

January 13, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Scene from the second Shazam movie with all six powered-up Shazam Family members standing on a bridge, looking at you.

2023 was the 20th anniversary of the classic “LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT!” LARPing video. The future that faux-wizard foresaw has arrived.

It’s listing time again! In today’s entertainment consumption sphere, all experiences must be pitted against each other and assigned numeric values that are ultimately arbitrary to anyone except the writer themselves. It’s just this fun thing some of us love doing even though the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.

I saw 24 films in theaters in 2023 that were actually released in 2023, a 33.3% increase over 2022 as COVID-19 retreated slightly into the bushes and folks began making more movies, many of them watchable. That number doesn’t include seven Academy Award nominees that were officially 2022 releases, but which I saw later outside the house as part of my annual Oscar Quest. It also doesn’t include the 2023 films I watched on streaming services, which will receive their own listicle.

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Disney World! Part 4: Party of One v. Party of Many

January 12, 2024 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Nighttime shot across a lagoon. On the far shore is a tiny blue castle and a practically neon hotel. The moon shines brightly through a hazy sky, At left is a pier empty but lit.

Far from other tourists, this was my view across Seven Seas Lagoon of Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The glowing blue mountain is Cinderella’s Castle.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Our Disney Resort experience had only just begun. We’d been together all day, but wouldn’t be for long. Among the divergences in the four-day itinerary, Anne had to attend an “evening event” for employees only beginning at 5 pm at the Grand Floridian’s Convention Center. We plus-ones were cordially asked to go bug off on our own recognizance. At first I’d worried about possibly spending my solo night sulky and depressed. It’s a thing I do sometimes.

Then I remembered I was at DISNEY WORLD. I had some light exploring to do before my big, big day tomorrow.

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“The Crown” Season 6: All Ten Episodes Ranked According to a Guy Who Learned UK History Along the Way

January 7, 2024 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II dressed in white, standing in Westminster Abbey and contemplating the future. Hanging back on either side of her are Olivia Colman and Claire Foy, each in black as their respective Elizabeths from previous seasons.

Lilibet 1, Lilibet 2, and Lilibet 3 ponder the final fate of the Queen-Verse.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: at the start of the pandemic my wife Anne and I binged the first three seasons of Netflix’s The Crown, soon caught up with the rest of fandom, and kept up ever after. One slight hitch: while Anne is a major history aficionado, that was never my forte, especially not the story of Queen Elizabeth II and her subjects, some of whom were her own trod-upon relatives:

Compared to my blissfully ignorant self, Anne is far more knowledgeable of history in general and British royalty in particular. My interest in their reigning family went dormant for decades beginning on the morning of July 29, 1981, when my family woke up at 5 a.m. — over summer vacation, mind you — to watch Prince Charles marry Princess Diana, two strangers I knew only as frequent costars of my mom’s favorite tabloids. Their wedding lasted approximately six days and was performed in slow motion with British golf commentators prattling through the lengthy silences in between the happenstances of nothingness. For the next 15-20 years I retained nothing of British history apart from their role as the Big Bad in the American Revolution. Frankly, I’ve learned more about their country’s storied past from my wife and from Oscar-nominated movies than I ever did from school. Sad, unadorned truth.

So far I’ve enjoyed “The Crown” anyway, and understood most of what’s gone on…

We watched along as new episodes were released. I tracked our viewing with listicle rankings of season 4 and season 5. Not only were we enjoying the show enough for me to want to write about it, but all three entries also generated unexpectedly massive traffic, sometimes even dwarfing our comic-con cosplay galleries. (As I’m writing this, the Season 5 entry is still one of last week’s Top 3 posts.) I grumbled when Netflix made the very AMC-esque decision to split the sixth and final season into two parts, leading off with a four-episode miniseries-within-a-series covering The Death of Di. I understood the reasons (i.e., they were a self-contained story and Everyone Loves Princess Diana), but I felt the quartet didn’t justify a minuscule listicle. So I broke from the format and stretched my thoughts into a different sort of list. No one cared.

Looks like it’s listicle time again!

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“The Boy and the Heron”: No Sanctuary for Old Birds

January 6, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anime characters march down a path through a grassy yard. One young woman wearing a kimono and carrying a bow leads six shorter, elderly women all carrying brooms and itching to swat someone.

Miyazaki hive represent!

The Final Film from Visionary Animator Hayao Myazaki is a phrase that’s been pushed before in marketing, but maybe this time Studio Ghibli totally means it for sure, no take-backs, not a hoax, The Boy and the Heron is absolutely the animation master’s swan song from his beloved medium and then they’re unplugging all his screens and no longer accepting his notes on their future productions, which will merely have to do the best they can without his sage guidance and relentless perfectionism. Hopefully Ghibli’s next phase goes far better than that time Disney ushered in a new artistic era for themselves and the result was Chicken Little.

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Midlife Crisis Crossover 2023 in Review: A Post-Pandemic Performance-Parsing Party

January 1, 2024 By in Meta Tags: , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments
A selfie taken in a bathroom. I'm rolling my eyes, holding my phone with both hands, and wearing a purple dress shirt and Grateful Dead tie even though I don't like the Grateful Dead. It was a gift.

The author out of his element, by which I mean attempting a selfie.

Hey, there! Welcome, gracious readers and bots, to the twelfth annual Midlife Crisis Crossover year-in-review! Once again we self-analyze the site’s pinnacles and nadirs among readers, skimmers, search engine gadabouts, and any other casual internet users who come within fifty light-years of this li’l boutique site. Over a twelve-month period those fleeting glances add up to concrete stats that may or may not be reliable indicators of trends, fads, and wins ‘n’ sins on my part.

This virtual hermit cabin opened its creaky wooden door on April 28, 2012, as a place where I could entertain myself by making essay-shaped things out of whatever words and pictures I had at hand, and placing them somewhere I personally owned rather than someplace a capricious third-party moderator or owner could delete on a whim. Often it’s been a fulfilling platform to share galleries, memories, Grandpa Simpson-style rambling jags, and peculiar opinions that might otherwise either languish unwritten in my head or collect endless rejection emails from every professional website ever. At other times it’s been less satisfying, but when I’m awake and the mood permits, I’ll still make room for one of my most time-consuming hobbies anyway. When my head is in the right space, I can enjoy the process and the results, with or without feedback. On rarer occasions, I’m surprised and elated to enjoy any and every response from outside my own head.

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