A parting shot of the Nissan Altima, our replacement rental lent to us in Cedar Rapids, and its new coat of 3000 miles worth of bugs.
…or, How We Spent Our Independence Day 2022.
Our 2021 Road Trip #46: The Final Five Photos
Our 2021 Road Trip #45: Overdue Outtakes
DAY FIVE: Jazz hands in front of Roaring Mountain in Yellowstone National Park.
No, I didn’t forget or give up on this series, even if site traffic already did months ago. We were so close to the very end when Oscars season, two conventions, year-in-review entries, and mood swings got in the way. The cool part is, much like Watchmen, Kevin Smith’s Daredevil run, or the Dangerous Visions trilogy, future generations who read the full work in one sitting will have no idea there was a long, sad gap between installments. Sincere apologies, future internet users, or denizens of whatever replaced the internet, for this intro that may seem superfluous in hindsight!
Indiana Comic Con 2022 Photos, Part 2 of 2: Stars and Stuff!
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. John de Lancie! (Imagine .gif of Kermit the Frog cheering and flailing.)
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the eighth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention [read: ““Indiana Comic Con”] at the Indiana Convention Center in ICC 2022 was another opportunity to flip through old comics, meet people who create reading matter, boggle at toy displays, continue watching anime fandom multiply ever more dauntingly, and find space to breathe among or away from those cheerfully ever-growing crowds. It felt good to be back inside our own hometown shindig space.
Indiana Comic Con 2022 Photos, Part 1 of 2: Cosplay!
Buttercup! Bubbles! Blossom! The Powerpuff Girls!
It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the eighth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. It was formerly called simply “Indiana Comic Con”, then subjected to light cosmetic rephrasing after the owners of the San Diego Comic Con were bitten by a radioactive ambulance chaser and began suing other comic cons in a desperate attempt to prevent the very common phrase “comic con” from becoming a very common phrase for comic cons, as very commonly used by every comic-con attendee ever. Anyone who actually calls it “the Indiana Comic Convention” either has a mandatory work-related reason to do so or far too many neckties in their closet.
ICC 2022 was another opportunity to flip through old comics, meet people who create reading matter, boggle at toy displays, continue watching anime fandom multiply ever more dauntingly, and find space to breathe among or away from those cheerfully ever-growing crowds. Our last time at ICC was back in 2018, the end of a five-year run for us. We missed the 2019 edition due to a severe geek-related schedule conflict and skipped last year’s autumn revival because the short guest list had a certain “too soon” quality to it. After leaving the safety of our home for shows in other states last fall and last weekend, it felt good to be back inside our own hometown shindig space.
While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this collection of cosplayers who brightened the day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapter because everyone loves costumes. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy! Corrections welcome if we misidentified anyone!
Star Trek: Mission Chicago 2022 Photos, Part 4 of 4: A Two-Day Mission
Fun with green screen! Fans could sit in one of two captains’ chairs and be inserted into promos for either Strange New Worlds or Star Trek: Prodigy.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
The weekend of April 8-10, 2022, marked the inaugural Star Trek Mission, the first in a planned convention series from ReedPOP, the showrunners behind the much-vaunted C2E2 and other comic cons. In this geek endeavor ReedPOP in conjunction with Paramount Pictures hopes to do for Gene Roddenberry’s creation what the Star Wars Celebrations do for that rival galaxy. As it happens, the premier shindig was held in Chicago, a mere three hours away from our humble dwelling. Naturally we had to see…
As in all other MCC miniseries about our con experiences, it all comes down to this: the overlong grand finale in which I recount every anecdote I didn’t already share, post one last round of photos, and see how many readers make it all the way to the end, days after the event is long past and everyone’s already looking forward to the next con. It’s a draining process with few rewards, but that’s my thing.
Star Trek: Mission Chicago 2022 Photos, Part 3 of 4: Props and Merch
Not your Trekker parents’ kind of “Bones” reference: the skulls of a Borg and a formerly obscure Saurian, plucked from The Motion Picture like a Mos Eisley Cantina action figure and repurposed for Discovery.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
The weekend of April 8-10, 2022, marked the inaugural Star Trek Mission, the first in a planned convention series from ReedPOP, the showrunners behind the much-vaunted C2E2 and other comic cons. In this geek endeavor ReedPOP in conjunction with Paramount Pictures hopes to do for Gene Roddenberry’s creation what the Star Wars Celebrations do for that rival galaxy. As it happens, the premier shindig was held in Chicago, a mere three hours away from our humble dwelling. Naturally we had to see…
It wouldn’t be a convention without opportunities to spend money and/or see objects inspired by, or actually used in, the source material that entertained the fandom at large. The exhibit hall wasn’t large by any convention’s definition, with not many vendors on hand, all of them phaser-focused on Trek and Trek accessories, but fascinating objets d’art surrounded fans on all sides.
Star Trek: Mission Chicago 2022 Photos, Part 2 of 4: A Piece of the Cosplay Action
Yes, there’s an alien after the Star Trek end credits: Balok from “The Corbomite Maneuver”.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
The weekend of April 8-10, 2022, marked the inaugural Star Trek Mission, the first in a planned convention series from ReedPOP, the showrunners behind the much-vaunted C2E2 and other comic cons. In this geek endeavor ReedPOP in conjunction with Paramount Pictures hopes to do for Gene Roddenberry’s creation what the Star Wars Celebrations do for that rival galaxy. As it happens, the premier shindig was held in Chicago, a mere three hours away from our humble dwelling. Naturally we had to see…
It wouldn’t be a very special MCC convention miniseries without at least one cosplay gallery. Trek cons are a tricky affair for us appreciators and amateur shutterbugs: plenty of fans attend in costume, but the theme for 95% of them is “me, but in Starfleet”. That’s awesome for inclusivity’s sake — anyone can dress the part and belong instantly — but we can’t just stop and bug everyone we see out of civilian attire. Also, we haven’t watched Discovery or Prodigy (and we’re only partway through Lower Decks), so there’re newer characters outside our recognition zone. Spending a lot of our time in panels and photo-op lines doesn’t help with this secondary objective, either. When time and energy permitted, we compiled the following modest fraction of the total fashion statements represented at the con on Friday and Saturday. Enjoy!
Star Trek: Mission Chicago 2022 Photos, Part 1 of 4: The Stars in Our Galaxy
Anne and me with the Picard team of Michelle Hurd (Ash vs. Evil Dead), Annie Wersching (Timeless, Marvel’s Runaways), Isa Briones (the touring version of Hamilton), and Evan Evagora (Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island).
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I are big fans of geek/comic/entertainment conventions. Sometimes we shell out for photo ops with actors from our favorite movies and TV shows. If they’re amenable and don’t mind taking posing suggestions from a pair of eccentric middle-agers shaped like two lumpy bags of potatoes, our favorite theme is jazz hands. We’re not dancers and we’ve only attended two Broadway shows so far, but we love the idea of sharing a moment of unbridled joie de vivre with anyone who’s game. We can’t remember which of us had the idea first, though the inspiration surely came from a few different possible sources we share. It’s silly, but it’s our thing.
The weekend of April 8-10, 2022, marked the inaugural Star Trek Mission, the first in a planned convention series from ReedPOP, the showrunners behind the much-vaunted C2E2 and other comic cons. In this geek endeavor ReedPOP in conjunction with Paramount Pictures hopes to do for Gene Roddenberry’s creation what the Star Wars Celebrations do for that rival galaxy. As it happens, the premier shindig was held in Chicago, a mere three hours away from our humble dwelling. Anne and I watched the old Trek shows back in the day (though she was the far, far more intensely studied fan) and recently subscribed to Paramount+ for catch-up on some of the new generation. ST:MC offered excitement for every level of Trek fandom, from the elderly who watched the classics on CBS in the ’60s to today’s tykes who count Star Trek: Prodigy in their animated streaming diet. The two of us decided it was the perfect place to kick off our 2022 convention season and a good choice for our first major event since Dragon Con 2021. Naturally we had to see how many new pics we could add to our jazz-hands photo-op collection.
Five “Picard” Season 2 Halfway-Point Spoiler Theories
If they were a couple we could call them “Q-Card”.
My wife Anne has been a Star Trek fan since at least high school, which is how long I’ve known her. I’ve tagged alongside her for the past few decades and watched a few hundred episodes myself. I’ve never 100% caught up to her but have seen Deep Space Nine in its entirety and can confirm it reigns above all. We attended multiple local Trek conventions and bought the occasional toys, comics, and other merchandise, but up until six months ago we had no investment in the new Trek works on Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access) because we weren’t in the mood to collect ALL the streaming services. And to us, CBS All Access at launch sounded like a non-starter. We regretted the Trek universe leaving us behind, but our longtime favorite geek universes have broken our hearts before. We planned to cope and move on.
Yes, There Are Scenes During the “Morbius” End Credits
The Matrix Resurrections skewered the whole “bullet-time” fad, yet here we go again.
I thought Morbius the Living Vampire was scary when I was 6 or 7 and he showed up in a 1977 comic I picked up at the toy store. In a time when the Comics Code Authority was still touchy about allowing comics to show the undead because they might turn young readers into rampaging juvenile delinquents, Morbius exploited a loophole with an origin that revealed him as not an actual vampire, but as a scientist who conducted questionable experiments to cure his own rare blood disease, which went awry and turned him into a science vampire, with many vampiric powers and few-if-any vampiric weaknesses. He was a forerunner of the irritating horror sub-subgenre Vampires Who Ignore Vampire Rules and Who Therefore Aren’t Vampires by Definition So Maybe the Writer Should’ve Made Up Their Own Monster Instead of Misusing the Word “Vampire”.
Our 2021 Road Trip #44: Restaurants Rundown Redux
Nobody makes huckleberry walnut salads back home in Indiana. Adventures got only marginally fancier from here.
Longtime MCC readers may recall our best annual travelogues usually include photos from the restaurants we’ve visited in other states and the foodstuffs we’ve found that we don’t necessarily have back home in Indianapolis. We do enjoy sharing those moments, but you may have noticed their conspicuous absence from this series except in Part 30, when we covered our culinary results from Days One through Five, the first half of our vacation. We had looked forward to leaving home and hopefully leaving the year’s troubles behind for just ten days. The more we drove, the more we had to face reality: it was the same kind of 2021 everywhere in America.
Days Six through Ten had their moments. In this context “moment” isn’t always a compliment.
96 Tears and One Punch: The Oscars 2022 Season Finale
Purple, the color of bruises.
If you count the one-hour unaired portion of the 94th Academy Awards that began at 7 p.m. EDT, this year’s return to the Dolby Theatre technically came in at a staggering 272 minutes when the usual legal disclaimers rolled at 11:42 p.m., beating the year A Beautiful Mind won by nine minutes. We already knew going into this evening that it couldn’t possibly beat the Shortest Oscars Ever record of 100 minutes, achieved in 1959 when an angry Jerry Lewis gave all the Oscars to The Geisha Boy, read his 90-minute doctoral thesis about muscular dystrophy, and called it a night. Just the same, these Oscars were a lot, even before the cruel insult and the on-stage assault.
The Oscar Quest ’22 Grand Finale: All the Other Nominees I Could Catch
Vanessa Hudgens and Andrew Garfield in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick…BOOM! on Netflix. To those who swear Garfield’s best performance of 2021 was in No Way Home, I am BEGGING you to watch a second movie.
It’s that time again! Longtime MCC readers know this time of year 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 watched every Best Picture winner ever (some more closely than others) and as of this writing I’ve seen every Best Picture nominee released since 1987 (some in better-quality formats than others). Nobody I know cares, but it’s been my thing for years.
Thanks to pandemic restlessness and our current streaming media bonanza, starting last year I expanded the boundaries of Oscar Quest to see how many nominees I could watch in any category whatsoever, period. This is equally unimpressive to everyone I know, but now it’s like a game for me, and a far livelier one than solitaire.
The MCC 2022 Oscar-Nominated Short Film Revue
“One of these things is not like the other” describes both the robin in this group hug and its status as the only family-friendly Animated Short Film nominee.
Each year since 2009 (except for 2021’s pandemic lockdown marathon) I’ve paid visits to Keystone Art Cinema, the oldest surviving art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen releases of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but I appreciate the opportunities to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether I agree with their collective opinions or not. Since 2019 I’ve also assigned myself the extra-credit activity of catching as many nominees for Best Documentary Short Film as possible, depending on their availability online. The good folks at Shorts.TV, who package the theatrical releases each year, are supposed to be releasing them for home rental sometime soon, which will be a nice way to save yourself some gas money.
First up: my rankings of this year’s five Best Animated Short Film nominees, which were the most mixed of mixed bags that I’ve seen in years, not to mention the edgiest and incontrovertibly NSFW-iest. Four are available online; one was exclusive to the Shorts.tv program.
“Parallel Mothers” and Fraught Intersections
When you’re up for Best International Feature but critics won’t shut up about Drive My Car.
Indulging in the Academy Awards season is easier than ever if you have the free time and all the accesses. The proliferation of streaming services has opened new doorways for any wannabe cineaste to create their own little film festival at home, with a panoply of options from across every category. However, some nominees still stubbornly observed the time-honored tradition of refusing a wide release until after their nominations were secured, and have therefore been exclusive to theaters this past month. Thankfully this year has been easier than ever for me to catch up to Real Critics — as of today Indianapolis has expanded from one tiny theater to four whole theaters willing to show films of all sizes, not just blockbusters, as we did ten years ago. It’s almost like we’re this close to becoming a real Big City.
One hope for my expanded Oscar Quest ’22 was fulfilled: fascinating new experiences I might not have otherwise prioritized. When the nominations were announced, our town’s new indie theater was still showing Parallel Mothers, the latest feature from the continually acclaimed Pedro Almodovar. I’ve read about many of his films for over half my life, but never actually watched one all the way through before. The first time I ran across him, I was a college-bound youngster who found Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! one night while channel-flipping, but didn’t stick around for the whole thing. I also faintly remember frequent commercials on the same channel for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which likely fit well into their niche programming. Till now, that’s been it for me. Read about these fleeting moments and more in my forthcoming memoir I Was an Unsupervised Teen with Cinemax.
Our 2021 Road Trip #43: Black Hawk Up
There he stood up, across, along, on, by, at, above and beyond the river. Not pictured: the river.
One last state. One last stop. One last attraction. One last park. One last forest. One last cliff. One last statue. All the plurals throughout this series come down to these.
Five Miles Out from the Walmart Volcano
Lead photo by my wife Anne, who got wind of the event before I did.
I nearly called this “The Day They Nuked Walmart”, but that’s even less accurate and I’m told this isn’t a great moment in history to joke about nukes. One day nuke jokes shall make a comeback, possibly on my watch but not necessarily today.
What were we talking about? Oh, right, I didn’t mention it yet:
Six Kind Things About “The Worst Person in the World”
CAUTION: RATED NC-17 FOR SCENES OF SMOKING.
Indulging in the Academy Awards season is easier than ever if you have the free time and all the accesses. The proliferation of streaming services has opened new doorways for any wannabe cineaste to create their own little film festival at home, with a panoply of options from across every category. However, some nominees still stubbornly observed the time-honored tradition of refusing a wide release until after their nominations were secured, and have therefore been exclusive to theaters this past month. Thankfully this year has been easier than ever for me to catch up to Real Critics — as of today Indianapolis has expanded from one tiny theater to four whole theaters willing to show films of all sizes, not just blockbusters, as we did ten years ago. It’s almost like we’re this close to becoming a real Big City.
One drawback I fully expected from my expanded Oscar Quest ’22: not every film is for me. I don’t mean simply “some films bad.” I make no pretense to objectivity in these entries here on my li’l unpaid quasi-boutique hobby-job. No matter how many critics love a given work or how many awards it’s been put up for, I will not and cannot love everything, nor does everything have a fair shot with me. Some stuff is simply Not My Thing. There’re a few different ways a movie can lose me. Norway’s acclaimed dramedy The Worst Person in the World invokes a couple of them.
Once Upon a Time in “Belfast”…
Wait’ll they find out tonight’s feature presentation is In the Name of the Father.
…there was a tiny child named Kenneth Branagh, but everyone called him Buddy. He was a smarter version of Ralphie from A Christmas Story and even had the same preoccupation with the toys and films of his age, plus he even got to unwrap his fair share of Christmas gifts. He didn’t need Ralphie’s narrator powers because he was perfectly happy talking aloud to anyone who’d listen. He never got in trouble for talking too much, even when he kept pointing out little differences between Catholicism and Protestantism like an ’80s standup comic who’s never heard other comics’ routines and feels like he’s blazing new trails in the field of Just Asking Questions.
Our 2021 Road Trip #42: Ten Days, Nine Hotel Windows
Best window view of the trip was in a motel across the way from Yellowstone, which proved impossible to top.
It’s fun turning our vacations into extended travelogs threaded with a sometimes weird, often self-deprecating personal narrative that ensures I’ll never be invited to write for a travel magazine. This year I thought I’d also toss in our answers to a question no one asked: “How did the world look from the vantage point of our middle-class accommodations?”
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 