Tag Archives: entertainment

Wizard World Chicago 2016 Photos, Part 4: Star Wars and Sci-Fi Cosplay!

August 23, 2016 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Palpatine for Emperor!

“Vote for me and I vow there shall be a grand inquisition regarding the contents of Mon Mothma’s email inbox!”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I spent this weekend at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we generally had a blast surrounded by fellow fans of comics and genre TV/movies even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after three days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things.

In this episode: Star Wars cosplay! Always a popular choice, especially now that The Force Awakens gave fans several dozen more characters to choose from, though they’re really only basing costumes on three or four of them at best. Also, we welcome envoys from other science fiction universes who insist there’s more to life than lightsabers and cutesy, merchandisable aliens.

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Wizard World Chicago 2016 Photos, Part 3: Marvel Comics Cosplay!

August 22, 2016 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Gamora + Nebula!

Gamora and Nebula, like the Thelma and Louise of a new generation.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I spent this weekend at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we generally had a blast surrounded by fellow fans of comics and genre TV/movies even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after three days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things.

In Part One, we gave you great moments in comic-con jazz hands. In Part Two, DC Comics cosplay, including a special performance by the Suicide Squad. In this chapter: it’s Marvel’s turn to represent.

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Wizard World Chicago 2016 Photos, Part 2: DC Comics Cosplay!

August 22, 2016 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Suicide Squad!

Who’s killing members of the Suicide Squad? Find out after the break!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I spent this weekend at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we generally had a blast surrounded by fellow fans of comics and genre TV/movies even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after three days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things.

In the first of our mandatory cosplay galleries, from the heart of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center we focus on the ubiquitous citizens of the DC Comics Universe — most, but not all, from the adjunct DC Cinematic Universe, including a special spotlight on a fun, silent skit we saw go down Sunday afternoon in the main lobby, in which Our Heroes from that recent #1 film meet an unstoppable force from another comic-book universe.

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Our Wizard World Chicago 2016 Jazz Hands Gallery

August 22, 2016 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Daredevil Trio!

If you were Wilson Fisk, would you be heartless enough to drive this fabulous troupe out of business?

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I spent this weekend at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we generally had a blast surrounded by fellow fans of comics and genre TV/movies even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after three days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things. Also, our hotel internet connection was terrible and we had next to no energy left at the end of each evening, so this will be my first time in days typing entire paragraphs in one sitting.

Please enjoy this first of several Wizard World Chicago 2016 photo galleries, beginning with photos costarring us but not taken by us (except one). Longtime MCC fans know when we do photo ops with actors at conventions, our thing is jazz hands. Energy plus showmanship plus unusual shtick equals fun. This year’s special guests were ready and willing and accepted the challenge with gusto.

Pictured above: from the cast of Netflix’s Marvel’s Daredevil, Deborah Ann Woll, Stardust‘s Charlie Cox, and Eldon Henson, a.k.a. Pollux from the last two Hunger Games movies. Woll got it more quickly than the guys did, but they caught up with her.

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Indiana State Fair 2016 Photos, Part 4 of 4: The Best of the Rest

August 17, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
GOAT FACE!

I AM GOAT. I HAVE GOAT FACE. I MAKE POSE. YOU GIVE ME SNACKS NOW.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians that other people love, and farm animals competing for cash prizes and herd bragging rights. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

In Part One we covered this year’s food, both the delicious and the deadly. In Part Two, the Parkour Show starring acrobatic dudes. In Part Three, selections from the great Indiana BISONcentennial herd. In this, the exciting probable conclusion, selections from the dozens of other photos we took during our visit. Other photos may surface when you least expect it, but these were among my favorites of the bunch.

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Indiana State Fair 2016 Photos #3: The Bicentennial Bison

August 15, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Bison Welcome!

Introducing you to the concept is this Welcome to Indiana bison at the Indiana Arts Building (formerly the Home & Family Arts Building), which has a giant ear of corn on it because of course it does.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians that other people love, and farm animals competing for cash prizes and herd bragging rights. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

In Part One we covered this year’s food, both the delicious and the deadly. In Part Two, the Parkour Show starring acrobatic dudes. This time we bring you highlights from Indiana’s Bison-tennial Public Art Project, a statewide collaboration between the United Way and any interested parties down with the intent to create one art-covered bison statue for each of the Hoosier State’s 92 counties in honor of our upcoming 200th statehood anniversary in December 2016.

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Our Meager Kenny Baker Story

August 13, 2016 By in Conventions & Events, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Kenny Baker!

[Star Wars fans were saddened to learn today of the passing of Kenny Baker at age 81. His long list of credits include Labyrinth, Time Bandits, and even Amadeus, but every piece ever written about him will focus on his longtime career as the soul of R2-D2. We previously told the story of the one time Anne and I met him, in 2002 at Star Wars Celebration II here in Indianapolis. If memory serves, he was the first Star Wars actor we ever met. The following is a modified reprise for the occasion.]

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Indiana State Fair 2016 Photos #2: Parkour!

August 11, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Fernando over Kids!

Hey, kids! DUCK!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians that other people love, and farm animals competing for cash prizes and herd bragging rights. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

The State Fair also brings in entertainers from around the globe at various levels. Musicians bring in their Top-40, country, gospel, or sometimes hair-metal tunes; local acts play an even smaller stage; and a few touring entertainers perform in the farm-equipment areas, around the animal-education section, near the 4-H Building, or over by the Grandstand. Some charge no admission, earning only the intake from whatever merchandise they sell after their performance. Others aren’t there to huckster; they’re just there to show off their skills and presumably make money from State Fair officials without passing the hat around to visitors.

One event we attended this year was called simply The Parkour Show, a fun display of acrobatics. Four guys leaped, bounced, tumbled, did standing somersaults, and wowed a crowd that hopefully knows better not to try this at home.

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Yes, There’s a Scene During the “Suicide Squad” End Credits

August 7, 2016 By in Comics/Lit, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Suicide Squad!

Not the Bad News Bears reboot we want, but maybe the Police Academy reboot we need.

Midlife Crisis Crossover calls David Ayer’s Suicide Squad the best DC Comics film since The Dark Knight!

To be candid, that’s not too much of a compliment if you reconsider the competition. I suppose it’s a close race with The Losers, but I think of that more as a DC/Vertigo movie even though the original Losers were an old-time DC property. Suicide Squad has quite a few flaws in need of fixing — or, quite possibly, unfixing if you believe the press — but the overall studio-approved package contains a lot of well-crafted elements, some inspired performances, and a pretty faithful approximation of the 1980s Squad of my teenage years.

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Yes, There’re Scenes During AND After the “Ghostbusters” End Credits

August 5, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Ghostbusters!

Paparazzi photo from the listening party for the new Fall Out Boy theme.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I went ahead and reviewed co-writer/director Paul Feig’s controversial Ghostbusters reboot without seeing it first:

A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus. Eleventeen stars out of six. Two thumbs and five “WE’RE #1” giant foam fingers up. Two standing ovations, twelve “Good Job!” happy grading stickers, four Employee of the Month certificates, three Peabody Awards, a two-year supply of Rice-A-Roni (the San Francisco treat!), and one honorary “Joe Bob says check it out!” Midlife Crisis Crossover calls Ghostbusters “One of the year’s best films!” based on the fact that I just felt like typing those words in that order for this purpose. Since I haven’t had a man card to my name in ages, this is the kind of arbitrary whim that really impresses my wife.

…because someone had to bring balance to the internet. That someone didn’t have to be a guy, of course.

As of last night, now I’ve seen it for real. And every movie I watch in a theater for real gets an entry, even if I technically covered it already, even if the rest of America has already moved on to the next movie discussion.

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Pokemon in All the Wrong Places

July 31, 2016 By in Misc. Media, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Rattata!

Teaser image of Rattata from Eli Roth’s next horror film I Catch Pokemon on Your Grave.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: while waiting at Indianapolis International Airport for our (delayed) flight to Manhattan, I downloaded Pokemon Go as an amusing experiment just to see what would happen. Three weeks later, I’m still toying around, curious to see how much longer it’ll take me to get bored with it and move on. Yep, that should happen any week now.

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Ticketmaster Class Action Settlement Theatre Presents Bush and Chevelle

July 28, 2016 By in Indiana, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Farm Bureau Lawn Sunset!

The Farm Bureau Lawn stage at Indianapolis’ White River State Park, at sunset and between bands.

Dateline: July 26, 2016 — Tuesday night marked the first time I ever attended two concerts in the same calendar year. MCC followers may recall my previous outing to see Bloc Party and the Vaccines back in May, an enjoyable experience for this old man as long as he didn’t dwell on the negatives of being alone in a crowd.

Once again I found myself out of the house for an evening, surrounded by youngsters, and beset by mammoth rhythmic sound waves, some of which belonged to songs I liked. Full disclosure, though: this show wasn’t a first-choice activity. In fact, I forgot I even had the tickets till a few days prior.

Right this way for photos, set lists, and ticket-wrangling fun!

“Star Trek Beyond” The Space Fast & the Space Furious

July 25, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Star Trek Beyond!

New character Jaylah (Sofia Boutella from Kingsman: The Secret Service) promises she’s not a rebooted character, her name isn’t Ms. Khan, and she isn’t a radically reimagined Mugatu.

Thirteenth time’s nearly the charm for the long-running film series, which needed to make up for the ground lost by JJ Abrams’ 2013 superfluous Wrath of Khan remake. This time around the Powers That Be went with a different style of director — Justin Lin, mastermind behind four Fast and the Furious entries, including the one where nearly all the heroes teamed up and became the AAA Avengers with their very own Fast and Furious Cinematic Speedway. Lin knows a little about diving into established universes, and a lot about spectacularly timed whiz-bang action sequences. I assumed sight unseen that Star Trek Beyond would therefore have some of the best starship battle sequences in all of Trekdom (or at least it had better), but would he be capable of the kind of cerebral depth that the old-time fans demand from their Enterprise crew?

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Ads of Darkness, Ads of Light

July 14, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Suicide Squad!

Some movie posters want to sell you happy fun times using all the colors of the rainbow. In terrible times like these, not everyone wants to embrace the dark side. Sometimes even our creepiest antiheroes are redrawn to radiate with kaleidoscopic pop-art joy in hopes of convincing tourists and natives alike that our next trips to the theater will leave us smiling and cheering while murderers and other malcontents save the day. Apparently that’s why the Suicide Squad now stands tall above Times Square looking as far removed from murky Zack Snyder dystopia as possible.

Meanwhile in other universes, other antiheroes couldn’t care less whether you smile or shudder.

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Ten Lessons Learned at Our “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Taping

July 12, 2016 By in Travel, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Late Show Tickets!

He is a name, but I am a number.

For our second trip to Manhattan we decided to do something we’d never done before: attend the live taping of a late-night talk show. Tradition holds that such shows may air in the wee hours of bedtime, but they’re recorded before a live studio audience that day’s afternoon. Sadly for our chosen week, most hosts were either on hiatus or already sold out by the time I thought to look them up. I found a few TV shows that we could have attended, but none of us three had any remote interest in either Maury Povich or The View. Fortunately there was one man who’s airing new episodes this week, who had tickets available, and who wasn’t the complete opposite of us.

That man was Stephen Colbert. That show was The Late Show With Stephen Colbert starring Stephen Colbert. These are the results of that time we showed up to watch Stephen Colbert record the July 11th episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert starring Stephen Colbert.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Finding Dory” End Credits

July 3, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Finding Dory!

Hipster fish coffee: the next big trend. Call it “Pescafe”.

America’s favorite fish are back! (Sorry, Charlie.) Finding Dory is a rare sequel in which the main character returns but is relegated to a sidekick role and gets fewer lines, like the third Hobbit movie. Seems unfair that Ellen DeGeneres’ agent can beat up superstar Nemo’s agent, but that’s how it goes in Hollywood.

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MCC Home Video Scorecard #8: Of Pee-Wee and Poe

June 30, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , 7 Comments
Pee-Wee's Big Holiday!

When Pee-Wee and Joe saw the breadth of their diorama, they wept, for there were too many worlds left to conquer.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the recurring feature that’s me jotting down capsule-sized notes about Stuff I’ve Been Watching at home. Some of this is catch-up that missed the cut last time due to memory loss, so consider this a handy wrap-up of 2016 home viewing to date. I think. More or less. Not counting Netflix series, anyway.

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“Ghostbusters”: Best Film of the Year, Possibly, Let’s Assume

June 21, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Ghostbusters!

For Your Film Award Consideration. Like, all of them, because we have a dream.

Normally I wouldn’t review a film till after I’ve seen it, but I get the impression from some corners of the internet that cause-and-effect are now passé and prejudging is all the rage with the poorly parented kids these days. I’ve been watching the ongoing Ghostbusters debates for months from the sidelines, but the following tweet kind of broke me Monday evening:

https://twitter.com/kumailn/status/745014178914566144

I can’t figure out which shopping site he was browsing, but honestly, that’s how we’re playing armchair critic, guys? By shooting things down that make us frown without even trying them? With attitudes like that, I’m guessing none of those faux advance reviewers ever gave vegetables a chance, either.

Hi, geese. Call me gander. Let’s go ahead and review Ghostbusters like it’s the greatest thing in the galaxy, 100% sight unseen, three weeks before it opens. Free country! Free speech! Free boorishness! Free self-immolation!

Right this way for a heavy-duty shot of positivity adrenaline for Generation Shouty!

Indy PopCon 2016 Photos, Part 2 of 2: What We Did and Who We Met

June 19, 2016 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Epic Voice Guy!

Hey, guys! I met a YouTube star! From a channel I actually watch! That means I’m relevant now! AMERICA, LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEEE

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This weekend Indy PopCon returned to the Indiana Convention Center for their the third annual gala of YouTube, gaming, podcasting, comics, voice actors, animation, and various other manifestations of pop and geek culture in general. My wife and I still regard 2014’s inaugural Indy PopCon as one of the best convention experiences we’ve ever had, but got a little lost when 2015’s event shifted focus toward luring in droves of younger fans. This time we were in the house Saturday for just a half-day with a short itinerary and muted expectations, but were happy to find ourselves another round of wacky fun.

We arrived at the Convention Center a little after 9:30 and left at 2:20. In between, we found quite a bit to do, a few interesting people to meet from the world of comics, and a few familiar faces from previous cons…

Right this way for comics pros, merchandise, and so on!

Indy PopCon 2016 Photos, Part 1 of 2: A Cosplay Sampler

June 18, 2016 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Fairly OddParents!

Wanda and Cosmo, the Fairly OddParents! Stars of one of the last Nickelodeon shows my son ever watched before he aged out of it. Other than SpongeBob, I have no idea who their popular mascots are today.

This weekend Indy PopCon returned to the Indiana Convention Center for their the third annual gala of YouTube, gaming, podcasting, comics, voice actors, animation, and various other manifestations of pop and geek culture in general. My wife and I still regard 2014’s inaugural Indy PopCon as one of the best convention experiences we’ve ever had, but got a little lost when 2015’s event shifted focus toward luring in droves of younger fans. This time we were in the house Saturday for just a half-day with a short itinerary and muted expectations, but were happy to find ourselves another round of wacky fun.

As always we took photos for You, the Viewers at Home, over half of which were costumes. From the start Indy PopCon has attracted quite a creative crowd of cosplayers at every level, from the monetized pro circuit to the costume-contest hopefuls to the sincerest fans of varying means to literally a guy wearing an outfit made of Amazon boxes. At the crossroads of imagination, resourcefulness, determination, and fandom lies…Indy PopCon.

Right this way for a modest selection of costumes, not all of which are Deadpool variants!