Tag Archives: entertainment

The Heartland International Film Festival 2024 Season Finale

October 21, 2024 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana, Meta, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Black pin with yellow border and lettering, "Audience Choice Jury Member, Heartland International Film Festival".

Woo-hoo! Free pin!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts…

Heartland’s 33rd edition ran October 10-20 — over 100 films, at least seventeen of them with cast/crew Q&As afterward. I took a week’s vacation from my day job and posted for nine consecutive days about the seven films I saw at five theaters in ten days, one virtual screening we’ll get to in a moment, plus a few other overdue, mostly unrelated entries. I doubt anyone out there read every single word, but I’m not even done yet!

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #7: “We Strangers”

October 20, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
Kirby sitting alone at one end of a fancy table in front of a large, banal still-life fruit painting. She stares at unseen people on the opposite end, an untouched teacup beside her.

This scene near the end should tell you a lot about what she puts up with from the other characters.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

…and we come at last to the final theatrical recount in this very special MCC miniseries: We Strangers (not to be confused with last year’s All of Us Strangers), a dramedy that premiered at South by Southwest back in March and caught my eye in Heartland’s listings on the strength of its star Kirby Howell-Baptiste (whose recent roles, including this one, have been billed mononymously as just “Kirby”). Best known to geeks as Dream’s big sister Death in Netflix’s Sandman, I’ve also seen her in Veronica Mars season 4 (as a bartender who doesn’t appreciate being a murder suspect), the Apple TV+ series Sugar (as Colin Farrell’s handler), the Cruella prequel (as young Anita Darling), HBO’s Barry (blink and miss her as a recurring student in Gene Cousineau’s acting class), and so on and so on. Okay, I’ll stop now.

Suffice it to say she’s no stranger to me in that sense, though “stranger” can mean different things, and switch context at any moment without notice, even when you’re finally #1 on the call sheet.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #6: “Sheepdog”

October 19, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A young white veteran and an old Black veteran, both in autumn outerwear, sitting and feeling chummy on a movie poster.

It’s extremely tough finding screen shots of films that don’t yet have a distributor, an official site with a gallery, or a trailer available for Fair Use purposes…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Nowadays films about veterans poorly adjusting to post-deployment civilian life (apart from five whole minutes of The Hurt Locker) tend to get made only if the afflicted veteran becomes a bad guy for the heroes to defeat or an antihero to put down like a rabid dog — twisted by their combat traumas into a serial killer, a terrorist, a super-villain, or a politician scheming himself an evil long game. We used to have a smattering of modestly budgeted adult dramas back in the day when Americans first began feeling ashamed of how Vietnam veterans were treated. (Anyone else remember Unnatural Causes, a 1986 TV-movie starring John Ritter and Alfre Woodard, about vets stricken by side effects of Agent Orange?) It’s not like society actually solved that problem and all our veterans feel great now — filmmakers just stopped attempting any serious explorations.

Sheepdog is the sort of movie the major studios believe isn’t worth their time or effort anymore. Its writer/director/producer/star Steven Grayhm (from a Canadian SF series called Between) spent over a decade putting it together anyway. It premiered at the Boston Film Festival last month (the event nearest to where it was filmed) and is currently traveling the circuit, including two showings at Heartland. (We missed its first showing last Friday, which concluded with a post-screening Q&A with Grayhm and two other producers, but that was the same night as ReEntry‘s World Premiere and Q&A.) I have aesthetic quibbles, which tend to be my thing, but Grayhm’s heart is absolutely in the right place.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #5: “Small Things Like These”

October 18, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Cillian Murphy glowering from within the darkness of a coal shed.

What evil lurks within the coal shed?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Academy Award Winner Cillian Murphy is back! The Irish historical drama Small Things Like These, his first film since Oppenheimer, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival back in February and will be rolled out to U.S. theaters in November. Its special exhibition as a Heartland “Centerpiece Screening” (read: highly promoted and tickets cost a tad more) represented its second-ever showing here in the States. Though it boasts a couple bigger names than some of the other festival films I’ve seen so far, its minimalist aesthetic and hushed ambiance make it feel smaller and more intimate than the rest — in many ways the opposite of Murphy’s last gig. It’s also a Christmas movie!

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #4: “Superboys of Malegaon”

October 17, 2024 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Young filmmaker holding a digital camera, watching forlornly as the woman he loves is driven away offscreen.

Movies will break your heart, kid.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Full disclosure: Superboys of Malegaon was a last-minute addition to my festival itinerary, made possibly by one of my patented “six degrees” rabbit-hole investigations of the seeming interconnectedness of all cinema. Follow:

After loving Andrew Garfield’s back-to-back performances in The Social Network and the first Amazing Spider-Man (disregarding this judge’s low score for the second), I followed him to his next project, 99 Homes, which was the first film I ever saw by director Ramin Bahrani, whose most recent feature film was Netflix’s The White Tiger, which shined thanks in large part to its young leading man, one Adarsh Gourav. Fast-forward to this past September, when I spent a good hour or more reviewing the descriptions and cast/crew listings for every single Narrative Feature on Heartland’s site to check for familiar connections. Eventually I got to Superboys, which also stars Gourav.

Between his name and its capsule summary’s strong resemblance to the warm-hearted Be Kind Rewind…well, here we are. It’s funny how many roads lead to and from superheroes. Little did I know the Rewind similarities would end after a time, while the final twenty minutes would reveal strong ties to another, much larger pop-cultural touchstone — one of the all-time greatest, at least according to my generation of geeks.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #3: “Jazzy”

October 16, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Two Lakota girls looking at the camera.

THEY FIGHT CRIME! THEY SOLVE MYSTERIES! THEY…wait, no, this isn’t that kind of film.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Last year one of my favorite Heartland entries was Fancy Dance, a Native-focused drama co-written and directed by Erica Tremblay, who’d worked on the most excellent TV series Reservation Dogs (11/10, among the best ever) and Dark Winds (whither season 3?). Its star Lily Gladstone had appeared in a few Rez Dogs episodes, but commanded wider attention as the Oscar-nominated costar of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, where she had to put up with being surrounded by powerfully attention-grabbing white men, and so did her character.

Once an artist emerges from such overshadowing as an independent force on their own terms, it’s absolutely cool seeing them use their newfound fame to encourage and enable other storytellers to come forward and take a shot at reaching a wider audience. Just as Taika Waititi “co-created” Rez Dogs and directed its pilot, thereby launching it with an extra little push (though the show was obviously, lovingly Sterlin Harjo’s baby), I braked while reading Heartland’s Narrative Feature roster when I spotted the listing for Executive Producer Lily Gladstone affixed to Jazzy, an adorable coming-of-age drama that premiered at Tribeca Festival last June and might’ve gotten overlooked among Heartland’s voluminous offerings if not for her name standing out to me.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After “The Wild Robot” End Credits

October 15, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The Wild Robot nuzzling a gosling in its palm.

Concept art for my upcoming fanfic, “Atomic Robo Meets Henery Hawk”.

Today all animated films are guaranteed a release on popular streaming services pretty quickly after completion, whether the studios think they’re worth the effort of a few weeks’ theatrical run first or they’re quitters who send them direct-to-video, which isn’t quite as stigmatizing as it was in the Blockbuster Video era. In happier times my year-end movie-going lists used to be filled with animation, often ranking near or at the top. Nowadays, not so much — trailers and pro reviews aren’t dissuading my middle-ager’s skeptical inertia even when those films do become available for my streaming convenience. I haven’t bothered to add Strange World or Wish to my Disney+ queue, let alone watched them. Whether it’s rampant sequelitis or the innate mediocrity of jukebox musicals or a studio satisfied with selling half-hearted results, don’t hold your breath waiting for my opinions on Kung Fu Panda 4, the Trolls series, or anything containing a Minion after their debut.

Last time I paid full price for a DreamWorks Animated joint, it was in 2019 when the third How to Train Your Dragon proved the weakest of the trilogy. I largely ignored their subsequent, determinedly populist fare till I “had to” watch 2022’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish as part of my annual Oscar Quest and was astonished at the results. I was therefore a little more receptive when DreamWorks announced their big 2024 release, The Wild Robot, would be directed by Chris Sanders, whose past works include Lilo & Stitch and the first How to Train Your Dragon — two all-ages spectacles he co-directed that I went into with low expectations only for my heart to grow three sizes too big by the end. With The Wild Robot, Sanders has now gone three-for-three with said enlarged heart.

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Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Transformers One” End Credits

October 14, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Young Optimus Prime and Megatron sitting on a couch and smiling.

Just hanging out after work, two buddies who have each other’s backs and will never, ever, ever lead separate sides in a planetary civil war. Friendship!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Seeing every Transformers film in theaters, no matter how much we’ve come to dread them, is among our few enduring father/son traditions. He grew up as they grew bigger and dumber. Nevertheless, the boy and I would suffer each canned serving of Cinema In Name Only and always spend the car ride home dissecting them together…

After Michael Bay ruined toy robots for several generations of kids to come, damage control efforts have varied. Some gave it a nice try; some made things worse. We nearly excused ourselves from seeing Transformers One because the first trailer’s so-so kiddie-comedy vibe felt aimed at complete newbies with no Transformers experience because their parents shielded them from such harmful matter. Then came the showier, more dramatic second trailer, along with the surprisingly positive buzz from early screenings. Those factors convinced us to give the Robots in Disguise yet another chance. To our shock, T1 may in fact be one of the best Transformers feature films of all time, if partly by forfeit.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #2: “Micro Budget”

October 14, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Four young actors looking really helpless

Imagine if Don’t Look Up were made with nearly no money and its only agenda were “make ALL the money!” Now imagine the behind-the-scenes featurettes about that.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Next up on our to-do list is Micro Budget, an uproarious film-about-filmmaking, which of course means it’s legally guaranteed a Best Picture nomination. The uproarious satire’s skewering of indie movie production might seem offensive to other Heartland participants if they, like its witless fictional auteur, lacked any measurable integrity, artistry, or intent to at least watch a few “How to Make a Movie” YouTube tutorials, let alone see some actual movies while they’re at it.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #1: “ReEntry”

October 13, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Tentative movie poster for "ReEntry with Emily Deschanel and Sam Trammell in profile separated by a science fiction suit in an arched doorway.

Yes, our first film up is sci-fi. I gotta be me. But not all of them will be!

It’s that time again! Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

After a few brief dalliances with the festival in the past, last year I dove in a bit deeper and caught six movies in all. The fates of those films have varied in the months since — The Promised Land went on to make the Oscar shortlist for Best International Feature; Fancy Dance is now on Apple+ and remains a must-see for fans of Reservation Dogs or Dark Winds; the even tinier Avenue of the Giants has yet to find a distributor and was still assiduously touring as of this past spring; and so on. I appreciated the chance to see new features before they’re released to the world-at-large, and without waiting for pro critics to weigh in first.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry. We kick things off with one of this year’s science fiction contestants, which held its official World Premiere right here at Heartland: a small-scale science fiction drama called ReEntry.

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Star Trek to Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 6: And the Rest!

October 6, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne doing jazz hands and wearing a pink sash in front of the neuroscience symposium gateway.

Anne showing off the cool new sash she got from the cosplayer Kai Ken, after he read her pagh and told her, “Walk with the Prophets.”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Creation Entertainment, one of America’s longest-running convention companies, runs an annual Star Trek gala in Las Vegas that invites scores of Trek cast and crew members to mingle with fans at Vegas prices and at a considerable remove from more than a few states. As a sort of outreach to us faraway fans, in 2024 Creation has launched a “Trek Tour” comprising much smaller versions of that vaunted Vegas show on the other side of the Rockies. This past weekend it was Chicago’s turn. The location was convenient and the guest lineup included so many missing names on Anne’s Trek-actor checklist, we did something we haven’t done in ages: we attended all three days, from the opening minutes Friday morning to the very end of the final panel Sunday night.

“Star Trek to Chicago” (Creation’s official name for the show; official abbreviation “ST-CHI”) was our first hotel-based con in a good while. We understood Creation handles some con aspects rather differently than the other companies we’re used to seeing annually. For Anne’s purposes, that guest list was worth setting aside our mild concerns and giving it a shot. We’re happy and relieved to report the show far exceeded our hesitant expectations.

Some of my past convention write-ups have been unwieldy in length because I’m prone to relating all the stories, including any quotidian ephemera outside the show itself. (A couple of those epic-length narratives were linked to on pro comics-news website, which only encouraged me to keep doing that. It’s been a while, though.) My congenial verbosity works much better if you pretend this writer is a caffeinated Aaron Sorkin character, but I can’t really adjust your internal monologue’s speed settings for you. For the sake of potential new readers, I tried paring down the daily recounts to the most relevant, Trek-forward anecdotes.

Here in the finale: the parts I skipped. Also: actor photo outtakes!

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Star Trek to Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 5: Sunday!

October 6, 2024 By in Conventions & Events, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anson Mount on stage, dressed darkly, listening patiently.

Anson Mount and that famous Captain’s hair.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Creation Entertainment, one of America’s longest-running convention companies, runs an annual Star Trek gala in Las Vegas that invites scores of Trek cast and crew members to mingle with fans at Vegas prices and at a considerable remove from more than a few states. As a sort of outreach to us faraway fans, in 2024 Creation has launched a “Trek Tour” comprising much smaller versions of that vaunted Vegas show on the other side of the Rockies. This past weekend it was Chicago’s turn. The location was convenient and the guest lineup included so many missing names on Anne’s Trek-actor checklist, we did something we haven’t done in ages: we attended all three days, from the opening minutes Friday morning to the very end of the final panel Sunday night.

“Star Trek to Chicago” (Creation’s official name for the show; official abbreviation “ST-CHI”) was our first hotel-based con in a good while. We understood Creation handles some con aspects rather differently than the other companies we’re used to seeing annually. For Anne’s purposes, that guest list was worth setting aside our mild concerns and giving it a shot. We’re happy and relieved to report the show far exceeded our hesitant expectations.

And now, the conclusion — yet another long day with too much fun from end to end. We had no more autographs or photo ops to pursue, just panels and more panels. Thanks to the limited square footage, the ubiquitous carpeting, and the complete lack of hours-long lines, this was our first multi-day convention in active memory not to leave our feet, legs, or backs sore and debilitated by the time we went home. We cherished the sensation of spending our final hours relaxed and not physically destroyed.

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Star Trek to Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 4: Saturday!

October 4, 2024 By in Conventions & Events, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jeri Ryan talking onstage, but somehow the picture rings her in a perfectly circular shadow.

In a mystifying happy accident, Anne managed a pic of Jeri Ryan’s Q&A that looks ripped from a Sears Portrait Studio wall.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Creation Entertainment, one of America’s longest-running convention companies, runs an annual Star Trek gala in Las Vegas that invites scores of Trek cast and crew members to mingle with fans at Vegas prices and at a considerable remove from more than a few states. As a sort of outreach to us faraway fans, in 2024 Creation has launched a “Trek Tour” comprising much smaller versions of that vaunted Vegas show on the other side of the Rockies. This past weekend it was Chicago’s turn. The location was convenient and the guest lineup included so many missing names on Anne’s Trek-actor checklist, we did something we haven’t done in ages: we attended all three days, from the opening minutes Friday morning to the very end of the final panel Sunday night.

“Star Trek to Chicago” (Creation’s official name for the show; official abbreviation “ST-CHI”) was our first hotel-based con in a good while. We understood Creation handles some con aspects rather differently than the other companies we’re used to seeing annually. For Anne’s purposes, that guest list was worth setting aside our mild concerns and giving it a shot. We’re happy and relieved to report the show far exceeded our hesitant expectations.

Friday was a good, quiet day to take care of necessary formalities, get a feel for the show’s procedures, learn the layout, and meet fellow fans. Our next day would be much busier and just as long. Rare is the con that persuades us to stick around from dawn to dusk.

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Star Trek to Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 3: Friday!

October 2, 2024 By in Conventions & Events, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne smiling and posing with Cirroc Lofton at his table. He's at least 18 inches taller than she is.

Alternate take of that time we met Cirroc Lofton, best known as Jake Sisko from Deep Space Nine.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Creation Entertainment, one of America’s longest-running convention companies, runs an annual Star Trek gala in Las Vegas that invites scores of Trek cast and crew members to mingle with fans at Vegas prices and at a considerable remove from more than a few states. As a sort of outreach to us faraway fans, in 2024 Creation has launched a “Trek Tour” comprising much smaller versions of that vaunted Vegas show on the other side of the Rockies. This past weekend it was Chicago’s turn. The location was convenient and the guest lineup included so many missing names on Anne’s Trek-actor checklist, we did something we haven’t done in ages: we attended all three days, from the opening minutes Friday morning to the very end of the final panel Sunday night…

…skipping a Thursday night prelude where early birds could pick up their badges and see the vendors’ room before anyone else. We figured that’d be unnecessary because we weren’t convinced they could keep us occupied for three straight days, let alone bonus hours. Rather than holding court in a convention center, they set up shop at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Rosemont, next door to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center (home of Fan Expo Chicago). They weren’t even using all the hotel’s meeting spaces — one ballroom was reserved for an unrelated neuroscience seminar. I presume those old scientists resisted any takeover bids from Creation and refused to add panels about Starfleet advancements in their field.

“Star Trek to Chicago” (Creation’s official name for the show; official abbreviation “ST-CHI”) was our first hotel-based con in a good while. I had to search the archives to remember our last such show (as it happens, HorrorHound Indy 2017). We also understood Creation handles some con aspects rather differently than the other companies we’re used to seeing annually. For Anne’s purposes, that guest list was worth setting aside our mild concerns and giving it a shot. We’re happy and relieved to report the show far exceeded our hesitant expectations.

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Star Trek to Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 2: Cosplay!

September 30, 2024 By in Conventions & Events, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne posing with three different Uhura cosplayers.

Uhura Squad! Maybe they can save Paramount+!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Creation Entertainment, one of America’s longest-running convention companies, runs an annual Star Trek gala in Las Vegas that invites scores of Trek cast and crew members to mingle with fans at Vegas prices and at a considerable remove from more than a few states. As a sort of outreach to us faraway fans, in 2024 Creation has launched a “Trek Tour” comprising much smaller versions of that vaunted Vegas show on the other side of the Rockies. This past weekend it was Chicago’s turn. The location was convenient and the guest lineup included so many missing names on Anne’s Trek-actor checklist, we did something we haven’t done in ages: we attended all three days, from the opening minutes Friday morning to the very end of the final panel Sunday night…

Before we get into the anecdotes and panel rundowns, fandom law requires us to post costume photos ASAP. Please enjoy this modest collection of cosplayers who brightened our weekend around the show floor. We regret we can only represent some of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display throughout the weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy! Corrections welcome for those we misidentified!

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Star Trek to Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 1: The Stars in Our Galaxy

September 30, 2024 By in Conventions & Events, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Us doing jazz hands with Jeri Ryan!

It’s Jeri Ryan! You might remember her from such shows as Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Picard, Boston Public, Leverage, AMC’s Dark Winds, and more!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I are big fans of geek/comic/entertainment conventions. Anne’s first con was November 30, 1991; years later she introduced me to that world. Our hometown of Indianapolis would host a modest Star Trek-themed con every Thanksgiving weekend (and still does!). We attended several of them together, back when those were the only game in town for years. As we’ve expanded our travel capabilities over time, the past decade’s Midwest comic-con boom has afforded us far more options for geeking out together and in large crowds. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

The last Trek-themed show we attended was 2022’s Star Trek: Mission Chicago, a joint production between Paramount Pictures and ReedPOP (the producers of C2E2) that was meant to be the first in a series of large-scale gatherings celebrating the universe that Gene Roddenberry and his successors built. We attendees were impressed with the results; sadly, due apparently to insufficient attendance as measured by the unseen tricorders of The Powers That Be, plans for future installments were canceled.

Two years later, here we go again! Creation Entertainment, one of America’s longest-running convention companies, runs an annual Trek gala in Las Vegas that invites scores of Trek cast and crew members to mingle with fans at Vegas prices and at a considerable remove from more than a few states. As a sort of outreach to us faraway fans, in 2024 Creation has launched a “Trek Tour” comprising much smaller versions of that vaunted Vegas show on the other side of the Rockies. Two weeks ago they brought the fan-magic to Nashville; forthcoming stops are scheduled in New Jersey and Dallas. This past weekend it was Chicago’s turn. The location was convenient and the guest lineup included so many missing names on Anne’s Trek-actor checklist, we did something we haven’t done in ages: we attended all three days, from the opening minutes Friday morning to the very end of the final panel Sunday night.

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Best CDs of 2023 According to an Old Guy Who Bought 7

September 23, 2024 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
The covers of all seven albums reviewed in this entry, laid out on my kitchen table.

Alphabetically arranged by artist, the nominees were…

Hi, I’m Fat Casey Kasem and welcome to another Top Less-Than-Ten list! And no, that isn’t a coaster that got sorted into the middle row by accident.

As part of my annual series of year-in-review entries, some of which I procrastinate much longer than others, I remain one of six people nationwide who still prefers compact discs to digital downloads. My hangups about vinyl would require a separate essay unto themselves. My new-album splurges are rare because: (a) it’s increasingly tougher for new music to catch my ear as I grow older and more finicky; and (b) my favorite yesteryear acts died, stopped recording, or swiveled in directions away from me. That usually means missing out on what majorities loves, thus further dropping me down the bottomless wishing well into total irrelevance as chronicled on this very website a couple times per week.

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“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”: The Curse of Repetition

September 21, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Shadowy Beetlejuice's face mugs directly into the camera, bathed in bluish-green light.

Who’s gonna believe the star of such dramas as Dopesick and Clean and Sober could possibly headline a comedy?

Seems only fair if the Ghostbusters can stage a comeback tour decades past their prime, so can one of the biggest ghosts they never caught, right?

I was 15 when a young Tim Burton followed up his feature debut, the wacky and eminently quotable Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (in theaters when he was only 27!), with the even wackier and definitely more expensive Beetlejuice. The first few times I saw it, his hyperactive imagination, his fanciful take on afterlife bureaucracy, his mixed-media creations, and the ensemble’s zest were a welcome escape from reality into fun-house tomfoolery. But the more times I watched it, the more I noticed cracks in the seams and nitpicking got easier. Apart from a few low-key exceptions over the next few decades (Big Eyes, Big Fish) I’d come to accept Burton generally has little vested interest in narrative coherence. Many of his works are thin clotheslines from which he hangs edgy gags, fantastical monstrosities, and non sequitur set-pieces that were fun to draw in his concept sketchbooks and entertain best if you don’t pay close attention to what’s happening. They’re popcorn flicks for us art-class loners.

Now Burton is 66, our ghost-with-the-most Michael Keaton is a 73-year-old Emmy Award Winner, and I’m a middle-aged married loner, but 36 years later, here we all go again with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. The old pals and two-time Bat-collaborators have locked elbows for a new nostalgia-fest with much of the same gags, same lines, same makeup ‘n’ wardrobe, same nearly everything.

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“Alien: Romulus”: When the Perfect Killing Machine Stops Evolving

August 30, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Red-and-black poster with a xenomorph face-hugger attached to a buzz-cut Asian actress.

In space, no one complains about eating the same meal rations again and again and again.

I can’t speak for fans of Ghostbusters or of Harry Potter post-Deathly Hallows, but whenever I get attached to an IP, I’m excited whenever that universe shows signs of forward motion or at least simulating it. Granted, when it comes to the Alien movies, my opinions are already warped — James Cameron’s Aliens is one of my Top 5 films ever, which I saw years before I got around to Ridley Scott’s original. I also respected Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s engagingly bonkers Alien Resurrection for pushing the series’ boundaries and actually getting somewhere — anywhere — after edgy pre-auteur David Fincher’s Alien³ ramrodded Ellen Ripley’s story into a literal dead end.

All Alien works since then have treated Resurrection as The End, and/or as a disowned mistake. Directors — not to mention writers of its various transmedia spinoffs — limit themselves to rooting around the limited preceding timeline for unoccupied dance floors where they can twirl in place and try out their freshest moves, never quite distracting from how the club has had the same dusty disco strobe and jukebox since 1997. Double-dates with Predators were one-night stands that no one could maintain eye contact with. When Scott himself barged back in indignantly all, “SEE HERE NOW!” we knew he could make spaceships shinier and creatures slimier, but Prometheus gave us a half-unwritten origin and Alien: Covenant was a cram session to finish the same assignment in as few pages as possible.

27 years later the franchise continues moving nowhere at sub-FTL velocity with Alien: Romulus, a pre-sequel brazenly set between Alien and Aliens in hopes of blending in, in more ways than one. I’ve seen no previous works by Fede Álvarez or his co-writer Rodo Sayagues (though Don’t Breathe is on my extremely long mental to-do list), so I came into this with few preconceptions except a faint awareness that gore is his medium. I saw the first trailer at C2E2 with an exclusive Álvarez intro, which was promising, but the second gave away way too much. I offered benefit of the doubt for as long as I could.

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Fan Expo Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 3 of 3: Stars and Strifes Forever!

August 19, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Me doing jazz hands with a laughing Ella Purnell.

I’ve mentioned Fallout enough times over the past several months that it should be no surprise I’m leading with Fallout star Ella Purnell.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the third edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. Risen from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, Fan Expo has put forth tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions for longtime fans’ expectations…

…by which I mean celebrity guests, Artists Alley, shopping, and generally eye-popping sights. Tens of thousands of fans showed up and were astounded to realize — in an unprecedented break from comic-con norms — almost none of the actor guests had canceled. Dozens of autograph booths were up and running, many of which had hours-long lines, some of which were on opposite sides of the designated walkway, each side sprawling enough to create a choking bottleneck between them. Saturday it became nearly impossible simply to walk through the Autograph Area in either direction. Couple that with a convention-center A/C system that struggled to catch up, and the confluence of issues made for an often uncomfortable exhibit-hall environment.

Anne and I are now over 50 but still out there in the geek fun-trenches, trying to indulge our youthful selves despite the potential physical damage. Under the circumstances, it’s kind of a miracle we lasted as long as we did and weren’t unconscious by noon. Nevertheless, we persisted for a while, until we didn’t.

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