Tag Archives: entertainment

C2E2 2025 Photos, Part 3 of 4: The Stars in Our Galaxy!

April 14, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Us doing jazz hands while Emilio Esitevez kinda shrinks away from me and leans behind Anne.

Hi, it’s Emilio Estevez! You might remember him from such films!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, plush dolls, variant covers, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed a couple of past installments since their inaugural 2010 gala, but more often than not, whenever they send out the call to convene, we’re happy to answer…

…and call they indeed did! This year the showrunners at ReedPop assembled a dense guest list with cast reunions for quite a few beloved works, which attracted larger autograph crowds to McCormick Place than ever and forced us attendees to weigh a lot of tough choices. Anne and I kept our checklist short and modest, but still ran into scheduling issues that forced us to exercise one of our least favorite comic-con tactics: we had to split the party.

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C2E2 2025 Photos, Part 2 of 4: Saturday Cosplay!

April 14, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Severance cosplayers!

Helly R. and Mark S. from Severance. See you at the Equator!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, plush dolls, variant covers, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed a couple of past installments since their inaugural 2010 gala, but more often than not, whenever they send out the call to convene, we’re happy to answer.

While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this collection of cosplayers who brightened our day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapters 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 clearly not professional photographers, journalists, costume designers, or Oscars red carpet commentators. We’re just an aging geek couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun…

…and here’s our Saturday gallery. We left Chicago around 6 p.m. CDT that day and missed everything that came after, but did what we could till our legs threatened to collapse. Enjoy! Again! Please feel free to identify any characters we failed at recognizing!

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C2E2 2025 Photos, Part 1 of 4: Friday Cosplay!

April 13, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Nazgul cosplayer with sign picturing The One Ring and asking "Lost ring, if found please call 1-800-4NAZGUL".

At the show’s very special Lord of the Rings cast reunion, of course someone’s still searching for The One Ring.

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, plush dolls, variant covers, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed a couple of past installments since their inaugural 2010 gala, but more often than not, whenever they send out the call to convene, we’re happy to answer.

While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this collection of cosplayers who brightened our first day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapters 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 clearly not professional photographers, journalists, costume designers, or Oscars red carpet commentators. We’re just an aging geek couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun.

Enjoy! Please feel free to identify any characters we failed at recognizing!

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“Mickey 17”: The Day the Clone Cried

March 28, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Movie poster for "Mickey 17" hanging in a dark theater with inconsistent backlighting. Poster has multiple Pattinsons surrounding the rest of the cast.

Edward Cullen! Cedric Diggory! Bruce Wayne! Lighthouse Guy! Crisis on Infinite Pattinsons!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: class warfare rules in the hands of South Korea’s Bong Joon Ho, from the improbable post-apocalyptic supertrain metaphor of Snowpiercer to the widely celebrated Parasite, Winner of Four Academy Awards Including Best Picture™. Whether it’s the filthy-rich versus the dirt-poor, the genteel-affluent versus the barely-getting-by, or the dirt-poor versus the dirtless-homeless-everythingless, satirical skewerings of the eternal tug-of-war between the have-it-alls and have-nots over their variances in have-measures are very much his favorite field of cinematic dissection.

As we waited patiently through the nearly six-year gestation of his post-Oscar follow-up Mickey 17 (the pandemic’s at fault for some of the hold-up), fans rightly expected his priciest foray into the American big-budget mainstream (with a budget twice that of his Netflix Original Okja) would play to his hot-topical interests, and that his knack for outlandish approaches would suit the material. He enjoyed access to better resources, bigger-name actors, and apparently more negotiable schedules for getting it all accomplished. Bong is in his element for much of the film’s first half, up until a midpoint onset of commentary mission-creep pivots everything off the opening premise and lurches toward another course, broader and much tireder.

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Here Comes “Novocaine”, the Man Without Pain!

March 24, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Closeup of Jack Quaid's face glaring and bleeding.

Meet THE NUMBER ONE ACTION HERO IN AMERICA till that new Jason Statham flick opens next weekend!

Fellow Gen-X-ers may recall the hubbub back in the day whenever an upcoming action flick would star an unlikely hero we couldn’t possibly imagine punching out baddies or doing acrobatics or reeking of the slightest machismo. Folks were skeptical about Moonlighting wisecracker Bruce Willis starring in Die Hard and comics fanboys all but rioted when Mr. Mom funnyman Michael Keaton became the new Batman. Soon after release, most naysayers shut up and enjoyed the redefinition of terms of big-screen engagement. The era of the bitter, growly, musclebound manly-men had to make room for the unlikeliest of butt-kickers. They didn’t put Schwarzenegger out of work, but more than a few guys with low charisma and dimmer people skills were increasingly relegated to Blockbuster shelves or adapted to new lines of work, such as Academy Award-Winning director Dirty Harry Callahan.

Fast-forward to today and anyone can be an action star thanks to recent advancements in movie magic, and not just via Paul Blart spoofery. All you need is the right combination of precise fight choreography, brilliant stunt people, way too much julienne-sliced editing, and actors willing to throw themselves into the physical challenges to the extent their somatotypes and insurers will allow. I for one applaud the democratization of action heroism, from Bob Odenkirk in Nobody to Allison Janney in Netflix’s Lou, among numerous others whose past roles never implied the slightest interest in winning at shoot-’em-ups. Our latest combatant who won’t be appearing in a Super Smash Bros. sequel is Jack Quaid, star of the bloody indie dramedy Novocaine.

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So You’re Going to a Comic Con: Our Convention Survival Tips for Beginner Geeks

March 9, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments
us with Chris Evans, all doing jazz hands, and he is smiling SO brilliantly.

Let the clipfest begin! From C2E2 2023, Anne and myself in a jazz-hands photo op with Chris Evans, the old Captain America.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I share a fannish love of attending entertainment and comic conventions together, whether in our hometown of Indianapolis or in adjacent states (or sometimes beyond). She’s been doing them since the early ’90s, and invited me to tag along as our relationship evolved from classmates to coworkers to neighbors to BFFs to married geeks, now twenty years and counting. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Every con is someone’s first. We’re happy to offer advice whenever we chat with newcomers to the scene. In the various Facebook groups dedicated to each of the cons we regularly attend, Anne has taken to posting practical advice for newer con-goers — the teen, the elderly, and everyone in between — who are beyond excited to mingle in all those crowds of merry hobbyists and scintillating costumes and vintage collectibles and character merchandise and rows of celebrities from their favorite movies, TV shows, animated works and streaming channels. It’s a lot. It can be daunting to figure out where to start. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed. It’s impossible to prepare for every possible contingency.

Cons are foremost on our mind in anticipation of our season beginning next weekend. As we discard the psychological shackles of a depressing winter and prepare to leave the house a little more often, we offer a selection of suggestions for coping with some aspects of the comic-con experience for the absolute beginners out there.

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The Academy Awards 2025 Season Finale

March 3, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Conan doing photo ops on a black stage with a giant Oscar statue behind him. He's grimacing and holding a large jar of cotton balls or something resembling them.

He’s written for comedy shows, starred in talk shows, and hosted other award ceremonies and events. Some of that might’ve prepared him for tonight!

Oscar season is over at last! Tonight the 97th Academy Awards were aired live on ABC and streamed live on Hulu, once again held at ye olde Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and hosted for the very first time by beloved funnyman Conan O’Brien. This year’s soiree clocked in at 229 minutes, twenty minutes longer than last year’s and fifteen longer than The Brutalist with intermission. O’Brien was his usual uproarious self, taking more potshots at himself than at anyone or anything else and (mostly) refraining from hot-button politics. Anyone who needs more political debate can go overdose on any given social app anyway. Most such netizens generally avoid the Oscars anyway, or spend the evening replying to Oscars fans with such scintillating pearls of Oscar Wilde brilliance as “Who cares.”

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Oscar Quest 2025 Final Scorecard: 47/50

March 1, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan sit in character in the back of a limo. Strong glares at Stan, who's on the 1980s car phone.

“Look, Bucky, you’re gonna get me into the MCU right NOW.”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 is over! I did my best to catch all the Academy Award nominees I could in every single category before the big ceremony Sunday, whether in theaters or on our household’s available streaming services. Last year I managed a 100% completion achievement, but no one gave me a trophy for my amateur hobbyist efforts. My wife Anne was relieved to know our routines could get back to normal, but that’s about it for prizes. Oh, and it was a great excuse to catch some fantastic films I might otherwise have missed…as well as a few pieces of garbage.

This year I earned no real bragging rights. Of the fifty different works up for honors this year, I’ve seen 47 in all as of Saturday morning, with no chance of getting any farther. Per my completionist tradition, the following are capsule summaries of the other ten nominees I watched over the past six weeks that I hadn’t previously written up. The services that granted me access to each of them are provided as well, though at least one has changed since I watched it.

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The MCC 2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Film Revue

February 28, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
2-D animated woman asleep on a floor mat in light shadows with sunlight pouring in through a narrow rectangular window. Next to her on a table are components of an elderly relative's daily medicinal regimen.

Don’t sleep your life away! There’re always cool new things to see!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my annual Oscar Quest continues! I’m still trying to catch all the Academy Award nominees I can before the big ceremony 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 will care in the least bit.

Each year since 2009 (except for 2021’s pandemic lockdown marathon) I’ve ventured out to the few Indianapolis theaters carrying 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. My wife and adult son usually accompany me on the journey and we make a family outing of it, even though Oscar Quest is not their problem. Since 2019 I’ve also given myself extra credit for catching as many nominees for Best Documentary Short Film as possible, depending on their availability online, for the most complete shorts experience possible.

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Yes, There’s a Family Photo Album During the “I’m Still Here” End Credits

February 25, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A Brazilian mom poses on outdoor stairs for a photo with her five kids. All but two are smiling. Dad is not around.

We’re a happy family! We’re a happy family! We’re a happy family! Me, Mom, and…oh.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony. That includes any and all works I never heard of before they were nominated. I have no fear of subtitles — I relish them, in fact — and I’m always happy to learn more about the world history they failed to teach me in school, which was nearly all of it.

One of the interesting side effects of AMPAS’ membership diversification efforts of the past few years (contrasting with all their many other years of existence) is the Best Picture nominee lineups offer more surprises from other countries — works that only film-festival attendees could’ve possibly seen in their official year of release. Nominees about dictatorships are sadly commonplace across several categories, which is understandable considering our sinful humankind has spawned far too many tyrants throughout the millennia and on most continents. Most of those works used to be Holocaust films, but in recent times filmmakers from other countries have been taking turns sorting their own tragic histories. Next up is Brazil with I’m Still Here, following in the footsteps of recent-vintage, Oscar-recognized tales of South American regimes such as Argentina, 1985 and (technically) El Conde.

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