Tag Archives: entertainment

Fan Expo Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 2 of 3: A Single Measly Cosplay Gallery!

August 19, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
cosplay: Kraven the Hunter with a spear, standing off against Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.

Kraven the Hunter bellowing, “I know Scorpion! I have fought Scorpion! You, sir, are not my Scorpion!”

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…

…including hosting duties for all the cosplay! Everyone loves the costumes and the talents who create and/or sport them! Unfortunately, it’s with a deep sigh I must report we spent too much of Friday in lines. By Saturday we found more lines to stand in, exhausted ourselves beyond reason, and found the exhibit hall so uncomfortably hot and jam-packed with tens of thousands of bodies that we could barely inch forward, let alone ask others to brake in the middle of that crowded superbazaar to pose for us with thousands of other fans trapped behind them and seething with claustrophobic fury. We ended up fleeing Saturday much earlier than expected and forfeited all further opportunities to admire the numerous cosplayers on hand. Management regrets the retreat.

So here’s what we have to show for our hampered efforts, a cross-section of maybe one one-thousandth of the total cosplay turnout throughout this 3-day shindig. Sorry/Enjoy!

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Fan Expo Chicago 2024 Photos, Part 1 of 3: Mark Hamill Live!

August 18, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Us doing jazz hands with Mark Hamill, who's seated in a bar chair.

We’re no Muppets or Simpsons, but we tried to be good company.

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. We were largely impressed with the results, even last year’s edition when the ongoing WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes necessitated strict guidelines on the actors’ interactions. Every large-scale comic-con has its snags, of course. For better or worse, that’s all in the game.

Judgments on their 2024 installment depend on whom you ask, how much they love wall-to-wall crowds, whether or not they needed ADA accommodations, and which stars they wanted to meet from the extremely long guest list. As our lead photo hints, this would promise to be no ordinary show.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Deadpool & Wolverine” End Credits

August 5, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Deadpool and Wolverine tied up together in a wasteland.

Now your two favorite Canadian antiheroes come bundled, like cable! (Not to be confused with Cable, not included.)

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I’m the hypothetical boogey-moviegoer who lurked in the MPA’s hivemind imagination when they invented the PG-13 label! This prudish geek is back for another round of simultaneous enjoyment and irritation flared up from the inner turmoil between my oft-undiscerning appetite for comics-based movies that aim to deliver Something Different, versus my general disdain for F-bombs (with extremely few exceptions) and sex jokes (more adamantly unilaterally). I realize I’m outnumbered millions-to-one among geekdom-at-large, but I find ways to cope, such as typing into the void upon my tiny, mostly nonpaying hobby-job site.

I skipped the first Deadpool in theaters and instead watched it on a Black Friday Blu-ray with variant Christmas cover, where a smaller medium helped minimize its gratuitous indulgences. All the other parts of Tim Miller’s directorial debut were amazing, though, so I upgraded Deadpool 2 to a theatrical outing. The first one was better, but David Leitch delivered far more satisfying renditions of Colossus and Juggernaut than their half-baked mainline forms. I appreciated both films offering pleasures beyond the guilty kind, sometimes to an intentionally daffy extreme, which is not something that automatically bugs me. All told, the Merc with a Mouth’s two misadventures as a headliner were better than most X-films and, fun trivia, outgrossed them all.

Hence more of the same, but no longer confined to a licensed offshoot series that doesn’t “count”. One corporate merger and a few non-superhero films later, Ryan Reynolds and his entourage of masked stunt doubles are back! And this time, it’s more all the way! More fanboy pandering! More fourth-wall breakage! More pop culture references! More overplayed Top-40 oldies from across the decades! More F-bombs! More sex jokes, obsessively specializing in gay-panicky snark! But the more, more, MORE begins with its very title: Marvel Cinematic Universe After Dark! Wait, no, I mean Deadpool & Wolverine!

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

August 2, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Twisters movie poster shows release date of July 19th above the two leads standing on a red ruck and looking at an imminently stormy sky.

So, how about that Singin’ in the Rain reboot?

If you think my usual movie entries suffer from subjectivity, don’t expect an exception here. The original Twister holds a special li’l place in my heart for a variety of reasons. Its director Jan de Bont, fresh off the Speed race, was also the cinematographer on my all-time favorite movie. My mom was (and is) a big fan of disaster films, which had a sort of Golden Age in my childhood, from the natural terrors of Earthquake to the man-made systemic failures of The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Airport, and more. Along a more sensitive vein: in the darkest month of my life, pop culture manifested two welcome distractions to take my mind off my anguish when I needed that most: Rhino Home Video’s very first wave of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes on VHS, and Twister hitting theaters. Setting my baggage aside, their timing was perfect, as the latter would make a great episode of the former.

Fast-forward 28 years and here we go again with Twisters! They’re back, and this time, they’re even windier. My stress levels aren’t as off-the-charts as they were in ’96 (well, as of this minute), but looking around me, I can’t say the same for the rest of the country, if not the world. Leave it to Lee Isaac Chung, director of the 2021 Best Picture nominee Minari and that season-3 hour-long episode of The Mandalorian that focused on reformed Imperial aide Dr. Pershing, to bravely decide it’s time again for humankind to pull together for a shared experience that’s not great, not terrible, just unapologetically crowd-pleasing and thrilling and extremely loud and filled with scenes of unironic smiling…well, when Mother Nature isn’t trying to murder everyone.

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“A Quiet Place: Day One”: The Mega-Muppets Take Manhattan

July 21, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Lupita Nyong'o hunched fearfully in an alley, hugging a black-and-white cat.

“I’m not coming out of this alley until you promise Nakia gets more scenes in the next Black Panther.”

Previously on A Quiet Place: Emily Blunt was a heroic mother surviving on a post-apocalyptic farm with her remaining kids and without her Concerned Husband until things once again went awry and they fled to a nearby island, the perfect hiding place from that unnamed alien army who jump-‘n’-slash at the slightest noises but whose fatal weaknesses happened to include bodies of water. Our Family’s happy ending was nice for about ten minutes until one of them learned how to boat. Nevertheless, the day was later saved and human life found a way.

Director John Krasinski kept A Quiet Place: Part II‘s premise simple: “What if the first flick just kept going and was actually three hours long?” The sequel was more an expansion pack than a standalone tale unto itself. It came packaged with a free mini-prequel on the front, needlessly depicting how Day One of the invasion quickly devastated their small town. It was a satisfying course of more-of-the-same, but not in any groundbreaking way that left me yearning for further adventures in the Hyper-Hearing Horror-Horde Cinematic Universe.

Nevertheless, here we go again with some more prequel, A Quiet Place: Day One. With Krasinski off doing other things (i.e., IF, which I skipped), apparently any new AQP extensions are forbidden from moving the main characters forward, much like the Star Wars universe’s treadmilling-in-place spinoffs. Within that common yet exasperating genre-series boundary, what were the odds of a substitute filmmaker steering away from more-of-the-sameness?

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Inside Out 2” End Credits

June 23, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Joy stands excitedly at the control panel with Anxiety, who looks sheepish and very orange. The room is all purple with rows of yellow light bulbs.

Manic Pixie Dream Joy welcomes Frazzled Rock!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Pixar made an entire movie about feels feeling feels! As someone who responds well to films that probe deeper emotions than “wheeeee”, I named Pete Doctor’s Inside Out my favorite film of 2015 – against the heavyweight competition of Creed, Spotlight, and Fury Road — after its in-depth examination of baseline emotions via cutesy anthropomorphization, as well as its complicated theses about the importance of sadness and the beginning of the end of childhood, wrecked me in the theater twice, back in that bygone era when I’d go see a film in theaters more than once if I thought it was that awesome.

Nine years later, Pixar has the blemished scorecard of any ordinary animation studio. I’ve had such mixed reactions that I only saw one of their last five films in theaters (and regretted giving in to the cash-grab). Nevertheless, I agreeably let them redeem Inside Out‘s stack of goodwill chips and left the house to catch the new Inside Out 2 while my inner voices of Skepticism and Hope squabbled with each other like Siskel and Ebert. Each of them scored points off the other, leaving me wrecked and nitpicky.

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My 2023 Reading Stacks #4: The Ludicrously Delayed Triple-Sized Wrap-Up

June 16, 2024 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Bunch of books piled on our dining table, mostly graphic novels.

I usually prefer showing off all the covers, but we are waaaaay past the deadline that nobody gave me.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Welcome to our recurring MCC feature in which I scribble capsule reviews of everything I’ve read that was published in a physical format over a certain page count with a squarebound spine on it — novels, original graphic novels, trade paperbacks, infrequent nonfiction dalliances, and so on. Due to the way I structure my media-consumption time blocks, the list will always feature more graphic novels than works of prose and pure text, though I do try to diversify my literary diet as time and acquisitions permit.

Occasionally I’ll sneak in a contemporary review if I’ve gone out of my way to buy and read something brand new. Every so often I’ll borrow from my wife Anne or from our local library. But the majority of our spotlighted works are presented years after the rest of the world already finished and moved on from them because I’m drawing from my vast unread pile that presently occupies four oversize shelves comprising thirty-five years of uncontrolled book shopping. I’ve occasionally pruned the pile, but as you can imagine, cut out one unread book and three more take its place…

Yeah, this is beyond late and into the realm of “why bother now?” It isn’t even the only “year in review” post still on my to-do list. The stacks have cluttered the area around our computer desk this entire time and really need to be moved so I don’t start mixing them up with the books I’ve read so far in 2024, but in my mind they can’t be moved till their capsules are finished. I hate to post an abbreviated entry simply to get something “over with”, but the time has come, gone, lapped around and come again. In the spirit of spring cleaning before summer begins this very week, here’s everything else I read last year but with (mostly) shorter capsules than usual. Longer capsules could be provided upon request, I guess?

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“FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA” IN SUPER AWESOME DOLBY CINEMA ALL-CAPS-O-RAMA! (Well, Kinda!)

June 1, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Post-apocalyptic warrior woman with black paint around her eyes gets out of a monster truck holding a sawed-off shotgun.

GET IN, LOSER! WE’RE GOING TO THE MOVIES!

PREVIOUSLY ON MIDLIFE CRISIS CROSSOVER: MAD MAX FURY ROAD WAS THE WINNER OF SIX ACADEMY AWARDS, A BEST PICTURE NOMINEE, ONE OF MY TOP 5 FILMS OF 2015, AND THE GREATEST MAD MAX MOVIE OF ALL TIME! I WATCHED IT AGAIN THE OTHER NIGHT AND IT WAS STILL LIKE BOBBING FOR GRENADES IN A BARREL FULL OF ADRENALIN! IT WAS EXTREMELY LOUDLY MIND-BLOWINGLY EXTREEEME! I WISH I COULD LEGALLY DRIVE LIKE THAT! AND I WROTE MY REVIEW IN SCREAMING MODE JUST LIKE THIS! IT WAS ONE OF OUR TOP 5 MOST POPULAR POSTS THAT YEAR! SO HERE WE GO AGAIN!

EVERYONE LOVED FURY ROAD SO MUCH, GEORGE MILLER MADE A PREQUEL! FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA IS NOW IN THEATERS! BUT THERE’S NO CHARLIZE THERON OR TOM HARDY OR THE ONE CANCELED GUY THAT HARDY REPLACED! NO ONE REMEMBERS HARDY’S PART ANYWAY BECAUSE FURIOSA WAS AWESOME! SHE DROVE A TRUCK AND HAD A RAD HEAVY METAL BIONICLE ARM AND SHE STOLE THE MOVIE! BUT NOW SHE’S ANYA TAYLOR-JOY! WHO ISN’T CHARLIZE THERON! BUT SHE SURVIVED THE MENU AND SHE WAS MAGIK IN THE NEW MUTANTS, SO SHE’S BEEN THROUGH SOME STUFF!

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Proclaiming the Good News of the “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”

May 26, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Smart ape holds a falcon on its gloved arm.

“So, eagle, you do for apes what you did for dwarves and hobbit?”

Previously on Planet of the Apes: apes rule Earth now! Andy Serkis’ Caesar led apes to victory but died for ape sins! Virus strike whole planet, make humanity stupider! Humanity also mute now! Lucky apes not have to hear human stupidity! Unless apes reinvent internet! Movies not say humans can’t type! Maybe ape moderators ban humans from simian media!

Everything’s coming up monkey-house as we continue with the prequel/reboot (preqboot?) series that’s been among the most consistently entertaining of its kind in this era of I.P. recycle-overdrive. (R.I.P. those once-cool X-Men preqboots whose producers turned their last two flicks into shiny dumpster clutter.) So far we’ve had nary a clunker in the new bunch, more than we can say for the original Apes pentalogy. That’s including the latest release, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which box-office pundits are dubbing a failure because its opening weekend earned “only” $58 million domestic, nearly twice as much as all other May 2024 blockbuster openings. Guess it’s hard out here for a chimp.

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“Abigail”: Bunhead of Blood

May 23, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Tween vampire ballerina bursts through a white door, large wood fragments flying, murder in her eyes.

Black Swan but with slightly less agony.

Horror hasn’t been a primary go-to genre for me as I’ve aged, but I’ll check out a given work in just about any genre if it can sink a hook into the elusive target that is my set of aesthetic peculiarities. (And by “hook” I do not mean I award imaginary brownie points for use of the empty “elevated horror” label.) In the wake of the Hollywood-wide restart after last year’s dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, some 7,000 new, quick-bake horror flicks will be coming to theaters over the next several months as studios catch up on their precious blockbuster assembly-line schedules. Amid the flood of recent blood-soaked trailers — from high-concept to lowbrow to “the plot is a spoiler!” — one pitch spoke to me from the fray: “From the directors of the last two Scream movies!”

If the preceding sentences sound familiar, it’s because they’re largely lifted from my previous write-up of Late Night with the Devil. If horror flicks have taught me anything, it’s that recycling is cool. Sometimes old parts can be reused in a new contraption without collapsing. Sometimes the contraption is pretty nifty, like folding a newspaper into a sailboat, or making an omelet with leftover taco filling, or lifting the one-line concept from an old Universal monster movie but throwing away the rest of the movie because no one remembers it anyway.

Hence, directors Matt Bellinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (d/b/a the team “Radio Silence”) present Abigail. The 1936 work that inspired it is a spoiler. Its entire trailer is a spoiler. Fortunately it doesn’t spoil the whole runtime, as more twists abound and a crack ensemble makes up the difference in their performances whenever the writing withholds too much.

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C2E2 2024 Photos, Part 5 of 5: And the Rest!

May 2, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Me doing jazz hands inside fake Alien webbing beneath a looming Alien Queen statue at least 15 feet tall.

Hi, I’m a xenomorph host!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We were undecided for months because this year it was scheduled the same weekend as one of our hometown shows, Indy Pop Con. Ultimately Chicago lured us back…

…and we had a great time pushing ourselves to the brink of exhaustion and possibly over its curb. We’ve shown you costumes, celebs, panels, jazz hands, and Artists Alley comics. But wait! There’s slightly more!

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C2E2 2024 Photos, Part 4 of 5: Artists Alley!

April 29, 2024 By in Comics/Lit, Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A dozen new comics and graphic novels, one bagged Star Trek back issue, and a tin sign with Fallout's Vault Boy handing you some Nuka-Cola.

My Artists Alley loot pile, plus a few freebies, a Fallout tin sign, and a back issue Anne really, really, really wanted.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We were undecided for months because this year it was scheduled the same weekend as one of our hometown shows, Indy Pop Con. Ultimately Chicago lured us back…

…not just with actors, but with their promise of comics! Lots and lots of funnybooks and graphic storytelling narratives for all ages, temperaments, and cliques. C2E2 consistently has the best Artists Alley of all the cons we attend regularly. Though the pandemic reduced their ranks a tad even for a while after the vaccines came around, this year’s lineup felt like its strongest in years. The Windy City once again welcomed hundreds of creators to the festivities — a mix of returnees and new faces, pros and wannabes, purveyors of handicrafts and sellers of reading matter. Longtime MCC readers know the latter is always my primary objective. It’d been a while since my last major book-spree. I’d missed the splurging.

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C2E2 2024 Photos, Part 3 of 5: Actors!

April 29, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Us doing jazz hands with Mads Mikkelsen! He wears a gray cap. I crouched down to Anne's height, so he leaned down to meet us there.

Hey, kids! It’s Mads Mikkelsen!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We were undecided for months because this year it was scheduled the same weekend as one of our hometown shows, Indy Pop Con. Ultimately Chicago lured us back…

…where they brought in new actors for us to see in person from stuff we’ve watched!

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C2E2 2024 Photos, Part 2 of 5: Saturday Cosplay!

April 28, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Two characters from Fallout video games: happy blonde mascot boy who gives everything a thumbs-up, and one-wheeled robot with no head and a black-and-white TV in its chest.

Fallout-mania is sweeping the nation, and Vault Boy and Yes Man are here for it!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We were undecided for months because this year it was scheduled the same weekend as one of our hometown shows, Indy Pop Con. Ultimately Chicago lured us back…

…and we took more cosplay pics! Please enjoy one more gallery of cosplayers who brightened our second day around the show floor. 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. Please feel free to identify any characters we failed at recognizing!

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C2E2 2024 Photos, Part 1 of 5: Friday Cosplay!

April 28, 2024 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Two women in red, black and white costumes with staves. C2E2 sign is in the upper-right corner.

The first cosplay pic we took this weekend: Vaggie and Alastor from Hazbin Hotel.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Each year when there isn’t a pandemic fully raging, my wife Anne and I love attending entertainment and comic conventions throughout the Midwest and occasionally a bit beyond. We’re fascinated by the spectacle of each and every in-person nexus of geek cultures that presents a confluence of comics, artists, cosplayers, hobby artifacts, rare collectibles, IP-inspired handicrafts, talented performers and celebrity guests with fandom connections of varying levels of dedication and/or awesomeness.

We just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed the inaugural edition in 2010, took a break starting in 2020 even before the pandemic came a-ragin’, then returned to the fold in 2023. We were undecided for months because this year it was scheduled the same weekend as one of our hometown shows, Indy Pop Con. Ultimately Chicago lured us back.

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“Late Night with the Devil”: Time Now for Stupid Host Tricks

April 14, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
1970s TV show host holds a mic and side-eyes stage right. Behind him is his house band, led by a chubby bald guy wearing red devil horns and a cape for Halloween.

“Our next guest needs no introduction…”

Horror hasn’t been a primary go-to genre for me as I’ve aged, but I’ll check out a given work in just about any genre if it can sink a hook into the elusive target that is my set of aesthetic peculiarities. (And by “hook” I do not mean I award imaginary brownie points for use of the empty “elevated horror” label.) In the wake of the Hollywood-wide restart after last year’s dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, some 7,000 new, quick-bake horror flicks will be coming to theaters over the next several months as studios catch up on their precious blockbuster assembly-line schedules. Amid the flood of recent blood-soaked trailers — from high-concept to lowbrow to “the plot is a spoiler!” — one pitch spoke to me from the fray: “Starring David Dastmalchian!”

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“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire”: Back to Basic Behemoth-Bashing

April 6, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The yellow-and-black IMAX movie poster for "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire". The title monsters are running in shadowed profile. Tiny fight jets zoom alongside them. The 'A' in "IMAX" is replaced with a Pyramid thinner than any real Egyptian Pyramid.

Bad beasts, bad beasts, whatcha gonna do?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the MonsterVerse is a thing! Once enough time had passed since Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla and Peter Jackson’s King Kong, the blockbuster peddlers at Legendary Pictures decided America was ready once again for rude giant animals to crush everything in their paths and possibly dominate theaters. Their Avengers-style interconnected saga began with 2014’s recycle-titled Godzilla, which delivered one truly mighty monster melee after two hours of ordinary humans reminding us what we didn’t like about the previous five decades’ predecessors. Pop culture’s most popular overtall simian returned in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, a period-piece prequel that shamelessly embraced kaiju camp, OD’d on steroids and let its creatures run amuck through Apocalypse Now backdrops and chase some of the best character actors in the biz. The humans were suspiciously more entertaining and having way more fun than usual, as monster toe-jam ingredients go.

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“Dune: Part Two”: Another 40 Days in the Loudest Desert Ever

March 17, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Poster for

Fresh off Oscar Quest ’24, we bring you a sneak peek at Oscar Quest ’25.

Previously on Dune: director Denis Villeneuve brought his gloriously ponderous, A/V-intoxicating, starkly symmetrical majesty to Frank Herbert’s universe, the quintessential American “Chosen One on Planet Sahara” space opera, and helped me heal from the childhood trauma of sitting through David Lynch’s compromised beach-ball of confusion. Villeneuve gambled on a dissatisfying To Be Continued ending for Part One with no guarantee he’d be permitted to keep going. Dune: Part Two ties up a thread or two, but to viewers who never pored over the sacred Herbertian texts (or who, like me, tried and failed to slog through), it was perhaps a surprise to find To Be Continued shall apparently be the saga’s status quo evermore, for as long as capricious Warner Bros. execs permit.

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The Academy Awards 2024 Season Finale

March 11, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Kate McKinnon's Weird Barbie invites Jimmy Kimmel into her Barbieland house and unrolls a large presentation map of "Oscarsland", which looks like a Candyland game board with photos of each of the ten Best Picture nominees scattered along its dotted-line path.

Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie gives a lost Jimmy Kimmel directions to the Oscars, in ABC’s extended trailer.

Oscar season is over at last! Tonight ABC aired the 96th Academy Awards, once again held at ye olde Dolby Theatre and hosted for a fourth time by ABC’s favorite trooper Jimmy Kimmel. This year’s soiree clocked in at 144 minutes, a surprising 14 minutes shorter than last year’s telecast. That’s after starting six minutes late and keeping the stopwatch running till the very end of the end credits, up to the final boilerplate disclaimer read by announcer David Alan Grier. Kimmel and his writing staff made only a single overtime joke in the monologue, then dropped that annual running gag for the rest of the night. It’s refreshing whenever a tired joke is crossed off the setlist.

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Indianapolis Man Watches All 53 Academy Award Nominees, Receives Pat on Head from His Oscar Widow

March 9, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jon Batiste on stage at Carnegie Hall, viewed from behind as he raises his arms toward an impressed audience.

Jon Batiste playing Carnegie Hall between awards ceremonies.

I am so, so tired. It’s been a loooong six weeks.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’24 has dominated my head space and made me neglect numerous other overdue blogging projects. I’m pleased to report I’m at long last finished: I’ve seen all 38 nominated features and all 15 shorts, marking my first-ever 100% achievement of completing my OQ24 scorecard before the big ABC ceremony. I don’t watch sports, so the Oscars are my Super Bowl, which makes me look weird to most folks in my circles. Nevertheless, once again my traditional hobby-journey was spellbinding, enlightening, maddening, exhausting fun.

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