A Dream Journal, As It Were: Too Many Thoughts on “The Sandman” Season 1

Tom Sturridge IS the Sandman!

Remember, kids: don’t dream angry!

I was in high school when The Sandman #1 hit comic shop shelves in the fall of 1988. Springing forth from the mind of Neil Gaiman, whom I chiefly knew from Miracleman and Black Orchid, it was unlike anything I’d read before in comics or other media, and was a must-buy over the next seven years — through its transition to DC Comics’ subsequently inaugurated Vertigo line, in its rise to alt-culture superstardom, and even during some of the least favorite parts of my life. The Sandman lasted longer in my life than I lasted in college. I still have all 75 issues, the special with Orpheus’ story, the two Death miniseries, the lovely hardcover edition of my favorite arc (Season of Mists), and some (not all) of the other ensuing spinoffs. (Of most recent vintage, I loved the Gaiman-approved two-issue crossover with Locke and Key, which may have meant more to fans of the latter but contained key prequel scenes to the world of Dream, including front row seats to the fall of Lucifer.)

I rarely allow myself high expectations for anything anymore, but The Sandman left a deep enough mark on my psyche that I insisted the all-new Netflix adaptation — closely supervised by Gaiman — simply had to be The Greatest Netflix Show of All Time. Nothing less would do. The jury’s out on that for now, but after having watched all ten episodes within a 21-hour span (with wasteful intermissions for sleep and life, not necessarily in that order), I can enthusiastically say for now it’ll do. It’ll very much do.

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Yes, There’s an Ad After the “Nope” End Credits

Nope Alien!

Cowboys vs. Aliens, but way better.

The following thoughts on Jordan Peele’s new film Nope are entirely about spoilers from start to finish except the two obligatory postscripts at the end of every MCC entry, which cover additional cast and the end credits. While Get Out remains his best film so far, Nope is a rare treat for me: a film which, the more I dwelt on it, the more I loved. This is a welcome opposite of my previous summertime theatrical experience, one more deserving of fun exploration. Courtesy spoiler alert in advance, then.

We do love to watch, and under the right circumstances we love to be watched. Among the most thrilling and obvious ways to chase fame and/or fortune is to be among the most watched. Young or old, regardless of your assorted demographic memberships, anyone can be among society’s celebrated objects of attention with the right combination of talent and luck. When one ingredient is lacking, push the other to its limits. The talent doesn’t have to be great if circumstances usher the would-be idol past the velvet rope anyway. And the luck doesn’t have to be good.

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Five “Picard” Season 2 Halfway-Point Spoiler Theories

Picard vs Q!

If they were a couple we could call them “Q-Card”.

My wife Anne has been a Star Trek fan since at least high school, which is how long I’ve known her. I’ve tagged alongside her for the past few decades and watched a few hundred episodes myself. I’ve never 100% caught up to her but have seen Deep Space Nine in its entirety and can confirm it reigns above all. We attended multiple local Trek conventions and bought the occasional toys, comics, and other merchandise, but up until six months ago we had no investment in the new Trek works on Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access) because we weren’t in the mood to collect ALL the streaming services. And to us, CBS All Access at launch sounded like a non-starter. We regretted the Trek universe leaving us behind, but our longtime favorite geek universes have broken our hearts before. We planned to cope and move on.

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“Avengers: Endgame”: The All-Spoiler Entry

Rocket War Machine!

Bow before the combined might of ROCKET MACHINE!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Avengers: Endgame is here! You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, an audience roughly one-third the size of Thanos’ human casualties has seen it. I was fine with cranking out the obligatory “I liked it, it was much better than Cats” entry, but as with a few past blockbusters, I’m in the mood to type more paragraphs about its pros, its cons, and the questions it begs that could go either way depending on how sensible or stupid the answers are.

Random thoughts in very little particular order ahead. COURTESY SPOILER WARNING FOR THE WHOLE THREE-HOUR SHEBANG.

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“Murder on the Orient Express”: The Train in Vain Strains Plainly to Maintain

Hercule Poirot!

“Stay back or I’ll poke your eye out! With finesse!”

From Shakespeare adaptations to Hitchock homages to Frankenstein, once upon a time director Sir Kenneth Branagh’s primary focus was leading regal thespian ensembles in bringing back classics for a new generation. Over time he’s somehow transformed into a major-studio go-to for big-budget fare like Disney’s Cinderella do-over, the first Thor movie, and the unnecessary Jack Ryan prequel. His latest highly polished effort, a revival of Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express, tries to bridge the gap between the two halves of his career — recruiting well-known faces to help him reacquaint an unfamiliar audience with one of the standards of the nearly dead mystery-movie genre. If nothing else, he’s also overseen a talented hair/makeup crew who bring us the Best Movie Mustache of the Year.

Full disclosure: I’ve never read any Christie novels or seen any adaptations of her work. The only thing I knew going into Branagh’s version is that the twist ending was spoiled for me decades ago by some long-forgotten humorist who thought it would be funny to joke about spoilers by citing Rosebud, Luke Skywalker’s father, and Orient Express‘ solution all in the same careless punchline, on the flawed assumption that everyone who mattered already knew how it ended. I wish I could remember the writer in question so I could tell him to his face that he was wrong and he sucks.

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“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”: the All-Spoiler Entry

Rogue One!

Teaser image from the upcoming Saturday Night Live sketch “Rogue One: a Zack Snyder Film”.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we saw Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the #1 movie in America! The previous entry was the requisite MCC review-not-review, but light on key developments and movements for the benefit of those fans hoping to see the movie with as few surprises spoiled as possible. The internet doesn’t seem to be trying as hard to ruin Rogue One as it did with The Force Awakens, but a few hyper, well-intentioned fans jumped the gun a little on the assumption that every “real” Star Wars fan would’ve attended a showing within twelve hours of release.

We had thoughts, some of which I remembered to write down before they faded. Here’s a COURTESY SPOILER WARNING in case you somehow overlooked the title.

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“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”: the IMAX 3-D Entry

M-Falcon!

Even the silliest pew-pew-pew effects sound glorious when you crank the speakers up to 27.

I have no current plans to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens six times as I did with one of its predecessors, but my son and I caught an encore for fun at one of the local IMAX theaters to see if the 3-D made any difference. It’s something we try maybe once every 2-3 years, not a regular part of our movie-going diet. I confess I dig IMAX screens more for their super-sized speaker systems than for any picture enlargement. In both TV and movies, JJ Abrams tends to be one of those directors who coach their sound effects team to deliver a booming, raucous performance in which you can feel the depth and the weight of every noise great and small. As a guy with lousy hearing who watches most TV shows with the captioning turned on just in case, I love a heavy hand at the soundboards.

After seeing the same scenes twice, I noticed slight shifts in a few of my opinions, along with a few other random observations beyond what I previously wrote over here and over there. I talked to a few relatives at Christmas gatherings today who still haven’t seen TFA, so I’m not the sort of elitist to assume that anyone who hasn’t seen it yet deserves spoilers as their punishment. If you’re like them and haven’t had the time or funds, please enjoy this courtesy SPOILER ALERT telling you politely to go away for now and save this entry for later.

Right this way for MCC bonus notes!

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”: The All-Spoiler Entry

Captain Phasma!

Hey, remember that time we had high hopes for every well-dressed new character in The Force Awakens?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens! The previous entry was the requisite MCC review-not-review, but lighter on details this time for the benefit of those fans who want a fighting change to see the movie with as few surprises spoiled as possible. According to my son, some deranged Expanded Universe fans were invading random YouTube comments sections for videos that had absolutely nothing to do with Star Wars and were posting major TFA spoilers because they are bitter and they are twelve. Between the heavily armed loner gunmen we fear are waiting at the crowded theater lobbies and the entitled trolls waiting to type furiously at innocents at home, the cinema experience is strangely more challenging and less fun than ever.

That didn’t stop us, though. We had thoughts and I remembered to write down many of them. Here’s a COURTESY SPOILER WARNING in case you somehow overlooked the title.

Right this way for another round of Star Wars!

Top 10 Greatest “Star Wars Episode VII” Leaked Set Photos

The filmmaking process for every Star Wars movie in the modern era has its traditions, and none refuse to die more irritatingly than the part where professional paparazzi, busybody neighbors, and travel-happy geeks pool together their collective talents and impatience, set up base camps all around the official closed sets, take pictures of everything that moves, and hope they catch a glimpse of something that’ll ruin the entire movie for everyone.

These photos are usually out of focus, distantly shot, wildly off-center, totally out of context, filled with restless inaction, and/or bereft of the CG work and color timing that’ll make the up-close, unadorned reality look watchable and actually interesting on the big screen a year later. Many movie sites treat such unauthorized, amateurish, slapdash, eminently deletable results as useful content. Every time without fail, enough fans and enough clicks reinforce their theory. Goody.

Now that Star Wars Episode VII finally hired a cast to act out its hopefully finished script and has allegedly begun shooting, it’s only a matter of minutes before we begin seeing photos of stunt doubles in Jedi robes, puppeteers catching a cigarette break outside a rear entrance, or empty yogurt cups that some muckraking blogger scavenged from Carrie Fisher’s trash. We, the public, will be expected to treat these offerings as Movie News.

So why not go with the flow? We here at Midlife Crisis Crossover gave in to peer pressure, did some digging without due diligence, and came across a stash of photos that we’re 30% certain were recently, surreptitiously snapped on location in London while J.J. Abrams and his spoiler sentries weren’t looking. Seems like a reasonable ploy. They have to sleep sometime, right? So we’re kinda sure these are legit. By the time we’re all done overanalyzing them, we can skip watching Episode VII altogether and move on to overanalyzing blurry set pics from The Justice League Movie instead.

From the Home Office in Indianapolis, IN: Top 10 Greatest Star Wars Episode VII Leaked Set Photos:

10. Peter Mayhew, a.k.a. Chewbacca, hanging out between takes with his manager. Or the head of his entourage. Or the guy who’s playing his son Lumpy, which would mean Abrams’ team has decided The Star Wars Holiday Special should be canonized by unpopular demand. Maybe now it’ll see a long-overdue Blu-ray release that will include much-needed extras such as a commentary by all the actors taking turns explaining exactly what the heck.

The Real Peter Mayhew, a.k.a. Chewbacca!

This way for nine more spoilers! Or probably not!

Treatment Suggestions for Sufferers of Repressed Spoilers Syndrome

Daryl Dixon, Norman Reedus, Walking Dead

If Daryl Dixon ever dies, your dreams of a spoiler-free Sunday evening will be beyond laughable.

Every Sunday evening during the active TV seasons, my online experience takes the same shape: a few friends share their vague reactions to the new episode of The Walking Dead that signify something game-changing happened yet again, right on schedule; one or two other friends dispense with discretion and blurt out what the game-changing thing was to anyone who’ll listen; and another friend or two explode with spoiler rage because they weren’t watching the show as it aired, but totally planned to watch it as soon as they could, or as soon as they felt like it, apparently having learned nothing from the last forty times this happened with the last forty episodes.

Of those three fan divisions, it’s my belief that the most stressed-out and in need of help is Group 1.

This way for theories and treatment…

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