Category Archives: Crossposted

The Big Five-Zero

I’m fifty years old.

Wow.

I don’t want skull-shaped balloons¹, or a headstone-shaped cake. I just want to get my stuff done, and be surrounded by people who are happy. If the pattern holds true, my own happiness will follow pretty naturally on that, especially if the stuff I’m getting done is stuff that helps the people around me be happy, and happens to be fun to do.

It didn’t take the full fifty years for me to figure that out, but it did take longer than I wanted it to.


¹ Okay, skull-shaped balloons shaped liked actual skulls could be pretty nifty, but don’t bother with the grave-cake. Grey frosting is for yuck.

 

 

Annihilation

Annihilation did some magnificent things, but ultimately it didn’t tell a story that I enjoyed very much. I can’t complain at all about the acting, the effects, the camera work, or the sound design, because everything was spot on, and much of it was outstanding. What was missing, however, was a surprising-yet-inevitable reveal that could recontextualize all the alien weirdness for the viewer, giving us a truly satisfying ending.

Annihilation had a lot going for it, but I wanted it to be something other than what it was. I liked it, but I didn’t really enjoy it, and so it slips past my Threshold of Disappointment.

Black Panther

(NOTE: This review is a bit late, yes. My bad. I’ve been super busy.)

I saw Black Panther on Friday afternoon during its opening weekend, and while I really enjoyed it, I must acknowledge that my experience in the theater was different from the experience of a great many movie goers whose skin color is different from mine.

I identified most with Martin Freeman’s character, and loved the way he responded to being an alien in a world he didn’t know existed. Other viewers will likely identify more closely with Chadwick Boseman’s character, or Lupita Nyong’o’s, or Letitia Wright’s. I loved all the characters, but I don’t see myself in all of them, at least not to the same degree.

This strongly supports my belief that the stories we tell should reflect the diversity of us humans. It matters. 

To my eye, the film’s biggest weakness is the plot device it has in common with several Marvel films of the past decade: Iron Man fights a bigger, badder Iron Man. Ant Man fights a bigger¹, badder Ant Man. Hulk vs a bigger-badder Hulk. Doctor Strange vs. a bigger-badder wizard.

In short, Hero fights Villain who has the same suite of abilities as Hero, but is better equipped to use them.

It’s not a bad formula, but it’s gotten predictable. Fortunately, Black Panther had plenty of non-mirror conflicts going on, and the formulaic one, Black Panther vs Killmonger, served really well as a climactic statement of the movie’s central theme. Of the MCU² films using this device, I think Black Panther gets the most out of it.

Black Panther was great, and I look forward to adding the Blu-Ray to my collection for repeated viewings. It was also the first film I saw this year, so it takes my “most fun I’ve had in the theater this year” slot by default, which is a much lower bar than the film deserves to clear.


¹ Yes, both of them were pretty small, but the yellow one was still bigger. Also, weaponized.
² I’m looking forward to
Avengers: Infinity War, but what I really want now is the Shuri/Valkyrie/Gamora team-up.³
³ Directed by Patty Jenkins, obviously.

Find Sandra and Also Me at LTUE This Weekend

Sandra and I are participating at LTUE in Provo, Utah this weekend. This is our home town show, and we’re going to have a table in the dealers’ room. New items beneath the Schlock Mercenary shingle at this show include Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries and the Planet Mercenary RPG

Here are our schedules:

SANDRA

Thursday

11:00 am, Cascade A (UVCC¹): Structuring Life to Support Creativity
5:00 pm, Canyon: Collaboration and Coauthors

Friday

1:00pm, Elm: Fashion and Clothing Through the Ages
4:00pm, Maple: Normal Child Development

Saturday

9:00am, Arches: Balancing Platform and Artistry
10:00am, Ampitheater: How to Run a Killer Game Kickstarter²
12:00pm, Canyon: Working With a Freelance Editor

HOWARD

Thursday

2:00 pm, Canyon: Mythical Anatomy 101

Friday

9:00 am, Canyon: Write What You Know (m)
12:00 pm, Elm: Emergent Narrative³

Saturday

9:00 am, Cascade C (UVCC¹): Finding Your Audience
12:00 pm, Birch: Designing Spaceworthy Ships (m)
4:00 pm, Arches: A Serious Look at Comedy⁴

The full version of the LTUE schedule is available either as an interactive, mobile-friendly-I-hope page, or as a giant PDF grid.


¹ Unless otherwise noted by “(UVCC)”, all of the events listed here are being held in the Marriott Hotel’s banquet halls.  The Utah Valley Convention Center is across the street to the north
² Alan Bahr and Sandra Tayler have raised, between the two of them, close to a million dollars on Kickstarter.
³ This will be my first opportunity to be on a panel with Myke Cole. SQUEEE!
 Todd Gallowglas, a professional storyteller with mad crowd-control chops, and who has schooled Howard pretty effectively in past will be moderating. We have it on good authority that Howard has promised to “be good this time.”