In Memoriam

 

I won’t need too many words because anyone who knows me or is familiar with my family at all knows just how much Kamille means to us. She is beloved and not in the past tense. Her impact, the mark she left on people’s lives can be seen, felt and heard even today. She is the most tenacious human being I’ve ever met.

I tell people all the time that my brother and I have two moms. Our mother Christine and our sister. It’s not a joke either. Kamille would call both of us on a regular basis. To make sure we were eating right; to make sure we were doing right. She was very much involved in both of our lives and I looked forward to that phone call every day.

It’s hard to find one or two defining memories of someone you’ve known your whole life. I always think to when we lived with each other but as adults and we would have conversations in the morning about all sorts of things, sometimes about things you wouldn’t expect her to know about.

She told me one day she wanted to walk again, and I responded that I wanted to be there to see it. That’s what I’ll remember most about Kamille. She loved her life as difficult as it was. Through multiple surgeries and countless hospital stays and rehabs none of it stopped her from being who she was, the person we honor today.

I wish I had five minutes more to tell her how much I love her. I never once saw it as my duty to take care of her. It was my privilege to do so. She was more than my sister. She was my friend. She was my bedrock. The strength I needed to face this world. Instead I’ll tell all of you and anyone who reads these words.

Thank you, Kamille Elizabeth Gardner. Thank you for gracing this Earth with your presence and for giving me the honor of being your big brother.

My heart is broken now but it was only whole because I got to know you.

 

July 24, 2000 - July 10, 2026

Kept You Waiting, Huh?

 I both laughed and was embarrassed when I saw the date of my last upload to this blog. It basically is a precise cutoff of when I had my love for this smacked out of me. Metaphorically speaking of course.

My goodness where to start?

I've started and stopped and deleted this post so many times and not always out of self consciousness. I don't need to tell anyone of the complexities and anxities of existing in the modern world. It often means that you have to put a pause on doing those things you love to do in order to survive.

It would be one thing if contending with the brain worms that makes writing and posting near untenable was the only thing I had to contend with. I want to give my readers and otherwise a rough timeline of what the last year and change has been like on my end. If i've said it before it hasn't been enough times: I truly appreciate my audience so much. They've always understood and been respectful of the fact that I do this for free on my own time. I don't always show up on time or at all but when I do I really do give it my all.

Anyway!

This timeline starts with my laptop dying. And this was my main 'writing' laptop so needless to say my motivation was pretty well shot for a good while off that alone. But can't feel too sorry for yourself so I order a refurbished computer and use my old unit from high school in the meantime. This thing has Windows 8 on it so that should age both me and the computer well enough. The keyboard is also fairly beat up so not much writing was done here.

It may have been a month after I get my new computer that my car poops out. Anyone who's owned a vehicle knows this feeling. Truth be told a full outright breakdown would have been easier to stomach than my usual mechanic telling me it's drivable until it isn't and then you're talking about real money. So no car for a bit for me. This can be...a bit challenging in my region where everything is about a 10-20 minute car ride away. I feel like I don't need to go into how absurdly scuffed America's public transit infrastructure is so let's move on. I have a good support system so this experience was more annoying than traumatic.

And then there's this little lady.

Internet, this is GiGi. She had technically been in the family for years but the house that kept her no longer had a place for her. So the choices were to let her get taken to the shelter, likely to be dealt with, or go pick her up and bring her home. Not much of a choice, yeah?

We bought her a bed and bowls for her that day. It was touch and go for the first month. She seemed lifeless and it wasn't hard to imagine why. How do you explain to an animal why their surrounding are so different and that they can't go back to their home? I don't need to get into why cause it doesn't matter but it was a struggle emotionally for everyone.

There was a myriad of health issues to navigate and the wonderful veteranarians who guided me through the process were super patient and understanding. For my part, I didn't care about doing what I had to in order to ease her pain. I was more upset that she had to live with it for so long. So many years of neglect that compounded. I honestly can't talk about it for too long or I risk getting upset again.

 

If I hadn't been so useless the past year, I would have introduced you all to GiGi when we took her in. Because I am and was a complete drip with no discipline to speak of I'm doing the next best thing and leaving this up in tribute to her and her fighting spirit. She didn't look like much; wasn't physically impressive at all, but she's the best little dog I ever knew and I learned more about life from her than I have from most people. My life is better for having spent time with her even if my life did briefly become a comedy of errors.

That's the last year and a half for me. For those waiting on a response from me via DM or email of otherwise rest assured I feel bad enough for both of us. I have several people I've left hanging and I feel awful. One of those people is a reader who very politely asked about the Shingeki no Kyojin recaps and if they would continue. For you dear reader, I have an answer.

The answer is yes. Both to Eren and you, friend. I've been wanting to close the loop on this for years now. And I can't think of a better time than after the anime has ended when we can really get a true retrospective from all forms of media. Not even mentioning how my views and appreciation of this story have evolved in the years of life I've lived. So yes, we're doing AoT, but that's not all.

Oh yeah! We're doing the Magic Sword Manga. Or do we call it Anime Oppenheimer? Either way, this is the first manga in a long time (maybe since Attack on Titan) that I came in on the ground floor. A chapter 1 reader here. As I'll get into later, I was not aware of any of the memes surrounding its release. I wasn't aware of it at all until I opened the Manga Plus app and saw it there. I can't give you a good explanation for why I clicked the first chapter besides that it seemed to be incredibly my shit. I'm thrilled to say that it's quickly gone from a light weekly read to my favorite series in Shonen Jump. I'm still deciding on what my posting schedule on this will be. Unlike Attack on Titan, which dropped montly, this is a weekly series and it's safe to say I don't have it in me to do weekly breakdowns to the level of detail I like. We'll figure that out when we get there. Speaking of breakdowns, however...

I'm introducing a new series of sorts. Inspired by my love/hate and lifelong relationship with pro wrestling, I'll be breaking down in painful detail my favorite fight scenes and action sequences. I have such a great love and respect for the art of physicality and choreography and how the two are married in the realm of entertainment. I've only seen a few "creators" covering this topic so I thought I'd throw my blog into the ring. I'm really looking forward to this.

And last but not least I haven't dropped The Batman. It's more like The Batman temporarily dropped me, as I had to recover a not small amount of my work when my laptop died. Lessons learned etc but I haven't dropped it. In fact it may be tough sledding this late year into next as I have many ideas that have been kicking around in my head.

I don't have any better way to end this post so I'll end it with a thank you. I don't remember at this point if I've already said it and likely won't edit this too closely to find out but thank you. I've written before about how fortunate and blessed I am to have the readership that I have who are so intelligent and patient and understanding of the fact that I have obligations outside of this little pocket of the Internet. I love you all, really I do. I've been getting better online and IRL at letting people know I'm still alive. Sadly, it seems that'll be more necessary going forward.

Crate Diving: Episode 4 | The Weeknd - After Hours

When listening to an album by Toronto-born singer The Weeknd it’s important to consider the duality of the artist. Perhaps the same could be said of most acts of a certain level but then, most acts don’t reach this level. The Weeknd as a recording artist is renowned worldwide and after being certified diamond, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn’t recognize the talent. The man behind the act, Abel Tesfaye, is underrated as a storyteller in my opinion. It’s not just the songs; from the album art to the accompanying videos, you are taken along on a journey of empty excess and decadence, seasoned of course with that 21^st Century Western flavor. Part of the duality of the act is the intense and personal nature of the music performed by The Weeknd and the extremely private nature of the man Abel himself.

Now, there’s an IRL context to this album that should be mentioned. I’ll bring it up in passing later because, frankly, I don’t visit Stan Twitter and it’s not as important to me. But! It isn't unimportant because it sets the motif for the entire LP. One look at the art direction for the first single “Heartless” and you can tell.

It’s a Hunter S. Thompson romp through the American desert but sexier, with better clothes and designer drugs. Abel is playing a dramatized version of himself giving in to his most base and self-destructive impulses. He’s young, single, high as hell with too much cash for any of it to matter. He’s looking for feeling in the wrong places, evidenced by the album art which shows him busted and bloody. He’s smiling though, because he’s alive goddammit! This bender takes him up and down the Vegas strip, on foot and in a supercar. Faster and faster as if to outrun the refrain on the album’s opening song: I don’t know if I can be alone again.

Here perhaps would be a good place for a footnote. Some months ago, Abel Tesfaye’s relationship with the model Bella Hadid (once again) came to an end. This is not the first album inspired by a breakup, nor will it be the last so long as music making exists. Every artist is different, however. Not everyone is inspired by real world events to produce their next major project and Abel was almost certainly writing this album well beforehand. I must say though that my favorite version of The Weeknd is the one we get in moments like this. Brooding, slow-paced, atmospheric tracks that build to a dark crescendo. We didn’t get an album full of that here, but we did get moments.

None of them were in the beginning portion. Perhaps he wanted to get the breakup songs dealt with early because the first four tracks feel like they’re from another album. They aren’t bad, just different. It felt like a visit from the mid-2010s version of The Weeknd that was singing power ballads and had soccer moms everywhere reciting lyrics about how much he loves cocaine. And then we get to “Snowchild” where the first line is about him being suicidal.

We wave to the first single and then make it to “Faith” which is where this LP picks up for me. Technically, this is another “breakup” song but it isn’t like the others. As The Weeknd himself tweeted to his fans in anticipation of this album: “no more daytime music.”

But if I OD, I want you to OD right beside me

I want you follow right behind me

I want you to hold me while I’m smiling

While I’m dying

This right here? Get the Chef’s Kiss out. This right here is the kind of vibe I want from this genre and this artist specifically. There’s no way for me to say that without sounding like a smartass but I am one hundred percent genuine here. I mean, really, this album ends with Abel crooning over a synthpop beat about bleeding out. It’s beautiful melodrama and it comes from a real place.

It wasn’t until halfway that I placed why this record felt familiar to me. The heavy synth and percussion along with the distorted vocals have quickly become a staple in pop music at the moment. There are many artists outside the commercial mainstream who have and continue to innovate this sound, but the one that springs to mind first is the Futurefunk/Synthwave artist Trevor Something.

Deep, moody vocals with lots of keyboard is this guy’s M.O. In relation to After Hours, I don’t know how else to put it but to say that the songs meant for radio play sound…not like this. The first two singles are polished with crystal clear vocals. The third single, which as of my writing this has yet to be released, “In Your Eyes” is more in that vein. I’m interested if he releases “Faith” as a single. It’s produced by Metro Boomin as the others are and is similar in sound but it also experiments with that Dark Synth sound.

The Weeknd is in a unique position. As arguably the most popular musician not named Taylor Swift, he has at least some say on the pop culture zeitgeist. This LP will do numbers and the tour, whenever that happens, should be another smash commercially. The real question: how far left does Abel want to push the scene or does he at all?

It's good to have options when your mind is melting.

4 Stars out of 5

Still Chasing | Review - Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

This is the very first time in the years and years I’ve engaged in this little hobby where saying “It was a good movie” feels like a backhanded compliment. But that’s about where I’m at. Saw the flick on opening night. A week has passed and the only thing my mind keeps coming back to is that it was a movie and it was fine but it was just there.

Speaking of course about The Rise of Skywalker. The end of the Skywalker Saga which has taken us outwards to a galaxy far, far away and across forty whole, actual years of meta and merch and iconography which isn’t even to mention the numerous spin-offs, sequels, prequels, TV shows, mini-series, and video games. All of that has led to this…which is why just calling Episode 9 a good movie feels like such a misnomer. Getting ahead of myself here.

The most notable part of this chapter in the saga as it starts is that the new trio is finally back together. Notable because they spent a large portion of Episode 8 in separate worlds entirely. Finn and Poe have intercepted a message from a spy in the First Order, barely making it back to base to relay it. Rey, who has been trying to access her Avatar State- I mean her Jedi predecessors is annoyed with the boys for wrecking her ship while they are annoyed that the best fighter in the outfit is running obstacle courses and not, you know, fighting.

A good point to be fair. It helps Rey make her decision to gather up the Old Jedi Texts and follow Luke Skywalker’s final lead to locate the Lost Sith World. Her friends insist on going with her, because we’ve done this “Let’s split up gang!” schtick before with varying (disastrous) results.

JJ Abrams is back at the wheel for this final installment and if starting the movie mid-chase scene wasn’t a big enough tell then the Wile E. Coyote perils of the second act certainly will be. Certain parts of the plotting stuck out to me in this way including a scene where Rey heals a wounded pit worm creature using the power of the Force.

I would make fun of this more, but I have watched far more cartoons than is average and it also set up two key events in the narrative so I’ll leave JJ alone on this one. However…

So much of this movie felt inconsequential. Perhaps because my prediction from two years ago about this movie retconning The Last Jedi into the ground turned out to be true in the most predictable ways. So much talk (boring talk at that) about how JJ was working from behind having to tell his own story and conclude the saga while cleaning up after TLJ. First of all, it’s his job. No tears here, muchacho. Secondly, the meta regarding Episode 8 is only a problem if you treat it that way. Nothing that happened was inherently bad.

Actually, no, that entire code breaker subplot that took up half of the movie was bad. It was really bad. But everything else was fine! Luke has moved on, Snoke is dead and Kylo Ren is the Supreme Leader. There are bones of a solid follow-up to be had, yet Disney’s refusal to carry on even these major developments has me scratching my head to wonder why they let Rian Johnson finish the movie anyway. Clearly, they didn’t know what they wanted and never have which points to the general feeling of dissociation in this final film.

Princess Leia’s story and her time in this film feels the most coherent of all. It helps that she was past being a major on-screen character at this point. It’s also worth noting the tactful way her story ended given the untimely passing of Carrie Fisher earlier in production. They did what they could with the footage they had left and turned it into one of my high points of the movie. I give credit where I think it’s due and this was well done.

The rest was an exercise in lukewarm thrills and squandered potential. Hux will forever be the Big Bad that never was – a fiery ball of charisma playing second fiddle to a room of actual NPCs. Rose Tico, after being heavily involved in the climax of The Last Jedi, is little more than a support character in The Rise of Skywalker. This annoyed me. Rey throughout the movie leaves her friends in peril to go on random side quests and listen to Kylo Ren drone on in painful “cutscene” dialogue. That greatly annoyed me.

I could even compare this to Venom in that it was a weird movie with one great performance that really wanted me to hate it and failed in spectacular fashion. I didn’t hate this movie. I actually liked it by the end. The last thing I can say before getting into spoilers:

The Rise of Skywalker was easier to sit through; The Last Jedi was more fun to talk about.

3 Stars Out of 5

Cool. So straight away it should be known that Hux is the spy. Chewie, Finn and Poe get captured as all guerrilla soldiers in the motion pictures must and just before they’re executed, Hux nabs a blaster and takes out the troopers with him. He releases the prisoners while noting that, even at the expense of his own livelihood, he wants Kylo Ren to fail. Sure, whatever, but then he is gunned down on the bridge by General NPC whose name I don’t care to recall at this moment.

When I first heard word of a spy I thought hey this is a great spot to bring back DJ, the codebreaker played by Benicio Del Toro who was shrewd in dealing with the Resistance and the First Order. What better way to nail home his point about war being nasty and grey than using his ill-gotten gains to help save the galaxy? Instead, it’s Hux. Being hashtag petty before getting a weak payoff to his rivalry with Kylo via a third party. To call this underwhelming would be too kind. Wasted potential, the story of Episode 9.

Ben and Rey interacted well as characters. I stress this part characters because it’s been quite easy for people to forget that these are real people cosplaying fictional characters which I guess is a credit to Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver as actors. Both very talented. Although it felt like the lightsaber duels between them just got in the way. No real thought went into them outside of one specific moment and “Well we gotta have laser swords in this damn thing.” I’ll explain.

In the world of simulated violence, there is an art to making an interaction convincing and enjoyable with a payoff that makes sense. Generally, this involves a decisive outcome. I could point to the Atomic Blonde stairwell sequence or John Wick mowing down dozens of goons with ease while struggling to overcome one expert combatant. I could detail why both of these examples work in their own unique ways but we’re talking about Star Wars so I’ll stick here.

Luke Skywalker, as he grew in his training and experience, went on a steady incline of eventually facing his destiny. In the first movie, he didn’t approach Darth Vader at all. Ben Kenobi bought his crew enough time to escape in the Millennium Falcon and destroy the Death Star. Second movie, he still isn’t ready and Old Man Yoda tells him this. But he still goes, fights valiantly and gets absolutely destroyed by Vader. He survives though, and gains even more experience as a Jedi Knight. When the two meet again, Luke beats Vader handily. There is a natural progression of who gets the upper hand in the battle of wills.

We don’t get to see much of this between Rey and Ben. She’s the protagonist and has gotten stronger on top of the absurd amount of power she already has due to her bloodline (more on that later). Conceivably, she should be able to outmatch Kylo (who’s rebuilt his helmet yay?) and defeat him like Luke did Vader in his third movie. Well, she does, but not by herself. As Alfred so famously said, what’s the point of all those pushups if you can’t move a log? Yes, Kylo is the log here. We’re way past the point Rey should be intimidated by any bad guy. If she’s gonna beat him, just beat him. Obi-Wan’s battle against Darth Maul, who slayed his master in front of him, felt like a desperate struggle where each swing of a saber felt like it could be the last. Kylo and Rey were just swinging props.

JJ owes some royalties to Genndy Tartakovsky, because before the final blow was struck Leia used the last of her life force to reach out to her only child and give him pause, which allowed Rey to inflict a mortal wound. But she’s Force Sensitive and felt her mentor leave the mortal coil. Realizing what she’s done, she heals Ben’s wound like she healed the worm earlier. She then tells Ben in not so many words, hey I wanted to join forces with you but you still wanted to kill my friends, you dick! And Ben is left alone to contemplate this with the ghost of Han Solo.

There is a lot I did and did not like about this. The method in which Rey was victorious made sense in relation to her bond with Leia and Luke and nicely set up the penultimate moment of the film. The path we took to get there was convoluted and involved Rey yet again going off on her own with no regard for her friends and allies and leading her nemesis directly to the thing he was looking for. This reeks of Second Draft chicanery. But! I thought is was a nice way to end Leia’s story and Rey’s decision to save Ben Solo (not Kylo Ren) informed a lot about her character and the decision rightfully came back to aid her in the end.

Speaking of the End: Rey is a Palpatine! Ay, bet you didn’t see that coming. Or maybe you were like myself and my friend Scott who called it from the moment the landed on the sand dune planet. I don’t pretend to be some Great Prognosticator but I knew knew knew that the chance to make Rey the recipient of Assassin’s Creed Bloodline Powers would be too much for the Mouse to pass up. And no, not even the great Adam Driver with his many skills could save the scene where, through his mask no less, he must monologue about who she is, where she came from, what happened to her parents. This was brutal.

You don’t want Kylo Ren to be the Final Boss he’s been built up to be. Fine. He doesn’t have to be and Rey doesn’t have to end him. Have Ben Solo defect and now his rival Hux is Supreme Leader. He doesn’t necessarily hate the Resistance but his hate for Ben burns with the heat of 1,000 suns and that would be enough for him to borrow the fire power of a long-dead Sith Lord or whatever nonsense you want to write but walking out of the theater I can’t wrap my head around how the one First Order officer with any sort of character was just written off in a cutscene that barely went a minute. What’s the point?

Getting back on track. Palpatine’s whole plan is for Rey to kill him and inherit his power so he can live on forever. Sound familiar? He must have known Luke trained her. Surely one would assume he’s warned her about this ruse at some point. Anyway, she refuses. Palpatine gets fried for real this time and Rey drops dead for…reasons, I guess. It sets up the big moment I discussed earlier where Ben climbs out of the Mortal Kombat pit and resuscitates her. A life for a life. It’s a decent payoff, an appropriate end to the Skywalker line and naturally Adam Driver puts his all into what is for all purposes the final sequence in Star Wars history. As far as direct parallels to Vader go, you could have done worse. When you do as many awful things as they did there really is only one way to redeem yourself.

Later, we see Rey and BB-8 (Does she own the droid now or did it just start following her? Fair play either way.) on Luke’s homeworld of Tatooine. She finds his family’s hut and gently buries his and Leia’s lightsabers in the sand dunes there for the next big adventurer to find them, as someone always does. An old woman walks by and asks Rey who she is. “Rey Skywalker,” is her answer. Alright.

First thing: you’re a Palpatine, miss. We just had a whole to-do over it. The fact of which almost ended the galaxy. Second thing: I know Leia basically adopted her and Luke trained her for five seconds but the Skywalkers are gone. Unless Anakin had a sibling we aren’t aware of we have reached the end of the rope. It’s a nice gesture and she got to pose with her round buddy under the two red suns but, factually, this is untrue. As my friend Lunchbox pointed out, it's like someone just did the Aristocrats bit, only the payoff is saying "We're the Skywalkers!" Which if you'll recall is exactly how Episode 9 ended. You cannot make this up.

There are a dozen little things that will needle you as a fan watching this. Finn never got to tell Rey his secret. Rose is a non-factor after being clearly established as a major character. The new characters introduced are largely support class characters with dialogue to match. Conflict is set up not by necessity but largely by our heroes being impotent. All of this stuff adds up but not enough to make it a horrible movie. Just a toothless one. Very well made and pretty to look at. There is much doubt you will remember you saw it in a month or so.

The End is Not the Answer | Review - John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

The epitome of what the John Wick series has evolved into can be summarized perfectly by a scene about halfway through Parabellum when John and an associate are running and gunning through a stronghold in Casablanca. Wick and a baddie have both run out of ammo; both have a spare magazine nearby. The baddie is deleted from the screen because absolutely no one in the John Wick Cinematic Universe is better at reloading than the Baba Yaga himself. A John Wick movie is, above other things, an exhibition where the goal is to see how far and how high the set pieces can go without producing the whole thing on a computer bay. In that sense alone, this is the perfect John Wick movie.

Chapter 3 picks up minutes after the previous installment ended. John Wick has been ruled "Excommunicado" for spilling blood on neutral ground but has been given an hour to find higher ground before every assassin in New York City moves to collect the multi-million-dollar bounty on his head. It should be said here that this movie really leans into the hitman underworld angle – even a homeless man in an alleyway knows that John Wick has less than thirty minutes before the ban hammer comes down. John has to get out of New York while the whole city is after him, fighting through waves of killers to do so. The First Act is punctuated by this struggle as well as two extended, excellent action sequences. One that involves a horse and another that involves a hall of knives and blades.

Something, something, Old Town Road

John Wick gains safe passage to Casablanca in order to call in a favor. He finds Sofia (Halle Berry) whose blood marker he holds. John saved her daughter years ago and helped spirit her away to a life safe from her mother’s profession. Even so, Sofia is not happy to see John and is not shy about saying so. She agrees to help him, if only because she’s certain he will be dead by the week’s end.

From there, the story becomes one of pain. “Consequences” is a word that comes up several times. John is suffering the consequences of breaking Continental rules. Countless others are suffering the consequences of helping him. If they aren’t being killed outright by Zero (Mark Dacascos) and his students, they are being audited by a mysterious figure (Asia Kate Dillon) who refers to themselves as the Adjudicator of the High Table. She does no fighting herself, but is still a formidable and chilling obstacle, as they collect various forms of sacrament on behalf of the assassin elite.

It does increasingly seem like John Wick exists in a separate multi-verse where everyone that isn’t a trained killer knows they are no more than two handshakes away from meeting one. In Chapter 2, Wick and Cassian engaged in a back-and-forth game of tag on a crowded metro station (which wouldn’t be so bad if they were using NERF guns and not silenced pistols). Here, three punk assassins get cut down in the subway and no one even slows up their walk. Had this been sprung on us in the first movie, it probably wouldn’t have worked at all. As such, they only thing we saw was the cool hotel and sleek bars where all the assassins hung out. It’s been a slow build to this point as more and more of this hidden world was revealed to us. The John Wick series rivals Marvel Studios for the efficiency of its world-building.

The film is snug with a two-hour runtime. No portion feels rushed. Not even the middle section where John, Sofia and her dogs tear through, literally, dozens of bogeys. It was a short time after this sequence when John resumes his quest that I realized, “Hey! This movie is gorgeous!” In Casablanca, the focus is on the starry skies and sandy dunes. In New York, the artificial neon lighting is reflected off the soggy city streets. Indoors, the colors are dingy and muted so that the blood of John’s victims pops off the screen. This is all before one mention of the repeated use of silhouettes to impose upon the screen which I fell in love with.

Upon first viewing, my immediate reaction was that Chapter 2 was maybe a bit better – more consistent perhaps. The more I think about it, the more I think I like Parabellum the best of all three. Chad Stahelski returns to helm the ship here and it really does feel like he’s perfected this niche he made with the first installment. Keanu Reeves cements himself with this performance as one of the great action stars of all time. Countless months spent training with firearms and judo masters alike have paid off in scene after scene of visceral, bone-rattling engagements. It has been noted elsewhere that John Wick fights like a “lady action hero” where the idea is to break down your opponent rather than charge head on. Allowing a person of Keanu’s stature to perform in this way without compulsively making him a bruiser has given the industry a bit of notice.

If you’re a fan of John Wick; if you like Keanu; if action movies are your jam; it’s hard to imagine you won’t love this flick. It never sags, nor does it overstay its welcome. There are moments in the middle portion where it feels like the action is getting a bit repetitive, but before you can complete the thought, a new wrinkle is found. It also helps that Keanu spends the first and last 15 minutes or so fighting hand-to-hand. Just in case you forgot, you’re dealing with The One.

You better ask somebody.

4.25 Stars Out of 5

Things Can Only Get Better | Review - Avengers: Endgame

It should probably be said that there are only a handful of very famous movies that feature plots driven by time travel. It is very hard to and harder to do well. After seeing this movie, I can say that, yes, Doctor Who still has the market cornered on the wibbly-wobbly and the timey-wimey. Speaking of…

Captain Marvel is here! Remember her? Nick Fury’s best bud from space that he sent a pager message to moments before he himself was evaporated by Thanos’ snap? She appears as the team surveys the damage and counts the losses and helps them execute their next plan, which involves recovering the lost Infinity Stones and setting the Universe right.

It is a pretty basic plot, all things considered, even if the steps taken to complete the thread are numerous. And this is honestly all I can say about the story without spoiling anything. I suppose the outcome itself isn’t that hard to wonder at. We know the crew has to beat Thanos. What we don’t know is what that looks like and how. Especially after the epic drumming they took in the previous Avengers tale. This is before getting everyone on the same page, which is a chore in all of these movies. Because of this, the movie is very slow to start. It’s never boring, but if we must spend an hour on expository set-up, it would help if it was more organized. Or, just better, in general.

Thor is depicted as slovenly, unkempt and hideously out-of-shape, clearly haunted by his failure to kill Thanos and save his family. I can…look past this for the most part. Even though, making fun of someone for being fat is probably in bad taste (and also got old a decade ago) and making fun of someone for being fat as the result of slipping into a depressive state is definitely in bad taste. Not something I would have done but, clearly, the MCU has mostly punted on giving Thor any sort of development outside of being a gag so it is what it is.

Hawkeye on the other hand is proof of how subtlety so often escapes this franchise. The very first scene of the movie sees Clint Barton’s family get dusted in front of him. Yes, the same family that appeared from nowhere many films ago with no prior hint of their existence in a twist so bizarre that even the characters in movie said, “Where did this farm come from?” This happy young family that we’ve only seen once is now gone. This, understandably, leads Clint to his own depressive episode. His appearance changes as well, only he doesn’t let himself go. He comes out of retirement and continues his first job as a mercenary for hire. Less Hawkeye more Arrow. This development alone is fine. What isn’t fine is taking such a cool, likable character and turning him into every bad boy stereotype from the early 2000s – complete with punk rock haircut and tattoo sleeve. Thankfully, Jeremy Renner is very good and commits 100% otherwise this would be laughable instead of just bad.

Time for the good news today. If you can make it past all of that, the next two hours are quite good and highly entertaining. All characters from MCU past and present join (and re-join) the fray. The final twenty minutes in particular are highly emotional if you are any kind of fan of these heroes or this universe they call home. It’s partly why I’m able to forgive somewhat the length or the uneven pacing of the First Act. It hits at some point during the final set piece that – yes, indeed – this is it. Over a decade and twenty-two movies later, we are the end of the line of legitimately the biggest pop culture phenomenon of this century. If you really must call your movie ENDGAME, you need to earn it. By the end, I believe they do.

Robert Downey, Jr. has before made the comment that his career has now been chopped into two sections. Pre-Iron Man and Post-Iron Man. He’s not wrong to say it, so it only makes sense that the man who started the MCU would be around to help bring it to its emotional conclusion. For the first time since maybe the first Iron Man, Tony Stark was the best character by a long way. Great care has been taken with his arc in the overall universe and it shows here. It’s not uncommon for an actor – even one with such wide range – to be remembered primarily for one seminal piece of work. If that’s what happens to Robert Downey, Jr. it’s not bad at all, because this is a performance he should be proud of.

We see him at the start of the movie, as well. He and Nebula are adrift in space to be saved by Captain Marvel, but before they are, Tony records a heartfelt goodbye message to Pepper who, at this point, he doesn’t even know is still alive. The whole scene is the window into the mind of a man who is staring mortality in the face. As he ends the transmission and lies down on the bridge floor, we see not a hero, but a man. A man who has accepted death.

I liked this movie better than Infinity War even though that one is probably better overall. The first one-third of Endgame is too long; specifically, to long without anything happening. I can’t complain too loud, though, because people actually talk in this movie. They hold genuine conversations which was my number one, blow-my-stack pet peeve of both Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad. A few of the characters’ resolutions were half-baked, especially considering we’ve been following most of them for years now. By the end, however, I was wildly entertained which, for a flick like this, should always be the goal.

The opening stages of this movie show the characters dealing with the implications of their failure. A darkness has covered their lives. Navigating through that darkness has been the thesis of the Avengers series (and Civil War). The abstract being: we do our best when things are at their worst. Cap can do this all day. Not because he wants to; rather, because it’s his job. And as long as it’s still his job, dammit all he’ll keep coming.

How annoying it must be for Thanos. A simple megalomaniac who simply wants to cleanse the Universe of its wasteful ways but he can’t and it’s all because of this one group of super-powered geeks just will not stop fighting. Humans can be brutal, violent creatures. But humans also fight. They resist and they overcome.

Life finds a way.

4 Stars out of 5

Is anyone else upset that Natasha never got to reconcile with Banner? At all? This question is rhetorical since none of you can answer me but good grief, how is it that you handwave Black Widow’s feelings about getting stood up after Age of Ultron and then et cetera a relationship that had been developed over several movies? How Sway?! As annoying is that is, though, they still found space to touch on her connection with both Cap and Hawkeye, the latter of which is literally her best friend so props must be given there. Platonic male/female relationships are some of my favorite things to see in a story and I hope the Marvel influence leads to more.

And as long as we’re on the topic I suppose I should speak about that scene. Long story short: The Avengers track down Thanos but discover he has destroyed the Infinity Stones. The act of doing so has left him weakened and scarred. Not nearly the world-beater he was when we first saw him. The team needs a fresh set of stones now, one of which is the Soul Stone. If you will remember class, the Soul Stone cannot be obtained unless the person seeking it sacrifices that which they love. This is the reason Gamora is gone in the first place. Naturally, when two depressed and traumatized assassins take this journey, it leads to a fist fight to see who commits suicide, essentially.

While describing this scene to my partner in crime, Lunchbox, I said that it was a bit jarring in the “Oh, I guess we’re doing this” way but that it worked in a vacuum for these two characters. He then brought up the good point that, most of Marvel’s storytelling “work in a vacuum.” Of course, Thor, in a short film or vignette, would let himself go and literally threaten to smite some kid on Fortnite. In an Avengers movie, though? In the last Avengers movie? I guess you can technically, but it’s pretty weird.

I do like the role of a Smart Hulk that has finally reconciled the conflict between his body and Banner’s mind. I was bothered by the sight of him apparently being the most upset by Natasha’s death when they hadn’t said two words to each other previously in the film. Or the last one! While everyone was in their Five-Year Funk the only one who ever thought to go visit her was Steve Rodgers. Clint can be upset because she sacrificed herself for him but everyone else’s reaction seemed very sudden.

The final set piece is everything I love about this genre. So many callbacks and reunions and shout-outs. There’s the return of Peter Parker, whom Tony had taken in as his own before he actually had a child of his own. There’s Captain America saving Thor with Mjolnir, which is a reference to the best scene of Age of Ultron where Thor challenges his friends to lift his hammer and Cap manages to move it but not lift it. Scarlet Witch returns and heads straight for Thanos – a younger Thanos from a different timeline who has clearly never seen this woman in his life. When Thanos’ lead destroyer starts raining down pulsing blasts onto the battlefield, things look bleak until the cannons aim upward to an advancing Captain Marvel, who single-handedly brings down the ship. Later in the scene, Carol leads a charge of all present female heroes as young Pete watches in awe.

Doctor Strange uses his wormhole magic to bring in all the forces from every place the team has ever been. Tony references the one-in-fourteen-million odds of victory that was apparently sure enough for Strange to help Thanos win in the third installment. “If I tell you how it happens,” Strange says, “it won’t happen.” Based upon how time works in this movie, one can infer that this outcome was less than guaranteed. It was simply the timeline that had the best chance of working, which means Strange has a tremendous amount of faith in the team or Lady Fate, either way. It must have been a true Heart of the Cards moment for him seeing that a scenario so impossible with so many variables being literally the only chance to succeed.

I do like how it’s made clear that finding the Stones and going back in time can’t undo everything The Snap set in motion. Tony correctly makes this point, as he hosts his former teammates at the cabin he promised to build for his spouse. I appreciate that the resolution was a touch more complicated than just hitting Ctrl-Z (or Cmnd-Z for you Apple marks). In the future, don’t name drop several other famous time travel movies, because all it really does is remind folks that they did it better than you did. Back to the Future is not a bunch of bullshit. Hawkeye channeling his grief with a Tyler Durden cosplay? That definitely is.