If I should die in a wombat zone

April 26, 2019 One of the things I loved about devotedly following every month’s adventures in dozens of different comic books which, thanks to a shared universe (generally Marvel or DC), had interrelating or at least tangentially connected plots, was becoming attached to characters and watching them grow and develop and change over time (part of why I so dislike reboots, that erase such evolution)…and every so often there would be a giant summating moment. DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths was really the first (and arguably still the best) of such grand convergence moments, but Marvel really was the master of them. Secret Wars, Fall of the Mutants, Inferno, Onslaught, Age of Apocalypse, Civil War . Superhero movies, I thought, simply had no way of replicating this sort of phenomenon, as a limitation of the medium. I mean, you only get 2 hours, right? What are they going to do, have two dozen interrelated two hour movies? Well, now we do. Watching both Infinity War and

October 13, 2018 So it's only been one episode so far I've had to judge from, but I have to say I really like Jodi Whittaker as the thirteenth Doctor. She's clearly a great comic actress, and has both successfully aped the style of several of the recent Doctors (Eccleston, Tennant, and Smith) very well - alternatively scattered, slightly self-deprecating, and deadly serious, able to shift back and forth on a dime (she has clearly studied those actors' style extensively) - yet also injected some flavor unique to her. Peter Capaldi was a much darker Doctor, in a way we hadn't seen since Sylvester McCoy - bitter, sardonic, tired, trying his best to keep on saving a universe he knew damned well didn't appreciate him and wondering how long he could keep this all up. He made you feel every inch of his 2000 year old lifetime. Whittaker represents a departure, a rejuvenation, a Doctor once again excited by life, playful and seeking adventure, in that Matt Smith s

June 20, 2018 Review of Jagged Little Pill, the musical (Aka, “everybody hurts”…and lets you know at very loud punk volumes) As appropriate to a musical created as tribute to a Catholic songstress, I have a confession to make: Alanis Morisette’s music came at the most perfectly precarious and wounded, open moment of my youth, the freshest days and weeks and months after the breakup of a four year relationship that was the entire universe to my 18 year old moment in time. And here on the radio was someone who understood, who sang raw, blunt yet poetic lyrics about loss and rejection, anger and pain and empathy, as if to say, yes, yes it does mean the entire universe, and fuck yes you should take it that seriously…but with just enough distance (as her songs and albums progressed, she seemed to be just a tiny bit ahead down the road from where I was, the prefect long-distance mentor) to let me know there was light at the end of the tunnel. Not the light of paradise, n

Dec 16, 2017 Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Review (I sense a great disturbance, as if a thousand spoilers were about to be revealed below…just so you know…) After “The Force Awakens” and “Rogue One” set such a high standard, I was expecting greatness from “The Last Jedi.” Fortunately, I was not disappointed. If anything, the film has taken its place as my second favorite of the series, next to “Empire Strikes Back,” to which “The Last Jedi” is spiritual successor. Much like in “Empire,” much of the film is spent with the heroes on the run from overwhelming odds, not only in physical combat but also in the struggle over who they are and who they want to be. It was a bold move to have most all the characters spend the movie in flight from an inevitably advancing foe, slowly getting worn down and killed off bit by bit. Much like “The Force Awakens,” it called on all manner of Star Wars tropes…and subverted them, in very clever (and often depressing) ways. Finn and Rose’s last