this was too good to pass up 🙂

From Roll Call

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What a great movie – we’ve been fans of Kumail Nanjiani for some time – his standup is funny, and he’s great in Silicon Valley too, plus where he shows up in other stuff occasionally – but his new movie, The Big Sick, could be huge for him – it’s the story of how he met his wife, Emily.

No spoilers here – just go see it!

other reviews:
Rotten Tomatoes
Metacritic

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SPOILER – watch the trailer first

This is an interesting concept for a C&H movie, that will of course never get made (at least while Bill Watterson is still alive, anyway) – except – that I believe it leaves behind a key essential point (if not THE essential point) of C&H – tragic comedy.

Throughout the comic, we are always confronted by Calvin’s underlying struggle to fit in, while his personality, likes and dislikes and the fact that he’s six, serve to nearly always defeat him to varying degrees. Yes, for the most part his parents never step in, and Suzie tries early on, but figures him out pretty quick and then just tolerates him after that.

So Hobbes is all that’s left – and while he proves a true friend time and time again no matter what Calvin does – and he’s not always an unforgiving one – he’s in the end a figment of Calvin’s imagination – or possibly a projection of what Calvin knows he could be – but doesn’t really want to.

Just turning it into a psycho-pseudo horror story (scary or not) misses the comedy (which brings back the reader, strip after strip, despite the comedy usually being at Calvin’s expense) and only tells one part of Calvin’s complexity. Having read several Bill Watterson interviews, one thing he says several times is that he expected Calvin might have a tough adulthood, when his preferred lifestyle was going to evaporate right before his eyes and likely make him pretty sad. Maybe so – but even if Calvin got past that, I don’t think his imagination would consume him in the end – I think he might just lose it – which could be even worse, really….. 🙁

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Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau dies at 89

We too, argued constantly as kids whether Space:1999 was better than Star Trek too – and never came to a consistent conclusion. RIP.

Space 1999 @ IMDB

episodes on YT

hard to believe we were watching that in 1975(!)

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…for the Greenwood Car Show! One block from our house, every year near the end of June. Interesting batch this year – lot more Corvettes than usual (although my fave ’54 of years past hasn’t been here for a few years now); the Mini group just keeps getting bigger each year somehow; good selection of oddball electric and Soviet cars; the Hawaiians normally not seen until later in July at the Shoreline VW meet were here in force this year, nearly an entire block for aircooled VWs. And a few choice Japanese cars (old and new), and a Pantera but only one Ferrari, surprisingly. And my usual gripe – *way* too many lame muscle cars (most of which now sadly are ‘classic’ too….again, argh.)

– the kids in the Jeep were cute – and I loved the ‘Jurassic Park’ Wrangler pair they had – too funny. There were many old military Jeeps this year and a couple vintage Dodge Power Wagons, too.

– also, that ‘Porsche’ seen first wasn’t in the show, that showed up later parking across from our house. When the guy pulled up in it, i asked him ‘is it real or Memorex?’ – he said ‘Memorex!’ – so not sure if this was a replica or a real one, but it was sure nice either way….!

– you can click on a pic to enlarge considerably, btw.

Enjoy!

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Saw the new Wonder Woman movie today with kerewin. Definitely one of the better superhero movies out there, albeit the first DC-related one i’ve seen (haven’t seen the Superman reboot, and Superman vs. Batman looked very, very dumb). Hoping to see some of The Flash tv show at some point and the Justice League trailer we saw today looks good – but I digress.

So compared to the 70s tv series with Lynda Carter, naturally this is higher budget and far better special effects. But despite her origin on an island full of kick-ass women in semi-revealing outfits (worn while full-on fighting on foot, horseback and flying through the air at intervals), this movie avoids the usual ‘movie hot woman’ factor in most cases and simply tries to tell a compelling story instead.

The island part could have been a bit shorter, and as per usual, the Germans are the always-convenient bad guys, even though these are WWI Germans, not Nazis. But Diana keeps on kicking ass throughout the movie, both in attitude and action, which just builds until the end (definitely a good thing).

*****SPOILERS******
Now for the other minor complaints – If Diana is a god, why do they need other superheroes at all (given that the story is told in flashback format when it begins with her getting a package from Bruce Wayne while working at the Louvre in Paris)? Much like Thor in the Avengers/Marvel movies – again, if gods are on Earth, why bother with the rest of even mutants or superheroes, period?

I liked the turnaround with ‘Lupin’ (David Thewlis) playing Ares, the god of war, though, and didn’t see it coming, so that was cool.

While we missed any cameos from Lynda Carter (apparently scheduling problems prevented it) it was very cool to see Lucy Davis, whom we knew was familiar but didn’t recognize until we looked her up afterward.

And Chris Pine plays it pretty straight as Steve Trevor, which was a relief – while it’s likely given the time period of the movie being in around 1917 that he’d be definitely trying to keep Diana in check at all times, he doesn’t try to do it in a bad way unlike other male characters might have and he does fairly quickly realize his limitations in comparison with her – he’s not deluded.

All in all, an entertaining movie – I wonder if Gina Carano will show up as a Diana nemesis in a future one?

Other Reviews:
Rotten Tomatoes
The Guardian
IGN

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