Star Crossed Musing

I was out with my husband last night shopping and doing errands and getting dinner when we started talking about the new Deadpool movie that will be coming out next year. He's excited about it -- likes the acknowledgement by the studios that the former appearance of Deadpool was just dumb, likes that they're being true to the comics with it. I have thus said that, although I can also appreciate these things, I will not be going to see it with him. He wondered why that was, and so I told him, and he suggested I post about it, which I am now. *For the record, I do not yet have a diagnosis of autism. I have been referred to start the process of getting one, though, and my son is on the Spectrum, and my speech-language pathologist husband is convinced of it, so take that for whatever it's worth. I have a large hole in my ability to get humor. I know that it's there, I know what triggers it, and I know what thus to avoid. I can tell when other people will find things ...

That sounded way more exciting than it is. It's the weekend. My kids are around, and they're watching screens, as kids do when they're not being forced to do something else. The something else is coming, so they get some screen time this morning without me making a fuss. Choose your battles, etc. Also, it's hot out today and I don't feel I can, in good conscience, make them go outside until it cools off a bit this evening. Went to see Ant Man Friday night, and I really enjoyed it -- far more than I thought I would. Paul Rudd was very good, mostly playing a straight man for Michael Douglas (who completely rocked, btw) and Evangeline Lilly (who also completely rocked). The plot was a bit disjointed at times -- no movie involving significant shape change "science" is going to be wholly on point -- but we got as much backstory as we needed, and a lot of focus on the personal relationships and stuff to keep the plot rolling. I'm looking forward to seein...

Movie: Big Hero 6 Oscar Nominations: Best Animated Feature Film Unlike most of the listed Oscar films, I saw this one earlier this year -- twice, in fact. I narrowly avoided seeing it a third time, not because I didn't like it, but because I don't get to see that many movies and I had qualifying exams to study for, people. So yeah.  Big Hero 6 is based on a Marvel property; I never read the comic book, so I can't say much about whether or not it's true to the source material. The story revolves around 14-yr-old supergenius Hiro Hamada and his search for his big brother Tadashi's killer, helped by Baymax, a medical assistant robot Tadashi built, and Tadashi's fellow engineering students at "nerd school," or San Fransokyo Tech, in the robotics department.  So, barring weather and scenery, SFT is effectively Case Western Reserve University. That means there's a lot of familiar stuff for me in this show -- they handle the academic ...

Movie: Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director So. Birdman.  I admit, I was not looking forward to this movie, though many of my friends were. I think the chance to see a serious film that seemed to have a sense of humor about the whole comic-movie phenomenon was greatly appealing for a goodly number of people. I'll bet not one of them was expecting what they got. We went in during the previews and sat down, and the opening credits begin to roll, and at the end of them, there's a quote from Raymond Carver: “And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.” ― Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall That sets the tone for the central struggle for Riggan Thompson, the central character (p...

So, I am not a big comic book goob, unless you're talking about the 90s run of Vertigo, and even then not nearly so much as some. I knew vaguely of the Guardians, but much in the same way I knew of the Inhumans, which is to say names and not much more. I went into this movie neither knowing nor caring about it, for the most part -- but it looked fun and my friends and husband were excited, so here we go. This movie is awesome. Now, I'm a big adherent to the maxim of "It's okay to like problematic things" because, being a geeky woman who specializes in Gothic and 18th-century British Literature, from a 21st-century and personal perspective, nearly everything is problematic. It's not a question of "if," but "how much" and whether whatever it is exceeds its problematic content by enough for me to put it aside. There were some problematic issues in GotG, I can't lie. Every now and then, I'd be going along and totally into it, and th...

So, my husband Matt has an ongoing character creation project in which he wants to make a character for every roleplaying game he owns. As he is a collector of games and PDFs count, he will never be finished. That's beside the point, however. I occasionally join him in this endeavor. Game: Better Angels, by Greg Stolze Publisher: Arc Dream Degree of Familiarity: I played a demo of it at GenCon, haven't really read it, but looked over Matt's shoulder now and again while he did. The demo had pregen characters so this will be my first foray into making one. Books Required: Just the core. Step One: Your Human.  So, Better Angels is a game in which people get possessed by both demons and angels, and that's where superpowers come from. People possessed by angels get to be superheros. People possessed by demons end up as supervillains. There are some downsides, of course. No one gets asked if that's what they want before they're possessed by a demon, and o...

So, one of the things I've figured out along the way is that the people I most admire and am personally wowed by are all actually superheroes. I collect them, in fact, and store up their reflected awesomeness in my heart and mind, so I can bathe in the light they generate in the world. They are the epitome of cool, the loci of wonder, and I rejoice secretly each time I meet a new one. Now, it is worth stating that when I say superhero, I don't mean Phoenix Jones, masked fighter of urban mischief in Seattle, or Superman, or even Wonder Woman. I don't need spandex or bracers or masks to garb my heroes in, though far be it from me to say them nay should the drive come over them. They may or may not actually fight crime in the guises in which they are known; I look on that as a personal choice, unrelated to hero status. I speak instead of the people who, in their public personas, wow me with their awesome, eclectic, one-of-a-kind personalities -- the kind of people who, if yo...