Go See Into The Spiderverse

Did not see many new movies in 2018 for all the same reasons that “going out” seems to be, for mid 30 something olds, an impossible dream. A resolution for 2019 is trying to actually consume more media as I often just pass out on the couch scrolling through Twitter.

I did see Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse and what a film! By the time you read this I would have seen it 3 times in the theater. The last time i saw a movie multiple times in the theater was the first Michael Bay Transformers (more because by coincidence friends wanted to see it and it was not that bad) and before that The Phantom Menace because I loved Star Wars and thought, “Here we go 1999! This is my Star Wars on the big screen!” I think every watching was trying to trick myself into that it
was good.

But not Spider-Verse.

It's amazing. An honest joy to watch and hear. It is hackneyed to say super hero movies are hackneyed but I would counter these movies (Infinity War, Aquaman, etc) are action adventure movies. There are heroes but I dont get a ton of whiz-bang or hope. I don't want to jump in and help Thor and Groot and Rocket Racoon fight when they blast into Wakanda. It's cool! It kicks ass. I like it, I do! The elevator scene in Captain America: Winter Soldier is porn to me.

But saving people and wanting to lose 20 lbs and squeeze into tights? Wanting to flex in that bathroom mirror and be “Hey,maybe?” Those don't do it. Spiderverse did. If you have not seen it (AND YOU SHOULD!) then maybe you saw Wonder Woman and remember when she gets out of the trench and is taking all that fire and she is “Fuck, lets go!” Yeah, felt like that. Real swashbuckling, cape and cowl stuff.


I will avoid major spoilers but some may come up so be warned!


I likes how we went back to an actual teenage Spiderman with Miles Morales. He has been in comics for nearly a decade but I will admit to not reading his books. I actually have not read many Spiderman books. My main intro was the 90s Saturday morning cartoon on Fox Kids which was pretty cool with it's serialized format and very wonky early cgi. Add to this we also get an older (I would guess he is mid to late 30s since in thr film Peter B Parker says he has done it for 22 years) Peter Parker who is a bit more war weary yet no less wise cracking or capable. I felt Peter B Parker but the response to Miles is exhilarating. An Afro Latino Spiderman? Very nice for a modern take and why he came into the fold and was popular for all those years in the comics. Representation matters even if for me it means i see myself more as Peter B Parker than Miles. But the kids where I work? Oh, it's amazing they will have someone that looks like them. And Miles’ bag has a tiny PR flag sticker on it. And while I am mostly immune to much of the hollow PR nationalism that follows any, however small, outside recognition, I am still human and thought it a nice touch.

And the movie has a theme of anyone can be a hero. "The costume always fits...eventually," says an animated Stan Lee in what is likely one of his final cameos. This feels very refreshing and affirmative especially in light of how angry some Internet folks become when anything changes. They will call us social justice warriors (As if this is an insult. You guys can't call us something like pussies or wusses?) but its a story about how anyone can step up and learn. Which makes sense for a comic book property considering there are hundreds of comic variants and alternative story lines for even minor characters.

The movies feels like a comic book. In the visual touches (And this is something that you have never seen until you seen it. The look is static yet in motion. Rotoscope and Ben Day dots and computers and asides make this wonderful amalgam of a picture. Its a big over the top tiki drink of a movie with tons of little touches of the rarest ingredients that all work. This movie, if you look at it on paper, should have failed.

Animated Spiderman? Um...Ok. Didn't we just have the 3rd reboot a year ago. And animated...that's for kids

A new Spiderman? Who is a minority? Um...look those alt right guys buried James Gunn and we have rent we need to pay.

Sony Pictures Animation? These guys made Storks and The Emoji Movie.

Experimental animation that the studio actually patented the process? Um...can we make another Shrek. People love that Smash Mouth song!

We are going to try humor and heart but action and asides and then an ensemble cast. Um...there is a formula and it works. Look...we made money on Emoji.

But it does. It does in a high flying stupendous and fun style. It feels very familiar but is quite bold what with new characters, the death of favorite ones, and re-interpretation of villains. The intro of the new Doctor Octopus is quite jarringly pleasant. But it also plays with those tropes. Everyone's uncle seems to be dead! The Spider-Verse is a hard place to be an uncle. These seem to be the only throw away characters as even the villiams get a bit of a moment where we sympathize with them. The movie is pure fun and I think we forget movies are supposed to be that. Miles is having fun being Spiderman and wouldn't we?

Here are some quick things that tickled me:

I love Miles and Gwen's platonic relationship. I saw on Twitter a fair piece of steal your girl jokes and...well...read a comic book (or glance Wikipedia) guys

I love Nicholas Cage (!!!) as Spider-Noir. "Sometimes I burn matches down to their ends and my fingertips so I can feel something." YES! YES!

I love the look of King Pin and how, literally, massive he is. Liev Schreiber gives the right mix of terror and schmaltzy villain. Its a big step from Storm King in the MLP movie where it was all just shcmatlz.

The sound track! Its a mix tape made for dancing and maybe taking the next curb just a little closer. Yes, you need to take some salt with it. There is a line where the guy goes "I go hard like the shell of a lobster" and...OK. But its all lovely hip hop

The Miles "rise" scene. It is every day dream I have ever had.  There is an earlier post where I scribble a similar scene with my own hero and wow...I can't think of anything but that scene and that song. This below has been on repeat on my phone since December 14, 2018:

There is a line in the final battle where Miles shows up and surprises all the Spider folks to start kicking ass. After a movie long development of apprehension from Miles. After being told he can't do the final mission. He rises and swings in and Peter B Parker says "I love you. I am so proud of you." God, damn that slayed me. When is the last time you heard that in some non-hackneyed fashion. Because you would think its a kid doing well at the damn science fair or some throw away character clutching pearls before the hero leaves. And here it feels so organic and earned. It then is followed up where Gwen and Miles team up to beat Doc Ock and Peter B Parker responds "That was adorable, team!" How many super hero films are one person going it alone? How many messiahs do we need? These are not bad tropes but they are a bit too stepped so this sweet and still punchy teamup is just wonderful. Its Ok for new heroes to come and embrace the past without being crippled by it. 

The movie just makes me happy and I am not a happy go lucky guy. It really is the best thing I have seen in the last 10 years of my life.

As of this writing, It has made just a bit over 100 million US and 100 million international (with coming openings in Japan and Latin America) so while it won't make crazy blockbuster money (albeit it should) it should make enough money to allow the studio to green light a sequel. And I hope against hope they can recreate this. 

Something My Kids Said-Xmas Gift

Sometimes on Twitter I will post little scenes. I like to imagine I am Chekov and here are my tiny tales of dialogues. The bump to 280 characters was a boon to these but sometimes they are too long and I am bad at threads. They also lose their panache unless it is a spicy rant or something informative.

What happens with my family often proves worthy of a few likes so here is something that happened over Xmas.

To set the scene...I got my wife an SNES Mini for Xmas. She loves all those platformer games from our early to mid 90s youth and I knew it would get mileage just from Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country. Its a neat little buy!

Sitting back waiting for my Nintendo money. Any time now...

I like that Nintendo added a tiny bit of mercy with a quick save state. If you ever played these games on an emulator (And I know we could do that but my wife would not get as much whimsy out of booting up some ROM file. The SNES Classis is tiny and cute and whimsical!) then you know what i talking about. You can save "live" to where you left off. So you hit re-set on the SNES Classic and go about your day, come back and BOOM! You are back where you left off. Which is nice because rememebr how damn hard games where? How merciless they were? In one tricky part of Donkey Kong Country I asked my wife "How are you going to beat this level!"

To which she replies "Well I just need to do it perfectly. A perfect run."

Ah, but of course! We will just nail it! At one point in Donkey Kong Country I bemaon "We don't have the frog! How are we going to get over this jump without the frog!?" And...whelp...there is no way to get over the damn jump without the frog. "I guess I will just stand here until the end of time. There is no time limit in this game."

Damn is this game hard. We let children play it! MINE CARTS!

Ok,  enough back story....here is the scene....This verbatim save for the names which are pseudonyms.

Wife: (Playing the SNES Mini. She has just died, again, in some tricky level in Super Mario World.) "Fuckin A! Can't believe it"

3 Year Old Daughter: (Looking up from her Paw Patrol Coloring Book) "Fuckin A"

Wife: (Shooting dagger eyes at my daughter) "Don't you say Fuckin A"

Daughter: "What? I am just saying Fuckin A. Just saying."

Wife: NO!

5 Year Old Son: "Yeah, Cleo. You should not say 'Fuckin A' because it is bad word. You should say 'Damn It.' That's a better word. Isn't that right, momma?"

Check List

I have a deep set anxiety about getting things done early. Blame my mother (If that helps) whose own fatalism and worry made me now always ALWAYS be at least 3 hours early to the airport. Which is to detriment of people I travel with. I once took a business trip with a colleague and I was so relieved when she too was "Yeah I am one of those early airport people. Do you think that is weird" No, it is not! IT IS NOT INDEED! Bullet dodged. The last time I traveled it was back from a wedding in the Bay Area and I had an early flight. Like 7:30am. I was staying at the same Berkeley bed and breakfast as a friend and his fiancee and they too also needed to leave early. "Oh, we have an international flight back to Ecuador so we like to get there early. Is that ok?" YES! YES! YES! And mind you that was his fiancee asking. My friend already knew I was in an existential panic about getting there early. 

My current job affords me these longer breaks as we follow a K-12 calendar. And I have improved because everyone implores me to "not work over break" but I can't miss that window. I often joke that life is one big video game to me and my quest list is quite long. I walk through work and up pop tiny and never ending radiant quests. 

"Oh, hey. There is petrified chocolate milk spilled on this wall. What are we going to do about it?"

Options (Choose One)

A) Ignore. You have other main storyline missions to complete. Like submitting this federal grant before the end of the year!

B) Try the hard charisma check and see if the custodian will clean it. Or if the cleaners will come in on their day off to do it. (Note my charisma is close to 0. Why waste experience and perk points on that when there are so many things to smash!)

C) Ignore and tell the teacher in said room they need to handle on their own. (This will not go over well with the NPCs who you need on your side to complete other missions. But maybe take the hit just this time? Which NPC is it? What are their stats? Is this the way to get the "good ending?" Are they cute? Because your actual boss gave you the one in option A. And that is the character that gives you your gold at the end of every mission)

D) DO IT!

 I usually go with D. Or I jot it down on endless streams of post it notes in my furious loopy doop handwriting. I draft emails on my phone and then attain a constant email zero where there is nothing unread in my inbox. If it is unread it is because I allow it to remain unread. Or usually because I did read it but then marked it unread as to remind me to do that when I get back to the office. Like marking your quest active. 

Return of Movies I Should Have Seen Already!

On the older versions of the blog (and in thr archives here too) I hae a column called "Movies I Should Have Already Seen" Pretty straightforward, right? Here are some movies I have yet to see that people often guffaw at learning so:

Pulp Fiction
Nightmare Before Christmas
Breakfast Club
It's A Wonderful Life
Heat
Casino
Schindlers List
North by Northwest (Showing my age a lot of classic movies tbh)
Back to the Future

And on and on.

Here is one that I just saw for the first time: Enter The Dragon

To caveat this, all I know about "grindhouse 70s kung fu" is Kill Bill and Wu Tang Clan references. And this had been mimicked and copies to the point I got much of it from the zeitgeist. "Boards don't hit back." Yeah...got it.

Oh, but its still so good! The lines are brief and corny but solid. I particularly like John Saxon's character asking his aide how much money he has left and its about 60 something dollars. And the aide responds with a sarcastic yes but damn did the John Saxon character think that was impressive.

And for creating so many cliches I did dig how it plays with it. Like when Bruce Lee fights O'hara. O'hara is the top henchmen. He is introduced via a montage of him getting hit with boards and not flinching. "This is the only film we have of him," says the exposition. His audition tape for American Ninja Warrior?

And the fights builds up with fanfare and Bruce just destroys him. Middle of the film too. Just set em up and knock em down.

I laughed at one scene where Bruce gets some nunchuks and does a solid 10 second bit where he shows off his skill to a henchmen. I was expecting the henchman to run away after this but he just pauses, grabs a bat, and runs in to get annihilated.

Bruce is a absolute unit. I knew his legend but you sometimes have to see to believe and damn was he amazing. Just glowing with power and charm. Sometimes the legends are true. Like, how people forget Vince Carter and Karl Malone were damn good (because they did not win the NBA championships) but no did you see them? Did you see this dunk?! Karl Malone could fight a bear!

The movie feels like a motion comic. Bruce does this move where he finishes off a few guys by throwing them on tje ground and then jumping on their spines. You dont see the actual kill but hear the crack and his dramatic "Hiyah!" But its also the fluid static of the moves. Maybe its a technical reason or a trade craft reason (the hell I know about kung fu!) but fights are seen. By that I mean we get pose, move, hit, next. Pose, move, hit, next. Oh and lots of screaming and "Hiyah!" These felt, to me, like panels in a comic and the little interludes the gutter lines between each. So every move has a tinge of anticipation and imagination.

Really hats off to the foley and audio team here. I love every crack and snikt and "hiyah!" I have no clue if its technically good but hold those details close. I love each Wilhelm scream in here. They are mini codas to end of those comic panels.

The mirror fight, right? Wow, that's a scene.

I may have some more kung fu movie watching to come indeed. Thousand Type Style! 🐉

Snooze

My sleep is broken. The mutant power I inherited (The ability to sleep anywhere) still works. It's my timing.

My wife and I haven't slept in the same bed for over a year. Oh, don't worry! It's because I snore and mumble and she is a very light sleeper. It has helped! And I love sleeping on couches. My ideal sleeping situation is a nest of mish-mosh blankets tucked into the corner of those large L shaped couches you can buy. I dig my feet into the space between the couch and the cushion and they are warm.

But the hours. I can barely stay awake past 9pm. "I just need to rest for a little bit," is the lie I tell myself before passing out. Then I wake up at 3am and the anxiety ramps up! I need to do things around the house! Dishes, laundry, cat boxes, fish tanks, pick up toys! Oh, why didnt I read. I used to read so much! Oh, I could have fiddled with my cards to make a new EDH deck or grinded some more levels on a game. I should have finished binging this new show. Or one of the dozen old ones I left unfinished. Oh, work! Fuck! WORK! It is going to be zany today. I can feel it so I need to do what I can know to get ahead. Sometimes I will zip around and then pass out avain at 530am trying to eek out 30 minutes of rest before my alarm actually goes off.

Anyone have any advice?