Quick Movie Reviews and Does the Dog Die...

I have to start this post stating that I am not a Peta member or vegan or anything like that. However, I do have strong opinions when pets are depicted being killed in movies or TV shows. I just don't like it. It will make me actively avoid a given movie because I just don't need to see that. For instance, I "was" interested in the Keanu Reeves movie John Wick. Then I learned what drives his character's actions and I was like, "I'm out". I will probably never see that movie. So when I know it is going to happen I will avoid it. When I don't know it is coming, I tend to like whatever movie I was watching a lot less than before. That brings us to this week's movies…

Space Station 76 - This movie looks at the lives of people living on the Omega 76 Space Station in a future that looks a lot like what would have been envisioned in the 1970s. You have holograms and space ships, yes, but catalogs from stores come on ViewMaster disks and people smoke pot and see their therapist robot for Valium, etc. Plus just about everything is colored in white, yellow, greens or browns. Space Station 76 stars Liv Tyler, Patrick Wilson, Matt Bomer and Jerry O'Connell, among others. All of the actors do a very good job with the material they are given. The movie also gives an interesting view of a retro-looking future and could have been really great if it had swung more to straight comedy rather than trying for a bleak version of comedy. You have the narcism and neglectful parenting, a little bit of the loose morals of the 70s being shown, but it could have been even better if those things were exaggerated even more. Instead what you are left with at the end is just feeling down. Oh yeah, and then there is a bit with a cryogenically frozen dog that could have been left out and I would have probably been able to give this a 3 Mick Happy rating. Instead I have to go with 2.

Automata - This film stars Antonio Banderas as an insurance agent for a company that supplies androids to help mankind. This is set in an apocalyptic future where solar flares and activity have burned up most of the vegetation on the earth and reduced earth's population by >99%. Here Jacq (Banderas) finds some androids have somehow circumvented the two rules that regulate their activities (1. can't hurt humans or allow them to hurt themselves and 2. can't modify themselves). As he investigates the things his world starts to unravel and he begins to suspect that the company he works for may not be doing good things. The main problem I had with this movie started very early on when Jacq goes to investigate a complaint that an android has malfunctioned and killed a family pet. It didn't, and the family was using that as an excuse to try to get money. The film didn't need to go there. They could have injured one of the people and said the android hurt them instead. That is just frustrating as they hurt the pet just to drive an emotional reaction that they could have gotten in a different way with a little more effort. Anyway, this is a bleak future movie and weird. It also gets 2 Mick Happies but mainly due to the choices of the screenwriters than any other major shortfalls.

Which leaves us with this. If you are like me and don't like it when the pet is the one who gets it in the end. There is a website that can help us. It is DoestheDogDie.com and they have over 700 movies listed and will let you know if the pets are okay, injured or presumed dead but end up okay or are killed. They obviously don't have all the movies and didn't have the two listed here but they do have a lot of favorite movies listed. Check it out.

Edge of Tomorrow Movie Review

This weekend I finally got my hands on a DVD copy of Doug Liman's Sci-Fi action movie, Edge of Tomorrow. The movie is set in the near future where mankind is in a fight for its life with alien invaders called Mimics and based pretty closely on a Japanese manga novel called All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Enter Tom Cruise as the main character, Major William Cage, a PR guy who gets himself put on the front lines of the human invasion to stop the aliens. There he is killed but not before he comes in close contact with one of the aliens and acquires the power to reset his day when he dies.

As Cage relives his day over and over he comes in contact with Rita Vrataski, played by Emily Blunt, who is a war hero, the one person who has killed more than a hundred Mimics in the battle of Verdun. Cage learns that Vrataski had also had the ability to reset until she lost it and together they try to figure out how to stop the Mimics. Through in some powered exo-skeleton armor and you have a party.

The movie plays on the usual theme of time repeating, which is of course classically portrayed in Groundhog Day. Here we see Cage living through a horrible couple of days over and over. Liman does a great job of depicting the frustration of trial and error and growth for Cage as the movie progresses. The interactions between Blunt and Cruise are also terrific with Vrataski's single-minded focus on defeating the aliens a very nice contrast to Cage's reluctance to be at the front lines. Vrataski as a character is pretty bad-ass though you don't get to see enough of her kicking butt.

Overall, I really liked Edge of Tomorrrow. I think the movie got a little rushed at the end and lost some of the deliberate, very well done, build up that the early parts had. At the end I thought that Vrataski's character might have been the more interesting and it would be nice for Liman to film a prequel about her experiences at Verdun. I know it won't happen because, a) they have already mentioned the highlights to the story in this film and b) it wouldn't have Tom Cruise's star power behind it to get it made. It would be awesome, however, as Vrataski doesn't have a mentor to guide her at Verdun the way Cage does here. Also some of the trials she mentions would have been interesting to see on film but Cage doesn't repeat those trials.

If you like Sci-Fi action films or just want to see Tom Cruise die, a lot, then Edge of Tomorrow is a great way to spend 2 hours. Could the film have been even better, sure, but what you do get is at least 4 Mick Happies worth of butt kicking for goodness. Now where can I get some time resetting powers as there are a few mistakes I would like to do over yesterday.

The Gathering Book Review

Like many "gamers" of a certain age, Magic the Gathering holds a special place in our hearts and minds. In 1993, I was introduced to the game by some college friends and we proceeded to shuffle and trade and scheme around these crazy fantasy game cards with amazing art on the front. My wife and I met in 1994 and I was still playing. She suffered for many years with me going off to "play cards" and sit in rooms with many kids younger than me. Its been more than 10 years since I sold off the bulk of my Magic cards, and looking back it was the right thing to do at the time. However, that doesn't mean I don't miss my Beta Serra Angel, Mox Sapphire and the other "bombs" I had opened in those early packs. Knowing that, and being the best wife anyone could ever have, she bought me The Gathering - Reuniting Pioneering Artists of Magic the Gathering for Christmas last year.

The Gathering is a book that combines a retrospective on some of the art from the early days of Magic with short essays from the artists who brought the vision of Magic to life. It was originally a successful Kickstarter project back in 2013. Not having been involved in Kickstarter at all, I had missed any opportunity to back this project. My wife, however, is a ninja when it comes to thoughtful gifts and tracked down the folks at Full Steam Press who published the book and picked up a hardcover copy. She also convinced them with her Jedi mind powers to send along four of the promotional standard edition sketch cards that included a sketch by Doug Shuler of…the Serra Angel! Major points for the wife.

The Gathering is a little over 100 pages and gives some insight into the early days of Magic when artists were paid less than $100 per piece of art and, I am glad to have learned, were given some shares of stock in Wizards of the Coast. It's great to think of these artists who were making 5" x 7" art that went on to be printed on millions of cards all over the world were able to share in the success of Magic over the years. It is also nice to hear a little about the guidance given to the artists for the cards they illustrated and how they might have done things differently if they had known then what a success this would become. Many of the artists in the book have moved on to other genres or are focusing on different media these days, but their contributions to Magic and pop culture will remain for years to come if the past 20+ years of Magic are any indication.

You can still get a copy of the The Gathering from the Full Stream Press site here. I recommend it for any long-time fan of Magic or casual fan of art in general. Great gift for those of us who were in college  right when Magic first unleashed itself on our world. The Gathering gets 5 Mick Happies for awesomeness. If you do get the book, you even get contact info for many of the artists if you want to look into their art in more detail.