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.

Le Chef Review

As I continue to read Honor Harrington books and really only play Path of Exile, many of my recent reviews have been things I have watched on TV (or on TV off DVD). This week is no exception. On Friday night, the family and I sat down to enjoy Le Chef, a French comedy written and directed by Daniel Cohen and starring Jean Reno.

We have liked Jean Reno movies for a long time, starting with The Professional and continuing with roles in French Kiss, Couple Retreat and others. We also have enjoyed several French movies in recent years like The Intouchables, so a comedy including Reno and cooking seemed like a good bet (and turned out to be much better than The Tasting Menu, which we watched a few weeks ago).

Le Chef is the story of Jacky Bonnot, played by Michael Youn, a cooking enthusiast who has had difficulty holding down a job, causing much consternation for his pregnant girlfriend, Beatrice. Jean Reno is Alexandre Lagarde, a famous chef with a 3-star restaurant and a cooking show who is under pressure from his restaurant's owner's son who wants to make the restaurant avant-garde. As the story progresses, Jacky and Alexandre are thrown together with their love for cooking after Jacky is found cooking clandestinely at a retirement home where he is a painter. Alexandre gives him a trial at his restaurant while Jacky tries to hide the fact he isn't painting from his long-suffering girlfriend.

The movie has many funny moments when Jacky and Alexandre clash over Alexandre's reluctance to give up control in his restaurant and Jacky's complete lack of a filter when it comes to what he thinks should be done. Throw in a trio of somewhat bumbling but completely fun cooks at the retirement home and some over the top bad modern cuisine to compare against Jacky and Alexandre's more wholesome fare, you have an interesting mix that comes out tasting good.

Nothing overly special or really new is on tap here, but there are pretty restaurants, food that looks like something you might actually eat and lovable characters. All in all, you can't go wrong with Le Chef. With all 3 of us at my house, Le Chef gets 4 Mick Happies. Now we are all looking forward to Jon Favreau's Chef next weekend.

X-Men: Days of Future Past Review

I waited a long time to see X-Men: Days of Future Past. I had intended to see it in the theaters when it released, but things conspired against that happening. Then it was available to download on iTunes for a couple weeks and I almost purchased it then. Finally, with the DVD release this past week my wife put me out of my misery and bought me a copy. X-Men: Days of Future Past (X-M:DoFP) is the latest installment in the X-Men franchise, directed by Bryan Singer and based on the classic Chris Claremont and John Byrne The Uncanny X-Men storyline, Days of Future Past.

X-M:DoFP continues the story from both the X-Men: First Class and X-Men: The Last Stand films.  X-M:DoFP starts with a view of a grim future where mutants, those who help them and those who might become them are held in internment camps and are pursued by giant robots called Sentinels. We find out that those who remain of the original X-Men (Iceman, Professor X, Magneto, Kitty Pryde, Wolverine) are hanging on by a thread with the support of some new mutants, Bishop, Blink, Warpath and Sunspot. They devise a plan to stop their future by using Kitty Pryde's ability to send the consciousness of Wolverine back to the 1970s to stop a killing that leads to the Sentinels being activated to protect humans from mutants.

The storyline of X-M:DoFP has some timey-wimey bits that you have to either think too hard about or just go along for the ride on. No, we don't see how Professor Xavier is alive in the future, but hey, that's okay. There are bits of the movie where you see something happen then it hasn't happened - but that is explained. It is interesting to see the younger and older character versions in a film that does a better job of things than Star Trek: Generations did - which also starred Patrick Stewart.

One of the best parts of X-M:DoFP is getting to see the bleak future and the cool skills of the mutants as well as getting to see all of our old X-Men movie favorites. The skills of Bishop (played by Omar Sy) and Blink are colorful and excellent on screen. It was good to see portrayals of the older Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) and Wolverine (you can tell he's older by the grey hair). However, the best character in the film, hands down, has to be Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters. The incredibly fast mutant is snarky and portrays the character's suffering because everyone else is so much slower than him well. His character also gives the most awesome special effects moment in the movie.

Which actually leads to the main niggle with the movie. We don't get enough variety in the mutants except in short spurts. The thing that made X-Men and X2 even more fun was the diversity in mutants and their powers. Here we spend a lot of time with Magneto, Professor X, Beast, Wolverine and Mystique and unfortunately they aren't the most interesting of the characters (see note above about Quicksilver). However, there is hope that X-Men: Apocalypse will broaden the number of focal characters again and hopefully will be even better for it.

X-M:DoFP is a great entry into the X-Men movie franchise. I found it better than X-Men: First Class and X-Men: The Last Stand and certainly it was worth the wait. Overall, X-M:DoFP gets 4 Mick Happies. Now, when is the Quicksilver movie going to happen?

iTunes Festival London 2014 Comments

Paolo Nutini at House of Blues, San Diego

Surprisingly enough I often have problems coming up with what to review each week or so. Sometimes it is because I am mainly playing a game I have already commented on in the past or reading book 6 in a series of 10 and reviewing it might be a little difficult. Today's post comes from one of those weeks where I have things I could write about but nothing "feels" important enough to share. Except that this week the family and I have been "watching" (read playing and skipping forward 2 -3 minutes to get through the parts we don't care about) the iTunes Festival that ran in London at the Roundhouse for the month of September. The festival, which has run for several years, is hosted by Apple and has different artists performing every night for the month of September (there is also a second iTunes Festival that ran earlier in the year in Austin, TX as well this year). Tickets to the show are free to those who can get one to be there for a show live.

This year's list of performers is a broad spectrum of musical genres and generations with everything from electronic/club music to classical and rock and pop and alternative in between. Seriously, we're talking Placido Domingo, Tony Bennett mixed in with Maroon 5, Robert Plant, Lenny Kravitz, Jessie J and Deadmau5, David Guetta and 5 Seconds of Summer not to mention Pharrell Williams, Mary J. Blige and a whole hoard of newer acts opening each night. Great thing for you is that for the month and a little time afterward you can watch any of the shows for free through iTunes or on an Apple TV.

For the last few years, we have cherry picked the few acts that we cared about and fast forwarded through the usually 60 - 90 minute shows to get to the songs we really were interested in seeing. The best parts are often when the bands are interacting with the audience rather than the performances. This year we gave a listen to a few of the acts and I am summarizing them here:

David Guetta and Calvin Harris - I am not much into the club DJ type music, can take it or leave it. However, both of these guys have songs that I do like (Titanium and Summer, respectively). Those were the songs that I was looking for when watching and both were there, of course. In between you have pounding base and strobing light shows. Being at the performances of either would probably be like going to a giant night club, which if that is your thing you would probably have really liked it.

Lenny Kravitz - Lenny has a great catalogue of excellent rock songs and he was belting them out. It was surprising to find out that this was the first gig that he had played with the latest configuration of his backup band because they sounded really good and worked well together. Certainly worth giving a listen to and he definitely made a couple songs into massive jam sessions that are fun (but easier to handle when you can move things along a bit with the clicker).

Blondie - Debbie Harry and the band were fantastic. Hard to believe that she is 69 years old when she is out there playing hit after hit. Almost every other song I turned to my wife and said, hey I forgot Blondie sang that one. For several songs, even after all these years, her vocals were almost identical to how I remember them on the radio. Worth checking out.

Paolo Nutini - The girls in our house have been fans of Paolo for a couple years now and they like a couple songs on his latest album as well. We had actually bought tickets to see him live at the House of Blues in San Diego in September, which happened to be a week or so after he performed at the iTunes Festival. Paolo puts on a soul/blues-vibe infused concert, which we watched live in San Diego and then went back to see if the iTunes performance was the same. Other than the sound and power of the performance being much better live than through the TV, Paolo ran through the same set list for both shows. If you can't get to a live show yourself, the iTunes Festival replay isn't a bad way to go.

Paolo Nutini

All-in-all, being able to see interesting shows from the comfortable confines of my living room without having to go to a festival and mosh around with 100s of people all lifting their phones to take pictures/video is pretty nice. You give up a bit in the audio quality, but maybe that would be better if you watch it on your computer with headphones. Hey and you can even move past the songs you don't care about and try out some bands you may otherwise have never had a chance to hear about. For free, you can't beat that. iTunes Festival gets 4 Mick Happies.

RIP Saturday Morning Cartoons on Broadcast TV

Blackstar

For those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, there were four things we looked forward to each week. 1) Going outside to play with our friends, 2) morning cartoons, 3) afternoon cartoons and 4) Saturday morning cartoons. It seems that somewhere over the years as Saturdays have become filled with shuttling kids off to sports games and College Football or Golf or other events to show on TV, cartoons have become less and less important. I don't have any way to watch broadcast TV, so I haven't been able to watch this change as it happened. That's why it was such a surprise to see this post by Cory Doctorow regarding the CW being the last broadcast network to do away with the Saturday morning schedule. Yes, there are still kids shows on here and there, but gone is the four or five hour block of fun that our parents probably hated to see us sitting in front of each Saturday.

Back in the day, there were so many shows that I enjoyed seeing. I didn't get a chance to watch every Saturday, but I was happy when I did get to catch an episode here and there. Yes, they were probably just there to get me to convince my parents to go and buy some toy or other but I didn't care. Nowadays, there are entire networks devoted to kids shows all day long, but back then we had morning, afternoon and Saturday morning. Plus all of the shows were "free" - at least if you didn't mind watching commercials - and you didn't need a cable subscription to watch. Here are a few of the shows and characters that I would have never known if it wasn't for networks running Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Thudarr the Barbarian - a classic of post-apocalyptic adventure where Thundarr and his friends Princess Ariel and Ookla the Mok. It is a bit cheesy and has a sort of Color-forms over a static background feel but it was awesome. Don't believe me, take a look.

Thundarr the Barbarian

Dungeons & Dragons - Anyone who was pre- or early teens in 1983 - 1985 and liked fantasy probably saw this one. A group of kids on an amusement park ride are transported into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. It was cheesy and too little kid friendly over all, but it was so cool to see D&D on TV. Here's a clip and a link to the script pdf for the unproduced final episode of the show.

Dungeons & Dragons

Super Friends - Of course Saturday morning was littered with Super Heros of all kinds. Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and untold others all had their slots in the morning lineup, but one of the best was the Super Friends. Yes, the Wonder Twins and their pet monkey were also cheesy, but I can't count how many times my wife and I have said, "Wonder Twin powers activate!". Add in Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and even Aquaman and we are going to have a good time.

Super Friends

Wonder Twin Powers Activate

There were of course many many other shows, some included the many versions of Scooby Doo, others were all new like Blackstar. You also had Bugs Bunny Show/Road Runner Show. In between cartoons we also got edu-ma-cated with probably one of the best shows ever, Schoolhouse Rock!. No matter what you think about TV rotting your brain, it didn't, it doesn't and cartoons should be part of everyone's childhood. Yes, I know that looking back they are all dated and nostalgia has elevated them to a status they might not deserve if looked at for the first time today, but they were all Awesome or Rad or Cool and no one can take that away from me.

Conjunction Junction

I'm Just A Bill