Your front-row seat to my nervous breakdown
Years ago, in my former, pre-dystopian life, I had a blog where I mostly wrote about the sometimes humorous, always chaotic, generally rewarding experience of parenting two children who were, at the time, very young. I was, in the colloquial term of that fancy-free, pre-Trump day and age, a “Daddy Blogger.”
[COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY] WARNING [BECAUSE ANYONE WHO CARES HAS SEEN THE MOVIE BY NOW]: SPOILERS THAT WILL SPOIL ALL OF THE SPOIL-ABLE THINGS IN “AVENGERS: ENDGAME” ARE SPOILED IN THE SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW THAT FOLLOWS (WHICH, BY THE WAY, ALSO IS CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS).
Alrighty, then. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…
My problem with “Avengers: Endgame” is not that it isn’t well-paced or well-shot, or that the story is not well-conceived, or that the action isn’t amazing, or that the actors didn’t deliver great performances, or that the creators failed to bring to life a comic book in a truly eye-popping and heartfelt fashion. To the contrary, the film nailed it on those counts. In fact, as cinematic achievements go, “Avengers: Endgame” is a visual feast filled with some of the most incredible comic-book action ever committed to film, wrapped around a clever plot that, had it not been for my disappointment with some crucial character decisions, would have left me standing on my chair cheering as the credits rolled. My ability to enjoy the many otherwise excellent elements of this movie, however, was insurmountably handicapped by some storytelling choices to which I could not object more.
And so, without further ado, I give you:
“What ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Did Wrong and How It Could Have Been Awesome, According to Some Random, Old Dude with a Blog Who Has Never Created a Comic Book, Nor a Movie, Nor a Comic-Book Movie, Let Alone the Top-Grossing Comic-Book Movie of All Time.”Read the rest »
Taking a break from politics to republish this piece on the one-year anniversary of Chris Cornell’s death. I still can’t believe he’s gone.
I got out of the Army in 1991, one week before Christmas. My brother’s gift to me that year was Soundgarden’s “Badmotorfinger.” I was a short-haired, 21-year-old, ex-military cop with my sights set on a career in law enforcement.
A year later, I was a long-haired, college-radio DJ whose daily attire consisted of beat-up combat boots, ripped jeans, flannel shirts and a leather biker jacket. I had discovered I could write, and I no longer wanted to be a cop for a living. Chris Cornell featured prominently on the soundtrack to my transformation.
