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.”
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.”
“Hey Dad, what the hell is this website we found containing tons of pictures of, and stories about, us? Also, you’re an asshole and we hate you.”—My children, circa some day in the not-too-distant future
Take a look at this screen capture and tell me what you see:
Chances are you see the homepage of Zillow.com, a site where one can go and look up the supposed value of any given home. That’s what I used to see, too.
Now? Now I see this:
Allow me to explain.
Zan is almost nine now, and one of the great things about having an almost-9-year-old son is that the list of things I can do with him that I actually enjoy rather than endure has grown considerably since back in the days when he was a wee little tyke.
For example: Remember “Brown Bear” and “Goodnight Moon” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “Miss Spider” and “Dear Sweet Christ, My Brain Is Melting From The Monotony of Reading and Re-Reading The Same Boring Shit Over and Over and Over”? Yeah, me too. Thankfully, we have graduated to less lobotomy-inducing fare, such as the “Hardy Boys” mysteries (granted, still awful … but I only have to read them once) …. and, more recently, “Harry Potter.”
Dear My Children:
I’m sorry, but you’re not going to wear me down on this one. Sometimes Daddy has to be a dick. This is one of those times.
Dear Jon’s Children,
I’ve tried, children. I’ve tried to be nice. For days now, I’ve sat quietly on a shelf, or hung from the Christmas tree, or peered down upon you from atop the mantle or the cabinets or the china cupboard or whatever other wacky spot it was into which I’d been wedged. And I’ve tried.
I’ve tried, by virtue of my silent presence, to gently coax you into compliance with your parents’ wishes. And I had hoped that my mere presence alone would be enough to keep you in line … but, after the display the two of you put on this morning, it has become clear to me that my pixie-ish grin and my kind, blue eyes aren’t getting the message across … so here’s how it’s gonna be: