Author: the outside lane

Happy. That about covers it.
movies, Reviews

Movie Reviews: Monsters and Men–Super Men

the outside lane

HI!  Remember me?  It’s your long, lost Lane.

I am back with movie reviews of two old favorites getting new life.  Monsters University and Man of Steel.  Granted, Monsters Inc is hardly old compared to Superman, but since one is a prequel, and one is a reboot, I’m smushing them together for the good of mankind.  Or something like that.

***************SPOILER HEAVY********SPOILER HEAVY*************

***************SPOILER HEAVY********SPOILER HEAVY*************

 With that out of the way, let’s talk about Monster’s U because even though it was not the most entertaining movie in the world, I loved the message.  Not the message throughout the movie, which follows the tried and true format of two Monsters meet and it is hate at first sight, but they end up BFFs.  No, the message from the last five minutes of the movie.

Sully (fuzzy wuzzy blue monster) and Wazowski (giant green eyeball monster) meet and hate each other because Sully is a big, dumb jock, and Wazowski is Hermoine Granger.  Through a series of events, they get themselves thrown out of the Scaring Department at Monsters U, then have to claw their way back into it. 

Sully messes it up for them, and he and Wazowski are both expelled from school, but not before accomplishing the greatest Scare the school has ever seen.

I watched the movie with a smile, one step ahead of everything until we came to that point, at which I thought, “Oh, so here’s where all is forgiven and they go on to graduate, top of their class.”  SURPRISE!  Nope, they are well and truly expelled.

I was shocked!  I was delighted!  Consequences being presented as concrete ideas in a childrens’ movie?  Unheard of!

But it got better.  Mike and Sully went to work in the mailroom at Monsters Inc, and talked about working hard to be the best mailboys in the business.  They get promoted to janitorial staff and work to be the best janitors in the business.  They get promoted again and again, each time winning awards for their strong work.  Finally, after these promotions are presented in a montage of photos in their lockers, they make it to the Scare Floor.

I was actually verklempt.

Forget the first 9/10s of the movie.  I sat there with my son and watched a show that promoted adults behaving like adults (enforcing the consequences of bad behavior, without dismissing it because everything turned out okay in the end), and young adults learning to conduct themselves responsibly, growing up to be the strong, hard working, ethical, compassionate adults we know Mike and Sully to have been in Monsters Inc.

I tip my hat to you, Pixar.  That rocked.

3 out of 5 stars for entertainment value

11 out of 5 stars for message

 

I saw the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie when I was 7.  Our car had broken down, so while the nice people at Sears were fixing it, Mom took me to see Superman.  I effing loved Superman.  I loved Superman.  Do you hear me?  I. Loved. Superman.  I was all on board with that movie.  I loved it.

So, it was exciting for me to sit down next to my 7-year-old to watch Man of Steel.  I was sad that his experience was not so transcendent.

Like Monsters U, it was not the most entertaining movie in the world.  I would say it is because I’m spoiled to Iron Man, but that wasn’t the problem.  The problem was in the length and the storytelling.  Too much of Clark Kent wandering alone, like the Hulk.  Not enough Clark Kent whipping off his glasses and saving the world.

Oh, there was plenty of world saving action, and I understand that in the origin story, you need some points of origin, but I feel like the whole first 30 minutes could have been summed up in 5 minutes of montage-y goodness.

Do we really need to start a Superman movie with a live birth scene?  I mean, what small child sees a fully clothed woman reclining on a divan-thing, sweating and grunting and goes, “Ah, labor and delivery.”  Mine did not.  Mine looked up at me like, “The hell you say?”

Here’s what I liked:  Henry Cavill is a good Superman.  He’s got the right look, he’s got the right delivery, he’s got just enough going on behind his eyes that you believe he’s the flip side to Bruce Wayne’s tortured soul.

I thought Amy Adams was a fantastic Lois Lane, and I loved her reboot.  Lois Lane comes out best of all the characters, I think.  She’s smart, she’s driven, and she’s able to deal with the situations presented to her.  Not a lot of shrieking. 

Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner were very well used.  Both men played their roles to the hilt without chewing scenery or making you go, “Wow, that’s some good acting.”  I like Kevin Costner best when he’s playing someone’s dad.  I like Russell Crowe best when he’s–I always like Russell Crowe.  I think this is a character flaw in me.  Even when he is in a terrible movie, I like him–the flip side of my Jim Carrey hatred. Ugh.  Can’t stand him.

Michael Shannon was a brilliant Zod.  I kind of love him, too.  He’s a great actor.  Even though he has a very distinctive look, and he is typecast like whoa, he never plays the same monster twice–even if it is the same monster.  He and Steve Buscemi are the reasons to watch Boardwalk Empire.

I guess I could have saved a lot of space by just saying I loved the entire cast.  This was a wonderful, wonderful cast.  I wish the editing had been tighter, and the movie had been shortened by about 45 minutes.  I wish the score had been better. 

That’s probably my biggest disappointment.  The score for Superman should be soaring.  It should make you feel something.  When you see that cape waving, the music should make you want to rise and put your hand over your heart.  It didn’t.  Nothing about the movie did.

3 out of 5 stars for entertainment

5 out of 5 stars for the job the actors did.

 

 

 

books

Lane of ARC

the outside lane

I am incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by creative, ambitous, interesting people, and even more fortunate that some of them are related to me–so they are stuck, and have to claim me whether they want to, or not.  (Do any of you ever have flashbacks to 8th Grade English when you are writing?  I am terrible with commas, and whenever I am writing I flashback to diagramming sentences on the blackboard, and start worrying about parts of speech, diagram tails, and progress reports.  Clearly, I do not worry too much about rabbit trails.)

One creative, ambitious, interesting relative, who knows her way around a comma is my Cousin-in-Law, LynDee Walker.  LynDee is the creator of the Nichelle Clarke mystery series, and her second book, Buried Leads is available now for pre-order.

Last night, LynDee was at the Frisco Public Library for a reading and signing event, so we loaded up the SUV and trekked on over.

Here we are with LynDee's poster. And you thought the cover art was cute on its own? I want my LIFE to look like this poster.
Here we are with LynDee’s poster. And you thought the cover art was cute on its own? I want my LIFE to look like this poster.

LynDee did a reading from Buried Leads, and I can already tell you that you’re going to want this book.  How can you not love a mystery that starts with Armani shoes and–spoilers–never mind.  Just get the book.

lyndee reads
LynDee explains the importance of research when writing crime scenes.

I was excited to win an ARC of the new book, and as soon as I have that in my hot little hands, I’ll tell you all about it!  And by “all about it”, I mean, “absolutely nothing about it.”  I’ll just tell you where to get it.

She looks good with a Sharpie! LynDee signing books for her fans.
She looks good with a Sharpie! LynDee signing books for her fans.

Read up on LynDee and find out when she’s going to be near you.  If you happen to be in Virginia, she will be launching Buried Leads at the Library of Virginia’s Virginia Literary Festival on October 16.  The website says wine and cheese follow.  I can’t think of anything much better than books and cheese, so please check it out and tell me how awesome it was.

Uncategorized

Doing My Part to Keep Austin Weird

the outside lane

I took my mother to Austin for the weekend, where we got to visit family and have some fun.  For something different, we stayed at a B&B.  B&Bs can be pretty hit or miss, if you ask me.  I love the feel of an old house, with a wide porch, and comfortable, home-y furniture, and I like being able to explore the unrented rooms when everyone else is asleep. 

Me, Mom, Aunt B, and Cousin J on the porch. It was a great porch!
Me, Mom, Aunt B, and Cousin J on the porch. It was a great porch!

We stayed at the Star of Texas Inn.  The location was fantastic, and the staff was wonderful.  As B&Bs go, for the price it was very good.  Breakfasts were very good.  The room itself was all right.  The bathtub was like heaven.

The upstairs window in the middle was the door to our bathroom, and the window on the far left was the window of the bedroom, where we stayed. Another couple was in the room behind the window on the right.

I loved the balcony and the porch, and the dining and sitting areas were quite nice.  I did not love that in the middle of the night, both nights, another guest of the place got up and turned on the heater.  The heater.  In the middle of June, in Austin, Texas, someone was turning the heat on, and cranking it into the high 80s. 

We were pretty miserable Friday night, but I figured out the problem on Saturday, and I waged temperature wars with the Heat Miser that night and won.  Just call me Ms. Freeze.

We hit our usual hotspots of the Austin Childrens Museum (which Thor has nearly outgrown, sadly), and the Barton Springs mall, where we saw Monsters University.  And we tried some new-to-us local eateries.  I can recommend the Kerbey Lane Cafe for good food (with grudging service), and can tell you to avoid Mandola’s Italian Market, unless you just like to have your caprese salad served to you on the wrong side of lukewarm, sliding around in oil.  That was pretty gross.

I love Austin.  I think it is one of the best cities in the US, and is certainly the best city in Texas.

 

movies, Reviews

A Movie Review: Fast and Furious 6

the outside lane

I am not even going to pretend that I did not like this movie.  I’m just going to jump right in and tell you that I enjoyed the fool out of it.  How’s the song go?  “I’m not too shy to show I love you, I got no regrets.”  That is exactly how I feel about this movie.

Thor conned me into going to see Fast and Furious 6, last week.  Neither of us had ever seen any of the first five, but he was into the idea of all the cars and explosions, and I was into the idea of taking a nap in the big theater chair, so off we went.  I live “blogged” the movie on my Facebook feed and annoyed half of my friends list into blocking me, but I was alternately so delighted and so…delighted by inanity, that I couldn’t help myself.

I think the basic plot of any F&F movie is bad boys and girls with hearts of gold, with cool cars, race truly bad boys and girls with cool cars.  They have some fist fights, some shoot ’em ups, and some cartoony love stories, and good prevails over evil in some sort of Robin Hood way.  I’m not going to worry about all that because the movie makers don’t.    The plot, the dialog and the acting are about as complex as an episode of Scooby Doo.  But, they are also as satisfying.

Here are two things that truly surprised me: 

Feminists Could Enjoy This.  Even though the women are obvious set decoration (I think it is fair to say that the men are set decoration, too.  I mean, you don’t hire The Rock, Tyrese, or that blond one for their acting ability) and only get about 1/4 as much screentime as the men, their storylines were as strong as the men’s, they were portrayed as important, valuable members of their teams, and they were all physically and emotionally strong.  They are all good at their jobs.  No wilting flowers.  No screw ups.  They rescue the men just as often as the men rescue them, and they make the same important sacrifices for the good of their team.  I felt good about the women, their stories, and their plot twists.  It was a movie a little girl could watch, and walk away saying, “I want to be like her!”  And a little girl could truly get in on the role playing at recess, too.

It is Truly Diverse.  The casting is a feat of diversity, and should be studied and modeled after.  You know how in college brochures, you have the pictures with the two white people, one Latino, one Asian, and one black guy?  You might think that a cast made up of an Italian, White Guy, Samoan Thor (that’s what the caller ID said!), two Black Guys, an Asian Guy, a Latina, a White Girl, a vaugely Italian girl, and two European Girls would look like that brochure.  It did not.  It was startlingly seamless as far as the ethnic variations went.  I was amazed.  I mean, I was amazed.  No one mentioned race.  No one mentioned ethnicity.  There was one moment of a character pointing out the similarities in the bad guy’s team, but it wasn’t College Brochure even on the evil side of the coin.  It was two teams assembled with the best person for the job, and on either team, the best people were a melting pot of variety.  It was a movie anyone could see, and find someone who looked like him/her to “be” when playing outside later.

I’ll tell you, I went into this movie expecting to want to strangle myself with my own hair–like I did watching G.I. Joe.  I didn’t.  I got into it.  I had fun.  Thor had fun.  We walked out talking about the cool things we’d seen, and which characters we liked.  And I will SO be going to see F&F7.

4 out of 5 stars

 

writing

Mothers and Daughters

the outside lane

I’ve started watching Veronica Mars, only a decade after it premiered.  Well, close to a decade.  I’m enjoying it thoroughly, and I am looking forward to the movie now.  I want to see what a grown-up Veronica looks like.  Even if she does follow the Disney trope of heroine-without-a-mom, she’s bang up awesome.

I finished the first draft of my novel, and am proud to tell you that it more than passes the Bechdel Test.  I am also proud to tell you that my heroine a) has a supportive, close-knit family, b) has a supportive, close knit group of girlfriends, c) has a healthy self-image, and d) has a clear understanding of what drives her romantically.  She also has a good relationship with her mother, something we don’t see a lot of in female driven art.

After Destinee survives a car bombing, she and her concussion go home with her parents to rest in safety.

I snuggled up under Mother’s duvet and tried to sleep, but my wounded brain wouldn’t stop thinking.  I kept trying to make all the pieces fit.  Insurance, and romance, and murder.  Terrible.  And my business.  My business!  I sat straight up, my head seeming to take a long time to follow the rest of me, and for a second I thought I had gone blind.  For more than a second.  I groped around in darkness and cried out for my mother, whose hand came out of nowhere to pet me.

“I’m right here, Sugar,” she said, her voice full of wakeful alarm.

“Where?!  I can’t see!  I’m blind!”

When she laughed, I got mad.  “I am blind, Mother!  It’s not funny!  I can’t see!”

She was still laughing when she flicked on the bedside lamp, really deep, belly laughs.  After a minute, I saw what was so funny.  It had been early afternoon when I’d gotten into Mother’s bed, and now it was just past midnight.  All that time I thought I had been thinking and not sleeping, I had actually been sleeping and dreaming.  Whereas I thought only about fifteen minutes had passed, it was the whole day.  I wasn’t blind, I was just in the dark.

Mother kept laughing until she woke up Daddy, who was sleeping on chaise lounge in their bedroom and he asked what was going on.  She tried to explain, but apparently all her worry for me had manifested in hysterical laughter, so I said, my voice sounding a little huffier than I intended, “Mother is laughing at me because I woke up in the dark, and I thought I had gone blind.”

Daddy snickered.  “What?”

I repeated myself, and by the time I got to the last part of the sentence, I was giggling, too.  Pretty soon, the three of us were all laughing, trying to keep our voices down, but I’ll tell you what—I know all three of us were just so glad to have me alive that nothing else really mattered right that second. 

When we finally all settled back down, Mother spooned me up close and sang to me softly, just like she had when I was a baby.  Y’all, I love my mother.  I love my daddy, and my brother, and my granny, but I truly love my mother.  We fight like cats and dogs sometimes, and no one can make me as crazy as she can, but I love her more than anything.  She is special, and she is mine, and even though I’d nearly died the day before, I felt like the luckiest girl alive.

That’s how I feel about my own mother.  I don’t think anyone can make a woman as crazy as her mother can, but when you have a good mother, there is no one who will ever love you as much.  I am extremely fortunate to have a good mother, and every crazy-making moment is balanced out by how fiercely she loves me.  She is loyal, and faithful, and I can count on her.  There is not another person alive as dependable as my mother. 

A little later, Destinee has this to say: “That was all I needed to hear because if my mother says I am going to be all right, then I would defy God himself to tell her otherwise.”

I’m letting the story settle, then I have rewrites.  My goal is to have it ready to submit for queries by the end of summer.  Let’s hope I can keep a lid on it that long, and I don’t end up sharing 3/4s of it on this blog alone.  Problem is, I really like Destinee and think she’s a lot of fun.  I want to tell you all her story.