Giving Tuesday

Chance's Corner: Justice League Review

As a film, Justice League is a hot mess. However, as a comic book film, it's pretty awesome. Comic book panels seemingly come to life with fast transitions, leaps in plot and bombastic battles during a running time of just two hours. This leaves very little room to breathe, which sounds like a complaint, but I was left more breathless than overwhelmed. Now, I'm not saying that Justice League blew my socks off. It's good. Not great. Honestly, I feel that there's a better film laying on the cutting room floor somewhere, just like there was with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Superman II. In fact, I know there's a film laying on the cutting room floor, a film that reflects director Zack Snyder's true vision. Snyder stepped away from the film after his daughter's suicide, which left the Justice League open to studio interference (the imposed two hour limit) and "screenwriter" Joss Whedon's reshoots and rewrites to "lighten-up" the overall tone. They claim that Whedon didn't change much, but his screenplay credit proves that more than 33% percent of the screenplay was altered, and it seems that nearly every scene with Superman (Henry Cavill) has been reshot - the mustache-be-gone CGI being the tell-tale sign. Also, Whedon had Snyder's usual collaborator and original composer, Junkie XL, replaced with Danny Elfman to lend Justice League a more classical score. Elfman gave me goosebumps with the nods to the John Williams' 1978 Superman score and Elfman's own 1989 Batman score, but there's not a lot to rave about beyond that. So, is there a Zack Snyder Cut in store for us in the near future? I sure hope so.

Justice League's main problem lies in its lack of depth. I was particularly concerned with how the Justice League haphazardly came together and the big baddie Steppenwolf's motivation. Who even is Steppenwolf? I have no idea, other than he's the nephew of the king of all evil, Darkseid. It took a Google search to find that out. Out of all the villains I've seen so far in the DC Extended Universe, Steppenwolf is definitely the least fleshed out. As for the Justice League itself, some characters are more developed than others. The real MVP is The Flash (Ezra Miller). He's like a kid in a candy store, and he has some truly great moments, like when he realizes Superman can keep up with his super speed. Out of all the Whedon jokes cracked, The Flash's land the most. As for the other teammates, Aquaman (Jason Momoa) is kind of just there - essentially eye candy. I was really surprised by the importance of Cyborg (Ray Fisher) to the team. If I expected anyone to be glossed over, it would have been him. The already established characters, Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Superman, add welcome familiarity to the host of fresh faces.

Overall, Justice League feels more like a setup for things to come, rather than a complete film, which is easy to understand knowing that this was originally conceived as a two-parter. If you're wondering what is to come, be sure to stay and feast your eyes on the post-credits sequence!

Julie's Journal : What I've Been Reading

Yesterday, I finished The Lying Game, by Ruth Ware.  I have read both of Ms. Ware's two previous books, In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10.  Of the three, I enjoyed The Woman in Cabin 10 the most.  In the psychological suspense genre, I expect a little more suspense than I got in The Lying Game.  Isa is a new mother and a civil service lawyer.  She lives in London with her partner, Owen and their child.  One day, in the middle of the night, she receives a cryptic three word text - "I need you".  It is from her childhood friend, Kate.  She immediately packs up her baby and heads for Salten, where she had gone to boarding school for one brief summer the year she was 15.  At Kate's home, she is reunited with their two other boarding school friends, Thea and Fatima.  They have supposedly come back for their 15 year reunion dinner, but in fact a body has been found.  They must figure out what their story will be about the night Kate's father disappeared.  The suspense in this book has to do more with the why's of the events rather than the events themselves.  I felt like too much was revealed too soon, and the suspense never had a chance to build.  I never felt like I was hanging onto the edge of my seat.
 

Another recent read, Emma in the Night, by Wendy Walker, was a more satisfying psychological suspense book.  Three years ago, Emma and her sister, Cass, disappeared.  Emma's car was found along the shore, along with a pair of her shoes.  The only trace of Cass was a single hair in the car.  The authorities never discovered what happened to them.  Now, only Cass has returned.  She begins telling a story of an island and a home with a couple who advertised that they "help" teenage runaways.  Her constant refrain to authorities is "Find Emma; you must find Emma."  We also get Cass and Emma's backstory.  We learn of their very dysfunctional childhood.  Their mother is narcissistic and after their parents divorce, life with their new stepfather and brother is anything but idyllic.  I enjoyed the way the past and present were woven together to give the reader a full picture of what happened. 

Do you watch Homicide Hunter on the ID channel?  Joe Kenda is a retired detective from Colorado Springs, and tells the stories of his most interesting cases.  His book, I Will Find You, gives details about his life, how he became a homicide detective, and the toll working on murder cases for over 20 years took on him.  He gives additional details about some of the stories that have aired on Homicide Hunter as well as telling new ones.  The book is full of his trademark dry, somewhat morbid, sense of humor.  I enjoyed this book, but be aware that it contains very bad language, and graphic details from crime scenes.

After finishing The Lying Game yesterday, I picked up The October List by Jeffrey Deaver.  I am reading it based on the recommendation of Reavis Wortham during his author visit last Tuesday.  The books is written completely backwards. It opens with the climactic chapter.  Gabrielle is sitting in an apartment waiting to find out if her daughter Sarah is safe.  Sarah was kidnapped about two days before and a ransom is being paid.  Each chapter goes back in time anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.  We see several different view points and begin to put together the events that have led up to the final moment.  I am about halfway through this quick read, and beginning to wonder if any part of what I think I know about Gabrielle, Sarah, and the people helping them is correct.  Mr. Wortham said that as soon as he finished the book, he reread it, this time looking for clues as to the outcome he knew was there.  He says it is a masterful book.  I am trying hard not to succumb to temptation and read the last (first?) chapter early. 

Poet's Perch : Solitude by Alexander Pope

Solitude

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breath his native air

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire;

Whose tress in summer yield him shade,

In winter, fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away

In health of body, peace of mind;

Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease

Together mixed, sweet recreation,

And innocence, which most does please

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die,

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

Alexander Pope

Tom's Two Cents : Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, by Julie Andrews

One of the special joys of going to the library is finding books you don't know about: one such this past month was a Julie Andrews memoir of her "early years," those being from birth to about the age of 25.  Hard as it may be to believe, Andrews starred on Broadway in "My Fair Lady" when she was only 21, with already another Broadway success, "The Boy Friend," behind her at 18.  She went on very quickly to achieve another, "Camelot," with the great actor Richard Burton, then to become an Academy Award winner and household name in Walt Disney's "Mary Poppins" by the time she was 25.  Whew!  Did success spoil Julie Andrews?  The answer to that is a whopping NO!   Ultimately she went on to create what was perhaps the most memorable role of her film career, Maria in "The Sound of Music."

Not surprising to read that Julie Andrews came from a family performance tradition. Both her mother, a seasoned and very talented pianist, and her aunt, a dancer and dance teacher, as well as her stepfather, a singer from Canada, contributed to her early life on the stage.  By the time she was five, she was totally comfortable there and in the process of developing a clearly phenomenal voice that went up to a high-F.  (If you don't know how high this is, try it sometime!). Even before her teens she was singing the famous "Polonaise" from "Mignon".  (Listen to it on Youtube and prepare to be astounded.)  If she lacked anything by the time of creating Eliza Doolittle, it was only a Cockney accent, which she had to learn, and a certain insecurity in her acting, which she credits Alan J. Learner himself for helping her to overcome.

This memoir takes Andrews through her rise to stardom and ends with her arrival in Hollywood with first husband Tony Walton and baby daughter Emma, to take on the role of Mary Poppins in the film that brought her fame and a much wider audience than those brilliant Broadway musicals ever would have.  The memoir is at its most interesting, however, when it tells the story of the development of those Learner and Loewe musicals that made history, even as Rogers and Hammerstein had done two decades earlier.  The team of L&L, along with their great director, Moss Hart, is truly the stuff of Broadway legend, and Julie Andrews was there in the thick of all of it.  Her movie career, her late loss of her voice, and her career as a children's author with her daughter, Emma, is the stuff of yet another story.