The New Musings of a Quiet Geek

Before I review a new movie in a series, I see if I reviewed the last movie. Reading my review of previous   Star Wars (Skywalker Saga) film, The Last Jedi,   my thoughts on Episode 9, don't really have new focus but have added anther layer of thought. In that review, I say it's the most original Skywalker Saga movie to date and that's still true but, as a life long Star Wars fan (I went to the very first movie in the womb), is that what I want to wrap this all up? Ideally, I want it both ways but that can't happen. Rise of Skywalker  tried really hard though.  People criticize  Return of The Jedi  because they blow up another Death Star like that overshadows the awesomeness that is Anakin Skywalker's redemption story or Luke and Leia finding family and perhaps themselves. It doesn't. In  Rise,  no planet-killing starbase is destroyed. In the previous review, I mention the new trio of Rey, Finn and Poe are not straight up copies of Luke, ...

I haven't reviewed a CD for this blog since July of 2014. (For the record, it was Sarah McLachlan's Shine On ...) I guess Sheryl Crow was right:   Threads   is a great place to stop producing full albums if this is worth blogging about... Back before I had blog, Crow had a TV special to promote The Globe Sessions album called Sheryl Crow and Friends Live From Central Park. Threads also features Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Stevie Nicks as well but also TWENTY OTHER ARTISTS! This includes 3 Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, posthumously; Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson) and 2 Highwomen (Maren Morris and Brandi Carlyle.) I'll just throw this out there: A female version of Traveling Wilburys probably would include Stevie Nicks and Bonnie Raitt... I think it may be worth noting Emmylou Harris, who was the only performer at both Joan Baez's 75 AND Joni Mitchell's, appears on this album as well... She covers songs from two Traveling Wilburys: Bob Dylan's ...

For years, people wondered if Mysterio could be done on screen.   Spider-Man: Far From Home   clearly pulled it off as Stark's holo-tech is a perfect work around. Hell, somehow Mysterio's fishbowl helmet did not look stupid at all. Giving him a production crew and his whole fake backstory was straight out of the comics. I did see one complaint that this was the second villain with ties to Tony Stark. To be fair, Vulture (and the Shockers) and Mysterio use tech. Even if they got the tech from Justin Hammer, is that really all that different? Besides this movie was a tribute to Tony. (AC/DC included. "I love Led Zeppelin!") If Kraven is indeed the villain in the third film, they could, and probably should, connect him to Black Widow or HYDRA which therefore references Captain America. The former is also deceased and this movie, not surprisingly, suggests the latter is believed to be too.  Let the tributes continue! Oh, in case you wondered, I don't believe the ...

The last X-Men movie before Marvel has  greater control over the franchise, Dark Phoenix   was probably the best one could hope for. The biggest problems were the franchise's continued resistance to keeping track of their own continuity (Mystique is alive in "the near future" of the very first movie but dies here in 1992?) and the seemingly random and definitely obscure choice of using the D'Bari as the villains. Apparently, the D'Bari homeworld WAS destroyed by the Phoenix Force in the comics but after Jean Grey purged herself of the power, not before... My first thought when seeing the shape-shifters was "If you didn't want to copy Captain Marvel , why use the Skrull?" Though I can't think of any other examples, making an Easter egg a major plotline leaves me unsettled... Speaking of   Captain Marvel , apparently, the climax of this film setting was changed from space to a military train to avoid comparison. The best part of the film was ...

It's been a turtle's age since I last blogged so I have a few things to catch up on... 1.   Captain Marvel- Great first female-centric film from Marvel. Is it better than Wonder Woman? No. But we can't all be first, can we? What this film does have is a mostly female '90's soundtrack that is suspiciously like my Pandora mix and that is second only to the soundtrack from  the classic film   Boys On The Side.   I am disappointed they didn't go whole hog and stuck in Nirvana and REM. I realize Warner Brothers owns the good stuff ( Birds of Prey could potentially rock...) but all you needed was 2 more women! GOOSE! The cat who's really a Flerken stole the show. The barer of the Captain Marvel title when I was growing up Monica Rambeau appears as a pre-teen and the original was gender bent and played by Annette Benning. (It's funny that the two female Avenger leaders I remember from my childhood were aged down like Monica or aged up like Janet Van ...