Just Another Evolved Ape – Opinions evolving daily…

What I’m Watching: Andor

December 1, 2022Kurt Dietrich

Or, in this case, what I was watching since the season for the latest Disney+ Star Wars show ended last week and I just caught up with it last night. Now, with the season finished, I’ve come to the conclusion that Andor might be the best thing since the Original Trilogy to hit this galaxy from that other one far, far away.

All twelve episodes were filled with action and intrigue and immersed you Star Wars in a much different way than any of the other shows or movies have been able to do. Andor offers a grittier look at the Star Wars universe filled with people who feel more real than most characters in George Lucas’s creation. From the working-class people of Ferrix like Cassian and Maarva Andor and Bix Caleen to the high society wealthy Coruscanti Luthen Rael and Senator Mon Mothma to evil middle manager Syril Karn and Space Gestapo officer Dedra Meero everyone is a person struggling to make their way in a world of crushing oppression. Some, like Karn and Meero, are trying to exploit that oppression for their own professional advancement and benefit. Others, like Luthen and Senator Mothma are trying to avoid the gaze of the Imperial Security Bureau while they foment rebellion right under their nose. And then there’s Cassian Andor, who, at the beginning of the series, and like many other citizens of Ferrix and the Empire, are just trying to keep their heads down and survive under the boot of their oppressor, only to learn that keeping your head down will result in being crushed by that boot in the end anyway. And unlike most of the rest of Star Wars there are no prophecies, chosen ones, or Space Wizards to thrill us with laser swords, mind tricks and telekinesis. Instead, as we watch the fledgling rebellion take root, it’s just normal people for whom the stakes feel tangible and the consequences, even if, at first, their participation is out of self-interest, are dire. All of this adds up to Andor having a pathos that grounds it, humanizes it, in the way the rest of Star Wars isn’t.

Frankly, it’s everything I’ve wanted in Star Wars since Disney bought the franchise—a story mostly unencumbered by the Skywalker Saga and all the heavy-handed callbacks to the Trilogies that have been present in the other Disney Star Wars shows. I’m a huge Star Wars fan and I loved Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian but each of those stories has suffered because of the desire to overstuff them with easter eggs and nods to the Luke, Leia and everything else that came before them. The lack of that in Andor was refreshing and gave it freedom to explore new things. It let it feel like its own thing.

They’ve already announced a second season. I suspect that it may also be the last one since they need to lead us directly into Rogue One and Cassian Andor’s final, irrevocable end and didn’t leave a lot of time between when the show ends and the movie begins. If that’s all there is I’m fine with it because it’s been a story really well told. I’d hate to see them try to (blue) milk it for too many seasons and diminish the characters or their stories.

There Can Be Only One (Twitter Replacement)

November 22, 2022Kurt Dietrich

Like many people I’ve been watching as Twitter sinks like the Titanic after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic (A Muskberg?) wondering if, through some miracle, it’s able to start the bilge pumps and right itself again before it cracks in half and falls to the ocean floor.

In many ways I’ve been hoping it does right itself– for several years since I quit Facebook it’s been the only social media I’ve participated in. Even with all of its problems (Even before Musk’s takeover.) it’s still been a great space to discover new writers, get late-breaking news and to see funny memes and cute dog pictures. I’d argue it’s probably been the best space for writers–primarily text based but fully capable of sharing pictures, GIFs and videos. It was almost as if it had been designed with journalists and authors in mind. I’ll be a bit sad if it fails and every day that goes by it looks more and more likely that failure will be the most likely outcome. I just don’t think Musk has the ability to set his ego aside and make it thrive.

As that potential failure looms I’ve been looking for another digital home and there are lots to choose from. For one, I’ve dusted off this blog, spruced it up a bit and got rid of some old posts that don’t really fit what I want it to be in the future. I’m just about ready to pat it on its head and send it back out into the world (Maybe with this post, who knows? I guess I probably should.). I’ve also started using Instagram again, but it’s owned by Meta–the same company that’s parent to Facebook– and I have the same concerns about it that prompted me to quit FB several years ago. Besides, as a vehicle primarily for photos and video it’s not really the social media platform best suited for writers. The same is true of TikTok (Not to mention security concerns due to its companies connection to the Chinese government.) though I know some writers who have really made BookTok, as it’s colloquially called, work for them.

But beyond the existing giants in social media there are a multitude of wanna-be replacements. There’s Mastodon, Counter.Social (a forked, independant instance that started out as a Mastodon server.), Tribel, Post, Hive and probably others that I haven’t even heard of yet or that aren’t yet ready for public use (Like BlueSky, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey’s next project.). I’ve signed up for most to see what’s going to work best for me and others like me.

Many of these new platforms are very Twitter-like but, as it is with all new things, they all have their differences and their limitations. It will be interesting to see which, or if, some of these new spaces will be able to adapt, overcome their limitations and possibly become the “new” Twitter while still differentiating themselves and being their own, hopefully better, thing.

What I’m looking for is somewhere where writers and fans can gather, share our love of books and maybe the occasional cute dog pic (It also has to be stable and well-managed and well-moderated.). Which platform will it be? I have no idea. That’s not really up to me. Or at least not me alone. At some point a community will coalesce around one of them, much like it did on Twitter, and that’s where I’ll be. And, besides this blog (If the recent Twitter drama has taught me anything, not keeping this blog going was a mistake.), that will be the only social media site I plan to be on. I don’t want to manage 137 social media accounts thankyouverymuch. As I stated in the headline of this blog entry: There can be only one. And I think one will be enough.

Finally, a PS5! Nathan Drake and Peter Parker Have Entered the Chat!

September 6, 2022Kurt Dietrich

Well, it took a while, but finally I was able to get a PlayStation 5 ordered and delivered. I got lucky with Microsoft’s next-gen console and got one almost immediately but, until recently, Sony’s game box remained elusive since I refused to buy one off of a scalper at exorbitant prices.

So what did I do when I finally got this modernist sculpture of a game console set up and ready to play? Did I download Returnal or Horizon: Forbidden West or one of the other games that were designed with the PS5 in mind and would do the most to show off its beautiful graphics? Nope. Instead I purchased a couple of games I missed by skipping the last generation of Sony’s console entirely–Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection and Spider-Man (The Peter Parker one, of course! Miles Morales can wait a bit longer!).

I’ve already finished the main campaign in the collection, Uncharted: A Thief’s End. Man, did I miss the adventures of Nathan Drake and company. It’s everything I prefer in a game, single-player, full of action and adventure… and what’s this? A story? How unique in this day and age of battle royales and open-world shooters with the thinnest of narratives. As always, the disappointment with the Uncharted series (for me at least) is that they’re short–15 to 20 hours to complete even if you try to find every treasure and explore every corner. But that’s really a tribute to how good this game is that it leaves you wanting more. And it’s gorgeous. Yes it’s been remastered but this is still a game that was originally designed for PS4. Even in 2022 it’s still a really good looking game.

As soon as I finish the add-on, The Lost Legacy, featuring a return of Chloe Frazer (her first appearance was in Uncharted 2), this time as the main protagonist, I’ll move on to Spider-Man and then from there? Who knows? There’s an entire generation of a back catalog for me to explore as well as all the current gen games already out. Between my new PS5 and my existing XBox Series X my leisure time is well accounted for.

Ranked: The Marvel Cinematic Universe

May 3, 2021May 3, 2021Kurt Dietrich

I finished my rewatch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe this weekend when I watched the final episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier (It was good!) and so because the internet apparently likes when you rank things (Hey, I don’t make the rules!) the following are my rankings for all of the movies and shows in the MCU.

But first, let me tell you what won’t be in there. You won’t see the Netflix shows (Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Defenders), the two ABC shows (Agent Carter and Agents of Shield) or some of the others that appeared on other streaming services (Like Runaways and Cloak and Dagger) because, while they were supposedly part of the MCU, it’s pretty clear that Marvel ignored them in the mainstream part of their universe with only the slightest of mentions in some of those shows about the events in the movies. Even having a major minor character like Agent Coulson in AoS doesn’t really help the cause for inclusion. Meanwhile, Wandavision and FatWS shared major characters from the movies in their own respective shows and have movies that focus on them coming in the future.

So, without further ado:

25. Iron Man 2

Two words why this was ranked so low: Ivan Vanko. I’m sorry but Mickey Rourke, recently off his big comeback movie, The Wrestler, through no fault of his own, was miscast as the big bad for the movie. Also, maybe his fault, he sort of looked ridiculous. Almost everything else about the movie was very good and I hope that we’d see a return Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer some day. Unlike Rourke Rockwell was perfect.

24. Iron Man 3

I’m just disappointed we didn’t get a real Mandarin here. Maybe we’ll see him as a big bad in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Or maybe we’ll just learn that Aldrich Killian just stole the logo from a Google Image search when creating the back story for his imaginary terrorist. Also, Shane Black, stop with the “Christmas” movies. It was cute for a while but stop trying to shoehorn it in.

23. Thor: The Dark World

The Dark Elves never felt very threatening and also it was never made clear why the Aether, AKA the Reality Stone, was a floating, swirling, malevolent cloud and not a stone and why/how it became a stone by the time Thanos found it. It’s almost like they made the movie and were like, “Oh yeah, we were supposed to introduce another Infinity Stone.”

22. The Incredible Hulk

Perfectly cromulent. Ed Norton was good, Liv Tyler was okay and, while William Hurt was very good, I thought Sam Elliot was a better Thunderbolt Ross (I actually think the casting for Ang Lee’s Hulk was better overall.). At least there weren’t any gamma-irradiated dogs.

21. Thor

Chris Hemsworth as Thor was perfect. So was Hiddleston as Loki. Honestly, the casting department for Marvel really kills it, don’t they? Very few missteps. Thor is the first of the movies to move up from just being Good to Very Good.

20. Captain Marvel

It’s the twenty-first movie in the MCU but is second in the timeline since we travel back to 1989 and 1995 to learn Carol Danvers origin story. A side benefit is that we get to see Agent Coulson back in the MCU proper since *spoiler alert* he was “killed” in The Avengers and shipped off to the gulag that was Agents of Shield. Brie Larson was great and it introduced us to Monica Rambeau (as a kid) who pops up 20 or so years later in Wandavision. I guess she’ll take the name Photon next we see her since Captain Marvel’s already taken. Another in a long list of the Very Goods from Marvel.

19. Ant-Man

Fuck, Paul Rudd was close to 47 when he donned the suit. The man doesn’t age.

18. Ant-Man and The Wasp

Three years later and Rudd’s 50 and somehow looks … younger? And no one should be allowed to be this charming. Finally we get to see the Wasp. She kicks ass. Michael Douglas, as he was in the first one, plays a great arrogant, egotistical curmudgeon. Let’s just hope that the MCU version of Hank Pym never pulls an Avengers #213. Walter Goggins is always a welcome addition.

17. The Avengers

The first Avenger Movie is also the worst Avengers movie. But all that means is it’s still very good. It’s biggest problem was also it’s biggest threat: The Chitauri. I mean, how bad ass can they be if all you have to do is destroy the mother ship to beat them? Still entertaining as hell and it was great to see the team come together.

16. Falcon and the Winter Soldier

The only thing not to like about the second official MCU show on Disney+ was the Flag Smashers. They just weren’t that compelling and it’s why it’s only 16 on the list. I’d definitely love to see another season, everything else about it was great, but I doubt we’ll get it since we know Captain America 4 is in production. And what would the call it anyway? Captain America and the White Wolf? I’m also left wondering where/when we’ll see US Agent and The Countess again. Also, maybe we’ll get an Isaiah Bradley mini-series?

15. Avengers: Age of Ultron

It’s where we start going from Very Good to Great. James Spader as Ultron? *Chef’s Kiss* Honestly, I hope they actually missed one of his drones during the clean up so we can get Crazy Robot James Spader again somewhere in Phase 4 or 5.

14. Captain America: Civil War

This Really should have been called Avengers: Civil War. My guess? A contractual obligation to Chris Evans resulted it being in named a Captain America movie. And hey, we got Spider-Man! And a young Aunt May. Hell, I was an uncle when I was in college. It was always weird that Ben and May were in their 70s. Also, how irresponsible was of Tony Stark when he recruited a 15-year-old?

13. Spider-Man: Far from Home

Mysterio was sort of right. Peter wasn’t ready for the glasses. Too bad he was psychotic and a megalomaniac. Basically a less smart Tony Stark without a Pepper Potts or the near death experience to readjust his moral compass. Peter starts coming into his own but he’s got a long way to go. It caps the Infinity Saga and begins to explore the post-original Avengers MCU.

12. Wandavision

I think the real question that’s posed by Wandavision is this: how do you hold one of the most powerful beings in existence accountable for their crimes? Seriously, she goes to a cabin in the woods for some self-reflection? I guess the only person who can hold Scarlet Witch accountable is the Scarlet Witch. Still, great show and also doubles as the origin story for Photon(?)/Monica Rambeau. Bonus points for bringing back Darcy Lewis and Jimmy Woo. Disney+ needs a Darcy/Jimmy crime-fighting show.

11. Spider-man: Homecoming

I’ve switched Homecoming and the two movies that follow multiple times. That’s how hard the movies from here on out are to place. Love Michael Keaton back in a superhero movie, even if he was the villain. He really brought that Pacific Heights energy to his role as Adrian Toomes.

10. Doctor Strange

Picking a horror writer and director to helm the entry into the mystic world of Marvel seemed risky to some but C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson nailed it. The only disappointment was learning that creative differences led to them departing the sequel. The tone was absolutely perfect. I questioned the casting of a couple of key roles but Benedict Cumberbatch and the controversial casting of Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One were better than I’d originally feared. And while I enjoyed Swinton’s portrayal of the Ancient One I still think casting an Asian in the role would have been both truer to the source material and better for the movie. And I still think my choice for Dr. Strange, Boardwalk Empire’s Jack Huston, still would have been great. Too bad no one was listening.

9. Guardians of the Galaxy

Ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb! If I was rating soundtracks this and its sequel would be tied for number one. While other Marvel movies have had humor GoTG really embraced it and the silliness that exists in the Marvel Universe. Its story of the importance of found family just has a ton of heart and where else can you see a dance-off to save the galaxy?

8. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2

If I hadn’t decided there’d be no ties GoTG volumes 1 and 2 would be tied. They’re just such a natural extension of each other more than any of the other movies and their direct sequel. The story of found family continues and I still think it’s one of the MCU’s most resonating storylines.

7. Avengers: Infinity War

See Avengers: Endgame

6. Avengers: Endgame

Infinity War and Endgame are really just one long movie and deserve to be placed together. They’re the payoff to a decade long promise and they were worth the wait. Nearly perfect. Endgame might have the two greatest moments in the MCU to date, Captain America wielding Mjölnir (“I knew it!”) and, of course, Captain America saying, “Avengers… assemble.”

5. Captain America: The First Avenger

You got your World War 2 movie in my superhero movie! No, you got your superhero movie in my World War 2 movie! They’re two great tastes that taste great together! Also, even though I hadn’t read a Captain America comic in ages, this movie reminded me why Captain America had long been one of my favorite characters—Steve Rogers, like Superman for DC, has an innate goodness that’s aspirational.

4. Iron Man

The movie that kicked off the MCU and it did it with a bang. Another of my childhood favorites Iron Man had seemed to be a second tier character outside of comics but, due to what were perceived as Marvel’s top tier characters being licensed out to Sony and Fox, Iron Man was who they had to work with to introduce the world to the MCU. Lucky for us worked it did. Tony Stark has long been one of Marvel’s most flawed heroes and that’s one of the reason it works. An egotistical, self-involved, narcissistic, alcoholic party-boy who overcomes his flaws to become a hero. Sort of the anti-Captain America in that respect. He’s the lynchpin of the MCU and the one who makes the ultimate sacrifice. He’s also a big reason for a lot of the problem’s our heroes face but that’s a different topic for another time.

3. Black Panther

Killmonger is one of the best antagonists Marvel has put on screen. Why? Because in many ways he was right even if his methods and outcomes were wrong. It also showed why Black Panther is such a great hero; he learned from his enemy and showed him compassion. I’m looking forward to the next installment Black Panther: Wakanda Forever but I can’t conceive of how they’ll do it. How do you account for the loss of Chadwick Boseman? I’m not sure you can.

2. Thor: Ragnarok

For anyone who’d been waiting for Jack Kirby’s version of the MCU to be served up Taika Waititi did it to perfection. It also has my favorite line in the MCU, “He’s a friend… from work!” Like the two GoTG movies it fully embraces the inherent humor and absurdity in the Marvel Universe.

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The Manchurian Candidate as superhero movie. Perhaps the most cynical movie of the MCU as it sees Captain America begin to question his loyalty to those in power and see how his ideals and naivety were used against him. While many scenes in the MCU are a bigger spectacle Captain America’s elevator fight scene is my favorite one in all of the MCU. “Before we get started—does anyone want to get out?”

So… what does this all mean? Absolutely nothing. It’s just my personal preference for the movies and, quite frankly, there’s not a MCU movie or show I haven’t enjoyed. My feeling is that even the worst of the bunch was still a good movie and fun to watch. Honestly, I think the most shocking thing about the MCU has been how consistently good it’s been and its biggest misstep has been how it treated its tangential shows like those on Netflix and ABC. I can’t wait to see what happens in Phases 4 and 5.

Photo created by Hannaford and used under Creative Commons 2.0. Original Photo available here.

Failed State: A Dystopian Future Worth Visiting

September 23, 2020September 24, 2020Kurt Dietrich

First let me say that Failed State, Christopher Brown’s final novel in his dystopian triptych that started with Tropic of Kansas, is a good book. Like a really good book. It also continues his trend of writing novels that are some of the most frighteningly prescient books I’ve read in recent memory.

It’s a near future sci-if tale filled with economic, governmental and environmental collapse and it reflects a world that could be ours if we don’t heed all the warnings we’re receiving about global climate change, environmental collapse and the weakening of democracy throughout the world and here at home. It’s a novel that after you’ve finished it you can’t just set it aside and forget about it. You continue to think about it after you’ve reached that last page, turning over the themes and characters in your mind—the choices they’ve made, their impacts on the world.

It’s bleak and hopeful at the same time. It’s also disquieting. Moreso, perhaps, than his previous two books, Tropic of Kansas and Rule of Capture. Because even though the novel ends on a (somewhat) hopeful note—that maybe we can make a better future, even after all the damage we’ve done, to our planet and ourselves, it’s not certain.

Set after a second civil war (that occurred in Rule of Capture) the country is fractured and without central leadership. Some are trying to forge a new way but it’s not clear if they can succeed or if it can be better than what came before it. The leaders of this experiment in government are, in their own ways, just as flawed and prone to falling short of their ideals as any political movement is. And of course the oligarchs are still out there, more interested in making money and controlling their own empires than the good of the people and ready to go to war for profit. In between is Donny Kimoe, strip mall lawyer and sometime revolutionary, as flawed as anyone else but he seems to think that maybe, just maybe, the American experiment shouldn’t end just yet and that perhaps there’s a way to bring it all together again.

Brown, who’s also a lawyer by day, writes a legal thriller as taught as any written by John Grisham. With it he brings his experience as urban naturalist and futurist. Together he creates a vivid and wonderfully written world that extrapolates from our own into one that might be closer to what lies before us than any other dystopian future I’ve read. His world isn’t the emotionally numbed, science-focused, caste-driven world of Huxley’s Brave New World, or Orwell’s extreme socialist nightmare of 1984, or even Gibson’s cyber-jacked, gleaming chrome future in Neuromancer. It’s a near future of environmental, societal and political collapse that seems hauntingly close to the future we’re heading towards.

And that’s the other thing I find so disquieting about this book. It’s the timing. I can see where we are in 2020 and see how just a bit of a nudge here or there in our reality could send us into Brown’s imagined world. Our politics are coming to a head. Our upcoming election is the most consequential of our lifetimes. Getting it wrong could mean a slide into fascism. We are already, in many ways, an oligarchy. Our environment is collapsing around use. Global climate change leading to the entire west cost burning. Drought in several parts of the country. A historic chain of storms in the Atlantic. We’re on the edge and I think Brown’s world is a potential outcome if we don’t pull back. It isn’t a world I want to live in but it is one worth visiting, hopefully only in his books.

Face Front, True Believers!

November 13, 2018November 13, 2018Kurt Dietrich

Stan Lee… fuck. He was 95 but it’s still a bit of a gut punch. He’s one of those people I always thought of as immortal. And I guess in a way he is.

I was always a Marvel kid growing up. Yeah, I liked Batman and a few other DC characters but for me Marvel was where it was at. I think it was for the usual reasons. Where DC’s characters; Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were distant and aloof, almost godlike (even the “human” Batman, with his billions of dollars and superhuman willpower.), Marvel’s characters were so much more accessible and relatable. In a word: human.

A poor, orphaned kid in Queens who was a bookworm and constantly bullied? My parents were still alive but I could certainly relate to being a bookworm and, as a kid who started wearing glasses when I was about nine, I could certainly relate to being, if not bullied, certainly teased.

As I entered my teenage years the X-Men became one of my favorites. Of course that was by design. The transformation mutants underwent as they hit adolescence was meant to mirror what I went through as I began that journey into manhood with those first awkward steps. Hell, as an adult I can still relate to them. I’ve gone from the Beast (Sprouting hair, as a teenager, in places where I didn’t expect it (I’m talking about my chest folks, don’t be perverts.), to Professor X (Though not nearly quite as bald.). I’d have preferred the super powers, but man, the changes in my hormones and appearance really resonated when I read the changes some of the X-Men went through as they arrived a Xavier’s School for Gifted Children.

What’s weird is that for a long time my favorite character as a kid, and later, as a teenager, was Hawkeye. That’s not the usual hero most people would pick when asked. It wasn’t until I was an adult when a friend of mine and I were talking about comics that I really figured out why. And it was this: Hawkeye was just a normal guy. He wasn’t rich, like Tony Stark (Yes, Tony is brilliant but it’s his money that allows him to be Iron Man.). He wasn’t super smart like Hank Pym. He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider and he didn’t fly through cosmic rays and he wasn’t a literal god. He’s just a guy. A guy with a bow and arrows and who put in the time to train. And here he was punching above his weight duking it out alongside the god of thunder, Iron Man and the human Boy Scout, Captain America. At one point climbing to become the leader of the West Coast Avengers. Hawkeye’s story was a human one. He had his faults. He fell for a spy and briefly did the wrong thing as a result (That spy eventually became a hero herself. I’m looking at you Black Widow.). He bristled at figures of authority like Cap. He won, he lost, but he always picked himself back up. Yeah, I could relate to that. I, like all people, have my faults (though I’ve never fallen for a spy and become a criminal as a result!). But I definitely had issues with authority growing up and, even today, as I try new things and try and push my creative boundaries I often feel like I’m punching above my weight. But I try and try and I keep getting back up even as there are set backs and failures.

And it wasn’t just his characters and other creations that gave the world life lessons. If you took the time to read the letters section you’d find nuggets of Stan’s wisdom in his own words in Stan’s Soapbox. And he used that soapbox to unapologetically defend the moralizing that happened in the pages of Marvel comics. Calling out racism and anti-semitism and other types of bigotry and tackling topics like addiction, war, and poverty. Pax et Justitia, indeed.

So, Stan, as we say goodbye I also say to you, Excelsior! And thanks for the stories and the lessons. I’ll never forget them.

Wanna Play?!?!

October 16, 2018October 17, 2018Kurt Dietrich

Please enjoy this picture of Latte, the world’s cutest dog! He’s hoping to make the world a better place one doggie smile at a time!