This Is Christmas (five)

Ghostbusters (a movie review post)

I feel like a movie review should not be a place for political commentary unless, you know, the movie has to do with politics. Or commentary. Or some combination of those things. I feel like I should be able to review this movie on the merits of itself as a movie. However, a certain contingent of inflammatory misogynists have made that impossible. There is no legitimate way to address this movie and the fact that it has women in it and not just in it but starring in it as the main characters.

So... Let's talk about the fact that there are four women starring in it and that some people seem to have let that "destroy" their childhoods:
1. If that they have cast the leads in the new Ghostbusters as women has caused your testicles to get all knotted up, the problem is clearly with you, and you need to go take a long look at yourself in the mirror and figure out what your own issues are. Or see a therapist and discuss your mommy issues. Or something.
2. It's a movie! Oh, wait, let me rephrase that: It's a fucking movie! If you are actually bent out of shape and allowing a movie made more than 30 years after the original to retroactively destroy your childhood, then, again, you need to take yourself back to that mirror and figure out what your problem is. I mean, this isn't Star Wars; it's not that important. Oh, wait, if you were one of those guys who allowed the prequels to "rape" your childhood (that is the way those guys put it, right?), you still need to be in front of that mirror. It's not like them putting in a new cast for this movie changes the experience you had of the original.
3. I find it unsurprising but somewhat interesting that the demographic screaming about the women stars of this movie are the same demographic who support Trump, which also matches the demographic who voted yes on the Brexit vote. It reduces all of this to a white, male power thing, and I'm just going to say that the only people threatened by equality are those who have had an unfair advantage. Again, go look at yourself in the mirror and don't come away from it until you can recognize that you're not better than other people and the fact that you feel threatened is entirely on you. And it's a fucking movie! It's not like it's walking up to you on the street and punching you in the balls. Then, you'd have a right to complain. There shouldn't even be any metaphoric balls involved in this.

Speaking of all of this, one of the most brilliant moments in the movie is when they're reading actual comments people (men) made about the movie just from the announcement that it would have a female cast.

And speaking of the women, they, also. were brilliant. I already love Kristen Wiig, and she doesn't disappoint. Ironically, this is a somewhat more serious role for her in that it doesn't rely on her particular brand of awkwardness as the basis for her character. She has her moments, but it's a more three-dimensional part than what she's known for (and so much more satisfying than her recent role in The Martian).

Melissa McCarthy is also a bit more toned down for Ghostbusters. Despite her initial appearance wearing some weird gizmo hat, she is the voice of reason in the movie. She wears the part well. Which is not to say that she turns off the funny, because she doesn't. He ongoing feud with Bennie, the Chinese delivery guy. is great.

I was unfamiliar with both Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones before seeing this, so I have nothing to compare to in regards to their performances, but they were both great, especially Kate McKinnon. In many ways, McKinnon stole every scene she was in by being this crazy professor type, kind of a cross between Doc Brown from Back to the Future and Dr. Frankenstein from Young Frankenstein with a dash of Q (the James Bond one). And that might make it sound like Leslie Jones is the weak link here, but she's totally not. The four women worked well together bringing the same kind of chemistry to the screen as the original quartet of men did.

But let's talk about the movie in general:
I laughed. A lot. To put it more specifically, I laughed throughout the movie, and, for a movie meant to be a comedy, it did its job. More than did its job. In fact, I probably laughed more in this one than I ever did in the original.

Which is not to say it doesn't provide some scares. The opening scene is pretty scary, and I thought for a moment that my daughter was going to ask to leave, it freaked her out so much.

Speaking of the opening scene, it features Zach Woods, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Mostly, I know him for his own special brand of awkward but, in his smaller roles,he's shown that he's capable of more than that. This is no exception.

And then there's Chris Hemsworth. He's almost worth the price of admission himself. I really didn't expect much from Hemsworth after Thor. I mean, he was a great Thor -- he was Thor -- but I figured that kind of role was all he was ever going to bring to the table, but he's shown that he has a lot of range, and his role has the clueless receptionist was fantastic.

The only real negative I have is...

Oh, wait, this is a spoiler, so close your ears and say "la la la" or something.

The only real negative I have about the movie is the bad guy:
1. That there was a "bad guy" at all, and
2. That the actor playing the bad guy lacked any real menace. In fact, the only good part with the bad guy was once he had possessed Kevin, and that part was hilarious.

I don't really know why I dislike there being a villain, but it just felt a little too convenient, I guess. And it was so much "the world hasn't been fair to me, waaah!" He was just lame, I suppose. It would have been better if it had just been the ghosts driving the conflict.

The movie is a winner, though, despite the lackluster villain. Unless you just have no sense of humor or can't get over the fact that there are no y chromosomes among the leads, there is no reason you shouldn't like this movie.

Oh, and the cameos are great.

It's a Lego Christmas (with a dose of Doctor Who) -- Part One

We had paper snowflakes up on our window behind the Christmas tree this year (they were not up, yet, in the previous Christmas tree pictures, and I never took pictures of them), some of them shiny, and the cat liked them. A lot. He especially liked this gold, shiny one, so we moved it to give him something to do other than try to jump at the snowflakes near the tree and, potentially, fall into it. He did eventually rip this one up, but it lasted a surprisingly long time.

Anyway...

Everyone got Lego for Christmas this year. That hasn't ever happened before. Usually, it's just the boys, but, evidently, Legoitis is contagious, so everyone got (and built) Lego sets this year. It was actually a lot of fun.

My daughter discovered Lego Friends last year and is quite taken with them.

And this is her putting together her bakery set she got:

The best present award as judged by the reaction of the recipient was

He struggled with whether he should leave it sealed, but, in the end, he caved.

However, the best Christmas quote was about a present my wife received:

"I didn't know measuring spoons came in pretty!"

But the real best present, based on how much it's been used, was the card game Munchkin, which Santa brought for the whole family. We've played it almost everyday since. Awesome, hilarious game.

There have been too many hilarious moments in this game to mention, and this won't make the most sense if you don't know anything about the game, but one of the most hilarious was during our first or second game, before we knew what all the cards are, when my younger son threw a sex change card on me. That was a very "what the heck?" moment. It made me lose my

Oh, I mentioned Doctor Who.
Here's the second best present present reaction:

Yes, I said second best. Unfortunately, the picture of the first best didn't turn out. Here's that present:

And the kids in their Doctor Who clothes (although only two of these are new from Christmas):

There was also a Geek Ball, appropriate for our family:

It says things like:
Epic Fail
File Not Found
404 Error

That might explain why we also got these:

District 7 was the best. Well, that's what I thought, anyway. I'm not sure which one the kids liked.

There's more Lego stuff, but you'll have to wait till next time for that. I'll leave you with this, though, the Lego set my wife got:

The A to Z of Fiction to Reality: Flying Cars

There may be no better indication that the future has arrived (when it does arrive) than that there will be flying cars sitting in people's driveways. As with driverless cars, the idea of cars that can fly has been around almost as long as cars have been around. But, then, the desire for flight goes back thousands of years. All you have to do is flip through Greek mythology to find stories of Man riding flying horses or Man making wings from feathers and wax to know that man has always wanted to fly. It's no surprise that we want our cars to fly, too.

It may have been The Jetsons, though, that really embedded the idea of the future and flying cars into our psyches.

What kid growing up watching this cartoon didn't want one of these? Well, maybe not precisely one of these, but a car that flew, nonetheless.
George Lucas didn't help when he created this

even if it doesn't quite fly.
And we can't forget

However, it was probably the movie Blade Runner that really sealed the deal and presented us a future vision, even if it was a bleak future vision, of a world with cars that fly:

It's been a while since I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but I'm pretty sure the flying cars are in the novel, too. Almost positive.

The thing is... flying cars are here. They sort of have a mythical quality to them, right now. You hear about this company or that company working on them, promising them, but they never seem to be quite available, so everyone seems to think it's just one big scam. I think it's really a matter of the government, though. And, probably, the airlines. I mean, if people can own flying cars, we won't really need airlines so much anymore, will we? Maybe for international travel. For a while. At any rate, several companies have fully functional flying cars ready to go, but there continue to be, and pardon the pun, roadblocks at every turn.

This is my favorite one:

That's the Moller Skycar M400. It has vertical take off and landing, can go 400mph, and has a 900 mile range. It even gets around 20 miles to the gallon, which isn't bad considering our old van barely got that. The real issue? The $1,000,000 eventual price tag. They do have a four-seat model, though.

A model more likely to be ready for the general public within a reasonable time frame is The Transition. I believe a pilot's license is required, though. You can find out more about it here.

This is a future I really expect to see in my life time. I hope. The whole flying car thing just seems to have gotten bogged down in government red tape. But they're real. They work. They just cost a lot of money. And, well, they're not really legal, yet.