Review of "Captain America: The First Avenger"

Jeannine and I went to see the "Captain America" movie yesterday, and we both really liked it (as our daughter, who has so far seen it three times, predicted we would). And we liked the first half, with its quieter moments and character development, more than the second half, with its nearly relentless action and explosions.

But it all came together pretty well, making for a satisfying movie experience.

Chris Evans (who, as TMNT fans know, voiced Casey Jones in the CGI Turtles movie in 2007 and also played Johnny Storm, a.k.a. the Human Torch, in the last two "Fantastic Four" movies) does a fantastic job playing Steve Rogers, the scrawny but scrappy kid from Brooklyn who becomes Captain America through a "super soldier" experiment conducted by the US Army. The movie magic via which we see Steve Rogers first in his short, skinny form and then later as the fully bulked-up, muscular version is very impressive, and I couldn't see any visible seams. It was completely convincing.

On the way to the theatre, I attempted to provide Jeannine -- who I am pretty certain has never read a "Captain America" comic book in her life -- a rough overview of the character and where he sits in the Marvel universe. I tried to integrate into that description the various tidbits I'd picked up from reading about the movie and how certain details had been changed to fit this new film version of Captain America. It was kind of fun to do that, allowing me to reminisce about some of the great issues of the comics I'd read over the years.

And then we saw the movie, and a lot of the concepts and characters from those comics were up there on the screen, some subtly changed, others almost completely different. But it was a "Captain America" that I think would have made its creators, Joe SImon and Jack Kirby, proud. (Actually, I believe Joe Simon is still alive -- I wonder if he has seen the film and if so, what he thought of it.)

I had fun picking out various references, subtle and otherwise, to bits and pieces of Marvel lore. The scientist who assists the evil Red Skull? He is none other than Arnim Zola, a character created by Jack Kirby during his last run on the Captain America comics in the 1980's (though Zola in those issues was a much weirder sight than Zola as played by Toby Jones in the film). The Red Skull himself, played by Hugo Weaving, is perfectly realized in very convincing makeup which is revealed at a key dramatic moment. The artifact the Red Skull is searching for, and finds, in Norway? It's none other than the "Cosmic Cube" from the comics… and the filmmakers very cleverly put in a line which ties this object of gigantic power into the Norse gods mythology underpinning the movie version of Marvel's "The Mighty Thor", setting up what I suspect will -- or at least could -- be a major plot point in the "Avengers" movie due out next year.

And there's Dum Dum Dugan! Yep, the bowler-hatted brawler from the 1960's Marvel Comics begun by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby appears in a number of scenes along with some less-easily-recognizable members of that famed squad of World War 2 Allied fighters… and he even gives the classic "Howling Commandoes" war cry of "Yahoo!" as he blasts away with one of Hydra's super weapons.

Hydra (or should it be "H.Y.D.R.A."?) was one of Captain America's recurring foes in the comics, and they are here in the film in full force, even down to the infamous "Hail Hydra! Cut off one head, and another will take its place!" oath and two-armed salute familiar to readers of the comics.

A nice touch to further add to the continuity of the growing Marvel movie universe is to have Howard Stark (father of Tony Stark, later known to the world as "Iron Man") appear as an engineer working with scientist Abraham Erskine on the "super soldier" project. (I hope there is at least one moment in the upcoming "Avengers" movie where Tony Stark/Iron Man meets Captain America for the first time and mentions something about how his father helped him to become what he is… maybe in the form of a line like "My dad used to talk about you…!")

The action scenes are very well done -- Cap's shield-slinging is particularly effective -- though I found some of the later non-stop action a bit tedious, albeit necessary, I guess. What REALLY sets this movie apart from the herd is the character stuff in the first half, especially in an absolutely brilliant scene which shows exactly why, without dwelling on it or relying on exposition, Steve Rogers is the right choice for the "super soldier" experiment. (Yes, I'm talking about the hand grenade scene shown in the trailers.) It's one of those scenes which makes you feel good about the fact that the people who wrote the script actually THOUGHT long and hard about what they were doing. Jeannine grabbed my hand at the conclusion of this scene -- not because it was really scary or unsettling, but because it was such a perfect character moment, and as a writer, she lives for those.

"Captain America" is a movie I think I am going to have to see again, as I am sure there were a number of things I missed. It will be fun to see if I can pick up on those details in a second or third viewing. And it would almost be worth it just to stay for the very brief glimpse of shots from the upcoming "Avengers" movie which appear after the end credits. -- PL

Dance, flowers, and food

Yesterday, Jeannine and I had a very pleasant summer Saturday. We'd made plans to go to Jacob's Pillow, the famous dance venue in the Berkshires. Jeannine had been there once many years before, but we'd never gone together, and I'd never been at all, although I could recall seeing the sign for Jacob's Pillow on my many motorcycle rides down that scenic stretch of Route 20 in Massachusetts.

When Jeannine suggested we might go to see a dance event there, she left it up to me to pick one. Not knowing much about dance, I chose one which looked to be at the very least interesting in a technical way, because from the image in the advertising, the dancers would be performing on a stage littered with hundreds of ping-pong balls. I found myself wondering how they would avoid slipping on them.

So we set out on a pretty nice, partly sunny day, and found our way via, one of my favorite scenic routes, to Jacob's Pillow, which is not too far off of Route 20. It's a lovely place, lots of rustic-looking barns and outbuildings which house studios and theaters set among beautiful trees and gardens, with many benches and picnic tables here and there. The event we were going to see involved two performances by choreographer and dancer Jonah Bokaer in the Doris Duke Theatre.

And it turned out to be… interesting. In fact, it turned out to be almost exactly what I had imagined it to be -- mostly concept and very little actual dancing. Jeannine was more disappointed than I was, because she likes to see more athletic dance movement and prefers lively music to go along with it (neither was on hand for these performances).

Actually -- and I almost hate to mention this because it reveals, perhaps, exactly what a nerd I am -- both performances made me think of moments from the original "Star Trek" TV series. In the first one, which I think was titled "Recess", part of the "dance" involved a dancer hidden under a huge sheet of white paper which was crumpled up into a heap… and the dancer moved round underneath it, crawling and lurching across the stage. I immediately thought of the way the Horta (the silicon-based cavern dweller in the episode "Devil in the Dark") , moved. It was eerily similar.

And in the next performance, titled "Recess" (this was the one with all the ping-pong balls), at one point hundreds of balls were poured from a chute on the left side of the stage, reminding me of the way the tribbles poured down on Captain Kirk when he opened the grain storage locker on Space Station K-1 in "The Trouble with Tribbles".

Yes, I am a geek.

After the show, we debated if we should try to get in a swim (the weather report said possible thunderstorms, and the sky WAS getting a bit dark) or drive a little further west and check out a place Jeannine has been wanting to go to for years, the Berkshire Botanical Gardens in Stockbridge, MA. We chose the latter, and although it did start sprinkling on the way there, it didn't rain enough to dampen (literally AND figuratively) our enjoyment of this beautiful place. I think the herb garden, with its beautiful design and WONDERFUL aromas, was our favorite spot. Here's a small panoramic image of Jeannine wandering among the sage and cumin and dill.

I had to stop to take a photo of this bench -- not just for its beauty, but for the fact that my daughter and her roommate would likely appreciate the sign next to it.

There were a number of interesting tree houses on the grounds, and Jeannine snapped this shot of me enjoying the view from the top level of one of them.

There were so many beautiful flowers at this place that I could fill up multiple blog pages with images of them. In lieu of that, here are a few of my favorites from what I shot.

Near the end of our perambulations through the gardens, we came upon the "Children's Garden"...

...which was very cute and featured a "Wishing Tree".

Here are a couple of close-ups of some of the "wish tags" attached to the tree.

(I love the spelling of "unicorn" on this one.)

Nearby, there was this lovely mailbox decorated with living plants…

… and this sign:

After getting our fill of gorgeous colors and shapes and inviting scents, Jeannine suggested we have dinner at a place in Great Barrington. I had eaten there once with my friends Rick and Rob, and had raved to Jeanine about the food. It's called "Xicohtencatl", and it serves what is described at authentic Mexican food.

(Here''s their website: http://www.xicohmexican.com/)

We got great seats on the porch, just as it started raining more heavily. Jeannine had a large plate of scallops which she said were the best she'd ever had, and I had a whole Tilapia on a bed of greens. And it WAS a whole fish, head and all. I had never had fish served that way, and it had also been a while since I'd had to carefully extract the bones from a meal so I didn't swallow any. But it was GREAT. I would heartily recommend this place to anyone. 

We didn't get the swim that we had hoped for -- it poured pretty much the entire drive home -- but it was a wonderful day nonetheless. -- PL

Blast from the Past #380: "Iceworms"

This is one of those drawings that I like a lot, because I feel it was almost completely successful in its execution... but like many of my drawings from the period of the late 1970's and early 1980's, I don't remember exactly what it was done for.

It is likely a drawing done to illustrate a story or column in "Hampshire Life", but it also just weird enough (worms in ice...?) to have been one of the drawings I produced for various horror/science fiction fanzines back then. Maybe someday I will stumble across the printed version and know for sure.

This was one more example of using the shading film which had opaque WHITE dots instead of BLACK dots. I found it a nice way to produce a muted effect when laid over black line work -- here it works to sell the idea that the worms are inside the ice cubes. -- PL

Salley Mavor

I wanted to blog about this extraordinary artist -- someone whose work my wife turned me on to -- last December, after my friends Rick and Rob accompanied me to her "Pocketful of Posies" show (here's a not-so-great photo I took of the cover illustration for her "Pocketful of Posies" picture book):

… at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA and we were all just blown away by the quality of her work... but I couldn't.

Well, I guess I COULD have, but it might have ruined the surprise Christmas gift I managed to procure for Jeannine through an email contact with with the artist -- several of Salley's original three-dimensional illustrations. Here's a photo of one of them, from a series of works illustrating the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle", I believe. (Photo by Salley Mavor.)

The cliche phrase "photos don't do these justice" was never more apropos than for the work of Salley Mavor. These things are simply amazing to look at, and benefit from standing in front of with your face a few inches away so that you can see more clearly all of the detailed stitching and nuanced color and careful design choices. Although it is completely reasonable -- for the sake of preservation -- that these pieces are behind glass (in beautiful wood frames made by Salley's husband Ron), it is also a shame, because if you are anything like me, you just want to TOUCH them, and tactilely experience Salley's amazing melange of textures. Her use of found objects is extremely clever -- in one piece, a baby is swinging in a cradle hung from a tree branch… and the cradle is a quarter of a walnut shell. Absolutely perfect!

I don't think the show at the Danforth is still up, but Salley has a new show -- a slightly smaller number of pieces, but also several new ones which were not in the Danforth show -- at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center in Brattleboro, VT. The show is titled "Sewn Stories", and Jeannine and I were very happy to get an email invitation to the opening, which was last night. And it was even more fun because we got to meet and talk briefly with Salley (and Ron).

Here's a photo from the opening last night of Salley posing with one of her more recent pieces, a large and gorgeous one titled "Rabbitat".

I highly recommend checking out this show, as well as the books which Salley has illustrated. A good place to start is Salley's website:

http://www.weefolkstudio.com/

 And you can go here:

http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=2039

... for an excellent interview with Salley. -- PL

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SALLEY MAVOR: SEWN STORIES 

July 15, 2011–February 5, 2012

Textile artist and children’s book illustrator Salley Mavor’s original fabric reliefs are created from hand-dyed wool felt, embroidery thread, found objects, and manufactured trinkets and beads. Included in this exhibit are several works from Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes, which won the 2011 Boston Globe Book Award and the 2011 Golden Kite Award.

http://www.brattleboromuseum.org/2011/06/29/salley-mavor-sewn-stories/

"X-Men: FIrst Class"

I enjoyed the first two "X-Men" movies -- I thought Bryan Singer did a great job of bringing the characters to life on screen. The casting was excellent, the effects were well-done, and the stories held together.

Things started to fall apart with the third "X-Men" movie, which had a few good scenes but really started to devolve into an embarrassing mess about halfway through… and the big battle between the mutants had some really bad fight staging. And the less said about Hugh Jackman's solo "Wolverine" outing, the better.

So when I heard there was going to be another "X-Men" movie, I did not hold out great hope that it would turn out well, especially when I heard it was going to feature all young mutants, in a prequel of sorts to the other three films. There would be no Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen, sadly.

However, as time went on and I started seeing trailers for the upcoming film (titled "X-Men: First Class"), I began to feel somewhat hopeful. It actually looked interesting.

And on a recent short visit by our daughter Emily to this side of the country, I got to see it with her and Jeannine. Em had already seen it, but was willing to go again (she wasn't so willing to see "Green Lantern" again, but that's another story).

We all liked it, quite a bit. I especially liked seeing Hank McCoy realized much like he was in the original "X-Men" comics, although I do feel the actor they chose to portray him should have been a bit shorter and stockier, But it was still cool to see the bespectacled, slightly nerdy "Beast" in his pre-blue furred state. I would have liked to have seen the complete original team from those first comics -- Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Angel, and Iceman -- but I guess that wasn't possible if this film was to fit into the established continuity of the first two.

And as far as I could tell (from that single viewing), it did fit -- I did not detect any glaring errors. Maybe when I see it a second or third time, something will jump out at me, but it appeared pretty seamless.

I did feel that January Jones was not terribly impressive in her part of Emma Frost -- she seemed for the most part required to stand around and look sexy, which I guess she did, but her energy level seemed far below that of the other actors. Not so much as to ruin the film, but it was a little distracting.

There was one great cameo appearance which lasted all of about ten seconds -- I won't spoil it by revealing who it was, but it made me laugh.

I would definitely recommend this movie, especially for fans of the "X-Men" movie franchise who thought it was all over after "Wolverine". -- PL

Sunset (sort of) from Mount Sugarloaf

A couple of days ago, I was out on the DN-01 and admiring the cloud colors as the sun was setting. I was thinking that if the road to the top of Mount Sugarloaf in South Deerfield was open, I might be able to catch some truly spectacular scenes from that high vantage point. 

The road was, in fact, open, but I didn't time my arrival all that well -- the most colorful clouds had already faded by the time I reached the top of the mountain. However, I did get a few shots looking out towards the west and southwest, and used PanoramaMaker5 to put them together in this image.

When I looked at it the first time after the program had done its thing and stitched all the shots together, I was disappointed, as it seemed there was a flaw about a third of the way from the left hand side, where the fence rail looks split and offset. Sometimes this happens when the photos being used to make a panorama aren't just right.

However, upon closer examination, I realized that it was not an artifact of the software -- that chain link fence rail was, in fact, separated at that point.

Hopefully, when I next ride up Mount Sugarloaf to take some sunset photos, I will time it better. But I still like this image. -- PL

More turkeys in the yard

I haven't blogged much lately -- I think it's mostly been from a bit of "blog fatigue". (Hopefully, that's not just a rationalization for laziness.)

I suppose part of it too may be due to the fact that it is summer, and we're finally having some stretches of good weather after all of the rain in the spring.

Anyway, at the risk of inducing "turkey fatigue" in the readers of this blog, I have to share at least one photo from yesterday. When I came home, I spotted our flock of turkeys nonchalantly strolling past the front of our house, and I managed to quickly roll down the window of my vehicle and get my camera out in time to capture some images. This was my favorite.

I kind of like the fact that this group of birds feels comfortable enough in our yard to make it part of their weekly perambulations. -- PL