Good to Be Back!

Harmony on the Set!

Following the publication of Dreams Given Form in the fall, I just had to back off of this blog for a while. It was an amazing year at my day job, as I worked on a major restructuring of my Public Speaking class - with help from generous colleagues, I took the leap and went from "flipping" the classroom to "gaming" the classroom. I've had to make adjustments on the fly, of course (any revamp requires flexibility to find the proper balance), but the initial results are heartening. I was goaded into agreeing to participate in a sprint triathlon at the beginning of June (so I've got about two weeks of training time left) and that's taken a considerable amount of time and energy.

I won't even try to catch up on movies and TV that I've immersed myself in over the last eight months. But I will say that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is well worth your time, I found myself wondering if The Good Place will become a supplement to philosophy and ethics classes, Black Panther justly took the world by storm, and I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the current season of The Americans yet. (Honestly, that show is beginning to seem prescient.)

Also on my list - Legion and The Handmaid's Tale. 

I'm also preparing for the upcoming Whedon conference - this is the 8th Slayage and pulls attendees from across the country as well as from Europe and beyond. The last one was held in 2016 in London, and I missed it (due to the aforementioned Dreams Given Form). This one is at the University of North Alabama in Florence, AL. I'm excited to attend. My presentation is more of a roundtable this time with several other scholars with diverse points of view. We'll be arguing over the revelation that Whedon gaslit us and the impact it has when a creator turns out to have feet of clay, if not outright mud. (Then again, after some of the thoroughly icky revelations of the #MeToo movement, Whedon seems like a garden-variety jerk, rather than a predatory monster.) Plenty of creators aren't particularly enlightened human beings - how does it affect the relationship with the art? It's going to be an interesting session.

But I've been missing this blog. So I'm back! My summer film class begins on Monday and I'm sure I'll include some material here about their films, along with other bits that catch my fancy.

And - if you've never seen Babylon 5, it's coming to Amazon Prime in June. Buy a copy of Dreams Given Form to pair with your watch (or rewatch - seriously, B5 is crazy-relevant these days!) and see what the fuss is about!

Updates!

Since last we spoke, I've seen a number of films that have been all over the map. Let me just give you some capsule reviews to serve as catch-up.

First, on our way out West for vacation (dry heat is hot, yes, but it's not 90% humidity like it is at home!), I watched Florence Foster Jenkins and was surprised by how charming I found it to be. It could have been a simple one-trick pony - after all, the basic plotline is rich woman loves music, wants to sing, is just awful, but those around her shield her from this knowledge.

As Florence, Meryl Streep is wonderful. Her performance is not an over-the-top caricature, which would have been easy to do. Instead, Streep pulls in and lets us see this ageing socialite as a real person with real concerns. Jenkins' singing may have been treated as a joke, but her much-younger husband (played by Hugh Grant with rare restraint) has deep affection for her that transcends money (although they have an "arrangement," the need for which is described in heartbreaking detail) and her pianist (Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg) comes to value the underlying warmth that emanates from this woman. While not a movie for the ages, it's a solid film and one with a simple underpinning of compassion and heart - you could do far worse.

Case in point - Spider-Man: Homecoming. I've had trouble putting my finger on it, but this movie left me just unsatisfied. It's far from bad, Tom Holland is solid, and there are some nice twists and turns in here (especially regarding Peter Parker's schoolmates), yet it never quite added up to WOW! for me. Yeah, yeah - Tony Stark. Yeah, yeah - a non-cadaverous Aunt May. Yeah, yeah - Michael Keaton as a much more interesting birdman than I thought he was in that other movie. It just never was quite enough for me. Still - I prefer Holland to Andrew Garfield's turn as the Web-Slinger. (Then again, after his turn in Hacksaw Ridge, all is forgiven, Andy!) I say it's a rental, but others may well disagree, and that's okay.

Then - zoinks! as Shaggy might say. FryDaddy and I had a rare opportunity to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid shown outside on a clear Utah night as part of the Sundance Institute's summer programming series. Think picnic on the grounds and you're there. I'd never seen Butch on the big screen and I was entranced enough to ignore my (very) cold feet. Butch is just a fantastic film and the obvious chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford is glorious to watch. Also, we both won small prizes for our knowledge of Butch trivia, and yay! for prizes. Seriously, scout around your own area - outside summer movies are quite a thing and they are worth seeking out!

Last one - on the flight home, I finally watched Arrival, which turns out to be one of the most thought-provoking science fiction films I've seen in the last few years. How do we manage first contact with an alien species when neither side knows the language of the other? There's some GREAT stuff in here about the tricks and traps that are built into language and the high degree of skill required to truly understand a language, as opposed to just understanding the surface of it, like "milk," "ball," or "war." It's a film that isn't afraid to take its time to build, which I loved. Others may find it too slow, but I say that if you like your science fiction to make you think, Arrival is for you.

Then, just yesterday, I saw War for the Planet of the Apes, which seems to close the gap between the new movies (which began with Rise in 2011 and continued with Dawn in 2014) and the original franchise. I think there could be one more film to actually close that gap and shift the audience's sympathies back to the humans from the apes, but it ends at a darned good place. Woody Harrelson has been watching Apocalypse Now and would someone just please give Andy Serkis all the awards right now? Again, thought-provoking science fiction and it plugs a major hole in the storyline - namely, why can't the humans in the 1968 version speak? Yes, the effects are incredible, but without Serkis to sell it - I just don't think it would matter.

Whew! That's enough! Several movies are still to be released this summer that I'm VERY excited about - check back to see if Valerian by the eccentric genius Luc Besson is worth your popcorn money and, on another front, let's see about Dunkirk!

Swan Song - For Now!

I've done about 250 episodes of Meet Me at the Movies for C19 TV, dating all the way back to 2012 and the time has come to hang up my popcorn bucket - at least for the time being. See, each show represents quite a time commitment. We try to cover two movies per show, so figure two movies at about two hours each. Then add in about an hour per blog post, then another hour spent filming and that's six hours per week, generally on the weekends. That's a lot of time that Meet Me at the Movies requires and that's time that I'm not spending on other things that are valuable and important to me.

So I'm leaving you all in the incredibly capable hands of Noel T. Manning II who has a vast knowledge of movies, both from artistic and a commercial perspectives. I look forward to actually watching the show (remember, it's available on streaming!) and getting recommendations!

You can access the current show here!

See you on the Catbus!

 For my very last show as a regular co-host of Meet Me at the Movies, I planted my feet like a mule and steadfastly refused to go see Michael Bay's latest BoomCrashBang Ode to Smash Cuts (the best review so far is found here!) and instead saw the limited screening of Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. Please check out the ongoing Studio Ghibli Fest for monthly screenings through November. You won't regret seeing these masterpieces of animation on the big screen! The audience alone is worth it - it's always lovely to see something you enjoy surrounded by other people who also enjoy it.

In the meantime, Ensley and I will be ramping up our social media presence for the upcoming publication of A Dream Given Form, the ultimate guide to Babylon 5 that will be published in mid-September. Check back here for updates - we plan on having quite a shindig in our hometown of Shelby, NC for our book launch!

Victory Lap!

Back in 2006, Pixar released Cars, a rather sweet tale of the up-and-coming hotshot getting schooled by a gruff old master and together, the two of them reach the apex of their sport. It also turned out to be race fan Paul Newman's last film and I truly enjoyed the chemistry between Owen Wilson as the full of himself Lightning McQueen and Paul Newman as the Fabulous Hudson Hawk.

Now Cars 3, the third installment of the franchise is out and I'm pleased to report that it's well worth going to see. Newman's voice is still there in a couple of flashbacks and new characters are added. Interestingly, the film also has a bit of a "girl power" thread as Margo Martindale voices an old-time racing great named "Louise Nash," Kerry Washington is a numbers-crunching statistician named "Natalie Certain" and Cristela Alonzo shines as the trainer-racer named "Cruz Ramirez." Yes, the old standbys are here, including Larry the Cable Guy's Tow Mater, but the real story is about Lightning finding worth in himself even if he isn't the fastest car on the track anymore. One of the most poignant lines comes from Lightning's competitor Cal Weathers (who is voiced by Kyle Petty) who comments on his retirement by answering McQueen's question about how to know when it's time to quit, "The youngsters will let you know."

And that's the heart of the story - as a new generation of high-tech, computerized machines takes over the tracks from the "race 'em on Sunday, sell 'em on Monday" actual STOCK stock racing cars, is there room for the old ways? Suddenly, McQueen isn't the hotshot - instead he's the "elder statesman" and he doesn't like it one bit. Now he knows all too well how "Hud" felt. (Confession - referring to Newman's old-school character as "Hud" and McQueen as "Hud's boy" just made me happy. It's a lovely, subtle tribute.)

Nathan Fillion voices the future of sponsorship and branding and brings his own brand of smarmy capitalism to a film that (let's face it) will be heavy of the toys, clothing, and geegaws of the upcoming holiday season.

But best of all are the NASCAR cameos and little history lessons tucked in Cars 3. While NASCAR is usually viewed as a white redneck sport (with enough brand loyalty to make sponsors salivate), there's always been a little more diversity than you might expect. And that's one of the lessons of Cars 3 as well - if you can do the work, where you come from doesn't really matter much.

May we all learn that one.

Plus - be sure you get there in time to see "Lou," the short that plays before the main feature!

DC (Finally) Gets It Right!

I've waited a little while to write about DC's latest release, Wonder Woman. I think I simply needed time to process my reactions to this film. So much was riding on Diana Prince's Amazonian shoulders - and not just for the DC movie franchise. Films led by female comic characters have not done well at the box office - see Catwoman and Elektra for evidence of my point. However, the suits tended to think that the problem was with the fact that the lead character was a woman, as opposed to looking at the problems caused by weak scripts, sloppy direction, and indifferent marketing.

Wonder Woman might change all that, for the film is certainly is a game-changer. Director Patty Jenkins, who is best known for her 2003 debut feature, Monster, had much to prove here and the critical as well as commercial love for her film should go a long way towards dispelling the long-outmoded idea that "boys won't go see a movie with a girl lead character, so we don't want to make them." Currently, the film is sitting pretty at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the box office take is estimated to be well in excess of $200 million.

There is simply so much to love about this movie - Gal Gadot is perfectly cast as Diana, Chris Pine as Steve Trevor reminds me of why I enjoyed Hell or High Water so much, and the supporting cast is amazing. Special shout-outs go to Lucy Davis as Steve's grounded assistant Etta, and Robin Wright as Diana's warrior aunt Anitope made me punch the air in delight.

All that said, I wouldn't take very small ones to this. Wonder Woman moves the origin story from WW2 to WW1 and there are a few graphic scenes of battlefield violence. (Not Saving Private Ryan or Hacksaw Ridge violent, but still - I'd keep the under 10 set outside.) The film carries a rating of PG-13 for the scenes of violence, which don't seem especially "comic-booky," so use caution with the young fry.

The film is taking the Internet by storm, including some fantastic reactions on Twitter.  Patty Jenkins shared a note sent to her by her producer showing the reactions of a kindergarten class (again, I think that's too young for this film, but that's me) and some of the audience reactions are just heartwarming (#17 is my favorite of this list). Alamo Drafthouse (a private business, by the way) in Austin, TX decided to have a women-only screening, which was generally well-received. And, it being Austin, when one man decided his feelings were hurt by this, the mayor responded with wit and humor. And Texts from Superheroes had more fun with this idea than should probably be allowed.

Diana is a warrior who wants to serve the cause of peace. May we all remember that no, it's not about what we deserve; it's about holding fast to our ideals. And perhaps about making swords fashion accessories at society soirees.

Will this save the upcoming Justice League movie? Only time will tell.

The Watery Depths

The 2017 summer blockbuster season is officially underway. While this can be cause for rejoicing (I truly enjoyed Guardians 2 and pleasepleaseplease let Wonder Woman be a strong picture!), it can also be a time for scratching your head and saying, "How'd that get greenlit again?"

The sheer expense of making a big summer movie accounts for Hollywood's rampant timidity - why try something new when you've got a built-in audience for a new installment of an established franchise? (Sigh. Yes, Michael Bay, I'm looking at you.) As the global market has become more important to box office receipts - especially China, which limits how many films it will import and wants them all in 3D - Hollywood has increasingly wooed those markets. In the case of Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (let's just call it Pirates), the Mouse took it a step further, premiering the film at the Shanghai Disney resort. Not that I minded that; premiere wherever you want. But it shows that even the Mouse is not immune to that sweet, sweet foreign movie money.

If you like the Pirates movies, you'll like this one. If, like me, you're a little meh on the whole thing, you'll find a great deal to criticize in this one. For me, it was especially annoying that so much of the film's event took place at night. You see, night on the ocean is dark. Darkdarkdark. And the results are murky and difficult to figure out. Add to that the dimming that often comes with 3D and the result is muddy.

As to the plot, it makes little to no sense, but no matter. There are sight gags a-plenty. You get Johnny Depp staggering and mumbling and trying to find something new in a character he first played 14 years ago. You get Orlando Bloom and a wordless Keira Knightley for the original fans, and you get Pirates: The Next Generation with Brenton Thwaites playing the grown son of Bloom's Will Turner and relative newcomer Kaya Scodelerio as a spunky girl astronomer with a mysterious past. There's redemption by the boatload and an after-credits scene that strongly hints that Disney believe the tides have not yet turned on this lucrative franchise.

Rental.

Now, I don't think many of us were clamoring for a Baywatch revival, but we've got one, anyway. While this is being savaged by critics (and make no mistake, it IS bad), I think people are being overly harsh. Baywatch knows it's a parody of a television show that was already a punch line, and there's a certain charm in setting the bar so low. I went into this one just hoping to not claw my eyes out and I actually found myself sincerely laughing a few times. The film doesn't take itself seriously, the plot is tissue-thin, and completely implausible. Well, Animal House wasn't a documentary and it still makes me howl. The "R" rating is for language (honestly, I think the "F bomb" is used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, and possibly a gerund throughout the film) rather than for nudity and the nudity you have is exclusively male. (I know, right?) Yep, even in the shower room. And the morgue, but let's not go there.

It's a big, dumb, stupid summer movie, but it's almost saved by Dwayne Johnson, who has saved many a lousy movie. And yes, David Hasselhoff (who also has a cameo in Guardians 2 - and is on the soundtrack!) as well as Pamela Anderson appear. Just like Keira Knightley in Pirates, Anderson's cameo is wordless. I'm beginning to sense a disturbing trend with that.

Rental.

Now go pick up your copy of Beyond Casablanca or its sequel and open to a random page. Go see that instead of either of these.

Change Is in the Air!

I was eagerly awaiting Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 and was not disappointed. While I understand that some people would prefer more frantic antics, I truly enjoyed the focus on the various formations of what constitutes a "family." I think the film does a great job going a bit beyond the usual WhamBangWow! of a Marvel superhero movie while not succumbing to the dark gritty brooding that is all too often the efforts from the DC offices.

And yes, Baby Groot is adorable, but Drax probably steals the show. Then again - Kurt Russell in full Farrah Fawcett hair, quoting Looking Glass's "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" is hard to beat.

It's a fun, fun popcorn flick that had me tear up there at the end - Michael Rooker, man. Ignore him at your peril - and be sure to stay ALL THE WAY THROUGH the credits!

So there are some changes in the air. For five years now, I've served as a co-host of C19TV's Meet Me at the Movies and it's been quite a wild ride. We've done well over 200 shows and it's time for me to step away, at least for a bit. I'm not sure when my last show will be - I've agreed to stay on until a suitable replacement is found and I'll miss doing the show. It's fun to share my opinions with the wider world and I'm still startled when someone comes up to me on the street to talk movies with me from seeing the show. But it's just time. Watching two movies critically a week on top of my responsibilities at work and my involvement in the community takes a good chunk of time to produce quality work and honestly, I just want to grow tomatoes this summer.

Oh, and there's a movie in that . . .

Also, Ensley and I will be gearing up toward the end of the summer for the (hopefully triumphant) release of A Dream Given Form, which we're incredibly proud of. Drop us a line - our publisher is working with us on book signings and convention appearances and we'd love to see you!

Truth Is Cool!

It's no secret that I likes me a good documentary from time to time. There are amazing true stories being told through film and there's certainly an art to pacing and cutting a film to build tension when the basic bones of the story are known to viewers. Documentaries do this and also, of course, bring unknown stories to a much wider audience.

I recently saw the 2016 documentary The Eagle Huntress and I urge you to seek out this film, which is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as being available for streaming on Amazon. Huntress is the story of a young Kazakh girl named Aisholpan who is determined to follow in her father's footsteps and become a champion eagle hunter, a sport traditionally reserved for males. Keep in mind that in her culture, "eagle hunting" doesn't refer to stalking and killing eagles, but rather using female golden eagles to hunt other animals. Think falconry, but instead of a lithe peregrine (maybe 3 pounds and a wingspan of 42 inches), adult golden eagles weigh about 15 pounds and have a wingspan approaching seven feet. This is a tremendous bird, with supremely sharp talons the size of a man's hand. As is common among raptors, the females are larger than the males, and females are exclusively used among eagle hunters. Furthermore, the birds are captured from the wild, a hazardous endeavor, considering the terrain, the fact that eaglets must be captured in the incredibly short window when they are old enough to survive away from the nest, but not yet able to fly, and the mother eagle's understandable reluctance to let humans ransack her nest.

Oh, and did I mention that eagle hunting is done while riding a sturdy steppe pony, often in weather conditions that put the "dead" in "dead of winter"?

Yes - this is not a sport for the weekend warrior.

Eagle hunting is a prestige sport among the people inhabiting the Altai Mountains in the harsh and rocky land where China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Russia meet. Involving massive amounts of patience, strength (you try holding your arm steady while a grown golden eagle uses it as a perch), and discipline, to be a champion eagle hunter is to be a man among men in this society that once unleashed Genghis Khan on the world. There were some elders who actively disapproved of a girl encroaching on this near-sacred territory and Huntress shows not just Aisholpan's determination, but that of her parents as well.

There was some grumbling that the movie involved staged scenes (like that's never been used in a documentary before! See this link), but director Otto Bell has resolutely denied those accusations. A few scenes seem to involve a Go Pro being worn by Aisholpan (and once by an eagle!), but Bell is adamant that the scenes unfolded as they unfolded.

As a protagonist, Aisholpan is completely delightful. Her parents clearly exemplify the universal ideal of wanting your children to achieve their potential, while also worrying that they might be moving too fast for the world in which they live. The film contains any number of thrillingly-beautiful shots and there is a definite story of triumph being told here. And yes, that's Daisy Ridley of the new Star Wars serving as both a producer and the narrator.

Go see it - you'll cheer.

Why Movies Matter

Somehow, a month has gone by without me posting. In that time, I've seen some movies I enjoyed quite a bit, some that got me looking at other films, and a couple that were eminently forgettable. But I don't want to talk about any of those right now. Instead, I want to talk about my "go-to" movies. You've got - at least I imagine you have - your own set of "go-tos." These are the movies that you go back to time and time again. They might be wonderful, classic films (I'm partial to Casablanca), but they're just as likely to be films that just make you belly-laugh (Blazing Saddles is one of those for me), or make you feel like you're a kid again when things were simpler and good was just destined to triumph (the original Star Wars trilogy for me). They might even include a movie that's objectively terrible, but somehow works for you (Teenagers from Outer Space with the MST3K commentary, for instance. "It's a multi-channel mixer. It SAYS so!").

These movies matter. Oh, sure, some of them are significant for historical, political, or artistic reasons, but movies matter for reasons other than that. Modern life is quite often absurd and I know I have days (weeks) in which it seems that not only am I not in control of things, I'm pretty sure there's no one at the switch. On those days, seeing Jake and Elwood hatch a hare-brained scheme to save the orphanage can help me remember that people can think of others before themselves. (And that Illinois Nazis are the worst.)

On other days, it just seems that everyone - including myself - is a walking phony and that hypocrites occupy the seats of power. On those days, I enjoy seeing Inigo Montoya take on the six-fingered man and being reminded that true love is the greatest thing in the world, next to a nice mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.

Sometimes we need reluctant heroes whose clam is being damaged, sometimes we need unearthly blue Divas, and sometimes we need brave men who speak treason fluently - it's all there in the movies.

And those who bring these dreams and visions to life - truly, they are wizards and magicians. How fortunate we are to travel with them, if only for a little while.

Late Winter Jackpot!

Often, February signals the "bottom of the barrel" in the movie world - too late for worthy-of-Oscar-contention (and no, I'm not writing about the live-television mess that might have been the end of PriceWaterhouseCoopers love affair with those Oscar envelopes), but too early for the biff-bam-pop! (sorry, not you guys!) of blockbuster season.

However, this year has been different. Perhaps the universe is trying to atone for the massive, horrible pop culture losses that 2016 brought - although this year has already seen the sudden and unexpected passing of Bill Paxton, who should always be remembered for this charming oddity. A number of well-received, strongly-crafted films have already come out this year, along with, it must be said, a number of "huh?" ones, but them's the breaks, kid.

This is a pleasant change from A Dog's Purpose, a late January release that I didn't blog about, since it was very much "meh." That film, honestly, is cute and heartstring-tugging, but in a way that feels very carefully orchestrated and - truth be told - a bit manipulative.

I'd seen John Wick: Chapter 2 which, while suffering from "mid-trilogy-itis" was still great fun, with strong action sequences, some amazing shots (the Italy catacombs scene! Yikes - women may be at the periphery of this film, but I can respect the movie for not reducing them to mere body parts), and some dry humor. Oh, Keanu, it's good to see you again.

But nothing prepared me for the sheer brilliance and freshness that is Jordan Peele's Get Out. Prior to this, Peele was best-known as one-half of the sometimes-scathing-comedy duo Key & Peele. For a lesser man, that would have been enough, as K&P was one of the sharpest comedy teams ever. Full stop. (Don't take my word on that. Read this. Or this. Or maybe this!) But no - Peele has much more to say and Get Out is his first stop.

Oh, and what a stop it is. I was reminded (just a little) of Blazing Saddles, the Mel Brooks classic that uses comedy to skewer racism. Peele doesn't go that way - racism is certainly front and center here, but Peele, influenced by classics of the horror-thriller genre such as Stepford Wives, Night of the Living Dead, and Rosemary's Baby (by way of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), leaves behind comedy to come at this topic straight on and the results are electric.

No, this isn't a run-of-the-mill horror movie - and thank goodness! No possessed dolls, no creepy children, no monsters slashing just to show the filmmaker's creativity in disassembling the human body. Instead, we get -- but no. I can't tell you that part. This is a film you really need to go see. On the big screen, with as many friends as you can round up. For THIS is the type of film we need to be supporting - in the best tradition of horror movies, it's both original and thought-provoking. It's not a drab rehash of cliches; instead, Get Out acknowledges those tropes and then proceeds to turns them inside out. Think about this when you go see the film -

And then be very, very glad that Peele has at least four more "social thriller" movies up his sleeve.

For more about Get Out, be sure to tune into C19TV's Meet Me at the Movies - available as a streaming show!

Sundance!

Thanks to the generosity and persistence of two friends, who shall be known here as Circuit and Llama, FryDaddy and I spent ten days out in the winter wilds of Utah at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, which is held at a dozen-plus locations over a 40-mile stretch of the Beehive State.

Now, this was heady stuff for us. While we know the general outlines of the rules of civilized behavior, we were uncertain how to act when encountering real live movie stars, especially when nearly running one down in the parking lot of a Whole Foods while he scrambled into the back of his chauffeur-driven, dark-window-tinted Suburban whilst holding a cup of (no doubt fair trade) coffee. (Aside - sorry about that, Woody Harrelson!)

In addition to seeing half a dozen films that will probably never come around here (The Yellow Birds might just be an exception), we rested, played, and ate like high-altitude aristocracy, thanks to the aforementioned Circuit and Llama. (Specifically, we were here.) It was our birthday (no, I'm not using the "royal we," FryDaddy and I actually share the same birthday. Chew on that, if you will.) and we had a feast fit for Christmas (literally!), as well as made-from-scratch chocolate cake. There was snow tubing at a former Olympic site (apparently, it is still considered gauche to equate my tubing experience with being an Olympic athlete, although it was a winter activity in the same site. Snobs.), fire eaters at the Ice Castles, and herds of mule deer twenty feet from the kitchen door. There were also moose and elk, although not that close.

But - the films. Well, even at a premier festival like Sundance, some are good and some are baffling. We saw two films - Marjorie Prime and Last Men in Aleppo - that were award-winners. We saw one that was just a misfire, despite an excellent cast (The Discovery). We saw documentaries that introduce the audience to people whose stories need to be told (Dolores) and we missed several that we would have enjoyed seeing, particularly Walking Out. 

Many of these films will be popping up here and there - The Discovery, for instance, will show up on Netflix in March. Being there in the midst of all of the excitement and wheeling-dealing (remember, many of these films are looking for their fairy godmother distributor) was an experience not to be missed.

Over the years, Sundance has been both a showcase for fresh new talent, as well as a spotlight for established talents going in new directions. Careers have been launched here, including Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone, 2010) and directors like the Coen Brothers (Blood Simple, 1985), Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, 1992) and Christopher Nolan (Memento, 2001). It's also where Heathers (1989) and The Usual Suspects (1995) first found traction. It's exciting to think of being there at the beginning of Something Big and Sundance delivers on that promise.

Conventional Wisdom Gets It Wrong

In many ways, Hollywood is a small town made up of oddly cautious people - at least the few who run studios. Movies are freakishly expensive to make and the public's taste is unpredictable, which explains why 2017 looks like the Year of Sequels and Reboots. Conventional wisdom says to stick with what you know - yeah, maybe the movie itself will stink like three-day-old fish, but it'll make money and really - isn't that better than art?

But a few tricky flicks manage to sneak under the velvet rope reserved for the art house pictures and make it into the mainstream. These are films that need to be supported to further encourage those who hold the purse strings to make more of these gems, so please - seek them out. Tell the theater manager how much you enjoyed them. Ask for more to be booked at your local theater.

Actresses with the real "hidden figures"

The first of these isn't really a "small film," but it's worth talking about in this post for another reason. Hidden Figures is doing gangbusters at the box office, taking in more last weekend than Rogue One, which is simply lovely when you think about it - a thoughtful movie about math made more than the latest from the Star Wars franchise.

The film is solidly-crafted with a number of very, very strong performances - all three female leads (Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monáe, and Octavia Spencer), are each fully capable of carrying the entire film. The story itself is amazing and there is no reason why these women have been overlooked for so long. The sad fact that the film took so long to be made has to do with a subtle form of racism - movies are expensive. Will whites go see a "black movie"? For years, it was impossible to get financing for films that featured non-white actors in lead roles. Too risky, they said.

Then came Tyler Perry.

There's much more I can say about Hidden Figures, but I'll close with this. Seeing the everyday, casual racism make me grind my teeth. There aren't any true villains in this film; no one is using racial slurs or threatening violence. But the grime of a dozen little things every day, including not having access to all the books in the public library, would be enough to make many strong women give up.  To then see how these educated, dignified women dealt with a society that so devalued them -- well, this is a film that'll make you want to cheer and will also make you ask why on Earth haven't we gone back to the moon, especially since we have the trained brains to take us there.

The other film I want to encourage you to seek out is La La Land. Director Damien Chazelle loves jazz; in fact, he trained as a jazz drummer (he also co-wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane, but that's another story). His first big film dealt with jazz (a little film you might remember called Whiplash that went from the Sundance Film Festival to 5 Academy Award nominations) and that music plays a large part in La La Land as well. Basically, it's a musical love story and also a valentine to "old Hollywood." What happens when those two crazy kids (played with vulnerability and heartbreak by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling) finally find each other and their career dreams begin to come true? When it happens, it's good to have tap shoes.

Look - it's astonishing. Drenched in color, filmed in CinemaScope, and unashamedly retro, this film has heart to spare. The film is worth the ticket price for the opening sequence, which looks like a six-minute oner. It's actually three two-minute shots, and that's incredible enough. Something this unusual, this original NEEDS to be supported. Please seek it out.

Last thing - I'm shortly off to Utah to attend several screenings at the Sundance Film Festival. I hope to report on the amazing things I saw when I get back at the end of February. Plus, we'll hopefully have some Babylon 5 news by then as well!

Snow Day Update!

We're SO CLOSE now!!

 Here we are, at the beginning of a Brand New Year, and yet - due to two events that slammed into each other - this post won't be about new films.

There was a convergence of copyediting tasks for Dreams Given Form, the holidays, and then a snowstorm that actually produced about half a foot of snow in my little Southern town that reacts to such events by stripping the bread shelves bare. (Seriously. There is also a milk shortage throughout the county.) So let me update you --

First, let's discuss Dreams Given Form, which covers all 5 seasons of Babylon 5, along with the movies, the spin-off Crusade, the canonical novels, comics, and hard-to-obtain short stories (we really wanted to get the rights to re-print those, but the copyright holder was - shall we say - disinterested in our ideas there). Just to remind you, we're working with ECW Press out of Toronto and they've been fabulous. The entire draft (which is lengthy - we cut where we could, but we're covering WAY more material than has ever been covered in a single printed guide) has been submitted, edited, and now (drumroll!) has been copyedited! We turned that in yesterday with tremendous rejoicing and accompanying exhaustion. This means we're on the home stretch - hopefully, we'll have a cover design to share with you soon, as well as a projected publication date. Please commence cheering - I know we did!

Second, due to the copyediting, we haven't been getting out to catch as many movies for Meet Me at the Movies as we normally would. We hope to remedy that shortly, but the aforementioned snowstorm put a definite crimp in our weekend plans. But look for write-ups on a number of new movies soon as well as our next show of C19TV (or streaming - you can watch us that way too! Just click here to watch us from anywhere in the world!). That next show will focus on the films we're excited about that are being released in 2017 - there are quite a few!

In other news, I'm staving off cabin fever with a stack of classics that I'm watching from home. (This was a snowstorm, as opposed the the "icy mix" mess that brings down power lines, a distinction for which I'm very, very grateful!) Among the films I've watched are:

• Manon of the Spring - the sequel to Jean de Florette. It's so worth watching - and really WATCH the movie; don't just put it on and go about your day.
• Hysteria - the incredible, and mostly true, story of a Victorian doctor who specialized in the treatement of "hysteria" in upper-class women through (ahem) manual manipulation. Really, it's amazing. And very, very funny in parts. Ignoring the concerns of half the population is a very bad idea for society.
• The Bad Seed - 1950s classic adapted from the successful stage play. The "nature or nurture" debate regarding criminals gets a creepy, scary treatment as an angelic-seeming little girl is revealed to be - just wrong.

Several others are slated for today and if the roads continue to be troublesome, I brought home James Clavell's Shogun, which ought to last me until the thaw.

One of the dozen-plus venues for Sundance!

And last thing - we're taking Meet Me at the Movies on the road! That's right - due to the incredible generosity of a couple of very, very dear friends who are in our chosen family, we'll be viewing a few films at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival, which has served as the first showing of any number of films that went on to be ones you know, such as Clerks, Reservoir Dogs, The Usual Suspects, The Blair Witch Project, Winter's Bone and last year's Nat Turner biography The Birth of a Nation. These, of course, are simply a few. To put it simply, Sundance is a big deal and we're thrilled to get to see a bit of it.

Whew! Reading all that, it's been busier than I thought!

Last Thoughts for 2016

What a year it's been! There seem to have been more losses in the film world (not to mention the "real world") than are either usual or warranted. For Babylon 5 fans, the loss of Jerry Doyle hit especially hard, and the fact that he and Garibaldi had so many similarities is a cause for great sadness.

I know that I have not been a faithful correspondent this year and I vow to do better in 2017. This year was just cram-packed with things that took me away from this blog, which is - in the final analysis - a labor of love, rather than a paying gig. And bills (like pipers) must be paid. That being said, Rogue One and Moana - I loved you both and you deserved full write-ups.

However, 2016 also brought the delayed-by-cancer completion of Dreams Given Form. Ensley and I are in the copy-editing phase, having sent off the publication catalog blurb. We still have work to do, but we are firmly in the final stages and Dreams Given Form will be given form in 2017! And really - I cannot say enough good things about ECW's support for this project. There are some publishing houses who would've reacted to my diagnosis by saying, "That's awful! So you can't make the contract deadline. Hmm - well, you get better and we're passing on the book." ECW never wavered in their support and I hope the book sells truckloads to reward them for their loyalty. (Do what you can on that, won't you?)

In the final week of 2016, I hope to see both Fences and Hidden Figures. And how great was it to come out of a store after making a candy cane run to have someone holler at me from a parked car, "Fences. Yeah, Fences. Worth seeing?" When I said I hadn't seen it yet - Meet Me at the Movies doesn't get advance screenings - he cheerfully asked, "Okay, then. What about Rogue One?"

Movies bring people together. So please - watch us on TV19! New episodes every Friday and you can watch us anywhere in the world through streaming! Just go to clevelandcc.edu and select CTV19 at the top of your screen. That'll take you to all the fabulous TV19 shows that stream - we're the first one on the left!

And Merry Christmas to you all! May 2017 be wondrous to all of us!

A Stunner of a Film

In the last several weeks, I've seen a number of films, but haven't gotten around to writing them up. Well, that'll happen sometimes. Suffice it to say that most of what I've seen (from Dr. Strange to Edge of Seventeen) has been okay, but nothing that totally made me glad I'd seen it on the big screen. Other critics have mooned over these while I just -- didn't. Maybe it's end-of-semester doldrums; I don't know.

But there was an exception. Hacksaw Ridge. If you are old enough (do NOT take children to this - it's a "hard R" for graphic war violence, on the Saving Private Ryan opening scene level), go see this, then immediately put it on your "must buy" list.

Heaven knows, I've got my problems with Mel Gibson (one movie I've recently seen and loved was Peter Weir's Gallipoli, which stars a shockingly young Gibson), both in his on and off screen efforts. Let's limit this to onscreen - the man likes violence and has a penchant for lovingly filming horrific violence being done to his characters (Braveheart, I'm looking at you. You, too, Passion of the Christ). What lets him do this is the fact that he knows how to tell a story effectively and in Hacksaw Ridge, he's in top form.

Hacksaw Ridge tells the slightly fictionalized story of Desmond Doss (played so very well by Andrew Garfield), a Seventh-Day Adventist who enlisted during WW2 to become a medic. Due to his faith, he refused to so much as touch a gun, which made basic training very, very difficult. During the lengthy hellscape that was the Battle of Okinawa, Doss showed his courage time and time again as he rescued dozens of wounded men from certain death. In fact, some of his story is left out because the actual facts seem too incredible to believe - I encourage you to click here for the details comparing the movie to "real life." For his efforts, he was awarded the Medal of Honor, which they do not give out for perfect attendance.

In short, Doss held tight to his belief that it was both wrong to kill and imperative that he serve his country during wartime. How to balance those two competing beliefs makes for a compelling story.

Odds and Ends

So sorry! After finishing the draft, I took a little time off from the blog, then there were edits and other work-related tasks, then the house was overtaken by the Dread Specter of Minor Illness. Not content with hosting that jackass, I managed to catch poison ivy while hiking on a gorgeous late October day, then scratched it to a state of infection. Party at my place - I've got steroids and  antibiotics! Woo-hoo!

Rather than detail everything I've watched in the last month, let me just hit a few highlights. There will be more to add to this, since I'm confined to the house for a few days with this low-grade plague which means "movie time" for me.

When they announced a remake of The Magnificent Seven, I wasn't so sure and I was right to be skeptical. Look, it's a decent enough little Western, but geez. Do yourself a real favor and get your hands on Kurosawa's 1954 masterwork Seven Samurai (Toshiro Mifune is a knockout) and watch that. Then get the original Magnificent Seven (Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, among many, many others) from 1960 and watch that. Now don't bother with the remake.

The key to the two source films is how they view the peasant/farmers. The age of the samurai/ gunslinger is passing, but those who work the earth will continue and endure. They might not get the glory, but they win. That core is missing from the remake, which is all action/adventure (and plot holes you could stampede cattle through), but really - there's no heart there. (Which is a shame when you have Ethan Hawke playing a dandy with the unforgettable Cajun name of "Goodnight Robicheaux.") Also, it sometimes shocks me how much more progressive Kurosawa could be with female characters sixty years ago.

Speaking of classics, I indulged in the Bette Davis melodrama Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte which is a must-see for lovers of Southern Gothic. Crumbling mansion, eccentric-to-the-point-of-crazy rich recluse, Spanish moss, grisly murder - AND Olivia de Havilland! We just don't make 'em like this anymore.

For Halloween, I finally saw What We Do in the Shadows, a 2014 New Zealand movie that can best be described as Interview with the Vampire meets The Real World. If you're in the mood for a vampire movie that is far more canny and fun than it has any right to be, this one's for you. Watch the trailer below for a taste.

OK - I should be getting back to a far more regular schedule - thanks for the break!

Biopics!

The "biopic" is an interesting product in the supermarket of film genres. For a biopic (that sounds snazzier than "biographical picture") to be successful, you need a subject who is ultimately likeable, has obstacles to overcome, and is some kind of positive role model. Society doesn't want us to glorify real life bad guys, so we usually either get fictional gangsters or, if they are "real life" bad guys, crime must not pay in the end.

The problem is one of balance. You don't want a purely goody-two-shoes subject, because we want to see our heroes have some kind of flaw that they must struggle to overcome. That makes them somehow easier to relate to. So you get any number of musical geniuses (examples include Johnny Cash, James Brown, and Ray Charles) who put the people who love them through hell before having some sort of epiphany. You also want there to be a struggle of some kind - maybe the subject has to overcome racism (Jackie Robinson, MLK), homophobia (Harvey Milk), mental illness (Howard Hughes) or systemic injustice (N.W.A.).

In the case of Sully, you get Tom Hanks as Capt. Chesley Sullenberger who managed to successfully bring a stricken Airbus down on the frigid Hudson River following multiple bird strikes which took out both of the jet's engines. There was no - repeat, NO - loss of life. Now, my father spent his career as a pilot, first with the Navy, then with Piedmont Airlines, and I remember clearly his admiration for Sully. (The airline Sully flew for was USAirways, which gobbled up Piedmont.) This was not just a difficult thing to do, it was impossible. And yet Sully managed it. The problem with Sully isn't that the story is far-fetched, it's that it isn't "fetched" enough. The moviemakers tried to gin up the drama by making the National Transportation Safety Board ("NTSB") members investigating the crash into the bad guys and it is entirely unnecessary. Events are also compressed to the point of being crushed - NTSB investigations take months and are very painstaking. In Sully, you can be excused for thinking that everything was done in about three weeks. Still, an interesting film, even if it has been "Hollywooded." Clint Eastwood directs, and does an admirable job, if you discount the final song over the credits, which just seems jarring.

Then you have Nina, a biopic starring Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone, a reluctant jazz star who only took to singing to pay for her classical piano studies. From the little western NC town of Tryon, Nina Simone was, for a time in the 60s, more famous for her civil rights stances than her music, and she was plenty famous for her music! Simone's voice was beyond distinctive and I was very much looking forward to this film.

It's a travesty. Awful. Wrong. Misses every single, solitary point. And I will admit that I did something I very rarely do, which is not finish it. The main relationship in the film never existed and Zoe Saldana plays the role in blackface. In 2016. If you must know more details of the problems in this fish wrapper of a movie, click here.

So instead, I watched What Happened, Miss Simone? which is a gorgeous documentary about Nina Simone. The title comes from an essay written by Maya Angelou and that only brushes the tip of the iceberg of what is extraordinary about this performer you've probably never heard of. Do yourself a favor and see this as soon as you can. Nina Simone was complicated, brilliant, self-destructive, used and a user. You won't necessarily like her all the time, but her music came from a place of truth, anger, joy, and tremendous beauty.

Someone else who you won't like all the time is Lyndon Baines Johnson, the "accidental president" who stepped into the Oval Office following the assassination of JFK. Kennedy was the golden boy, all youth and good looks and carefully-constructed image. LBJ, on the other hand, was the old Texas warhorse who had been carefully accumulating markers on Capitol Hill. Suddenly, this rough-edged politician was thrust into the glare of the spotlight and needed to make good on Kennedy's high-flying promises, which included the Civil Rights Act. Maybe only LBJ, with his decades of maneuvering, glad-handing, and not-so-subtle pressure, could have delivered on that, but he went far beyond it. The Voting Rights Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, Head Start - these are but a few of the "Great Society" programs that LBJ championed and, in so doing, transformed America. The escalation of Vietnam marred his legacy, however. Those events occur after the time period covered in All the Way, the film based on the Tony Award-winning play starring Bryan Cranston, tells the story of the first year of the LBJ presidency, going from that dread day in Dallas to LBJ's election a year later. It's powerful moviemaking and well worth seeing. LBJ could be a cast-iron sonofabitch, but politics at that level isn't for the meek. A magnificent supporting cast makes this a must-see, especially during this election cycle.

The Outline Contains the Heart

Sorry - due to a number of converging deadlines, the poor blog has been left unattended for longer than it should have been. Rest assured that I've been writing posts in my head; they just haven't made it to the page!

I'm so far behind that I'm going to break this into two posts. Today, I'll touch on two films that I've seen recently that are well worth seeking out and in a day or two, I'll catch you up on some biopics/documentaries.

 Now that we understand the outline (see what I did there?), let's talk about Kubo and the Two Strings, which you are going to seek out immediately. Kubo comes from the fine folk at Laika, a studio dedicated to producing fine stop-motion animation. Since this particular form of animation is so incredibly time-consuming, Laika has produced only a handful of films in its ten-year existence - Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and now Kubo. While all the films have had their high points, in Kubo, everything comes together. The animation is first-rate and the story - well. Kubo's tale begins, "If you must blink - do it now." It's a story about stories - those we tell others, those we tell ourselves, and those we create to explain things. Featuring Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes, and Matthew McConaughey, Kubo is an astonishing film and certainly the highlight of my summer.

Skip Suicide Squad, which can't figure out which of half a dozen stories it wants to tell, and seek out this absolute gem about family, loss, and the power of tales.

Tom Hanks is a movie star. There's no doubt about that - attaching his name to a project carries a certain cachet and his projects tend to be box office gold. A Hologram for the King is an anomaly, for it's a teensy independent film that you're going to have to dig a little to find (let me help with that - check your local library!) Hologram is worth seeking out just to see the outline of what could have been a fantastic film. Based on a Dave Eggers novel, Hologram tells the story of Alan Clay, a down-on-his-luck salesman who is barely a step above Arthur Miller's Willy Loman. Things aren't going well for Alan - his marriage is dissolving, his career is floundering, leading his daughter to take a semester off from college until her tuition can be worked out, and everything is riding on this sale of high-tech to the Saudi king, who is in no hurry at all to meet with him and his team, who are stuck in a drafty tent in the desert just waiting. And waiting. And waiting. This fish-out-of-water tale is not without its flaws, but it has a certain charm, as well. This is due in part to Hanks' own abilities as an actor, but also to those in smaller roles, such as Alexander Black as Yousef, a free-lance cab driver who shows Alan the topsy-turviness of Saudi society, which boasts lavish wealth along with a regime so repressive women are not allowed to drive and are subject to intense social backlash just for being in a room alone with a man. Outstanding in portraying the down-the-rabbit-hole situations that leads to is Sarita Choudhury as Zahra, a Saudi doctor who shares some of the sorrowful circumstances enveloping Alan. Neither of these are Saudi actors, which seems to be a shame. Then again - it is a repressive regime. This is a quiet film, which might explain its lack of box office appeal. American audiences often don't like "quiet" much. Give it a try, won't you?

"Based on a True Story"

Recently, I've been up to my chin in Season 5 of Babylon 5 for the upcoming Dreams Given Form project. Season 5 is now drafted and will be off to our intrepid editor in the next day or two - Ensley and I always write, then breathe, and then check each other's drafts before we send the first draft off to our editor. Since Season 5 serves as the denouement in the structure of JMS' television novel, it's quieter in places than earlier seasons (and truth be told, there's one storyline I'm not a gigantic fan of, but I'll grudgingly agree that it's there for a solid reason). But it also contains some gut-punches of episodes. So it's been quite a ride. The movies and Crusade are next for me.

But we've had a little down time, and we used it to (of course!) check out movies for the C19TV show we host Meet Me at the Movies. (We're available through streaming, remember! Click here for details!) On top of spending a few mindless evening devouring Rifftrax on Hulu - with their help, I finally made it all the way through the genuinely godawful Plan 9 from Outer Space and we also caught the extraordinary weird early films Maniac and the so-inaccurate-it's-hilarious Reefer Madness - we also caught two first-run films that seem to have nothing in common and then I realized that they both purport to be based on true stories.

And aside from that, Free State of Jones and The Conjuring 2 have nothing - NOTHING - in common. To begin with, I liked Free State.

Set in Mississippi during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period, Free State is the story of Newton Knight, a dirt farmer conscripted into serving as a medic for the Confederacy. The problem is that Knight sees the entire conflict as "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." Like a massive number of Southern soldiers, Knight owns no slaves and doesn't much care for the laws passed by the Confederacy that allowed rich men who did to ride out the war well away from the front lines. He eventually deserts and goes home to his farm, where he discovers that the poor farmers he grew up with are barely scraping by, since most of their crops, hogs, and other livestock are being "requisitioned" by the Confederacy to feed the troops. Few men remain behind, so it's women and thin children being starved and scared. Unable to live quietly - deserters aren't popular with any army - Knight eventually becomes the de facto commander of an army of deserters who might not exactly be Union sympathizers, but they surely hate the Confederacy's high-handedness. That's an attitude that only grows after the war ends and things remain bad, bad, bad.

There's a bit of the "white savior" problem in Free State, and Matthew McConaughey's Knight is terribly enlightened for his time. Then again, I've often said, "Don't get your history from movies." You can easily fact-check Free State (try here or here, for example!) So, take it with a grain of salt. But I quite enjoyed it - even the storyline of the 1948 case of Davis Knight that's interspersed in the film kept my interest. Race is a problem in this country and it has been for a long, long time. That doesn't mean it must always be that way, but Free State gives you an inkling of just how high those walls we're trying to tear down were originally built.

The Conjuring 2, on the other hand, claims to be based on the "true story" of Ed and Lorraine Warren ghost-hunting in England. Similar to the first film - and Annabelle, which tells the story of a creepy haunted doll (the real one is a Raggedy Ann doll, which you just can't make scary) - such claims are hogwash. The Warrens are hucksters and flim-flam artists of the first order and the liberties taken with this film continue that trend. Their Website is laughably bad - misspellings and other errors that I would never let a student get by with adorn its pages, which look to have been designed in the mid-90s. While I'll admit to being open to the idea that some places/things are certainly creepy and that "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," the Warrens are distilled nonsense. (Plus, there's no actual "conjuring," a problem I had with the first movie as well.)

Whatever, scary movies don't have to be true. What really got me about Conjuring 2 was how well it reinforces the notion that horror movies tend to be incredibly conservative in their messages. Think about it - the girl who enjoys sex usually gets killed first (and often in a way that can be read as a substitute for penetration), and the virgin is usually the one to survive. In this film, so much comes down to "single motherhood is bad." (As is showing skin - Lorraine Warren's nightgowns and other costumes are practically Victorian.) The film has some worthy jump scares, but I'm still unsure why it's rated R. Language isn't terrible, no nudity, and no graphic violence. Plenty scary for young ones, though, so be careful on that front.

To sum up - Babylon 5 continues to impress, Rifftrax will cure what ails ya, Free State of Jones will make you re-think a few assumptions about the Civil War, and Conjuring 2 will make you re-think keeping that chair that came with the house.

Under the Sea

The ever-reliable Pixar has released the follow up to 2003's wildly successful Finding Nemo and I'm glad to announce that it's well worth the overpriced popcorn bucket. Finding Dory has Nemo and his daddy Marlin, but focuses the story on Dory, the blue tang fish with a short-term memory problem. (That element, by the way, is played beautifully. Dory isn't quirky; she's disabled by her condition and she's learned a vast array of coping mechanisms that would be excellent conversation-starters with kids.)

It's Pixar (Disney; doesn't the Mouse own everything yet?), so I don't need to tell you that the film is almost unearthly in its beauty. The underwater world gives the artists so much to play with - color, the play of light on plants and sand, wave and water ripples, shafts of sunlight that cut through the top few feet of water, and animals galore. But what's always set Pixar aside for me is not just the beauty of their work; it's the strength of their stories. While Finding Dory isn't Up, which for me continues to be the high-water mark of Pixar's films, it's a solid movie.

Some of that has to do with the vocal talent. In addition to Ellen DeGeneres reprising her role as Dory, you have Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy as Dory's long-lost parents, Albert Brooks as the long-suffering Marlin and Idris Elba as a quite rude sea lion. Modern Family is well represented with Ty Burrell playing a echolocation-challenged beluga whale and Ed O'Neill nearly steals the show as an octopus who desperately wants to get to Cleveland. Oh, and Sigourney Weaver as herself. Go - you'll understand.

Finding Dory is one of those rare gems - a kids' movie that looks great and has enough going on to keep the interest of the adults in the crowd as well.

You could do far worse for summer!

But please - no matter how much your children like the movie, don't buy a blue tang as a pet. Or a clownfish, for that matter. Leave Nemo and Dory to the salt water they belong in.