Robs takes on Media and Entertainment

 I am reading Faulkner again. I think the last time I read his work was while I was getting my undergraduate. Texas A&M curriculum for engineers at that time included a fair amount of liberal arts elective requirements (including language studies). I took several anthropology and literature courses. They were relatively easy ways to hold my GPA up against my mediocre calculus grades. I think I read "The Bear" (yes kids, a story by that name was around for a long time before Hulu existed). I don't think I read any of his novels. This time I am reading a collection short stories.  As a young man, I did not appreciate how beautiful and compelling his writing is. I could not appreciate the feelings of emotional intensity. Even though I really like(d) my own 50-cent words and subjective parenthetical language, I think I struggled with his prose. Today I am mesmerized by his story telling. These stories are sad, and lovely, and moving - in ways 20 year old Robert could not ...

As we work our way through Merry Cage-mas, an argument could be made that "Con Air" is a fever dream Nick Cage's character has just before dying during that opening bar fight. 1) Monica Potter has abs of steel and is supposedly pregnant with their daughter. She is so not pregnant looking. So much so that, I do not know how they would have been far enough along to ultrasound the embryo. Additionally, he has just walked off a fishing boat into the bar she works at after getting home from deployment - when was the child conceived? 2) Nick Cage is immediately arrested and  sentenced to seven years in prison. During the film he writes & received fully formed letters from this child. In them, he talks about all the things they used to do with each other. When did these things happen?  3) Upon making his way into the titular 'Con Air' plane, Nick Cage has a shrink wrapped bunny rabbit doll he bought for this little girl as a present. Where did that come from? The pri...

 Last 2 movies of 2024. I took a long plane flight and got to watch two movies I had not seen in the mobile format the cinematographer intended. Here are my alternate title suggestions -  * "Deadpool & Wolverine" could have been titled "Lampshade: the movie" * "Borderlands" was "The A-team in space" or perhaps to be fair to the actual A-team, "An assemblage of characters across various aesthetics who think they are in different movies". D&W spent a little over 2 hours telling me it was funny because it was trying to be funny on purpose. Don't let it be forgotten that this is funny. When it wasn't doing that, it was informing me that it was a multiverse movie and that I shouldn't care for those. It was enjoyable, but I would have liked it 50% more if it had dropped 30 minutes of educating me regarding what it was.  As for the B-team, it was fetch quest city. You could tell you were on different a quest because of the ...