Finished reading: Stardust by Neil Gaiman 📚

A fun cat-and-mouse-and-bigger-cat adventure. It took me a little while to settle into the rhythm of it. Things just happen, supernatural stuff hidden in the prose, and you kind of think, “Did I just read that?” Just like Tristran (a name unpronounceable in my mind) might have thought, “Did I just see that?” But once you learn to roll with it and let it wash over you it’s wonderful. The ending is a bit anticlimactic, but I think that’s ok. It reads more like a legend than a blockbuster so that works in its favor, I think.

Good morning. 🌅

I’m glad I waited this long until I saw this movie. I can see that if I saw it nearly three years ago when it was released I would have been disappointed. As it is though I’m just motivated to see the second part in theaters.

It seems like this is a story that really benefits from such a long first act. I haven’t read the book, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a lot of fictional politics. Which is a very difficult thing to pull off in a movie (*cough*The Phantom Menace*cough*trade negotiations*cough*). In a book you can stop, re-read, and think about it, whereas a movie just chugs along whether you’re with it or not.

That being said, I think this movie pulled it off well, at the expense of runtime. Which only makes it necessary to split it into two films. Now that I know fully the stakes at play, and can have several days to ponder it all, I can go into Part 2 a little more confident in understanding it all.

The action here was good, and the worm scenes intense. Things felt tactile and believable (with the exception of one shot that went a little too MCU.) Incredible shot composition.

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CAW! SKRAW! (Welcome to Pleasure Point, traveler!)

Hard to rate when I’m still waiting for the conclusion! I think the opening scene was interesting, but then the two exposition dump scenes that followed were actually shockingly boring. Usually these movies are great at the “show, don’t tell” thing. Or at least “show while telling”. But instead we have a three minute scene of two photographs, a cassette player, and Tom Cruise moving his eyes.

There are a few other moments like that in the hours that follow (and I have my own dislikes of certain plotting decisions or editing choices), but crucially, the action is still as exciting as ever. And that’s really what we’re all here for, right? I’ve enjoyed the way the McQuarrie movies has melded the intrigue and cat-and-mouse nature of De Palma’s original film with the pure spectacle extravaganza of Brad Bird’s. It hits a really nice balance for me.

This one might be a little low on the spectacle, but it’s one of two parts. Gotta save the biggest stuff for last. I expect to read a news story about Tom Cruise falling off of a satellite or something this year.

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I need to watch this again when I’m not so tired. This captures so well that giddy feeling of new love. Or old love maybe, in this case.

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Some photos from a stroll yesterday evening.