Review: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Ninth grade English sucked for me, which is quite the feat considering I grew up to become an English teacher. My teacher, however, looked like the Penguin (not the animal...Oswald Cobblepot...Batman's villain?) and attempted to bilk me out of hundreds of points that I earned because...well, I'm not quite sure. Anyway, one of the things I remember is reading a short story called "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Ninth grade seemed to be the year for amazing short stories like this one, along with "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Most Dangerous Game." This one stuck with me though, so much that I kept reading stories by the author, James Thurber, long after. Ben Stiller's film adaptation of "Walter Mitty" is lovely, in a word, and highlights everything beautiful about the story while writing different love letters to so many other things and expounding on this tiny world that Thurber created.

The title character is, to say the least, a nothing. He works at Life Magazine in the basement, archiving and keeping track of photos. For those of you who don't know, or have forgotten, "Life" was heavily built on photos. The articles were secondary. The magazine was all about going to the places people couldn't go and showing them what they would never have a chance to see, all while showing us that life, no matter who or where you are, is similar.

The movie begins with the news that Life is closing its doors and publishing its last issue. This coincides with the fact that Walter can't seem to catch the e-dating eye of his crush and co-worker, played subtly and wonderfully by Kristen Wiig, and being sent the final shots for Life by a famous photographer, played by Sean Penn. When the photographer talks up a certain frame for the final issue's cover, Walter can't find it, sending him on the crux of the film: a hyper-fantasized journey to find his courage and discover what Life...and life...is really about.

What start out as fantastic sequences that are clearly all part of Walter's life eventually become blurry as to their authenticity. Is he really doing these things? Did he really travel all over the world hunting for this missing photo? Or, as we see in the beginning, is it just Walter "zoning out?"

In the end, the movie is so beautiful, I couldn't care less. This film looks amazing, says so much in such a small package and will have you wondering what your life is truly like. Check it out if you can.

Review: "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD"

I was predisposed to like "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD" (which, for the purposes of actually getting this written in the next century shall be referred to as SHIELD henceforth). I'm a Marvel zombie from a long way back and have loved nearly everything they've done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Iron Man back in 2009. It wasn't a hard sell: a weekly show featuring perhaps one of the most underrated heroes in the universe, Agent Phil Coulson, dealing with the paranormal and super every week with a ragtag group of misfits? I'm in.

However, the show went past those expectations and fell short of them in varying degrees, all in all making for a fantastic experience that probably could have been a much shorter season. However, I'm not sure it should have been.

Let me explain. This review has become as complicated as Phil Coulson's past.

The idea behind SHIELD, as I understood it, was to expand the universe past the movie screen and give us something every week in the same milieu but without directly referencing The Avengers or whatever. And, it did that. In the first episode, we dealt with Extremis technology (see "Iron Man 3") and the events of the Attack on New York (see everything since the Avengers). We even had cameos form Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill and SLJ himself as the one and only Cdr. Nick Fury.

But, after the initial novelty wore off, we were left with a bunch of characters that, while I cared about them, didn't seem to really have a purpose...until the last seven episodes of the season. Calling it "Uprising" the show seemed to flip everything on it's head. And the show then got really...really good.

But, the problem is there were about a dozen episodes that, while exciting and full of geek fodder, had nothing of substance. Episodes that could link to the Marvel Universe, Cinematic or not, were exciting but all of the threads that had been set up in the beginnings of the show took a long time to get resolution.

Maybe that's a condition of the times that we live in that we can't wait for a show to develop and grow without feeling that it owes us something. And, I'm not saying it does or doesn't. What I am saying, however, is that SHIELD ended strong. I don't want to give anything away, but it ended in a way that makes me excited for the future, not dreading another season of meandering plots that will only matter at the very end. It's almost as if SHIELD has earned that trust that, no matter where they lead me, it will be worth it in the end.

Let's just hope they remember that next season.

Summer = Segments

It's been over a year since I posted something and I feel like a giant tool because of it. However, I have a bit of a renewed focus and, even though this summer is poised to be a productive and crazy one, just know that I'm planning on posting more here. Reviews, ideas, randomness...everything you've come to expect from me over the years. So, stick with me and hopefully I can follow through.

Thanks

Phil