Also, please do not “like” or “share” this via social media. (I have friends who are weird enough to do that. Either they have a strange sense of humor, or they’re just really, really supportive of my writing.)
This is just me trying to figure out an apparent malfunction on my tiny, nerdy little corner of the Internet.
Hey … if the headline says “Please ignore,” then why have you read this far?
As though you hadn’t guessed, I absolutely loved Netflix’ second season of “Daredevil.” It might have had a problem with its concluding Elektra storyline, but I’d still rate it a perfect 10 — I just can’t give a lower rating to a season that made me cheer out loud while watching it.
I really loved it that much. I’ve started to think of this gritty little corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as my own “Star Wars” — these are characters that I grew up with, and to whom I’ve developed an emotional attachment, however strange or childlike that may seem to non-fans. If adults can cheer during the opening crawl of “The Force Awakens,” then I can cheer “KICK THEIR ASSES, MATT!!” when the ninjas of “The Hand” noiselessly and acrobatically swarm Daredevil.
It’s just a superb show. On one level, it’s a good character drama and legal thriller that can easily please a modern mainstream television audience. On another level, one of those characters just happens to be a low-level hero in the Marvel Comics universe.
The show succeeds nicely on the first level and goddam brilliantly at the second.The martial arts and costuming are perfect. John Bernthal is perfectly cast as The Punisher. It’s a cliche, and something I’ve written here before, as well, but I’ll say it again anyway — Netflix succeeded in bringing some of my favorite comic book characters from page to screen.
My only minor criticism is that the Elektra storyline was muddled, and understandably confusing for those who haven’t read the source material. (And if memory serves, it wasn’t all that easily understood in the original comics.)
Now bring on Bullseye!!
The poster for The CW’s new “Containment” seems like a ripoff for some exceptional poster art for 2007’s outstanding horror movie, “28 Weeks Later.” That is just one of a few offhand references that the TV pilot seems to make to the film. At one point, a panicked character blurts out the phrase “zombie apocalypse,” even though that has nothing to do with the plot.
Whatever. Judging from the pilot, the new sci-fi thriller seems like a more or less average outing. It isn’t bad, exactly, but it’s got plenty of room to grow. Right now it seems like a undistinguished, mainstream television treatment of “Contagion” (2011). I’d give it a 6 out of 10.
And, hey … just to add to the confusion, last year there was a really good British independent sci-fi-thriller, also entitled “Containment,” that also portrays a fatal disease outbreak. I reviewed it here at the blog. It almost seems like The CW is adopting the “mockbuster” strategy of capitalizing on viewers’ confusion of their show with superior properties.
Oh, well.
Here are just a few more shots of Washington, D.C. and the National Gallery of Art this past weekend. As I’ve lamented already, most of my photos did not turn out, so I am stealing many from my more talented friend. If any of the shots below appeal to you, rest assured that they are not mine.
I’ve come to understand that I simply do not enjoy Monet and Van Gogh as other people do. Their appeal is lost on me entirely.
But I damn sure enjoy Vermeer and Rembrandt. Even to an utterly unschooled like my own, the Dutch Masters’ method of rendering light was amazing. I told my friend that it almost seemed that sections of these paintings had light coming in from behind them … as though there were a hidden bulb beneath the canvas.
And I might have loved the incredible, sweeping, ethereal, dreamlike-but-detailed vistas of the American paintings even more.
That last shot should be recognizable to Civil War buffs, or even just those who can appreciate great war films. It’s Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ 1897 memorial to Robert Gould Shaw, who filmgoers might remember being portrayed by Matthew Broderick in “Glory” (1989). It’s huge. It actually is an immense sculpture that takes up an entire wall, and is much larger than you might understand from its inclusion during the closing credits of the film.
I am precisely the sort of weirdo who enjoys “people watching” too. And it’s easy at the Gallery, as visitors are so often occupied entirely by their objects of interest.
That gangly looking guy embarrassing himself in the video you see is me at the Canadian Embassy. (Do we really need embassies with Canada? We’re so chill.) The sly Canucks have actually incorporated an … echo chamber into the building’s superstructure. I know that sounds nuts, but it’s true. If you stand withing that domed structure, it sounds as though every word you speak is amplified down at you. It’s actually really incredible.
I was lucky enough to be treated by a rather generous friend to dinner afterward at La Belga. It is a fantastic Belgian restaurant in the gentrified Eastern Market area above the Capitol, and it’s modeled after traditional European sidewalk cafes.
Good lord! The “Mussels Diabolique” there were just … too damn good to describe. They were the best mussels I’d ever had. And that says a lot from a Long Island kid who grew up on seafood, working or chowing down in seaside restaurants. Really.
Go there. You’ll thank me for the recommendation:
If you ever feel like taking a gander at Disney’s old “Silly Symphonies,” they’re available on Youtube. A lot of them are trippy, and a couple depict some pretty dark subjects.
Here’s one I just shared with a friend.
Last night’s post-apocalyptic dream: Last Man on Earth.
No zombies, no nukes, just literally the last man on earth, as everyone else has vanished. A weeping willow, a waning sun, and a great red barn on the opposite bank of a slow moving river, like rippling black glass.
And not a camera to click.
Seriously, I can no longer leave home without my camera. There is a veritable County-wide Inter-species Conference commencing right now at a single segment of my local creek. (We need to give that creek a name at some point.)
I saw a beaver for the very first time, and it was kind of a big deal to me, and if you crack the obvious joke, you’re a nine-year-old. Beavers look a hell of a lot like groundhogs, as it turns out, except they’re flat-tailed swimmers, of course, and they’re slimmer and far more graceful. A coffee-colored mama duck had marshaled forth her squabbling, fluttering, barely ordered brood on the opposite side. They seemed as interested in the beaver as I was. (Field trip?)
I endeavored to follow the beaver down the narrow waterway, trying to channel Meriwether Lewis without spilling the 7-Eleven “Double Gulp” Dr. Pepper that my doctor keeps telling me I shouldn’t have. (Donald Trump has inspired me to drink them to honor the police and firemen at 7-Eleven.)
A couple of still, solitary, cranky-looking snapper turtles were sunning themselves, too. They launched themselves like lightning onto the water at the sound of my approaching footsteps. A pissed-off bullfrog did the same, only very awkwardly, and while cursing me out with a “GROAK!” (The preceding term is an example of onomatopoeia, by the way. This is the only meaningful advice I will ever render to you as a writer.)
All of this was maybe 200 feet from that spot where I saw deer and heron commiserating a week ago. I am precisely the kind of guy who gets lost in the woods, so I’m no naturalist. (Seriously, that $+I+ happened when I went to New York in January, in the very same woods I grew up in.) But even I am starting to understand that diverse animals will be drawn to wetlands.
I might just finally figure out my camera’s zoom function and stake that whole area out, on a lark, at some point before Virginia gets too hot. If anything interesting transpires, I’ll post it here.
Donald Trump is an @$$+073.
What kind of name is “Meriwether,” anyway? That guy must have caught some heat in gradeschool.
I think the sugar and caffeine in this “Double Gulp” is doing a number on me.
I’m relaxing with the “Twin Peaks” soundtrack this Sunday afternoon; it was a favorite for Kathleen Nolan.
Once upon a time, when she was preparing a quite difficult teenager in Lake-of-the Woods, VA, for college, it was one of the few things that we could agree on. (Another that year was Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” on cassette tape.)
Click here:
“Twin Peaks” Soundtrack on Youtube
These were among some finds at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. yesterday — they were taken by a very dear friend and my traveling companion. She is not only extremely versed in art, but is also a far better photographer than me. (Very few of my pictures turned out well.)
This Internet thingy, however, allows me to easily abscond with her work and then share it with you. (I’ll run my inferior shots tomorrow.)
Operation Overlord (the Normandy Landings), D-Day, 6 June 1944. Men of the 13/18 Hussars on board LCT’s (Landing Craft Tanks) heading towards the Normandy beaches.
Photo credit: By Mapham J (Sgt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 