Every night, I have a ritual…ritual perhaps is too strong a word. A series of actions, then. A series of actions before getting into bed to sit down and write these daily blogs. I floss my teeth, brush them with my Sonicare, put on my fluoride paste, and wash off my mouthguard (so I don’t grind my teeth at night). Then I walk over to the Coops who is invariably in his kennel waiting for his nighttime treat. I give it to him, and then I walk over to bed, get into it, and take off my glasses…
As soon as I reach for my iPad to start writing the day’s entry, however, I realize that I should have kept my glasses on. Otherwise, I literally can’t see what I’m typing.
One would think that after doing this for almost a year now (good god, has it been that long already? Well, not quite yet), I would *remember* to keep them on until after the blog-writing. But, I never do. I *always* take them off as I’m getting into bed, and then have to put them on again to write.
We watched Guardians of the Galaxy tonight at the Arclight down the street with Ali and her mom Julianna. It was really nice to see both of them, and we were all tepidly excited for the movie. It turned out the excitement was justified.
“Fun” seems to be the biggest theme for me this summer movie season, and this movie was “fun!” And funny. The jokes were good, the acting was well-cast and well-performed, the action set-pieces were also fun…it was just a FUN movie.
Yes, there were entire scenes of exposition, and there were absolutely some forced moments and some character underdevelopment…BUT…any time this movie was getting too dangerously close to taking something unjustifiably super-serious…there was a punchline waiting just around the corner.
And the punchlines were solid. Loved the dated 80s references our main character kept bringing up. Loved the character decisions on the supporting cast of the guardians, like the guy who’s entirely literal, or even Bradley Cooper as the sassy raccoon. How can you NOT love a sassy raccoon who’s obsessed with explosives and can talk. Even the little bit parts in the movie hit the right tenor of humor.
The exposition was kind of unavoidable. There was a LOT to keep track of if you weren’t familiar with the source material, which is pretty much everyone. And yet, they just barreled through it and moved on to the next punchline, or explosion, etc. They did what they had to do.
My only criticism, really, is that I wish we’d been able to have more character time. The plot was pretty relentless, and there wasn’t a ton of room for scenes of just living with our new-found group of misfits. BUT…that is really a testament to how well I actually thought they did in making character decisions that made this group interesting to watch. And they definitely were. They still *absolutely* created a group that you rooted for, and that’s a huge deal without a doubt. They accomplished it well enough that I wanted more.
I also have to say that the visual style was AMAZING on this movie. The colors were incredible. Vibrant, but without being cartoony or fake. The backgrounds had a softened quality to the colors that I can only describe as a layman as being misty. But, really, it seemed like every single shot in the movie was filled with color from all across the spectrum. It was really, really lovely, and I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Very impressive.
Finally, I also have to take a step back and marvel at this all-inclusive universe that Marvel has created (see what I did there?). The way they’re tying in these disparate stories is actually quite excited when it could be SOOOO forced and stupid. Each movie series absolutely stands on its own, but they’re still able to tie in these avengers-type over-arching stories without them seeming completely forced or out of place. Seriously. That’s really not easy to do.
So yeah…go see it. You will enjoy yourself.
That’s all for tonight. It’s another long day tomorrow 😛 see you on the flip!