An observation on the occasion of watching Serenity again

and having to leave the house fairly early tomorrow morning to begin the annual trek to Las Vegas with Kyle and friends:  The obsession at the heart of much of Joss Whedon's work is family, generally extended family.  The stories contain plenty of action, but at core heart is always an extended family.  Membership in that family is rarely cheap or easy, and conflict among its members is common, but when is it not in families?

This focus is, I believe, a key part of what makes Whedon's best works so memorable and so compelling.

And now to pack.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

When I was a kid, comic books were magic.  They transported me into worlds in which ordinary people transformed into heroes--and still, thanks to the advent of the Marvel comics of Stan Lee and others, had to cope with ordinary problems.  No matter how powerful those silver-age Marvel heroes became, they still were clearly people.

Comics were my friends and my teachers.

Watching this second Avengers movie, I became for a time a kid again.  I marveled at all the power and the glory of the Avengers' heroics, and I felt for their humanity.  Despite the challenge of managing a huge cast and the need to deliver action on a regular basis, writer/director Joss Whedon never lost sight of how important the humanity of these heroes is.

For my taste, this is the best comic-book movie ever.  Period.

It's also just a darn good movie.

Yeah, it's sometimes silly, its jokes are often cheesy and in a few cases groan-worthy, and its plot follows a predictable arc, but none of that mattered, at least not to me.

As any great comic series does, this movie shows that even the greatest and most powerful of heroes have limits, that they do fail, and that what matters is what they do afterward, when they could choose to give up.

No doubt part of the sentimental side of me comes from my love of comics and all the hours I spent alone reading them, but I make no apologies for any of that.  Comics helped make me a better person.

Earlier tonight, the four-color dreams of my youth blasted onto the screen and let me be young again, and for that I am grateful.

Much Ado About Nothing

According to this article, Joss Whedon used to invite friends to his house to read aloud sections of Shakespeare's works.  One day, he decided to make a movie of one of the plays--quickly, at his house, with his friends.  The product of that decision, 12 days of shooting, and who knows how much editing, was the film, Much Ado About Nothing.

I loved it. 

For the better part of two hours, Whedon and his cast of friends brought Shakespeare's comedy to black-and-white, present-day life, but wisely kept Shakespeare's words.  The film's composition is what makes it.  The black-and-white approach somehow feels just right.  The setting--Whedon's house--seems tailor-made for romantic comedy hijinks, and the cast all appeared to be having great times doing the movie.

Sadly, the weakest bits were the performances, because many of the line readings felt too fast and too simple, but most of the time in the movie that didn't matter, because it kept chugging entertainingly along. 

Though it's far from a flawless film, because of the performances, and though I doubt it'll get an Oscar nod, I recommend this one without reservation.  Check it out before it vanishes.