WAY INTO THE MCU!!!.

So, time for an update on our Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ve been busy!

We have now completed watching 2 seasons of Daredevil and one each of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, and tonight we watched the final chapters of The Defenders, where they all get together. It had some pluses: I was satisfied with the way MCU brought them all together, and enjoyed seeing the secondary characters getting together. I didn’t think the story line quite as lame as some others. I did, in fact, enjoy the series. Oops- guess I’d better back track to where I life off...

So, Season 1of Jessica Jones. Liked it a lot! I thought for a while that the actress wasn’t very good, but the longer I watched, the more obvious it became that the brittle portrayal was great. The storyline- written several years ago-was so on-point for today, it was amazing. And, of course, there was David Tennant. He was incredible. He didn’t snarl, he didn’t wave his fists, he didn’t do anything you would expect from a comic book based villain. He spoke softly most of the time. He was terrifying!!!! So, Jessica we will watch more of.

One of the characters we meet in Jessica Jones season 1 is Luke Cage. He gets his own series after JJ and it was interesting. I think some of the folks, both writers and actors, thought this was a remake of The Wire, and it did NOT come close to that classic. But, it was good. Alfred Woodard was stunning in a role unlike I’ve ever seen her in, but the revelation was Mahershala Ali. He was absolutely evil, and you felt sorry for him, sometimes even when you shouldn’t. 

From LC we moved on to Iron Fist. Some of the actors here were good; sadly, the Iron Fist was not. He was played as a petulant brat who really only had 2 lines: “it’s my fault”, and “I am the Immortal Iron Fist”. We watched all the episodes because it was the final lead-in to the Defenders series, but we were not enthralled. 

So, we are back to where I started- we liked the Defenders series. Spoiler alert!!!
Our characters are left thinking they have defeated the Hand, the evil world wide criminal organization. Well, a couple of the Hand leaders are definitely dead- like Highlander, you can only permanently kill a Hand immortal by chopping off their head- but, here’s the BIG SPOILER, if Daredevil survived the implosion of the skyscraper, then why not Madame Gao and Elektra? So, I’m guessing that the Hand will be back to fight another day. 

Kudos to Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra. She was fabulous! She also looked amazing- her wardrobe was mostly gorgeous. She also looks terrific for her age, and was not afraid of the many, MANY close ups they did on her face. 

So, we are mostly done with the television MCU for a while. We will watch The Punisher, because we were blown away by the actor Jon Bernthal during Daredevil Season 2. This is a character (is he hero or villain???) that really holds your attention, and he totally merited  gaining his own series. I think we are otherwise a little MCU wearied out, and will be waiting for some new series but not yet.

So, that’s my current take on the MCU. Does anyone I know also watch?

Getting into the MCU

My son, a comic book lover, reader, collector and expert, came by it honestly. When I was in grade school I discovered, courtesy of a friend with less restrictive parents, comic books. I loved Superman, and Archie and Veronica, and all the stuff that went with them. LOVED THEM!!!

The rising of Marvel Comics, like a phoenix in the post literate world where even comic books, or as they are now called, “graphic novels”, are literature and only geeks and nerds read them (which was always true, but now they are the only ones who can read at all) has become a phenomenon of this 21st century. Courtesy of movies and TV. Courtesy of some genius who decided to make every available super hero and villain all live in the same time, in the same storyline, in an incredible place that is called  the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

I saw the first Iron Man movie- known to those who follow the MCU as the first movie of phase 1- and really enjoyed it. It was exciting. It was funny. Robert Downey, Jr. was fabulous- better than he had been in many, many years. He’d found his niche- he WAS Tony Starke, the titular Iron Man. The movie went gangbusters at the box office. No one cared what the critics said- and the critics loved it. Raved about it. Huge numbers on Rotten Tomatoes. Four (4!!!) stars from Roger Ebert. And the MCU was off and running. 

That was 10 years ago. The MCU has released lots of movies. It has expanded into television, and gaming, and podcasts, and pretty much every form of entertainment media around. There are live action stories, and cartoons, and the comics still keep going, and Marvel got so big that finally, Disney bought them out. Yes, that same Disney that bought out Lucas Films. Now Star Wars and Marvel are under the same umbrella. WOW!

Marvel is (not) slowly bringing to screens near us superhero after superhero, all with accompanying villains, and friends, and backstories. If you only follow the MCU on film, you have the Avengers to enjoy, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, and coming soon, the Avengers team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy. And a whole bunch of other superheroes you only know about if you are a comic book geek, and have been for a very long time. 

So, back to my own personal family geek, for whom I am responsible, with some help from my darling husband, aka the geek’s father. I introduced the boy to Doctor Who at the age of 2; he was 3 for His first Star Wars movie, and about the same for Indiana Jones. He has a whole schtick he does on this topic-we considered it good parenting. No wimpy purple dinosaurs for our kids. 

He could read when he was 2- part of the reason why we offered him other outlets. I don’t remember when he started with comic books-does any parent?- but once he got started, he devoured them. Still does today, and that brings me the long way round to my topic- my personal journey into the details, the thousands and thousands of details, of the MCU.

Our son has been encouraging us to delve more deeply. I actually recently looked up a chart that tells you the order in which you should watch all the currently available films and TV shows in the MCU. See, Iron Man was movie #1of Phase 1, but if you want to watch the shows so that they occur in the chronological order WITHIN the MCU, well, that’s a bit different. What fascinated me when I saw this chart, is that there are already 43 movies and television shows listed as available. There are actually a few less, because this list breaks out the television shows into partial seasons that occur before, during or after the movies. But, let’s just call it 43. The movies and television shows not yet released, but already in the pipeline, bring that number to 53. Yikes!!! 

This is actually all my own fault. At some point last summer or fall, during a discussion of one of the MCU films, I made the mistake of saying something to the effect of “I’ve been falling behind in keeping my MCU characters and stories straight”. BAD mistake. But, with a good side effect. For Christmas, both his father and I received Movie Pass cards, so we could catch up. So, that part was not bad.

But, we’ve been binging the MCU available on Netflix for a while now and wow! We watched Season 2 of Daredevil - some good actors, interesting storyline but a violence quotient way above my level of tolerance. So I “watch” with an iPad or cross stitch in my lap and frequently in front of my eyes. But I do recommend it- I find the characters interesting, I want to know what happens to them. We have moved next to Jessica Jones- not as violent, more than enough sex, and the incomparable David Tennant, whose only failing is that his character, Killgrave aka the Purple Man, is not on screen nearly enough. Again, interesting storyline, interesting characters. So we will finish season one. Then on to Luke Cage, Iron Fist and the Defenders, where these four (Daredevil, Jessica, Luke and IronFist)  get together for an adventure. And scattered throughout, if we actually follow the chart, will be various seasons of Agents of Shield, the Punisher, The Spider-Man and Thor latest movies, and finally, catching up to #41- the current movie sensation, Black Panther. With Avengers Infinity War arriving on April 27th. Ant Man and the Wasp July 6. Then we get almost a year to breathe before Captain Marvel arrives next March. I get tired and confused just thinking about it. 

So, if it starts to seem that my brain is turning to mush-it’s really not. It’s just there is sooooo much information to keep straight, so many dozens and dozens of characters, so many cross overs to remember, that all the stuff I used to keep in my brain- Physics, Anatomy, what day of the week it is-is getting crowded out and replaced with whether or not Groot and David Tennant will be meeting up in the near future. 

Isn’t it great to be retired???

I am very sad.

I am very sad. We, finally, saw The Last Jedi tonight. I will not spill any spoilers. But...

Clearly the plan for this trilogy was to have Han center the first movie, Luke the second, and Leia the third. And, clearly, that now cannot happen. And that makes me sad. 

I love Star Wars. I love the movies and the universe they created. I love the link with my son that these movies have given us. I love the message of hope that they always give. I love Star Wars. 

I especially always loved Leia. Her’s was an action hero story and a love story. She was a leader.

I would have loved to have seen a Leia centered movie. I would have loved that hers was the final story of this part of Star Wars. I would have loved that she, ultimately, saved the galaxy. 

I was more saddened by Carrie Fisher’s death last year than I ever would have expected. It really hit me in a way that celebrity deaths never do. Before I saw this movie I was sad knowing that she wouldn’t be there to make the last movie. Tonight it has hit me, hard, again. 

Farewell, Princess, we miss you.

What I’m working on, crafty wise

So, I am totally frustrated and aggravated. Blogger/Google won’t let me put pictures into my posts. The Help site is equally totally useless- it doesn’t even offer my problem as a choice. So, I can’t, for now, share all my crafty projects other than verbally. 😡

I have been doing nothing but crochet, and a little loom knitting, since the spring. Crochet was my first textile craft- my Gran taught me the summer I was 10. That was a couple years after my first scrapbook, which I made at 8- so, this crafty thing is not new to me. I decided that I was going to do cross stitching and applique after the first of the year. Then, suddenly and shockingly, my old friend of many years, Martina Rosenberg, died.

 Martina was a member of an “elite” group- a small bunch of crazy ladies who “met” every night in the early days of the Internet in a chat room called #Stitch. We were drawn together by cross stitch and many other types of textile art, and shared not only our stitching, but everything. Today, 20+ years later, we are all still special to one another. 

Martina took the plunge into becoming a Needlework designer. If I showed someone today the cute little penguins that started her career, they’d have a hard time believing that they were the product of the internationally known and loved designer “Chatelaine”. Martina grew into one of the most admired designers in the industry, producing charts that create absolute masterpieces of art in thread. You can see her work at www.chatelaine.de

 So, I will be starting my first large Chatelaine. I’ve been collecting them for years,  ut never got around to actually stitching one. I am starting with her magnificent Hawaii Garden, which is a monster- 26 x 26 inches, with several hundred dollars worth of silks and beads. It will probably take me years, but I am starting now, in memory of Martina. Many of us from Martina’s Facebook Page are doing that, so we will all be sharing our progress.

I also joined a sub-group on one of my Facebook stitching groups, to commit to completing some old WIPs (stitch speak for works in progress). I can’t say here what I’ll be working on, but I am anxious to get these 2projects done. It will be nice to have encouragement and accountability. 

I do have one crochet project to complete before I put the yarn away. My niece is expecting her first child, who will also be the first child in my family for that generation. So, I’m working on a baby Afghan, a 10 point star using a really pretty Caron cake. 

When I finally solve this new picture issue, I’ll share pictures of what I’m working on. Until then, we’ll, you just have to use your imagination. 

New year, new start, all that stuff.

So, I am participating in the mental games of New Year’s this year. It seems that a combination of things, like John’s long recovery, my health issues, and the currently out of control house because of the previous two items, has led me to set my goals for 2018 rather high.

I am going to do better, and hopefully *much* better with FlyLady, my house chart, my Bullet Journal, and my exercise regimen this year. I also need to continue to improve the way I eat, and what I eat. The holidays and my own weak will, have totally destroyed any sense of eating as I should.

I’ve also set a goal of writing here more regularly, like very regularly. So, I’m adding this blog to my habit tracker page in my bullet Journal.

Below is a picture (a bad one, admittedly) of my house chart, aka in FlyLady terms, a routine schedule for my Control Journal. I keep this on the fridge, in a plastic page protector, and use a dry erase marker to check off things as I do them. This was I always have in front of me what I’ve gotten done and what I still need to do. It’s a really big help for me.

Hoping everyone has a wonderful 2018!!!
Teresa

Blogger/Google is making me crazy- I can NOT get the picture to load. Will try again later.