Happy First Day of Halloween!!

Greetings!

Yes, big surprise that I'm into the Halloween season I suppose. The weather might start cooling off, cheap horror movie DVDs start showing up everywhere, etc....

Unfortunately, it's also when we start getting busy over in the "real world" so this is another round-up of random bits and bobs.

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

A fitting book for the season, I'm almost finished with MEDDLING KIDS by Edgar Cantero. I know, posting about something I haven't finished with is risky. It could possibly go completely off the rails at the end. But hey, the ride has been good so far.

The set-up just may sound a bit familiar - back in the day four kids and a dog spent their summers solving mysteries and foiling plots that at least on occasion involved people dressing up as monsters in schemes to get real estate/find treasure/and so forth. And yes, they employed elaborate traps to bring the villains to justice. One year, they solved their biggest case and then...they stopped doing it. They went their separate ways and maybe their lives never quite took the paths they expected. Thirteen years later, they accept that there was more going on during that last case than they admitted to themselves and so set out to really solve the thing.

I'm really digging Cantero's writing style as much as the story itself. And while the set-up is pure Scooby-Doo, the character's aren't just thinly disguised retreads of Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby. 

As I said, I'm not quite done - my Kindle tells me I've got 30% left - but I'm pretty confident I'll be happy with where it goes from here.

Wonder Woman Blu-Ray

WONDER WOMAN has hit home video. I'm not a big fan of the 'Snyder-verse' version of the DC Universe. I'm old-fashioned and prefer my heroes to be bright, shining beacons of hope instead of the mopey, muted-color squad of psychos Snyder seems to think they all are. But I really liked Gal Gadot as Diana in BATMAN V. SUPERMAN and had hopes for this one.

I really enjoyed it. I loved Diana's hopefulness and determination to the right thing because it was right, full stop. No whining. No traumatic backstory to get past or make up for. Just a good person doing good. 

As much as origin stories, in general, tend to all sound the same and bog down the storytelling, I'd have gladly spent more time with those bad-ass Amazons on that island. Seriously, Robin (the "Princess Bride" herself) Wright stole every scene she was in. A movie about her character, Antiope, would set fine with me.

Looking forward to the next one.

(EDIT - just as I finished this up I see an article stating the DC has officially pulled away from doing a whole interconnected movie universe and crediting at least part of the reason for the success of WONDER WOMAN. Click here for the story.)

The Orville

I won't be catching the new Star Trek series until it hits Netflix or something similar, but Seth MacFarlane's THE ORVILLE is showing where I can see it.

I'm still somewhat on the fence with it. As much as I love the idea of a "Trek-like" series that lets the characters not take themselves too seriously, the humor right now seems to be trying to find a tone to settle in too. It's not "Family Guy in Space" which is great because I stopped watching that ages ago, but it still seems like he's wanting to do a straight Trek show but then remembers he has to throw a dick or fart joke in there somewhere. The episodes I've seen have been progressively better so hopefully they'll find their balance and it'll be something I can stick with.

And....it's off to work for me, I suppose. 

Until next week....