WISDOM OF THE SAGES
EPISODE VII: SUMMER 2022
Hello People of the World;
I am working to get this one the first day of August. The weather has been cool and hot at times, but hey, that summer for you.
As always: Stay safe. Stay home.
All right, let’s get going:
1:[ This virus really showed how equal we all really are: Of how arrogant we are in the face of the facts before us.
2:[ Movie Review Time:
“Thor: Love and Thunder” directed by Taika Waititi - Now ONE HALF of the TOP REVIEW TEAM (with Jim and Colin in the mix!) went to see the newest Marvel movie about Thor directed by Waititi. While, we did enjoy his "Thor Ragnarok" very much, this one felt a little too over-paced. Still fun. The goats were a scream. ahem. To me, it felt as if things were happening one after the other with no real time spent trying to connect the story to the emotional ground it covers.
Thor, (You Know who plays him) after quickly recovering from his antics in "Infinity War" and "Endgame" moves back to status-quo as a hunky superhero. But now, he feels lonely. Enter, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who returns to his life, suddenly endowed with the power of Thor and grants Thor one last chance at love. Because, you know, she FINALLY reached his level in becoming a god.
Christian Bale, enters the story as Gorr the God Butcher, whose vendetta against the gods is the only emotional truth we are given. Lots of the Waititi humor, the Asgardian Gang reunites for another adventure, where we need to save gods. yay.
All in all, it was a fun movie. The final twist I did not see coming but creates a sort of emotional arc for Thor.
RECOMMEND
“Nope” directed by Jordan Peele - Something's a foot down at the Haywood Ranch, as OJ (Daniel Kayuula) and his sister Emmie (Keke Pamler) must try to discover the secret of what killed their father (Keith David) six month's prior. Also connected to this mystery are strange disappearances, a defunct 90's sitcom "accident" and a Fry's Electronics store. One-third of the TOP REVIEW TEAM went to see Jordan Peele's latest.
This is probably Peele's most mainstream movie to date. It was tense and fun. The scares are plentiful and the characters are great. It has no obvious social commentary his first two film did. But I never had time to look deeper into it. I have come to learn, and it seems obvious now that it is about the treatment of African-Americans in the Hollywood system.
I have some spoiler-y thoughts about his filmmaking path but don't want to share them here for spoiling the movie. But it tracks, at least in my head.
One of the best films I have seen so far. Though I admit, my theater-going movie experiences have been few. I think this is only the ninth film I saw in the theater. One year, not long ago, I saw over forty movies. Oh well. This makes the TOP TEN by default. Until, I see more films in the theater or new ones streaming, and I think they are better than this. I stand by the Top Ten placement.
Go see this and judge for yourself, armed with my opinion.
HIGH RECOMMENDATION - TOP TEN of 2022
3:[ Was streaming "Dark Winds" when my Bonnie came home from work. It wasn't holding attention, so I went and chatted with her for a few minutes. Came back and it wasn't on the TV anymore. I guess it was so boring it shut itself off....
4:[ Man, what a month for public transportation travel here in Chicago. I have had multiple stops with fights and police activity, on the same trip. There was an “explosion” on the Red Line. The latest was unauthorized personnel on the track. Both on the Purple line, same trip – stopped at Chicago, power cut, for 30-minutes. Then, as we approached Jarvis, the power was cut again for the same reason. Now every time I step on the train, I am nervous about what’s going to happen next….
5:[ I started a YouTube Shorts series on my book collection in follow-up to the series I did earlier. I capped that series at 100 episodes. Pretty proud of that. To produce 100 short videos about books, to me anyway, is an accomplishment to be proud of…
6:[ Re-starting HAMLET. I am going to re-start pre-production on my debut feature film very soon. I am re-editing the 40-minute reel to submit to festivals rather than hosting my own online screenings. But I am in a quandary of if I should play Hamlet again or recast the role. I’ve gain a ton of weight during the quarantine. I applied for a Chicago Filmmakers grant but didn’t get it, because they didn’t get it, I assume. I’ll keep pressing on. We can’t have “Reservation Dogs”, “Ruthaford Falls” and “Dark Winds” be our ONLY representation…
7:[ I am going to start working on a couple of short narrative films. Here is what I want to do in the short term:
“One: A Spoken Word” Part One Redux + Part Two
“Citizen Floyd: A Ten in Ten Documentary (On consumerism and no contract phones)
“Mother’s Watch: The Imposition of Gaze and How We Still Tokenize Setsuko Hara”
“Metaphor Become Real: On Indigenous Representation in ‘Bone Tomahawk’ and the View of The Savage”
“The Future: A Story of Blue Woman” which is a sci-fi, post-apathetic story featuring a character I created to avoid using my Arapaho myth as a token in my own filmmaking….
8:[ We cannot go back to “Normal” all after this: this normal of how cavalier we have become in the shadow of the on-going COVID Pandemic….
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10:[ I went and saw “Where We Belong” by Madeline Sayet, story of identity, language revitalization, storytelling, and Shakespeare. Thanks to Marty at the Goodman Theater for getting us the seats. It was a learning experience….
That is it for this month.
Got it a day late! Huzzah! We’ll see if I can get back on track this month.
As always, I invite you to comment, correct, or contradict anything I write here. I am open to a critical debate. Thanks for taking the time to check out what I write here and I will see you in a month.
Until next time, remember “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”
2022 Ernest M Whiteman III
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