Weekly Update - 5/21/25

What a strange ass week this one's been. I like to think of myself as mostly doing this full-time now, but every so often, the Old Folks call with a short deadline, a big problem and a sack full of cash, so I tend to take those gigs (especially if they're from folks I enjoyed working with the first time around) just because they keep the coffers stocked and the emergency funds flush. Sunday at 3:45 a.m. (which, contrary to popular belief, is NOT a time I'm usually awoke) my phone rang, and there's only about a dozen people whose numbers ring through. This one in particular is someone who's usually working on the other side of the world, and they needed some very quick help. I'd literally gone to bed less than two hours ago, but sure, fuck it. A friend's a friend. They explained to me the problem, told me they had a day to solve it, and wanted me to solve it for them. (This is, by the way, the most common kind of 'help' I end up providing - not line edits or dialogue, but 'how can I get to here from here without scouting a new location or building a new set.')

I agreed to the work, but only if I could get a good night's sleep about it. So I went back to sleep and that evening, I spent a good number of hours both before and after the concert I was attending (OK GO at The Fillmore, who set what had to the record for most confetti I've ever seen used at a concert, beating previous record holders They Might Be Giants), stopping along the way for a brief photoshoot of the intersection described in Neon Stonehenge. Here's a photo from that location, for those of you who were wondering...

That put me a bit behind on other stuff, especially since I knew this chapter of Before The Storm I was going to be introducing the Kazshi, the story's equivalent of Star Wars' lightsabers, or Krull's Glaive, and I wanted them to be both iconic but also highly customizable. If someone wants to take a stab at fan art, I can even give you notes on early versions, although I tried to be plenty descriptive in the text.

That said, I'll be writing tomorrow and Sunday as I work to try and get more things completed. I was especially happy with how the new Before The Storm came out. I've been having a lot of fun with the universe building for that, and I'm starting to wonder if I should make it more regular. I'll give it some thought.

I'm also probably going to have to hasten the writing laptop migration from the one I'm on to the new one sooner than expected, as the space bar has stopped being reliable, and that's slowing me down some as well. I sort of knew this was coming - I have the replacement laptop lined up, it's just transferring everything across that's a bitch.

And finally, I went and saw Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning last night, and I'm gonna try and give you a short, spoilerfree review here. It was okay, but it's certainly the weakest of the McQuarrie films. It's both too short, too long and doesn't have what I would call a satisfactory ending. It's too short in that there are whole swaths of the film that felt more like they were supposed to be a long-form TV series, and we were just getting the highlights. It's too short in that a couple of the action sequences go on way too long (most notably the underwater one) and they keep bumping up the tension meter for ridiculous escalation reasons. (Have we ever seen an underwater wreck in cinema that wasn't precariously perched on the edge of a cliff, about to fall?) The ending sets up the one thing everyone agrees they shouldn't do - and then leaves it at that basically being done? I don't know... Some parts of it were great. There's a call back to a much earlier film that I completely didn't see coming. (There's also some very odd attempts to retcon all the various films into one big plan, which has got to be the flimsiest pretense I've ever seen. No lies, hold any of it up to daylight and it'll fall apart.) Hannah Waddingham does a great American accent, Tramell Tillman sets you up to expect one kind of military stereotype and then completely yanks the rug out from under it in a great way. But in terms of economy of time, I think the film misuses its nearly 3 hour run time in almost criminal fashion. And McQuarrie knows how to do better than this! This is his fourth, and Rogue Nation (his first) would've been a great place to end. Fallout (his second) would've also been a great place to end. His last one had fun parts in it, but was clearly only half a movie, and this second half feels like it wanted to be two movies stuffed into one. And honestly? It's not a good place to end the franchise. There's plenty of fun peppered into The Final Reckoning, but as a franchise closer? This is a weak-ass bunt, and not a grand slam home run. And thankfully, nobody's ever said this is their last one, because this would be a rather sour note to end on. Were I a film critic, this is a B-/C+, if I'm being generous, and a C- if I'm being honest. I remember during part of the too-long-by-triple underwater sequence thinking I could run out, take a leak and come back, and I wouldn't have missed a damn thing, and might've even liked the movie more... (Seriously, I understand the laws of probability get suspended in these movies, but this whole sequence would be like a coin coming up tails ten times in a row against you, before coming up ten times in a row in your favor. It's... I can only suspend so much disbelief, gang.) I'm off to the see the live action Lilo & Stitch remake tonight. Let's hope it fares better.

As always here's the upcoming public schedule for the next month or so.: 5/24 - CARP 12 & 13 (finale); 5/31 -QT2:32, Neon Stonehenge 11; 6/7 - QTUM 6; 6/14, MG21, QT2:33; 6/21 - MG 22 (finale), QTPT22.

Do something nice for yourself this weekend. You've earned it.