It's been such a crazy month I was just going to throw out one of my pre-written blogs. (I save up, just as I did with my newspaper column, in case of crazy months.) But instead here are a few quick things for whoever might happen to be reading blogs in the middle of summer.
Emily and I have only gone out to the movies twice this year, most recently to see Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny.
Yes, Harrison Ford gets the CGI treatment for a flashback; yes, it's really well done; no, it's not distracting unless you make it be. Yes, there are Nazis and time travel, although they don't combine in the way I expected. Yes, you can tell Ford is too old for this crap in "modern" times, which in this case is 1969; in fact, they hang a lantern on it more than once.
Jones has come across hard times due to a family tragedy. He's retiring from a teaching job in a small New York college (Hunter College, no relation), and doesn't have much to look forward until his goddaughter shows up, looking for a piece of ancient tech made by the Greek inventor Archimedes himself. Unfortunately, a whole bunch of people with guns are right on her heels.
And that's all I'll say about the plot, other than that, like any good Indiana Jones movie, there's a macguffin, and the Nazis want it. We get great action sequences, exotic locations, callbacks to earlier movies, and cameos from some favorite characters. It also gets murky from time to time, both in plot and when the action is a little too fast and/or a little too dark.
Is it worth a movie ticket? Yes. I'd put it as the third best Indiana Jones movie, after the original and the other one with Nazis.
Meanwhile the apparently last Guardians of the Galaxy movie also came out, and was awesome on the big screen. (Okay, so that picture's from a previous one.) But be warned: It gets dark, mostly because it includes the origin story of Rocket Raccoon, and it is NOT a fun origin story.
I won't go into detail, because it's been out long enough now that you've probably either seen it or decided not to, but it's one of the better Marvel movies of recent years and well worth seeing in the theater. You might tear up once or twice, though, so bring a tissue or wait until it's on video.
Otherwise I just have my usual stuff. Coming Attractions remains a free ebook on Smashwords until the end of the month:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914 The new versions of Storm Chaser and Storm Squalls are on Amazon, and hopefully other locations soon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mark-R-Hunter/author/B0058CL6OO That author interview is still up on a Canvas Rebel:
https://canvasrebel.com/meet-mark-r-hunter/ And I miss the dog. Here's hoping Canada gets rain--but not too much--and the rest of summer goes more smoothly for everyone.
Not too much rain!