drwex | So THAT was a weekend

A weekend of many plans, almost all of which went well.

We managed to miss the fact that this past weekend was Somerville Open Studios until the very last minute at which point we made the semi-strategic decision that we were going to do our own plans and, sadly, miss it for the first time in many years.

Said plans were largely based around the fact that

badlittlemonkey and

rintrahroars and their children decided to host a "May the Fourth Be With You" Star Wars movie marathon and seemed to have no problem with the notion that we'd dump our kids off and be somewhere else for, really, most of the day. All praise to them!

The kids... dealt, mostly. Thing 1 is not a big movie fan and was fatigued going into Friday. We figured he wouldn't last for the late movie and he indeed pooped out. But he was game to try again on Saturday, which meant that we dropped them off Saturday afternoon and were... free!

Looking at the calendar it seemed like if we didn't see The Avengers this weekend there wasn't likely to be another good time to do it approximately forever. So we traded in our SOS walk for a matinee of the film, followed by using a Groupon for Upper Crust pizza and a trip to the comic/games store that is also on Moody St.

The movie... rocked. In reviewing the lead-up movies I've had problems with them (except Iron Man 1). Avengers I had a couple of minor quibbles with but on reflection those were OK. I can't say enough good about this movie. It felt like Whedon had studied all the previous films and picked up on just the right elements from each. The dialog is full of the snappy exchanges you expect. The film has big scenes and fights and chases like you want from superheroes but it stays honest on a personal level. it feels like Whedon took everything he learned from all those years of doing ensemble-cast TV shows and squeezed it down to two hours of pure essence.

I particularly have to praise how he handled the Black Widow character both in writing and direction. In one sense she's the most outclassed member of the ensemble, but she has skills and she uses her skills. She does what she does, and she does it well. Whedon gets both praise and flack for how he's managed his female characters in shows like Buffy, Dollhouse, and Firefly. Whoever it was that saw what he'd done and decided to trust him with this huge-budget production is justifiably crowing today.
(If you want to drop a spoiler in comments, please label it as spoiler.)

The players got through the first phase of the final monster battle at the culmination of their current adventure arc. One seriously near-death experience and one coulda-been-dead experience. They were definitely on the ropes and sweating it, which is how I like things. The good guys ought to win, provided they are smart and tough and do their best. Parallels with Saturday are yours to draw. I had fun and the players did as well.

Then we skin-of-our-teeth managed to kill Heroic Ultraxion, which means zip to most of you but was damned fun for Pygment and me.