Picoreview: Civil War

July 2, 2025

Picoreview: Civil War: This is probably my second favorite MCU film*, in part because Evans & RDJ do SUCH A DAMN GOOD JOB in their roles. The scene where Tony brings those pens to the table is SO GOOD. They’re really powerful performances from both actors, and without their convictions being so believable, the story wouldn’t work at all. And it not only builds on Steve’s isolation and his desperation for a connection (connections; there’s the whole Peggy thread of these two movies, too) to the world as he knew…

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pretending to be someone who sews

July 1, 2025

In my ongoing quest to pretend I’m someone who actually sews, I bought some fabric and a couple of patterns today. One will work just fine, but my plan was to do the other, which looked really quick and easy, first. Buuuuuuuut the very quick and easy looking one didn’t have the outer envelope for the pattern, so I wasn’t absolutely sure what kind of fabric I should use. I thought probably a knit. Somewhat unfortunately for me, upon the advice of the woman at the shop, I did not…

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Picoreview: Aftern^H^H^H^H Age of Ultron

June 28, 2025

Picoreview: Afternoon of Ultron: Doing these picoreviews has had me reading the original ones I did when some of these movies came out, and I was kinder to Age of Ultron when it came out than I was in memory and am on rewatching. I mean, I’ve seen it at least three times post-theatre, and it was apparently satisfying at the time, but ultimately remains a pretty bad movie, tbh. It has a number of good PARTS, which I think is what made me like it oriignally, but from more…

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on hairdressing

June 27, 2025

I went for a haircut this weekend, my second haircut with this woman, whom I found by accosting some other random woman on the street and asking who did her hair because she had a great pixie cut and I was desperate. (The accosted woman was bewildered by the whole situation, but gave me the info.) Anyway, Sylvia, she’s Eastern European and very good and isn’t afraid to cut short hair. I mentioned this at the beginning of the appointment – that the really good short haircuts I’d gotten in…

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bad cover art

June 24, 2025

This morning I saw an indie pub cover that’s so bad it makes me want to cry (no, I’m not going to tell you what it is). Everything about is bad. There are at least 4 focal point elements, meaning there are none. The colors are garish. The text treatment is illegible. The background is too busy. There’s so much decent pre-made cover art (ie, art that indie cover artist/designers have done for the fun of it/to sell on spec rather than because they’re making it specifically for a hired…

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