Various and Sundry Writing

Spock, Chabon, and This Mortal Coil

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

If you’ve checked out any of the anthology series “Short Treks,” you’ll know the arguable standout thus far is the first season’s “Calypso” co-written by Michael Chabon. Chabon, probably better known to many as an award-winning novelist, also wrote this season’s “Q&A” and is the showrunner for the forthcoming Star Trek: Picard. When I saw a behind-the-scenes photo of Chabon and the Vasquez Rocks (a popular Hollywood “exotic” filming location and one very storied for…

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Various and Sundry

Flight of the (Original) Concordes

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

For whatever reason, Big Data decided to show me a Vox video piece from 2016 about the Concorde the other day. It’s part of an article by Phil Edwards. For you young whippersnappers, the Concorde was a quite cool-looking supersonic passenger plane that heralded the future of air travel… until that future disappeared. Later in 2016 (and also in Vox), Brad Plumer noted that several startups and NASA were revisiting supersonic transport. He noted one…

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Various and Sundry

Movie-watching Habits in an On-demand World

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

On the blogs I always make time for is Mark Evanier’s “News from ME.” Today, he wrote something that felt in line with Wednesday’s post about Scorsese and the film industry and, well, it fits me more than it doesn’t. People are always writing to ask me my opinion of the latest blockbuster movie release. I’ll save you the trouble: I probably haven’t seen it and might not for some time. Sometimes, that’s because nothing…

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Various and Sundry

Scorsese Follows up Regarding Marvel

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Last month, I wrote about how accomplished filmmaker Martin Scorsese termed the many, many Marvel films as “not cinema.” His colleague Francis Ford Coppola joined in, going further in calling the films “despicable.” Superhero fandom has not been kind. (Thankfully, some superhero actors keep on being superheroic, so there’s that). On Monday, Martin Scorsese wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about the interview that kicked this all off — and where he…

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Various and Sundry

Ranked Choice Voting comes to a Vote

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Back in 2016, the state of Maine became the first state to use ranked choice voting in all their elections, including the Federal ones. There was something of a silly kerfuffle, as the paradigm shift hit established political power right in the comfort zone. But wait, what is ranked choice voting anyway? Well, here’s a fun video by CGP Grey to illustrate it with animals. As you might have gleaned above, I’m in favor of…

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Various and Sundry

Superheroics Outside the MCU

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

What with Marvel movies on the mind of late, just in case you didn’t see this make the rounds this past week, Chris Evans, aka the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Captain America, does some amazing stuff off-camera. What kind of stuff? How about giving back to his childhood theater? And then there’s the whole personal anecdote about dealing with anxiety and depression. Good casting, Marvel. Good casting.

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Various and Sundry

Coppola Channels Daffy Duck, Finds MCU “Despicable”

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Francis Ford Coppola has joined his colleague Martin Scorsese in dismissing superhero films in general and Marvel in particular, calling them “despicable.” Rosy Cordero covers it in Entertainment Weekly and David Crow has a nice contextual take over at Den of Geek. Sigh. Much like Bugs Bunny, superhero films might not be considered “high art,” but they’re not going away anytime soon. Besides which, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar already covered this: he’s not wrong, but he’s not…

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Various and Sundry

“Comic Book Movies” and “High Art”

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Just last month I was musing about how, even in the face of “nerddom’s” ascension in all aspects of pop culture, people still feel the need to belittle or otherwise distance themselves and their work from science fiction as if the genre itself was wildly radioactive. Now, in the face of a more meditative and gritty look at the origins of Joker –with more than a few homages to Martin Scorsese’s films– Scorsese himself felt…

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