Four movies and a minor odyssey.

“Pete’s Dragon” is has a lot of good material, but the elements are clumsily assembled sugar coated. We don’t regret seeing it, but would never see it again.

“Kubo and the Two Strings” is what happens when several Nipponophiles fill a blender with Japanese mythology, and then extrude the resulting mess into a stop motion movie. It’s surprising good for all of that, and some of it is downright wonderful.

“War Dogs” is a reasonably factual dramatization of a bizarre footnote of the Bush 43 administration. It’s a great deal of fun and extremely creepy by turns. I enjoyed it a great deal.

“Ben Hur” is an epic story that should have choked on its own pomposity a hundred years ago. The current version is big and beautiful and more than a little flat, though most of the problems have been legitimately inherited from the hopelessly lame source material.

In other news… This past weekend was the (third) annual Michigan outing of my brother’s poker club. We went down on Friday evening, stared at each other while it rained on Saturday morning, and then got on with things. I got the canoe in the water for the first time in more than two months, and did a three mile lap of the lake. We ate steak, played poker, and did lake things. In the morning, I was the first one up, so I did most of my packing, and then pulled the canoe back down the beach for another lap of the lake in the morning mist. THAT was a magical experience. Every now and then, it all comes together…

Uncle Hyena