Justice League Review(ish)

I have been debating whether or not I would write about Justice League, and I have been in just enough arguments about it that I have to say something.

I really liked Justice League, and quite honestly I don’t get most of the grumbling about it.  One person I know (I won’t use names to protect the “innocent;” let’s call him Jean-Luc Picard) said that it’s worse than every Marvel movie.  This is just plain absurd.  I assume he meant the MCU, so not the Spider-man and X-Men movies (since it’s definitely better than at least Spider-man 3, Amazing Spider-man 2, X-Men Last Stand, Origins: Wolverine, Days of Futures Past, and Apocalypse).  So I figured I’d come up with a quick summation of how it compares to the MCU movies (yes means JL is better, no means the MCU movie is better):

Iron Man (maybe the best of the MCU, so no)

The Incredible Hulk (yes)

Iron Man 2 (absolutely)

Thor (yes)

Captain America (yes)

The Avengers (it’s pretty close, but slightly no; then again I’m not a huge fan of this movie)

Iron Man 3 (yes)

Thor: The Dark World (definitely)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (solid no)

Guardians of the Galaxy (no)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (easily yes)

Ant-Man (probably not)

Captain America: Civil War (definitely not)

Doctor Strange (no, but close)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (heck yes)

Spider-Man: Homecoming (no)

Thor: Ragnarok (since I saw these within a week, I can definitively say yes.  Many will disagree, but here’s my difference: I feel like MCU movies are now “an episode in a show I like” as someone else said, so I felt coming out of it like “eh, ok;” whereas I came out of JL excited)

At the same time I’m really tired of the Marvel vs. DC thing.  Can’t we like both?  So I’d rather talk about it compared to the other DC movies.  My rank of the newer DC movies, starting with the Nolan Dark Knight trilogy because, even though they aren’t technically part of the new universe, they still kicked off the whole thing and are close in tone.

1.      Wonder Woman

2.      The Dark Knight

3.      Justice League

4.      Batman v. Superman

5.      Batman Begins

6.      Man of Steel

7.      The Dark Knight Rises

8.      Suicide Squad

Obviously I rate it pretty highly.  Why did I like it?  I’ll try to make this brief.

First, the casting was perfect.  I really liked each of the characters and thought the actors portrayed them very well.  Probably the weakest was Cyborg, but even then Ray Fisher was very good.  They worked well together, too.  It seemed as though they were enjoying each other.  Ezra Miller and Jason Momoa were great additions.  As we have already seen, Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot continued to be great as Batman and Wonder Woman.

The action was great.  The first Wonder Woman scene was as good as anything in her movie, and she continues to be the biggest surprise to me (I did not follow WW before BvS, but since she has become one of my favorite superheroes.  The flashback scene was fantastic (spoiler alert: with the Green Lantern we did have the whole crew in the movie!).  The fight scene on Themyscira was great.  And the fight scenes with the whole league together was great to see them fighting together.  I even liked the whole Flash not wanting to fight thing.  It was also great to see Aquaman showing how he can even kick butt on land (and smile the whole time).

I loved how Danny Elfman integrated his Batman and Williams’ Superman themes, plus the Wonder Woman theme making it more orchestral.  One of my biggest complaints with the Nolan trilogy was how they got away from heroic music for a more atmospheric tone, and I hated that they extended that into Man of Steel and BvS.  Elfman has not done much great in the past decade, but this was like riding a bike for him.

Speaking of tone, I am glad that they have moved away from taking it too seriously.  My biggest complaint about Man of Steel was that they made Superman dour.  It was completely against character.  Batman, please go dark, Superman, he is supposed to be hopeful.  They trend started with Wonder Woman and was thankfully kept in Justice League.  Some of the comedy was a little off, but overall it was a welcome change.

There are some others, but I’ll stop there.  To deal with a couple of problems:

There’s the distinct tension between what Zack Snyder did and what Joss Whedon did.  It is unfortunate what happened in real life with Snyder and why he had to step down.  Whedon’s stamp was maybe a little too strong (see my comment about comedy falling flat).  That being said, I hope this is the end of Snyder in the DC movies.  He does some things very well (graphics, action) but these movies need more well-rounded directors.

Ok, Steppenwolf was a bit of a throw away.  I have two counters to that.  First, he was not as bad/forgettable as virtually every Marvel villain not named Loki.  Second, in a way I am glad he took a back seat since the focus was rightly on the league and how they came together.

Some people say it was a bit too rushed, and I slightly agree.  When I heard this was to be the shortest DC movie, I was hopeful.  They all have been a bit too long.  Unfortunately, the two hour mandate from the studio was too restrictive.  There seems to be a number of important scenes, mostly character development, that was cut.  I have heard that they are planning to release a much longer “Snyder-cut,” and I am very interested to see that.  Like BvS, I think it will only help make it better.

I know that there are other issues with the movie people have brought up, but I think they aren’t the big or other people have addressed them better.  Regarding the CGI’ed out mustache, I didn’t really notice it.  Overall, I thought the movie was fun, the actors were great, and they looked like they were having fun (ok, maybe not Affleck, but whatever).  I loved seeing the league working together.  I am very hopeful with what the final scene after the credits seems to be setting up.  I really hope Warner Brothers won’t nuke the whole thing because it’s “a bomb.”

My grade: 8/10

Houston Astros: World Champs

I should be sleeping right now, but I can't.  The Houston Astros have won the World Series.

Let me say that again, the Houston Astros have won the World Series.

Houston Astros: World Champs.

It's doesn't make any sense.  I have been waiting for this moment for 35 years.  I never thought it would happen, but it was a dream.  Now it's reality, and yet it feels more like a dream.

The Houston Astros won the World Series.

It is hard for me to describe what this means to me.  I have often said, and people usually take this as a joke, that baseball was my first love.  It's not really a joke.  And the Astros have always been my team.  Yes, my brother will point out that for a time I was a Mets fan, for reasons I don't really know (probably because he hated them so much when I was young that I had to like them).  And yes, I was a Red Sox fan, roughly from the time we lived there (mid-90s) until around the time of their second World Series when I realized it wasn't fun anymore.  And yes, I was even a fan for a few years in the 90s of the Padres, solely because of my favorite player Ken Caminiti.  But it's always been the Astros.

I recently had someone at the seminary ask me in complete bewilderment how I could like a sports team so much.  My answer was simple yet complex: passion.  I don't like to say this much, or even admit it, but I am a very passionate person.  I tend to go all in, or all out, on things.  And my first passion? The Astros.

And now they are World Champions.

I keep saying that because at some point it will sink in.  I grew up with the mediocre Astros.  I was not quite old enough in 1986, so for me the Astros were the late-80s, early-90s mix of minor talent and hangers-on.  I grew up with the likes of Billy Hatcher and Kevin Bass and Craig Reynolds and Jim Pankovits.  I also grew up with Nolan Ryan, the only answer for a generation of baseball fans in Texas to the question "who is your favorite player?"  We moved away in the mid-90s, so I missed some of those years, but we came back just in time for the longest stretch of sustained success in team history: the late 90s and early 00s.  But they never could get past those annoying Braves, which explains why I still hate them.  Then, in my first year in grad school, they somehow jumped the hurdle and made the World Series.  Of course, they ran into that mix of losers known as the White Sox and were promptly swept.  My only consolation to this day is that it was the closest World Series sweep in history.  They could have, and should have, won every game.  In some ways that made it worse.

When people talk about how amazing it was the Astros got to this place, they often mention the three years in a row of 100 losses and how that was tough to be a fan then.  Certainly it was, but for me the worst years were the years between the World Series and those 100 loss seasons when the team was directionless.  That's when it was really hard to watch.  Sure, they had my favorite player Lance Berkman.  And Roy Oswalt.  And later Hunter Pence.  But you also had to suffer through all of the over-the-hill veterans who commanded a ton of money and were awful.  Those were the Tadahito Iguchi and Carlos Lee and Carlos Pena years.  At least when they decided to scrap the team and rebuild from the bottom up, there was the feeling that they had a plan.  Still, it was hard to watch a glorified AAA team take the field.  But those years brought us this success.  Without it, there is no Carlos Correa, Lance McCullers, Alex Bregman, etc.  Heck, there's probably no Jose Altuve and certainly no Dallas Keuchel, who were given all the chances in the world to grow, chances they would not have had on contending teams.  (I'm not going to sully this celebration by bringing up a certain first baseman who was also given many opportunities and failed miserably each time.)

2015 was a tease.  They weren't ready to be successfully, but they were.  I can still remember sitting in the stands in my first playoff game, the Astros up late on the Royals, everybody sure that they were going to advance.  I still remember the slow bleed that turned into the most crushing loss I have ever witnessed in person.  It still hurts, though slightly less as I type this.

Last year was a disappointment.  But yet, there was still hope for the future, because we were in good hands.

Everybody knows that, thanks to Sports Illustrated, 2017 was supposed to be the year.  Even still, I tried to temper my expectations.  Even after they got off to the best start in franchise history, even as the offense set records and put up numbers not seen since the Ruth and Gehrig Yankees, I knew that in the playoffs, anything can happen.  Rarely does the best team win, it's usually the hottest.  And plus, as everyone kept reminding us, even with Keuchel and McCullers, the Astros still didn't have that "ace." 

We all know about the hurricane.  We know how the front office gave the city hope with the last second trade for Justin Verlander.  They made the playoffs, but still had a mountain to climb.

The Red Sox series brought hope.  Maybe the bats will show up, unlike the Biggio and Bagwell days.

The Yankees series brought a roller coaster of emotions, and huge questions about their performance on the road.  I cannot tell you how many times I knew they would lose, because that's what this franchise did.  And yet, they hung on.

And what can you say about the World Series?  Epic.  Classic.  Heartburn.  Exhaustion.  Deemed over multiple times.  Huge momentum swings, if that's even a thing.  Records shattered.  Loss of sleep.  Crushing loss.  Immense joy.  Numbness.

The Houston Astros are World Champions.

Thank you Jim Crane for being bold, taking a huge chance, and looking beyond immediate success, something many of us can learn from (I'm looking at you, politicians).

Thank you Jeff Luhnow for having a plan and sticking to it, even when fans and others couldn't see it.

Thank you A.J. Hinch, though I doubted you in the ALCS, you figured it out.

Thank you George Springer for reminding me why you're my favorite.

Thank you Jose Altuve, even if you did turn into Bagwell in the World Series.

Thank you Alex Bregman for having the greatest defensive performance in the World Series since Brooks Robinson.

Thank you Carlos Correa, Yuli Gurriel, Brian McCann, and even you Marwin Gonzalez and Josh Reddick.

Thank you Justin Verlander, Dallas Keuchel, Lance McCullers, Charlie Morton, Brad Peacock, et al.  Somehow you outdueled that "unhittable" Dodgers staff.  I will even try to thank you, Ken Giles.

This one is for all those guys who never quite put it together.  Cesar Cedeno, Jose Cruz, Alan Ashby, Glenn Davis, Kevin Bass, Mike Scott, J.R. Richard, Larry Dierker, Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Ken Caminiti, Mike Hampton, Moises Alou, Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, Billy Wagner, Wandy Rodriguez, and a host of others.  You all lit the fire and kept it burning.  The young guns finished the job.

I still cannot believe it.

The Houston Astros have won the World Series.