Oscars, Beards, and a Peek at Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse

It’s far from Spring, but the haphazard weather has teased it enough that I trimmed my beard this morning. I’ve never been happy with my beard when given full rein; I want to look like Brian Blessed, but instead, I look like a crazed Jack Elam.

Perception vs. Reality

I’ve been watching more movies lately, but not ones with either of them. Sarah likes to watch all the Oscar nominees, and we’re well on our way. Of the Best Picture nominees, I’ve seen: Barbie, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, The Holdovers, and American Fiction. Of those, I like Past Lives the best. The rest are good, but are all very much Hollywood confections. The characters in some of the dramas are as realistic as the ones in the Barbie movie.

Past Lives is about two childhood friends growing up in Seoul, Na Young and Hae Sung, who are on the cusp of becoming sweethearts when Na Young and her family emigrate to the United States. They meet again twelve years later, and again in twelve more, and the three parts of the film—at the milestone ages of twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six—capture their growth and how their friendship has remained important, even when they haven’t spoken in years. It’s a movie for adults. Adult choices are made. I’d watch another story with the characters, to see how their relationship changes.

For Best Animated Film, I liked The Boy and the Heron and Nimona very much, but new movies haven’t excited me much lately. None of them take any chances or are daring in any way, but that’s expected. I have higher hopes for Poor Things in this regard.

I gave a longer write-up of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, if you are interested. Nimona is much more of a Disney-style feature, which Disney famously disowned. Set in a techno-medieval future of a city founded after Gloreth the knight defeated a dragon-kaiju of living darkness, the city is “protected” by walls and cyber-knights. Two are boyfriends Ballister and Ambrosius, whose gay relationship is not secret, disdained, or toxic. Ballister is the first commoner to become a knight, and his ceremony is sabotaged in the worst way possible, turning him into a fugitive. On the run, he meets Nimona, a shapeshifter who takes the form of a young girl. She’s violent, snarky, and embraces low-key villainy, and doesn’t want to clear his name so much as team up with him. Over eighty minutes, laughs are had, secrets are revealed, and a lot of fun is experienced. It’s far from perfect, but it takes the Disney/Pixar formula and does something interesting with it.

But it’s still very much a predictable story, as so many now are. Safe and familiar.

I started watching The Complete Agnès Varda again, and I enjoyed Jane B. par Agnès V., and Kung-Fu Master! which she made in 1988, after the success of Vagabond. They aren’t as great as that, or One Sings, the Other Doesn’t, but they are at least interesting. So many aren’t. Varda is very naturalistic, and often uses untrained actors, so her films feel like real life, no matter how fantastical.

Speaking of fantastical, Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse should be ready for pre-order soon. Beautiful cover art is in progress, and I am delighted to be working with an artist and friend who loves the book. It shows in all her illustrations. The book will be printed in color to showcase them! Here’s one of my favorites, and the synopsis of the book:

What if on the worst day of your life, you also learned that all the folklore and myths you love were real?

Vyx just wants to draw and be accepted for who they are—until their parents are dragged away by the government. Vyx embarks on a rescue mission, journeying through a rapidly changing world where avaricious dragons attack the post office, talking foxes beg for disco fries, and government officials can freeze families into blocks of ice.

Vyx will outsmart diabolical homeroom teachers and ravenous creatures from folklore, discover a magical faerie world beneath us, and even sail with living constellations of the night sky in order to restore their family...and maybe even fix the world.

I won’t claim that Vyx’s story is completely new and unpredictable; they follow the hero’s journey, but make alliances and difficult choices rather than slaying dragons (or evil homeroom teachers.) And sometimes they flip ICE the double bird.

Coming soon…