Election Day

I have jitters but I also have a bunch of work to catch up on so I don't get obsessed with election watching and reading political sites all day. If you haven't already voted, please vote today.

It's been cold and rainy the last few days in Texas, with clouds blocking the sun all day. Time to get out my fall/winter gear I guess.

I did finish Agatha All Along, and was mostly satisfied with the ending, except that we got no backstory about Agatha and Rio's first meeting. I also didn't like Agatha's line about Nicky's death, saying she lets people lie about Nicky "Because the truth is too awful." That misled us to think that the truth was worse than the evil rumors that Agatha traded her son for the Darkhold. Instead we find out that the boy lived on stolen time for six years and then died peacefully in his sleep. Nicky's death may have been emotionally awful for his mother, but how is it "too awful"? Awful enough for her to ignore people spreading lies that she killed her baby or traded him for power? What mother would let people spread such dark lies instead of saying, "I loved that boy! I hated losing him!" But I guess she never got close to other people over the years, basically killing all covens that she tricked with the ballad, so there was no friend to share the truth with. Maybe it was easier to let the lies increase her villainous reputation. Well, I hope we'll see Billy reunite with Tommy soon, maybe in Visionquest starring the white Vision.

Speaking of Vision, Paul Bettany is in Tom Hank's new movie Here. I saw it last week and mostly enjoyed it. It's apparently based on a comic, where individual panels on the screen show glimpses of the same location, but in different time periods. The movie uses this technique to let us view multiple storylines in the same space. Paul Bettany is Al Young, the father of Tom Hank's character Richard. Their family are the main characters, though we get scenes of other people in the same space, such as a Native American couple, Benjamin Franklin's estranged family, an inventor and his girlfriend, and a Black family with a housekeeper who dies during the pandemic. Normally I don't like nonlinear storytelling, but this was well done with interesting juxtapositions between events in different timelines.

Al Young is a WWII veteran buying the house on the GI Bill in 1945. He and Rose are initially a happy couple, but due to PTSD and job disappointments, Al becomes more angry and drunk through the years. He doesn't become physically abusive that we can see, but the marriage becomes strained and he's been unfaithful offscreen. (At one point he does reveal to his son that Rose left him for a short while to go to New York and live life before she came back, presumably for the kids.) Al at least is devoted enough to Rose that he throws out his alcohol after she suffers a stroke, and he mourns her after she dies. Richard meanwhile also has career disappointments, having to give up art to become a salesman and support his family. His wife Margaret also gave up a career and hates having to live in his parents' house, and feels trapped there. Watching these couples age over the years and go through hardships was touching to me. I wish the movie was doing better, but I think it was released too close to Halloween rather than family moviegoing time closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas. On the other hand, if you want to get away from election coverage, Here is a nice movie to while away some time.