In the past few weeks, I've watch more movies than usual. These are my (spoiler-free) thoughts.

The Power of the Dog I'm not sure what to say about this one. It was stunning. In every definition of that word. People who complain that 'nothing happens' aren't paying attention. By the end, I felt like I needed to go back and re-watch the whole thing just to take in every nuance. My one complaint was that the costume design made BC look short. I know he's not ridiculously tall, but the costuming did him no favors. On the other hand, as I'm typing this, I wonder if that was the point?

tick, tick, Boom! I was under the mistaken idea that Jonathan Larsen died of AIDS. Perhaps because his work is so strongly associated with the AIDS epidemic? I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, Andrew Garfield was great and moved me to tears. Lin-Manuel Miranda did quite well in his directorial debut (more on him below). The movie is nominated for Best Picture, even if he isn't for director.

Encanto So Lin-Manuel, why is it that every song you write is an automatic earworm, hmmm? Another movie where it could be said that 'nothing happens', but it was a wonderful exploration of family dynamics. The music was outstanding, and coupled with amazing work by the animators, the songs in the movie where such a treat. At the opening narration, I have very strong 100 Years of Solitude vibes, especially with the village isolated by magic and the description of the house. Turns out that was not by accident as Gabriel García Márquez invented that brand of magical realism and the writers intended it (according to TV Tropes) as a shout-out to him.

This is the first time in a quite a few years where I've seen *any* of the films nominated for Best Picture.

And now to the TV show. Holy crap, I'm still thinking about this one.

Arcane: League of Legends Disclaimer - two of my children, one especially, used to be heavily into LoL. And they went on and on about it, but other than the idea that you play in a team of five and there's champions, I didn't know anything about the lore or the plot. I've never played the game. This is just to show that I went into this basically knowing nothing. But that didn't matter. This series is incredible. The plot, the character arcs, the visuals, the music! Imagine Dragons does the theme song and they are actually animated into the show in one episode and in the music video (See the official music video below which is behind a cut because it could be considered slightly spoilery, but on the other hand, it's not anymore spoilery than the opening credits). The world-building is just amazing, and while I realize they had years of video game development to work with, let's just consider how many times there have been attempts to turn video games into movies and the results have been . . . not good (looking at you Assassin's Creed). If you want a piece of media where 'things happen' but has complex character building and motivations, this is it. But it is a tragedy, make not mistake. A Greek tragedy with the elements of hamartia, anagnorisis, and then finally and most tragically, peripeteia. Can't recommend this show enough, but there are no happy endings here.