By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Ways to See
“Look at this,” my wife said.
I see nothing.
“Camera crap everywhere. Lights, lenses, bodies, cards, chargers, boxes …”
So I see many ways …
“Time to retire,” she said.
Then what?
Internet and movie screens to the rescue. I can lie in bed and travel the universe on my laptop or drive seven blocks to the cineplex. Screw interacting with other people swapping coffee shop lies or volunteering to help the needy.
Lit by limits, a path appeared. Just past four e-edition obit pages I found “What to Watch from May to Labor Day.” The Associated Press pays someone to update command prescriptions for we who are lost so they’re evergreen.
With Mother’s Day coming I can watch “The Mother” starring Jennifer Lopez as a mother and assassin, and/or “Hypnotic” starring J.Lo’s fourth hubby Ben Affleck as a detective whose daughter goes missing. Coincidence? You tell me.
May 19 will boast “Fast X,” 10th installment of a franchise slow to die, with a drug lord’s vengeful son trying to take out Vin Diesel’s Dom. Didn’t work the first IX times.
“White Man Can’t Jump” is a remake of the 1992 movie when I still couldn’t. “Sanctuary,” a dark comedy about a dominatrix, makes this spring week a hat trick.
“Victim/Suspect” opens May 26 exploring how law enforcement indicts instead of helping sex assault victims, and Disney’s latest “Little Mermaid” remake.
June 2 busts out all with “The Boogeymen,” Stephen King’s zillionth versions of horrors that come for your kids when you’re not looking; and another “Spiderman” film.
Out of the cobwebs June 9, will be the newest “Transformers” serial; “Strays” with Will Ferrell and Jamie Fox voicing dogs in an unanimated, R-rated epic; and “Daliland” about Salvador Dali who gave painting melting clocks.
Tired of surreal? With sun out in Saugatuck-Douglas I’ll be horny for my camera. My wife hates when I say that but my lust is benign, like everything. That’s the problem. What’s said to be “edgy” entertainment formulaic. Is anything new?
“Patience with light limits would be,” my wife will say. “Keep watching.”
On June 16, former Batmans Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton return for “The Flash,” which is billed as a standalone flick (subject to box-office outcomes). Adding to the thrills: “Extraction 2,” in which Chris Hemsworth’s mercenary Tyler Rake leaves on another no doubt equally deadly mission.
While I gaze out windows the rest of June, I’ll be treated to another “Indiana Jones” movie with Harrison Ford trying to fit the fedora back on his 80-year-old head; “Ruby Gilman: Teenage Kraken” and “Harold and the Purple Crayon.” This one I look forward to.
Who will need fireworks in July with “Insidious: The Red Door,” version five of the thriller fans can’t get out of; “Biophere” in which Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown are the latest last two men on earth; the seventh “Mission Impossible” movie; “Barbie” about the doll (not Dali); and “They Cloned Tyrone,” in which Jamie Fox morphs from rutting dog to mystery caper star.
If I go to Saugatuck’s Venetian Festival, by August I should be back for the next “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” round; “Meg 2: The Trench” with Jason Stratham back fighting sharks; and “Dreamin’ Wild” with Casey Affleck; (Ben had been unavailable. Jamie Fox also?)
Wonder what’s up at the coffee shop? I’ll ask my wife.
“You hate other people.”
No, just you.
“You can’t stick to anything.”
Screw you. Watch me/
I was near the end now. In late August there will be “Blue Beetle,” anothrt DC superhero story; “White Bird: A Wonder Story”; “Landscape with Invisible Hand,” in which teens cook up moneymaking scheme in a world taken over by aliens; and “The Equalizer 3.”
Whew, Labor Day. Time for AP’s next command prescription. “Flip ahead,” said my wife. “Also in this e-edition is What to Watch on TV and the Travel Section telling you where to go.”
You already do, I said. It’s hard to show gratitude without firearms, but she’d hidden what I’d never had. Just the cameras to shoot.
So go find new ways to see.