And we’re back! 🙂

Hey, everyone! Happy New Year!

If I can just say: I love my family! 🙂 Really, I do! I wouldn’t trade one moment with them for anything! 😀

…buuuut, it does kind of push “pause” on the whole blogging thing, ya know? 😉

My apologies to everyone for not posting the last couple weeks. Because, of course, you’re lives just absolutely revolve around my little musings, don’t they? Haha! 😛

In all seriousness, if anyone was wondering at my silence, no, I was not dead in a ditch (“wooooo, I am the ghost of Merlin, come back from the grave to blog for all eternity, wooooo!”), I was just hanging with my mother, sister, and their respective attached families, especially of the niece and nephew variety. There was a great deal of tickling involved in the latter. 🙂

Now resumes normal life, and normal blogging, and the little break gave me a moment to think and decide a few small things. So, a couple of small announcements:

1) Between the holiday visits and other things, I have a small backlog of reviews to write and post, so you may expect a little flurry of them fairly soon.

2) I will be adding an index site to my review section, for faster, easier navigation among my commentaries. I may duplicate this in other sections as well.

3) With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild soon to be released, I will be partaking in a new-ish Challenge that I’ve actually been meaning to for awhile: the Zelda Challenge!

4) Lastly, I’ve also decided, lest my unrestrained interest in new movies turn into unrestrained expenditures of time and money at the nearest theater, to limit the number of features I see in theaters. Others, if I see them, will have to wait until they come out for home viewing and purchase. It’s not really much of a restraint, if I’m honest, but I’ve decided to average my theater-going adventures to once per month. So, twelve times a year. This, of course, makes the competition for those dozen slots rather fierce. All the more so since the superhero franchises are rolling them out practically in bulk, and most of those are included automatically. 😉

So, this is subject to change, but for the moment, my twelve slots for 2017 stand thus:

Logan
I am not missing Hugh Jackman’s last appearance as Wolverine, the ending of an age, what looks to be the most emotional X-Men movie yet, and the first live action debut of X-23. 🙂

Beauty and the Beast
Among the live action Disney remakes, this is somewhat unique. I’m not sure this one will actually add anything of note or value to the animated classic, but I do intend to find out.

Power Rangers
This is easily the most likely one to be knocked out of its slot and open it up for a different movie. It’s yet another memory of our childhood rebooted for the big screen. My hopes are not terribly high. But, as I had a slot open, my curiosity kind of drove me to include it.

March is a rather busy month with all three of these. Now moving on to May:

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2
…do I really need to explain this one? 😉

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
The fifth, and possibly final, of Captain Jack Sparrow’s adventures on the high seas. It comes a decade and a half after the beginning of the franchise, and six years after the previous installment. I have enjoyed these movies, whatever any critic may say. I am not missing this one! 🙂

So, a double-header in May, followed in June by two more installments into previously-existing franchises.

Wonder Woman
Suicide Squad bought a great deal of patience from me regarding the DCEU, and the amazon’s adventures on the big screen look to be the best addition yet. While that may not be particularly impressive in relative terms, I still have high hopes for this to simply be a good, enjoyable movie.

Cars 3
Outside Power Rangers, this one is the next most likely to be removed from its slot. Nothing against Pixar, but they turned Cars 2 in an extended version of the Mater shorts, so if they just try rehashing the plot of the first Cars movie, it’s gonna fall flat. But, unless something else comes up, then I will likely give this a good chance.

Finally, rounding out our summer in early July (meaning I can hunker down by my AC machine as much as possible until things start cooling off again outside) we have a most anticipated Marvel film.

Spider-Man: Homecoming
A rather perfect title, I’d say, with Marvel managing to bring Spidey back into the cinematic fold, albeit shared with Sony. This looks to be pretty exciting, hilarious, and yet another unique addition to the MCU. (DC, take note of the value of variety!) My one qualm at the moment is… come on! Mary Jane is supposed to be a redhead! A redhead! (Hey, I’m allowed to be proud of my coloration… or what’s left of it, at least…)

Then we have a gap, lasting all the way to October, yay.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle
I really liked the first Kingsman. I really hope they manage to build on and continue the story in this sequel. Very high expectations to meet. I am not missing this one! 🙂

Then November hits us twice again.

Thor: Ragnarok
…duh! 😛

Justice League
I’m going to be honest, with Zack Snyder directing this one, my hopes are not high. After Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, not to mention his take on Watchmen, I am going to see this one purely so I do not miss whatever story development there might be for the overall DCEU. I cannot wait for Snyder’s turn to be over, and it is my fervent hope that DC kicks him to the curb the moment all contractual obligations have been met. The man is a walking disaster for the superhero genre. “We want Snyder! We want Snyder! We want Snyder… OUT!”

And finally, wrapping up the year in December, the big one…

Star Wars: Episode VIII
Not. Missing. This one. 😀

So… what do you think?