How many iPads can I buy?

Hey, let's talk about iPads a little.  

I tried out the 12" Pro in January - drawing on it was fun and reading comics was great, but some of the regular uses of my previous device, the iPad Mini 2, (e.g. reading books) felt silly. It was big and expensive and I wasn't sure how to fit it into my life, so I took it back. Keeping it would have meant choosing between a) accepting that I now own two iPads, or b) having to sell my Mini, which doesn't have much resale value, and it's only selling point is that it does pretty much everything I want. 

I told myself that if only there were a 'regular' size iPad that supported Pencil, that would solve my dilemma. And now there is. And I've got one. And using the Pencil is fun. But in every other way, it doesn't feel any different, any better than my Mini. I mean, I know that officially the Pro is a better machine than this couple-years-old Mini, but in a week of use I haven't found a good way to prove it. 

I've been listening to Cortex episodes on the subject of multiple iPads, where the broad justification is 'it's not weird to own multiple Macs for different uses.' And I do own a couple of Macs, but unlike Myke or Grey or even MacSparky, I don't see myself transitioning away from them because my line of work is in video editing and animating. The tools I need aren't on the iPad, so my use cases are mostly consumptive, and keeping two around that I swap depending on whether the thing I'm reading has pictures feels extravagant at best. (Plus, if I were doing that, it should really be the full Pro and the Mini.)

This might be the foothold for a larger conversation about Apple, but I think what I'm really chasing after is the feeling of unwrapping something new and amazing. After one week with the new Pro, I wanted to feel like it's crazy that I even found the Mini usable before, like it'd be impossible to go back. Like moving from iPad 1 to 3 and saying "oh, that's what that's supposed to be!" Maybe we're at a hardware plateau, but I don't think I've had that little charge of excitement in a while.

The laptop I'm writing this on is circa 2013, (I just plain wouldn't consider an iPad for this. Seems like needless hardship.) as is my Mac Pro, and there are no replacements on the market that feel in any way tempting. Nor does either computer feel slow or lacking in a way that makes me want to seek out a replacement. Even on the iOS front, I think my iPhone 5 was the best phone I've owned, and I maybe would've been happier if I'd stuck it out until the 6SE rolled around.

The path of least resistance is to just keep this 9.7" Pro past the return window, and all week long I've been trying to figure out if it's worthwhile. That probably means that it's not. If it were my first iPad, it would be incredible. 

It's tough to keep demanding more magic.

#2,262: Hardcore Henry

Kind of a rough week for movies...

Welcome to Me - ★★½☆☆
This one slipped by last year. I guess it's like a somewhat better Joy? Lower key, but less absurd.

The Boss - ★★★☆☆
I imagine that I don't like comedies very much, so maybe it's the saving grace of Moviepass that we just go and see everything and more often than not, movies are better than they look. Probably my favorite Melissa McCarthy movie to date? Here's hoping that changes this summer.

The Thread - ★½☆☆☆
Like an unskilled-and-unaware onion.

Hardcore Henry ★☆☆☆☆
I do like movies. Sometimes, like with The Boss for example, they can be intriguingly misrepresented by their own trailers. Sometimes I think it's interesting that the target audience for movie advertising doesn't seem to be people that like movies. Anyway, if you can believe it, Hardcore Henry is not as good as it looks. 

#2,258: The Barkley Marathons

Demolition - ★★½☆☆
I was expecting Nightcrawler II, but that's not this. This character has feelings somewhere. Man, Nightcrawler was good, huh? You guys remember Nightcrawler?

My Big Fat Greek Wedding - ★★☆☆☆
I thought this was a perfectly satisfactory movie, a well made indie, and I can imagine why it was a success, but it wasn't really for me.

Eye in the Sky - ★★★☆☆
This movie is like a visual depiction of an argument, with both sides ever heightening their 'oh yeah? well what if--' examples.
- Oh yeah? Well drones can't see inside!
- Oh yeah? Well what if you looked inside with a separate set of neat little drones?
- Oh yeah? Well what if you just can't ever know it's safe because innocent people could get in the way after launch?
- Oh yeah?

The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young - ★★★★½
As I doc I found this enjoyable because it does a good job of teaching me a lot about a thing I'd never heard of but find interesting. That's the ideal documentary.

As a movie, I found this really refreshing because normally when I watch a movie, I never stop believing that there's some small percent chance that maybe one day I could be some kind of a spy, or an ace detective, or Spider-Man, or whatever, but there's no part of me that thinks that I could ever complete this race. I'm always trying to learn a few things that I can use just in case I get stuck in the past, but there's no part of me in which it even occurs to me that maybe I might try to do this.

#2,254: Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice

10 Cloverfield Lane - ★★★★★ 
This was a delight. It's like a free movie - no months and years of the internet dissecting everything before release, and a budget low enough that it's basically free to the studio too. And then it's good! A huge score, puzzles for the characters and for the audience, a winning cast, and one of those nice tight scripts that uses everything.

Living in Oblivion - ★★★☆☆
Maybe not the right choice to watch this on my day off from a film shoot; it's too real. Made me chuckle that so little has changed in 20 years, right down to the lingo.

Zootopia - ★★½☆☆
I hope it's the same person on every one of these movies that pipes up with "hey, I know! We can show a whole city! You know, it'll be just like a real city, except with all these specifics about [movie topic]! In fact, I'll go get started on some sweeping city shots while you guys figure out the story for the next three years."

I had some little complaints, but they can mostly be swept under the rug by remembering it's a kids' movie. Still, too many callbacks.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - ★★★½☆
I was nervous about this one, but you know what? It was fine. I gave Age of Ultron more stars at the jump because I was feeling more invested in those characters at the time, but with a little distance I'd say BvS is about as good.

Both have some exciting stuff and some stuff you wish they'd cut and some confusing stuff that's supposed to make sense on the rewatch that you do five years from now after a bunch of other movies get made.

This is probably the best on-screen depiction of Batman in action, and thank heavens, it's skillful, experienced, professional Batman instead of Year One. Obviously everybody's rumbling about the idea of Batman with a gun. Batman would never kill? Is there a Batman movie where he doesn't kill? Isn't whether or not Batman would take a life the central arc of his character in the previously-best Batman movie, The Dark Knight? (A struggle against which he loses, by the by.) I think the Batman we see here, maybe he might not kill again, maybe he's pulled up from a wretched place by these events, remembering he's not alone out there.

I also liked how Lex is actually a supervillain this time around. No complicated real estate swindle, just a maniac going about his maniacal goals. It's weird how popular opinion seems to default to thinking filmmakers make mistakes more often than unconventional choices. (To wit: Man From U.N.C.L.E. shows us that Henry Cavill is perfectly capable of charm and humor. It's almost as though the movie were making some kind of point by showing the alien character as removed from humanity in some way...)

I like this movie more than anyone I know, but it did engage my editorial sense to want to cut out a good 10-15 minutes, and maybe put a few scenes back into the correct order.

Whoops.

I didn't expect the daily images to end there.  I think I even thought I was going to do a week of 3D dogs from comic strips. But now I'm sick, I'm working six days this week on set with a feature, and the chain's broken.  

I like the C4D stuff though, and I had some interesting training stuff queued up to do next. Maybe I'll get back on that horse when this movie's over.