journal features

movie review - The Lego Movie

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2014.10.04

This is a feature-length advertisement for all things Lego, and I found it quite entertaining. It's written in a self-mocking way that allows its grand villain and its imbecile hero to somehow blunder through a reasonable proximity of a heroic saga. There are epic battles, a near-miss wedding, and countless other story points along the way, including fake-outs and twists and enough adult-targeted aspects to keep from wanting to slit your throat as something like Ninjago make look so effortless.

Strongly recommended. If you like Lego. You .. do like Lego, right?

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner