Well, it’s March 1, 2017, and in the Christian faiths, it is Ash Wednesday, forty days before Easter. In the Roman Catholic faith, it is a day to fast and abstain from meat (as we will abstain from meat every Friday between now and Easter Sunday.

The common thread around Lent is for Catholics to “give something up,” to sacrifice something for the season. Now when you’re a kid, it could be something like giving up candy, or cookies, or ice cream. As an adult, I’ve given up McDonald’s, soda, beer (that was tough), and ice cream (because I love ice cream).

This isn’t a religious post or anything, but I’m just setting the stage for all of it to make sense.

This year, I’m working on curbing my swearing. I have a 14-month-old son who’s getting really good at mimicking our words and sounds. Naturally he is saying “mama,” “dada,” “yeah,” “hi,” “milk,” and once, I think I heard him say “boob.” So…I have to watch my mouth, because I don’t want to get THAT call from daycare. So I created this…

And it already has $2.25 in it, with another quarter due to it. And those are just the ones I caught as I police myself on this. After Easter, I’ll take the money I raised with my potty mouth and donate it to our church.

Okay, that’s part of it.

Another thing I’m trying to do this year is maintain some discipline on the content front. So I’m hoping/planning 40 days of new content, which will be written and spoken. So you’ll get the podcasts on the weekly (hoping to get a new episode recorded this weekend, actually).

So…back to this post, and the title. I finally saw Doctor Strange last week, and while I hope to sit down at length and talk about it in an upcoming episode, this will have to suffice for now.

First of all – Doctor Strange in the MCU first appeared on my radar in Captain America: Winter Soldier, when he was named among other more anonymous threats to Hydra. The placing of that makes it seem that the Doctor Strange movie would take place before the events of Winter Soldier, which would indicate that Strange was still largely unknown (albeit active) during Captain America: Civil War (and also Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.

Here’s what I really enjoyed about this movie – it took things to a mystical place, a place you can’t explain with science. In a universe of Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, and Falcon, it was a pleasant departure. I will say that Thor touched on some similar themes, including his famous line to Jane Porter:

But as beautiful as Asgard was in Thor and Thor 2, there was something visually stunning about Doctor Strange. The Inception-inspired cityscape bending was not only done with seamless SFX, but the story was told in a way that made sense. If you think about it, the sorcerers live in the world that has yet to realize they exist. Sleight of hand, misdirection, illusion. It’s what magic is. So it’s completely natural to think that most of the regular world wouldn’t be aware of its existence. So the mirror dimension helps the filmmakers tell the story, manipulate “the world” in a way that doesn’t actually affect the real world.

It was great to see the astral plane. It was amazing to see Doctor Strange in the Dark Dimension, and his use of the Eye of Agamotto (*cough*TIME GEM*cough*) had me rolling. Take THAT, Dormammu.

I thought the cast was brilliant, from Benedict Cumberbatch to Rachel McAdams, the sublime Tilda Swinton, the brilliant-in-everything Mads Mikkelsen, and the incomparable Chiwetel Ejiofor and everyone I didn’t mention…the talent they brought in for this movie just continues to show what Marvel is capable of.

Long story short (since it’s late), if you haven’t seen Doctor Strange, you shouldn’t wait any longer. It’s available in the digital format and as of yesterday, is available on bluray and dvd as well. Don’t wait any longer. After all, time is no longer on your side.