Florida Everglades poised for a ‘phenomenal’ wading bird season with right water balance
South Florida is in for a “phenomenal” wading bird year after a record-breaking rainy season increased the amount of fish in historical nesting grounds while a dry winter has created the perfect conditions for nesting.
As the water dries up in the northern marshes of water conservation areas and western marl prairies, large colonies of great and snowy egrets and wood storks that have already started nesting have been spotted during surveillance flights by the South Florida Water Management District.
Last month, the birds were still using the southwestern part of the Everglades near Florida Bay because the north was still wet from drenching rains that filled up water conservation areas to the brim. But now, as water recedes in the western and northern edges of the Everglades, these indicators of overall Everglades health are moving back to those areas.
“Now we are seeing the birds move to areas that are more in line with where they historically nested,” said Lawrence
tion in an industry that rarely bestows second chances. Or second comings, to judge by the nearmessianic fervor that has swirled around the longanticipated “Snyder cut,” which will surely be greeted in some quarters as the reconstituted “Heaven’s Gate” of superhero epics.
O come, all ye DC Comics faithful, the logic goes, and watch as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and other franchise stars join forces to save the world (again!) and redeem a filmmaker’s long-stifled vision in the bargain.
This may in fact be something to see, or at least sample. It’s rare, after all, for personal ambition to run afoul of Hollywood’s superhero-industrial complex. Witness the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a smooth-running assembly line in which every last joke, twist and explosion feel pre-chewed for easy digestion. Its DC Comics rivals have felt erratic by comparison: Despite pleasurable outliers like Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” and James Wan’s irresistibly goofy “Aquaman,” the enterprise has proceeded in clunky fits and starts, in thrall to a house style light on wit and heavy on gloom. As evidenced by his dour “Man of Steel” and the even more leaden “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” Snyder has been the chief architect of that grimly self-serious aesthetic.
The disappointing critical and commercial reception to “Batman v Superman” was enough to make Warner Bros. think twice about keeping Snyder at the helm of “Justice League.” During production in 2017, the studio turned the film over to
Joss Whedon, a practiced crowd-pleaser.
When the heavily reshot, two-hour “Justice League” was released later that year — with Snyder billed as director and Whedon receiving a writing credit alongside original screenwriter Chris Terrio — Snyder loyalists rejected it and others weren’t much more enthused.
In the time that followed, #ReleaseTheSnyderCut emerged as the ultimate fan rallying cry. (Whedon has subsequently faced multiple accusations of workplace harassment, including on the set of “Justice League.”)
Having sat through this new “Justice League” in its 242-minute entirety, I can note that the two films represent utterly antithetical approaches to a project that might have benefited from a third, middleground option. Forced to choose between the two, the Snyder cut is probably the one I respect more, which doesn’t mean it’s the one I prefer: The twohour “Justice League” was, for all its baggage, a watchable exercise in damage control, with welcome moments of levity that cut through the murky torpor of Snyder’s storytelling.
Before the end — which includes a very different slam-bang finale and a dreary epilogue teasing upcoming DC agenda items — there are fleeting pleasures and unlikely sources of fascination.
Most of the same plot points and personalities are in place, though with immediate differences in tone, duration and rhythm. (And visuals: Every shot, gleamingly photographed by Fabian Wagner, is framed not in widescreen but in the boxier 1.33 aspect ratio.) Moments retained from the theatrical version seem to play out in double time, padded with equally attenuated new material:
At the beginning, you get what feels like an eternity of Lois Lane (a still-wasted Amy Adams) staring mournfully into space.
Superman (Henry Cavill) is dead, and the world mourns in unison, this time not to an anguished cover of “Everybody Knows” (though Snyder’s love for Leonard Cohen is evident elsewhere), but rather to the drawn-out sound of Clark Kent’s dying scream.
That scream travels the globe, setting off troubling reverberations within the three Mother Boxes — ancient, indestructible repositories of power tucked away in far-flung hiding
Rated: R for violence and some language.
Playing: On HBO Max.
places.
As various crooning, undulating female voices flood the soundtrack, the camera whooshes through the Themysciran temples of the Amazons, valiant sisters of the righteous Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). It travels to Iceland and descends into the underwater enclaves of Atlantis, from which that tridentwielding bodybuilder Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa) is partially descended. It lingers with unusual intensity on a wandering Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), bent on forming a powerful team of fighters to fill the void left by Superman’s demise and combat the various supervillains ready to take advantage of it. If that doesn’t quite make Batman
the DC Comics equivalent of Nick Fury, it nonetheless intriguingly casts him as more ringmaster than main attraction.
It’s amusing to watch this world-weary Bruce Wayne cede the spotlight to his more innately gifted comrades.
And those comrades prove worthy of the attention. Gadot is as magnetic a screen presence as she was in the stand-alone “Wonder Woman” movies. Momoa’s oceanwashed mane and lewd eyebrows are among the recent treasures of blockbuster cinema.
The younger generation is ably represented by
Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/the Flash, who relishes his role as the team’s lightning-limbed goofball, and also by Ray Fisher as Victor Stone/Cyborg, whose brooding metalloid stare bespeaks an unusually rough backstory.
What Snyder has contrived here feels less like a ponderous guided tour through a museum’s worth of familiar superhero-movie tropes and conventions: Look at this, look at that, try not to look at your watch.
Like the Flash himself, Snyder wants to slow time to a crawl, to deconstruct every gesture, to make his obsessions your own. He wants the movie to go on forever. Mission accomplished.