Monday, July 07, 2008

Today Will Be Our ... Independence Day! (is what I would have said had I posted on Friday!)

Welcome back, adventure-seekers, and a belated Happy 4th of July to all of you Real Americans out there. I'm back from a long weekend and back to work and back here on the blog. The long July 4th weekend was a good one - rather than try to squeeze too much into it and then feel like I had spent my weekend with all flash and little substance, I instead focused in on a few long-delayed projects that I made an effort to finish. Sure, there were a few adventures in LA, where I hung out with the NBC crew and tried to be part of cool young Hollywood. But mostly, I was content to keep things low-key.

- I FINALLY finished reading THE STAND by Stephen King. It's funny, while looking back at some old blog entries, I saw one from almost this time last year in which I talked about reading the book. It was then that I realized that, holy lord, I had been reading this book for a year and had yet to finish it. And I'm actually a fast reader too. The problem of late is that I'll rarely spend a whole evening or weekend afternoon reading like I used to, and instead I'll alternate between various books, magazines, comics, etc throughout the week and not spend a lot of time on any one thing. I'm sure there is some larger socialogical reason for this, our ADD-riddled, web-addicted society and all that. But in any case, this weekend I stayed away from IM and from my cell phone for long stretches, and let myself get immersed in the world of Stu Redman and Larry Underwood and Randall Flagg. And I finished the darn book, all 1200 pages or so of it. I can say pretty definitively that, depsite how long it took me to finish, the book has got to rank as one of my favorites. I think the primary reason is the great and memorable characters. The second is the utterly terrifying and convincing depiction of a world brought to its knees by an all-encompassing superflu. I'd even venture to say that, when the book, in its second half, gets more into the realm of supernatural fantasy, it loses a bit of its potency. But at the same time, the fantasy elements remain compelling precisely because the characters remain so grounded in reality. It's a lesson in smart characterization that has been adopted by other authors, filmmakers, and quite visibly in TV shows like LOST. In any case, I won't write a whole dissertation here on The Stand - suffice it to say, great book.

- I watched a bunch of movies this weekend, though I didn't see anything new in the theater. May eventually succumb to curiousity on Hancock, though it definitely was not a must-see for me this weekend by any means. Personally I am mostly just counting down to HELLBOY II this weekend - I really hope that people give it a shot at the box office, because it looks like this one is really going to be Guillermo Del Toro firing on all cylinders. Plus, I am so sick of the Will Smith persona. I mean, like any good American, I spent some time this weekend watching Independence Day on Fox Movie Channel, and I was reminded of how effective the classic Will Smith persona can be when the script actually calls for it to be present. The problem is when a script calls for a more multi-layered, darker, or just different type of character, and then Will Smith and the studios go ahead and throw in an "aww hells no!" or two for good measure. They dumb things down just so that Will Smith can be Will Smith. Examples include I, Robot, I Am Legend, and now, seemingly, Hancock. And it's frustrating, because we know from movies like Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness that Smith is capable of going darker and deeper with his characters - he just so often chooses to play it safe, even when the premise of the film would undoubtedly work if he were to go the less conventional route.

So anyways, some movies I watched this weekend:

- DEFENDING YOUR LIFE: I just recently watched Albert Brooks' Modern Romance. I didn't love it, but I could see the appeal of Brooks, who I wasn't that familiar with. I saw him as kind of a precursor to Kevin Smith - a comedian whose best humor comes out of conversational observation and slice-of-life portraits. If Modern Romance is Brooks' equivalent of Chasing Amy (without all the lesbian stuff, that is), then Defending Your Life is his Dogma, a satirical, almost matter-of-fact look at a particular vision of the afterlife. Although, more than anything, the movie eventually becomes a quirky romantic comedy between Brooks and Meryl Streep's character. It's funny, because I actually liked their romance, but I thought some of the satirical bits about the afterlife were pretty cheesy and often contrived. Definitely recommended though a bit uneven. Overall though I definitely liked it more than Modern Romance.

- DIRTY HARRY: Nope, I had never actually seen Dirty Harry before this weekend. Like most people, I knew the iconic dialogue, knew the basic premise, but I wasn't sure whether or not the movie would live up to its iconic status. Turns out, the movie kicks all kinds of ass. What really struck me was how simple and effectively bare bones the movie is. Nothing too fancy, plot-wise, no elaborate backstory for Harry Callahan, and no giant action or chase scenes. The movie is minimalist, but that totally works in its favor, with each shot memorable and iconic. And man, what an awesome villain is Andrew Robinson - just torally sick and twisted - rarely have I rooted so hard for the good guy to take down his prey. And of course, Clint Eastwood is just badass. I now can see why this is a classic.

- FUTURAMA - THE BEAST WITH 1,000 BACKS: I thought the first Futurama DVD flick, Bender's Big Score, was very well done and had a really interesting plotline, but somewhere along the lines forgot to bring the funny. With this second feature, I am happy to report that I was laughing often and hard. It definitely helps that perhaps the show's funniest character, Zap Brannigan, is featured pretty heavily here. We also get lots of Kif, Calculon, Wernstrom, etc, which is great, but in general it just seems like there was a much more concious effort here to litter the script with jokes. There are some great bits of dialogue, and lots of hilarious character moments as well. As a whole though, the plot felt a bit loose, and definitely more like an extended episode rather than a real movie-style adventure. It was also a little strange to me that the long-developed Fry-Leela relationship was not touched on much, although I thought Britanny Murphy was good as Fry's latest misguided romance. And David Cross was, as expected, pretty hilarious as the other-dimensional antagonist. Overall, highly recommended and man, it's just awesome to see all the great Futurama characters again. This one had a ton of cool shoutouts to past storylines and episodes as well. So yeah, not mind-blowing, but pretty exciting for fans of Futurama.

- And oh yeah, I also succumbed to the hype and purchased Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Yes, the jaded gamer in me realizes that the game is something of a ripoff as it's basically a glorified GH3 expansion pack. But come on, it's Aerosmith, and while many a hipster music snob may diss them, they are my all-time fave rock n' roll band, and few Guitar Hero possibilities excite me as much as the idea of pretending to be Mr. Joe by-God Perry and banging out the jams, from Love In an Elevator to Walk This Way. So yeah, I walked this way and layed down some hard-earned dollars for the PS2, duel-guitar version, at least getting some pretty good bang for my buck. So on that note, it's time to sign off and rock out like the bad boy of Boston that I am. YEEEOW!

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