K-Squared Ramblings

Hidden Costs of Moving

This past week has mostly been taken up by unpacking, at least to the point that we can use things. We got most of the bedroom set up the first night — we needed somewhere to sleep — but the rest has been slow going. We finally got the TV and DVD player hooked up today, and tested it by re-watching Raiders of the Lost Ark.*

One thing I’ve noticed is all the extra expenses that pile up after the move.

You have to replace things lost during the move. I misplaced the screws that held together the bed frame when I dismantled it, so after we moved the last boxes in and got cleaned up, I drove out to Lowe’s looking for replacement hardware. Similarly, we forgot to remove the under-the-cupboard paper towel holder, and had to get a new one.

There are also things you can’t take with you. Stick-on wall hooks in the closet, for instance.

Or things that are included in one place, but not in another. Our old apartment had a built-in lock on its garage storage. At this place, we had to get a padlock. (Well, actually, we didn’t. A day after buying it, I found one in my toolbox that I’d forgotten.) We also had to get a shower curtain rod. Fortunately we have plenty of lamps, but that’s one I’ve run into when moving before.

All this on top of the stuff you expect to pay: rent, deposits, boxes, movers or a rental truck, pizza for friends who are helping, etc.

*Regarding Indy, I had originally planned to re-watch the entire Indiana Jones trilogy before going out this weekend to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But it took a while to empty enough boxes to get the TV set up. We did manage to watch Last Crusade on one of the computers, which was a bit awkward. We went out with friends on Saturday to catch the new film. It was a lot of fun, but not phenomenal. Better than Temple of Doom (which is still better than a lot of films) but not as good as Raiders or Last Crusade.

Hannah

That’s one determined music star.

Or else one weird music/horror crossover film. (But then, is there any other kind?)

P.S., I Love… what?

A movie theater tried to cram a few too many titles into this space.

Whoever that is in the last line must really like basketball. Alternatively, feel free to insert your favorite Catherine the Great joke here.

And “Atonement Water”—is that anything like holy water? Or perhaps like Aquamantra’s “I am Lucky”/”I am Loved”/etc. water?

Linkage: On Fx and SFX

VXWorld: Crossing the Uncanny Valley - on the current state of the art of photorealistic computer animation, from Final Fantasy through Polar Express to Pirates of the Caribbean and Beowulf. As pointed out, one reason that Davy Jones worked so well is that he doesn’t look human. (via Neil Gaiman)

Firefox Floppy Disks - remember when software came on 3½-inch floppy disks? Or 5¼″? Just for fun, someone split the Firefox installer across 5 disks, complete with appropriate labels… and even took it a step farther

Golden Compass, Tin Man

Saw The Golden Compass. Enjoyed it a lot, though it felt very rushed, and I think it would have benefitted from having the actual ending instead of cutting it off early. Here’s hoping they do well enough in the long run to greenlight the next film. Now I can re-read the books.

Also watched Tin Man. 5 stars for concept, but only 2 for execution. The Wizard of Oz meets The Dark Crystal by way of 1930s scifi was fascinating as a concept, but they managed to make it dull and tedious. The only reason I watched through to the end was it was Friday night, and I was tired enough that knew I wasn’t going to be doing anything useful with the time anyway, and I knew I could sleep in the next morning.

Speaking of Tin Man, just out of curiosity: how does one manage to have a solar eclipse during a full moon, anyway?

Wild Things of Irvine

The Village, a disturbingly-named apartment complex across from the Irvine Spectrum shopping center, has been advertising in the nearby area for a couple of years using the slogan, “A new meaning for…” with various images and phrases. For a while, the following photo and caption seemed to be everywhere:

A New Meaning For Heated Pool

A not-terribly-subtle example of the advertising maxim, “sex sells.” Somewhere along the line I decided she looked like Rebecca Romijn, and dubbed her Mystique.

Eventually I realized what the photo reminded me of: the promotional images for the movie Wild Things:

The apartments have removed the image from their website (you can still find it on the Internet Archive), but it’s still all over the shopping center kiosks. So while watching Beowulf there, it seemed somehow appropriate when Grendel’s mother struck the same pose:

Not the Flash

Speedster? Check.
“World’s fastest man?” Check.
Skin-tight costume? Check.
Wings on head? Check.
Lightning motif? Check.
Round insignia on chest? Check.
Yellow boots? Check.

I first saw this ad for movietickets.com with 3:10 To Yuma a few months ago. He’s trying to impress his date by running and buying the tickets for their movie while they’re still at dinner. The show’s sold out, but it turns out she’s already bought the tickets online. Noticed a poster outside afterward. Amazingly, they’ve got the video clip online. And they’re selling posters. *shudder*

I haven’t been quite sure what to do with it, since I’m not sure I’m ready to start in on listing every parody of the Flash to ever appear in media.

Hmm, now that I think about it the Blur in that Baby Ruth commercial back in the 90s was blue, too.

Beowulf (in 3D)

Went out and saw Beowulf yesterday. The IMAX 3D* showing was packed.

The computer animation managed to avoid the uncanny valley most of the time. The previews at Comic-Con looked very strange, but either the presentation helped immensely, or they’ve been refining it since they put those clips together. Movements are dead-on (it’s all motion-capture) and even facial expressions have gotten really impressive. (There’s a sequence at the end which is entirely two characters looking at each other, and it’s all expressions). And when it did slip into characters not quite looking human, the story was usually engaging enough to keep it from being too distracting.

They clearly had a 3D presentation in mind when blocking out shots, because they took great delight in tossing spears, arrows, and the occasional hapless Dane at the audience.

I found myself comparing it to Lord of the Rings in a few places, which isn’t surprising, since Tolkien was quite familiar with Beowulf. I’m pretty sure the Denmark of this period is the source culture for the Rohirrim, as well (both in the books and in the Peter Jackson films), so it’s appropriate that Heorot gives off a vibe of Edoras gone horribly wrong.

The monsters are impressive. Grendel is about as disgusting as can be, his mother literally radiant, and the dragon is a majestic gold, looking more like raw metal than scales. The designs of Grendel and the dragon are used well to reflect the contrast between Hrothgar and Beowulf: one decadent and slimy, one still heroic even in his old age. The initial attack by Grendel gets confusing pretty quickly, and the later confrontation devolves a bit into virtual wire-fu, but the battle with the dragon is suitably sweeping (though I had a few problems with the dragon’s heart).

I liked that they used Old English in a few places (Grendel’s dialog, and later, the play in which actors recount the tale of Beowulf’s encounter with Grendel), though I’m not familiar enough** with the original to know whether they kept lines verbatim.

Someone at the theater had made a whole bunch of these cardboard shields and set them along the hallway to the IMAX theater.

Edit: I did finally see 300 last month. I liked Beowulf better. I think the main thing is that 300 was positioned as a historical epic, so when it went over the top (”This is SPARTAAAAA!!!!!”) it seemed really over the top, while Beowulf is set in the epic fantasy mode: monsters, giant sea serpents, demons, dragons, etc., and the movie is in part about the nature of heroic tales and how they get embellished over time. So when the hero splits a sea serpent’s neck all the way down with his sword while falling, or boasts that “I am BEOWULF!!!” it fits.

*The theater gives what can only be described as a sales pitch for how great the IMAX presentation is going to be, which is kind of strange since by the time they give it, you’ve already bought your tickets and sat down inside. It reminded me of the Weird Al song, “Frank’s 2000″ TV” (though if my calculations are right, it’s only 1077 inches) and when they started bragging talking about how many thousands of watts of sound they had, we both started giggling.

**I took a class on Old English in college, which focused on vocabulary and shorter works. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take the second quarter, which was entirely Beowulf. I did eventually pick up a book that presents the original and translation side-by-side, but I have to admit I haven’t gotten around to reading it.

Phantoms and Rock(y Horror) Operas

Watched Phantom of the Paradise this weekend. It’s a bizarre 1974 mash-up between The Phantom of the Opera and Faust set in a satire of the 1970s music industry.

The movie casts Paul Williams (who wrote all the music for the film) as a reclusive recording mogul, Swan, who steals a struggling songwriter’s pop cantata based on Faust to open his new music palace, the Paradise. The songwriter tries to correct the “misunderstanding,” ends up beaten, jailed, and ultimately scarred when he gets caught in a record press trying to destroy it. He sneaks into the newly-opened club, dons a mask, and alternately pursues revenge on the man who stole his music, and his obsession with launching the career of a young singer he befriended earlier in the film (bringing in the Phantom/Christine dynamic).

Believe me, it’s stranger than it sounds.

Anyway, afterward, I went looking on IMDB (as I often do) to see what else the various actors had been in. Somehow I ended up on a horror movie review site, 1000 Misspent Hours, which gave the movie 3½ stars and basically considered the music to be the main failing (though, since it’s a satire, that’s largely intentional. There’s a reason I only have about 3 of the film’s songs on my iPod).

Something interesting I learned was that the Phantom’s origin is actually derived from the 1943 Phantom of the Opera movie with Claude Raines, which, judging by its review, has about as much to do with the original novel as, well, Phantom of the Paradise does. I’m mainly familiar with the original silent version and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, both of which track the Gaston Leroux novel fairly well. (Edit: Now that I think about it, the 1943 origin also explains the “Acid: Do not throw in face!” gag from Gremlins 2.)

I do have to take issue with some of his criticisms of Rocky Horror. Not that they aren’t valid, but that several things he finds inexplicable—the thin plot, nonsensical showstoppers, and how the cult following could possibly have started—are easily explained by the fact that it’s based on a stage play, The Rocky Horror Show (also explaining why the movie is The Rocky Horror Picture Show), which sets up a completely different dynamic and expectations. Interesting that the main venue for the film seems to be the midnight showings, which seek to recapture the experience of live theater.

I found the site’s rating system interesting: not only does he have a 1–5 star scale, but he also assigns negative stars for movies that are “so bad, they’re good.” So of course I had to see which films he gave -5 stars, meaning “So bad, it’s genius.” I ended up reading around 10 or so reviews on Sunday night, some of them for movies I will probably never, ever see.

Flash Movie Runs Through Another Director

Well, MTV is reporting (possible spoilers for JLA movie) that David Dobkin has taken over as director of the still-vaporware Flash feature film. Dobkin replaces Shawn Levy, who himself replaced David Goyer. Keeping up?

Goyer has long experience with super-heroes, having written or co-written Batman Begins, two of the Blade films and the TV show, the second Crow movie, and even did a long stretch on the JSA comic with Geoff Johns. Levy is best known for Night at the Museum and the remake of Cheaper by the Dozen. Dobkin? Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus.

I’m getting the feeling Warner Bros. doesn’t take the character seriously, despite their protestations.

Of note: The film is now being billed as a spin-off of the Justice League of America movie that’s getting lots of press right now. And while JLA apparently features Barry Allen, Dobkin stated the solo outing will definitely feature Wally West. Draw your own conclusions.

Also of note: MTV’s post uses a section of the cover for the Terminal Velocity trade paperback (shown at left), drawn by the late Mike Wieringo.

More info: Flash Movie page at Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning.

Who ya gonna call?

The logo on the left was spotted on fire extinguishers at two different coffee shops (different chains, even). The one on the right is, of course, the logo from the 1984 comedy/horror film, Ghostbusters.

Maybe I’m imagining things, but does anyone see a similarity here?

Saw Transformers

I finally got out to see Transformers today. Yes, I grew up with the cartoons, the toys and the comics. Yes, I even collected every comic book from the original Marvel series through the Generation 2 series (including the prologue in G.I. Joe) through the first round from DreamWave. But somewhere along the line I just lost interest, and ultimately sold off my entire collection. (On eBay, actually.)

But still, there’s some sort of primal thrill—at least for anyone who grew up as a boy in 1980s America—in seeing giant robots fighting each other. So I finally decided to catch it while it was still in theaters.

It was better constructed than I expected. They had a plausible reason for the Autobots and Decepticons to be on Earth, and they were very good about following up on exposition. Every gun that appeared on the wall was eventually fired, down to Sam’s eBay auctions, with one exception: I really expected them to blow up Hoover Dam.

Which brings me to the biggest gap in logic. SPOILERS follow, for anyone who, like me, has been living in a cave. Read the rest of this entry »

Stardust is Good

Went out to see Stardust with a group of friends, and we all enjoyed it. People have been comparing it to The Princess Bride, and it’s an apt comparison: both are light-hearted fantasy adventures with a love story at the heart. Stardust takes itself a bit more seriously, though there’s plenty of humor.

The concept: Three groups of people pursue a fallen star (in this world, a woman). Tristran wants to bring the star back to impress a girl. The cruel princes of Stormhold are seeking the necklace she wears; the one who claims the gem claims the throne. The witch Lamia wants to cut out her heart to restore her own youth for another 400 years. Tristran gets there first, but has to bring her back without the more malicious seekers reaching her.

There’s swordplay, magic, betrayal, comedy, and romance. Michelle Pfeiffer throws herself gleefully into her role as the witch Lamia. Prince Septimus oozes slime as a cross between Prince Humperdink and Professor Snape. And Robert De Niro’s Captain Shakespeare is… indescribable. Charlie Cox as Tristran and Claire Danes as Yvaine (the star) manage to hold their own with the impressive cast of villains and supporting characters.

I was the only one of the four who had read the original novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, but for the most part I didn’t mind the changes. I did think the climactic battle got a bit overblown after a while, and I really missed one aspect of Una’s character which is revealed near the end of the book.

On a related note, it seems that in the last 3 weeks, the movie “adaptation” (and I use the term loosely) of The Dark Is Rising has been retitled as The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, probably reflecting how far it seems to have strayed from the source material.

Stardust does it right: change the details, or even the structure if you have to, to make it work in a different medium. But stay true to the heart and spirit of the book.

Fantasy Film Follow-Up

Saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I thought it was better than the fourth film, and up there with Prisoner of Azkaban, though Katie liked Goblet of Fire better. The main thing I would really have liked to see more of: Hogwarts in rebellion. “It unscrews the other way.”

We agreed that the preview of The Dark is Rising looks terrible. It looks like they’re turning it into an action movie. Will Stanton with magic powers?!?!? It’s sad, since Christopher Eccleston seemed like perfect casting for the Dark Rider.

Saw a second preview of The Golden Compass, though, and it looks even better than the first one we saw. They could still screw it up, but I at least have high hopes for this one. The visual look is dead-on (which was my first reaction to the very first Fellowship teaser), and it looks like they’ve stuck with the book’s concepts.

Linobot

Hit the Spectrum again for lunch, and walked up to the ATM next to the movie theater. There was one guy already waiting in line for the 8:00 showing of Transformers…two days from now.

Edit: I stand corrected. They’re showing an advanced screening tonight, so he was only in line about 7½ hours ahead. Not terribly noteworthy, at that point.