Progress in the most mundane of areas
Apr. 2nd, 2008 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredericksI have a bad habit of renting movies from Blockbuster and never actually watching them, then getting stuck with late return fees (same sort of thing happens with me and library books, even though I can renew the books over the internet and Jesus I'm lazy, aren't I?), so I decided to, you know, watch my movies. I borrowed S1 of Frisky Dingo, Dan in Real Life, 30 Days of Night, and Enchanted. I've been making my way though Frisky Dingo. It sort of reminds me of ATHF (same creative team, right?), but it seems like there might actually be a season-long story thread. I never thought I'd get tired of watching 11-minute episodes, though I've only made it though three episodes so far. I'm going to finish, dammit! I swear it.
30 Days of Night was sort of sucky .I couldn't help think of Underworld while watching it, and how Underworld was leaps and bounds better. Underworld was cheesy fun, and it acknowledged the cheese. The characters wore black patent leather and shot guns and used swords and there was blood! Gore! Mayhem! Wannabe agro-metal soundtracks! 30 Days of Night was full of heavy-handed dialogue and hammers For example: oh, here's his *brother*, because he's introduced as such! or, the main protagonist is shown using his inhaler in his truck; d'you think he'll need it during a significant moment in the story?, or, or! the protagonist and his ex-girlfriend broke up because he wanted kids and she didn't; d'you think the climax will involve the girlfriend risking her life to save an innocent child and the protagonist doing something idiotically heroic a la John Sheppard and dying a hero's death? do ya? do ya?!?!
Basically we have these vampire-like things that only come out when there's sun, and they make an appearance during the titular 30 days of no sun in a small Alaskan town. They emerge and kill indiscriminately... only they don't seem to feed so much as torture and rip people's jugulars out. And their "leader" looks vaguely like Peter Stormare (that shit threw me for such a loop). What was the *point*? Did they feed off of fear, like the Corinthian? Whatever way it went down, at the rate they went through the populace they'd be starving again by day three. It was when I started thinking that that I realized I'd almost come to hate the movie. If I'm bored enough to start analyzing plot points (or lack thereof), my brain's trying to tell me it's time to move on. When I was forced to sit through a monologue from a secondary character that we'd only previously had the vaguest background information on, a monologue that was supposed to make us *care* about the man's sad fate, that I moved from "almost hate" to "hate". And it was when Josh Harnett's protagonist (town sheriff) decided to inject himself with the blood from one of the dead creatures in order to fight them and give his ex-girlfriend a chance to escape that I moved from "hate" to "omigod, give me my money back" (the only way my interest would have been saved? if injecting the blood caused him to an agonizing prolonged death). I mean, this movie didn't even have any sorta hot looking Scott Stapp-alikes.
On the other hand, Enchanted was sort of awesome . Amy Adams acted her ass off in that thing. I only vaguely knew who she was before watching this movie, but she was all kinds of amazing. It's hard to pull off the earnest naive character and still come off as sincere, but, by God, I *believed* everything she said or did, and I believed she believed it too. Great stuff. I have to make it my business to see Junebug. I'm still humming the songs from the movie, they were that catchy. I felt badly for James Marsden, though, as the poor guy's role was nothing much at all: it was basically a reprise of how he was treated while playing X-Men (that and we continue to call him "Cyclops" in my house, no matter what character he's playing). And how can you cast Idina Menzel and Susan Sarandon and *not* have them sing? Come on, now. If you skip the hokey last 15 minutes (mute the TV, maybe flick to Sportscenter) it's an entertaining movie.
The new Dresden File book came in the mail today. I'm almost afraid to start reading it; Butcher did such a great job of ending the last book on a *gasp* cheery note with minimal angst to all involved that I'm hesitant to see how he fucks everyone up again.
Will my brain actually start processing again? We'll see. This I don't think I can chalk up to depression, but to the fact that I'm damn cold. It's supposedly 50 degrees outside. Yeah, right.
30 Days of Night was sort of sucky .I couldn't help think of Underworld while watching it, and how Underworld was leaps and bounds better. Underworld was cheesy fun, and it acknowledged the cheese. The characters wore black patent leather and shot guns and used swords and there was blood! Gore! Mayhem! Wannabe agro-metal soundtracks! 30 Days of Night was full of heavy-handed dialogue and hammers For example: oh, here's his *brother*, because he's introduced as such! or, the main protagonist is shown using his inhaler in his truck; d'you think he'll need it during a significant moment in the story?, or, or! the protagonist and his ex-girlfriend broke up because he wanted kids and she didn't; d'you think the climax will involve the girlfriend risking her life to save an innocent child and the protagonist doing something idiotically heroic a la John Sheppard and dying a hero's death? do ya? do ya?!?!
Basically we have these vampire-like things that only come out when there's sun, and they make an appearance during the titular 30 days of no sun in a small Alaskan town. They emerge and kill indiscriminately... only they don't seem to feed so much as torture and rip people's jugulars out. And their "leader" looks vaguely like Peter Stormare (that shit threw me for such a loop). What was the *point*? Did they feed off of fear, like the Corinthian? Whatever way it went down, at the rate they went through the populace they'd be starving again by day three. It was when I started thinking that that I realized I'd almost come to hate the movie. If I'm bored enough to start analyzing plot points (or lack thereof), my brain's trying to tell me it's time to move on. When I was forced to sit through a monologue from a secondary character that we'd only previously had the vaguest background information on, a monologue that was supposed to make us *care* about the man's sad fate, that I moved from "almost hate" to "hate". And it was when Josh Harnett's protagonist (town sheriff) decided to inject himself with the blood from one of the dead creatures in order to fight them and give his ex-girlfriend a chance to escape that I moved from "hate" to "omigod, give me my money back" (the only way my interest would have been saved? if injecting the blood caused him to an agonizing prolonged death). I mean, this movie didn't even have any sorta hot looking Scott Stapp-alikes.
On the other hand, Enchanted was sort of awesome . Amy Adams acted her ass off in that thing. I only vaguely knew who she was before watching this movie, but she was all kinds of amazing. It's hard to pull off the earnest naive character and still come off as sincere, but, by God, I *believed* everything she said or did, and I believed she believed it too. Great stuff. I have to make it my business to see Junebug. I'm still humming the songs from the movie, they were that catchy. I felt badly for James Marsden, though, as the poor guy's role was nothing much at all: it was basically a reprise of how he was treated while playing X-Men (that and we continue to call him "Cyclops" in my house, no matter what character he's playing). And how can you cast Idina Menzel and Susan Sarandon and *not* have them sing? Come on, now. If you skip the hokey last 15 minutes (mute the TV, maybe flick to Sportscenter) it's an entertaining movie.
The new Dresden File book came in the mail today. I'm almost afraid to start reading it; Butcher did such a great job of ending the last book on a *gasp* cheery note with minimal angst to all involved that I'm hesitant to see how he fucks everyone up again.
Will my brain actually start processing again? We'll see. This I don't think I can chalk up to depression, but to the fact that I'm damn cold. It's supposedly 50 degrees outside. Yeah, right.
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Date: 2008-04-03 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 02:15 am (UTC)Been waiting ages for it :)
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Date: 2008-04-03 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-04-03 02:51 pm (UTC)*goes back to re-reading Fool Moon*
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Date: 2008-04-03 06:41 pm (UTC)OMG I'm mad at him and now I'm eagerly awaiting the next book! Damn it! I enjoyed this one, I wish Toot toot was in it more though. There are some loose ends that were knotted together, but he created some more.
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Date: 2008-04-28 11:32 am (UTC)