« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Damn you, summaries
I've written to the New York Times three times now to complain about their RSS feed for movie reviews and have yet to receive a reply so I think I'll whine here instead. Why can't they consistently put the TITLE OF THE MOVIE in the summary information for the review?
Born to Consume, No Matter What the Cost
Henry Jaglom's comedy has enough smart, knowing touches to make you wish it added up to more than what it turns out to be: a flighty, motor-mouthed cinematic divertissement.
Sand, Water, Intrigue and a Lot of Suntans
A soggy adventure best suited to DVD-rental desperation.
Escape From the Rough of Poverty to the Green of Fame
This canny piece of feel-good entertainment is the latest movie to reconstruct a real-life sporting event from the past for purposes of present-day sentimental uplift.
Inching Toward Adulthood With a Cheetah for a Friend
This soulful, piercingly beautiful story about a boy and his cheetah marks the welcome return to the screen of the director Carroll Ballard.
Etcetera, etcetera. This week only four of the twelve reviews mention the name of the film in the summary. It annoys the hell out of me. OK, it's out of my system now.
Posted at 11:35 PM | Comments (2)
Serenity now. Part II.
So I'd like to write up my comments on Serenity, and I'm going to try to be as non-spoiler-y as possible. But still, don't read any of this if you want to go into the film like driven snow being, uh, driven into the theater.
I'll start with the comment I just posted on Megan's blog:
My only problems with the movie (and here I'm getting into gentle spoiler territory) were the lovestory bits--I felt like I was adding in so much Zoe/Wash and Kaylee/Simon backstory from what I knew on the show. It made the climactic scenes that much more devastating, but I wonder if it would just be inexplicable to people who weren't already familiar with the material.I liked how the Inara/Mal lovestory was kept kind of subtly unexplained, THAT worked perfectly. Although, did you think that Inara didn't really look that good? I decided after the film that she might just be one of those actresses who is really meant to work on TV.
Overall, it was a tremendous balancing act to keep it all running and I thought Joss did a spectacular job. I think Serenity is much more the heir-apparent to the original Star Wars legacy than any other science fiction film I've seen since.
The sequence at the beginning where the camera explores the ship as Mal moves around did an *excellent* job of introducing characters and making Serenity feel like a physical space. And while the River/Simon story got a bit of a reboot, I felt like it still had a similar emotional resonance and didn't contradict much of importance to the series (physical actions were different, yes, but they put the cast in the same *emotional* place, which is the most important aspect of continuity if you ask me).
Overall, Serenity lifts all the familiar pieces from Firefly and deftly reorganizes them on the board. There's no question that a person who hadn't seen the show could leap right into the film and understand and love it, while those of us who love the show will find new treats and twists & turns. I just hope it finds an audience, since mindshare out there seems pretty low.
To any of my friends out there who loved Buffy, imagine if Buffy had been cancelled after she killed the Master in season one. Imagine all the extraordinary storylines we never would have gotten to see! Then go see Serenity this weekend please. KTHXBYE.
Posted at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
Monday, September 26, 2005
Elite!
Today I popped on to TVWoP to have a gander at the Veronica Mars recaps from last season, in preparation for this week's season premiere.
And as I was reviewing Episode 21, "A Trip to the Dentist" I noticed the episode report card in the corner of the screen.
Heh. 1337 users. I'm a dork.
And you know what's even weirder? Episode 22, "Leave It to Beaver" had 1337 reviews, too. Seriously! I smell a consipracy.
(Somebody hire me. I have too much free time on my hands.)
Posted at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Serenity Now. Or, I am a big ho for Joss.
Matthew and I (and two of Our Closest Friends Selected At Random) will be hitting the Serenity bloggerfest screening in Boston on Tuesday. Yay. Serenity is, of course, the screen adaptation of King Joss Whedon's wee TV series Firefly. The people who run the screening have commaded from on high that if we want to get in, we must tell our legions of adoring readers about the film via this well-crafted blurb:
Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE [sic!], ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family--squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.
There now. Wasn't that special? I'm a little excited, mostly for Sean Maher's cheekbones.
Now back to our regularly scheduled del.icio.us-ing!
Posted at 12:26 PM | Comments (1)
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Delicious!
I've started using my del.icio.us account a little bit lately, in case anyone wants to have a looksee. One of these days I'll get up to adding a proper sidebar link for it etc.
But don't hold your breath.
