Results tagged “movies” from jmac.org blog
There is a Star Trek movie teaser trailer coming out. I'm too lazy to link to it because it's basically nothing, just enough to confirm that the film's in production, and to signal the fanboys to commence the freakout. (Its audio is samples of Apollo mission radio chatter that you can hear in any dime-store trance mix, for pete's sake. OK, and Nimoy. All right, fine: here. Sheesh.)
If JJ Abrams can tell an entire SF story that has a satisfying ending in the length of a single feature film, all shall be forgiven. Until then, I'm skeptical.
Meanwhile I find myself really out of touch regarding movies. I saw a friend complaining in an IM status message that someone named Cloverfield made her feel sick, figuring it was a co-worker who should have stayed home.
Eh. The sets and costumes were great, and the acting fine (esp on Mr. Depp's part) but the direction of most of the musical numbers just wasn't there. And there's a lot of singing, so that's a problem.
There are two numbers where the singing characters are explicitly fantasizing, and here Burton lets the film find itself, engaging in whirling and delightfully macabre visuals. The rest of the time, it's like watching a tennis match. You get a still shot of Character A while they sing a verse, then cut to a still shot of Character B reacting, then return to Character A so they can sing some more. Repeat until out of notes. This gets boring fast, especially when many of the singing actors are so bland.
I shall be kind and call it an entertaining if uneven show. Wait for it to hit video, and then fast-forward until the first scene with Sacha Baron Cohen, because the film doesn't really start to get interesting until Mrs. Lovett's pies do.
I had never heard of the Washington Wizards basketball team until I chanced across their mention in a Google News headline just now.
I can't be the first person to see their logo...
...and immediately think of another wizardly graphic...
I don't really think anyone intentionally ripped anything. It's just interesting.
Pushing Daisies joins Battlestar Galactica as an SF show (though we're talking very different flavors of SF) that I avoided because the premise sounded lame, but eventually peeked at from the insistence of friends, and then discovered I loved. I love this show! Amy and I have been watching it via the intertubes and we laugh and cry, it's so good.
It's fun to think of it as another story taking place in the same universe as the film Edward Scissorhands, everything hypercolorful with a macabre sheen. (And there's the same leitmotif of romantic frustration in both stories, stemming from two lovers being unable to touch.)
I'm eagerly awaiting BSG's fourth and final season, accepting whatever delays the WGA strike must add to my wait. Thankful that Razor was able to get done before the picket lines went up, at least.
Finally, Amy's drawn me into watching Jeopardy! again. I used to watch it every day after school in the 1980s, and I can't say I've seen in much since. The dollar values have all doubled but otherwise it's the same show, and even Trebek looks and sounds the same, though he's lost the 'stache. (Which is just as well.) He's also gotten a bit goofier, in a good way. In one recent example, when nobody guessed What is a ferret?, he illustrated it by pantomiming a little animal running up his forearm, saying "meep meep meep!" I had to hit the TiVo's instant-replay button a couple of times to fully appreciate this.
I was shocked to learn that Alex had a heart attack yesterday, but apparently he is OK. And he looks so healthy on TV! There is a lesson in this.
