Watched Goodfellas again this evening (it’s now 21(!) years old, circa 1990). I’ve seen it before, but it’s been awhile. While I’m kind of hot/cold on gangster movies (seen the first two Godfather‘s and liked them, but couldn’t make it through Casino…blecch – never seen Scarface or many of the others out there) I always liked this one, despite the sporadic over-the-top violence, for several reasons.

I’m not sure if Joe Pesci here is an acting genius (or just an a**hole) but he certainly makes you increasingly loathe him, until of course karma takes care of it. DeNiro and Liotta are sympathetic main characters, until by the end Liotta sells them all out and DeNiro has gone beyond the pale with trigger-happy paranoia. Paul Sorvino’s tan seems to darken with every scene until he’s practically George Hamilton by the end (a wee bit more rotund, to be sure :).

It’s also interesting how these ‘wise guys’ profess how everything is about family, having kids, protecting their own, etc. etc. etc. and yet they all parade around all night long in the clubs or their rackets, have multiple girlfriends despite being married with kids, and generally behave like 12 year olds let loose with money, booze, cars and no consequences. One example (among many) is when they go to the zoo to threaten feeding a guy TO THE LIONS if he doesn’t talk/cough up the money he owes. Really. Assuming this would even work – isn’t it a bit silly? Why wouldn’t they just throw him off a bridge (likely over the Hudson) with the ‘cement galoshes’ or similar?

And the main character, Liotta’s Henry Hill – tells the whole tale with wistful regret – not unlike Alex’s narration for much of A Clockwork Orange – that he ultimately had to join society to escape being locked up for the rest of his life (or killed by his mafia buddies) – but that he’s bored and misses the life. Talk about ungrateful!

So what’s the message? Is the movie just trying to entertain, or is it trying to demonstrate karma, or is it trying to deglamorize the mafia lifestyle – or in a twisted way, glamorize it? When I compare this to say, the first two Godfather movies – those are much more stylized and portray an older, perhaps more ‘classical’ and restrained mafia perspective? Goodfellas is more modern, possibly more brutal and certainly more over the top.

Maybe there’s no message here. And certainly no ‘christ figure’ or martyr in this movie – Henry Hill, despite what he’d have you believe – is certainly NOT one. The people in this movie either get what’s coming to them with eyes open, or are alternatively too stupid to see it coming (but get what they deserve anyway). Several of the henchmen and Morrie in particular end up this way.

In the end I guess it’s interesting to think about how far removed that lifestyle is from a normal one – or is it?

candybowl

Started watching the 2001-2004 Cartoon Network series Samurai Jack again while I ride the exercise bike in the basement. I’ll chart my fave episodes here as I go.

So far, from Season One:

The Beginning, Parts 1-3. Here we see Jack fight Aku, get sent into the far future, get his name, and help a group of dog archeologists(?) enslaved by Aku to their freedom. I like the setup in Part 1, which to me also seemed a bit inspired by the start of Yellow Submarine where the Blue Meanies attack Pepperland. Jack’s arrival in the far future is our first sight of how Aku has changed the world. It’s interesting, to be sure, and gets further revealed in each episode of the series from there on. What’s also interesting is that it’s implied Aku rules with an iron fist and enslaves a lot of the world – but there sure seems to be a lot of people running around in the jungle and big cities irrespective of his rule? Kinda weird.

Jack and the Three Blind Archers. Jack assaults a mysterious tower on a remote island that contains a secret well possibly able to grant his wish to go home to the past and rid the world of Aku. The tower is guarded by three unbeatable archers that have easily and completely defeated legions of soldiers’ previous attacks. This episode is one of the earliest to really show Jack’s commitment to his discipline – he carries out part of the assault blindfolded based on his observations – and the episode (like many others) contains a strong moral lesson. Certainly the latter is fairly stereotypical for martial arts subject matter, but even in a kids show the story doesn’t insult the viewer.

More to come!

candybowl

So in my ongoing, misguided quest to catch up viewing random old sci-fi and similar movies or TV I missed the first time around (the magic of DVD reissues) – I watched 1979’s The Black Hole today. At the time, this movie was Disney’s attempt to glom onto the sci-fi ‘arms race’ in the movies – started by Star Wars in 1977, followed nearly immediately by Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (also in 1977), and the much-anticipated (but fairly disappointing) Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Of these four movies, The Black Hole is clearly the loser by a **wide** margin. The next-to-last finisher, ST:TMP, had some interesting ideas and the effects started out well, but it rapidly turned very boring and tedious, much like the first few seasons of ST:TNG until Roddenberry kicked off and things got more feisty.

So, The Black Hole. Basically there is a spaceship (The Palomino) on an exploration mission crewed by 5 largely nobody actors save Tony Perkins (in what must be one of the most wooden performances of his career) and Ernest Borgnine. They also have a floating robot on board, named V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (I only heard them mention the acronym’s meaning once, and really, who cares – he was voiced by an uncredited Roddy McDowall). Naturally the robot is aimed at R2D2 and kid appeal, but unlike R2D2, he can talk and is arguably more useful as a real crew member (despite frequently quoting Shakespeare and other poetry when he’s supposed to be doing his job). V.I.N.C.E.N.T. (and the later-seen ‘Old B.O.B.’ – the “72 beater Corolla” version of V.I.N.C.E.N.T.) are more like the otherwise silent(!) Huey, Dewey and Louie from Silent Running than the Star Wars robots. Lucas 1, Disney 0.

So the Palomino crew find a big, apparently abandoned American spaceship – the USS Cygnus – stationed near a black hole. Somehow it avoids getting sucked in, despite its proximity. After a too-long exercise (in fake excitement) at avoiding getting sucked into the nearby black hole themselves, the Palomino docks on the Cygnus, its crew get all but taken prisoner, and meet Dr Reinhardt, the scientist (read: madman) running the Cygnus with his OWN big henchman robot, Maximilian. And I must say, not only does Maximilian *also* know how to float around like all the cool robots, he is apparently mute (despite understanding English), has one big glowing eye on his head (right outta The Outer Limits) and breast-level, apparently sharp, flip-out ‘egg beater’ spinning claws that he uses on several occasions to harass and attack with. Tony Perkins (later) learns about them the hard way, for one. And Dr Reinhardt himself has almost a bigger ‘fro than Huey on The Boondocks. Mad Scientist, indeed.

And thus the Palomino crew now go through the drawn-out motions of figuring out Reinhardt’s diabolical scheme (in a nutshell, he killed/turned his entire crew into robots to ‘save their lives’ and plans to send the Cygnus through the black hole to somehow gain immortality) while they try to repair their own damaged ship to escape.

During this hour or so, we watch Tony Perkins become a traitor (Maximilian whacks him as a reward :)), other sentry robots compete with V.I.N.C.E.N.T. at laser target practice, Old B.O.B. tells them most of the ship’s horrible secrets, and several ridiculous chase sequences ensue as the crew finally wises up and tries to escape. Of course, the last-minute-coward Ernest Borgnine tries to steal the Palomino and leave the rest behind, and gets blasted/blown out of the sky as a result.

Then, if things weren’t bad enough for everyone, meteors (looking not unlike the flying Jello-sticky pad monsters from an old Star Trek episode, but better lit) start pelting the ship. In what must have been a dramatic need to amp up the expensive special effects during these lame chase sequences, a big, round, sun-like burning meteor manages to crash through the roof and ROLL down the center of the ship while the Palomino crew are racing across a catwalk in its way. Yeahhh…..

And of course we have the inevitable faceoff between V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and Maximilian (Old B.O.B. was already winged by a sentry’s laser and dies the soldier’s death he deserved – Slim Pickens-voiced piece of crap!) While Maximilian whips out the ‘breast cuisinarts’ and tries to give V.I.N.C.E.N.T. a chest-level rock-polishing, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. gives him a power drill to the guts in addition to laser-based indigestion. And of course somehow we next see Maximilian spiraling away from the ship INTO the black hole? How did he already get outside?

So since EB got their ship blown up, (and meanwhile, due to all the meteors hitting the ship, Dr. Reinhardt gets crushed at his workstation by a falling flat screen TV from the ceiling – yeah, it was a big one) the “Palominos” head to the probe ship, and in blasting off from Cygnus to escape, find out Reinhardt already programmed the probe to enter the black hole too – Suckahs!

What now follows is one of the weirdest endings to any movie I have ever seen. While the probe ship spirals through the black hole with the remainder of the crew aboard (and their speech is speeded up/slowed down for effect, which just makes it unintelligible) – we somehow see Dr Reinhardt soaring into the black hole himself – then we see Maximilian soaring near him, THEN we see them embrace (and apparently ‘mate’ with one another) because the next scene is Reinhardt’s eyes peering OUT from inside Maximilian’s head. And then we see the new ‘man-bot’ atop a fiery mountain with the demented crew milling around in the depths below – not unlike Saruman and the Orcs in the Two Towers (but aren’t we still in a black hole – where did the volcano planet come from?

The “Palominos” apparently make it through in the probe ship, but up come the end credits. So we never apparently get to find out which Palomino crew member gets to take V.I.N.C.E.N.T.’s hand in marriage and create a race of floating midget robots that constantly annoy others by quoting bad poetry – sad. Even Johnny Five was more literate (and funny) than any robot in this movie.

So if you have survived thus far, you are a better person than I. I now know why this movie was a distant, distant fourth in the race to make the ‘next Star Wars’ back then, and why it has escaped notice since. The obvious attempt to make ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea‘ in space failed, guys. And the story isn’t over yet – apparently they are plotting a ‘reboot‘ (thankfully not a sequel and likely not the same plot in the reboot) of The Black Hole. But the first movie was no TRON by any stretch, and like the somewhat recent Escape to Witch Mountain redo, I expect it to fade fast – but maybe i’ll be wrong?

candybowl

Just finished the first Uplift Trilogy by David Brin. This was a re-read, but it’s been many years. These books are very addicting and haven’t aged badly at all (they were all written in the 80s, although I didn’t read them until after the 90s, pretty sure).

The central theme is that species (alien or human) ‘uplift’ one another into sentience – often through the help of genetic manipulation. In the humans’s case, we were already doing this with chimpanzees and dolphins when our first starships ran into the far greater (and far, far older) Galactic society. Besides becoming immediately controversial (after all, who was Man’s ‘patron’ species? – all the books speculate on this but never provide any answers) and at risk for invasion/takeover (most of the larger Galactic species had been around for thousands if not millions of years), we did gain a few friends along the way, who are revealed over the span of the three books (Sundiver, Startide Rising and The Uplift War). The uniting principle amongst an otherwise uncertain and often dangerous Five Galaxies galactic society is the Library, which serves as an essential repository of nearly all galactic knowledge over time. Each member race has Branch Libraries on their homeworld and colony planets, where they can both learn from and contribute to the knowledge therein over time.

While there are a few quibbles i’d have with the stories now (for example, the books make a big deal about how the humans disdain using the Library while other Galactics rely far, far too heavily on it – If these societies were really thousands-plus years old, I find it hard to believe it would be quite that simplistic) – for the most part they are an entertaining read, with interesting characters and solid attempts at seeing things from other species’ perspective (especially in the latter two books in the case of dolphins and chimps).

It’s off to the second Uplift ‘Storm’ Trilogy for me now! If you are looking for a great way to read a David Brin book without having to commit to an entire series – his Kiln People (2002) book is a very entertaining, one-book-only read? Enjoy!

candybowl

So before we went on vacation in MX last week, I finished watching all of Bruce Lee‘s movies and a couple related documentaries. Not having seen any of BL’s movies despite being a fan of Jet Li and Jackie Chan and other martial-arts movies for quite some time is kind of like being a Star Trek fan and never having watched the original series – Blasphemy!

There are some earlier (fictional) shows out there with BL in them (not as the main star though) – namely the 60s TV series The Green Hornet (he is Kato, the ass-kicking sidekick); and Longstreet (BL plays a martial-arts guru teaching the main character).

And then here are the four full, original Bruce Lee movies out there where he is the central star:

Fists of Fury (The Big Boss) – This was the first of his 3 HK movies – this has a bit of wire work in it (even BL cannot just ‘jump’ over a 12-ft metal fence) but pretty good stuff. What I like is the way the boss of the ice factory tries to co-op people and if they don’t comply, whammo! But no other spoilers – check it out!

Fist of Fury – (remade more recently with Jet Li as Fist of Legend) – where the main character returns to his wushu martial arts school after the master is mysteriously killed, and vengance ensues! The Jet Li remake is a bit more polished and has a bit more plot and character development, but both movies are equally good.

The Way of the Dragon – a man comes to help a Chinese restaurant in Rome, Italy from the mob trying to take it over. This is the one where BL ultimately fights Chuck Norris (in all his TX-hairy-chest-homoerotic glory). I was very surprised at the start of this to see it was set in Italy – definitely a different feel to it for that reason alone. Also, there are a number of comedic touches throughout this movie that aren’t in the earlier two. They aren’t on the level of say Jackie Chan slapstick-style comedy, but prove that BL has some range as an actor, he’s not *just* about serious ass-kicking. 🙂

And finally, Enter the Dragon. This is the big ‘Hollywood movie’ that sadly came out only a few days after BL passed away and helped cement him as an international and permanent star – this was his first big movie in the USA and elsewhere, compared to his already huge stardom in Asia based on the earlier HK movies. The movie is in many ways like a James Bond movie (without the flashy gadgets or Q branch), with BL being an investigator sent to a mysterious island run by an enigmatic martial-arts ‘lord’ suspected of many criminal enterprises. John Saxon is good as BL’s co-star, and there are many great fight scenes, including a young Jackie Chan getting his neck broken by BL as he infiltrates the underground complex but then sets off a bunch of alarms and has to fight his way out.

The movie BL was working on when he got the call from Hollywood regarding Enter the Dragon was to be called Game of Death. He had filmed many of the penultimate fight scenes in it (incl. some former students as his opponents and/or henchmen, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) but with his passing the movie was never completed. Later some film execs took the footage and hacked it into a ‘movie’ with archival footage and other lame attempts at using doubles, etc. with a completely different plot than BL intended. However, all the original footage and a detailed plot discussion of the original script can be seen at the end of the Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey documentary – definitely worth checking out. And you will obviously see where QT/Uma Thurman got the idea for her yellow suit in Kill Bill.

BL is even more amazing (IMHO) when you think about the following:

a) he was only 32(!) when he passed away;
b) for such a huge, huge star he only has a handful of movies and/or onscreen appearances;
c) he not only broke barriers in Hollywood but in society generally against racism and cultural understanding. To this day he serves as a huge inspiration for anyone/everyone who knows about him. Some of the documentaries touch on this (e.g. How Bruce Lee Changed the World) point specifically.

Finally, there is the ‘lost interview‘ available on VHS (I got it and the other movies from the best store on the planet, Scarecrow of course). This is a traveling interview show with some obscure Canadian(?) host who talked to BL for about 40 mins. about his career, experiences in show business and his various philosophies. The interviewer himself is pretty average, but it’s interesting to simply see BL just talk about his life and career and a bit about society too. And you can definitely tell he’s a child of the 60’s – he says ‘man’ in about every other sentence – it would have been so interesting to see how his career and life might have gone had he lived.

I’ll leave you with one of the quotes from the interview: “Be like water, my friend.” You will have to watch either the interview tape or the documentary mentioned above to get more on that one 🙂

candybowl

Watched Enter the Dragon again the other night. And now of course have to finally get around to watching Bruce Lee’s other 3 movies. But enjoyed this one again – my fave scene is when he jumps on Oharra and (I think, they don’t show it) snaps his neck? The expression on his face – slowed down for effect – is priceless! And BL is the guy who made random screams and yowls during fighting the gold standard (and spoofed many thousands of times since of course).

Enter the Dragon is a pretty decent movie on balance – I like John Saxon (seen him in several 70’s flicks apart from here, and he’s even in the first Nightmare in Elm Street if you can believe that) and the other actors are decent. There is more than a bit of the ‘James Bond villain’ aspect to the bad guy Han (especially given having his own remote island where he traffics in opium and drugged women, and holds Shaolin martial-arts tournaments?) which of course adds to the intrigue. Finally, the pacing is pretty effective – they never really get mired down in ‘too much plot, not enough action’ – the movie seeks to entertain, and not take itself TOO seriously (not as slapstick as Jackie Chan’s later movies though, either).

I also watched How Bruce Lee Changed The World tonight. I would call this a ‘faux’ documentary – some interesting factoids but is no Ken Burns movie by any means. While it doesn’t trace BL’s life in too much detail, and has some good interviews with his wife – it kind of uses some semi-lame people in too much screen time IMHO. I like LL Cool J well enough, but I really don’t give a crap about how BL made LL a bigger star and influenced him. There were a few other minor actors in there the same way – yet they gave fairly short shrift to Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen and others who might have had FAR more interesting things to say about BL and his legacy (in China, in HK and elsewhere).

They really tried to show a far-reaching influence of BL across fitness, activities like UFC and BodyBuilding (the former is not a sport, guys – it’s just people cruelly beating each other up!); music (RZA from Wu-Tang Clan) and of course movies and martial-arts pictures in particular. It is pretty amazing to see the influence BL has had after all these years (given only 4 movies?!), and like they said, it’s definitely not going away. But even as shown in this somewhat cursory way – BL was far more than just a martial-arts guy and movie star on the rise – he attained icon status (sadly) just about the time he passed away, and it’s also crazy to think he was only 32 (!) at the time. I will definitely have to visit his grave here in Seattle sometime this summer and pay my respects. What an interesting and complex guy – it is sad he died so young.

On to the other movies!

candybowl

Watched Ip Man yesterday afternoon. This is a martial-arts movie (somewhat) based on the life of Yip Man, a well-known and renowned kung fu master from the Fo Shan region of China – the movie is set initially around 1935 before WWII and before the Japanese invasion of China.

The movie is a bit slow in places (not unlike the early parts of Hero, another great martial-arts movie) but I liked it a lot. I hadn’t taken notice of Donnie Yen before (plays Master Ip), but will definitely have to seek out a few more of his movies. He seems less flashy than others, but has a disarming, quiet and powerful presence throughout the movie – until he lets loose against the Japanese near the end. I liked the fact (truthfully or not) that they tied his art back to the rigorous nature of his practice day in and day out.

One thing they aren’t clear about is how he actually makes a living – he seems to have the best house in town, but doesn’t work, refuses to have a martial-arts school of his own (despite beating everyone else else in town including the other kung-fu masters) and when they show him shopping with his wife, everyone gives him expensive stuff for free? Nice life. Of course he loses all of it later when the Japanese invade, the focus of the second half of the movie.

Even though this movie was made in 2008, much later than the Matrix movies – I kept thinking of several fight scenes in the second Matrix movie especially when watching Ip Man fight here. Apparently Donnie Yen is a renowned fight choreographer beyond his skill in martial arts, it wouldn’t surprise me if his earlier work had an influence on the Matrix fight choreography, and/or if the Wachowski brothers were fans of his.

Apparently the ‘real’ Yip Man had a bit of an issue with opium addiction (see Wikipedia link above) – they never talk about that in the movie. But they do mention that his later success in martial-arts education based in Hong Kong included such famous pupils as Bruce Lee among others. Yip Man passed away in 1972.

If you like kung-fu movies, check this out – it’s definitely one of the best! Apparently a sequel came out recently, will have to watch it soon.

candybowl

saw Up again a few nights ago. What a great movie – and somewhat different than the usual Pixar fare.

On the one hand, the animation keeps on getting better and better – the balloons above the house look almost real, and it’s interesting that they’d make a movie about an old man and his early child dreams of South American adventure (?). And the usual Pixar ‘warm & silly’ touches are there too (talking dogs with several recurring jokes, gentle slapstick humor throughout, a weird chocolate-loving bird named Kevin, etc.).

I also appreciate Pixar’s continued willingness to subtly slam the corporations (not that Hollywood doesn’t make a lot of income doing that anyway) but Pixar is more sublime than most, barring say, WALL-E (that movie is a more extreme position on the subject :)). Here the anti-corporate commentary largely takes the form of Carl’s house being ‘built around’ by skyscrapers (reminds me of the old lady’s San Francisco firehouse in Herbie Rides Again) but there’s also implications for both the two heroes (Carl and explorer scout Russell) and villain (Muntz) concerning the underlying theme of adventure and seeking the unknown. The ‘real world’ is never kind to that one, to be sure.

There are definitely varied movie and pop-culture influences at work here – at least in my mind. Muntz’ airship is right out of The Island at the Top of the World; kerewin noted the house + balloons as possibly inspired by James & the Giant Peach; and my own (i’m sure unintended) reference is the Alpha dog’s distorted voice (heard at two different times in the movie) being identical to Conan O’Brien’s Pimpbot 5000 – too funny. And the whole ‘travel adventure’ artwork seen early on by Carl and Ellie as kids is very reminiscent of the earlier Pixar movie The Incredibles (I’m thinking of Mr. Incredible in his office looking at all his old glory newspaper articles, and of the artwork in the closing credits, too – classic stuff!)

But what makes Up more than a bit different than other Pixar movies (and other family fare) is their willingness to inject a lot of sadness into the movie and plot. The early montage of Carl & Ellie’s life together by itself is enough to get out the hanky, but it doesn’t stop there. Although they balance it somewhat by the various triumph(s) in the movie, this is still a much sadder story than most – one of our friends is adamant he’d never bring kids to this movie, way too depressing! 🙂 But to his point, I think at least some of that sadness is aimed far more directly at adults and you have to be one to really appreciate WHY it is sad and not simply transition periods between the more action-oriented portions of the movie. Maybe it’s not sad per se, but rather, poignant and wistful? The writers obviously make strong points about ‘live life to the fullest’, ‘don’t forget to look around you for the adventure you already live’, and themes to that effect. Sage advice indeed – but rare in an animated family movie?

I guess that’s what continues to make Pixar special and their movies stand out from the crowd. While I think the next couple movies are going to be sequels (Cars 2, Monsters Inc. 2) hopefully they’ll continue with the original, unique stuff.

candybowl

finally got around to watching Escape from New York (yes, the 80s cult classic) last night. Always meant to watch it, have read about it, seen a few clips here and there but never the whole movie. For those souls hiding under a rock the past 30 years, basically Kurt Russell is Snake Plissken, an ex-military hero who is actually on his way TO the prison (for robbing a bank) when Lee Van Cleef enlists him to save The President, because Air Force One crashed in NYC, now a max-security prison for the entire country.

Some thoughts:

1) do *NOT* watch the ‘extras’ until AFTER the movie! While I already knew mostly what happens (the movie is 30+ years old after all) there were a few spoilers in the featurette (interviews with John Carpenter, Kurt Russell, and others from the movie/writers) that unfortunately did their evil work. Doh!

2) it isn’t a super high-budget movie. But for what it has, it’s not bad. And it has the advantage of depicting NYC as a prison (versus trying to depict a future robot theme park on a budget), so you expect things to be thrashed and on fire, etc.

3) The fight scene with Kurt Russell and the big wrestler guy is lame. I guess it was inevitable they had to have *some* big ‘fight’ in a movie like this – but they should have had some crazy alley battle like the ridiculous one in They Live (also by JC but later) or some square-off between Isaac Hayes (the ‘Duke of New York’ – has a ’70s big-ass Caddy with chandeliers mounted on the hood – I am not making that up) and KR.

4) Harry Dean Stanton is always good, he plays great freaks. Ernest Borgnine (‘Cabbie’) was kind of wasted in his part (who takes cabs in prison? And how has he been driving a cab in NYC for 30 years – did he just decide to stay when they converted it into a prison?)

5) Like the featurette says – Snake Plissken is a great anti-hero, and KR definitely plays up the Clint Eastwood aspect (as he admits). Minimal dialogue, maximum attitude. Would that we could all be Snake Plissken 🙂 But I’d toss the eye-patch – I like having depth perception, myself. Get some scary tattoo or wear goth clothing or something.

6) it’s a bit weird to see SP land his glider on the Twin Towers, given that they aren’t there anymore. And the chase across the bridge to ‘escape’ seems like an awfully small bridge? Foot bridge? Every car/transit conduit into Manhattan I’ve ever seen is at least FOUR LANES? Even the smallest bridges in Seattle are four lanes? Just sayin’.

All in all, an entertaining watch – it’s always interesting for me (having been there first time around) to see how well the ‘tech’ ages in movies like this. Here, they don’t really play that up, save for some computery-looking fonts on some of the signs and computers – and a few terminals that were obviously stolen from a nearby airport for the early part of the movie. SP’s radio is a bit on the big side as you might expect, and the ‘phone’ Lee Van Cleef uses to call him on later almost covers the side of his entire head and neck – now THAT’s a phone! One he could call with *and* use as a TV tray for his dinner while waiting for SP to get back?

candybowl

Saw the new Narnia movie this afternoon – not bad, pretty entertaining. As I haven’t read any of these books, I can’t really say whether they are true/not true to the books – although I have heard the first two movies were pretty on-story. I think this one veers a bit off (per Salon’s review) but I still found it a pretty solid story and not cluttered with meaningless extra details and simply too much “CGI for spending money’s sake” (pretty every POTC movie excepting the first one, the second trilogy of Star Wars movies, you name it). The characters are sympathetic (even Eustace by mid-movie) and even Tilda Swinton manages a couple very brief appearances as Edmund’s evil nemesis, The White Witch.

I may never get around to reading the books – already have too many on the nightstand as it is – but the movie is definitely a good one. It will be interesting to see what happens with the next one, given that none of the original kids will likely be in it (they aren’t in the next books)?

candybowl