Matt’s Week in Dork!

 
This is my first entry in our new column covering the various dorky things we did over the past week.

So, first the movies I watched:

Fast Five:  Now, I’ll admit, I may have missed a few of the subtle nuances, because I have not seen any previous Fast or Furious film.  But, I think I managed to follow along.  Basically, a bunch of meatheads like driving really fast and occasionally stealing stuff.  Another meathead wants to stop them.  There’s some stuff about a Brazilian crime lord.  Lots of stuff blows up.  And the camera lingers on sweaty musclemen like it’s a romance writer.   The dialog is crap.  The ‘acting’ is crap.  But, that said, I enjoyed the heck out of this big dumb movie.

Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon:  I always prefer when the Doctor and friends leave Earth, and this is no exception.  The Doctor and Jo get wrapped up in some political mess on a medieval type planet that being considered for membership in a galactic civilization.  This gives them a chance to see some aliens, fight a monster, and have several fun little adventures.  For perhaps the first and only time, I actually liked Jo.  This was a good one.

MST3K: The Indestructible Man:  Oh, Lon Chaney Jr., you sad, sad man.  An criminal gets turned into a nearly unkillable monster who just wants his money or revenge, or something.   He ambles about as some other criminals and some cops look for him.  Frankly, the film is pretty boring, but Joel and the bots are a lot of fun.

Doctor Who:  The Claws of Axos:  A really creepy alien menace shows up in the south of England looking for a snack.  The usual crew from this era look into things, as an annoying and blustery Government official keeps sticking his nose in things.  Unfortunately, the Master shows up too.  I’ll admit, The Master is one popular villain I don’t much care for.  He’s a little too Saturday morning cartoon cornbal for my tastes.  But, the story is pretty cool and the explody tentacle alien monsters are completely disgusting.

Dylan Dog:  OK, if you’re familiar with the comic this movie is based on, forget it.  The film uses nothing but the name.  If you are not, you should still forget it.  This movie is pretty much a really, really long, really, really awful episode of Buffy.  But, to help it suck, they added a super-dull narration that WILL NOT STOP.  Say what you will about last year’s awful Skyline, but at least it was stupid enough to enjoy making fun of.  Dylan Dog is just dull, dull, dull.

Thor:  I’ve got to give it to them, they went for it.  This movie is unapologetically set in the Marvel Comics universe.  It doesn’t try to make stuff to real world.  No toning down of the crazy god talk.  Lots of nutty action and goofy but fun dialog.  The cast is good, the effects are pretty good, and the story, for being an origin story isn’t mind numbingly paint-by-numbers like several others (Iron Man, I’m looking at you!).

Doctor Who: The Time Monster:  One of the long stories from Jon Pertwee’s era, and sadly, featuring one of my least favorite recurring villains, The Master.  Still, the story is pretty wild and there are some cool bits, including a trip back to Atlantis and a guest appearance from sexy Hammer girl Ingrid Pitt.

I also started watching the sadly short-lived TV series The Middleman, which I'm enjoying quite a bit.  It's got sort of a weird mix of Special Unit 2 and Adam West's Batman.  Crazy stuff.

And I started watching the Gerry Anderson series Stingray, the series he did just before Thunderbirds.  Crazy undersea adventures, fish people, and lots of other puppety goodness.

I didn’t do a lot of reading this week.  However, I finally finished Richard Dawkins’ excellent book The Greatest Show on Earth.  Sadly, a book that should be read by a lot of people who will refuse to read it.

And the week was ended on a special Dork note with Free Comic Book Day where as Brad said, we managed to hit three different comic shops, see some good crowds of people, and drop a bit of money at each shop.



-Matt