Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/5/13-5/11/13)

    Day after day, week after week, rain and threat of rain.  It’s starting to get to me.  I’ve only done maybe five or six bike trips so far this year, which is unacceptable by this point.  Otherwise, just stress broken up with movies and books.  Woot.

    I got in a few more episodes of Fraggle Rock.  I’m in season 3 now, and the quality has not dropped.  I continue to be impressed by the show’s solid foundation in basic morality without being too preachy or condescending.  Truly one of the greatest youth oriented shows I’ve experienced.

Star Trek: First Contact:  “This far.  No farther!”  Picard faces his Khan, the Borg, in this darned exciting and action packed film.  This should have been the first movie for the Next Gen crew, instead of the wishy-washy, gutless and stupid Generations.  After the Hugh episode of Next Gen pretty much eviscerated the Borg, making them little more than a bumbling bunch of communist thugs, First Contact made them scary and menacing again.  And oddly, by putting a ‘human face’ on them, helped to make them less human.  The so called Borg Queen is, I think, a manifestation of the species’ intellect as opposed to its leader.  As she says, you see disparity where there is none.  She is the Borg.  And she drips with sexual menace and Vaseline, becoming an all consuming fertility goddess, a bottomless hunger that consumes all.  The Borg are obviously the dark side of the potentials of cybernetics.  But they are not evil, simply alien.  Along the way, we also see the story of the fist warp vessel launched by a backyard astronaut-entrepreneur.  The movie looks great, it moves fast, has some really good moments, and a solid story.  I know everyone is about Star Trek II, but First Contact remains my favorite of the franchise’s films.

House on the Edge of the Park:  Well, that was unpleasant.  A film that makes beautiful women taking their clothes off difficult for me to watch.  I guess that’s something.  David Hess is hard to look at.  Don’t.

    As I’ve said before, I grew up in the late 70s and 80s, in the shadow of the Cold War, but also during a fairly tectonic shift in technology and its democratization.  The personal computer, the early days of what would become the internet, the explosion of prosthesis, transplants, and implants.  It was pretty wild.  Every year felt more and more like I was living in a new age, a science fictional world.  Part of that shift was captured in a somewhat short lived, but key movement in science fiction literature that I felt attuned to then, and still hold a special place in my heart for now.  Cyberpunk.  It was a movement born of and reflective of its time, a specifically 80s thing, though ripples of its influences continue to wash through books and movies and culture.  All that is just to bring up that I randomly picked the cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades off the shelf this week and read the story Snake-Eyes by Tom Maddox.  Darned fine and cool tale.  Reading about the protagonist and his desire to experience the strange reminded me of myself.  I think my friends think I’m kidding when I say I want to get 360 degree vision, or the ability to shift my perception through various spectra, or just that I want mechanical legs.  But I’m not.  Not at all.  And here is a character after my own heart, as he struggles with what it means to have these implants within him, unleashing his primitive impulses.  I also like that the story isn’t about ‘tech bad/bio good’ or ‘instinct bad/logic good.’  It’s about the dangers of technology and the benefits, and its about balancing the deepest and most base lusts with the rational control of civilized Man.  I’m all about that.  Good stuff.

The Last Dragon:  “Shonuff!”  Oh, man.  What the heck is up with this movie?  It’s funny (sometimes intentionally) and weird as all get-out.  Bruce Leroy.  Vanity.  Young William H. Macy.  It’s some kind of alternative 1985, fueled by coke, neon, and awful post-funk Motown.  The acting is truly inspired.  And something about Bruce Leroy running around in that rice farmer’s hat seems racist.  I’m not sure how, but it feels racist.  Vanity really was cute, though.  Talentless, but cute.  So, when the Shogun of Harlem is giving you some guff, you just call Bruce Leroy with his Power of the Glow.  This movie is what the Double Dragon film should have been like.

Shonuff!!!

Cat-women of the Moon:  “You‘re too smart for me, baby.  I like ‘em stupid.”  I’m not sure if I’d seen this before, or if it’s so typical of the genre that it just felt that way.  Chicks in unitards hide out in the ruins of an ancient civilization.  The usual battle of the sexes crap.  A bunch of near-immortal sex kittens need to learn what wholesome and slightly dim American men can do for them.  It’s fine, but pretty by the numbers.  But hey, it’s short.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid:  “I got my shotgun full of 16 thin dimes.  Enough to spread you out like a crazy woman’s quilt.”  Everybody who was alive when this film was made shows up to look ugly as heck and do evil things to each other Peckinpah style.  I’m not a Dylan fan, but his music on this movie isn’t bad, and his extremely affected acting performance is fun.  Otherwise, it’s just nasty, nasty, nasty.  Oh, and depressing.  But it’s also a pretty good flick.  Not going on my list of best Westerns, but it’s a good one.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia:  “I been here before and you don’t know the way.”  Wow.  Ever think you’re just in too good a mood, and want to bring it down a notch?  This is the movie for you.  A relentlessly grim and angry film, it rages at you with whiskey stinking breath and grime covered hands.  You are the white whale, Peckinpah is Ahab, and he’s shooting his heart upon you with his chest cannon.  It isn’t the Western I was expecting, though it often feels like one.  It’s modern, but dingy and aged, beaten by the sun and spit on by life.  I keep thinking of Mister Eddy in Lost Highway with his throat all slashed, gurgling, ‘you and me buddy, we can sure out-ugly them som’bitches.’

Prey:  A dumb young woman and her obsessive lady friend are living the life in a secluded English estate, when a bird hating alien shows up looking for lunch.  One long, awkward dinner party later, who can tell hunter from prey.  This movie has a lot of screeching.  The dumb woman screeches a lot.  A LOT.  Her lady love also screeches…but not as much.  Even the alien screeches a bit.  Maybe they should have called the film Screech.  It’s not a good movie.  But it has a dubious charm.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad:  “We may be thieves and murderers…but we are not fools.”  One of literature’s great adventure heroes, Sinbad, gets a definitive presentation with this Ray Harryhausen creature packed fantasy film.  Like the tales of the Arabian Nights, it is a hodgepodge of traditional stories from various cultures and whole cloth.  Kerwin Mathews is an adequate Sinbad (though I prefer John Phillip Law), and Kathryn Grant is adorable as his chosen bride.  I notice watching this film, the evil wizard was hardly out of line in his requests for aid.  Granted, his reaction is perhaps a touch extreme, but I really do think he was used rather poorly by Sinbad and his sultan.

    Friday night and Saturday morning, I read new book The Centrist Manifesto by Charles Wheelan.  It’s a solid exploration of the need in American politics for the moderate, centrist elements to stand up and be counted.  The first rational call for a serious and useful third party I’ve seen in my lifetime.

    I also read the prequel graphic novel Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness that leads into next week’s Star Trek: Into Darkness theatrical release.  Can’t say I’m surprised to report it’s not very good.  The art is blah, the script is more blah, and the story isn’t interesting.  The portrayal of Robert April is straight-up silly.  It also does nothing to alive my fears for where they’re taking this new movie.  Conspiracy this, war that; fistfight, fistfight, fistfight!

Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island:  Fleeing a Confederate prison, some Civil War soldiers end up in a balloon, trapped in a powerful seemingly endless gale that takes them away from any known land.  Crash landing on a …mysterious island, they find some danged peculiar things going on.  The film works as a kind of sequel to Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and a nice stylistic companion to Journey to the Center of the Earth (though, that makes its lack of James Mason conspicuous).  Ray Harryhausen once again creates some very cool creatures to menace our heroes.  I love these adventure films.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad:  “My friend, you can not pick up two melons with one hand, and I cannot work miracles.”  John Phillip Law is definitely the best Sinbad of the Harryhausen era, and my Caroline Munro fetish can not be denied.  Plus, fourth Doctor, Tom Baker as the evil wizard is enjoyably hammy in that stage actor sort of way.  Even the supporting characters are more interesting than usual.  Lavish production and exotic locations give it a grand fantasy feel.  The story is pretty wild and the action solid.  Fantasy movies of this much imagination are not unheard of today, but they are rare.  I’d like to see more.

One Million Years B.C.:  “Errr!”  Hammer Studios takes on history in this caveman epic featuring the awe-inspiring body of Raquel Welch and the stop-motion wizardry of Ray Harryhausen.  Truth be told, this isn’t a particularly good movie.  Its grasp of history is…well, absent.  The acting, even without sensible dialog, is not good.  It’s pretty much made watchable by Welch (who is infinitely watchable) and the cool creatures.  Martine Beswick isn’t too hard on the eyes either, I guess.  The music is interesting.  Where do you find a village of beautiful blonde spear-fishing cavegirls, anyway?  Sweden?  Was this filmed on location?  I do kind of get Tumak.  All Welch’s emotions are weird and she’s kind of clingy.  I wonder if the scriptwriter began with ‘two fur bikini-clad women in sweaty cat-fight’ and worked backward from there.  That seems about right.

Where is this film's Oscar?

    And lastly, I started watching the PBS series Secret Files of the Inquisition, a look into the Vatican’s records.  The narration and dramatization are well done, though the pacing and editing is a bit weird.  It frequently feels like it’s going to commercial, but as it’s from PBS, I assume there wasn’t one.  And there’s a lot of unnecessary foreshadowing, often of events about to be described.

-Matt

History was AWESOME!

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/24/13-3/30/13)

    On Monday night I went to see a school play directed by the Bride of Dork, Lisa.  Cute stuff.  School plays are a fascinating thing.  I remember doing a couple performances as a kid.  It was super stressful and extremely difficult.  But I look back and think how easy everything was and how little it mattered.  I wish I’d been able to simply enjoy it.  But I couldn’t when I was that age.


Olympus Has Fallen:  OK, I know this is a broken record here, but seriously, they’ve got to stop using CGI blood in action movies.  It NEEDS to stop.  This had the potential to be a really fun 80s style crazy action movie.  There are hundreds of acts of violence, but the CG robs them of their power.  It’s still fun, but not nearly as much as it should be.  And frankly, the final act doesn’t live up to the jingoistic silliness of the first half.  If only the villain could have been stabbed with an American flag, or at least be killed in front of a painting of Washington or something.  But the finale ends up being more generic shooting and punching.  It’s an extremely dumb movie, but it was mildly enjoyable.  With bloody squibs going off, it could have been much better.

Doctor Who: Season 7 Part 1:  “1938.  We just bounced off it.”  I’m still having fun watching this show.  But, it has some flaws, and those flaws are becoming more profound.  Part of the problem is a lack of grounding; a melodramatic streak that gets wider by the episode keeps shooting over the top so many times it has become like the proverbial boy who called wolf.  At some point, the cry ceases to be scary or impressive.  The rousing speeches and sudden resets after the story has been written into a corner steal the impact of any later dangers.  It all becomes too easy to fix.  A third of the population dies in an instant?  Wave a magic wand (sonic screwdriver) and suddenly, all is well.  Really?  Any drama is eroded by that kind of thing.  Again, the show is fun, but I’d like to see some changes; maybe writing staff, companions, tone.  I’m not sure.  While I don’t want a return to ‘the way things were,’ I’d like a return of some of the things that made the show successful.  I want crazy ideas, yes.  That’s Who.  But I also want interesting characters and plots, where danger feels real and the potential for failure (no matter how slight) feels like a possibility.  The Weeping Angels episode from this season was better than the previous.  I didn’t like the one (season 6?) where you actually saw them move.  They’re much creepier when you see them from the perspective of their victims, always frozen when you look at ‘em.  But otherwise, there weren’t any particular standout episodes.  Not really.  The dinosaur episode was amusing, but I wanted more Silurians and less friends from history.   I found the exit of Amy and Rory a bit of a letdown.  It’s OK.  There have been much worse.  But it left me cold.  Probably just an echo of my general feelings on recent seasons.  And when are they going to have a really interesting companion?  Enough with the pretty, 20 somethings who spend their time pining after the Doctor, subbing for the squeeing ladies who have (admittedly) helped propel the show into its newfound popularity.  (By the way, ladies, there are plenty of guys just as dorky around you every day, but they’re emotionally available, so you may want to keep clear).  Where is the new generation’s Jamie, or Leela, or Romana (I or II), or Vicki?  Martha and Rory are probably the best new companions, and they’re good.  But why do we have to keep meeting their family, and how about someone who isn’t from today’s UK?  After tantalizing us with Jack and River, even a few crazy possibilities like that girl stuck in a Dalek body, they’ve never lived up by giving the Doctor someone really wild to partner with.  In the classic run, he’s had two future dwelling super-geniuses, a savage girl from a failed human colony, a math wiz from another dimension, a Highlander, and a Time Lord (two regenerations worth), among others.  The new show could use something like that.  And a bit of restraint on the melodrama.  And an end of magic wand waving/reset button finales.

Onmyoji:  “I hear you have quite impressive skills.”  Demon haunted ancient Japan is in trouble.  It’s up to the Onmyoji, a bunch of astrologer/wizard/priests who like to smile at each other to save the world from all those danged monsters.  They smoke a lot of scrolls in the combating of evil.  There’s some weirdass crap for sure.  An interesting look into the more fantastic, magical side of the Samurai myths and stories.  This is some Twin Peaks Red Lodge kind of crazy stuff.

Magnum P.I. Season 2:  “Higgie Baby!”  Oh, man.  I just love this show.  The cast is so much fun to watch.  The wink & a smile stories and infrequent but well used Fourth Wall breaks, along with healthy helpings of early 80s cheese, make it intoxicatingly watchable.  I especially love episodes when Higgins gets in on the action.  The typical exasperated interplay between him and Magnum is great.  But when they work together the adventures are that much more fun.  Whenever the Magnum theme starts playing, I can’t help but have a giant smile on my face.

2010:  “Something is going to happen…Something wonderful.”  Destined to be a letdown, thanks to the all consuming love of the first film held by most cinefiles, 2010 is actually a very good, fairly realistic science fiction film.  It’s well made, well acted, and well written.  A great companion to movies like Alien, Outland, etc.  It obviously did not deliver what fans of 2001 wanted, but I think it delivered the goods, none the less.  Go in with an open mind and I think you’ll enjoy it just fine.  The last act is a bit iffy, but not bad.  Also, is Max gonna be a new Star Child?  And I do like that Time cover that shows the US and Russian leaders.

Ronan Gai:  “Samurai noodles!”  This homage to classic Samurai films does an excellent job of capturing the look and feel those venerable, violent epics of the 60s and 70s.  You would never guess it was made in the last 80s.  Four former samurai have fallen on hard times, their honor tarnished, their purses empty, their souls broken.  The film is a sad look at people who have lost their way, lost their purpose in life.  The four leads are some of the saddest sadsacks to ever sad up a movie.  The weird murder-gang story that slowly builds over the course of the film feels random, in spite of being integral to the, uh, plot(?).  I’m not sure if it’s cultural, something about the script, or what.  But I really didn’t get half of this movie, what was going on, who was doing what, or why for a large chunk of time.  Everyone seemed to be truly awful and vile, and whatever they did seemed bad.  But that is one nutty, drunken Johnny Depp samurai fight at the end.  He’s so tired and drunk and sweaty and half naked.  Whatever the problems with the film, the ending is pretty cool.  According to the trailer, “the last 17 minutes are the biggest massacre in history!”  I think if I was a) Japanese or b) more versed in Samurai culture or film, I’d have probably understood it more.  But even so, the overall feel of the passing of an era, the collapse of a societal system, is hard to miss.  These old warriors’ time has passed, and they have nowhere to go in the new world.  Very sad.

The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption:  “I smell delicious.”  The Mummy 2 hinted at some crazy fantasy adventures in the spin-off movie The Scorpion King.  Instead, we got a boring Xena episode, with pretty much no fantasy adventure at all.  Just guys with mullets and a lot of slow-mo.  The Scorpion King 2, which went straight to video, at least featured some weird elements, but they cast off the Egyptian mythology for over-used Greek stuff.  Combined with the prequel storyline, it seemed more like a Young Hercules movie than Scorpion King.  This movie tries to bring things back to the Mummy movies, if only in a few details.  There’s still precious little Egyptian mythology or weirder fantasy elements; no monsters, no gods, just a bit of magic and some resurrected warriors.  Once again, more Hercules & Xena, blending random bits of history and art from unrelated places and times.  The script is really bad, and the acting steps up to the plate, matching it swing for swing.  Like Abelar: Tales of an Ancient Empire (see my Week in Dork for March 3-9), this feels like somebody’s D&D group wrote a movie.  There’s way too much dialog.  A lot of scenes would have been better served by characters shutting up instead of saying especially stupid things.  Temuera Morrison and Ron Perlman show up to cash some checks.  But Billy Zane is there for other reasons.  Billy Zane is there for Art.  Sadly, the movie is really stupid.  Another chance to do a fun fantasy film squandered with bad writing and poor planning.  Also, it’s rated PG-13, so it can’t even attempt to make up for shortcomings in script with violence or T&A.  And that’s just lame.  But, when Billy Zane takes center stage as the villain, he elevates the movie to Nicolas Cage levels of class and subtlety (how much stuff does he have stashed in his crotch?).  For some reason, he seems to be playing the role as a slapstick comedian.  It’s so jarringly wrong for the movie, it somehow becomes right (could this be his On the Waterfront?).  Somehow, as stupid as the movie is, and as bad as the script is, Zane grabs it, breaks it like a wild horse, and rides it into the sunset of B-movie glory.  After this, I can see Zane dressing up in a bear suit and punching women or ranting about blood in his urine (see Nic Cage’s magnificent performances in the Wicker Man remake or Port of Call: New Orleans).  This is the Billy Zane who hangs with Derik Zoolander.  His performance alone almost makes up for how blah the rest of the film is.

    “You have no concept of the depth of my ire.”  With all this excitement, you might think I didn’t have time to start watching season 3 of Magnum P.I.  How wrong you’d be.  Shot shorts, mustache, baseball cap, sunglasses and all the cool millions of years of evolution could pack into one man’s body.  The first episode features an odd, extended sequence of TC doing his job (flying).  It’s actually pretty cool.  The scenery is amazing and it’s kind of fun to see TC just enjoying himself without Magnum messing with him.  The flashbacks get pretty intense in this one, with a bunch of racist lingo thrown around.  I’m not a fan of the flashback episodes.  But this one is so danged brutal.  And the ending.  Hardcore.  Then episode 2...Simon & Simon crossover!

Star Trek:  I’ve been a Trek fan since I was a wee lad.  My favorite of all is the original series.  So, keep that in mind when I sing this film’s praises.  While I love the original show, I’d hardly hold it up as ‘intellectual’ science fiction.  It was as much an action show as TV had in the 60s, with much more attention paid to fast moving stories and often heavy-handed morality than to well thought out scientific concepts and their ethical relationships with humanity in the future.  This film, like Wrath of Khan and First Contact, keeps the action rolling fast enough that you don’t worry about occasional logic leaps (have you watched Star Trek?  Logic leaps are not new).  It sets up an alternate timeline where Kirk’s life is drastically altered by a time event.  Ripples of that event  effect the universe in various ways, but fate seems to be determined to bring some people together.  I’m not a big fan of Kirk’s character arc in the film.  I don’t like the reluctant hero archetype, and I don’t like that they shoehorned Kirk into it.  Other than that and that the film’s plot follows the basic Wrath of Khan mold that most of the films have, I don’t have any major complaints about the movie.  It has a distinct look and feel, a solid cast who manage to avoid imitation while capturing the essence of their characters.  I would like to see filmmakers get back into space exploration and problem solving, as opposed to space battles and fist fights.  Still, if they’re gonna do action, they could do worse.

Quicksilver:  Kevin Bacon and his amazing mustache blows it hard at the stock exchange.  But through his fall he learns a life lesson, that being a bike messenger is the key to freedom.  As a warrior-poet once said, ‘breaks are death.’  Like everyone who was anyone in the 80s, he lives in a crazy unique apartment, occasionally lives via montage, and has great hair.  This has that feel, that magic feel that 80s movies had.  Some combination of the fashion, the movie making technology, I don’t know.  But it’s there.  Am I nuts or do they suddenly end up in San Francisco during a street race?  That doesn’t look like New York, and I think Alcatraz is in the background of one shot.  When I watched Premium Rush a few months back, I kept thinking how 80s it was, and kept remembering Quicksilver.  I’d never seen it, but the poster was up for years at every video rental shop around.  Premium Rush was clearly inspired by this film.  They both come from the same headspace.  I found myself enjoying this movie quite a bit.

G.I. Joe Retaliation:  After the travesty that was the first film, the powers that be must have listened to the backlash and said, ‘how about we make a movie where we actually use the property it’s based on for inspiration?’  This, unlike the first, is actually a G.I. Joe movie.  It’s like the cartoon made live-action.  The plot is ridiculous, the action silly, the resolution completely stupid.  Just like the show.  Cobra takes over the White House, old guys lend a hand, lots of stuff blows up, and Jonathan Price is clearly having the time of his life.  We finally get a real Cobra Commander doing his usual silly crap.  I could have dealt without all the ninja crap, but I never liked that in the cartoon, either.  However, I know a lot of the fans like Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes.  Me?  Meh.  The movie is stupid and silly.  And it’s exactly what I wanted.  Now there has been a G.I. Joe movie.  And about time.

Godzilla VS. Megalon:  Deep under the ocean, the white robed people of Seatopia watch interpretive dance and bow before Easter Island heads while they stew in their hatred of surface dwellers.  A couple of swell chums (and their awful voiced ward) have invented a silly looking robot with a name that really fits him (just ask them), Jet Jaguar.  When the Seatopians unleash their skyscraper handed, star headed bug monster Megalon, it’s up to size expanding Jet Jaguar to save the day.

    I finally popped Rome on.  I watched a few episodes a long time back, but never got around to watching the whole thing.  Figure I’d better get started.  HBO, man.  They make some fine shows.  If only they would get hold of something like Conan, and give it a serious take.  I feel like, in large part due to movies, we have this vision of Romans as these supremely civilized folk, where in fact, they seem to have been bloody barbarians.  Just successful ones.  Watching this series helps make real the descriptions of Rome seen from the recent Cleopatra biography.  Close, dirty, stinking, and brutal.  Its façade of civilization all surface, with a beast’s heard beneath.

Quantum of Solace:  “I don’t have any friends.”  I’ve talked a lot about my love of Daniel Craig’s take on Bond, and these new movies.  They’ve gotten back to the best things about Bond, dropping the bad.  And how cool it was that this movie didn’t try to redo Casino Royale, serving instead as a continuation of its story.  So I’m not going to go into any of that again.  Instead, I’ll just talk about a) how hot Olga Kurylenko is and b) how much I like Mathieu Amalric’s sleazy villain.  Olga Kurylenko is so hot.  I really like Mathieu Amalric as the sleazy villain.  There.  Check the movie out.

The Quiet American:  “I’m English.  I have habits.”  I know I should so something about it, but I have never read any Graham Greene.  Put him on the list.  I enjoy Brendan Fraser, in spite of all his crappy roles.  And obviously, Michael Caine is awesome.  The exceptionally awkward friendship/rivalry between the two is gut wrenching, and such an odd counterpoint to the sweep of history going on around them.  The conflict that will eventually explode into the Vietnam War grinds away while two men vie for the love of a woman.  Caine is kind of a monster, but a monster one can sympathies with.  While Fraser is aw gee shucks swell, but kind of a bastard at heart.  And Phuong…well, she might just be the most monstrous of all, beautiful on the outside, but a soulless tormentor.

Earth VS. The Spider:  “There’s a rubber glove; put it on.”  A surprisingly bloody opening sets the stage for this Atomic Age monster movie.  Cut to cute bobbysoxer Carol and her doofy boyfriend wander the downtown of Middle America.  Mike can’t help but put his foot in it, because he’s a dimwit.  Cut to Mr. Wizard’s class, full of 30 year old high school kids for a lesson in Electricity! that I’m sure will not come back to be important later.  Mike is such a dolt, you keep hoping Carol will pitch him in a bottomless grotto.  In the spider’s defense, if it hadn’t been for his web in that cave, those two dumb kids would have plunged to their death.  So, in a sense, the spider is kind of a hero.  And you can put ‘waking up a dead giant spider’ on the list of things that can be accomplished if you rock hard enough.  I’m not a fan of movies that use real animals and trick photography, so this had a pretty big strike against it on the creature front.  But there are a few effective moments.

War of the Colossal Beast:  “Get the picture?”  I hardly remember The Amazing Colossal Man, but this sequel is about on par with the silliness.  Our giant mutant is now seriously injured and seemingly mentally challenged.  I guess getting half his face blown off effected him quite a bit.  More Bert I. Gorgon MST3K fodder.

    I got in a bit more Fraggle Rock.  That’s another show that just makes me feel happy.  It’s extremely charming and good natured, without being dull or stupid.  One of the best kids shows I’ve seen in part because it doesn’t dumb things down.  If I ever had kids, this would be on the list of things I would feel good about letting them watch, as it teaches good lessons in creative ways, and is entertaining as well.

Speed Racer:  Whenever I’m down, I can just pop Speed Racer in and things feel better.  I love that this movie about racing, something I couldn’t give two shakes about, ends up being this amazing martial arts film at its heart.  This movie is about kung fu, and one young man’s quest for enlightenment.  The sweet family dynamic, Christina Ricci being as adorable as she has ever been, Matthew Fox and his suave cool Racer X.  That’s all great.  And the insane, colorful explosion of visual effects blasting at your eyes makes for a fun watch.  But at its heart is Speed learning to reach the essence of excellence, transcend skill, and become an artist.

    On Friday I tried a nearby bike path again, hoping maybe it had improved in the four years since the last time I rode it.  Sadly, no.  It’s randomly paved, often covered not in gravel but rocks, and difficult to get to.  And so far as I’ve found, it doesn’t connect with anything, so when I reach the end, I have to turn around and follow the whole thing back, instead of making a circuit, as I would prefer.  I don’t like retracing my steps on recreational bike trips.  Annoyingly, it’s also the closest one to me.  My place is in this horrible dead zone, some of the only territory in Northern Virginia that doesn’t have good biking.  I don’t like the idea that I need a car to go to a bike path.  I think the problem is that this city is old, and while there have been a few scattered attempts to modernize, it’s still basically a car town, like my hometown of Bangor.  It’s not as pedestrian/cyclist hostile as Bangor.  But it’s not friendly, either.  To the best of my knowledge, there isn’t a foot path that would allow me to walk to DC, for example.  At least, not without traveling miles and miles in a different direction first.  Even though I’m close to at least one main road that goes right into the city.

-Matt