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Finally went to see it with our friends Jay and Lola. It was fun and the CGI special effects were amazing, but the plot was light and it was fairly cheesy. Interesting to see the fruition of the project that I'd been hearing about for the last three years, what with James Cameron being on the board at Multiverse.

Plate o' Shrimp

Next in the series of my favorite movies, which I happened to catch on TV the other night: Repo Man. Very 80s, and looking a bit dated these days, but still pretty funny in its odd way. I always got a kick out of Miller's rants, e.g.

A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate o' shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

I'm not quite sure how that applies to my life currently, as it seems like the giant cosmic plate o' shrimp has been dumped all over our heads. But maybe we're just working our way through the lattice of coincidence and will soon come out into the daylight...

Sully and Suley, the pilot and Octomom

This opinion piece by Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal is very well-written. It does sort of capture the zeitgeist....

Here's a partial synopsis:

"There's a sense that everyone's digging in. President Obama has dug in on this stimulus bill: Pass it or see catastrophe. Republicans are dug in: Pass it and see catastrophe....

And there's something else,... It's Sully and Suleman, the pilot and "Octomom," [...] Sully, the airline captain who saved 155 lives by landing that plane just right—level wings, nose up, tail down, plant that baby, get everyone out, get them counted, and then, at night, wonder what you could have done better. You know the reaction of the people of our country to Chesley B. Sullenberger III: They shake their heads, and tears come to their eyes. He is cool, modest, competent, tough in the good way. He's the only one who doesn't applaud Sully. He was just doing his job.

This is why people are so moved: We're still making Sullys. We're still making those mythic Americans, those steely-eyed rocket men. Like Alan Shepard in the Mercury rocket: "Come on and light this candle."

But Sully, 58, Air Force Academy '73, was shaped and formed by the old America, and educated in an ethos in which a certain style of manhood—of personhood—was held high.

What we fear we're making more of these days is Nadya Suleman. The dizzy, selfish, self-dramatizing 33-year-old mother who had six small children and then a week ago eight more because, well, she always wanted a big family...."Suley" doubletalks with the best of them, she doubletalks with profound ease. She is like Blago without the charm.....

Any great nation would worry at closed-up shops and a professional governing class that doesn't have a clue what to do. But a great nation that fears, deep down, that it may be becoming more Suley than Sully—that nation will enter a true depression.

All I can say is: ouch!

Hellboy II

Went to see this one on opening night, at our local theater. Good fun from Guillermo del Toro, who directed the first Hellboy movie, as well as Pan's Labyrinth. Really good special effects, and good performances from Ron Perlman, et. al. All in all, a fun summer flick.

I Am Legend

When I was younger, I loved "The Omega Man" and even Vincent Price in "The Last Man On Earth." I mean, come on, Vincent Price as the last human fighting against vampires...what's not to love? But they are all film versions of Richard Matheson's novel, "I Am Legend." The Will Smith movie is pretty good, basically an updated Omega Man, with few aspects of the novel or the first film.

Night of the Living Dead, 28 Weeks, et. al. all owe to this story. Will Smith is very good, and the special effects are good. Everything is CG, which is fairly obvious and makes it a bit less realistic. But still scary enough.

"Baltimore: Or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier" by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

This is a book I bought on a whim off Amazon, by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. I knew Mignola from his work on Hellboy.

It's a truly dark and macabre tale, well-written and compelling, but certainly not for everybody. I wouldn't read it if you are prone to nightmares... Apparently, they're making it into a movie.

I was taken with the opening scene, in which Lord Baltimore, injured amid the carnage of a WWI battlefield, is set upon by vampiric creatures. A chilling scene indeed. Recommended if you are a fan of dark fantasy, horror, or the like.