10Oct03 (Monthenor): Firstly, I must thank Charity
Advantage for the wholesale theft of their Russian doll graphics. It's
a pretty creepy thing to have on a page about adoption, but it probably
saved me hours of fiddling with the ellipse tool. Friday mixed up the established order a little
bit. Not a major revolution, but important all the same. For years now,
it's been a fact of life that the worst videogame-to-movie conversion has
been Super Mario Brothers,
followed closely by Street
Fighter. Now the newcomer, House of the
Dead, has come in and firmly trounced Street Fighter. SF, while bad as
a movie, was a pretty faithful translation of "people getting together in
weird costumes and beating hell out of each other." HotD only keeps the
ideas of "guns" and "zombies", and just tosses out all of the actual
game. In place of the game's already workable and outlandish plot we have
a cadre of characters with no real likable qualities. We have bullet-time
used inappropriately, we have unnecessary scenes, and we have annoying
little flashes of the video game instead of real transitions. It
made me hurt all over. And when o when will my Buffy
game get here, Gamefly?
I think there's a book deal in this somewhere…
Morgion // 10.11.03 - 09.36
Monty and I should co-author a children's book. I can make random wisecracks about metaphor-riddled testimony from the defendant on Law and Order, and Monty can twist it, stuff it with non-sequitur, and incorporate my loathing for children—and he can do the illustrations! Ooh, as a promotional stunt, in every 42nd book we can include some real anthrax! That's my answer to life, the universe and everything… at least where illogical squirming proto-humans are concerned.
No, I am neither advocating nor proposing infecting innocent children with a horrible bioweapon… besides, waxing philosophical, there really aren't any innocents, are there? *evil grin*
Seriously, I have no idea where the donkey came from, but it's my second favorite panel in this, my new favorite strip. It's the last panel that cracks me up; if I was actually doing story time (with impunity, mind you), I'd so have a backdrop of menacing shadows while speaking in a threatening, distressed font.
Now, Kill Bill. Go see Kill Bill now. The whole movie is an orgy of style; costumes, sets, cinematography, everything pops, jaggedly rips, or smolders. There isn't a single bad scene; the only thing Monty mentioned was a scene where Lucy Liu runs across a table, but it kinda looks like she's running stiffly in place—and that's a hella-lame "bad scene". I just chalked it up as one more homage to every poorly-dubbed kung-fu movie.
Even though it has the '70s cum-stained grind-house experience
vibe, it is distinctly Tarantino. The quirky credits padded with inside jokes (Klingons are well-known literary usurpers
); non-linear, nested flashback plot; and the gushing fountains of blood… Johnny Depp's scene in Nightmare on Elmstreet has nothing on this.
Where there could have been pacing issues, we instead have sweeping, fluid cinematography for seamless scenes with a driving soundtrack obscuring the mundanities—why listen to life's daily hum when you don't have to? The dialog is definitely not natural; it's better than real—meticulously constructed by writer and actor to be edgy, witty, stylish. Not to mention funny; when you're not drooling and making happy gurgling noises, you'll be laughing.
Today I heard a drive-by bagpiping…
Morgion // 10.11.03 - 16:44
These are the only conceivable explanations:
- A parade consisting of a single float of a guy bagpiping that drove by on 8th Street, and it was going at about 30 mph.
- A passenger in a passing vehicle playing the pipes, wearing a kilt (naturally) and full Scottish regalia.
- Someone was using their kick-ass sound system to play frickin' bagpipes, which is morally reprehensible.
- I have nothing against bagpipes; I actually like them. But blasting them through your car's stereo system is a bit much.