News From Everywhere
I know, I know, there was no update Wednesday. And I apologize for that, but I’ve got a perfectly good reason - my Aunt Debbie and her four kids came down from Ohio for a visit, so I was at my grandmother’s house, where she had a big dinner for everyone. I love you guys, but family and friends come first.
But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna forget about you guys, not by a long shot. Although I said I wouldn’t be updating 14 Days of Asphalt again until the story was finished, I’ve been poked and prodded by a surprising number of people who don’t want to wait, so here’s one more update. Will it be finished next week? Goodness I hope so, but I’m not promising. But I hope you enjoy 14 Days of Asphalt Chapter 14: Finish Line Part Fine, which is now online.
So what else have I been doing? Well, I’ve got to admit, I’ve been playing an awful lot of City of Heroes. The guy you see off to the right is my character, Armor Knight. As of this writing, he’s a level nine technology tanker, working on cleaning up The Hollows. And I know that means absolutely nothing to 99 percent of you, but take it from me, it’s a lot of fun.
From the “What I’m Watching” Department
I’ve got a double dose of reviews for you this week as well, friends - I caught two movies last night, both of which aimed ostensibly at younger audiences. What surprises me is which one I liked more.
Director Tim Burton has a really unique eye, a really unique style, and as such, one would think he’d be perfect to do a new version of Roald Dahl’s classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory And for the most part, he’s successful. The story he goes with is very, very faithful to the original book, which is a plus in my book, and the visuals are absolutely stunning. And yet, there are two factors that don’t quite work for me.
First was the casting of Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. I must say, it doesn’t quite work. Some of the elements, like portraying him as something of a socially inept germophobe, actually do work. But other things, don’t - he goes too far to the freaky interpretation of the character, much farther than Dahl ever took him. A lot of people have said it appears that Depp was basing his performance on Michael Jackson (not unlike the way he used Keith Richards as his model for Pirates of the Carribean). Watching the film, it’s very difficult to argue against that theory.
The other thing that doesn’t work is that Burton felt the need to add backstory to the character of Willy Wonka. Periodically, the film would suddenly swirl into a flashback of Willy as a child with his father, and every time this happen, the movie lost every ounce of forward momentum and ground to a halt. While it’s always a treat to see Christopher Lee on the screen, he was really wasted in the unnecessary role of Willy’s father, a dentist who hated candy. (See where the backstory comes in?)
Wonka works better as a character with no past, no explanation. One of the best lines in the film comes when one of the “bad children” complains that everything in the factory is pointless, and our angelic Charlie (played very well by Freddie Highmore) replies “Candy doesn’t need a point.” Very, very true. So why, then, does the filmmaker feel the need to give a point to Willy Wonka, the very embodiment of candy? It’s a jarring contradiction.
Did I like the movie? For the most part, yes. But it will never replace the 1971 version starring Gene Wilder in most people’s hearts.
The other film I saw last night? The new Disney film Sky High. And to my utter astonishment, I loved it. Michael Angarano plays Will Stronghold, the son of the world’s two greatest superheroes, and it’s his freshman year at Sky High, the floating high school for super-teens. What he can’t bring himself to tell his parents, though, is that he doesn’t seem to have inherited their incredible powers.
Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston put in a good turn as Will’s parents, The Commander and Jetstream, and there are lots of small parts by Lynda Carter, Bruce Campbell, Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald, but the teens are the stars of the movie. The film is such a perfect synthesis of the superhero genre and the teen comedy genre that, from the very beginning, the identity of the villain and the evil plan are almost painfully predictable. Usually, this would be a bad thing. But the truth is, the film is so entertaining and so charming that, even though I didn’t get surprised even once, I never minded. I had a lot of fun watching this movie, and walked out of the theatre wondering what it would take to get the comic book rights to these characters. (Hey, if Disney can launch new comics for the Haunted Mansion and Tron, I see no reason these kids can’t have their own comic.) If nothing else, this is a movie that’s clearly open for sequels, and I’d be there opening weekend. I really loved this movie.
Blake’s Universal Rules of the Universe!
Rule #149: The most important thing about acting is honesty and sincerity. If you can fake that, you can do anything. - George Burns
New This Week:
Today’s new additions to the Evertime Realms archives, friends, are my “Everything But Imaginary” column Walking the Beat in a City of Heroes, my “Think About It” column Getting Inked, Ronée’s newest “What a Girl Wants” column, What the Hell is Wizard Thinking?, and the following reviews at Comixtreme.com: Astro City: The Dark Age Book I #2 (Very Good), Batman: Dark Detective #6 (Fair), City of Tomorrow #4 (Average), JLA/CyberForce #1 (Surprisingly Good), Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere #2 (Very Good), Otherworld #5 (Fair), Silent Dragon #1 (Good) and Uncle Scrooge #344 (Very Good)! Enjoy.