The Latest
So, summer ended today. I was looking forward to a couple months of summer but this year it only started getting warm in July and it already turned cool. As Beth told Rachel, "it's a beautiful, sunny fall day, today." Oh well, at least that means for another month or so we should have fairly pleaant fall-like conditions, but with lots of sun. After that of course is when the 8 months of winter begin. I'm definitely not looking forward to that.
Beth and I took Rachel to the zoo on Saturday. Its a real shame that we can't go anywhere in public with her without her throwing tantrums and being generally difficult to deal with. It is funny though that she gives herself a "time out" whenever she understands that she's getting to worked up but when we don't have a quiet, still place like her room for her to retreat to it doesn't help to much even if she says "I need a time out". By golly though I think its best to challenge her rather than keep her sequestered in the house all the time, so we're going to try the Renaissance Festival in a few weeks.
Two weeks ago I was stuck at our factory in Richland Center, WI helping them switch over systems and giving them engineering support while nothing worked. I watched an episode of King of the Hill that was just awesome and I don't know how I've never seen it before. Bobby is diagnosed with ADD so they put him on riddlin. All of a sudden everything feels like a chore to him but he can notice things like the sound a fly makes when it rubs its legs together. Meanwhile Luanne has a hard time studying so she decides that she must have ADD so she starts popping his pills and becoming a hyper nutcase. The episode ends with Hank telling Peggy, "maybe we should look into this drug before giving it to Bobby". Amen, brother. Amen.
I saw some movies in the last few months:
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Gnarly, Keanu Version): I was curious about this one but it came out while I had my herniated disc and was laid up from back surgery. I'm a big fan of the original version and I knew that this one wouldn't be as good but I was curious anyway. I was prepared for just how horrid it would be though. I won't even talk about the horrible acting and the silliness with which the plot unfolds and how various characters seem to change their minds about things for no reason. Instead I'll just boil it down to the main reason why this movie isn't good. The original movie demonstrated for the audience why the point that it makes is a valid one by showing the actions of the characters, actions that were probably in line with how real people in the 1950's might have acted if confronted by visitors from another planet. The 2008 remake has a definite environmentalist agenda as the movie preaches at us about how we should have taken care of the planet better and because we couldn't...the aliens are going to destroy the planet but save some samples. So that huge plot hole aside, the problem is that the movie doesn't demonstrate why the human race is "wrong" instead it accepts that if it tells us that we're horrible for polluting that we're just going to accept it and then feel that the aliens are justified in their action.
Ironically even aside from the huge plot hole of the aliens destroying the earth to punish the human race for destroying it themselves, the other odd thing is that Klatu thinks somehow that if he takes away our technology that everything will be hunky dory. Just wait as billions (yes billions) of people die due to inadequate food, water, and waste management and as people fight each other over their stuff. So instead of killing people quickly he decides to give the human race a slow and painful death? It's not the altruistic ending that the movie presents itself as...
A-Team: Yes, this movie was spot-on. It got poor reviews from the critics but it did what it was supposed to do, give the A-Team a movie-length adventure. If you're a fan of the original A-Team you will like this movie. You've got a smart Hannibal, a tough B.A., a crazy Murdock, and a sleezeball Face. They even managed to work the original theme INTO the movie as well as put it in the end credits. The makers of the new Transformers stuff could learn a lot from these guys. There were a few minor problems though:
Face wasn't uh, a Face. He spent the whole movie half-shaved which seemed to kind of defeat the purpose of his role. I was also kind of annoyed that they had to give him the stereotypical thing of if a guy is a player then its because he really deep down wants a stable committed relationship but was hurt. Sometimes a sleeze is just a sleeze and the forced romance between Face and whatever Jessica Biel's character's name was just ended up taking screen time. Its not as if there was any chemistry between the two of them.
Hannibal never used a disguise. Its a fairly minor nit but that was one of the staples of the original A-Team. There were certainly plenty of opportunities for him to do it and with modern makeup technology it would have been nice if they could have pulled a fast one on the viewers, something that the original Hannibal's disguises never did.
I really hate the fact that they cleared their name at the end only to have them get charged with fleeing from prison instead, a crime that they actually did commit. To me that waters the whole story down. The point of the A-Team is that they were declared guilty for a crime that they didn't commit, not one that they did. So the new continuity does in fact make them true fugitives. It also feels like a cop-out ending. If I'd been doing this movie then I would have had the evidence that clears them get destroyed but in some other way implicate Lynch so that Lynch still goes down but they're still wanted as well. I would really like a sequal but I don't think it did well enough to get one which is a shame really. Now we just need to convince someone that Knight Rider would do well with a big screen adaptation.
Finally I watched the 4th season of Slayers, which the english translators can't decide if its Slayers Evolution or Slayers Revolution. Either way it was easily the weakest of the 4 seasons of Slayers. Its almost as if they were saying "you want a Slayers story, well we'll give you a Slayers story." The opening and closing songs were the weakest of the series. Usually Meghumi Hayashibara has created a unique and brilliant masterpiece with each season. This time the songs were kinda blah and they seemed mixed poorly so that the music drownd out her voice.
The background music was just a retread of the music for the third season. In the past each season had utilized background music from the previous seasons but each season also developed new music. This is the first season to not have any new background music and a lot of the music that was used for various sequences and characters felt inappropriate since it was tied to characters from seasons prior.
I was disappointed that Sylphiel was the only "5th Slayer" to make an appearance. Why would you bring back the most hated of the supporting characters and not bring back someone we might actually want to see like Martina or Filiel.
Xellos has gone from being one of the more interesting characters to being a marginal sideline thats just there to titilate the fans. Xellos was always annoying but at least in the past his annoyance served a purpose. In Next his betrayal came as a surprise. Try already began watering him down by having him say that the monsters wanted to save the world so that they could destroy it themselves. Now in (R)Evolution they have him even questioning whether monsters want to destroy. The paraphrase is "We monsters value free will above everything. We will decide if we want to destroy" which makes you wonder why have monsters at all.
Then there's the retread plot with Rezo where we basically just do a redux of a battle we'd already seen by the 10th episode of the first season, which is a fairly yawn inspiring thing to have as the climax of the fourth season. We already know that Lina can win this fight so where's the drama. Of course she has to rely on the Giga Slave again. Thankfully the creators of the show wizely chose to not have the Giga Slave make an appearance in Try because they'd already ascertained that Lina was lucky that it hadn't backfired the first two times. The first time she was just lucky and the second time it really did almost consume her if Goury hadn't intervened. In this instance I could have only justified its use if Lina had actually had to die in using it. Anything else just cheapens something that is supposed to be that dangerous to use.
Then there's Zuma who was a neat new villain but his motivations were never explained. He says that he hated Lina and became an assasin because of her but he dies before this can ever be explained.
Finally everyone seems to have forgotten the second half of the first season, including Sylphiel who was introduced then. Why they decided to have a plot with Sylphiel that mentions Sayraag, Flagoon, and Zanophar butnot have any of the characters remember that they'd already dealt with something very similar in the first season is insane. Yet the characters seem to remember things from the second and third seasons. I don't know why the creators did this but that also is just plane wrong, especially since ignorance of the events of the previous story wasn't necessary for the current plot. They could have easily told the exact same story as they do in (R)Evolution and just had someone say "Hey didn't we fight Zanophar before?" and then have someone reply that this one is much more dangerous since its consumed so many people or whatever.
Oh and no I don't believe that anyone can make a replacement Sword of Light. That was cheezy and stupid. Why couldn't they have just come up with a new weapon for Goury?
So Slayers (R)Evolution was mindless fun and definitely had some very hilarious scenes but one of the things that I always liked about Slayers is that it always intertwined a good, dramatic plot with comedy. This season was heavy on the comedy but the plot sucked.
Beth and I took Rachel to the zoo on Saturday. Its a real shame that we can't go anywhere in public with her without her throwing tantrums and being generally difficult to deal with. It is funny though that she gives herself a "time out" whenever she understands that she's getting to worked up but when we don't have a quiet, still place like her room for her to retreat to it doesn't help to much even if she says "I need a time out". By golly though I think its best to challenge her rather than keep her sequestered in the house all the time, so we're going to try the Renaissance Festival in a few weeks.
Two weeks ago I was stuck at our factory in Richland Center, WI helping them switch over systems and giving them engineering support while nothing worked. I watched an episode of King of the Hill that was just awesome and I don't know how I've never seen it before. Bobby is diagnosed with ADD so they put him on riddlin. All of a sudden everything feels like a chore to him but he can notice things like the sound a fly makes when it rubs its legs together. Meanwhile Luanne has a hard time studying so she decides that she must have ADD so she starts popping his pills and becoming a hyper nutcase. The episode ends with Hank telling Peggy, "maybe we should look into this drug before giving it to Bobby". Amen, brother. Amen.
I saw some movies in the last few months:
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Gnarly, Keanu Version): I was curious about this one but it came out while I had my herniated disc and was laid up from back surgery. I'm a big fan of the original version and I knew that this one wouldn't be as good but I was curious anyway. I was prepared for just how horrid it would be though. I won't even talk about the horrible acting and the silliness with which the plot unfolds and how various characters seem to change their minds about things for no reason. Instead I'll just boil it down to the main reason why this movie isn't good. The original movie demonstrated for the audience why the point that it makes is a valid one by showing the actions of the characters, actions that were probably in line with how real people in the 1950's might have acted if confronted by visitors from another planet. The 2008 remake has a definite environmentalist agenda as the movie preaches at us about how we should have taken care of the planet better and because we couldn't...the aliens are going to destroy the planet but save some samples. So that huge plot hole aside, the problem is that the movie doesn't demonstrate why the human race is "wrong" instead it accepts that if it tells us that we're horrible for polluting that we're just going to accept it and then feel that the aliens are justified in their action.
Ironically even aside from the huge plot hole of the aliens destroying the earth to punish the human race for destroying it themselves, the other odd thing is that Klatu thinks somehow that if he takes away our technology that everything will be hunky dory. Just wait as billions (yes billions) of people die due to inadequate food, water, and waste management and as people fight each other over their stuff. So instead of killing people quickly he decides to give the human race a slow and painful death? It's not the altruistic ending that the movie presents itself as...
A-Team: Yes, this movie was spot-on. It got poor reviews from the critics but it did what it was supposed to do, give the A-Team a movie-length adventure. If you're a fan of the original A-Team you will like this movie. You've got a smart Hannibal, a tough B.A., a crazy Murdock, and a sleezeball Face. They even managed to work the original theme INTO the movie as well as put it in the end credits. The makers of the new Transformers stuff could learn a lot from these guys. There were a few minor problems though:
Face wasn't uh, a Face. He spent the whole movie half-shaved which seemed to kind of defeat the purpose of his role. I was also kind of annoyed that they had to give him the stereotypical thing of if a guy is a player then its because he really deep down wants a stable committed relationship but was hurt. Sometimes a sleeze is just a sleeze and the forced romance between Face and whatever Jessica Biel's character's name was just ended up taking screen time. Its not as if there was any chemistry between the two of them.
Hannibal never used a disguise. Its a fairly minor nit but that was one of the staples of the original A-Team. There were certainly plenty of opportunities for him to do it and with modern makeup technology it would have been nice if they could have pulled a fast one on the viewers, something that the original Hannibal's disguises never did.
I really hate the fact that they cleared their name at the end only to have them get charged with fleeing from prison instead, a crime that they actually did commit. To me that waters the whole story down. The point of the A-Team is that they were declared guilty for a crime that they didn't commit, not one that they did. So the new continuity does in fact make them true fugitives. It also feels like a cop-out ending. If I'd been doing this movie then I would have had the evidence that clears them get destroyed but in some other way implicate Lynch so that Lynch still goes down but they're still wanted as well. I would really like a sequal but I don't think it did well enough to get one which is a shame really. Now we just need to convince someone that Knight Rider would do well with a big screen adaptation.
Finally I watched the 4th season of Slayers, which the english translators can't decide if its Slayers Evolution or Slayers Revolution. Either way it was easily the weakest of the 4 seasons of Slayers. Its almost as if they were saying "you want a Slayers story, well we'll give you a Slayers story." The opening and closing songs were the weakest of the series. Usually Meghumi Hayashibara has created a unique and brilliant masterpiece with each season. This time the songs were kinda blah and they seemed mixed poorly so that the music drownd out her voice.
The background music was just a retread of the music for the third season. In the past each season had utilized background music from the previous seasons but each season also developed new music. This is the first season to not have any new background music and a lot of the music that was used for various sequences and characters felt inappropriate since it was tied to characters from seasons prior.
I was disappointed that Sylphiel was the only "5th Slayer" to make an appearance. Why would you bring back the most hated of the supporting characters and not bring back someone we might actually want to see like Martina or Filiel.
Xellos has gone from being one of the more interesting characters to being a marginal sideline thats just there to titilate the fans. Xellos was always annoying but at least in the past his annoyance served a purpose. In Next his betrayal came as a surprise. Try already began watering him down by having him say that the monsters wanted to save the world so that they could destroy it themselves. Now in (R)Evolution they have him even questioning whether monsters want to destroy. The paraphrase is "We monsters value free will above everything. We will decide if we want to destroy" which makes you wonder why have monsters at all.
Then there's the retread plot with Rezo where we basically just do a redux of a battle we'd already seen by the 10th episode of the first season, which is a fairly yawn inspiring thing to have as the climax of the fourth season. We already know that Lina can win this fight so where's the drama. Of course she has to rely on the Giga Slave again. Thankfully the creators of the show wizely chose to not have the Giga Slave make an appearance in Try because they'd already ascertained that Lina was lucky that it hadn't backfired the first two times. The first time she was just lucky and the second time it really did almost consume her if Goury hadn't intervened. In this instance I could have only justified its use if Lina had actually had to die in using it. Anything else just cheapens something that is supposed to be that dangerous to use.
Then there's Zuma who was a neat new villain but his motivations were never explained. He says that he hated Lina and became an assasin because of her but he dies before this can ever be explained.
Finally everyone seems to have forgotten the second half of the first season, including Sylphiel who was introduced then. Why they decided to have a plot with Sylphiel that mentions Sayraag, Flagoon, and Zanophar butnot have any of the characters remember that they'd already dealt with something very similar in the first season is insane. Yet the characters seem to remember things from the second and third seasons. I don't know why the creators did this but that also is just plane wrong, especially since ignorance of the events of the previous story wasn't necessary for the current plot. They could have easily told the exact same story as they do in (R)Evolution and just had someone say "Hey didn't we fight Zanophar before?" and then have someone reply that this one is much more dangerous since its consumed so many people or whatever.
Oh and no I don't believe that anyone can make a replacement Sword of Light. That was cheezy and stupid. Why couldn't they have just come up with a new weapon for Goury?
So Slayers (R)Evolution was mindless fun and definitely had some very hilarious scenes but one of the things that I always liked about Slayers is that it always intertwined a good, dramatic plot with comedy. This season was heavy on the comedy but the plot sucked.