You know how to waste my time.
We finally saw the dinosaurs. Bones and models and videos. The T-Rex is slow again. The babies may have had feathers. Just another reason to resent birds: they replaced dinosaurs, which are far cooler. Dinosaurs may be more potentially deadly, but you can't tell me a pigeon wouldn't kill you if (a.) it had any kind of mental capacity (b.) it had any kind of physical means (c.) you had seeds on your person.
Mar and I also saw another three movies. Broken Flowers is the best one and, indeed, the only one I'd go all the way and call "good." Bill Murray is peerless at minimalist deadpan, I don't care how often he does it. That said, this is a different take on materal very similar to Lost in Translation and The Life Aquatic, and I prefer those two. Translation being more moving and Aquatic being more hilarious. Jim Jarmush is an interesting guy, but unlike recent nothing-happening movies like Last Days and 9 Songs, Jarmusch's shots of Murray driving down Any Road, USA, sometimes feel like killing time. This is probably because they stand in stark contrast to other scenes where there's a lot more going on, even if it's just Bill Murray's character sitting down to dinner with an ex-lover (oh, yeah, if you haven't read about it, Murray goes to visit a bunch of ex-flames in order to figure out which, if any, had his child about two decades prior). The performances -- especially Murray -- are so good that Flowers is actually probably a better movie than Days or Songs; I just had some nitpicks with the slightly sleepy pace. It ends very well, and the barely-there comic gestures suit me fine.
I wanted to see The Dukes of Hazzard because Jay Chandrasekhar made Super Troopers, Puddle Cruiser, and Club Dread with Broken Lizard, and on his own directed episodes of Arrested Development and Undeclared. Plus, the Broken Lizard guys apparently did a rewrite on the script, and they all have bit parts in the movie.
I think I'll go over this more in Thursday's column, but I think the effect here is sort of like when Adam Sandler's team does a rewrite of a pre-existing script for Sandler, rather than just writing their own. It's not that their own scripts are flawless, but the rewrites typically wind up half-assed and comedy-light. Hazzard is shockingly similar in quality to a mediocre Sandler movie: There are laughs, funny side bits, but you expect more. Sometimes, instead of a character having a funny line, they'll just say the absolute most cliched thing possible ("that was close," "you're going too fast," I don't know, stuff like that)... and then, instead of having a character having a funny response to that cliche, there will be silence. Maybe Knoxville and Seann William Scott just don't have the necessary improv skills? It's not offensively bad; it's even kinda entertaining. But I don't know why Broken Lizard didn't punch it up more.
Finally, My Date with Drew, a documentary about a guy trying to get a date with Drew Barrymore within thirty days (I like that the thirty-day deadline is based on him buying a Circuit City video camera on which to shoot the film, which can be returned, no questions asked, within thirty days). It's sort of amusing but, like a lot of documentaries, doesn't exactly justify itself as a theatrical release.
I was pretty hands-full at work last week, but the office was nigh-empty, so I could listen to my walkman during busywork (it's possible that I could bust it out at other times, but I don't really feel comfortable). I'm not looking forward to a re-populated workplace this week. It's not that I don't want my co-workers around; I just like the quiet. There were only about three other people in my department around last week, and any three would've been pretty much fine.
Albums listened to at work last week (it took me a few days to realize I could do this):
Parklife, Blur
Episode III mix
Tallahassee, The Mountain Goats
All Hail West Texas, The Mountain Goats
Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie
Mar and I also saw another three movies. Broken Flowers is the best one and, indeed, the only one I'd go all the way and call "good." Bill Murray is peerless at minimalist deadpan, I don't care how often he does it. That said, this is a different take on materal very similar to Lost in Translation and The Life Aquatic, and I prefer those two. Translation being more moving and Aquatic being more hilarious. Jim Jarmush is an interesting guy, but unlike recent nothing-happening movies like Last Days and 9 Songs, Jarmusch's shots of Murray driving down Any Road, USA, sometimes feel like killing time. This is probably because they stand in stark contrast to other scenes where there's a lot more going on, even if it's just Bill Murray's character sitting down to dinner with an ex-lover (oh, yeah, if you haven't read about it, Murray goes to visit a bunch of ex-flames in order to figure out which, if any, had his child about two decades prior). The performances -- especially Murray -- are so good that Flowers is actually probably a better movie than Days or Songs; I just had some nitpicks with the slightly sleepy pace. It ends very well, and the barely-there comic gestures suit me fine.
I wanted to see The Dukes of Hazzard because Jay Chandrasekhar made Super Troopers, Puddle Cruiser, and Club Dread with Broken Lizard, and on his own directed episodes of Arrested Development and Undeclared. Plus, the Broken Lizard guys apparently did a rewrite on the script, and they all have bit parts in the movie.
I think I'll go over this more in Thursday's column, but I think the effect here is sort of like when Adam Sandler's team does a rewrite of a pre-existing script for Sandler, rather than just writing their own. It's not that their own scripts are flawless, but the rewrites typically wind up half-assed and comedy-light. Hazzard is shockingly similar in quality to a mediocre Sandler movie: There are laughs, funny side bits, but you expect more. Sometimes, instead of a character having a funny line, they'll just say the absolute most cliched thing possible ("that was close," "you're going too fast," I don't know, stuff like that)... and then, instead of having a character having a funny response to that cliche, there will be silence. Maybe Knoxville and Seann William Scott just don't have the necessary improv skills? It's not offensively bad; it's even kinda entertaining. But I don't know why Broken Lizard didn't punch it up more.
Finally, My Date with Drew, a documentary about a guy trying to get a date with Drew Barrymore within thirty days (I like that the thirty-day deadline is based on him buying a Circuit City video camera on which to shoot the film, which can be returned, no questions asked, within thirty days). It's sort of amusing but, like a lot of documentaries, doesn't exactly justify itself as a theatrical release.
I was pretty hands-full at work last week, but the office was nigh-empty, so I could listen to my walkman during busywork (it's possible that I could bust it out at other times, but I don't really feel comfortable). I'm not looking forward to a re-populated workplace this week. It's not that I don't want my co-workers around; I just like the quiet. There were only about three other people in my department around last week, and any three would've been pretty much fine.
Albums listened to at work last week (it took me a few days to realize I could do this):
Parklife, Blur
Episode III mix
Tallahassee, The Mountain Goats
All Hail West Texas, The Mountain Goats
Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie