Nea of the Nine Fingers

[neadods]

The good news - the bathroom cabinet is painted and the old sewing cabinet is at the curb waiting for pickup.

The bad news - the masking tape ripped off a big chunk of my spongework on a main cabinet door (only the one, damnit), and the sewing cabinet, lashing out at its doom, smashed my finger in one of the hinges.

I put ice on the finger right away and it's more or less in working order now, I think I know what I can do about that chipped paint (not more paint. I'm tired of painting that damn cabinet!), and I've figured out where to hang much of my art, so that can all go up on the walls tonight. So in the long run, all is well, even if I'm making myself a little achey as I type.

I also saw Sky Captain. Damn, SO close to a good movie! The visuals were great, every frame a comic book moment. The idea was fun. Such a pity that the actors had no chemistry (only Angela Jolie really sold her character) and the plot, such as it was, came straight out of Debbie Does Dallas: Climax!Climax!Climax!Climax!expositionClimax!Climax!Climax!stupid jokeClimax!Climax!

Now, it's perfectly possible to do an exciting, character-driven, silly cheeseball action movie: Pirates of the Carribean was equally overblown and facetious, but you understood the character's motivations, the acting sold the bizarre story, and the plot had actual pacing.

Mind you, it doesn't help that Polly Perkins was straight out of the original Lois Lane playbook - perky, brave, and dumb as a box of rocks. It didn't help that she was a vindictive liar, though. And even the Superman and Batman movies spent a little time on their hero's backstory even if half the nation knew it. Who was Sky Captain and why should we care?

But oh! It was so beautiful and so accurate to period comics. It was so close to being a good movie...

ETA: CAPALERT, of course, hates it. Among other unChristian values, the movie has wanton violence because of peril, repeatedly, & battle, repeatedly; impudence because of lying; sexual immorality due to a "rude gaze;" and an offense to God because of seeing revenge.

It is presumably unable for any action movie to be Christian by these standards, since the very motivation - revenge, battle, and peril are Bad Things.

Comments

[maryannegruen.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. It doesn't sound close enough to me. I was kind of wondering about that one.

Congrats to you on tackling all that housework. I don't think I'll get around to taking down the wall paper in the bathroom now at least until March. More likely April.

[bizarra.livejournal.com]

Actually.. (I agree about the chemestry..BTW) But I think the cliche's are what made the movie. This was a movie made as if you were watching it in 1938. When those cliche's were fresh and not cliche's yet. Thus.. It made the movie so much of what it was. A true retro movie.

Very much in the Genre of The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra. A movie so closely resembling the 50's B movie schitck.. that you forget it's only 2 years old and not 52 years old.

Same with Sky Captain. Within the first 5 minutes, I completely forgot this was a new movie. That's what I loved about it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

was a movie made as if you were watching it in 1938.

Can't agree, sorry. I used to watch the old serials (they brought them in to college) and even at 20 minutes and a cliffhanger, they had pacing and a certain amount of character development, even just a line or two. It wasn't bam!bam!bam!bam!bam!

I couldn't forget it was a new movie because it didn't pace itself. That's what I'm not forgiving it for.

CAPALERT

[shawan-7.livejournal.com]

Boy, they're going to hate the third Star Wars movie if they have problem with seeing revenge.... Sky Pirate was a movie that needed characterization and a better plot. It deserved to have a good beta and a good editor to tell the makers what they needed to produce a good story. It may have ruled the weekend, but I bet it drops like a stone next weekend.

Re: CAPALERT

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Bound to drop - particularly since Googlenews is already pointing out that it didn't draw as much money as they'd hoped even at the top of the box office.