To Super 8 or Not Super 8
So here’s the deal: I think I’m going to see Super 8 tonight, because I need a break from copyediting and it’s getting fairly decent reviews.
The pros:
- It’s JJ Abrams.
- I’m one of those freaks who enjoys all the lens flares, because it adds to the spectacle and I like my cinema to be pretty. No, I don’t think it washes things out too much–I think it adds a level of realism or grittiness that 3D tries to add, but fails to because of the gimmick.
- It’s getting good reviews, it’s a monster movie, and at least one of the trailers is full of guns, monsters and explosions. I am male; therefore, I am drawn to that.
The cons:
- It’s produced by Spielberg. That’s not a bad thing, unless children are involved. Children and aliens? Together? I’m getting a really really bad “oh, look an updated ET where the adults don’t understand the aliens and only the innocent hope of children can save us” vibe.
- Bugger that shit for a lark.
- It’s starring kids. Which means it’s going to have a “ooh, dangerous but not really because it’d be an R-rated movie if they killed the kids, so I won’t really fear for them” feel. Also, I’m going to have to by the usual tropes of “oh, my parents don’t understand how cool/much smarter/more world-aware I am than they are.” There will be those wry “Look, Short-Round is a real person” moments that ruined Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- I will watch it thinking “oh that’s from Goonies and that’s from ET and there’s the little kid from Schindler’s List all grown up with a testosterone problem” or something…
Obviously, there are more cons. And more profanity in the cons, but that’s just editing, not content. I expect this will be a solid, well-made, technically beautiful movie with probably better-than-average acting and those Profound Moments ™ of slow-motion and hero music. Which in many movies works for me…
But I have this nagging suspicion I’m not going to like Super 8.
Nuts.
I hate it when I have that suspicion. There are times when being a cinema-freak is a disadvantage.
Feh. Any fool can do it…
I wrote a novel in 29 days.
97,500 words from Oct 31 to Nov 28. I’d say I completed NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) except that I didn’t do it out of solidarity with my fellow writers–I did it because I was under deadline. 60,000 words of it were written in the last fifteen days (more than 5,000 words a day, most days). It hurt. A lot.
But I did it. And it was a fun experience, knowing that I can take a 4,000 word outline to novel-length under pressure.
I think I’ll do it again in January/February. Sixty days feels like my comfortable pace, I think. About 2,000 words a day.
Dammit
I subscribe to I think it’s ten magazines at the moment… off the top of my head:
- GQ
- Details
- The New Yorker
- Men’s Health
- Esquire
- Maxim
- Wired
- some others I can’t remember right now
I haven’t read an issue of any of them in at least three months. Gawd, I’m so busy. In fact, I don’t think I’ve yet read a single issue of The New Yorker since I subscribed. Blimey. A bit knackered in my reading habits, I guess. I miss my glossies…
Zonka
This just in: Marissa Tomei is a goddess. Also, in sheer sex appeal, Kate Beckinsale beats pretty much everything. And yes, I’m showing my age here.
But Oh. Mah. Gawd.
Freshly Stolen Art
I’ve been stealing art again. Specifically, I’ve been stealing panels from Sinfest. Now, this is all illegal and I really hope you all understand that I didn’t create them, and that the ridiculously talented person to does create them does not endorse the snarky use that I put them to… but all that being said.
Damn, they’re just useful snippets of emotional value to add spice to a post. They make me fee all warm inside.
Now. Go read Sinfest. Because you need to, and chances are that if you’re reading this blog, you’re a big enough geek to get the jokes. It could be worse–I could be directing you to XKCD.
Awesome
Okay. If you know me, you know I despise the word awesome because it is, for lack of a better word, awesomely misused in the United States (and I suspect elsewhere). I hate it. I hate people who use it incorrectly. Very few things in life actually inspire awe–and no, that fantastic dessert at Cheesecake Factory is not awesome.
This, however, IS awesome. I was already a fan. But damn–I am, in fact, in awe of this man now. Bravo.
One should like to think that we’d all be this gracious–I, for one, know I am not that noble.
![Po - [Explored]](http://static.flickr.com/7225/7260527994_23e4e5f04b_t.jpg "Po - [Explored]")
