Posts Tagged ‘ring’
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Oh, noes! What’s Charlie gonna do?
I’ve been setting up more than a few of this Friday cliffhangers during this storyline, haven’t I?
Well, once you see what Charlie does on Friday, we’ll catch up with everyone in the present next week. Hopefully, we’ll learn more about why Jimmy is still hanging around. Stay tuned, people! We’re in the home stretch!
Not much for me to talk about today. Well, except that maybe my Netflix experience. Still goin’ strong!
I realize that I didn’t talk about Man on Wire when I said I would last week. Man on Wire was the first film I rented from Netflix and also happened to be the winner of the Best Documentary award at the Oscars on Sunday.
I liked the movie a lot. It was arranged with a very tight narrative with a great blend of reenactments, interviews and original footage.
In case you’re not familiar, the subject of the film is Philippe Petit, a French tightrope walker who walked the span between the twin towers of the World Trade Center shortly after they were completed in 1974.
The movie is more about the planning stages of the walk more than the walk itself. So the filmmakers are able to milk a lot of tension our of the reenactments as the original parties explain their actions as if it were happening in real time. The walk itself feels like some kind of hazy dream, but certainly a one-of-a-kind moment that seemed to impress and capture the imagination of everyone involved – even the authorities, who could do no better than to charge Petit with trespassing
Petit comes off like an eccentric in his interviews or perhaps a hyperactive child. But I admire anyone who feels compelled to create art to serve a higher purpose. He performs his walk not for profit or fame (although those things come later), but to inspire others to dream. Ah, existentialism as only the French can make it!
I kind of wonder if hanging around Petit in real life would be exhausting. But I have to admit I was charmed with his magic trick and balancing act at the Oscar’s when he delivered his acceptance speech.
In the words of Best Week Ever, “please be in our lives every day.”
As for the next movie in our queue, Cami reserved Henry Poole Is Here. I’m not sure why. I thought we were being diplomatic with our choices. I rent one, then she rents one — back and forth and so on. She says she rented it for me! I don’t anything about the film, but I’m happy to watch it all the same. It has Luke Wilson in it, so how bad can it be?
Don’t answer that.
I’ll be back later in the day to pose a question to everyone about contributing transcripts of the comics to the site. Until then, talk amongst yourselves. Who here has seen Man on Wire? What were your thoughts?
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Well, that’s pretty final, don’t you think?
I know it’s kind of a contrivance to have Charlie go nuclear in the overreaction department, but there are two things to consider here:
- Plot efficiency.
- The honest assessment that some girls have a zero-tolerance policy on screwing around.
On the second point I would like to reinforce that there is certainly nothing wrong with having standards. And who knows? Maybe Charlie has been jerked around by womanizers before? As we learned from her introduction story line, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
But we’re not going to explore that here.
As I mentioned on Wednesday, next week will take us out of flashbacks and we will learn how Jimmy ended up working at the theater that was ground zero for his greatest heartbreak. One week after that, I should have everything wrapped up.
Thanks, by the way, for indulging me these last few weeks. I know Theater Hopper is traditionally about bringing you the funny, but it’s good to flex a different set of muscles from time to time. Hopefully I’ve been able to compensate with enough dramatic tension to hold your interest.
Thanks, also, for the outpouring of support on the whole transcription effort. I posted a blog entry late Wednesday night and woke up Thursday morning with e-mails from a dozen people write in offering their services. I’ve assigned coverage up to January 2005 and still have more e-mails to sort through. I feel confident that we’ll not only have coverage for the entire archive of comics, but we’ll have them transcribed in short order. I honestly wasn’t expecting that this would be something you guys would be excited about, but I’m glad you proved me wrong!
If you’d like to see which months are still available – along with the items I am offering in compensation for your help – you can read about it here.
Not much for me to talk about movie-wise this weekend. Nothing new in theaters except Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li – both of which look like a couple of turds on wheels to me.
I’m sure the Jonas Brothers movies will rake in significant box office by attracting the tweener crowds, but I saw some footage of Street Fighter and WOW, was it bad. Wire-Fu was nakedly evident and the fight choreography was stilted and tired. To add insult to injury, the editing was atrocious. Pulling wide on shots that revealed too much of the wire work and claustrophobic, “eat the camera” close-ups that kept you from seeing what was even happening.
It’s probably not getting worked up over. If it doesn’t star Raul Julia and Jean-Claude Van Damme, why bother, AMIRITE?!
I was thinking this would have been the weekend for a more ambitious movie to try and get in front of Watchmen before it lands in theaters next week – some middling Sandra Bullock or Kate Hudson comedy that didn’t stand a chance of making a ton of money in the first place. But I guess the studios look at Watchmen like it’s the 800-pound gorilla. Make way.
I kind of wish I could have wrapped up this story line sooner so I could get hip-dip in the hype surrounding Watchmen because – like it or not – after two weeks, I think it will be over. I don’t think Watchmen has legs. Advance reviews have been too polarizing and it doesn’t sound like fanboys are going to be happy with it beyond a pure visual interpretation. At this point, the burden of proof is on Watchmen to impress me. I’m not turning over on this one as readily as I did Iron Man. I am cautiously optimistic.
What about the rest of you? Are you ready to submit to Watchmen? Have you read any of the reviews online? Have they influenced you at all or is Watchmen critic-proof? What’s your impression? Leave your comments below.
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