Having a great weekend!

Friday I got the new HARRY POTTER book on my way home from work and read the first 2 chapters! It's off to a great start!!!

I also bought a couple of movies, HIDE AND SEEK and DEVOUR.

I watched the first half of DEVOUR with William Saddler and Dominique Swain. Neither of them is the star, but I can't remember his name. He's the guy Lana Lang met in Paris this last season of SMALLVILLE. He's also co-starring in a WB show coming out this fall called SUPERNATURAL. (Saw the sneak screener for it and it's gonna be fun!) I finished DEVOUR just about a half-hour ago. It was pretty cool.

Yesterday I got the oil changed on the car, got a haircut -- I couldn't bear the monstrous Back-Street-Boys-wannabe 'do the chick who cut my hair a few weeks ago saddled me with; I thought it might grow out into something acceptable, but it didn't -- and saw GEORGE A. ROMERO'S LAND OF THE DEAD!!! (All 3 things were long-overdue necessities!)

GEORGE ROMERO RULES!!! And he needs to make more movies!!! He really likes his audiences to have something to think about after the blood and guts are over! LAND OF THE DEAD may be my favorite of the DEAD series! (I'll need to see it a few more times to be sure.) It's got everything audiences loved about NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD, and it's got the stuff he was trying to do in DAY OF THE DEAD -- I say "trying" simply because it seemed most audiences just didn't seem to be into that particular installment, myself, I'm sorry to say, included -- but it balances it all out PERFECTLY!!!

I'm so disappointed the flick didn't do better box office!!! It opened at 4th place (it was slammed by whatever else opened that weekend; I don't remember), but then just disappeared. 3 or 4 weeks later, I saw it in the only theater in town that still has it!

And that sucks!

Studios need to know that Romero is an important filmmaker! It took TOO LONG for the forth DEAD movie to be made, and I'm afraid it might take a while for Romero's next flick to get made. AND I WANNA SEE IT!!! WHATEVER IT IS!!!

That's maybe the 1 disappoinment about being a fan-boy this summer, the fact that LAND didn't make a gajillion bucks at the theaters.

But then, I guess maybe Romero's movies are the sort that really find their legs on video and dvd. I mean, I didn't see any of the previous movies on the Big Screen. (AND I'M SO THANKFUL I GOT TO SEE THIS ONE ON IT!!!) I kind of had to "discover" Romero's flicks in my own time. Maybe that's just the nature of his work. People have to "discover" him for themselves, in their own time. And this summer -- like all summers and holiday seasons of the new mellinium -- is just so packed with movies that theaters don't have the space to let movies find their audiences.

Damn Corporate Hollywood!!! The Corporate mentality just SUCKS!!!

Ooh, and that segueways NICELY into my activities today: I woke up and read most of Michael Crichton's RISING SUN!!!

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book!!! The movie was a really good adaptation, it's what actually lead me to the book! RISING SUN was one of the few Crichton books I hadn't yet read.

Here's the thing about Crichton's novels: He gets curious about stuff, and researches it for years until he has answered all his questions about the subject and arrives at a satisfactory overall picture of the subject matter in his mind. Then, once he understands this thing and how it works and how he feels about it, it usually suggests a story to him. Luckily for us, he loves to tell exciting stories, laying out his understanding of the thing(s) he's researched as he goes. Quite often, you buy a book because you want to read about, say, traveling back in time to the days of Lords and Ladies and knights, and by the time you finish you realize you've learned a great deal about quantum physics and the beginnings of our current economy.

I got into Crichton because his novels read like blockbuster movies -- with all the fast-pasing and emotional excitement. But the older I get, the more I've grown to love what he teaches me -- that I'm too lazy to learn about on my own. It's like he knows what I need to learn about in order to evolve intellectually, then he writes a kick-ass book about it.

I told Brian earlier that teachers (like, junior high and high school) should assign Crichton books to students, have them read the books and do book reports on them, then spend a few weeks seperating fact from fiction in the kids' minds.

Here's the cariculum:

Biology: THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN; CONGO
Social Studies: AIRFRAME; DISCLOSURE; STATE OF FEAR; RISING SUN
Literature: EATERS OF THE DEAD
Science: TIMELINE; JURASSIC PARK; THE LOST WORLD; PREY
Philosophy: TRAVELS; SPHERE

And I'm probably missing a ton of them, but that's just off the top of my head.

So RISING SUN was written in the mid-90s and was Crichton's analysis of how the Japanese conducted their business affairs versus how we contuct ours. I don't know if it's all still true, but the thing I take away from the book is the HUGE differences between the way the Japanese apply themselves and the way Americans do.

For instance, "Back In The Day" a movie like HALLOWEEN or NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was allowed to stay in the theater as long as it needed to find its audience and make a healthy profit. It could start small, maybe screening in one state first, then as it gained attention it could expand to other states where similar movies are doing well.

But now movies open EVERYWHERE, all at once. They make what they can opening weekend, and then the studio sells the dvds. If they happened to be out-gunned that weekend, too bad.

That's American corporate thinking: Make as much as we can IMMEDIATELY. The Japanese corporate thinking described in RISING SUN is this: Put out a good product, and keep tweaking it until it evolves into the best, most cost-effective version it can be. You're going to loose money for years, but in the end you'll dominate the marketplace. American thinking is: If we're not making profits every 3 months, you're jobless.

I like to believe the reason Tommy and Brian and Kelly and I (and Chuck, and My Genius Friend Dave) aren't rich and famous right now is because we're doing it more the Japanese way: We continue laying the groundword for ourselves, tweaking our skills and abilities every step of the way, so that when we do get our feet in the door, we'll totally dominate!

But then, maybe that's just me rationalizing a mis-spent ealry-adulthood.

NAH!

WE RULE!!!

So anyway, I've got some work to do. PEACE!!!