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INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL RULES!!! :D

Brian and I FINALLY saw it last night, and it was AMAZING!!!

I've read a couple of glowing reviews, and I read a couple of hum-drum reviews of the movie, and Brian & I agree that this was A MAGNIFICENT MOVIE!!! (I almost said "a magnificent film", but there's a certain connotation that goes along with the word "film"... Indy 4 isn't a "film" it's a "movie", and as such it ROCKS!)

And here's why...

I learned about "cliff-hangers" or movie serials when George Lucas revealed that that was the inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark (and, for that matter, Star Wars). I'm, like, 10 years old and all my friends are telling my how cool this movie is, and I see this making-of documentary before I actually get to see the movie.

Then I finally get around to talking my parents into letting me see the movie, AND I'M BLOWN AWAY!

Most exciting movie of my life!

So, naturally, I look into Serials when I'm a little older and the VHS has been invented and mass-distributed, and I find his really interesting world... You usually had one really interesting character fighting really bad villains, and these situations that made you think there's NO way the hero can survive.

Comic books, basically. (Though the movie cliffhanger pre-dates the comic book... HOWEVER... the concept of "serials" began with the daily comic strip, which inspired the movie serials...)

Okay, so...

As I grew up and wanted to learn more about the history of story-telling in the 20th Century, I learn about B-Movies and Pulp Fiction (NOT the Tarantino flick, lol) and I discover that what entertains me most are these marginalized forms of entertainment that are disregarded by the entertainment "inteligencia" , but terribly fun to EXPERIENCE!

...by the way...

If you're looking for a bad-ass movie serial to introduce you to the world of Cliff-hangers, I'd like to recommend The Adventures of Captain Marvel. It's got all the best and worst that cliff-hangers have to offer, and is an excellent example of the format!!!

Getting back to the topic...

Before Indy 4 came out, I was aware that Lucas had wanted to make a sequel called Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars. Which, at first consideration, seems like a grievous mis-step.

BUT...

If you look at the Indiana Jones franchise, that's really not a bad idea!

The first movie reflects Serials of the 1930s/1940s. The second film really feels like a 1940s movie (by the time they did Last Crusade they had a "feel" for what made an Indiana Jones flick an Indiana Jones flick, so they went with that) and the knowledge that they had to acknowledge the passage of actual time between Indy 3 and Indy 4 meant that HAD TO make Indy older by that much time...

Which means the film has to be set in the mid-50s...

And what was the equivalent of the movie serials of the 1930s/1940s in the kid-50s?

PULP FICTION.

So to keep the tone of the Indy franchise honest, there's really only 1 place to search for inspiration!

Which is where Lucas searched.

And if you read pulp fiction or comic books from that period (TV is useless, because TV was, at that time, concerned with recreating the experience of a stage performance, which was trying to be timeless and eternal) they are concerned with 2 things: (1) the Atomic Age and (2) the potential of life from other planets...

So if you're familiar with the history of popular entertainment, the idea of Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars is a SUPERB idea!!! :)

However, apparently Spielberg and/or Ford weren't as interested in this idea as Lucas was.

So they reworked it into what Indy 4 is now...

WHICH IS AMAZING!!! :D

I've read some reviews that called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a B Movie, but in a slightly derogatory manner, as though the film delivers slightly less than one would hope.

But this was not my experience of the flick!!! :D

I thought Indy 4 was a GLORIOUS celebration of ALL that Indy represents!!! :D

It's cool, because I listened to an episode of Spooky Southcoast that had an expert on Crystal Skulls -- Joshua "Illinios" Shapiro -- talking about the history of them, and he provided a great deal of context that I took with me into the movie. I even kept Brian up a little too late listening to that episode, lol.

And when we walked out of the film, I felt like Lucas had not only respected the mythology built up around the Crystal Skulls, but also offered a possible explanation to explain-away the nay-sayers of the Crystal Skulls legend, hehe! :)

And at the same time, he -- and Spielberg and David Koepp and Ford and screenwriter Jeff Nathonson -- delivered to us an Indy flick that met with the tonal requirements of a 1950s "exploitation" flick and a good, solid entry into the history of Indiana Jones!!! :D

I mean, WHO COULD ASK FOR MORE?!!

Now, Brian & I have watched it once on the Big Screen and sort of half a time (we each crashed at different times) on the Net, so we won't be able to determine if this is our favorite Indy flick until it's released on dvd. But right now, I'm willing to say that it might be! :D

I mean, you can't really beat Raiders... It was the product of some young, idealistic folks who were in their prime and trying to recreate for the rest of the world an experience that INSPIRED them to want to make movies! But, for my money, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is AN AMAZING sequel, and a spectacular book-end to the first movie!

ALSO...

Like any good sequel, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gives a sort of weight and import to the sequels that came before it. It makes the series, as a whole, make sense and feel "right". It even includes a few references that make the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles fit nicely into the "cannon" of the Indy films!

So I have had me a GREAT weekend! ;D

And in a couple of days I'm going to watch my daughter graduate high school A YEAR EARLY!!!

Good times in the life of a Ray Jay. :)

I hope you're experiencing some good times, too!!! (It's always best when the wealth is shared!)

DON'T PANIC

This coming Sunday -- May 25th -- is the 7th annual TOWEL DAY, a day of lugging your towel about everywhere you go in memory of the wit and wisdom of the late, great Douglas Adams!!!

:D

Not that I need a reason to celebrate the life and work of one of my all-time favorite authors, but I adore this excuse to remind people about the genius of DNA, or the excuse to try to introduce the man to potential new fans!!!

In anticipation of Towel day, I'm currently listening to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio show, Secondary Phase. Not the best of all the HHGG series, but because of that fact I've listened to it the least, hehe.

I'm disappointed to find that the next series of Dirk Gently BBC 4 Radio episodes doesn't air until October. :( That would have been a great way to celebrate Towel day this year! However...

If you're not familiar with DNA's work, I recommend you browse your favorite second-hand book store and grab a copy of ANYTHING written by Douglas Adams. Do it Friday night or Saturday morning, then start reading immediately. By 12:00 am Sunday you'll be completely in love with Adams and will understand why we fans celebrate him annually.

OR...

If you have an iPod, an iTunes account and some money, you can get one of his audiobooks. This is, I find, a splendid way to enjoy Adams's work. I don't know why, but for some reason Adams's writing sound beautiful when read or dramatized!

I don't recommend the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a suitable introduction, however. The flick is great fun, but Adams -- and co-writer Karey Kirkpatrick -- had to strip away a great deal of the "Douglas Adams-ness" of the original work in order to make it a proper film.

I mean, if you know nothing about Douglas Adams and that's the only introduction that appeals to you, then it's perfectly serviceable as such. But the movie is a great deal more rewarding if you are already well familiar with the novel and/or the original BBC Radio series.

If you are familiar with at least one of Adams's novels, may I recommend the HHGG Advenutre Game as a wonderful way to celebrate the brilliance of DNA's wonderfully twisted creativity?

For those to young to remember, back before Guitar Hero, back before Grand Theft Auto, back before the first Tomb Raider and even before Tetris, home video games were mind-bogglingly primitive!!!

And adventure games were especially so!


But DNA -- fascinated with developing technology -- used the limits of "text adventure games" to its fullest advantage. It just so happens that his own unique sense of humor blended perfectly with the random-ness of text adventure games, and he was able to create a text adventure that makes you laugh as much when the game is perplexing you as you do when the game is going your way! :)

I don't think I'd recommend this as a way to get to know the man's work, though, lol. The alien-ness of the format itself is likely to put you off before you can discover its genius.

No, the BEST was to get to know Douglas Admas is through his writing.

That's what the man was: He was a writer. A wonderful word smith who crafted eact sentence with care and humor and insight. he was Monty Python in paperback, only you didn't need the visuals to fully appreciate the jokes, because he provided them for you. :)

He was so visionary that he predicted the future of computers!!!

Check this out:

The titular technological device of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a small computer, about the size of a small book, that connected to a network of information floating in the air, able to grab a random article and display it for use by anyone anywhere at anytime.

If you have a WiFi-capable Palm Pilot (or even laptop), you're first thought might be Google or Wikipedia.

But DNA imagined this 1978, LOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG before computers were nearly so compact (they used to fill up entire rooms) and well-long before anyone without a PHD in Computer Science knew anything about the Net! (Keep in mind that it wasn't until almost the turn of the millennium that we -- Society as a whole -- became so Net savvy! 20 years after DNA came up with the Hitchhiker's Guide!

In fact, I would argue that DNA was so far ahead of his time that many of the more Absurdist elements of his social commentary have not only come to pass, but become commonplace and accepted!

He joked in the first HHGG novel that the job of the President of the Universe wasn't to wield power, but to direct attention away from it. Any alert American citizen watching the Bush Administration over the last 8 years has observed the truth of that observation. ;P (Were we really fighting over whether or not gay people should be allowed to legally marry over here? Or did those in power want us to concentrate on that subject while they passed laws that took away a few more of our civil liberties?)

But Adams's work wasn't about politics. THAT is the beauty of it!!! :D

His work was about laughing at the absurdness of BEING HUMAN! :D He had this way of taking some of the more frustrating aspects of Life, the Universe, and Everything and allowing us to laugh at them, and thereby be freed from their power over us. (I say "had the ability to", but his work STILL has that power for me!)

Great poets can make us cry about how frustrating Life is.

But Adams is one of a handful that can make us LAUGH about it! And in doing so, the frustration subsides a little. It loses a little of its power, its strength. And gives that power back to US!!! :D

Oh, hey...!

If you're not familiar with DNA's work and you have the money to choose which book introduces you to his creativity, I'd like to recommend So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish! It's the 4th book in the increasingly inappropriately titled Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy, but it contains all the humor and charm and insight of any of his other works! It takes place in 1980s England (for the most part) and you don't really have to be familiar with the first 3 books to enjoy it fully. Plus, it is -- in my opinion -- a love story to rival any other! :)

And it took me 7 or more readings to finally get it -- what with all the jokes and stuff -- but it is also fulfilling Thematically. DNA has a very specific "something" to say about Life, the Universe and Everything, and he says it rather entertainingly!!! :)

Or if you're of a more "serious" mind-set, there's always his classic Last Chance To See, his only non-fiction book documenting his travels to view endangered species before they go extinct. This book may be quite a bit harder to find, but it's WELL worth the search! And you'll be surprised by how a man can believe so passionately about such a serious cause, and still make you laugh out loud throughout every page of his sojourn!!!

Okay, I've gone on for a while now -- I always do when I start talking about Douglas Adams, lol -- so I'm going to call it quits for now.

Here's hoping you join me Sunday in celebrating (not mourning) the life and works of Douglas Noël Adams! Worst Case Scenario: You lug a towel around with you all day and, when in public, you feel a little silly and laugh at the idea of how you must look to everyone else.

But even if you don't join me in celebrating Towel Day, I wish for you lots of laughter all weekend long! ;)

Groovin' My Groove-Thang

Hola, me peeps!

Just checking in. Nothing major…

EXCEPT WEDNESDAY! DUDE!!!

This ridiculous storm smashed Austin Wednesday! My first day back to work and for the first six hours of my ten-hour shift we’re slammed reporting the weather!

These two large storm cells came up from southwest and north east of us and collided, forming this gargantuan super-cell and just pummeling us!

I spent the next two hours after that doing paperwork, reporting what went wrong and why.

We lost power at the station a couple of times, but the back-up generator kicked on, so we stayed on air. But after the hail and nigh-hurricane-force wind ceased, I stepped outside to survey the damage…

Green leaves covered most of the concrete and asphalt. Tree branches, and even entire chucks of trees, littered the parking lot and street. And for half a mile in every direction, the station was the only building with electricity!

It was kind of groovy.

Brian called me up during the worst of it. He had been sound asleep when tornado sirens woke him up. He figured since he was awake, and had already gotten some sleep, he’d play some Age of Mythology, but then the power died, lol. Since we don’t have TV, he usually checks out the Live Doppler Radar on the Net when the weather starts getting interesting. But with no power, he was forced to give me a call to find out what’s going on.

He also grabbed my portable dvd player and popped Twister in, lol. (He’s not the only one… I enjoy watching storm movies when the weather is feisty, too. Or, like, watching The Fog (the carpenter version) when you can see three feet in front of your face outside, lol.)

Driving home, I got to see what a mess the rest of the city was. The trip began with a construction worker walking over to my car to let me know that he’d cleared as much of the branches and wash-over (I believe that’s the term he used) out of the street as he could, but that the lights at the intersection were out, so I needed to be careful.

Which I thought was very considerate of him!

Then when I got to work Thursday night, my boss had bought all of us dinner, for having done a good job during Wednesday night’s chaos.

Which I thought was not only considerate, but practical! :D I always appreciate a free meal!

This weekend’s going to be cool: I’m going to be animating! The producers of Watchmen are having a contest in which Watchmen fans can create their own Veidt product commercials, and the best ones will appear on TV screens in the background! We’ve written 3 commercials so far, and 2 of them are graphics-driven, and one requires an actual physical shoot. We’re not ready for the shoot just yet, so Tommy and I will be working online together on the 2 graphics-driven ones.

I wish I could show you the one I’m working on, but I doubt I’ll be able to. (I haven’t read the rules yet, so I’ll check on it.)

Also, I’m one disc away from having finished Alias, Season 2, AND my good friend Lothar has loaned me Season 3! So I’ll be able to go straight from the season 2 cliff-hanger to the Season 3 Premiere! (Which, I can already tell, is going to be a NECESSITY, the way those maniacs dick around with their show, lol! Halfway through Season 2 they complete the objective that you thought it was going to take them the entire run of the show to complete, leaving your head reeling and your mouth just going “Wha? Huh?!”)

Oh, and that reminds me: I’m 2 episodes behind on LOST, and I’ve been told they just started the first episode of a 3-episode Season Finale! So I need to catch up there, too.

Luckily for me, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn’t come out in theaters until next week, or else I’d likely get NOTHING done, lol.

DUDE!!! A NEW INDIANA JONES!!! I was, like, 10 when the first one came out! It changed my life, permanently mutating me into an Action Movie junky!!! :D The third movie came out a month after I graduated, and I clearly remember reading the novelization during my graduation rehearsal!

Which seems sort of sycronistic, as I’m going to go watch my daughter graduate the week after Indy IV is released…

Okay, I need to get to bed.

Oh! I didn’t even tell you the coolest part of the week! I started this week off with a little Gnomey-lovin’! This is just a big, fat, bad-ass week for me!

And I suspect cooler things to come…

I hope your weekend is blissful and your next week is just A BLAST!!! :D

IRON MAN RULES!!! :D

Brian & I just got back from watching it on the Big Screen!

We watched it online last week (we were broke, sadly) but we HAD TO see it in the cinema, so we did tonight!

BETTER on the Big Screen!!! Like, 100 times better!

PLUS... that cool bit after the end credits... It's not online. :(

Um...

I'm up to Disc 4 of ALIAS Season 2. ALIAS ALSO RULES!!!

I know I've said it before, but I can't stress that enough. J. J. Abrams? GENIUS!!!

Other than that, I've just been writing. My co-written project is at a pausing point right now. My trilogy of movies/novels is coming along slowly. (I'm missing some component element that's keeping it from flowing right.) And my spooky audio idea is at a halt pending further research (which I can't afford at the moment).

But I'm certainly keeping busy!

It's kind of funny... After Script Frenzy I thought I'd just blow through these next projects, but writing is never that simple, it seems. Every project (and I've heard and read this before, but I guess I'm understanding the statement more fully now) always has its own hiccups.

Which is fine. :)

I still contend I'll sell my first screenplay and my first novel in 2009. The path just seems a bit more daunting than it did last month, hehe. ;P

Also, Mom's in town for a couple of weeks! That's groovy! So Brian & I got to spend Mother's Day with her and Gan-Gan. :) (And our new "sister" Daisy, a 3-week-old Rat Terrier, lol.)

DUDE!!! Also...

As cool as it was to watch IRON MAN with my li'l bro, it's so much cooler watching it with an audience! That's something I keep forgetting in this digital age: Movies are meant to be seen with audiences! I mean, you watch your favorite movies over and over again on dvd, and revisit the audio commentary or the behind-the-scenes features or featurettes, and it's easy to forget that film is meant to be a communal experience! They are designed to be viewed by a small community, not by 1 or 2 people sitting at home.

I usually don't have the time or fundage to leave my apartment and see a flick on the Big Screen, so I've grown used to the very intimacy of viewing a movie all by myself. But when you're watching something great, it's so much better in a half-full to full house!

I need to keep that in mind.

Okay, so, this being the first of my 3-day weekend, I think I'm going to go play and not worry about getting any writing done tonight.

PEACE!!! :D




(Btw, that was "go play" and not "go have a play" to a certain someone who likes to tease me when she gets the chance to, hehe.) ;)

May the Force Be With You :)

Netflix is BEAUTIFUL!!! :D

Okay, I've finally finished Season 1 of Alias and am ready to begin the second disc of Season 2, which is huge for me! :) I watched the first 2 discs of Season 1 some time ago, and Script Frenzy -- as well as life in general -- has kept me from getting any further.

Until this weekend! :)

Also...

Again, thanks to Netflix, Brian and I watched Family Guy: Blue Harvest yesterday, lol! GENIUS!

But that made us have to watch the Robot Chicken Star Wars Special, which we found online. (Including filmmaker commentary, which is SO FRICKIN' COOL!!!) :D

And as a result of all this Star Wars stuff, I had to listen to the NPR radio dramas on the way to work, and then most of the night so far, lol.

Blue Harvest was cool because we got the disc in the mail, then our buddy Tommy happened to stop by to discuss the Watchmen Commercial Contest, and after working for a couple of hours we took a break to watch Blue Harvest. So we got to watch it together -- which, considering the fact that he's now pops to 2 little girls, is unusual, hehe! :) (We don't get much time to do work together, much less just relax together.)

As far as writing goes...

Um...

Well, I wrote a commercial for the Watchmen contest with the guys yesterday! :) That's good! (And, you know, when you write one commercial, you actually write, like, 5 that you don't end up using before you get to the one that you do choose to use... So... That's some work, right?)

Actually, I need to get a bit more serious about the script I'm co-writing with my li'l bro and My Genius Friend Dave... but, you know... I've been working so hard for so long... I'm kind of enjoying not having a deadline to answer to.

So I had a groovy weekend, and am not disappointed to be back at work. I mean, I look forward to the weekend, to be sure, but I've had a pleasant enough weekend that I feel refreshed and stuff.

So yay! :)

LOVE TO MY GNOMEY GODDESS!!! :D

Actually, the way we've been communicating recently, I may speak to her over the phone before she reads this blog entry. But just in case... ;)

And I hope that YOU have an AMAZING week!!! :D