culture goes pop
Sep. 27th, 2005 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdYesterday? Pretty cool, except I've been hit with something that's making me SNORKMONSTER. I don't know if it's an allergy or what, but it's no fun at all and is irritating the hell out of my throat and making me tired. (Bad allergy days can cause both of these, but this isn't responding particularly well to antihistamines, so I don't know that this is it.)
Regardless, tho', I got my bike and took the bus down to murksouth to take care of a couple of things there. When I was getting off the bus, I heard music, and thought, "I know this band - Smoosh? Why is someone playing... wait, this isn't on the CD..." So I got off the bus and biked towards it, and zomg: free outdoor Smoosh concert.
They're tighter live than they were on their CD; they had some songs I didn't know, so they're presumably writing new material. They're also just better live, which is kind of unexpected from a two-person band, tho' they continue their trademark no-act stage act. In particular, "Bottlenose," which I didn't like at all on the CD, makes a lot more sense live. I still don't buy into it, but I can see what they're doing when they do it in person. Asya's vocals have gotten stronger, too, which is definitely helping; Chloe's druming, always crisp, has picked up a wickedly sharp edge, tho' she didn't seem to be doing as much backing vocal work as she used to.
The only thing I'm wondering is when they'll have enough new material for a second CD. ^_^
Then later, of course, we went to see a preview of Serenity, the Firefly movie. It came with only one preview trailer, for the movie Doom, which was met with riotous laughter, and we're all pretty certain that was not the intent. Here's a tip: release that one straight to video and cut your losses now. Or better, get the old Best Brains crew back together and release it straight to MST3K, not that it needs any help to be hysterically funny.
But on to Serenity. First, it's much better than the commercials made it look. I think the short-preview form fails to play well to the strengths of this movie, because I was somewhat worried; what I was seeing didn't seem to work very well together. It was clear to me that everyone who liked the series - and that includes me - should like the movie; they didn't screw it up by taking it to the big screen. The various actors' performances work just fine writ large, which is by no means a given, and the characters and trademark Joss Whedon quirky dialogue hold up just fine over a feature-length film. In particular, I wish Ron Glass (Shepherd Book) had been given a little more screen time; I really liked his performance.
From a technical standpoint, the space and action sequences - of which there are several - are all very well choreographed; in the trailer, they seemed choppy, but not in the actual movie. The sets look fine - better, even, I wonder if they rebuilt them for the movie - and except for one pretty questionable moment early in the film during a landing, the effects are up to par.
One thing I wondered about, and am still wondering about, is how someone who hadn't seen the series would react. As someone who has seen most of the series, but not all of it - I've seen all but one of the episodes on the DVD set - I certainly understood what was going on. That means it's comprehendible to someone who just watches the stuff, but that's different than watching it without any background at all. Fortunately, we sat near someone who had seen no episodes of the original series, and he felt it made perfectly good sense as a stand-alone movie, which is important. He enjoyed it quite a bit. If his reaction is typical of moviegoers, this won't be a problem.
On the downside: I continue to have severe issues with the cosmology, but I'll leave that alone for now. It's too fundamental a concept for them to fix, so you have to deal with it and move on. Secondly, I'm not certain all the character decisions they made are very good ideas moving forward - if there's to be a moving-forward - though they were, I think, perfectly appropriate at this movie, as a movie. And that's important; I appreciate that they were willing to make that kind of decision. Finally, there's a major plot point that comes fairly late in the film that I saw coming from at least eight, possibly ten thousand miles away. It would be nice if that hadn't been telegraphed quite so completely.
On balance, though, I liked it; it's not an earth-shaking film, but I wouldn't have felt cheated if I'd been paying full price, and the visual effects are interesting enough that it deserves a big-screen viewing. So I'd recommend seeing it in the theatres, and there haven't been many movies I've thought that about this summer. It's too late and probably a tad too quirky to save an awful Hollywood summer, but it's still a nice, if arguably late, close to the season. See it before it goes away.
Saturday's token: 0.1
Sunday's miles: 2.0
Monday's miles: 2.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 464.4
Miles out of Rivendell: 4.6. Rivendell is great. Must visit again on the way back.
Miles to Lothlórien: 457.4. And we're off!
And today's flower picture comes from a P-Patch (co-operative garden system) in Seattle, on Ravenna Avenue:
Early Autumn Sun
As well as a bonus picture, taken walking home from the shops:
A Tallness in the Sky
Regardless, tho', I got my bike and took the bus down to murksouth to take care of a couple of things there. When I was getting off the bus, I heard music, and thought, "I know this band - Smoosh? Why is someone playing... wait, this isn't on the CD..." So I got off the bus and biked towards it, and zomg: free outdoor Smoosh concert.
They're tighter live than they were on their CD; they had some songs I didn't know, so they're presumably writing new material. They're also just better live, which is kind of unexpected from a two-person band, tho' they continue their trademark no-act stage act. In particular, "Bottlenose," which I didn't like at all on the CD, makes a lot more sense live. I still don't buy into it, but I can see what they're doing when they do it in person. Asya's vocals have gotten stronger, too, which is definitely helping; Chloe's druming, always crisp, has picked up a wickedly sharp edge, tho' she didn't seem to be doing as much backing vocal work as she used to.
The only thing I'm wondering is when they'll have enough new material for a second CD. ^_^
Then later, of course, we went to see a preview of Serenity, the Firefly movie. It came with only one preview trailer, for the movie Doom, which was met with riotous laughter, and we're all pretty certain that was not the intent. Here's a tip: release that one straight to video and cut your losses now. Or better, get the old Best Brains crew back together and release it straight to MST3K, not that it needs any help to be hysterically funny.
But on to Serenity. First, it's much better than the commercials made it look. I think the short-preview form fails to play well to the strengths of this movie, because I was somewhat worried; what I was seeing didn't seem to work very well together. It was clear to me that everyone who liked the series - and that includes me - should like the movie; they didn't screw it up by taking it to the big screen. The various actors' performances work just fine writ large, which is by no means a given, and the characters and trademark Joss Whedon quirky dialogue hold up just fine over a feature-length film. In particular, I wish Ron Glass (Shepherd Book) had been given a little more screen time; I really liked his performance.
From a technical standpoint, the space and action sequences - of which there are several - are all very well choreographed; in the trailer, they seemed choppy, but not in the actual movie. The sets look fine - better, even, I wonder if they rebuilt them for the movie - and except for one pretty questionable moment early in the film during a landing, the effects are up to par.
One thing I wondered about, and am still wondering about, is how someone who hadn't seen the series would react. As someone who has seen most of the series, but not all of it - I've seen all but one of the episodes on the DVD set - I certainly understood what was going on. That means it's comprehendible to someone who just watches the stuff, but that's different than watching it without any background at all. Fortunately, we sat near someone who had seen no episodes of the original series, and he felt it made perfectly good sense as a stand-alone movie, which is important. He enjoyed it quite a bit. If his reaction is typical of moviegoers, this won't be a problem.
On the downside: I continue to have severe issues with the cosmology, but I'll leave that alone for now. It's too fundamental a concept for them to fix, so you have to deal with it and move on. Secondly, I'm not certain all the character decisions they made are very good ideas moving forward - if there's to be a moving-forward - though they were, I think, perfectly appropriate at this movie, as a movie. And that's important; I appreciate that they were willing to make that kind of decision. Finally, there's a major plot point that comes fairly late in the film that I saw coming from at least eight, possibly ten thousand miles away. It would be nice if that hadn't been telegraphed quite so completely.
On balance, though, I liked it; it's not an earth-shaking film, but I wouldn't have felt cheated if I'd been paying full price, and the visual effects are interesting enough that it deserves a big-screen viewing. So I'd recommend seeing it in the theatres, and there haven't been many movies I've thought that about this summer. It's too late and probably a tad too quirky to save an awful Hollywood summer, but it's still a nice, if arguably late, close to the season. See it before it goes away.
Saturday's token: 0.1
Sunday's miles: 2.0
Monday's miles: 2.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 464.4
Miles out of Rivendell: 4.6. Rivendell is great. Must visit again on the way back.
Miles to Lothlórien: 457.4. And we're off!
And today's flower picture comes from a P-Patch (co-operative garden system) in Seattle, on Ravenna Avenue:
Early Autumn Sun
As well as a bonus picture, taken walking home from the shops:
A Tallness in the Sky
