Movie company mercenary

A guy on the A train had a red streaked yellow smiley face Watchmen button on the left lapel of his black leather jacket and I wondered what this meant. Is he just saying he's a fan of the movie or book, or is he also saying that he's a fan of The Comedian, the cynical special ops mercenary? If the latter, does this guy think that The Comedian would wear movie company schwag you can get from the local Suncoast? Maybe he would if he were a guerrilla marketer for the production or distribution company.

The Watchmen

***1/2

As a whole, I really liked The Watchmen; I thought it captured the feel of the comic book and I got sucked into the film's world just as I did when I read the book. It seems like a panel-for-panel remake, or at least the panels that made it into the movie. And the actors were made up to look exactly like the characters; I almost gasped when I saw Dreiberg (Night Owl II) for the first time. (I saw Little Children earlier this winter and could totally picture Patrick Wilson in the role, that is, if he gained some flab, which he did. Even more impressive, instead of being lazy and just gaining a beer belly, it looks like he bulked up and then let himself go, just like Dreiberg did.)

But perfect facades only get you so far. I felt kind of bored until they showed Dr. Manhattan's backstory, which was about half-way though the two hour, 40 minute movie. Up till that point, the movie was a Disney theme park version of the book. Everything was wondrous and looked exactly as it should, but much of it was without soul. Maybe if I hadn't just read the book this past August, and had time to forget the specifics, I would have enjoyed the first half more.

Then Billy Crudup woke me up with his aching portrayal of Dr. Manhattan. Dr. Manhattan is slipping away from humanity as he tries to understand its place in the universe. His approach is too practical; he's looking from the outside in and wants humanity to fit into his idea of what the order of the universe is as if it were a cog in a watch and is frustrated and tormented when the pieces don't fit. But when he brings Laurie to Mars and an important piece of her past is revealed, he sees humanity through her eyes, from the inside out, and realizes how improbable it is that she came into being, how improbable it is that every person comes into being. He calls it a miracle, something that can't be explained by pure scientific reasoning or by a watchmaker's practicality. Crudup doesn't overplay Dr. Manhattan's detachment; he could have easily sounded like an automaton, but instead he sounds more like a bemused observer trying to understand what it's all about. I wish the movie allowed the rest of the characters to be that intriguing, as they are in the book.

Zack Snyder needed even more run time than the 2:40 to make this into an excellent movie. He could have taken a deeper dive, used the medium of film to tell the story in a slightly different way than the book, instead of worrying about making it look perfect. But the movie is still wonderful to look at and rings true to the spirit of The Watchmen.

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sadtrombone.com has just the prescription.

Alfie: I'll tell you what it's all about

Kent and I saw Alfie - the one with Michael Caine, not pretty boy Jude Law (who is pretty even in person, and does look rather like Caine) - last week. I found the character, though highly flawed and overwhelmingly sexist, to be quite interesting. He's pretty clueless, which is, I suppose, the only reason why I could find such a character interesting and even a bit sympathetic. That, and the women he misuses get incrementally smarter about his game. I imagine that not soon after the story ends, Alfie has quite a bit of trouble picking anyone up. I could be wrong. After all, His Awesomeness Barney Stinson hasn't lost his knack yet.

"Only connect" said EM Forster. But Alfie's part of the swinging '60s generation and he rejects that notion wholeheartedly and suffers for it, though he doesn't see the connection between his miserableness and not emotionally connecting with the birds he beds. As he pushes them away whenever they start to get close, he believes he's being honest with himself and them. Alfie lives life on his terms, which are to be free and unattached. But in return, Alfie has no one; no one visits him at the sanitorium where he waits until the benign spot on his lung clears up, not even his buddy. No one's there to listen to his thoughts and feelings - sometimes his buddy does but he doesn't seem to really understand. We're the only ones who's always there for him. And do we actually like him? He has potential if only he'd see how miserable he's making himself. I mean, if he did die, who would actually go to his funeral? Would Gilda bring their son? Or would she keep him away, hide Alfie from him because Alfie was such a bad influence? As the movie ends, the dog from the opening returns and trots off with Alfie taking our place as the ever-present, mute witness to Alfie's charms and self-deceptions.

Interesting Wikipedia tidbit: Terrance Stamp turned down the part and recommended Caine. I would have loved to seen Stamp in that role.

Black cat, Halloween

In my back yard as we speak.

Smurf Colorforms

Here's something else I had as a kid: Smurf Colorforms.





(Both pictures courtesy of bluebuddies.com.)

I was big into the Smurfs. Stuffed Smurf dolls, Smurf food tray, both of which my mom won in Seaside, Smurf Colecovision game (which was pretty lame but I still have the theme song stuck in my head to this day), even a Smurf sleeping bag.

I wouldn't buy used Colorforms though, knowing how I would lick the backs of them to stick them on the board. Ew.

Don't Tip the Waiter

No, I'm not siding with Mr. Pink and suggesting that you never leave a tip for your waiter or waitress, I'm talking about one of the games from my childhood by Ideal:



I remember it would descend into Lord of the Flies chaos at the end - we would get tired of the game and throw the little discs at each other.

100th Anniversary of the Merkle Game

The 1908 baseball season, the last time the Cubs won the World Series, was a lulu. The American League had a four-way pennant race: Tigers (featuring Ty Cobb), Cleveland Naps, White Sox, and St. Louis Browns. The Tigers won their pennant on the last possible day of the regular season.

The National League had a three-way race: Cubs, Giants, and Pirates (led by Honus Wagner). The Cubs got their break when, in a game against the Giants, one of the Giant's rookies named Fred Merkle made a rookie mistake, which enabled the Cub's Johnny Evers (you know, Evers to Tinkers to Chance) to take advantage of a fan melee on the field causing the Cubs to win the "Merkle Game", which created a tie between the Giants and Cubs at the end of the season, which cost the Giants the pennant when they replayed the Merkle Game and lost to the Cubs.

From How Stuff Works:

The score was tied 1-1 and the sun was setting over the Polo Grounds in New York. Fred Merkle, a rookie substitute, was standing on first and Moose McCormick occupied third with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, when Giants shortstop Al Bridwell singled to center.

Thinking the game was won, and with a crowd of happy fans swarming the infield, Merkle bypassed second base and made for the New York clubhouse. But Chicago second baseman Johnny Evers got the attention of the umpire who, after seeing Evers tag second base with a ball (there was some dispute over whether it was actually the game ball), declared Merkle forced out at second, nullifying the winning run.

The two tight pennant races would have been enough to guarantee the 1908 season a special place in history, let alone the Merkle Game. But the season was also full of dirty baseball (not just by Ty Cobb, but he certainly helped), double-dealings, and an attack by a swarm of gnats (just like the attack on game two of the 2007 American League Division Series featuring the Yankees and Indians).

I learned all I know about the 1908 season from Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy.

More reading:

Here's a reprint of a Keith Olbermann article about the Merkle Game. Olbermann writes about the game every year in hopes to clear Merkle's reputation.

Here's another article about it.

One of my favorite kitty pictures

From Funny Cat Photos

Do they *have* to report from the hurricane?

Is it really necessary to have these reporters standing outside in the middle of a hurricane? Does it really add to our understanding or help us in any way? I'm finding it more and more ridiculous every year.

First plant shipment

The violet Dancing Geishas arrived from Park Seeds today. Hmm, I don't remember ordering them. They're not in my garden plan, either. Oh the best laid plans!

I think I'll plant them underneath our rose bushes out front.

Morrissey's selling the NFL

Could someone tell the NFL that using Morrissey's "Every Day is Like Sunday" ["every day is cloudy and gray"] is the worst use of a pop song since Phillips used the Beatles' "It's Getting Better All the Time" ["it can't get no worse"]? Not that I don't want Morrissey to make money.

Gardenarama

I spent a marathon session yesterday looking for plants for our garden. We decided that what we have is just too messy for us to maintain and we don't know what the previous owners intended, so we're going to dig some stuff up and plant what we want. I see why people hire garden designers to do the work for them - it took me a long time to find plants suitable for our zone, soil, and the amount of sun that the places where wanted to put the plants get.

So far I've ordered seeds or bareroot plants for purple coneflower (echinacea), shasta daisies, black-eyed susans, large yellow hyacinths for the front yard, cosmos, forget-me-nots, and blazing star, bearded irises, and a dwarf nandina firepower shrub to replace those that were eaten by the local groundhog or the voles.

In the spring, I'm going to buy astilbe, salvia, a Moon Madonna daylily, and Physostegia virginiana.

We have a lot of clearing out and weeding to do in the next three months...

Jonesey!...Wha?

Steve and I just stumbled upon Glen Jones's show on NJ classic rock station 105.7. Whoa.

Coincidences

When I was in college, some of my friends on the school newspaper would use my (maiden) name in songs. They'd sing my name to the tune of the Mission Impossible theme, etc. I told this to another friend of mine, who said they should use "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" by Looking Glass as a song for me instead.

Fast forward 10 years and I marry a guy with the last name of Brandi.

Not only that, but Looking Glass was formed at Rutgers, where my husband went to college, and is considered part of the Jersey Shore sound, where I sort of lived (about 20 minutes away from the beach) as a kid and where we sort of live now.

Watchmen by Alan Moore

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
== Sort of a spoiler alert == Lots of intertwining story arcs and themes to sink your teeth into. One I'm currently mulling over is the morality of Rorschach vs. that of Ozymandias. Rorschach thinks what Ozymandias did is criminal and that Ozymandias must be punished for it, but really, is what Ozymandias did so different than what Rorschach did throughout his stint as masked adventurer? Sure, Rorschach killed less people than Ozymandias, but both had the same motives: to save mankind. If we think of this in term of Dr. Manhattan's conclusion that every human being is a miracle given the immense odds against each one of us coming into being, then killing just one person, let alone more than one (but less than a hundred, though we don't really know) as Rorschach did, for the good of the many is just as bad as killing millions.


View all my reviews.

The sprinkler system

We had some guys install a sprinkler system today. Wow, what a headache. It only took about 3 1/2 hours but there were guys everywhere all at once digging holes and pulling up part of our brick garden borders. I couldn't bear to watch. Shielding my eyes from it didn't save me though as they used a ditch witch to do most of their digging; it was obnoxiously loud and I cringed whenever I heard grinding noises. So I buried myself into The Watchmen until I was finished with the book.

I should have been watching TV instead, I suppose, since the sprinkler guys cut our cable line and I didn't realize it until about a half hour before they were to leave. Our utilities are buried, which improves the aesthetic appeal of our neighborhood, but is a pain in the ass to deal with sometimes. The guys insisted that where anything was marked - gas, electric, cable - they dug by hand and slipped the sprinkler hoses underneath the existing lines. And it's true that part of the cable line wasn't marked properly. A cut we found, where a since-removed tree had I, I presume, moved the cable line a bit and where you can clearly see a cable poking through the grass (and about which I forgot to tell them) was about two feet from the marking. But, un uh, they're not in the clear; the cable guy who temporarily put us back into cable said there was at least one more cut in the cable line.

By temporarily putting us back into cable, I mean that there's a coax cable running from where the cable comes in from the street, across our yard, across the top of our driveway, over to our house's cable hookup on the side of the house. Reminds me of a John Fogerty video. The cable company's going to have to run a new line - the guy said within 10 days.

Plus, even though I told the sprinkler guy who came to give us an estimate, and who wasn't on the job today, that we only wanted our grass watered, not the garden because we'd rather use our drip-hose system to save water, today's guys installed heads that water the garden anyway. It's not that big of a deal because the heads that water the garden are on separate areas than those that water the lawn, and it didn't cost us more than if we hadn't gotten the extra heads installed, but still...

Lessons learned:

• Don't assume that what you told the guy who gave you the estimate will pass that on to the guys who will actually do the work.


• If you know of any quirks in your utility hook ups, don't forget to tell your contractors.


• Don't be surprised if they cut your cable line even if you do tell them about the quirks.


• Don't get too stressed out about it. In my case, the problem was temporarily fixed by 2:30 in the afternoon.


• Take aspirin or something before the work starts to ward off your inevitable headache.

Boo-frickity-hoo

I saw a headline on Google news saying that the CEO of Bear Stearns said his company would have been saved if the Fed bailed them out sooner.

Oh yeah? Well maybe he could have saved his company himself if he put a stop to the hedge fund shell game.

Robert Reich on tonight's News Hours with Jim Lehrer pretty much said that it would have been nice if Bear Stearns ponied up some collateral in exchange for the bailout money. Yes, that would have been nice, but this is par for the course. No one was required to put down much collateral during the bubble.

Things won't change until someone up at the top sets a good example.

Starting the garden

Steve and I have a garden that goes all the way around our house. It's mostly a border garden and mostly flowers. I wanted some vegetables, so we're going to clear out some of the old plants and make room for tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, and who knows what else.

We're starting from seed, and we don't have wide window ledges, so we needed a grow light. As usual, we procrastinated and didn't have time to order one, so Steve drove around the county looking for one, but no luck. So he bought an under the counter fluorescent light and installed it under the shelf of a low bookcase I didn't know what else to do with:



So far, three of the Romas, a pepper or two, and a Big Boy tomato have sprouted. Pretty cool.

Fosse

I realize now that I like Bob Fosse. When I was a kid, I thought his choreography was weird; when I was a teen and in my twenties, I thought it was dumb, passe, and what Kent calls "Entertainment" (air quotes included). But my mom, sister, and I went to see Chicago this Saturday, and seeing Fosse's work live changed my mind.

The moves suit the music (snappy homages to Vaudeville) well and I really like how Fosse uses the dancer's breathing or yelps as punctuation to the dance.

Now starring sexy TV icon John Schneider

John Schneider was good: he has a nice voice and was a believable cad/Ziegfeld headliner. He needs a haircut though; his almost-mullet doesn't suit the character. And Michelle DeJean as Roxie was far superior to Renee Zellweger.

We three were in the front row and most of the actresses made eye contact, especially Mama with the women, and Roxie threw me a rose at the end. Schneider didn't make eye contact at all; he's probably not used to performing on-stage and breaking the fourth wall would probably have made him break character.