No big Halloween fest tonight, alas. Just kicking back to watch Halloween III. Not a cinematic classic, not by far, but not bad for all that. And it stars Tom Atkins, fer cryin' out loud, so what else do you want? Just wish it could have been explored by someone a smidge more talented than Tommy Lee Wallace. Well, what're you gonna do?I know, I kinda cheated on that last entry. This whole non-productive period is taking its toll. But the astute reader will note that its a reference to Throw Momma From The Train, which has to count for something, no?
Maybe it's time to watch Barton Fink again. Or Naked Lunch. They're both about writer's who can't write, and then, after going through some tremendous emotional trial, find that they're able to write again. Not that either inspire me in any way, necessarily, but it's almost like, by watching Fink or Will Lee suffer, I'm being absolved. It's comforting in a Christian Mythos sort of way.
Wasted our time on Gothika tonight. It was neither as bad as the reviews said, nor as good as it could have been. It had atmosphere -- all good horror movies have "atmosphere" but since no one has yet offered a convincing argument as to what that means, exactly, it's an easy point to score -- but it also had plot-holes you could drive a bus through. Most of the blame can be laid at the feet of screenwriter Sebastian "I Somehow Managed To Fuck Up The Big Bounce" Gutierrez, but it's from Dark Castle Productions, who are the guys responsible for the remakes of The House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts, as well as the equally logic-impaired Ghost Ship, so I don't know that plot was a big concern.
Just finished watching The Sweetest Thing. A bad call, I know, and against my better judgment, but it's seldom that a movie is actually as bad as the reviews make it out to be, especially when they're as abyssmal as they were for this one, so I thought I'd roll the dice. Sometimes, though, the Law of Averages is against you, and I'd apparently racked up a rather hefty karmic debt against that Law because it came 'round to collect with a vengeance.Top 10 Punchlines
(in no particular order)
1. "Moooo!"
2. "It was assaulted... peanut!"
3. "I know what your problem is: You're two tents."
4. "Little blue fucker about this big."
5. "Your garbage cans are empty and your dog's pregnant."
6. "Did I dial five-five-five, two-three-SIX-eight?"
7. "Hello Diane, I'm Bucky Goldstein."
8. "Ta-daaaa!"
9. "Orange you glad I didn't say 'banana'?"
10. "Because you're fuckin' ugly!"
Late last night, in the wee hours, I finished reading The Dark Tower.
To say that the book was a valiant effort implies that it didn't quite live up to its potential. This much is true. But it also implies that some effort was put into it, which is terribly misleading. Apart from the energy expended in hitting the keys, writing this 680 page tome must have been a breeze for King because everything in it has been cribbed from pre-existing sources. From Sergio Leone westerns and the Lord of the Rings trilogy to The Wizard of Oz, The Magnificent Seven, Harry Potter (!), and King's own work, there’s hardly an original idea to be found.
Not surprising, really, since The Dark Tower has become a dumping ground, a manufacturer's outlet, if you will, where King can move what merchandise he has left, be they damaged goods or just remainders, before calling it quits. And his rush to release the last three books in the series within one year (the first four were released over a 12 year period) makes it seem all the more that he rushed to the finish.
Taking into consideration all seven volumes -- weighing in at about 4000 pages -- I can say that it is, without question, the worst book I've ever read. (And I've read some sucky books: Hannibal, I'm looking at you!) Even on its own, this last book was nothing to scream about. Unless you're screaming in frustration, in which case even a herd of banshees couldn't scream to equal the frustration I was feeling when I turned the last page. I won't go into detail, suffice to say that there seemed to be no point to the whole thing.
Well, a little detail won't hurt: In the end, Roland reaches the top of the Tower, and is then transported back in time to when the first book started, chasing the man in black across the desert. Only this time, he has his fabled horn with him (read Browning's poem for more info on this), which he lost in battle some 23 years before and never stopped to retrieve. Except this time, he did. But what that has to do with anything, or how things would have been different had he had the horn with him when he reached the Tower is something we'll never know. And since we don't know why he was chasing the man in black across the desert in the first place, or what happened in the fifteen years between the story he tells in Wizard and Glass and the beginning of The Gunslinger, the whole thing seems kind of hollow.
After 4000 pages, read over nearly 20 years, I expected a better pay-off.
Even King, in his afterward, said he wasn't wild about the ending. That he doesn't make this stuff up (not exactly), he just writes what he sees.
Man, is that a cop out or what?
Look, I'm not the greatest writer in the world, I know this. But -- okay, here's an example of what I'm talking about when I say King just didn't care in the end.
In the fifth book, Wolves of the Calla, the children of the dusty town of Calla Bryn Sturgis are kidnapped once in every generation by robotic wolves wearing green cloaks. The children are returned, but they're never the same, and grow up to be retarded giants. There's a character in the Calla known as Andy the Messenger Robot (many other functions). This seven-foot-tall mechanoid -- with an inexplicable penchant for fortune telling -- has been a fixture in the Calla for time out of mind. Andy knows all about the Wolves. He's seen 'em come and he's seen 'em go, Andy has, for the past century and a half. It's never occurred to the folken of Calla Bryn Sturgis -- not once in over 150 years -- that Andy may know more than he's saying about the Wolves. Which is very little, anyway, because he is unable to impart any information without a password. Now, Roland and his gang are in town for about 15 minutes before Eddie Dean (not the sharpest knife in the drawer, not by a long shot) starts questioning Andy. One would think the robot is a treasure trove of information, but Eddie, when he finally figures out the password, commands Andy to shut down. No big interrogation scene; not even one little question. Just shuts him right down. What the fuck, I ask you, is that all about?
There's too much in the way of deus ex machina in these last few books (most blatantly in the final one), which King explains away in Wolves by saying that "coincidence has been cancelled". Of course this gives him license to write whatever outrageous shit his mind can conjur, and don't you worry that it doesn't particularly make sense because -- as Roland himself is so fond of saying (endlessly, it seems) -- "There will be water if God wills it". Coupled with the ever-popular, "I don't know how I know this. I just do," it's King's way of saying, "Fuck explaining it. It's on the page, that should be good enough." Which, of course, it ain't.
Last year he was the recipient of the coveted National Book Award. It's so sad that he's finally getting the recognition he deserved back in the early 80s for the kind of work he's turning out now. Work that is, I'm sorry to say, mediocre at best.
I'm glad the journey is over. I'm glad I read the entire series. I'm glad I stuck with it.
Now that I think about it, though, I guess I have read worse (Dreamcatcher, From a Buick 8), but I've never been so profoundly disappointed.
I learned today of the death-by-suicide of fictional science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout . He took his own life, it seems, after a psychic predicted another term for George W. Bush. Here is an article by Kurt Vonnegut, a transcript, really, of the last conversation he had with his fictional alter-ego.
Kilgore Trout. Yet another casualty of the Bush administration.
More on The Dark Tower... So close to the end, but it's not getting any better. Check this out:
One of the characters in the series, Susannah Dean -- who was introduced in the 2nd book, The Drawing of the Three, as Odetta Holmes -- was pushed in front of a subway train when she was younger. Due to this, she lost her legs. Yet, on page 315 of The Dark Tower, King writes this sentence: "...Susanna leaped to her feet and began to scream again."
Leaped to her feet, he says. Just a figure of speech? Maybe, but a most unfortunate choice of words, don't you think?
Sloppy, Steve. Reeeaal sloppy.
Ugh, I can't wait to finish this crap.
Never got into the whole "reality tv" thing. Even as far back as MTV's The Real World, I just couldn't buy it, you know? I mean, it's just not reality, is it? It's certainly not everyday you see seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting REAL! Not by far. It's like quantum physics -- you change the outcome just by observing it, so the best thing to do is not observe it. That's my philosophy, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.
I do watch Australian Idol, though. I watch it because Nikki watches it, and she is my beloved.
But it annoys the hell out of me.
Here's what kills me about this show, though. Of all the tens of thousands of people who auditioned for the show, thirty were singled out by the judges, and that number was whittled down to twelve by the Australian public. Just like every year, that's just the way it works. But there's this kid, Joel Turner, who auditioned as a beat-boxer.Let me explain: At last count, five of the idol rejects from last year had record deals: Shannon Noll, Cosima DeVito, Rob "I Rooted Paris Hilton" Mills, Paulini Curuenavuli and Courtney Act. If you include the actual winner, the appallingly bland Guy Sebastian -- who's well on his way to looking like one of those awful Troll dolls, it just occurred to me -- that's half of the Top Twelve. What the hell's the point of voting these people off the show, I ask you, if they're just going to go ahead and put records out anyway? That should be one of the stipulations: You lose, you're banned forever from putting an album out. Or singing karaoke. Even singing in the shower, forget it. (It'd be nice if future series took a page from The Running Man to ensure that the losers are never heard from again.) There are a lot of jerks who auditioned who simply couldn't sing, and they knew it, so they came in and did something else, like yodel, or rap, or juggle -- anything to get on tv, right? But Turner wasn't among their number. He was dead serious about this beat-boxing thing. Idol judge Mark Holden was fascinated by this kid, and signed him and his band to a record deal. Let's not concern ourselves that beat-boxing hasn't been popular since the mid-80s or so. Or that Holden, who called Turner a unique and original talent, apparently missed the beat-boxing boat the first time around. (His reaction is akin to laying the same praise on a Pink Floyd tribute band -- and equally as baffling.) Or that it's just plain embarrassing to watch. Let's just skim over all that and think about the Top Twelve. These kids have to stick it out, week after week, being rejected one by one until the end. And here's Turner, who wasn't even picked from the first round of auditions, and he's just handed a deal! The hell? I don't even pretend to understand the point of the show anymore.
Nikki took exception to Good Will Hunting making my over-rated movies list. But I stand by it.
Keep in mind, I'm not saying these are bad movies -- I just don't get their appeal. I readily admit that Citizen Kane did much in the way of progressing cinematic techniques... I just don't think that makes it the best movie ever made, you know? Same with Apocalypse Now -- another boat that left me standing on the shore.
I don't know what to tell you, apart from "I can't accept that something is great just because everyone tells me it is." I kind of like to make those decisions for myself -- which doesn't mean I can explain to anyone's satisfaction exactly how C.H.U.D. made it on my own personal Top 100 list. It just did, okay?
Top 10 Most Over-Rated Movies of the 20th Century
(in no particular order)
1. A Clockwork Orange
2. Fargo
3. The Shining
4. Boogie Nights
5. Philadelphia
6. American Beauty
7. Saving Private Ryan
8. Forrest Gump
9. Schindler’s List
10. Citizen Kane
Army of Darkness
The English Patient
Life is Beautiful
Good Will Hunting
Apocalypse Now
Spent the last two nights watching the featurettes from the Alien Quadrilogy set while Nikki's off in another room reading or doing school work. (Back in 2002, I subjected her to a marathon viewing of the first three movies -- no need to put her through it all over again, as she's already resigned herself to sitting through Alien vs. Predator with me, poor girl.) It's a great set, probably the most comprehensive box set ever released, with the possible exception of the new Dawn of the Dead box -- which should arrive next week (he says, salivating with anticipation).Yet, I'm compelled to finish the book. I read the six leading up to it, so I feel almost duty-bound to make it to the end. But the truth is, I just don't care anymore. I only want it to be over. Nikki said something about The Return of the King when all the pre-release hype was still going on. She said she didn't really want to see it, but she wanted to have seen it. I feel the same way about The Dark Tower: I want to have read it so I can put it behind me and forget it ever existed. Then I'll go back and re-read The Stand, written during a period in the man's career when he still tried. |
The movie itself isn't awful: William H. Macy plays a guy who's luck is so phenomenally bad, he's hired by Alec Baldwin to hang around his casino so that some of that bad luck rubs off on the patrons. Until Macy falls in love -- rather, until he "gets lucky" with cocktail waitress Natalie, played by Bello, and his luck takes a turn for the better.
I am currently trudging through the last of King's Dark Tower books. God help me. Not that it's a huge book -- at 686 pages, it's a mere pamphlet compared to It or The Stand. The problem is, it sucks.