bentangle

For the past 5 days, I’ve been Mr. Mom.  My wife went away to a blogging conference in Asheville, NC and left me in charge of managing our 2 kids.  Being actively involved with my kids on a regular basis, this was not a daunting task, per se.  The hard part was not paying attention to work for that period of time – especially since my shine, new iPhone would chirp every few minutes telling me I have some new email to read.  But eventually I turned off that notification and got to the serious business of responsibly entertaining my posse.

First priority – getting them to school on time.  Grasshopper only just started going to daycare (2 days a week) and already being without his Mommy, he was very reluctant to go (though apparently his tears ended within minutes of Cricket and I leaving him there).  Cricket just started Kindergarten this year and has been loving every minute of it, but with the possibility of being able to stay home and play Lego Star Wars with Daddy she suddenly was on the fence about going as well.  But I got them there, they did there time, and got them safely home (all perfectly according to schedule).  But outside of that, it was play time – we went to the park almost every day, we went to a play place for the better part of one cloudy afternoon, and we spent a fair share of time watching a couple of movies and playing Lego Star Wars.

By the end of the long weekend, I was ready for reinforcements.  I love my kids, but I can only be jumped on so many times before needing to tag out.  I only took advantage of the in-laws once for a break (which I spent cleaning).  And I actually made semi-nutritious meals for them for all but 2 meals (pancakes are good for you, right?).  So all in all I think I did okay.  And today it was back to work … to deal with my other batch of kids.  Maybe I should go to a conference.

P.S. – Mywife (who now has 2 blogs) went to a blogging conference, but didn’t post anything the entire time.  Ironic.

It is sad what you will resort to watching when you are bored.  For instance, this weekend I found myself watching the recent production of Journey to the Center of the Earth.  In theory, all the necessary elements are there:  science-fiction – check; action/adventure – check; semi-respectable actor who could be believable in such a role – check; reasonably hot actress to co-star – check; script loosely based on a popular novel – check.  So what exactly didn’t I like about this movie?  Oh yeah – it sucked.

Granted, the only reason I started watching it was because I was up, bored, and recently enjoying HBO & Cinemax for free for 3 months (thank you FiOS!).  But in hindsight, unlocking a few more levels and extras in Lego Batman would have been a more enjoyable use of my time.   And yet as much as my summary review is that this movie was not even worth what I paid for it (time counts), I still found myself watching it to completion – which suggests there was something redeeming about it … somewhere.

I missed the intro due to timing of my channel surfing and came into it with Brendan Fraser and his nephew already introducing themselves to their near-future travel companion.  Luckily it was not hard to get up to speed.  The action was compelling, some of the humor was mildly witty, and the underground world was certainly a spectacle.  But I think what made this movie more pyrite than gold was that it was merely beyond belief.  Sure, I expect a certain level of hard-to-swallow in a sci-fi flick – it goes without saying.  But there are levels and costs and I think there should be a point system setup to pre-determine whether such a film will succeed.

For example, the latest Indiana Jones movie was not nearly the best in the series – quite possibly the worst.  But I personally was able to overlook a lot of its flaws due to the franchise to which it is associated (as were many other fans).  But I couldn’t  do the same for a film with no street cred.  The Matrix had no street cred, but was so compelling it almost pulled off a hat trick (then managed to trip and fall on its face).  Journey has a minute amount of cred due to the book association, but not enough to forgive the lack of a believeable plot.  An unknown world filled with unusual and long extinct creatures miles below the surface of the Earth – expected and acceptable.  Falling into/flying out of said realm at break-neck speeds and landing in a pool of water/hillside vineyard without, um, dying – not so likely.

Anyway, bottom line is that I need some new hobbies and to learn not to rubberneck when it comes to movies.  Besides, I’m sure there was something equally badly written with way more redeeming qualities at that hour on one of the Cinemax channels.  But sometimes curiosity can get the best of me – and you know what they say about that.

I did something I don’t tend to do – I went to a midnight showing of a new movie – the Transformers sequel. While I greatly enjoyed it and I’m glad I went, a movie of nearly 3 hours in length is a tough mid-week pill to swallow. Though my boss was sympathetic to my late arrival at work since he was at the theater with me last night. Anyway, I’d seen the trailers and I’d heard some musings about who or what things were supposed to be in this movie, but I try to leave all that baggage at the door with these types of things and let the movie stand on its own. And it did – big-time. From start to finish there was not a dull moment. While I’m generally not a big fan of pointless action, this never felt like that type of movie – all the suspense seemed appropriate in measure.

Comparisons: Michael Bay’s second outing with this franchise definitely got into robot-based action much sooner. Within the first minutes of the film there were Autobots chasing Decepticons through the streets of Shanghai. And while in the first movie much of the dramatic tension (and comic relief) was among the human characters, in this chapter the robots offered more of the drama and comedy. The one thing that seemed a bit like a departure from the first film, though, was that the Transformers seemed a little less impervious – while I expect bot-on-bot carnage, the military arm involved seemed to be taking down a lot more targets on there own this time. Perhaps it went unspoken that the troops involved were defaultly equipped with more effective weaponry. But all-in-all, this was a solid sequel to the first and carries the story forward well.

Contrasts to the Source: While I was a huge Transformers fan as a kid and looked forward to these movies like a fanboy, I’m not a purist. In truth, adapting the cartoon as it was to a movie would have been cheesy and lacked realism in a lot of areas (e.g., scale issues with several of the transformers, body styles that were a bit too dependent on the vehicle forms). But for you purists out there (assuming you are even interested after the first movie), this movie deviates even further from the canon. For instance, there are several new members introduced with names from the show but that had little resemblance in shape or personality to their source. It was clear that the writers used the source material very loosely and in some cases only included recognizable names to give fanboys a momentary grin. But given how well the story is written, I have no issue with that whatsoever.

Things to Know Before You Go: (1) This movie is around 2 hours and 45 minutes long – so be sure you and anyone in your party are prepared for that kind of sitting. (2) While there are definitely elements in the movie geared towards a younger audience (such as a comical pair of Autobots referred to as ‘the twins’) younger is really teen/tween. I will not likely be taking my 5 year-old to see this (though she has seen the first) – I might let her see it on DVD when it comes out, but the immersive nature of a cinema multiplies all the violence and drama to a level that could be too much for the grade school crowd (plus at home you can pause for potty breaks). Plus there are some sensual elements that they wouldn’t likely get and don’t need to see plastered across a huge screen. (3) Unless you and your SO are into these types of movies, I wouldn’t call it a date movie. When my cohorts suggested the showing, a thought that didn’t cross my mind was ’should I pass and see if my wife wants to see this with me?’ She was never into the Transformers as a kid, she only mildly enjoyed the first movie, and oddly isn’t nearly as aroused by Megan Fox as I am. And I think that Bay knew his audience was mostly male as he did include in the middle of some major melee some Baywatch-esque slow-motion running scenes with Megan and Shia (at least I assume he was in those scenes).

Those are my two cents. I hope they help. By the way, if you were expecting a book review today (a) you obviously didn’t read all of last weeks book review and (b) I’m sorry to disappoint. I DID get the 11th Dresden Files book as a Father’s Day gift and I’m about 120 pages through it already. If I finish before next week, you will have your review. But most likely it will be the following week or later. I will do my best to fill in the gaps. Thanks for reading.

I guess I’m somewhat of a purist. I don’t particularly care for the use of samples from great rock songs in rap and hip-hop music (I don’t think it is wrong, it just isn’t to my tastes). Though I am a fan of a decent remake or mixing that seems artfully done. In the same sense, I’m not a fan of seeing (or in this case hearing) pop cultural elements that I respect being reused in a manner that I cannot respect. So you can imagine my chagrin when I heard a radio commercial this morning do precisely that.

On my morning drive as I was attempting to ignore an unusually long commercial block waiting for some more interesting programming, I heard a spot that featured none other than Peter Cullen doing his best Don LaFontaine impression to shill some initially unnamed product. Not long into the commercial, I find that it is none other than Coors Light who has employed the voice of Optimus Prime in order to promote their color-changing bottle-label and taste-preserving bottle-cap technologies. I was beside myself to say the least. Let me explain why.

See, if it was winter – in the heart of football play-off season, I wouldn’t really take issue with it. It would be a prime beer promotion season and reaching for that “in a world” vibe for their marketing would be completely viable. But it is not football season and Coors is not trying to reach the tailgaters of America with this campaign. This marketing decision was made with the upcoming release of the Transformers sequel in mind. Coors is specifically trying to reach my generation with these ads (there is apparently a TV spot as well) – they are exploiting the sci-fi/comic book geek generation with this casting choice. If you doubt my claim, you need only hear the commercial’s tagline to know I’m correct: “With great beer comes great responsibility.” (If you are not one of us, you may not recognize this phrase, but we know!)

So in this blockbuster movie season when many of the hot titles to see are of the science fiction and comic book genre, it seems that a beer company has opted to capitalize on this market. And it disturbs me. Because while I hate to see such childhood heroes as Optimus Prime and Spider-man have their visage tarnished promoting adult beverages, I have to commend them for their efforts. I don’t like it, but it is well played.

I will try to avoid hearing this commercial again. And I will try to rationalize in my head that neither Hasbro or Marvel had any part in the creative licensing for this campaign (after all, Peter Cullen is not acting as Optimus Prime and the tagline is different enough that they didn’t likely need sign off to use it). As I said, I’m a purist, and I plan to try and keep it that way.

I recently went to see Watchmen at the theater (which I mentioned previously).  In short, I really enjoyed it and would gladly go watch it again and will likely rent it (or even shell out the cash to buy it) when it comes out on DVD.  I’ve since read a few articles about the opening of this movie that have left me shaking my head.  It seems that a good number of people who had opted to go see this movie ended up walking out of it before the end.  Confused and curious, I felt compelled to read on only to find that the cause was what I should have expected – poorly informed consumers. (continue reading…)