Real-world news getting you down?
Then try the Fantasy World News:
SKULLDUST – Three climbers from Gnorewhon, the Blind Caves and the Ironhead Mosslandains died while descending Mossland Glowstem on separate expeditions in the past week, a pixie official said Tuesday.
DARKGLASS, Glowmuds – An adventurer arrested in the disappearance of an orc teenager on the basilisk Branchshale island of Tallgold was released from custody Tuesday, a court official said.
BLUELEAF, Silkshort – Warplanes from Silkshort and basilisk collided over the Brightbranch Vinetalon island of Frogcrags as they shadowed each other Tuesday. Officials said the Coalmoss pilot was rescued unhurt, and a search was launched for the Swordsilk pilot.
Or Sci-Fi News:
BIZE, Mokron Sphere – Before Deimos Tabes boarded a spacecraft from Mokron Sphere Biodome to Bize, his mother slipped a tiny plastic bag containing a coin, lentils and an image of Paden into his pocket, so he wouldn’t be without money, food or faith.
Each takes the Yahoo! News feed and auto-mutilates it.
(Source.)
The truth is, most people thought of King Kong as a joke. Sure, the original, way back when, was apparently scary to audiences. But today, the clumsy little stop-motion gorilla doesn’t have the power to do much with current audiences. Certainly not scare them. The campy 1970s remake — with the very timely energy crisis subplot — doesn’t really do it for today’s audiences either.
Peter Jackson remembered, though, that Kong used to terrify audiences. Lucky us.
The 21st century King Kong
not only features an utterly convincing giant gorilla and actual compelling characters and a great Depression-era setting, it also is the scariest dinosaur/giant monster movie to date. The bug scene will send arachnophobes screaming for the door and Kong versus not one, not two, but three tyrannosaurs makes the Jurassic Park series look like a lot of smoke and mirrors. Combined with the best version of Kong’s climactic stand-off with the fighter planes, this is easily the best version of the classic story to date.
Unfortunately, this all adds up to a long, long movie. It’s worth it, but be prepared for at least one intermission along the way.
Peter Jackon’s King Kong gets my highest possible recommendation for fans of the previous films, the Jurassic Park series, the radiant Naomi Watts, Peter Jackson or giant monster movies in general. Great, thrilling stuff.
- We also saw Rumor Has It, which is a strange little movie.
I suppose if you’re a woman under 40 who also happens to love The Graduate despite being a woman under 40, this might be your favorite film ever. As it is, while Jennifer Aniston is charming in an exactly like her role on Friends way, and you feel badly for Mark Ruffalo, who plays her fiance whose biggest crime seems to be not being Kevin Costner, this falls sort of flat.
It’s clever in a borderline obsessive-compulsive about the Graduate and (sort of strangely) the city of Pasadena way, but that’s not really sufficient for a recommendation.
There are no surprises of any sort in Last Holiday. None. From the moment one meets the characters and knows the premise, it’s possible to predict nearly every scene that will follow.
But it doesn’t matter.
Here’s the thing about formula: Formulas exist because when they work, they WORK. And Last Holiday works as few comedies of the last five years have. It’s warm, sweet and genuinely funny, with solid performances in roles that, in countless other films and TV shows, have been flat and just awful.
Even the rating is old-fashioned: Queen Latifah’s Georgia Byrd not only doesn’t swear, she won’t stand for it and stops everyone around her from doing it. (Although the s-word does show up in a deleted scene on the disc.) This treat of a comedy is family friendly on top of everything else. Talk about something else that shouldn’t work in a movie, but does anyway.
Strongly recommended for fans of Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, the too-rarely-seen Alicia Witt or just warm-hearted comedies in general.
Nothing sucks like waiting for the UPS guy to show up with an overnight delivery of a much-needed uberphone and one of their other trucks has already come (with no phone) and the Web site has no information and and and … argh!
Update: Overnight delivery has somehow shifted from May 19 to May 22. I have sent a polite but firm letter asking “wtf d00d” to Amazon’s customer service.
Update #2:
I am sorry that you have not yet received your order #103-9816042-XXXXXXX. As stated on our web site, there is no weekend service for our One-Day or Two-Day delivery options.
Great, swell. It was one-day service ordered on Thursday.
I know a lot of folks view reality shows in general as something of a guilty pleasure. Perhaps the guiltiest of all is America’s Next Top Model, which is sort of like watching a train just fail to wreck every week.
The premise sounds like a recipe for disaster — 13 young girls get taken under Tyra Banks’ wing and are guided through an audition and training/challenge process on their way to a contract with CoverGirl and Ford Models — but after a boring season or two (which Jenn watched alone), the show really found its way, and is pretty entertaining.
The girls are a mix of viable models who would have likely succeeded anyway (like this season’s runner-up Joanie) and lunatics who seem to be there as much for the reality show drama factor as anything else (like psycho know-it-all Jade, who insisted that she was a great undiscovered talent whom the industry had simply failed to notice, despite her living in New York City and trying to break in for almost a decade).
The lunatics, of course, are what make it really entertaining (OK, the lunatics and the girls flirting with lesbianism), and Jade gave me and Jenn our name for the show forevermore, when she explained it wasn’t necessary for her not to be a froth-at-the-mouth bitch, because the show was not called America’s Next Top Best Friend. Classic.
It’ll be a long summer without it.
(And yes, Jason, this is why I don’t watch the multiple Emmy award-winning Amazing Race. Sorry!)
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