Smile! You're On CandidGamera.

Tomorrow is hereby proclaimed Bruce Campbell day, as it sees the release of complete box sets of both Brisco County Jr. and Jack of All Trades. One of them is quite affordable, the other fairly expensive, but I expect I shall own both. I was recently able to sell off some baseball cards, so I can afford to indulge a little.

Hopefully, tomorrow will also be movie night. In honor of Mr. Campbell, The Gamers may have its debut bumped to make room for something appropriate.

I never seem to get enough done on the weekends - there's always stuff left to do. So it comes to pass that I must watch MST3K 6.01 this evening rather than yesterday - woe is me. Tomorrow night is movie night, and in a rare departure, I am preselecting the movie. We shall watch the short amateur-made film The Gamers, which is high hilarity. If folks are inclined to stay late, it shall be followed with Venture Brothers.

Today's title refers to an event occurring Thursday - my grandfather, who died before I was ever born, is getting a bridge dedicated to him in my hometown, on Thursday. So I'll be taking Thursday and Friday off of work to make a brief jaunt down that way.

I watch the first three episodes of the third Black Adder series last night - I don't think I dig it quite as much as the second series, overall - Hugh Laurie is overdoing his schtick a bit for my tastes - but I think the Scarlet Pimpernel episode individually blows away any single episode of the second series. And it's definitely a close second overall.

I think I may have part two of my series on politics brewing in my brain, we'll see if it gets posted later on.

Oh, and it's movie night.

Was up late, discussing the particulars of the sale of some of my Magic cards. Oy, I shouldn't do that. Tonight I have to be a lot better about it. Must sleep!

Movie night was fun - watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The movie which Andrew plans to bring by, sometime, that most of us haven't seen is Grosse Point Blank.

Tonight, there shall be comics.

With regard to my video game goals this past weekend. I managed to achieve the first ending to the glorious Dragon Quest 8 game. I think my playtime stands at 136 hours - not too shabby. Now I have to achieve the "real" ending. But that's for later. I foresee much powerlevelling.

Tonight is movie night, and that should be fun. My parents are coming to visit tomorrow, and staying through the weekend. That shouldn't be fun, but it will be productive.

Finally managed to pick up one of the Philip K. Dick anthologies I bought a year ago, again. Did a little reading yesterday, and watched some Twilight Zone. Left me wondering if any of Dick's work had been adapted for the Zone, because it's right up his alley. I loves me some head-twisty fun. Makes me want to adapt some of the episodes or short stories into adventures for a roleplaying game.

Tonight is Movie Night. Not sure what we'll end up watching, but it will be something with moving pictures and sound, I have no doubt.

Well, we didn't get to Fifth Element yet. The slightly diminished audience opted instead for the last two live-action Tick episodes that had not yet been screened, plus some Robot Chicken. Of course, I was fine with that. Any chance to see Voltron get totally served.

The mowing is done for another week, and now it's comic book day. Life looks good.

For Movie Night, we watched The Fugitive. Great little movie, but man, does it stretch the credibility of coincidence a bit far. Dr. Kimble is the unluckiest man alive. Perhaps the fact that fate itself seems to be conspiring against him is supposed to heighten the tension, but I just find it comical. I honestly think the sequel (U.S. Marshals) is better - the best thing about the first movie was Tommy Lee Jones, and he's pretty much the star of the second one.

Today's comic book day, and we're supposed to get the last issue of the Infinite Crisis miniseries, which I look forward to. Most of the evening will be spent reading comics and playing video games, I suspect.

Okay. Movie Night. Most everyone who reads my journal will know who Sam Raimi is. Quirky fun director who gave us Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Spider-Man, the Quick and the Dead.. et cetera. Good stuff. And most of you know who the Coen brothers are. Also respectable filmmakers. All adept at darkly comic features. Manufacturers of some of the best films around.

And yet, I bet most of you don't know that Sam Raimi and the Coens are friends. They share a lot of the same actor stable.. Bruce Campbell, Frances McDormand.. and even occasionally have cameoed in each other's work.

They have only two true collaborations. One, I saw yesterday. A movie that the three of them wrote, and Sam Raimi directed. It's called Crimewave - or The XYZ Murders. You'd think that when you combine chocolate and peanut butter, you'd get a good result - not so. IMDB tells me that Raimi disowned the film after being forbidden to put Bruce Campbell in as the lead, and having his choices for editor and composer nixed. So maybe he was angry and purposefully screwed up the movie. But it's bad. Painfully bad. Comically bad. The acting is horrible. The plot is horrible. The dialogue is mediocre. The jokes stink on ice. It's played like a live-action cartoon - which can be okay, as in Hudson Hawk - but it's like a dark, terribly unfunny cartoon. Like Tom and Jerry. In place of actual jokes, we get the foley artist, who was apparently huffing gasoline when he worked on the movie. The sound effects are cartoonish or worse.

There are a couple of decent gags, and Bruce got to be in it in a secondary part. The DVD I got from Netflix was also apparently for both the American and Chinese markets, and is labelled accordingly. Why this is relevant : The English subtitles on the film (I often turn them on even if there's English dialogue) appear to have been written by someone with English as a second language. They're mostly allright, until they come along with some zinger of a homophone and cause some wacky dissonance.

It actually feels like Johnny Dangerously or Top Secret!, if they'd been written by lobotomized chimpanzees. It's hard to make me not like a comedy, but this one succeeds.

* Edited - they've collaborated twice, it seems. Raimi helped write the Hudsucker Proxy.

I really have to stop staying up late. I get drawn into things, and time slips away from me, and before I know it, I'm getting six hours of sleep. Ugh.

Movie Night had to be cancelled at the last minute, so I filled the time with a little Dragon Quest VIII. I also managed to finally get a haircut yesterday, so I feel several pounds lighter.

Today is comic book day, and I expect it will be a good one. Then again, what comic book day isn't?

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