Day: December 9, 2007

Three almost-post fragments that didn’t make it in the transfer over from Blogger:

1. Scott Tobias: “The first half of Premonition creates the illusion of a challenging movie simply by being confusing and disorienting…”
2. My favorite line from Fast Food Nation is Kris Kristofferson’s character’s description of the meat industry: “They’ll cut your throat for a nickel. It’s nothing personal, they just want the extra nickel.”
3. Whenever interviewed about the final season of That 70s Show, on which he was a frequent guest star, Tommy Chong consistenly refers to his fellow actors by their character names, in such a way as to make one wonder if maybe, just maybe, he thinks it was all real. Gosh, you don’t think Tommy’s been doing any kind of drugs, do you?

The 20 Ugliest Colleges in the USA, via Cynical-C. Of these, I’ve only ever visited the University of Maryland, College Park, and two of the SUNY schools (Albany and Binghamton). Maryland actually offered me a couple of small scholarships to attend, but, as the fates would have it, I opted for Penn State. I’m actually a little surprised not to see my alma mater on the list. I’ve joked, on more than one occasion, that Penn State has a really good architectural school…but apparently none of its alum ever come back to design the university’s buildings. Which, gazing at some of the alternatives, is probably unfair. I actually grew to quite like the University Park campus — as an English major, lord knows you see just about every corner of it — and it could certainly be uglier.

In the weeks before the Tin Man miniseries premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel, I kept seeing these stories on their news service about how the cast members all praised their co-stars. “A joy to work with.” “Really committed to the part.” That sort of thing.

Now I see that that’s because there’s little else to praise about it. I’m not surprised to learn that some of the same people (and sets) were used in Flash Gordon. They both carry around the same quality of suck.

I think it might have been better if it had adhered a little more (or less) closely to the original Wizard of Oz story. Its best moments are those that play like a twisted spin on L. Frank Baum’s story…or, alternately, those moments that strike out completely and wholly on their own.

Unfortunately, most of what I’ve seen so far has been more along the lines of bad puns and too-cutesy references. (Like “the O.Z.” for Oz. Or “D.G.” instead of Dorothy.) What should have been a remake or sequel ends up as some weird, misbegotten pastiche.

In all fairness, I’ve only seen the first part so far. And some of the acting isn’t half bad, actually — even if Zooey Deschanel does seem a little miscast. (I usually like her, but what her IMDB profile calls “her distinctive acting style” is a little grating here.) I’m just not sure I can bring myself to watch the rest.

Update — 12/9/07: I just finished watching Part II. Here it actually got a little interesting, albeit only near the very end. There’s an intriguing story lurking somewhere in there for Kathleen Robertson’s character, Azkadellia. Alas, it’s hidden beneath a lot of bad writing and weak, pointless references to The Wizard of Oz. (“Toto” is actually “tutor”? Uh huh.) I guess I’m committed to finishing this now, and I do have the last part sitting on the DVR, but my earlier opinion stands.