Category Archives: What I’m Watching

Rise! Rise from the grave!

It has been just over a year since I have posted anything.

Yikes.

There’s a lot of stuff I’ve been turning over in my mind lately, trying to come up with a way to get some forward momentum going. So today will be (relatively) short and sweet.

I recently watched the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Bag of Bones.bagofbones

It wasn’t very good.

Bag of Bones is probably my favorite Stephen King novel, and maybe one of my all-time favorite novels. I actually read this novel to my wife when we were first together. The book is a beautiful, haunting love story that I would probably recommend as a good introduction to King’s work.

The TV movie is poorly paced, and loses a big chunk of a key part of the book — the relationship that develops between Mike Noonan, Mattie Devore, and her daughter Kyra. It just isn’t in the film. We have a couple of key plot points, but the story spends a lot of time focused on the mystery of Dark Score Lake and what happened to Sara Tidwell back in 1939.

Not recommended.

Is it just me…

… or does George Lucas remind you of that guy who never finishes the book he’s working on because he wants to make just one more rewrite?

I know, I know, it’s been about three months since my last entry. I can tell you’re all really devestated by the lack of updates from the land of Josh (I can hear you sniggering in the back… humor me, okay?)

This whole Star Wars DVD thing, where there are even more changes made — these aren’t just the special editions from a few years back, these are DVD editions! For God’s sake, George, can’t you leave well enough alone? Do we really need to see the gungans celebrating at the end of Return of the Jedi? Do we really need to see Hayden Christensen in that final scene with Yoda, Ben Kenobi, and Annakin Skywalker?

Do you believe your audience to be so unimaginative that they can’t understand (and accept) the differences between the first trilogy and the second?

Not to say I’m not going to buy it… but if I could have just one wish in regards to this, it would be to have the originals available on DVD as well, sans special enhancements, added scenes, etc. etc.I’m getting a certain sense of lost cinematic history, here.

It may be time to buy some software to make a digital copy of the original VHS trilogy. Some things must be preserved.

Last Samurai

Finally caught The Last Samurai last night. It was a decidedly mixed bag — really cool samurai (and ninja) action, but a bit heavy on the “white man’s burden” stuff about how western civilization has done nothing but destroy noble and honorable cultures.

It felt like Dances with Wolves with katana.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not debating that western cultural imperialism has done some pretty shitty stuff over the years, but the underlying message in this movie annoyed me. It seems to have become fashionable to knock the historical legacy of western culture, despite the amount of good it has done the world.

There was also a bit of a Braveheart to it — a small band of rebels going up against nearly insurmountable odds, and winning the respect of their foes.

Meh.

Again, cool battle stuff, cool historical accuracy, annoying thematic message.