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Commentary for a lazy Sunday
First, Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, but most especially to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
peachespig!
Okay. Time to distract myself from this absolutely horrible baseball game (Giants down by 4, stupid anemic offense) by posting about my weekend.
amybang stayed a few days after the concert; she met me Friday after work and we went to see Pirates. Since it's been reviewing so poorly I went in with very low expectations -- I sat back, turned my brain off, and settled in to enjoyed a fun ride. Not long into the film, I found myself sitting forward and turning my brain back on. In the end, I found that I liked it rather a lot. Certainly better than the second film; it took all the threads that the second and even the first had left hanging, tossed a few more balls in the air, and then tied everything up in a way I found quite satisfying.
Interesting (if long) Henry Jenkins blog entry on Pirates 3 and why the critics got it wrong here. Some spoilers in there.
Yesterday ended up really busy. My mom had asked a few weeks ago whether she could come down and spend a day with me in the City. Then my new boss announced a retirement party for my former boss that same night. And then I learned thatconcertinette was flying into town, and Saturday afternoon might be my only chance to see her. So I choreographed my day carefully: after a quick breakfast, amybang and I picked up my mom, we spent a few hours hanging out at the Ferry Building and at home, and then I dropped her back at the bus station just in time to head for the airport. Then we did the Berkeley thing for a couple more hours (including crepes, a dangerous bead store, and wandering campus a bit), after which they gave me a ride to the party at my new boss's (huge, gorgeous, oh-i-am-so-jealous) house in the Berkeley hills. A fun day, but so busy.
So today, after droppingamybang at the airport this morning, I get my lazy sitting around the house day. With laundry. And poorly-played baseball. (But at least that part is finally over, and I can stop cringing at the television.)
peachespig!Okay. Time to distract myself from this absolutely horrible baseball game (Giants down by 4, stupid anemic offense) by posting about my weekend.
amybang stayed a few days after the concert; she met me Friday after work and we went to see Pirates. Since it's been reviewing so poorly I went in with very low expectations -- I sat back, turned my brain off, and settled in to enjoyed a fun ride. Not long into the film, I found myself sitting forward and turning my brain back on. In the end, I found that I liked it rather a lot. Certainly better than the second film; it took all the threads that the second and even the first had left hanging, tossed a few more balls in the air, and then tied everything up in a way I found quite satisfying.Interesting (if long) Henry Jenkins blog entry on Pirates 3 and why the critics got it wrong here. Some spoilers in there.
Yesterday ended up really busy. My mom had asked a few weeks ago whether she could come down and spend a day with me in the City. Then my new boss announced a retirement party for my former boss that same night. And then I learned that
concertinette was flying into town, and Saturday afternoon might be my only chance to see her. So I choreographed my day carefully: after a quick breakfast, amybang and I picked up my mom, we spent a few hours hanging out at the Ferry Building and at home, and then I dropped her back at the bus station just in time to head for the airport. Then we did the Berkeley thing for a couple more hours (including crepes, a dangerous bead store, and wandering campus a bit), after which they gave me a ride to the party at my new boss's (huge, gorgeous, oh-i-am-so-jealous) house in the Berkeley hills. A fun day, but so busy. So today, after dropping
amybang at the airport this morning, I get my lazy sitting around the house day. With laundry. And poorly-played baseball. (But at least that part is finally over, and I can stop cringing at the television.)
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Time to distract myself from this absolutely horrible baseball game
Oh! Um.... sorry? Maybe you can think of it as my Father's Day present.
In the end, I found that I liked it rather a lot.
Well, I still haven't managed to see the third movie, but I have a lot of friends in Potter fandom who are really into the Pirates franchise. If not for them I never would have given them a second thought and wouldn't have seen any of them, but I've come to realize they are in fact very well done. They're very intelligently scripted and have strong themes with multiple allusions. I really think most movie critics have just seen so many awful movies that they are incapable of believing that an action-adventure franchise could actually be smart and reward repeat viewings.
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Jenkins makes basically that point: critics were expecting a big, dumb, summer movie, and when they didn't get one they dismissed it as "confusing". (Which I did't think it was; I found it to be *complex*, for sure, but I never had any trouble following.) I really want to sit down and watch all the films back-to-back-to-back sometime, see if it all carries through as well as I think it does.
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Sorry about that! Good thing the Sox and Giants don't play much.
I agree with Jenkins. It's not always simple, but since when did movie critics say a film had to be simple to be worth watching?
I think it's really worth watching them in a row. Like I said I haven't seen AWE yet, but I know the second one had many allusions to the first one that were fun to catch.
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Suuuuuure you are. ;) Yes, this rooting for teams in different leagues thing does make talking about baseball easier. Or, safer, anyway. If they ever play each other in a World Series we may have some trouble...
If you can get to AWE (which I know is easier said than done for you!), I definitely recommend it. When it comes out on video I may have myself a little film fest.