DH is not a man who net surfs, and he never reads posting boards of any sort, he hasn't the patience to eavesdrop or engage in conversation with The Humans, even just pixilated words of Humans. He pays bills online, and downloads gorgeous landscape and nature photos, and scoots around to various wholesalers' sites, in the limited time he spends online. He is fondly tolerant of, even interested in, tales of my "imaginary friends."

I want to see Sky Captain, he's all, "Why?" He wasn't impressed with the trailers we've seen, and hasn't been interested enough to read reviews.

"Lots of people have liked it. Said it was pretty, and interestingly done, if a little spare of plot."

"What 'people'?"

"The Buffistas Movie Thread."

"Oh. Okay, what time do you want to go?"

I find it both amusing and rather telling that he'll pay attention to the taste of the Buffistas sooner than inquire about formal pro reviews. Hee.

Re Sky Captain: Guy Maddin is crying in his beer right now.

The storyline is nothing special - straightforward pulp adventure, not as well done as, say, Indiana Jones - but it does have a sense of fun. And the look is truly spectacular. The lovely soft-focus of everything was a really smart choice since it helps avoid the over-defined lines that gives away most CGI.

The first ten minutes made me nervous as they frontloaded on the exposition (including all the newsreel tropes of scrolling headlines, etc), but they pulled themselves out of that rut and got moving fairly quickly. And props to Paltrow and Law; I doubted they could pull off feisty girl reporter and swashbuckling aviator, but they were both fine.

Right now I'm leaning towards Sky Captain even though I know I need to see Hero on the big screen.

I think Sky Captain is a big screen, theatergoing experience as well. Wimbledon, not so much.

The town of Bayonne, NJ (population 68,000) has been invaded by Paramount and Steven Spielberg, who plan to use it for filming their upcoming War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise. One local resident told the Jersey Journal that two weeks ago he received a knock-on-the-door from Spielberg, who wanted to inspect his home for use in the film. Four hours later, he said, he received another visitor from a location scout who told him that Spielberg wanted to shoot part of the film in his home. In the past two weeks, he said, crew members have returned to his home to take measurements and to remove his outdoor pool. City officials said that they were told that the studio wants to build a structure on a local Little League field and blow it up. Bayonne Law Director John Coffey II noted that a local ordinance "calls for a payment of $50 a day for a permit to film on city streets, but this (build and destroy plan) is a bit different."

Wow, they haven't even started filming yet and already they've fucked up a classic story. I guess the fuckwads are remaking the George Pal "War of the Worlds" (or possibly the Orson Welles version) and ignoring the H. G. Wells "War of the Worlds".

I told my dad I'd treat him to a movie today--he looked at the show listings for the two first-run theaters in town, and nothing grabbed his attention at all. So, we looked at the listings for the discount theater, and when we realized that neither of us had seen Shrek 2 yet, we were set.

That was HILARIOUS! And Dad was laughing almost as hard as I was (he didn't get some of the film and popculture gags). I wouldn't say it was better than the first film (the music was better there), but definitely equal to it. Loved Jennifer Saunders as the Fairy Godmother, and Antonio Banderas was perfect as Puss in Boots.

so i finally saw Bourne Supremacy. i liked it, but i would have liked it even more if it hadn't given me a headache. i fucking hate the handheld camera trend. it needs to go the way of the dinosaurs.

saw previews for Nicolas Cage's new movie National Treasure, which looks like it could be entertaining, and The Grudge. also the movie Saw, with Cary Elwes, looks interesting.

Sky Captain was absolutely wonderful. The trailers don't even come close to doing justice to the look of it, and the directing & editing are just dead on. There was a huge section where I realized that the production design and order of set pieces were lifted almost entirely from Fellowship of the Ring -- they go to a mountain, where things go badly, and then they wake up healed in a beautiful peaceful valley, and then get chased across an impossibly narrow bridge over an impossibly deep crevasse by a giant monster with big flappy wings. Not that I didn't still love those bits, but it was very amusing.

What the "all CGI!" reviews of this film are missing, I think, is that this isn't a live-action movie with a lot of CGI; it's an animated movie with some composited live action. And I think that approaching it that way (making the look of thhe actors fit the look of the animation) works much better than trying to make CGI look "natural."

I guess the fuckwads are remaking the George Pal "War of the Worlds" (or possibly the Orson Welles version) and ignoring the H. G. Wells "War of the Worlds".

There's a competing version of War of the Worlds from Pendragon Pictures and director Timothy Hines that's just finished shooting. It's set in the 19th century, and is supposed to be a highly faithful adaptation of Wells.

Jessica just reminded me, re: Sky Captain, did any one else think "Rivendell!" when they showed Shangri-La?

That's great news, Matt, thanks for the info.

I went for a look and found these pics.