Part 1 Acacia

Part 2 Music

Part 3 Home

Part 4 Acacia

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We're taking this week off at the Plain View for a little retooling. But I have a special feature to take the place of the regular show.

After graduating from K-State back in '89, I took off for England. There I found work at a hotel pub, the Dog and Bear.

Meanwhile, back in the states, my li'l brudder was still at school and still at the ol' fraternity house. Always ahead of his time, brother, with crappy old tape recorder in hand, led me on what is now called a "sound seeing tour" around Acacia house.

I recently stumbled upon this tape as I was cleaning out the stuff under my bed. I immediately recognized its value and transferred it to digital to make it available to the world.

I've divided this cast into four parts. Part 1 is a tour of the various sights and personalities around Acacia in the fall of 1989. Part 2 is brief musical tribute to my trip abroad. I've edited it down so as not to get sued. Part 3 is a brief trip home for dinner and a chat with an old friend. Finally, Part 4 brings us back to Acacia.

The audio quality in part one is pretty bad. Sounds like a loose mic wire or something, but parts of it are difficult to listen too. It gets better after that. I've edited out all (or most?) of the naughty words. Sorry if I missed any.

So step into the wayback machine, and experience my college years.

I'll try to get the photos up this week.

Music technology terminology is so violent. First we RIP to our hard drive, then we BURN onto a CD.

Yes I'm bored.

I guess it's being worked on, but I'd like a u-turn signal immediately. Due to the location of home, my medical building, and a couple of other places I frequent, I'm always having to do u-turns, and some idiot behind me is always honking at me because they think I'm a timid left-turner. It's driving me nuts. Get it? Driving me nuts!

After reading some high praises and then seeing an insanely boring trailer set to the tune of Duran Duran's Ordinary World, I'm not sure what I expected to see in Layer Cake. Let's just say it wasn't as boring as the American trailer made it look, and not as exciting as those who hyped it up as a Ritchie-esque movie made it look. Thank goodness for both of those.

Instead, here is a movie full of subtle style, cool without flaunting it, violent when necessary, cleverly funny in unexpected places, and smartly written to boot. I hate that phrase, "to boot." And smartly written as well.

The story follows Daniel Craig, our nameless protagonist, who faces the age-old cinema dilemma of basically reaching a satisfying point for retirement from the business (which happens to be criminal), but soon finds himself shoulders deep in a thick plot of crosses, double crosses, misfits, and drugs.

Apparently I've seen Craig act in at least four other movies, but I guess he didn't make much of an impression in them. Here, he has full command and is absolutely perfect. I definitely look forward to seeing him cast in more films. I also quite enjoyed seeing Michael Gambon, who I last saw in a movie as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series, showing his diversity by going from one of the nicest characters in the literary world to such an old slimy gangster. Great stuff.

My suggestion to anyone reading would be to go and see this, enjoying the great touches that make this not only an interesting film, but also subtly a visual experience as well. I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for director Mathew Vaughn's next project. And hey, I just noticed I share a birthday with him. Cool.

Is it right for me to critique an author for not adapting his own novel well for the screen? There are so many little reasons why SWTWC didn't feel like it worked. Adaptation, being produced by Disney, poor casting, and being made in an era of sad special effects are just a few.

When Olson asked if he should buy the DVD I thought I'd Netflix it to remember what I didn't like about it when I watched the first half a few months ago. Back then I gave up on it because I felt certain I was too attached to the story, which I really loved for its creative ideas and themes of fear, age, and desire. Maybe this time around I'm still too attached, but I also watched it with my sister, who didn't care for it either.

Quick plot for the unfamiliar: mid 20th century small town gets a visit from a mysterious and evil carnival that feeds on people's desires and uses them to destroy them. Two small boys figure it out while the rest of the town thinks it's just a normal carnival. Then the carnival people start coming after them, and one boy's elderly father is their only source of help.

Regarding adaptation, there are so many changes to plot and characters (some plot even gets forgotten as the movie goes on) that it seems awkward and oddly paced. Too much time on some things and not enough on others.

But was I just blinded by a Disney production with bad casting? The two protagonist boys are BAD. Just bad. Jim doesn't seem like a junior high boy with a deep soul, and Will is just a little twit. They yell most of their lines, or whine them. Dad Halloway is way more gruff than expected, and doesn't produce much sympathy until the final scenes of the movie. With Disney at the helm, the feeling of pure evil in Bradbury's novel is replaced with a feeling of mild danger. Instead of a hideous banshee-like woman, we have a gorgeous woman with long nails who likes spiders. Mr. Dark's fully tattooed body in the book becomes a few flimsy tattoos on a forearm and hands. Everything feels... rated PG instead of PG-13.

Even though Jonathan Pryce is kind of a cool scary guy, it doesn't seem to be enough.

It really felt like this movie had limited potential because of the time period in which it was made. The special effects are often cartoonish - for instance, a mist that turns into materialized spiders (not even a part of the book) is a green cartoon transposed on top of the image of a house. Wooooh! So realistic!

I don't know. It may be cool to catch on TV but I felt like 90% of the casting was wrong and the script just didn't work well. The idea is a good one, and like Jonathan mentioned to me, this would be a PERFECT story for Tim Burton to work on (I can really see it. It would make such an awesome movie!).

Oh well. Capturing the imagination Bradbury's stories inspire on screen is a difficult thing, apparently even for the author himself.

Ain't It Cool News has a review of the Wachowskis' screenplay adaptation of Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. All I needed to read was this introductory monologue, spoken by the main character, V.

This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vangquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

It's painful just reading this on the page. I feel sorry for whatever poor actor has to deliver those lines. I've now officially lost hope that this movie will be the first good film adaptation of an Alan Moore comic book.

So yesterday I went to the library and checked out a book on how to write popular fiction. I have read the first chapter of the book. It is kind of interesting. The reason why I got it was I want to become a better writer, and thus make my website more interesting. Now this site isn't fiction, but writing more may help me to write better which is what I wish to be doing. So maybe I can become a better writer and have more than 4 people read my site.