Viewing Diary

1) Nighty Night, series 1: If you have been looking for the female Steve Coogan, it might be Julia Davis. This series isn't as well thought out as some of his, nor is it as consistently hilarious, but it certainly has its moments. Sociopathy in its more obvious forms doesn't usually make it into sitcoms, but she does a marvelous job at conveying blithe indifference to the needs and feelings of others. There's also something wonderful about the look of the thing, with its grimy small-town England settings and its dirty carpet. And the music is wonderful, with a bit of Ennio Morricone nicked for the titles tune and this fab song by a band called Marillion that I'd never heard of previously but that recurs as a sort of love theme.



2) Fanboys: Jared watched all of this; I only saw about half of it. It seemed slightly more amusing than Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back but mostly confirmed that I really don't care about Star Wars and, in a fight between Star Wars nerds and Star Trek nerds, I'm not sure I'm rooting for anyone. It's also probably one of the best movies Kristen Bell's been in, which is depressing.

3) I Spy: Wow. This came out in 2002! That's like eight years ago. Anyway, it was on HBO, and it actually turned out to be vaguely competent and amusing. Not enough that you should bother to seek it out or anything, but it's nice to see something sometimes that's a decently executed action-buddy comedy flick. What it has to do with the original TV show, I'm not sure, apart from a title and the fact that one partner's black and the other's white, and there's spying going on, but both Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy do decent work here.

[sidebar: I just realized IMDB has changed their interface to make it damn near impossible to read. That site's been going downhill pretty steadily, while Wikipedia's ascended, and this might just be the self-administered deathblow. It makes me a little sad, in that IMDB was probably the first website I really loved.]

4) Eagle Eye: Dumb dumb dumb Skynet/Enemy of the State mashup but undeniably entertaining. Just don't stop to think about the machinations under the hood. One unintentional highlight is the number of times Shia LaBeouf's character is addressed by his first name, Jerry, which called this to mind:



Anyway, it's a shiny movie, and it moves fast. This kind of thing is usually done much worse.

5) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: One of the things watching Fanboys inspired was a desire to watch this, which I hadn't seen probably since it came out. I remembered being somewhat traumatizing by the horrible bug things Khan puts in people's ears, and that bit is still kind of scary. The rest not so much, although Khan's fashion choices reminded me a bit of Rodarte, with the shredding and the strips of fabric. There's not much to this, and it's surprisingly short, but Shatner and Nimoy are still pretty awesome.

6) Friday the 13th, Part 2: There is a massive leap in quality between the first one and the second one, which you can tell within the first few minutes, after the inevitable recap (enabling the filmmakers to create about ten minutes' less footage, in the kind of cynical move these movies have in spades). I may have to go back and snap a picture of the pajamaralls that begin the movie, for example, as I can't find them documented online and they are, frankly, amazing. They're followed in quick succession by an ice pick to the head (a better murder than any in the first film) and the title, which zooms up and explodes in a fireball. Bad. Ass. There's also some semblance of a real plot in this one, the use of child psychology as a tool against Jason, and at least two great shots (one of Jason hurrying through the woods, seen in the background through a window in his creepy shack; and the other the famous moments where he bursts through the window at the end--and this makes me think about how important windows are in all these movies and how you could write a brief paper on their function and symbolization of vulnerability), plus, nuh duh, it actually has Jason, which is much better than an old lady. My guess is that this is the best one, at least of the traditional early ones in the series (I have a fondness for Jason X).

7) Friday the 13th, Part III: Wherein the creators switch to Roman numerals for greater seriousness? This is way fun to watch in 2D just to yell out "3D!" whenever someone points something directly at the camera, SCTV-plate-of-pancakes-style, which happens a ton. It's got its moments, but it's not as effective, on the whole, as Part 2. It does, however, feature the hockey mask at last, and a more supernaturally strong Jason (although he's still surprisingly easy to defeat or put off). It also has a great performance of insanity at its conclusion. If you haven't figured it out, we're working our way through these, although we'll probably stop at Part VI, which I think is the last one that's streaming and possibly the last one before I start having seen a lot of them. Yay, October!