After a four-day work week, a four-day vacation and another four-day work week, I don't feel any more relaxed than I did last weekend!
The work highlights are that I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I completed my check reports, worked the Unpaid Invoice Statements of all of my existing accounts, and I'm halfway done processing invoices that are due for payment next month! When the checks have been printed and signed, another month will be completed!
My non-work life has been sedate, hence no earlier entries.
I just saw "The Fantastic Four" this morning. You read that right, 11:00 in the morning. I've found that there are fewer people who would want to see a film that early on a weekend morning, even a Premiere Showing. I liked it. I would have wanted to say that I loved it, but "I like it" will have to do. To be fair, I'll break down the things that I liked after I post my obligatory Spoiler Warning Screen:
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YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Bad Things:
1. They got Doctor Doom wrong!
a. Granted, it's easier these days to vilainize corporate moguls than it is to have a film about a tyranical monarch from a country that most movie-goers never heard of, let alone would allow themselves to accept its existence for the sake of the story, like FF comic book fans have done for 44 years! However, mentioning that Von Doom is foreign without giving us an opportunity to see what his home country looks like is sloppy writing in my opinion.
b. Having Reed and Victor rivals for Sue's affections seemed too much like formula "epic hero" writing than faithfulness to the original material. The most charitable explanation for this re-write could have been that it was an amalgamation of the Reed/Sue/Namor The Submariner triangle (before Reed and Sue "tied the knot") and the Reed/Victor "biggest high school brain" competition that was settled by having Reed pointing out to Victor that his calculations were off by a few decimal places(as opposed to Reed's calculations being off and trying to convince Victor to "abort the mission," which weakens Reed as a character as well as pinning the blame on him for Victor's "transformation"), that first-generation fans will accept for the sake of minimizing any confusion for the casual or non-fans, who have more box-office paying power.
c. Organic metal infused into Von Doom's DNA, along with the ability to draw and manipulate electricity, as a substitute for the armoured suit that was placed on him (to cover-up scar tissue due to the unsuccessful experiment that he conducted in college, the one that had calculations that were "off a few decimal places"), might have minimized confusion for the "non-True Believers" as well as avoid possible lawsuits from Lucasfilms (although Stan Lee & Jack Kirby came up with the idea first), but these "adjustments" were adding up and beginning to get on my nerves! If the Hollywood moneymen don't believe that the audience will buy the True Origin of the Original Guy in Armor, what chance will there be of an Iron Man film coming out anytime soon? And if there is one, will they alter Tony Stark's transformation as well for the same silly reasons? Let's hope not!
And to avoid being labelled either a certified curmudgeon, an Ebert wannabe(more about him in a few moments), or a comic-book geek(sticks and stones...), here are the...
Good Things:
1. The film was character-driven rather than heavy with plot, the latter kind of film tends to drag me down when it's a plot that I'm more familiar with than the average movie-goer (which is definitely true in this case).
2. Chilkis looked great as The Thing! The CGI combined with the SFX suit that he wore made him look very convincing on camera. I wish I could say the same about the other characters, but that's show biz!
3. Stan Lee actually played a character that he created in comic form! Not a non-descript security guard (like in the Hulk movie), or a man crossing the street (like in the Daredevil movie), or even a street peddler(like in the edited scene in the first Spiderman movie)! He played Willie Lumpkin, the charming old postman who delivered Reed's mail at The Baxter Building, Reed's home/laboratory. As a side note, Willie starred in a Stan Lee-created, non-superhero comic book series before Stan co-created the FF, but he decided to include him inthe book in the mid-60's for "local color" and mild comedy relief(in one issue, he said that his super power was "the ability to wiggle my ears").
4. Despite Roger Ebert's "short-sighted" review, Johnny Storm's ability to create flames of super-nova intensity was explored in the story! The fact that Sue suffered a nose-bleed while trying to contain it in a force-field should have generated some notation from the Guru of Film Critics, but apparently he was too busy being bored by a storyline that he was unfamiliar with or decided that he didn't like because it was based on a comic book that he didn't want to read since it first came out! That was probably the main point that escaped him: The Fantastic Four was the First Original Comic Book That Stan Lee Created, so the film-makers wanted to at least attempt to give The Origin Story all of the attention that it was due as well as emphasize the difference between how the FF operated vs. how the XMen handled things! The FF are a make-shift family who had to learn how to not only use their powers individually, they had to function as a team without killing each other, as a family of superheroes without secret identities would act. The XMen were an extension of a Special School for beings who were born with physical differences who had to assume secret identities to avoid being victimized by the general public at all times, a luxury that the FF didn't have(partially by design).
Stan Lee broke several rules when he created the FF:
1. Everybody knew who they were, even off-duty!
2. The Human Torch was a superhero in his own right, not a sidekick like Robin.
3. The Thing was one of the first superheros who was considered a "monster," even before The Hulk hit the scene!
4. The Invisible Girl/Woman was also a superheroine in her own right, not the stereotypical superhero's girlfriend who needed to be rescued!
5. The group faced non-superhero problems that the readers could relate to, like intimate relationships (inside and outside of the group), financial problems(there was an issue where THE FF WENT BROKE!), and unwanted attention(Ben's run-ins with a group of hoodlums called The Yancy Street Gang was a running gag in a number of Kirby-illustrated issues).
6. When they encountered villains that they couldn't defeat with their powers, they used their brains and attempted to relate to the superheroes/supervillains/aliens that they're fighting as people instead of as punching bags.
Hopefully, should there be more FF movies(and I seriously hope that there are), these characteristics will be addressed and developed, along with one interesting twist that the movie-makers created in this film. They altered one of the original comic book characters but, unlike the Doctor Doom alterations, not for the worse: they made blind sculptress Alicia Masters an African American! While this wasn't the case in the original books, this change doesn't hinder the quality of the story. In fact, it could be argued that it improves it! While interracial relationships are only controversial when special interest groups make them that way today, I don't believe that this theme would have been acceptable in the '60's FF issues, which is probably why Stan didn't use it back then. He did, however, use that controversial theme in the '70's with another superhero team book, The Avengers(no relation to the British Spy-spoof TV show), by having a synthetic android, The Vision, fall in love with(and eventually marry) a mutant with spell-casting powers, The Scarlet Witch. He also had Spiderman deal with bigotry by having Spidey ask a bigoted troublemaker if he knew what color he was under his mask. Making Alicia black was a bold and interesting choice on the part of the screenwriters and I hope that this relationship will be at least a subplot in a later sequel.
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YOU HAVE JUST EXITED "THE SPOILER ZONE!"
A note that I forgot to enter on Saturday:
I had an interesting but slightly frustrating experience: I helped my mother register with the local public library in order for her to use one of their computers and printers to type up her resume and query letter for substitute teaching. While I'm proud of her for not deciding to make the living room couch her constant companion, it wasn't easy showing her the ropes on Microsoft Word 2000. She's the kind of person who would rather create more work for herself than simply ask for an easy way of doing things on the computer. This, of course, is part of the major problem that she and most people of her generation have: a pathological fear of advanced technology. I had a similar problem when I bought her a DVD player and, later, a combination VCR/DVD player. Once she's familiar with it, she's fine. When she isn't, she gets defensive and thinks I'm "copping an attitude" because I use a computer at my job every day and she doesn't! She did express her thanks when she completed her task and treated me to lunch afterwards, so the day didn't turn out too badly. It's just a strange feeling when a child has to teach her/his parent(s) new things and both parties feel the need to express their anxieties in the form of "typical family squabbles." It's like going into business with a relative. Objectivity and "focusing on the problem" tends to take a back-seat to "personal feelings." If she has any further questions, I'll just pray that she'll decide to sit in on a few of the "PC Basics" courses that are taught in several of the branches of the local library system during the summer or check out "Windows for Dummies" or an instructional video on her next library visit.
That about covers things for this week. Drive safely going home. Tropical Storm Dennis might affect the local weather over the next two days so be carefull.
Goodnight and "Thank you for your attention."
Dave
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