Ok, So I Saw It

I know I said I wouldn't go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Not that I have anything against Captain Jack Sparrow. I'm just getting a little uneasy about this whole re-make craze. Everything is a re-make. Are we that devoid of imagination that we can't come up with even semi-original material. I understand that the first Willie Wonka film was not as true to the book as it could have been, and this pissed off the author. I understand that this one seeks to insert the story of Willie Wonka back into the plot. I understand the virtue of this task, but still, REMAKES! It's like we're saying to the creators of these films, genres, and TV shows, "Your work sucked. We can do it better." I'm waiting for the re-make of Casablanca or Citizen Cane or Metropolis or The Godfather. Hell, why not Schindler's List! It could be better, am I right!? We could add some CGI to the death camps and make them look really realisitic! But I digress. So, it was my mother's birthday. I got her a gift. We went to dinner. I suggested we go to a movie. I figured this might be a film mom might like, so I says, "What about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?" She says, "Sweet." So we go. Now, I will admit that it was, in fact, a very cute movie. I laughed a lot. It was well done. I generally cringe at anything Tim Burton does (Batman, anyone?), but this one was much better. It did have that Tim Burton, creepy, need to see a shrink feel to it, but it was a good kid's movie that you can take mom to see. I was wondering, also, why it got a PG rating. There's nothing PG about it. It's G all the way. So, there you have it. I enjoyed Gilbert Grape's new film, my mother is a year older, and I'm waiting patiently for the contemporary re-mix of The Godfather.

Roofing is Fun; Heat Sucks

So I just finished with Servants of the Son - a four day work project for youth in Frederick, OK (my hometown). I was invited to come as the nightly preacher and to work on the sight with the youth. It was blessed hot. In fact, it was the hottest week of the summer so far. Over one hundred degrees on the ground. Up on the roof, the heat was more like 110-115. We roofed and painted a house for a sweet old lady named Lois. Needless to say, I'm exhausted. It's good to be back, but I did find out that roofing is kind of fun. There's something about having a methodical task that requires real labor to accomplish that pleases me. The heat was difficult to deal with, but the sense of accomplishment was great. So I start thinking: "It was a normal day in Frederick, OK. Barry Bennett (mild-mannered roofer and occasional preacher), was busy completing a row of shingles when, (Bam!) he hammers into a shingle that was accidentally made of uranium tar. He is immediately transformed into 'The Roofer'. With the durability of industrial grade nails, the strength best demostrated in the physics of a pry bar, the flexibility of a hot shingle, and the speed of a nail gun, 'The Roofer' fights small town crime wherever it appears. Evil beware. Run and hide from...The Roofer!" It think that it could work. A story like that could break into a key lost demographic - the small town working class. We'd make millions, I tells ya!

Loved Batman, liked Fantastic Four, ok with Star Wars, dug Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Refuse to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, waiting for the next big thing. All in all, it's been a pretty disappointing summer of movies. Batman was great. I'd say it was the peak of the season. Star Wars was just ok. It didn't suck as bad as the first two, let's just say that. I actually liked Fantastic Four, but, then, I'm a big FF fan anyway. You have to understand the characters to like the movie. But, I liked Daredevil too, when many people didn't. I'm strange like that I guess. One film I haven't seen, and might not now that I think abou it, is War of the Worlds. I have two reasons for this. 1. Tom Cruise is a bad actor. There I said it. Yes, he is not talented. Just because you make millions of dollars per flic and make an ass of yourself on Oprah doesn't make you a good actor. 2. Speilberg has lost his edge. People assume that if he is the one directing that it's automatically going to be good. Well...two letters for you: AI. 'Nuff said. Mr. and Mrs. Smith was fun. Violence, even for a pacifist, can be quite enjoyable. Actually, I watched this one in Oklahoma City. I was on my way back from Church Camp, which was necessled in the woods on Lake Texoma. As a staff person, it is always a stressful week. To boot, I actually didn't sleep the last night. So my trip back to Stillwater was a difficult one. I decided I needed to stop in OKC for some mindless activity that required no energy at all. So, I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It was fun. And finally, I refuse to watch a film with Gilbert Grape trying to be Willie Wonka. Well then...I'm running out of things to say. I'll stop now.

So, here is why I hate Chris Claremont. Well, I shouldn't say that I hate the man. I just think he needs to retire and be done with life. Now for those of you who care, Chris Claremont fancies himself a writer. I think he sucks, but, then, here I am writing a blog, so on what grounds do I make such judgments? Anyway, Claremont writes Comic Books. Particularly, he writes for the Uncanny X-Men. He had this task for most of the 1980's and returned to the helm about a year ago. The man is looney tunes. I myself adhere to the Stan Lee vision of comics. If the story is good, people will read it, love it, and be loyal to it. Claremont forgot that somewhere along the line. The X-men are supposed to be a band of mutant vigilanties who were brought together by Charles Xavier to use their extraordinary powers to aid in the quest for peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants. "They fight for a world that fears and hates them," so the line goes. So, they fight mutant terrorists like Magneto, for example, who wants mutants to rise up and overthrow the human oppressors. The X-Men, like many superhero types, find themselves in many extraordinary situations. Therefore, it is not uncommon to find them out in space caught up in the middle of an alien civil war. No big deal, really, but in the end they always come home to fight for the world that fears and hates them. Claremont never seems to get that second part. He always creates these lame-ass scenarios that put the X-Men completely out of their element and won't let them come home. It's getting old. Take a clue from Bendis, Chris! Old is good. Tradition is good! Crappy writing and bad plots don't work. Just my opinion. In the end, I suppose, it's a pretty nerdy thing to be complaining about the X-men. Oh, well. Maybe next time I'll write about the communicatio idiomatum or something like that. That'd be great!

Well, I was bored in the office the other day, so I went to my house blog, the Iredell House, you know. Anyway, I was checking to see if any of my housemates have posted anything blog-worthy lately. No one had, so I thinks to myself, "I wonder what other blogs are out there in the vacuum of cyberspace." So I click on "next blog" to find out. Well, there are just hundreds of bored lonely people out there with nothing better to do but create these stupid blog things. But the hook was there. I thinks to myself again, "Gee, Barry, you could do your own private blog. " So here it is, my own private blog. I keep telling myself that I'm not a looser without a life. No! I am a man! With his own blog. Damn skippy. Now all the world can have access to my wit and charm without having to go through the druggery of seeing me face to face. So, then, let me speak to the yet unknowing world how these things came about. So shall You hear of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts; of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause; And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I truly deliver.