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December 30, 2004

"I'll send him a red cap and a speedo"

I went and saw The Life Aquatic last night with Ben. I'm not exactly sure what I think about it, it was weird. I chuckled a little bit but most of the time I just sort of stared at the screen a little dumbfounded. It wasn't that the plot was confusing, it wasn't, it was just so random. I'm used to every element in a movie having a purpose, whether it's for the plot, laughs or an extraneous sex scene. With this movie the random things they put just seem random. And I'm usually the one that thinks randomness is hilarious, but this movie just seemed weird. I hear that it's getting crumby reviews, and I'm not exactly surprised, but then, I'm not sad that I saw it either.

Anyway, this wasn't the purpose of this post. The subject of this post is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We saw a teaser for it and I was so excited. My beloved, wacky, and zany books are becoming a full fledged movie as we speak. There was an incident with a mini-series in 1981 but it was rather aweful and a complete let down. Despite that, I have high hopes for this adaptation. I can't wait. Most of all I can't wait to see how they treat Marvin the Paranoid Android, probably my favorite character in the books. On imdb they have Warwick Davis playing him, which I'm slightly concerned about. He's Willow in the movie of the same name, or for those Potter fans, he's Professor Flitwick. Also they have a separate listing for Marvin's voice, Stephen Moore who apparently played Marvin in the 1981 mini-series (more cringing). I don't remember Marvin very much from the mini-series but to be honest it's probably because I couldn't stand it for the 2 hours that it took to get to the part of the story where Marvin comes in. Anyway, I'll allow myself to be hopefull.

For those of you who haven't read the books but would still like to see the movie when it comes out next May, here are a few warnings. There may be many people attending the movie carrying:

full sized bath towels
a second head glued to their necks
an inflatable whale
or perhaps a potted petunia plant
T-shirts that read "Don't Panic" in large friendly letters
wearing a dressing gown or pyjamas

Don't Panic

Comments:
I'm curious to see how Mos Def does as Ford Prefect. As much as I love Marvin (and I do, despite what he may say about that) Ford was always my favorite.
 
Oh yes - I saw a movie last night, too.

Life Aquatic was disjointed. It took me most of the movie and much of the night to settle on that description. Arbitrary, laced with non-sequiturs, and random were runners-up. I tried very hard to think of the subtle messages Wes Anderson was throwing at me; was there some lesson to be learned? Was that Ned up top on the ship after the closing credits?

The experience was similar to listening to two people carrying on a conversation that makes little sense, but you laugh a little anyway because it seems like they're telling jokes (though you can never be certain).
 
Julie, here's a gallery of fan art -- pretty unremarkable, except the robot ones are very close to the actual design for Marvin. I saw some shots of Warwick Davis wearing a prototype suit that looked just like these on a different site, but I'm having trouble finding it now...

-Tom
 
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