Journal

I’m back, I’m busy

9 Comments

Got back this morning around 10:00am. The hardwood floors here in the house are now refinished, and that means that instead of returning home to a nice nap on the couch, we came back to a nice move-the-couch-back-where-it-belongs.

Oh, and scripting, and coloring, and 200 unread Novell-related emails, and 500 Schlock-mails (most of those are spam), and Chronicles of Riddick opens today.

(I caught the 1:15 show).

–Howard

9 thoughts on “I’m back, I’m busy”

  1. May I ask, how was it? All I know is that the first preview out (the one with desert landscapes, the woman talking, etc…) made me think another Dune movie was coming out for the first 20 seconds.

      1. Re: Chronicles

        I saw a test screening and just about everyone cheered when it was over. I enjoyed it, you just gotta like ALOT of action in your movies.

      2. Re: Chronicles

        Well, my local movie critic liked thought it was “ehhh”. However, I’m not so sure on his/her credibiltiy for two reasons.

        1) She gave “Garfield” a higher score.
        2) My newspaper uses a School-style grading scale for movies. The critic gave “Riddick” a “C”, and “Garfield” a “C+”.

        Also, I think the critic may be a woman, and, frankly, all the female movie critics who have written for the “Oregonian” have disliked Action Movies, and given “chick flicks” very high scores (C+ the lowest, B+ the highest), and action films low scores (C being the highest).

        So, I’m taking that review with a very large serving of salt.

    2. Re: I liked it a lot

      I liked Chronicles of Riddick a lot. When I look back on it, I see that what they’re doing is setting up a “Conan in Space” franchise, and since I loved the Conan comics and enjoyed the movies back in the day, I’m fine with this.

      There was this one part in the movie where the fight scene went to music-only for the sound effects. This works well in battlefield montages, especially where key characters are dying and the MUSIC tells you how to feel rather than the “ka-THUNK” noises, but in this movie I found myself saying “if this goes on for another 5 seconds I’ll be bored.”

      Fortunately, it didn’t go on much longer than that.

      The “really hot planet” scenes were less than completely believable. I was fine with the 1000-degree temperature gradient (700 above to 300 below, so obviously they’re using Farenheit) right up until the characters went out on the surface and breathed the air. Fine, it’s just before sunrise, so the air has warmed up enough to be breathable… but WHY IS THERE ANY AIR AT ALL?!?!

      You only get steep gradients like that when there’s nothing smearing the temperatures around, and an atmosphere smears temperatures a lot.

      Other than that, fun movie. I can wait for the sequel(s), but only because there’s so much other cool stuff to see between now and then.

      –Howard

      1. Re: Oh, and stay through the first half of the credits

        Stay through the first half of the credits. You’ll know when it’s time to get up and leave.

  3. I read the book (believe it or not) by Alan Dean Foster (king of the movie back-writes). It made me say I wasn’t going to go see the film, but then I saw a preview and, well… actually, unless it’s still showing on my birthday (about the only time I see movies anymore), I’ll probably be renting it.

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