20 August - Hellboyo & Cliches'
What is it with me and fantasy? I sort of don’t get it…. Totally fails to register in book or movies.
One thing I get is hype though, or at least I recognise it easily in certain fields, music & books for example. I can’t say I’d recognise a hyped computer. But, yes, for a while had heard of Hellboy and of course Hellboy II is out any day now and eagerly expected. So I did sort of watch H1 on TV the other night but throughout it all, I did read the Sunday papers. I gave it the first 15 minutes or 20, then I switched back and forth and yes, I can understand the ironic/fun central premise and it did have good lines, good effects, good story, maybe even good characters, maybe kids do fall in love with ugly Selma Blair, (though couldn’t tell much difference from some Will Smith movie with humans chasing aliens and here ha ha, funny there’s a monster chasing other monsters and a few cliches' of this kind of storytelling exposed), but it didn’t’ seem that you know, amazing, as the hype suggests. Must have caught some mark Kermode type saying was best movie of the year etc. So you can count me out for H2. It must be a boy thing and a boy thing in a boring rainy summer too coupled with lots of marketing and hype. Maybe they feel the same about SATC, and they would be right by and large.
But I also was thinking how the world over, poor novelists for example can’t simply write a successful book and bring back the hero, shove in some new characters and follow him or her on some new adventures. Sure you have James Bond and Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple doing this and that in various books but by and large you can’t just write Pride & Prejudice 2 or 3. You can mine the same furrow but only in detective stories or some sci-fi it seems. Then again oh hum there’s my answer, you can do sequels of comic based stuff but you don’t do 21 Grams the sequel. Geez am so simultaneously clever and stupid. I go down a road thinking hey am smart with this thought and then come full circle and discover that no, I’m not.
One thing I get is hype though, or at least I recognise it easily in certain fields, music & books for example. I can’t say I’d recognise a hyped computer. But, yes, for a while had heard of Hellboy and of course Hellboy II is out any day now and eagerly expected. So I did sort of watch H1 on TV the other night but throughout it all, I did read the Sunday papers. I gave it the first 15 minutes or 20, then I switched back and forth and yes, I can understand the ironic/fun central premise and it did have good lines, good effects, good story, maybe even good characters, maybe kids do fall in love with ugly Selma Blair, (though couldn’t tell much difference from some Will Smith movie with humans chasing aliens and here ha ha, funny there’s a monster chasing other monsters and a few cliches' of this kind of storytelling exposed), but it didn’t’ seem that you know, amazing, as the hype suggests. Must have caught some mark Kermode type saying was best movie of the year etc. So you can count me out for H2. It must be a boy thing and a boy thing in a boring rainy summer too coupled with lots of marketing and hype. Maybe they feel the same about SATC, and they would be right by and large.
But I also was thinking how the world over, poor novelists for example can’t simply write a successful book and bring back the hero, shove in some new characters and follow him or her on some new adventures. Sure you have James Bond and Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple doing this and that in various books but by and large you can’t just write Pride & Prejudice 2 or 3. You can mine the same furrow but only in detective stories or some sci-fi it seems. Then again oh hum there’s my answer, you can do sequels of comic based stuff but you don’t do 21 Grams the sequel. Geez am so simultaneously clever and stupid. I go down a road thinking hey am smart with this thought and then come full circle and discover that no, I’m not.
posted by Lisa Taylor @ 7:57 AM
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