Monthly Archives: May 2005

May062005

Questioning Myself, and Recommended Readings About (What Else?) Star Wars

With only thirteen days to go until Revenge of the Sith opens, I’m still considering exactly what I want to say here on Simple Tricks about the whole Star Wars phenomenon. It’s a big subject, at least it is for me, because I’ve quite literally been thinking about it my entire life. I’ve got a lot of Star Wars-related ideas that I could share — anecdotes, theories, memories, speculations, and, of course, my own highly subjective opinions. Enough material, probably, to keep me blogging non-stop for the next couple of months.

But part of me wonders if I should bother writing on this subject at all. My love for these movies is crystal clear to anyone who either knows me or has been hanging around this blog for very long, and just about everybody in their thirties can tell similar stories of what it was like to grow up with The Trilogy during the ’70s and ’80s. How many people reading this post stood in lines that stretched around the block to see the original film at a grand old theater that probably doesn’t exist anymore? Weren’t we all equally blown away as children by our first glimpse of an Imperial Star Destroyer? Or of all the monsters in the Mos Eisley cantina? Do I have anything to say about Star Wars that my loyal readers haven’t already heard, or thought, or experienced themselves? I honestly don’t know.

While I wrestle with that question, I figure you might appreciate a couple of links to follow — it is Friday, after all, and everyone needs some good ‘net-surfing material to help you kill time on those long, tedious, springtime afternoons.

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May052005

E-mail Questionnaire from Anne

I’m pretty ruthless when it comes to screening my personal e-mail. Commercial spam, of course, is at the top of the “delete” list, but I also have little patience for all the crap that people forward because they think it’s fun or somehow useful to me: the jokes, the heartwarming “true stories,” the calls for boycotts on this or that, and, worst of all, the “public service messages” that nine times out of ten turn out to be urban legends. (Actually, I sort of enjoy those, because then I have the pleasure of debunking them for whoever sent them. But I’ve noticed that people don’t much send them to me anymore, probably because my debunkings take the fun out of it for them.)

All that stuff that eternally floats around the comm channels wore out its welcome for me very soon after I started using e-mail. All except for the questionnaires. I still like those. You know, those lists of random and essentially superficial questions that are supposed to provide insight into our friends.

I got one from Anne awhile back, the first one I’ve received in a long time. Considering that these questionnaires are essentially the same thing as the LiveJournal memes I occasionally put up (and the fact that I don’t have anything else ready to post today), I thought I’d reproduce it here, along with my sure-to-be-fascinating answers:

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May052005

Movie Review: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

It’s tough to explain The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to someone who’s doesn’t already know of it, in part because it’s been so many different things over the years. It began as a British radio serial, way back in the late 1970s. The radio show led to a novel, which begat several sequels, and there was also a BBC TV series and an early text-based computer game that I understand is still rather popular in certain circles. (You can probably find a playable version of it out there on the InterWeb Thingie, if you’re curious.) And now, of course, it’s also a big-budget feature film spectacle.

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May032005

Movie Review: Sahara

Over the weekend, I had the frustrating experience of seeing two movies based on books I’ve loved for years, both of which completely failed to capture what I find so appealing about those books. The first of these was Sahara, which, as the opening titles kindly point out to anyone who didn’t know, is “A Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt Adventure.”

If that means nothing to you, I’ll explain: Dirk Pitt is a character created by an author named Clive Cussler in a series of best-selling novels that read like a combination of Indiana Jones and James Bond, with a smidgeon of Jacques Cousteau thrown in for flavor. These novels don’t begin to qualify as good literature, but they are good reads — they’re fun, exciting page-turners that are perfect for lazy summer afternoons and long airplane rides. I first discovered them when I was in my early teens, and I’ve loved them ever since. I’m not at all ashamed to admit that Dirk Pitt was a hero of mine as I was growing up, and, like a lot of people who have favorite literary characters, I have a very definite image in my head of who and what he is.

That’s why I decided weeks ago that I wasn’t going to bother seeing Sahara. As I explained in an earlier entry, I had grave misgivings about the casting of the terminally bland Matthew McConaughey as Dirk, and I figured it would be best to spare myself (and my unfortunate friends and readers) the aggravation of seeing one of my heroes brought to life badly.
Fate, however, had other plans, and when my foursome couldn’t get into The Interpreter on Saturday night, I was outvoted on which film got to be our second choice. Anne braced herself for my inevitible post-movie tirade, while our friends Jack and Natalie both tried to convince me I should lay aside my preconceptions. None of them will believe this, but I honestly did try to judge the movie on its own merits and not compare it to the books I’ve known since puberty.

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May012005

The Clock is Running

Only 19 days until Episode III.

I suppose it goes without saying that I’ll be doing some nostalgic musing on the whole Star Wars phenomenon over the next two and a half weeks. For the sake of my three loyal readers, I’ll do my best not to become tediously one-track-minded.

I may not succeed, but I will try.

And please don’t throw the “do or do not, there is no try” thing at me. That’s my schtick…

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