Long Weekends

Happy Memorial Day everybody.

Unlike most of you, I don’t think I look forward to long weekends anymore. Most of my time is spent wondering, “When will she go back to work, and this other one go back to school, so I can get back to my nice quiet life, drawing comics, and chilling with the cat?”

Hehe!

Well this weekend certainly didn’t work out the way we planned, but it was still pretty great. We were trying to go to Maine, to the family home of some good friends of ours. Dorinda and I ran around like crazy people trying to get at least some of our ducks in a row, so that we could leave as soon as possible Saturday morning –right after the Widget and her Brownie Troop marched in the parade.

The parade that happens on Monday.

Crap.

So anyway -FRIDAY. Friday was good. Except for our drying breaking, and two loads of laundry smelling like burnt Sharpies, and me now having to figure out where to get the money for a new dryer. But other than that, friday = Good. We went to the Milford drive-In theater for the first time ever. It was fantastic and I can’t wait to go back again. We all got there about an hour and a half before the movies started. I made kabobs and corn on the grill, which I stuffed into a hot/cold bag. Our friends brought the beer, bread and cheese, and we had a little pre-movie tailgate party.

I think the thing I liked the most about the drive-in was the pre-movie animations. You know those really cheap ass CGI things they roll that tell you to turn your cell phone off, buy the over-priced popcorn, and not to put your feet up on the seat in front of you? This was the same sort of thing, but it was all done in classic 1950’s animation, and it was hysterical. The circus of food was a touch creepy, but the crisply pressed 1950’s family looping in and out of the concession stand (which appeared to be designed by F. Lloyd Wright), and doing all sorts of wholesome American things were great.

The movies playing on our screen were Indiana Jones and Iron Man. For the first time in all my years living by the drive-in they had two movies that I wanted to see, playing back-to-back. However, since the movies start so late, I learned that I can’t stay awake for the second feature, so that will not be a factor in future visits. Luckily, I’d already seen Iron Man.

So let’s talk about Indian Jones & The Movie With a Really Goddamn Long Title. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t that great either. There might be some spoilers here, so consider yourselves warned.  It certainly had some moments that were well done and hit that Indy sweet-spot. The motorcycle chase ending in Jones’ very amusing bit of advice to a bookworm student, who seems to think nothing of his archeology professor arriving IN THE LIBRARY, on the back of a greaser’s motorcycle. The warehouse chase, the jungle fight/chase, and so forth were just great. Jones’s reaction to seeing Marion for the first time in years was really wonderful.

I really liked how they paid tribute to the pulp ads of the 1950’s in this film, just as they did to the pulp serials of the 30’s and 40’s in the first movies. The Atomic Café, which you only see for a second, was a nice touch –there is a famous documentary by the same name, about the hysteria and madness of America during the 50’s. I’m sure its public domain, so look it up online some time.

A lot of other stuff just cut against the grain of what makes Indiana Jones who he is. And a lot of it felt like unnecessary ret-conning by George Lucas. If you get all worked up about Greedo shooting Han Solo first, you’ll know what I mean. The fact that Han Solo originally shot Greedo first was HUGE in telling the audience who this character was. But to use half-assed CGI to change that, also drastically change who the character is. So in this movie it is revealed that Jones was an operative for OSS during WWII, and later a spy, working against the Soviets. Wait, what? Its true that in Raiders, Indy was hired by the government to recover the Ark –but it was also clear how he felt about the government and its cronies at the end of that movie.

But now it’s the 50’s and Indiana Jones is no longer a grave robbing scoundrel with a big heart, but a super patriot working for God and America? Re-fucking-tarded.

And space aliens? I realize that this is a big part of the craziness of the 50’s, but give me a break. Certain things just don’t mix. And Indiana Jones and Little Green Men, are two example of things which should not be brought together. It was like watching a sci-fi interpretation of Spartacus. So anytime the focus was not on crystal skulls and flying saucers, you sunk comfortably into a good Indiana Jones movie –suspension of disbelief was not a problem. But then the alien thing would pop up, and it was like getting splashed in the face with cold water every time it did.

To my great amazement, Shia LaBeouf did a pretty decent job. The character of Mutt Williams had potential, and the whole 50’s greaser thing was fun. Though WHY Spielberg though it would be cool to have him swing on vines through the jungle with a troop of badly rendered CGI monkeys, I will never know.

Okay my last criticism and then we’ll move on. This one is very similar to the Han Solo/Greedo thing. Indiana Jones doesn’t shoot anybody in this movie. He pulls his gun out at one point, and scares someone with it, but that is it. For me, the gun fights in Indiana Jones, was one of the things that made them great fun movies. But in today’s oppressively politically correct society I guess it’s not cool to show heroes using guns. Which is a shame, because pulp adventures were all about justice and the end of a gun barrel.

And no one can argue that one of the best scenes in Raiders takes place in a crowded Egyptian market, when a battered and exhausted Indy is confronted by a scimitar wielding giant. He just pulls out his Webly, and blows the bad guy away.

I AM NOW DONE TALKING ABOUT INDIANA JONES. It is safe to read again.

So, as I mentioned, we were going to go to Maine this weekend, right after the Widget marched in the parade on Saturday, except the parade was on Monday. I can say with absolute confidence, that this screw up was in no way my fault. It was all Dorinda. Ha. Ha.

On the bright side we didn’t have to deal with Memorial Day traffic on Maine’s Route 1. And for that I am grateful. Not seeing our friends sucks though. But there is always a silver lining. On Saturday we went to Boston (moving in the opposite direction of the Memorial day traffic I might add). We took Widget to the recently overhauled Children’s Museum, enjoyed a nice walk, and, (because I forgot all about the Red Tide plaguing the coast), accidentally paid $80 for a basket of crabs.

They were delicious though.

We daytripped the rest of the weekend –did some hiking, Widget marched in the parade with her Brownie Troop, went out for ice cream, etc.

I also spent several hours setting up my new laptop. It is about a billion times better than my old one, so I am quite happy. I was terrified of the Vista OS. I had heard the rumors, and one friend in particular has had nothing but bad things to say about it since buying his new computer last year. But so far, no problems. It runs smoothly and is very pretty. It’s as if Microsoft wants its new OS to make pc’s look like Macs, (without being obvious about it). So far I’m very happy.

I did hit one snag though. My old Mustek scanner was not compatible with Vista. Which makes doing actual work on the new machine rather tricky. It took about 3 hours of searching the internet and looking for sneaky ways to make it work, but I did. I finally found a site where the guy explained how to rewrite the registration codes on the computer to trick it into thinking it is ten years old and running Win98. I did this, installed the scanner drivers, and then assured my laptop that no, it was not a dinosaur, but rather a sleek new sports car in the 21^st Century laptop world, and everything is running fine.

Now if I can only find the software for my digital camera . . .

Okay, work begins on Atomic Robo Vol.2.3 today so I’ve gotta go.

If anyone is near Peterborough NH this Saturday, I will be at the Broke Arts festival. I don’t have a link, but try giving that a Google.

 

RANDOM SPLENDOR