Month: November 2003

What do you regular readers want on this site? Pretty logos for Cowboy Pete’s TV Roundup? A forced migration to Movable Type so you can get trackbacks? More guest posts by me, to cover the lag times between Peter’s posts, or less comments from me all together? Any other particular suggestions for site improvements? What? Whaaat?

(Why no, this has nothing to do with learning Mark Evanier got over $1000 in tips over three days. Why do you ask?)

We were catching up with that CBS 75th anniversary special, and I was fascinated by when they discussed the Orson Welles “War of the Worlds.” At the time, law suits were filed that costs CBS milions of dollar.s I can’t help but think, though, that if it occurred in the modern era, then–inflation notwithstanding) the judgment might be well into the billions. It might even have drven CBS out of business altogether, because absolutely everybody and his brother who was distraught or willing to say they were would have been after CBS brass.

PAD

Just turned in the manuscript for the novelization of “Spider-Man 2: In Arm’s Way.” Which isn’t actually the title, but it kind of amuses me. Got delayed by last minute script changes. However, unlike previous occasions on other novelizations where 11th Hour alterations came in, these were all improvements. Several lengthy and frankly painful speeches went away, and the climactic Spidey/Doc Ock face-off plays far more smoothly. So although they took time to do, it’s the sort of changes I really don’t mind making.

By the way, for those of you who have seen the Spidey II teaser posters and either couldn’t tell or didn’t notice it, that’s Doc Ock reflected in the eyepiece of Spidey’s mask.

PAD

If anyone is interested in seeing how Caroline, the Cutest Baby in the World (TM) spent Halloween, swing by the new page on her mommy’s website at…

http://homepage.mac.com/kathodavid/PhotoAlbum6.html

Thrill to Caroline hanging in the pumpkin patch with her big sister, Ariel, and being carted away in a wheelbarrow (so that when she gets old enough to ask where she came from, we can say, “The pumpkin patch, and here’s the pictures to prove it.) “Awe” to Caroline in her Stitch costume, cavorting at Mommy and Me or just looking thoughtful as she contemplates a variety of vengeance schemes upon the people who dressed her up this way.

PAD

Finally got a chance to see “Kill Bill.” Once again QT manages to take an agglomeration of elements from genres and other sources, run them through a blender, and come up with something that is wholly unoriginal while, at the same time, impossible to tear your eyes away from. This time around it’s everything that ever had any influence in the genre of Hong Kong action. Start with a character evocative of “The Bride With White Hair”; milk the two most potent TV influences, David Carridine (as the unseen Bill) and Bruce Lee’s Kato (in everything from Al Hirt’s Green Hornet/Flight of the Bumblebee riff to the assassins who dress in Kato masks–remember, in Japan “The Green Hornet” was known as “The Kato Show”); do a samurai-esque smackdown in black and white to raise the spirit of Kurosawa; thrown in one of Charlie’s Angels for good measure; trot out Kung Fu icon Sonny Chiba as a master swordmaker (“If in your journey, you should encounter God…God will be cut” he says of his greatest weapon); mix in an extended anime sequence; throw in a surprise ending that Kath and I saw coming ten minutes into the movie; shake well and presto, you’ve got “Kill Bill.”

None of which makes it any less riveting. The film flies by, and I would unquestionably have sat through the entire three hours in one shot if given the option. The “it’s raining blood, hallelujah” sequences aren’t for the faint-hearted, and Tarrantino’s occasional lapses in knowledge (“Revenge is a dish best served cold” slightly predates the Klingons, and muscles “atrophy”, not “entropy”) are just annoying. And, frankly, the row of kids sitting behind us who apparently thought they were in their living room until I told them to shut the hëll up, kinda pìššëd me off. Overall, though, if nothing else it’s a must-see for any fan of Hong Kong actioners.

PAD