May The Stars Light Your Way
I found this interesting optical illusion while surfing around on HappyScrappy… Stare at the plus sign in the middle. You’ll notice that the moving dot becomes green, and then the pink dots should disappear. Here’s an explanation, courtesy of some college professor on the author’s dad’s…
I flew by the house this evening after work to let the dogs outside then left again pretty quickly. Since Wendy had LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS at Falcon Theater tonight, I’d decided to go see THE DA VINCI CODE at my local multiplex. I’d purchased…
Year: 2006
Writer: Akiva Goldsman (screenplay), Dan Brown (novel)
Director: Ron Howard
Producer: Columbia Pictures
Length: 149
Category: Drama
Media: Film
Studio: Imagine Entertainment
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
Rating from MPAA: PG-13
Review from 67rocks.
Four words – wrong star, wrong director.
Hanks and Howards best work, both together or separately, have been when they embrace intrinsically American values in their films. All their most memorable movies have involved individuals overcoming hardship through an unshakable belief in love and courage, usually set against an outwardly US-centric interpretation of events. Think Apollo 13, Forrest Gump, Cinderella Man, Saving Private Ryan – all fine films, all centred on an American hero rising above their circumstance.
What is conspicuously absent from either man’s resume is a European-set, religious-themed mystery thriller. Having sat through their arduous, laborious adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel, I can now see why.
The plot is total bunkum – a hodgepodge of “what ifs” and “oh my god” moments spun on the ludicrous premise that Leonardo Da Vinci had some sort of insight into the life of Christ – but loopy story lines have not stopped many films from being enjoyable.
What makes The Da Vinci Code so deathly dull is the heavy-handed, oh-so-serious approach Howard applies to the material. Combining with his cinematographer to give the film a sleepy nocturnal feel (not so clever given the 150min running time), Howard’s film is just a constant flow of expository clues that fail to create any tension or engender his leads with any human qualities. Even for those that haven’t read the book, a couple of obligatory ‘big twists’ in the story are very obvious from early-on.
Hanks (looking more like Jim Belushi than ever) and McKellen blather on and on and on about knights and saints and symbols and God as if they were giving a lecture at some Ivy-league school for the supernatural; Audrey Tautou is lovely but has little to do in a role that is plot- not character-driven. Jean Reno ambles thru another of his token French cop parts (he was better in the Pink Panther); Paul Bettany’s evil albino Silas at least got some audience reaction, though giggles and guffaws were probably not what he was hoping for.
Whatever sense of fun and excitement the book provided is fully-drained from this adaptation. Come credit time, I had the realisation that all this hokey, airport-novel religious hooey and B-movie plotting would’ve made for a great X-files episode in that series heyday. As the end-product of a publishing phenomenon and carrying the tag “Years Most-Anticipated”, its a boring dud.
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Tonight was closing night of Wendy’s show, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, and the 17th season at Falcon Theater. Wendy & I drove down to the theater together, though I had to go back out shortly after arriving — seems that the actor playing Audrey II…
We got up screaming this morning — we woke at 9:30am and needed to be at the theater by 10:00am to ‘strike’ the set of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. (Strike means to reset the space, removing our sets, props, costumes, and the rest to make the space ready for the next thing.) We made it there by 10:15am and strike wasn’t very difficult. Many hands — Jay, Ted, Dave, Robin, Julie, Nicki, Wendy & me — made light work, so we were able to load the plant props into Ted’s truck & trailer and get them back to the place we rented them safe and sound, much to Dave’s relief.
Then, a group of us went to PRICE HILL CHILI for some food before Wendy & I picked up Buster (or “Christopher”, as we’re considering calling him), our new dog. Well, sorta. Buster is a sweet 6-year old Dachsund who came into Wendy’s hospital ‘down‘ — paralyzed from the neck back — but otherwise sound & healthy. Apparently, this is something that ‘just happens’ to a lot of Dachsunds because they’re so low-and-long and have spinal problems. Their spinal bones calcify and can shoot into the spinal cord, like squeezing a watermelon seed between your fingers. Wherever that hits the spinal cord, from there back is ‘down‘, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Sometimes they are fine after surgery and sometimes surgery is not necessary. We’re going to try to nurse him back to health with steroids and other medications, and so far it’s looking cautiously promising — only a few days after the event he can paddle his legs a bit and roll himself over. Here are some pictures, the very first we took of him.
Once we got Buster home, we realized that we had some errands to run, so we went to get a pet bed, some pee-pads, and assorted other things to make Buster’s convalescence more comfortable. On the way home, we stopped at Skyline for a three-way (for me) and a few cheese coneys (for Wendy, who temporarily suspended her very-successful diet for one day).
We all spent the evening on the couch watching television and generally enjoying not being busy.
Buster the Dog came to live with us on Sunday, May 21, 2006. He is a 6-year old Daschund who suffered an unknown spinal trauma on Thursday, May 18, 2006 and became paralyzed from the neck down. His owners weren’t able to take care of him,…