Punctuality

I'm not going to wait forever like I did with A Series of Unfortunate Events or Phantom – here's what I thought of Hitchhiker's Guide, which I just saw:

· Overall, I got the same impression from the movie as I did from any of the books (I admit) I listened to at work, and that is a general feeling of a bunch of really great ideas, often absurdly funny, all sort of loosely strung together by some entertaining characters and/or caricatures. This is entertaining – often thoroughly so – but not exactly transportive. Not exactly overflowing with dramatic tension, sort of thing.
· Some lucky production designer had a lot of fun.
· Arthur was great. Ford was great, to my relief. Zaphod was great. Didn't like Trillian's acting much.
· Thanks to whoever's responsible for keeping as much of the text as possible, as well as the little asides like the falling whale and (if you stayed through the credits) the invading spacefleet and the dog. Much as with the Snicket books, that's where a great deal of the charm lies, for me.
· There was a bit of pacing wobble... lots of the beginning seemed a little slow and distracted to me. Why sit there moping about Trisha and having all these flashbacks that aren't really amusing or revelatory to any important aspect of the plot when the planet is about to be destroyed? It would have been one thing if Ford was really rushing Arthur and Arthur lollygagged in his own misery, but Ford just sat there listening to him; there was no real sense of urgency beyond that which anyone in the audience would naturally assume when someone says, quite calmly, that the world will end in 12 minutes. Anyway, that's the specific example... It started to roll along a lot better about halfway through, like the editor had got the hang of it or something.
· The main character in a Hollywood action-adventure blockbuster was reading a book in the corner at a party. I somehow feel ... vindicated. Even though it was a fancy dress party, which I suspect I might enjoy for about ten minutes longer than I do a regular party, but I haven't been able to test this theory as they don't seem to EXIST on this continent! But that's a tangent.

It's bedtime. If I stay up any later I'll really start to believe it's Friday and that's just asking for trouble.

Nyelicious

We make time to drive to buildings where we walk and pedal to nowhere!
– Mr William Nye

I think what I like most about The Eyes of Nye is that its central theme runs something like: "Think and act responsibly, you hedonistic monkeys!"

THINK AND ACT RESPONSIBLY, YOU HEDONISTIC MONKEYS!!

Ahh yeah, that feels good. (No irony intended, but it works, so it stays.)

It would feel better if I didn't know that various individuals have cried the same thing from various mountaintops and in various contexts since the dawn of time, and one charismatic and humourous gangly guy in a lab coat on PBS probably won't make much of a dent either.
[sigh]

Every time history repeats itself, the price goes up.