By Craig Kennedy - March 10th, 2013; 7:38 pm
Daylight Savings Time is a crock of shit. You know they have this invention called electricity where you can turn on lights after the sun goes down, right? It’s scientific!
Ok, I’m done bitching about it for another year.
The good news is after a long hiatus, I’ve got a few screenings lined up this week and hopefully I’ll be back to regular reviews soon.
That’s all from me this week. Now it’s your turn. See anything worth talking about since last week? Lay it on me.
Filed under: The Watercooler
Victor Young’s FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS’ suite here is gorgeous. Young has always been one of Hollywood’s most underrated artists. His scores for SHANE and AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS are magnificent as well.
Lucille and the kids and I saw two movies in theaters this week:
Oz the Great and Powerful * 1/2 (Saturday night) Secaucus
Jason and the Argonauts (1963) **** 1/2 (Sunday) Film Forum
Here are the terms I’d use to describe Disney’s OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL: a colossal bore, inert, bloated, charmless, unattractively mounted, awkwardly paced, oddly unemotional and James Franco as poorly miscast as he’s been in his career. But I won’t say it too loud as Lucille liked it fair enough as did Broadway Bob, his mom, and the two young ones who attended: Jillian and Jeremy. I am one of the biggest THE WIZARD OF OZ fans in the blogosphere, but this re-application of some of the same characters and situations is wholly forgettable. To be fair there were a few good ideas, but they add up to little.
As far as Don Chaffey’s classic mythological adventure fantasy JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, it always a delight to watch on re-viewing, and it was a perfect choice for Film Forum Jr.’s ongoing Sunday morning Festival for families. Ray Harryhausen’s celebrated special effects of course were ground-breaking, if dated by today’s standards. The wonderful George Pal short “A Date with Duke” featuring Duke Ellington preceded the main feature.
DST is even worse if you have kids. It’s murder trying to get them to go to bed early on Saturday night, and murder trying to get them up for school on Monday morning. Commit to a time zone in my opinion.
As I descend into old-manhood, I think I’m becoming as inflexible as a little kid. Ignoring daylight savings time is the only thing good about Arizona. It almost makes up for Jan Brewer.
So, Sam, Oz was worse than it looked?
Good thing you had the Harryhausen to make up for it!