I saw the last two minutes of the Italy-Germany game, which turned out to be a very efficient use of my time.
In other news, the network outages plaguing this site may be easily fixable, but the database crashes are probably due to hardware limitations, and so I'm finally preparing to move the site to an external host. I'm aiming to have the new site up by Saturday, but these things always take longer than one expects. In the meantime, I'll still be posting at the usual address (assuming the server stays up).
Superman Returns: Bryan Singer continues his streak of solid superhero movies; while this one was not as good as Singer's excellent X-men installments, it's nevertheless a worthy successor to the Richard Donner Superman (which is heavily referenced). The film wisely ignores the third and fourth Superman movies (even if Superman III was underrated), and picks up after Superman II. Kal-El returns to Earth after a five-year interstellar hiatus, and tries to get back into the superhero business, while Lex Luthor pursues another large-scale real estate scheme. Kevin Spacey has fun as Luthor, who seems to be a bit of a crackpot. The movie does run a bit long at the end, spending too much time on the denouement, but until then the pacing is pretty good. I recommend watching the Donner version first and then trying to catch all the references. Also, look for product placement by Virgin Galactic. Rating: 3.5/5
The Futureheads: News and Tributes: I was a little disappointed by the new Futureheads record. While it's not a bad album, I didn't feel that there were any standout tracks like "Decent Days and Nights" or their cover of Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" on the debut. The band also seems to have slowed down a bit, and (except for the aptly titled "Return of the Berserker") the record doesn't have the manic energy of its predecessor. It's not all bad News, though: I liked the tension underlying "Burnt"; "Back to the Sea" has an appealing chorus; and "Favours for Favours" is especially well-done. Rating: 3/5
Tags: Movies, Music, Open ThreadI want to see Superman. I may have seen parts of the older films, but I can't say I remember them.
On Sunday, when I was in the mood for a movie, I felt more like seeing Prada than Superman. I'd see Superman tonight if the people currently around want to. Otherwise, we have the very important premiers of Pirates of the Carribean II and A Scanner Darkly coming up...
Posted by: Mason | July 4, 2006 6:07 PMYeah, I'm going to see Pirates on Friday, and Scanner is also on my list.
Posted by: Arcane Gazebo | July 4, 2006 6:09 PMIt's funny, I saw nearly the exact same timeframe of the world cup game (in my case, the last 20m of overtime), which was indeed the important part.
Superman doesn't really tempt me to go watch it, but i'm looking forward to the Pirate movie. :)
Posted by: Zifnab | July 4, 2006 6:25 PMPaseo is showing Pirates at 12:01 am on Friday. Do you want to go to that showing? Then maybe Scanner later that "evening?" :)
Posted by: Mason | July 4, 2006 10:31 PMJosh: The IMDB trivia page for Superman Returns says:
"Jude Law was Bryan Singer's only choice to play General Zod. After Law turned down the role several times, Singer eliminated the character from the script."
Who turns down the role of General Zod?
Posted by: Arcane Gazebo | July 5, 2006 1:25 PMMy respect for Jude Law just plummeted.
Posted by: Josh | July 5, 2006 2:03 PMNow I'm thinking of Chris Rock's whole Jude Law obsession from the Oscars.
Posted by: Mason | July 5, 2006 2:47 PM