I'm Not Here. I'm at Starbucks.

[the_gneech]

Well, the first week of my three-week strip break has come and gone, and I haven't gotten anything done. Why? You guessed it: because I'm at Starbucks! I go to Starbucks shockingly early in the morning, work there until early afternoon, come home, and pass out until evening, then spend the evening in a groggy stupor, trying not to think about the fact that I have to rush back to bed to get up shockingly early the next morning.

On the positive side, we just had a store meeting tonight, and I got a "Mug Award" for being Mister Nice and Friendly, as well as the official announcement of my promotion to Shift Supervisor/Communication Specialist.

There have been a few moments of wakefulness spent not at Starbucks ... in fact, I had all of Friday off (which I gather is a good thing ... the store got slammed on Friday by all accounts). I spent most of Friday catching up on my e-mail, running errands, and doing the preliminary work on the Stack'O'Commissions which I had fully intended to have sent out the door by now.

Mostly I've spent what free time I have hunting for another job, and watching movies because that doesn't require me to do anything but sit and absorb. Today's movie was last year's turkey "The Musketeer," which was an attempt to merge Alexandre Dumas' famous swashbuckling stories with Hong Kong wire-fighting action movies.

Unfortunately, it failed on both fronts. The few action sequences that weren't stolen straight out of other movies (look for the ladder fight from Once Upon a Time in China particularly, dittoed nearly move for move), were uninspired or even just plain dumb. And as The Three Musketeers, it was an insult. Richelieu was a nervous, ineffectual bungler; there was a completely unnecessary "you killed my parents, prepare to die!" subplot added in; Milady DeWinter was absent entirely; and M. Treville was inexplicably blown up. Overall, the movie just left me with the unpleasant sensation that the people involved just weren't trying.

Anyway, it's almost 11:00, and I still have to get tomorrow's guest-strip ready to go before I go to work shockingly early in the morning, so I guess I better go. G'nite, world.

-The Gneech

Comments

G'nite!

[murrrmaiyd.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Gladiator? Try that one, I liked it very much. And K-Pax...

Mur

Re: G'nite!

[blacktigr.livejournal.com]

You liked K-PAX? I thought it was trite.

Re: G'nite!

[murrrmaiyd.livejournal.com]

Ok, yes, I admit it was trite and predictable, but I liked it just the same. My kind of trite, I guess. :)

Mur

[nirvana-kid.livejournal.com]

yes, the musketeer was horrible. worst movie i've ever seen.

[jamesbarrett.livejournal.com]

My opinion of the movie was, "Hey, the fighting is somewhat cool, but I know that scene!! Theives!!" -Frisk

[tygermoonfoxx.livejournal.com]

As a movie ---not an attempt at recreating Dumas' classic--- I enjoyed The Musketeer overall. However, since Dumas' work happens to be among my favorites, I noticed the things you mentioned. My husband had to threaten to sit on me so I'd stop the blow-by-blow in the theater while he was trying to watch it!

"The Musketeers" is a somewhat better movie, although it is intended to be comedic rather than a serious treatment of the story. It tells the story from the point of view of D'Artagnan. You might try that one if you haven't already seen it.

We've seen "Count of Monte Cristo" recently; THAT one was well done and mostly accurate.

Dumas ain't no movie writer

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Cough, cough, cough! *Wipes up his drink* I beg to differ, and strongly. The recent movie, though an entertaining swashbuckler, does a terrible job of effecting the story as told by Dumas. In fact, the more I think about them in comparison, the more I think that, while tCoMC is a great story, it simply does not make a good movie by American standards (though I understand the miniseries starring G. Depardieu is very good). I was, not surprisingly infuriated by the movie's lack of book-ness (for lack of a better word), though I did my best to enjoy it, as it was a date with my beloved Cameron, of her devising.

Re: Dumas ain't no movie writer

[tygermoonfoxx.livejournal.com]

I said it was a BETTER attempt at recreating Dumas' work, not that it was perfect. Dumas as a writer was prone to long descriptions and didn't always tell his stories in a sequential format. For instance, the book starts out with the ship pulling into port and THEN the main character recounts what happened aboard ship that kept them for so long.

Admittedly it would have been far more enjoyable if they hadn't monkeyed with the plot and rearranged pieces to suit them (or if I hadn't read the book) but how many people in the American public willingly read Dumas anyhow? I doubt most of the people who saw it even realized it was a book or that it was a semi-nonfictional commentary on the harshness and unjustness of the society that Dumas lived in.

At least it wasn't The Musketeer, which I hated with a passion for reducing the richness of Dumas' writing to a poor comedic routine with slapped together plot and borrowed antics.

Re: Dumas ain't no movie writer

[blacktigr.livejournal.com]

A-hem, that would be me.

Adored the book, detested the movie. The way they monkeyed, as you say, with plot and characters made me almost choke on my milk duds.

I haven't seen the Musketeer movie, but then I don't have quite as much personally invested in the story, so I bet that I could probably enjoy it.

Just wondering aloud...

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

*Wonders what The Gneech would do if I walked into his Starbucks, ordered my drink, then proceeded to sit down and blatantly read my copy of _La_Vida_Panthera_ without identifying myself.

Re: Just wondering aloud...

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Probably not notice 'cause I'm too busy running around getting other people their drinks... :) -TG

Re: Just wondering aloud...

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd make sure you noticed... :)