Will Hines Dot Net

Don’t Point That Thing At Me. Dave Martin recommended this book to me. I’m halfway done, and it’s already one of my favorite books ever. It’s a crime novel, technically. But it’s more like a Jeeves novel in the way the main character fusses over his drink selection, and espouses on the benefits of eating at this time of day versus that. And how he orders around his devoted servant Jock. But there’s also murder, alcoholism and art theft. Here’s a quote from the first chapter, just after a member of the secret police is subtly accusing the main character of having stolen a Goya masterpiece.

‘That,’ I said crisply, ‘is a valuable Savonnerie rug. Port is bad for it. Moreover, there is probably a priceless Old Master cunningly concealed beneath it. Port would be very bad for that.’

He leered at me nastily, knowing that I was quite possibly telling the truth. I leered back coyly, knowing that I was telling the truth. From the shadows beyond the doorway my thug Jock was smiling his civilest smile. We were all happy to the casual eye, had there been such an eye on the premises.

That’s fun, people. I don’t quite get all the British references (it was published in Britain in 1971, I think), but I get the fun of a novel with no good guys in it.

My kittens have turned into 2 big fat cats.

I was catching up with my bills today when I found a Jury Summons. Apparently, I was supposed to report to Jury Duty July 7. More specifically, I was supposed to phone the night before and see if I needed to report.

I didn’t phone. So that means I ignored a summons. I’m a criminal now.

I guess there’s point in following any of the rules anymore.

RecIEve! There! ‘I’ before ‘e’ EVEN AFTER c! Take that, rules! You can’t stop me! I’m from the wrong side of the law!

Good night.

Okay, here’s my problem with the Fantastic Four movie. Yeah, Jessica Alba was miscast (The Denise Richards syndrome of trying to pass off an eye-makeup laden sex doll as a world-class geneticists doesn’t fly with this former honors geek). And the special effects weren’t quite there. And the villian — the unfortunately-named-if-you’re-trying-to-avoid-stupidity-in-your-movie Doctor Doom, wasn’t given enough time to develop. I think I could ultimately forgive all of that.

No, my problem is one of personal taste. And that is that by the end of the movie, it was clear to me that the only character the director REALLY related to was the Human Torch, and the Human Torch was a dirtbag bully piece of trash — exactly the kind of person I was getting away from when I was reading comics.

I cannot rationally describe this as a fault of the movie. I mean, the Human Torch rang the most true in the movie. He gets most of the fun moments. He extreme bicycles, and extreme snowboards and cockily pursues all women. And the movie felt the most fun at those times — making me believe that the director loved those moments, and that that fun was coming through. But on the other hand, it’s as if Stifler from American Pie was given super powers. Even the music of the movie — lots of Rage Against the Machine-ish stuff (or whatever this decade’s equivalent is) — made me think it was being made for near-metalheads whose lifelong highlight was taking their motocross bikes for a fucking rad wheelie before exploding an M-80 inside of a frog.

That “extreme everything” skater trash is actually a decent interpretation of the Human Torch, who spent his time in the 1960s comics souping-up hot rods and driving around models. But I guess the difference is that in the old comics this is an incidental ingredient, not the main motif. In the comics I remember (and yes, these pre-conceived notions DO make it impossible for me to enjoy the movie on its own terms), the FF was not Jackass in blue jumpsuits. It was a group of squabbling scientists shrinking into the Macroverse to negotiate a treaty with the Skrull World before coming home and discovering liquid light and beating the crap out of Nano-man. It was for geeks!

Despite this problem, I was pleased to see a lot of light, funny moments. Even in its lame movies — which this is one — Marvel seems to remember that it was personal moments that put itself on the map back in 1961.

Tomorrow, Kevin and I will see the new movie The Fantastic Four. We plan on being disappointed. Brian will be with us in spirit, even though he will be recovering from his Sinatra-like week in Las Vegas.

In an effort to practice my editing skills, I updated the short film “Guy Talk” which I made with Terry Jinn and Sean Conroy. It features a frank discussion between Swamp Thing and Man-Thing. I reduced it from 3 min 45 sec to 2 min 33 sec. That’s worth something, I guess.

• Guy Talk .mp4 (whatever that is) – 8mb
• Guy Talk .mov (QuickTime) – 18mb

Kevin and I went to the Film Forum on Sunday to see a double feature of Marx Brothers movies: Horse Feathers and Duck Soup. Much of the comedy has dated badly, but that just makes the stuff that works all the more amazing to me. Although right in the middle of Duck Soup was this joke which I had forgotten about:

Groucho, to Teasdale and a few others: “I guess I am a little headstrong. I come by it honestly, though. My father was a little headstrong. My mother was a little Armstrong. The Headstrongs married the Armstrongs, and that’s how darkies were born!”

Ah yes. “Darkies.” Nice, Groucho. Nothing like a little racism to remind us what decade the movie was made in. I’m not even sure I understand the joke, but it took me out of the enjoyment of the movie. Dyna reminds me that there’s even more blatant racsim in A Day At The Races. Perhaps, but that movie isn’t even funny. So at least the racism there isn’t interfering with something I’d still like to enjoy. Not that I’d want some Board of Wish We Hadn’t Said That to edit it out, but it does take away from the greatness of the film.

Besides that moment, there is still a lot of truly funny stuff in Duck Soup and Horse Feathers. As Kevin pointed out, the jokes themselves are rarely what makes you laugh but the strangely laid-back attitude the Marx Brothers seem to have as they delivered them. Like this:

Poker player to another player: “Cut the cards.”

Harpo enters scene and swings axe at deck, splitting them with a loud crack.

Then he waves at them and leaves the scene.

It’s the wave that’s funny. They give the impression of KNOWING that the jokes are stale, and that somehow makes the whole movie hilarious.

When the plot is inconvenient, they don’t even bother to make sense. Horse Feathers may have my all-time favorite movie ending, since it features — without explanation — three Marx Brothers marrying the female lead at once. Mind you, although there was minor flirtation, there was no evidence of a relationship or even any strong longing from them for this girl. Nor is there an explanation of how three men could marry a woman at once. I guess it just seemed like a proper ending to a comedy to have people get married.

I’ve done some computer tinkering just for fun recently. Among the tasks I’ve completed:

• Added a past screenings page to the Channel 102 site.
• Added an RSS feed to the Channel 102 site, so people could theoretically subscribe to the site.
• Drastically reduced the amount of style commands on both my blog and on Channel 102. Also consolidated the PHP code on Channel 102. The improvment in speed is not noticeable, but having the code be cleaner makes me feel a sense of satisfaction as if I just untangled all the phone cords in my house.
• Deleted all unnecessary files from my web server.
• Adjusted the blog so links to specific posts look like “www.willhines.net/2005/06/24/something” rather than “www.willhines.net/index.php?blah=this”

None of these tasks are that hard. But they also all require some know-how. In the world of car repairs it’s probably the same difficulty as changing your own brake pads — which is more than just changing oil, but not as insane as rebuilding your engine.

I also haven’t showered in two days and my apartment is coated in an unbroken sheet of cat hair.

Kevin and I performed two-man improv at Variety Underground last night. It was a fine time, and we included a decent number of references to our hometown of Danbury, Ct including our old A&P and Martin’s tuxedo shop. Actually, Kevin probably didn’t know that Martin’s was a real place. But it’s where I rented my tuxedos for both the junior and senior prom. For the junior prom (1987) I wore a silver tuxedo with a pink cumberbund. That decision was made during my month-long Era Of Fashion Boldness, which was followed by an 18 year period of Blue Shirts And Khakis Are Good. Martin was an actual person who owned the store. He was an old man, and I liked to imagine that I was helping keep a mom-and-pop store alive with my choice of patronage. He did go out of business when I left Danbury for college, which supports that theory.

Kevin and I bill ourselves as The Brothers Hines (our tagline is “We’re related.”). After the show a woman came up to me and said “I would never have guessed that you two were related.” Then she paused and added “Ever.” I would like to have known what she was thinking of during that pause.

A few weeks ago I was introduced as “someone who does comedy” to a group of people at a get-together. About ten minutes after that someone said to me “I could never imagine you being funny.” Good to know.