The Captain
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Post by The Captain on May 21, 2021 21:40:01 GMT -5
Nightmare is one of the holiday traditions at my house. My wife, daughters (both teens now) and I watch it, along with Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Christmas Story, every year, so maybe my feelings toward it are skewed a little by emotion, but that is how things are for lots of people. I personally can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life", yet my wife adores it because she grew up watching it every year with her parents while I did not with mine. And the songs? You dare impugn the work of the brilliant and talented Danny Elfman? As a long-time Oingo Boingo fan, those are basically fighting words 😁
Elf was fun. Plus, I learned from the credits that I went to high school with two of the elves.
Watching Charlie Brown Christmas amounts to a religious pilgrimage, except it's at home. Perfection.
My friend's kids would watch Christmas Story, but I was never able to get into it. Same with Nightmare before Christmas. Loved NbC's art design (IMO Tim Burton's only real talent), but the writing and (sorry, Captain) music were completely forgettable. Christmas Story I can at least appreciate, even if it doesn't do anything for me.
My experience with It's a Wonderful Life was similar to your wife's, but with the opposite effect. I ended up buying my mom the video in self-defense.
A Christmas Story is a special movie for me, as it is the ONLY movie I ever saw im a theater with any of my grandparents. I never knew either of my grandfathers, as one died shortly after coming home from WWII (he was a doctor in the Pacific and came back not quite right, eventually committing suicide in 1948 just months after my father was born) and the other passed from cancer when I was less than three years old. My maternal grandmother lived in Memphis, TN, and I only saw her six weeks every two years (two every summer two every other Christmas). She does get credit, however, for giving me my first comic books ever and setting me on the course I've been on for 40+ years. My paternal grandmother lived about 15 minutes away from us when I was growing up and I was fairly close with her. Right before Christmas 1983, she took me to lunch at a restaurant in the local mall, bought me a Dungeons & Dragons action figure at Kay-Bee Toys in the same mall, then took me to the theater behind the mall for a matinee showing of "A Christmas Story". It was a great day for me and for my relationship with her. We watch it every Christmas morning after opening gifts and while eating cinnamon rolls before we get into other things prior to my sister and my mother coming over for more gift-giving and dinner. Is it a great movie? No, but it is a great memory for me and is becoming part of my family's history, which is something I'm finding important as the years go on by and my daughters get older. As for NBC's music, I'll respectfully disagree and leave it at that. I find some, although not all, of the songs very hummable throughout the year.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on May 21, 2021 19:09:19 GMT -5
Wait, all this discussion of Tim Burton and not a single mention of The Nightmare Before Christmas? Out of all of his films, that's the only one that I really love. My biggest problem with Burton is when he tries to "reimagine" something that another person did before him (and most likely did it better). There is one good scene in his Willy Wonka version (the greeting at the factory, where the singing dolls catch on fire and melt), but the Apes, Dark Shadows, Alice, etc. movies are just him putting his weird spin on something that already exists, like a kid taking the Mona Lisa and giving her a tattoo and pink hair. When he has an original idea to work with, he does far better. Pee-Wee, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, even the first Batman, Sleepy Hollow, and Mars Attacks (not his ideas, per se, but things that hadn't been done before on film, not counting the 1960's Batman which bore little resemblance to Burton's) have a certain "magic" to them that his adaptations just don't. Plus, I'm tired of seeing Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter chewing scenery together in his movies. Nightmare Before Christmas was directed by Henry Sellick. Burton is credited as creating the characters. I'm thinking he sketched up a bunch of character designs. I think he produced the movie, and hence it's "Tim Burton's .....". Someone else wrote the story and yet someone else wrote the screenplay. I feel like the love for this movie has given him a ton of undeserved praise, which he has coasted on for years. I am also in the extreme minority of people who HATE this movie. I felt the "Christmas but Halloween" trope wore thin very quickly, and thought the songs were amateurish and grating. My measuring sticks at the time were The Little Mermaid and Little Shop of Horrors, and it just didn't even come close to the same level of storytelling or charm. I quite like Sellick's subsequent movie, Coraline. Fair enough. Nightmare is one of the holiday traditions at my house. My wife, daughters (both teens now) and I watch it, along with Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Christmas Story, every year, so maybe my feelings toward it are skewed a little by emotion, but that is how things are for lots of people. I personally can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life", yet my wife adores it because she grew up watching it every year with her parents while I did not with mine. And the songs? You dare impugn the work of the brilliant and talented Danny Elfman? As a long-time Oingo Boingo fan, those are basically fighting words 😁
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Post by The Captain on May 20, 2021 18:59:33 GMT -5
Wait, all this discussion of Tim Burton and not a single mention of The Nightmare Before Christmas? Out of all of his films, that's the only one that I really love.
My biggest problem with Burton is when he tries to "reimagine" something that another person did before him (and most likely did it better). There is one good scene in his Willy Wonka version (the greeting at the factory, where the singing dolls catch on fire and melt), but the Apes, Dark Shadows, Alice, etc. movies are just him putting his weird spin on something that already exists, like a kid taking the Mona Lisa and giving her a tattoo and pink hair.
When he has an original idea to work with, he does far better. Pee-Wee, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, even the first Batman, Sleepy Hollow, and Mars Attacks (not his ideas, per se, but things that hadn't been done before on film, not counting the 1960's Batman which bore little resemblance to Burton's) have a certain "magic" to them that his adaptations just don't.
Plus, I'm tired of seeing Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter chewing scenery together in his movies.
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Post by The Captain on May 19, 2021 14:05:58 GMT -5
Hey, I'm cool with you, my wife, and other folks liking them, and you're more than welcome to as many of them as you can eat.
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Post by The Captain on May 18, 2021 17:41:26 GMT -5
You guys are missing out. They are AMAZING. Especially with a little salt and a splash of lime juice. Nope. I've tried them many different ways and none of them appealed to me in the least.
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Post by The Captain on May 18, 2021 17:05:35 GMT -5
I wish I had an avocado tree. It would save us a lot at the grocery store. I used to know someone who did have one. Visiting them was awesome. Never had an avocado tree, but back in 2002, I stayed with a friend of my soon-to-be-wife's out in Fremont, California for a month while I was looking for a job out there, and this woman had an orange tree in her backyard. Nothing quite like waking up in the morning, going outside, picking a fresh orange, and having that with my bowl of Cheerios. One of the companies I used to work for, however, DID have an avocado tree, or more to the point, an entire grove of them out in Bakersfield, California. It was on property the company had acquired to drill oil wells on, and they cordoned it off and kept them growing. Once a year, at harvest time, they would send four or five giant boxes to the Pittsburgh office for us to have. I would always grab two for my wife to make guacamole, but I, like adamwarlock2099, would never put one of those things anywhere near my mouth.
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Post by The Captain on May 18, 2021 8:39:32 GMT -5
I will second the nomination for @bert. Even being on just one Zoom call with him proved he knows a great deal about many things and will gladly expound on those subjects, sometimes in quite profane ways 😉
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on May 17, 2021 8:58:57 GMT -5
It's New Who for me. Being American, I really didn't grow up with Doctor Who as a regular part of my childhood; it was on PBS, but it just seemed weird. I didn't even really get introduced to it until David Tennant's turn as The Doctor when I stumbled across it on cable on the BBC America channel. Watched all of his seasons, as well as Matt Smith's and Peter Capaldi's, then went back and bought the Chris Eccleston series (which came in a set with the Tennant years) so I could watch them. Haven't seen the Jodie Whitaker series yet, because we dropped cable and then Doctor Who moved to HBO Max or Now or whatever.
My ranking of "new" Doctors, with companions, in order of how much I enjoy them: 1. Matt Smith with Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill 2. David Tennant with Freema Agyeman 3. Peter Capaldi with Jenna Louise Coleman 4. Matt Smith with Jenna Louise Coleman 5. David Tennant with Catherine Tate 6. David Tennant with Billie Piper 7. Peter Capaldi with Pearl Mackie (only watched this series once, however, so this could change) 8. Chris Eccleston with Billie Piper
I just don't like Rose Tyler, as her character is awful, her mother is awful, and Mickey is awful; she just basically all-around annoys the crap out of me. Billie Piper is good in other roles I've seen her in, but I can't stand this character (although there are a few episodes, like "The Girl in the Fireplace" that I really enjoy, but it's in spite of her, not because of her).
My older daughter watches Classic Who on Pluto TV and enjoys it, but I just can't get into it. It reminds me too much of the kind of stuff that MST3K and RiffTrax tear apart, and I spend my entire time watching it coming up with things in my head that I would say if I were riffing on it.
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Post by The Captain on May 16, 2021 19:23:17 GMT -5
Back in the day, the owner of my local LCS tried to push Preacher on me, having noticed that I was a big Sandman and Hellblazer fan. "It's super violent!" he said enthusiastically, which unbeknownst to him was absolutely not the way to get me to try a new comic. I passed. Months later I bought and read the second collection, thinking "what the hey." And yes, there was violence in the book (although so caricatural that it amounted to Road Runner violence). But the humour, authentic drama, social commentary and lack of preachy politics won me over. That mag was my favourite comic for many years after that! Heartily recommended. Really. I'll take your word for it, for the time being. I still haven't read Y The Last Man and Fables (other than the first few issues), which are more up my alley. I have digital of Vertigo, if I get an urge to look at it. Preacher is mostly awesome, although it does hit some slow and low points (the Meat Man storyline toward the end). I sold my complete run years ago right after they announced the TV show and made A TON of money, as I had no intention of reading it again. Tried to read Y The Last Man, but only made it through the first 10 issues. Just didn't grab me. The first 75 issues of Fables are spectacular, as they tell a complete, well-thought-out story. The rest of the series is still above-average, but there is a distinct feel to it like they knew they had to keep going since the book was popular but didn't really have a plan to make that happen. I liken it to the TV show Supernatural, which told a complete story in its first five seasons and could have stopped at the end of that and it would have been satisfying, but they kept going and the remainder was mostly good but you could tell that they didn't have a real roadmap for a good portion of it (although I would say the last three seasons were pretty much focused on the finale).
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Post by The Captain on May 12, 2021 6:58:15 GMT -5
Marvel just saved me a TON of money by announcing that the previously-canceled facsimile copy of Werewolf by Night #32 (it had been scheduled for some time last year) will finally be released in July. And just like that, the last expensive floppie on my Want list is taken care of for less than a fiver. Everything I'm looking for now is relatively inexpensive or else can be found in the bargain bins. I also have a few places where the "copy" is standing in for the actual comic. I could never afford Avengers #1 and 4. I do as well. Incredible Hulk 180-182 are the True Believer, Milestone, or Facsimile versions. As well, my New Mutants 98 is the TB version. I sold my "real" copy of that book when someone offered me $350 for it just after the TB edition was released, and since I don't have any affinity for the character, that was a no-brainer deal.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on May 11, 2021 19:03:27 GMT -5
Marvel just saved me a TON of money by announcing that the previously-canceled facsimile copy of Werewolf by Night #32 (it had been scheduled for some time last year) will finally be released in July.
And just like that, the last expensive floppie on my Want list is taken care of for less than a fiver. Everything I'm looking for now is relatively inexpensive or else can be found in the bargain bins.
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Post by The Captain on May 11, 2021 8:16:32 GMT -5
Before always. I don't currently set an alarm (except for Sundays) at thks time, but when I did when I was at my last job, I might have made it to the alarm once a month MAYBE.
Even if I do make it to the alarm, I never hit snooze. I trained my body back when I was a restaurant manager years ago that when the alarm goes off, I get out of bed and get moving. First off, I am not going to fall back asleep for 10 minutes, and secondly, there have been too many instances with friends and coworkers where I've heard "I thought I hit snooze, but I accidentally turned the alarm off and overslept by an hour".
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Post by The Captain on May 10, 2021 20:36:37 GMT -5
It's Maximum Carnage without Spidey, Demogoblin, or any of the other comic book elements. Watered down version of a bad comics crossover will likely lead to bad movie.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on May 10, 2021 10:29:34 GMT -5
Proud Dad Report:
Got a text from my older daughter this morning to let me and her mom know that she lettered in swimming as a freshwoman this year. The older girls on the team told her that getting it as a 9th-grader was really hard and would be the biggest barrier to doing it all through HS.
She's so thrilled because she really wanted to be able to get her jacket to wear around as well as potentially be a four-year letterer.
Her excitement (as well as her sister's when she succeeds) is what makes being a parent all worthwhile.
#girldad
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Post by The Captain on May 9, 2021 18:56:47 GMT -5
I have an oddly-specific request, probably more suited for our European (and even more so for our UK) members. Can anyone give me recommendations on Irish, Scottish, and Welsh female folk singers, either solo artists or those who are the frontwoman in a band? I'm good with traditional folk songs as well as original contemporary compositions. Why am I asking this? Two reasons: 1. Our local member-supported radio station has a folk show on Sunday mornings from 6 until 8, and as I drive back and forth to the grocery store at that time, I like to listen to it (most of the other stations have their "public affairs" programs on, and I have zero interest). Around St. Patrick's Day, they played an entire show of Celtic music that I really enjoyed, as opposed to their usual show that is US artist heavy and much closer to bluegrass/country (it's fine and all, just not my preference). 2. There is little sound in the world as beautiful as the lilt in a Celtic woman's singing voice. I have zero shame in saying that one of the reasons that I would love to, when my wife and I retire, spend six months of the year in the UK is that I simply love to hear the Irish/Scottish/Welsh accent spoken but more so sung, especially by a woman. Confessor , anything you can help me out with, either mainstream or more hard-to-find (maybe internet-only)?
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