The Avengers
Kind of a blah day. The weather promised a day full of thunderstorms and rain, but instead we just got mostly sunny with brutal humidity. Liars. Rain would be nice. (We got some last night, but it was at 4 am so I couldn't really enjoy it.)
After watching a couple of Batman episodes I went into work for a few hours. Things went pretty well and I'm optimistic that I can wrap up primary development of my last log for this development phase tomorrow. It was a drag to be in the office, but I doubt it would have been any less of a drag to be elsewhere.
Oh, yes: Bitches Brew turned out just fine despite the scratches, so I'm pretty happy with having gotten it for just ten bucks. However, I'm finding that I'm definitely not much of a fan of the "jazz fusion" sound of the 70s as exemplified by this album, Chick Corea's Return to Forever stuff, or Weather Report. Too much noodling around and not enough solid music that drags you in to listen to it.
I also decided to put off buying Filemaker Pro 'til next weekend (or, more likely, 'til after payday), since I doubt I'll have any time to work with it until then.
The film goes disastrously wrong from the outset, with a muddled, pointless opening sequence with the over-atmospheric soundtrack playing. Then we jump to John Steed (Ralph Fiennes), who works for "The Ministry", showing off his stuff (to the tune of the original TV series' theme music, which beats the heck out of the muddled incidental stuff in the rest of the film). August DeWinter (Sean Connery) has a weather control device with which he plans to blackmail the world, and he's framed Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) for the deed.
Steed and Mrs. Peel are introduced during a relentless tea-time which takes precedence over all else. This is entirely out-of-character for the real Steed, who enjoys his luxuries but would never let them get in the way of real business. Indeed, the real Steed could handle business and pleasure at the same time, because he's that good.
So Steed and Mrs. Peel size each other up in a fencing match, which mrs. Peel wins, which is another thing that doesn't make sense. The two are equals and partners, and this sort of light tension just doesn't play well. Nor does the more overt signs of a romance, which pretty much shafts a lot of the fun of the pair's relations from the TV series.
And in a terribly misguided attempt to capture some of the TV show's wonkiness, we have Connery and his henchmen parading about in giant toy bear suits, Mrs. Peel trapped in an impossible maze (figure that one out; the TV series had lots of strange happenings, but there were usually plausible explanations for them, or at least an attempt to make you suspend your disbelief), and an invisible man (played by Patrick MacNee, the original - and one-and-only - John Steed).
Yes, this was pretty much a muddle, drawn up (it seems) by people who didn't know or care about the real soul of the TV show.
The sad thing is, The Avengers could make a really great movie. Start with Steed and Mrs. Peel already being partners, and get away from the explicit attachment to the government through Steed's boss Mother (a sad leftover from the show's substandard sixth-and-final season [not counting the 70s sequel series The New Avengers]), and fergoshsakes write some dialogue that captures the characters better. Throw out the world domination plot and draw up some smaller, sillier plot that has some direct value to Steed or Mrs. Peel, say, the murder of one of Steed's old comrades (there's a reason they're called "The Avengers", y'know). Don't try to jam in a whole bunch of weirdness, but stick to a single theme, and get someone to compose music more directly based off the original series' themes. The show's supposed to be light, not dark and gloomy and atmospheric as we often have here.
Of course, The Avengers really relies on two things: The dialogue, as I said, and the actors playing the principles. And Fiennes and Thurman don't really cut it. Okay, I can cut Fiennes some slack, since he seemed to be doing his best with a poor script, but Thurman doesn't really have that light touch that the role needs. (Okay, I admit it; Uma Thurman is a good-looking woman, but I'm not a fan.) Who else could we get?
How about.... Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson are The Avengers!
Okay, maybe Branagh isn't the ideal choice either (though I think Thompson would be a terrific Mrs. Peel). But you have to admit, Patrick MacNee stamped so much of himself on that character, with his face and voice and little mannerisms, it's hard for anyone to follow suit.
So, maybe the most honest approach to take is this: Don't even use Steed and Mrs. Peel, but create an entirely different duo, with their own quirks, perhaps reminiscent of the original pair. Put them through the plot, and then at the end find out that their boss is... John Steed (Patrick MacNee, of course).
Sort of Mission Impossible done right, I suppose.
Hey, it's worth a shot.
Now, I'm not really a believer in the tarot (if I were, I'd keep my deck in a safe place wrapped in silk, rather than in its original paper case gathering dust underneath a pile of books on chess and cards), but I may have hinted before that I am sometimes fascinated by elements of the supernatural. Sort of like, I wish some of them were true, but I know they're not. So it's just a game to play, and one that probably at most reflects the attitude of the reader.
The reading was mixed. A lot of major arcana (six of the ten cards). General uncertainty about myself, concern about material things, a lot of upheaval ahead of me, major choices to be made, and probably not leading to the outcome I hope for, although perhaps leading to enlightenment.
Yeah, definitely more a reflection on the reader than anything else.
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