And a bottle of rum

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on Thursday evening. I’m not really in the right frame of mind to write a comprehensive review, but in a word: j’adore.

The overall impression I got from the various reviews I read was that it was overlong and overcomplicated. The former doesn’t really bother me: I sat through and loved all of the Lord of the Rings movies, not to mention Grindhouse (which was my favorite movie until now). As far as I’m concerned, the longer the better: if I’m going to spend $9 for a ticket, I prefer to be entertained for more than an hour and a half.

As for being overcomplicated… I personally had little problem following the plot, but I can see where others might have been lost. But that entire line of argument strikes me as a little beside the point, frankly. The entire Pirates franchise has been a shining example of the sort of Saturday matinee adventure genre. Like other stand-out films of that type (the Indiana Jones films, the 1990s Mummy remake), the story is pretty much just an excuse to get have impressive choreographed action sequences. And the action sequences in this movie are better than anything since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (which, similarly, had plot holes you could drive a mack truck through).

And that, to me, is the key element here. Most modern action movies are certainly exciting, but they’re almost universally dour affairs. Take Casino Royale for an example: one of the major selling points of that movie was that it removed the sillier aspects of the James Bond franchise that had managed to persist even after the series turned its back on the deliberate camp of the Roger Moore films three decades ago. Daniel Craig’s Bond was a wounded, humorless individual. The same thing applies to, say, Batman Begins, which was advertised as a return to seriousness for a franchise that had descended into levels of camp that would have embarrassed Adam West (which, come to think of it, was pretty much the same way that Tim Burton’s 1989 film was advertised…).

Please don’t get me wrong: I loved both Casino Royale and Batman Begins, and I think both films deserve credit for revitalizing their franchises, both of which had sunk pretty low with recent installments. There’s a difference between doing lighthearted and doing lighthearted well, after all. The difference between Batman and Robin and At World’s End is that the latter actually does manage to have fun with itself without descending into pathetic self-parody. It’s not a comedy, to be sure, but when Johnny Depp gets involved in a sword fight, it’s a lot more fun than when Daniel Craig gets involved in a gun fight.

And that goes a long way towards letting me overlook any other flaws in the film. I went expecting to be exhilarated, not necessarily intellectually engaged. As it happens, I think the film was well written, but even if it hadn’t been, I’d have come out of the theater satisfied. Which is more than I could say for the rather disappointing Spider-Man 3. And given my disappointment with Shrek the Third, I’m relieved to say that At World’s End managed to finally break the string of bad second sequels that had been building ever since the execrable X-Men: The Last Stand.

Since I mentioned Daniel Craig earlier, I should also point out that I got to see the preview for The Golden Compass as well (in which he features). As a fan of Philip Pullman’s books, I must say that I’m quite thrilled about the overall look of the production, and the casting seems pretty much spot-on, as well. So that’s another film I’ve got to look forward to before the year’s out. Even considering the disappointment of Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third, it look like 2007 could still turn out to be a great year for the silver screen.

Dio, can you hear me…?

I’m not a big fan of metal. The music, that is. I’ve nothing again a good chunk of tungsten. But I’ve a few acquaintances who are, and they might well be thrilled with this news.

In brief, Holy Diver, the Japan-only Famicom game based on the album of the same name by Ronnie James Dio, has finally been fan-translated to English. I personally never quite got over the fact that there was a Dio-centric video game, let alone a Dio-centric video game released only in Japan, but whatever. It’s actually, against all expectations, a halfway decent action game, so if you’re into that sort of thing, it’s worth checking out.

Bugness in his veins

They Might Be Giants’ new album, The Else is out now at the iTunes Music Store. I really, really like TMBG, enough that I’m even willing to swallow my distaste for the klunky, unintuitive, and poorly configurable mess that is iTunes in order to purchase their latest album 56 days in advance of its official CD release date. Since purchasing it shortly after midnight on Tuesday, I’ve listened to it so much that, if it were an old vinyl LP, I’d already have worn a hole through the album itself and into the turntable itself. Since I’m now so intimately familiar with it, I feel like sharing a few of my thoughts. It’s not exactly a full review, as such: if you want that, I suggest you head over to Critical Hits. This is a just a few scattered observations and opinions from a dyed-in-the-wool TMBG fan.

To start with, it’s certainly different than I expected. I don’t want to diminish the breadth of John Flansburgh and John Linnell’s impressive catalog, but there’s a definite TMBG “sound” that’s pretty much unique to the band and has remained identifiable for over twenty years. That sound isn’t exactly missing from The Else, but it’s been significantly transformed. While the two Johns remain as lyrically inventive and irreverent as ever, the music itself feels a great deal more polished and, I dunno, mainstream than usual. Which is far from a bad thing, actually, particularly when the result is as rocking as it is here. My experience with the Dust Brothers (who co-produced the album) is limited to their previous remix of the band’s “Snail Shell,” which set my teeth on edge. But they’ve certainly done right by me this time.

There are a number of truly excellent songs on the album: “I’m Impressed” is a nice opener that reminds me a little of “Certain People I Could Name” from their 1999 internet-only album Long Tall Weekend. I’m not as impressed with the second track, “Take Out the Trash,” nor the third “Upside Down Frown,” which are basically by-the-numbers Flansburgh and Linnell compositions, respectively, that bring very little to the table that I’ve not heard before. After that, though, it’s one superb song after another. Climbing the Walls boasts some fairly traditional Linnell-penned lyrics, but sounds like nothing else they’ve done. It’s nothing short of electrifying, and quickly became my favorite song on the album. Running a close second is the next song, “Careful What You Pack,” which may be Flansburgh’s best tune in years. Next up, Linnell’s “The Cap’m” is a fun, if not particularly original, song. “With the Dark” is a bit of an oddity, more of a collection of three one-minute songs than a three-minute song in its own right. But that’s not a knock against it: it goes from moving, to powerful, and back again and is up there with the best of the album. “The Shadow Government” is a bit of a let-down, really: Critical Hits’s review I linked to above described it as the next in an ongoing series of Flansburgh songs with interesting lyrics but a boring melody, and I think that’s pretty much spot-on.

“Bee of the Bird of the Moth” was one of only two songs I was familiar with before buying the album. It strikes me as having a very “Particle Man” vibe, with more-or-less nonsensical lyrics, ostensibly about the Hummingbird Moth. What sets this one apart, again, is the musical arrangement, which is a lot glossier than I expected when I first heard the song performed live in concert a year ago. I’m not sure what to make of the next song, “Withered Hope.” I like it… but it’s hard for me to say why. It’s not that interesting, musically, and the lyrics fluctuate between the clever and the banal. The best I can say is that it’s Linnell’s delivery of the lyrics that really does it for me. “Contrecoup” is the other song I was already familiar with, having heard the demo version performed for NPR on what was basically a bet: take a handful of obscure words from the dictionary (“contrecoup,” “limerent,” “craniosophic”) and construct a song around them. The album version here isn’t fundamentally different from that demo: it’s extended slightly, and more polished, but nothing major. And I still like it. “Feign Amnesia” is a cute throwaway, as, for that matter, is the final song, “The Mesopotamians,” a weird little piece clearly inspired by the theme song to the Monkees about a band comprised of four historical figures from ancient Mesopotamia (where else?).

As I write this, The Else has catapulted right into third place in my personal list of the best TMBG albums, after John Henry and Lincoln. As much as I liked their last full-length studio album for adults (2004’s The Spine), this one has surpassed it in almost all respects. I can’t say with certainty what I’ll think of it once that “new album” glow has worn off in a few weeks, but the initial signs sure look good. And I can’t wait for the official CD release in a month and a half, complete with a full-length bonus disc of new recordings. If you’re not already a fan, The Else might not win you over, but it should, dammit….

In need of Heroes

First, an administrative note: my old URL of wildfiredarkstar.net should now redirect to my current digs here at WordPress.com. Unfortunately, I’m still working out some of the kinks, and you may notice a variety of odd bugs if you don’t come in directly to the WordPress site. I’m going to see what I can do to correct those, and I’ll let you know when I’ve got it all sussed out.

Anyway, with graduation under my belt I finally have a limited amount of free time on my hands again, which I have decided to waste by returning to Heroes of Might and Magic V, which I began months ago and subsequently forgot about as real life caught up with me. My first impressions, from oh-so-long ago now, were that the gameplay itself was quite impressive, with a good battle system that borrowed successfully from games like Final Fantasy X while keeping the best of what worked about previous installments in the series. On the other hand, the story has serious flaws, both in its conception and its execution: a cliched fantasy plot delivered through outdated-looking 3D cut scenes with laughably bad voice acting. But now that I’m giving it another go, I’ll see if my initial perceptions have changed. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon!

A couple of notes about my new digs….

If you’re a regular visitor to my blog (and I’m not sure such a breed actually exists…), then you’ll notice how things have changed around here. My one year contract with Dreamhost expired, and I really wasn’t using the service enough to justify flushing another $100 down the drain to renew it. So I made the financial decision to move to a free blog service, and so, here I am at WordPress. Unfortunately, this means I’ve had to abandon a lot of my customizations to the skin I was using, as well as bidding a sad farewell to my random lyric widget. But, hey, not being broke is a good thing, right?

I probably could have imported or copied my older posts here, but I didn’t see much point in it. It’s not like I said anything of particular interest in that time. Besides, I’m looking forward to using this relaunch as a kind of fresh start. I actually want to start using my blog as if it were a blog, which means more regular posting and a more freewheeling style. For that, I don’t need the past hanging around my neck like an albatross.

On a related topic, I was bemused the other day when I found this Universe Today story linked from Slashdot’s main page. Here’s an excerpt for those who don’t care to read the entire article:

A team of researchers is proposing that massive quantities of dark matter formed dark stars in the early Universe, preventing the first generations of stars from entering their main sequence stage. Instead of burning with hydrogen fusion, these “dark stars” were heated by the annihilation of dark matter.

I’ve been using the blog name “Darkstar Rising” for over a year now, and the online nickname “Wildfire Darkstar” for considerably longer than that. But now I feel like I’m at the cutting edge of astrophysics. Plus, it gave me a new image header, which I personally think is a lot snazzier than the old solar eclipse image I used to use. Woo!