A little spattering of movie thinks

I have seen another popular movie. It's called the Da Vinci Code. You might have heard of it. I heard all sorts of bad things about it, that it was too slow, that Tom Hanks was miscast, that it wasn't cool. So, I thought to myself, "That's too bad." But then my wife and I gave it to my parents for Christmas and watched it with them. My thoughts on the movie follow:

It was a really good movie! Totally aced it, says I. The really intriguing parts of the book are the conversations (some of the action sequences in the book are fairly convoluted and laughable), so I was all set for a movie chuckful of intriguing conversations and general cleverness. Here's what makes the movie work. It has Ian McKellan. The man is on a serious roll. He's acting out of his mind. He's brilliant as Teabing (silly character name). Totally makes the character come alive. Next, it has Paul Bettany. Because I carefully select the movies I watch, I've never seen a bad Paul Bettany movie (Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander, Da Vinci Code). Talk about a character actor...Imaginary friend, Doctor/naturalist/musician, albino killer monk. Those are relatively disparate role. The general construction of the movie was good too, particularly the use of French when French people are talking to each other (instead of the always awkward French people talking to each other in English with French accents). That was a nice touch. And I'm glad that Ron Howard left out the forced romantic feelings between Sophie and Robert. It felt tacked on in the book and worked much better in the movie. I did spend the entire movie wondering why Tom Hanks has hair as bad as Tobias's hairplugs in Arrested Development. Is he so cool now that no one can tell him, "Hey Tom, not a good look for you"?
No conclusion. Never a conclusion

I saw Churchball. Typically, LDS movies kill me (in a bad way). However, this one featured Fred Willard and some nameless Wilson brother that I pretended was a real Wilson brother seeing how he looked and sounded like one. Like all LDS movies, they played bits too death (the foreign player for Mud Lake was terrible and the fat guy was little better) but it was better than the RM. Ringing endorsement there, I know. Hey, I laughed out loud a couple of times at someone besides Willard, which impressed me. I wouldn't recommend it as then I would be very uncool, but if you caught me in an alley and asked me (without being wired) if it were a decent movie, I might make a sign that could be interpreted as "Yes". That quote should go on the back of the DVD. That's how self-important I am. I think that people should care about what I say.
I think that's a conclusion. How irresponsible of me.

Soon available to the mass public!!!

"Oy, Will the Day Never End? The collected fiction of Douglas Call vol.1"

Yeah, my brothers published the first volume of my collected works. It includes all my absurdist plays and my absolutely awful 7th grade work "Fun in Zimbabwe". It's pretty cool to have it in a book.