Thursday, December 28, 2017

Sooner or Later, She Always Gets Her Man

Started off another freezing morning at work. It was...kind of boring. I was by myself for my entire shift. The other bagger who was supposed to work with me was the one who quit on Christmas Eve. We may not have needed him anyway. The older women who were managing early today pretty much just said "do what you usually do." I put away returns, gathered the front end trash, checked the bathrooms (they were fine), and rounded up carts and baskets.

It was too cold to linger after work. I went straight home. Besides, I had a package waiting for me. The second part of my Amazon.com order had arrived! I ordered two Star Wars books. I've mostly been trying to stay away from the original Expanded Universe, unless Han and/or Leia were exclusively involved. I know it has quite a few fans, but it ultimately got too complicated for my tastes, with too much going on and far too many characters to keep track of. I do have fond memory of the books that more-or-less launched the Expanded Universe, the Thrawn Trilogy. I was able to find Heir to the Empire and Dark Force Rising at used book sales, but the third one continued to elude me. Finally gave up and bought The Last Command from Amazon.

They finally put out a Shakespearean version of The Force Awakens in October, The Force Doth Awakenth. I had to have it. I loved the versions of the Original Trilogy I bought from Amazon last year. There's ones for the Prequels, too. Maybe with tax return money or for my birthday.

Went right into writing when I got home. Maz Kantana, the head of the Takodana gypsy clan, is able to frighten the Living Trees with fire, enough to get them to release their captives. She takes them back to the gypsies' camp. Her clan have Snap, Poe, and Rose in their custody. Snap reveals that Sir Kylo Ren has accused Poe of stealing the sheep. Poe says they won't solve the real mystery until they can actually find the sheep. Maz reveals that Barnaby is keeping them at his Crooked Castle.

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Ran a couple of public domain fairy tale cartoons as I made scrambled eggs with escarole. Mr. Piper was a series of limited-animation shorts from the early 60's that had a jolly live-action gentleman introduce stories based after Arabian Knights stories and lesser-known fairy tales. My favorites included "The Kindhearted Girl," a variant on "Baba Yaga," which had a young girl escape from her wicked aunt by treating everything in her household kindly. "The Proud Princess" is basically the Hans Christian Anderson story "The Swineheard." A prince gives a beautiful princess a rose and a songbird. The princess, however, is so vain and materialistic, she rejects the gifts as too simple. He dresses as a swineheard and offers her gifts...if she'll kiss him. "Brave Molly" is "Molly Whuppie." Molly may be small, but she's clever enough to rescue her sisters and the queen from an evil giant.

Did two Little Audrey shorts that also involved fantasy as I cleaned up from dinner. "Goosey Goosey Gander" has Audrey in school, complaining that Mother Goose rhymes aren't as cool as her gangster comics. She dreams herself into a modern Mother Goose world...but the gangsters somehow follow and wreck havoc. "Tarts and Flowers" takes her to Cake Land, where she helps the gingerbread boy rescue his angel food cake bride from the devil's food cake.

Finished the night after a shower with Dick Tracy. Audrey's not the only one enamored with the world of kooky gangsters in bright-colored suits. Dick (Warren Beatty) is a square-jawed cop who is determined to clean up some of the strangest-looking criminals this side of the Batman comics. His girl Tess Trueheart (Glenne Hedley) wishes he'd just settle down. His main target is Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino), who organizes all the syndicates in the city, while promoting chanteuse Breathless Mahoney (Madonna). Breathless would be willing to testify against him, if Dick was a little more interested in her. There's also the little street urchin who helps Dick on several occasions, to the point where he more-or-less adopts him. But someone on the streets is determined to bring both Dick and Big Boy down, leading to an explosive confrontation on New Year's Eve.

Worth seeing for the eye candy alone. There's no movie that looks quite like this one. It strives to be as comic-book as possible, with mugs dressed in every color of the rainbow and sporting faces that belong on a rack of masks at Halloween. No wonder this movie won well-deserved Oscars for its Art Direction and Makeup. I'm fond of the Stephan Sondheim songs as well. "Sooner or Later" won another Oscar, but my favorite is the touching ballad "What Can You Lose?"

Unfortunately, that makeup hides quite a few cameos. Celebrities ranging from Dick Van Dyke to Catherine O'Hara to Paul Sorvino are virtually unrecognizable. Another flaw is...you really can't care much about most of these characters. Tracy being basically a loyal block of wood probably comes off better in the comics than he does here. Beatty's flat performance doesn't help. Pacino and Madonna are far better as the over-the-top mob boss and the singer who would rather have Tracy than her grotesque bosses.

If you're a big fan of comic book movies, Sondheim, or the cast, this is absolutely worth checking out.

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