Less Awful
Some clouds this afternoon, but mostly sunny, and we went all the way to 84˚F, but missed the predicted 87˚F.
I slept, at most, three hours last night. The latest bout of insomnia has to stop. So, I didn't sleep, and because I didn't sleep I didn't write or get any paleo' work done. I managed some reading, and that was the only work-like thing I accomplished.
But my mood remains pretty good. And I have gained about five pounds since I last saw my doctor, back in January. This helps to offset the ~20lbs. I lost during the COVID-19 lockdown.
This afternoon, because why the hell not finish what I started, I watched Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002). So, on the one hand, it has aged much better than its predecessor. It is, all in all, a far better looking and better paced movie that The Phantom Menace, and, mercifully, there's hardly any Jar Jar Binks. But the screenplay is wretched. The acting is wooden, and that, of course, is because whatever skills Lucas once had as a director has long-since been lost when he finally made Attack of the Clones. Of course, this time out, some of the "credit" (id est, blame) for the awful dialog this film puts in the mouths of its characters comes via Lucas' co-writer on this screenplay, the absolutely unremarkable Jonathan Hales. And, I just gotta say, Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu is one of the most egregious cases of bad casting ever. And yeah, we get Christopher Lee, and he does better than most with what he has to work with, but...Count Dooku? Really? In all the many, many years that Lucas had to hammer away at this thing, the best character name he could devise for an arch villain is Dooku? And then there's Hayden Christensen, but at this point saying anything about his performance is not so much beating a dead horse, it's digging up the bones and whacking at those. There is simply no point in the entire 142 minutes where Christensen even manages to rise to the challenge of Lucas and Hales' terrible, terrible screenwriting. And, yeah, I'm left wandering how much Lucas the Director is to blame, as I admit I have never seen the actor in anything else (and am left with no desire ever to do so). So, in summation, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones is, indeed, a much more attractive film than Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and I appreciate that, but the film should be carried by story and script, acting and direction. This film is all frosting and very little cake.
Okay. I'm gonna try to get some more reading done before dinner.
Later StarTaters,
Aunt Beast (who actually is a Star Wars fan, really)
4:41 p.m. (yesterday)
I slept, at most, three hours last night. The latest bout of insomnia has to stop. So, I didn't sleep, and because I didn't sleep I didn't write or get any paleo' work done. I managed some reading, and that was the only work-like thing I accomplished.
But my mood remains pretty good. And I have gained about five pounds since I last saw my doctor, back in January. This helps to offset the ~20lbs. I lost during the COVID-19 lockdown.
This afternoon, because why the hell not finish what I started, I watched Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002). So, on the one hand, it has aged much better than its predecessor. It is, all in all, a far better looking and better paced movie that The Phantom Menace, and, mercifully, there's hardly any Jar Jar Binks. But the screenplay is wretched. The acting is wooden, and that, of course, is because whatever skills Lucas once had as a director has long-since been lost when he finally made Attack of the Clones. Of course, this time out, some of the "credit" (id est, blame) for the awful dialog this film puts in the mouths of its characters comes via Lucas' co-writer on this screenplay, the absolutely unremarkable Jonathan Hales. And, I just gotta say, Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu is one of the most egregious cases of bad casting ever. And yeah, we get Christopher Lee, and he does better than most with what he has to work with, but...Count Dooku? Really? In all the many, many years that Lucas had to hammer away at this thing, the best character name he could devise for an arch villain is Dooku? And then there's Hayden Christensen, but at this point saying anything about his performance is not so much beating a dead horse, it's digging up the bones and whacking at those. There is simply no point in the entire 142 minutes where Christensen even manages to rise to the challenge of Lucas and Hales' terrible, terrible screenwriting. And, yeah, I'm left wandering how much Lucas the Director is to blame, as I admit I have never seen the actor in anything else (and am left with no desire ever to do so). So, in summation, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones is, indeed, a much more attractive film than Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and I appreciate that, but the film should be carried by story and script, acting and direction. This film is all frosting and very little cake.
Okay. I'm gonna try to get some more reading done before dinner.
Later StarTaters,
Aunt Beast (who actually is a Star Wars fan, really)
4:41 p.m. (yesterday)