Shelves of Grey

Heartwarming scene this weekend at Barnes & Noble: a mother and her daughter both looking at a copy of 50 Shades of Grey. They seemed to be bonding over it.

Actually, I was more alarmed by the number of copies of the book B&N had. Not only were there two big shelves filled with the novel, there were two hand dollies filled to capacity too, books just waiting to be placed on the shelves once the other batch are gone. This is how fast the book is selling: the shelves may be filled now but they’ll be gone soon so we better have a bunch more on standby!

See! For The First Time!

Don’t you hate it when you go to a site and the first blog entry in quite a while starts off with “I’ve been meaning to update this blog but…?” Yeah? OK, I won’t even mention it then.

Instead, let’s talk about bad movies! Just when you think you’ve seen all of the horrible movies that have been made, along comes Frankenstein vs. the Space Monster. It was on IFC earlier today and when I saw the title and the premise I had to stop my channel surfing and watch it. It was released the year I was born and somehow I feel compelled to apologize for that.

I love bad movies – or should I say “good” bad movies, the kind that are so bad they’re entertaining – but this was a chore to get through. Even the editing of the trailer can’t hide was a hideous mish-mash this is (and note the last word uttered by the announcer – long before Fry the pizza delivery guy it was used at the 1939 World’s Fair):

Bad acting? Check. Ridiculous special effects and make-up? Check. Stock footage? Check! Check! Check! Add to that girls in bikinis and explosions and 60s beach party music that seems to come out of nowhere. Oh, if you’re looking for some sort of Frankenstein in this movie, you’re probably going to be disappointed (unless you don’t mind if your Frankensteins are half human/half android astronauts).

This is one of the many bizarre scenes. No, there’s nothing wrong with the video (unless of course there’s something wrong with the video):

According to Wikipedia, the film is also known as Mars Attacks Puerto Rico.

You might have noticed that the launch date of The Letter has been pushed back from April to June. I want to get it right. I’ve said that before and it hasn’t changed. I just haven’t gotten it right until now. I’ve been playing around with what form the monthly letters should take and pretty much convinced myself at one point that they should lean more toward elaborate newsletters or magazines than actual letters. But then I realized that was rather dumb since it would ruin the intent of the thing. Expect the first one in the middle of June (and thanks for subscribing).

Have a great weekend (which you’ll probably spend at The Avengers. I’m waiting for the DVD.)

Drill, Bang, Crunch

Day 7 of the water pipe repair outside my apartment. They’re using some device that sounds like a gigantic Dyson vacuum cleaner sucking up concrete and metal.

A reminder: Professor Barnhardt’s Journal is back (I’ve added a link to it in the menu above). The latest post is a selection of Random Links. Did you know that Dick Clark owned a house that looked like something out of The Flintstones?

Soitenly!

The new Three Stooges movie opens today and I have a piece about it at CliqueClack Flicks (yes, we have a film section too!)

Please note that it’s not a review. I haven’t seen the movie yet and probably won’t until it comes out on DVD, but I do write about the very idea of a movie like this being made.

Back to Titanic (and PBJ)

So this is the week we’re all supposed to be hip and cynical and try a little revisionist history and declare that, hey, you know what? Titanic was a terrible movie after all! Sorry, it was great in 1997 and it’s still great, even if James Cameron has decided to go back to it with the frequency George Lucas revisits Star Wars (with less changes – the iceberg still shoots first). Sure, I would have been happier if L.A. Confidential had won the Best Picture Oscar that year – such a great flick – but it’s not like Titanic was some surprising, bad choice out of nowhere. But you can’t have everything. Some get the Oscar, some get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona.

Even “My Heart Will Go On” is a good song, helped immensely by the instrumental version that is used several times in the movie. You didn’t get emotional when Jack was in the water and Rose was crying? You have a heart of stone!

But it’s fashionable to dislike Titanic. It’s so phony and emotional and the dialogue is clunky and how can you like DiCaprio and the ending is so sappy and etc etc etc. And oh my God it’s so MAINSTREAM! Sometimes it’s as if people just can’t friggin’ enjoy something. That’s something that you’ll hopefully outgrow when you get to a certain age.

But enough about 3D films, this is what I really want to talk about today: Professor Barnhardt’s Journal is back! Yes, I ended it in January after 10 years, but I decided to bring it back. It’s part of my “quit something three times” project (see also: Facebook). I was thinking about PBJ recently and thought, why end it? It’s not something that has to be updated every day, I can just think of it as another section of this site instead of a separate entity (though it does have it’s own RSS feed – please follow it!).

So there you go. It will continue to have interviews and book excerpts and links and videos and essays and recipes and all the stuff it has had since 2002. PBJ: Taste it again for the first time.

Hope you continue to enjoy it (and stay tuned for the launch of another web site this summer – hint: it involves booze!).

Have a great weekend, and a Happy Easter!