A Sperm Whale and a Bowl of Petunias…

You know what I think is entertainment?

The part of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (either in radio, book, television or film format) where the two guided missiles aiming for the Starship Heart of Gold spontaneously (and improbably) turn into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias.  The bowl of petunias simply says “Oh, no — not again” before it hits the planet’s surface (explanation comes in the third book of the series). The sperm whale has a nice three-minute monologue of happy self-awareness before it explodes on impact.

Douglas Adams decided to put the whale in there for comedic purposes. His thought was that we often focus on the main story without even thinking about the repurcussions which occur when something remarkable happens.  So he lingered a bit on this utterly pointless sperm whale which suddenly pops into existence and dies moments later. Just to be different.

Which is also why I find Monty Python and the Holy Grail entertaining. A documentarian is killed by a knight early on — and they cut back to it as the police come in and investigate the death of this insignificant character.  Even a cheesy film like Airplane! where they cut back to the guy waiting in the taxi in front of the airport a few times during the movie — I just happen to like that stuff.

I also liked Mystery Men with Ben Stiller, Janeane Garafolo, Wiliam H. Macy, Hank Azaria and quite a few others. I had never read the comic book (or “graphic novel” for those of you who feel the need), but I liked that these superheroes were simply minor league schlubs in life. “The Blue Raja” still lived with his mom. “The Shoveler” was a devoted dad or completely whipped by his wife — or, perhaps, both. I liked the randomness of it all.

I also enjoyed Back to the Future II. Hell, give me a time travel story of any kind where someone tinkers with the present and I’ll watch it. Even Timecop. Just about any episode of Sliders before it started getting weird.  I like the alternate reality of it all.

Which is why I decided to plunk down more than ten bucks to watch The Watchmen this evening. On an IMAX screen.  For those of you unfamiliar with IMAX, it’s a Slovenian word for “the sound is really fucking loud.”  I felt that the film would have all of the hooks which I mentioned above: it deals with an alternate 1985 where Nixon is still the president. It has superheroes I had never heard of — some of whom with questionable super powers. (Like pointy ears.)  And it certainly focused on the aspects of the superhero story that you don’t see often.

One thing to point out here –  I knew nothing of the backstory. I never read the graphic nov comic book. I knew only two of the performers in the movie. And although I had seen some great Internet publicity for it, I honestly didn’t know what the movie was going to be about.

Here are a few of my observations (without giving any of the plot away):

* Large soda: $5.75.  Large Popcorn: $5.75.  Their Value Combo #1 — which consists of a large soda and a large popcorn?  $11.50.  Where’s the special value in that?  (I opted for the medium – but was asked if I wanted to purchase the combo. Sneaky…)

* The previews were all IMAX previews. Which was kind of cool for the Star Trek one — even though I had already seen that preview on the computer. If anything, the IMAX previews made me feel more reassured in my decision to never, ever watch the second Transformers movie.

* The movie was very long. Close to three hours. I usually love this — it means more bang for my buck.  But after the two hour mark, I was looking at my watch.  And kept looking at it. I think we’ve been conditioned not to pay attention for more than 122 minutes at a time.

* I recognized Malin Akerman right from the start — from, embarassingly enough, her role on the HBO short-lived Lisa Kudrow series The Comeback. Hot.  Knowing that this was an R-Rated film with a rather high concentration of gratuitous blue penis scenes, I was relieved that she, too, helped make this film ripe with adult content.

* Matt Frewer?  Love you, buddy. I’ve adored you since your Max Headroom days. But honestly? You’re really scary looking. Have been for quite a while now.  You continue to be fun — like your dog-catcher role on Eureka. But still a bit weird. And the fact that they gave you pointy ears in this movie? Didn’t help your cause, bro. Made you look like Spock undergoing chemo…

* I’m a sucker for flashbacks. Seeing the same character progress in age over 40 years is pretty impressive. And they did that quite well here.

* And character development? They truly focused on just about every single character. Everyone had to say his piece.  Everyone had to tell his backstory. At first I found it brilliant. Detailed! Truly exploring the depths of what made each superhero tick!

And then after about an hour of it I found it kind of annoying and whiny.

* You know how when you leave a sci-fi  or fantasy movie, you’ll have a bunch of geeky folks passionately discussing the message of the movie, arguing if the point was made thoroughly or not? Well – the last half hour of this film was the main characters (all geeks in their own right) debating the message of the movie, interdispersed with loud special effects and fighting! It’s as if they already anticipated that everyone would talk about it — so they decided to jump the gun!  I really wanted to give these main characters a serious wedgie. And I would have — if I wasn’t so scared that it would expose more gratuitous blue penis.

Mystery Men was funnier. I would recommend waiting for it to come out in IMAX.  I’m glad I had a chance to see Watchmen, though –  and I’ll probably catch it again on basic cable.