Logging

Film: The Expendables

I turned this one off also at the 35 minute mark. Something about the Netflix streaming makes it easier to stop watching things. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I suppose because I'm not paying per view, it makes it easier than if I had bought a movie ticket or rented the DVD. The quality - I reiterate - is absolutely awesome on the Netflix stream to the TV. Nevertheless, the movie was terrible. What was the deal with the Arnold Schwarzenegger bit? It was literally as if Arnold showed up on set one day and they were like, well, we gotta write something for him. His presence in the scene made absolutely no sense whatsoever. The movie almost could work on a comic level - hey guys, guess what, I got Dolph Lundgren playing a drug addict - that alone might be worth checking out. But I'm growing a bit old for the whole laughing at or celebrating holy-fucking-shit movie stuff. I dunno, doesn't hold the same appeal as it once did. Maybe as more time passes, one realizes these things aren't worth it.

On a side note, I've been watching a lot of Seinfeld recently. I got home tonight, dead tired and wanted to watch something. Expendables didn't work out and re-runs were on. Man, the show is so great. I'm beginning to rethink it might be the best show of all time, ahead of The Wire and Sopranos. There is something amazing about the old-fashioned TV structure, where you can literally enter the universe of the show on any given episode, not need to be briefed about what happened before or later, and simply enjoy the world for that 1/2 hour. It really is a brilliant structure and totally unique to television. Serialized dramas like The Wire or Sopranos, while perhaps more "sophisticated," in the thematics, but are more rigid in their structures and almost more like televised novels than true television with the commercials and everything. Also, Seinfeld seems to grow with age and capture new, young fans who weren't even alive during the heydey of the show. Can one say that about The Wire or Sopranos? Are those shows for only a niche, sophisticated audience? Doesn't it seem like all the people who will watch The Wire or the Sopranos have already watched the shows? Seinfeld, you get the feeling, will be watched 25 years from now and enjoyed just the same.