He's A Demon on Wheels

Happy Thursday! It's been a busy week! But also a good one even if it could have been better.

I spent the weekend at Beth's in Pasadena since I had a whole four days off. Unfortunately, I also spent it with a massive head implosion of allergies or something. It's still trying to drain. Here's what we did:

wandered around at night and found the best taco stand in the world
ate at Kansai
watched old episodes of Speed Racer
ate at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles
watched The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl
went to every used book store
went to three downtowns that were parallel universe versions of each other
ate mystery desserts at Famima!!
made up so many inside jokes--19 pomegranates????

I went to school on Monday, too, and had wonderful lunch with Sam who had a very busy weekend. I also saw Shayfer and Parham and Michael but I avoided the last one. And then I hacked into the school computers and played Bejeweled for a while on Facebook!

So it was superfun.

The Speed Racer we watched I got from the store, episodes 1-11. I just today found out that Hulu has EVERY EPISODE online for free, so I can die happy. I didn't know that I would like this old wacky show that much, but I should have known better. There's something about campy old shows remade into modern movies that I can't resist. Batman, Star Trek, and I was watching that Scooby Doo movie from a couple of years ago and felt the same about it. Must be that if "camp" were a genre, then it might be one of my faves.

High School Musical, anyone? (Sharkboy, for that matter? Josie and the Pussycats?)

The difference between the original 60s shows and their modern counterparts is that the style of storytelling and filmmaking from back then was very direct, while I would argue that today's styles favor subtlety and shades of ...understanding, if that makes any sense. By today's standards, Speed Racer seems very unsophisticated, not just in drawing style but in pretty much every regard. Granted, it was only intended as a children's cartoon, but even stuff for kids these days has a much higher standard of quality.

So we look back on Speed Racer's insanely fast dialogue, Captain Kirk's overly dramatic posturing for the camera, Batman's ridiculous tights, and we laugh. With the exception of the old Batman show, none of what we laugh at now was meant to be humorous back then. That's what makes it campy, the idea that at the time, people were doing what they were doing and it was srs bsns. I think what I like most about those sorts of things is that I can enjoy both what it looks like now and what it was trying to be at the time.

Listening to the SPEED RACER soundtrack over and over in my car (does not make for safe driving), I can't help but realize that that movie is one of my all time favorites. It's just something that clicks with me, on multiple levels, and my fondness for it does not take into account the opinion of anyone else. Watching the source show only makes it better, seeing all the little things that, blended together, form the guts of this story. Like having a favorite uncle and then reading his diary about all his adventures that made him who he is. I don't know.

You try explaining why you love something when all you know is that you do.

-Steph

PS
BSG THE PLAN comes out on Tuesday. So it's sitting on my table downstairs, ready to get its Cylon watch on.

PPS
Blogger had a freakout (bX-5eka1d) so for right now this note is Facebook-exclusive. Cool, huh?

PPPS
This ppps is Blogger-exclusive. Cool, huh?