Aphelion Editorial 028

Last month, I treated you all to my attitude towards the StarWars movie - I still haven't seen it - but I think I figured out what's been keeping me out of the theaters for the last few years.

It's the hype.

I thought back over all the movies I'd seen or avoided over the last decade - the over-hyped ones were usually disappointing if I saw them, and the more modestly advertised films were much more fun. Usually. I have to confess that ads on TV now make it look as if "Phantom Menace" was filmed merely as a demo for a video game. I seem to have given up on video games lately, so you can imagine my negative delight every time I see an ad for the "Pod Racer" game. Never have liked those plug-in-to-the-TV kind of games, anyway.

I did go see "Mystery Men" and had a great time. That's a really neat movie. I plan on buying the video when it comes out. Although DVDs are begining to look better - to start saving shelf-space. Go see it for yourself - "Mystery Men" is worth the price of the ticket. If you like the Tick, or even Plastic Man, you'll like this movie. To paraphrase Brian Eno: "Wanna-be superheroes give you so much more."

What's really strange is that I've been avidly reading Mike Tanier's "Superhero Nation" here in Aphelion - with Mike's own slant on superhero wanna-be types - and the two tales dovetail oddly.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I've been cheating myself out of good movies by not going to the theaters more often. Its not the theater I have to avoid, its the hyped-up-but-disappointing movies. There are many, many more films out there - that aren't pushed on the public - that are worth going out to see. I plan on going out to see more of them now that the ice has been broken, so to speak. I may be in no hurry to see "Annikin Bratpacker" in the present and upcoming "Star Wars" installments, but "Mr. Furious", "The Shoveler", and "The Blue Raja" have spoken to me in a language that I cannot resist. That language is the belly-laugh and the bon mot.

Thanks for your time.

Dan

THE END

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