May 5, 2005

Hitchhiking Through Bad Movies and Good Humor
Everett

For the most part, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was a good movie. It was fast-paced and retained as much of the humor (Being an Amurriken, I refuse spell it in that pretentious British manner;).) from the book as could be reasonably expected. Furthermore, most of the changes were very funny, especially the trip Vogsphere. My biggest problems were that they changed Trillian from a woman looking for a bit of adventure to a woman looking for the right guy, and they didn't resolve Humma Kavula bit.

Now, having not seen "The Grudge", "Titanic" or "Batman and Robin" (the last two on principle), I can't vouch for their badness. However, I have a hard time believing they're any worse than the following: "Plan 9 from Outer Space", "Hobgoblins", "Final Justice", "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" (PBS' venture into Sci-Fi/Horror), "Attack of the the Eye Creatures" (Yes, I know I repeated the word "the". So did the people who made the movie.), "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" (Yes, that's Santa Claus, as in I live at the North Pole and make toys for children Santa Claus, conquers the Martians, as in warlike green men from the red planet, Mars Martians.), "Final Sacrifice", or "Hobgoblins", the only movie I've ever seen that actually caused me physical pain.

Finally, I feel that it is my patriotic obligation to make a defense of American comedy (or at least the portions of it that deserve defending) against the vile slanders that have been leveled against it. It is certainly true that much of what passes for comedy in America today, be it in movies or tv shows, is crap. I will not deny this. However, it does not follow that the best stuff America has to offer fails to hold up against the best stuff the British, or anyone else, have to offer. I highly doubt that any British lineup could hold up against "I Love Lucy", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Leave it to Beaver", "Home Improvement", "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Cheers", "Seinfeld", "News Radio", "Night Court", "The Simpsons", "Married with Children", "Malcolm in the Middle", "The Addams Family", "The Munsters", and Looney Tunes (pre-1980). People may want to make various additions and subtractions to the above list, but I'll stack it up against any list of Brit-coms any time.