1171 Tell Me.

While inking pages I had one of those weird youtube moments where you start with one thing and somehow end up a long way from the starting subject. I went from the idea that the Angry video Game Nerd is psychotic to the current royal family of England is illegitimate. The idea is being presented by Tony Robinson, who played Baldrich in the Blackadder television series. He’s actually hosted a ton of documentary style shows too, but Blackadder is where I first encountered him. In any event it was a strange ride. Usually I wouldn’t watch a show like this, but Robinson sold me on it.

The teen wanted me to watch a movie called Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones with her. Fair warning there may be spoilers ahead. It’s based on a book series she likes, and is rare in that she could actually describe the plot to me in detail both before, and after, the viewing. In addition to that she can point out changes from the source material. I only bring this up because watching most movies with her is more like me watching while she texts. Once finished she is unable to accurately describe more than 25% of the movie. My new favorite case in point is Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Which was related back to me thusly:

Doctor Jones likes treasure, or something, but that guy takes it from him. Then there’s that girl and they go to Egypt to look for something. SNAKES!!! Then there’s ghosts that melt Nazis?

Which, now that I look at it, is an incomplete, but succinct, description of the film. Maybe I judge her retention too harshly. She’s also terrified of snakes. To the point that she can’t look at a photo of a snake without screaming. Which is how I keep her out of my iPod now. I had forgotten just how snakey Raiders is. There’s a 30 minute section where she just screamed and hid her face. I wouldn’t normally have treated her to immersion therapy, but my memory failed me in this case, and I didn’t fully comprehend how deep her fear of snakes is…

Anyway, City Of Bones is not terrible. It’s not great, but it’s watchable. Unfortunately the pacing is such that a lot of the dramatic elements feel very forced. You’re never given time enough for it to feel like the characters should act the way they do. There may have been too much book to compress into this little movie. Mortal Instruments rockets along leaving the casual observer feeling like they missed something along the way. I wonder if people who didn’t read Harry Potter felt the same way. I feel like the HP movies did a good job of selling the friendship of the cast, but I can’t divorce myself from the bias of having read the books.

In any case, as I said, it wasn’t terrible. Although you could tell that the implied incest subplot made someone in the writer’s room uncomfortable because they made a point of not pulling a Star Wars with it. Still, on the whole it was more tolerable than, say… a Step Up sequel or a Fast And Furious sequel, which I refuse to be subjected to.