Just saw the news that Bob Einstein died. Unexpectedly, I guess. Most folks probably do not know his name, but to me, he's a comedy treasure. Lately, he'd been a long-running feature of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," playing Marty Funkhouser (how's that for a comic gold surname?). Einstein had a very long career, mostly in writing comedy, going back to the Smothers Brothers Hour, which he occasionally appeared on, too. But I think what I'll remember most about him is what he did to my dad when playing Super Dave Osborne, first on John Byner's mid-80s cable television program "Bizarre." Super Dave Osborne was a very one-note character, a sort of deadpan Evel Knievel-type who always crashed and burned. Really. The stunt would always switch Super Dave to a dummy about half-way through, and very obviously, and it was always hilarious. I loved it, but sometimes I thought the gag was going to kill my dad, he would laugh so hard. It was great to see him when he first appeared on "Curb," and Marty was a fantastic (and fantastically clueless) character. I'll be watching some Einstein stuff tonight, for sure.
[Note: In his CNN obit, I learned that he was Albert Brooks' brother....never knew that. Brooks changed his name, so he wouldn't be "Albert Einstein." Makes sense.]
Last night, New Year's Day, and sort of cold and dreary out, we stayed in and watched the screen. One movie we watched for the first time in many years is a definite fave of ours "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." This is just one of THE best sci-fi relationship movies ever. Well, come to think of it, it might be THE only sci-fi relationship movie, but damn, is it good. This was the first time we'd seen it in maybe ten years, so I'd actually forgotten some major plot points. And that's good.....makes things feel fresher. I won't even go into detail about the movie, as you've probably seen it. It's just brilliantly constructed and full of life truths. And optimistic, ultimately. Nice.
Also last night, my curiosity got the best of me. For decades, I'd heard how bad "Batman & Robin," the fourth and final of the 80s-90s series of Batman movies, was. Michelle seemed to have some fond memories of it, but they seemed to mostly revolve around the design of the Poison Ivy character, not so much about the actual movie content. I decided we should give it a go. Is it as bad as all that?
Well, yes....and no. I learned a few fun facts after watching it. After the third movie, "Batman Forever" (which I haven't seen, either), Warner Brothers wanted to get the next one out in two years, rather than the previous movies' three-year gap. And they, along with returning director Joel Schumacher, wanted to play up more of the campy 60s show aspects of the characters. The problem with that idea is these previous movies (and I'm assuming for the third one) were all mostly serious in tone, with only occasional flashes of goofiness. So, without going into too much detail about the plot or characters, I'll say that yes, this is one silly movie in a lot of ways. There is some seriousness to it at times, but it's hard to digest any of that when some awful one-liner shows its head to destroy any tonal solemnity. I looked often at Michelle in disbelief when some of these came up. I think the worst ones were from George Clooney's Batman. Especially that goddamned credit card one. Jeeziz. You expect them from the villains, but those Batman lines, sheesh.
So, I'll say that "Batman & Robin" is by no means a good movie, but it's not terrible, either. I didn't feel as if I'd wasted my time, I'll put it that way. Watch it again? Uhhhh.......no.
And I watched "Dunkirk" again. That's something I've been meaning to do for awhile, as I watched it the first time on a smallish monitor on a computer. And I liked it much, much better this time. Not that I didn't like it before, but the beauty of its construction was much more apparent to me this time. A comparison I would make, which might seem odd, would be with "Mad Max: Fury Road." Both movies don't have much in terms of character, plot devices, or dialog. They rely on the action on screen to tell the story, and both do this extremely well (the fact that both are overwhelmingly practically made, as opposed to the usual CGI glut, helps a lot). One more thing, I really, really like the movie is 1:46 in length. Nice. Most movies today, regardless of genre, top two hours and none of them for any good reason....although I suspect the real reason is "hey, we have an effects budget. And, here it is! All 39 straight minute of it! The studio wants to see those bucks on dat screen!" Nothing gets me yawning faster than continual fake action on a movie screen. If I wanted to play a video game, I'd play a video game. Okay, rant over.
It continues to be rainy and cold here, so I suspect a night of drum practice and movie watching is in the cards once again. I'm using the movie watching as an excuse to pedal my stationary bike more, too. Going to seriously try to lose a few pounds this year. At long last.
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