Get your own geek!

For a way too detailed summary of The Librarian, please see Kenny's.

My semester is over now, and i have time for such trivialities as watching tv movies again. I taped it, and watched it last night....

Do they know what a librarian is? Granted, librarians have a tough job keeping the world safe for democracy. But they don't do it by guarding magical artifacts. they do it by bringing information to the public, not squirreling it away in a secret cave. Stephanie is right. I was mulling over
alternate titles too, and couldn't come up with anything good. but given the plot and asked to come up with a title, librarian wouldn't have crossed my mind at all. I guess "the archaeologist" would just make george lucas sue.

all through the interview they keep saying "the librarian." as if there's only one, and no one finds it strange, not the hundreds of applicants and not wylie. but i supposed since they all answered magic letters, they're not the questioning type.

As for the artifacts, I never had time to devote to fully explaining why national treasure is the worst movie premise i've ever heard. but, suspending unresonable amounts of disbelief, pandora's box? I'm no classicist, but i was pretty much under the assumption that the story of pandora's box explains why there's so much crap in the world today: disease, murder, evil, poverty... and then, magically, there's hope too. never have i heard that the resolution to the story was that all the crap magically got stuffed back in the box. Hope is the resolution. there's crap, but then hope makes it seem less bad. yes? so, that would mean, if pandora's box exists it would currently be empty? yes? my cursory google search confirms this. is there another story i
don't know about?

so, nerd boy, who's never been on a plane in his life just ups and heads for the amazon. newhart (who's fantastic, and really the reason i was able to stick around to the end of this movie) and curtain just send him. they give him no preparation. the fate of the world is in his hands, adn they don't even try to help. granted, he has all the book smarts in the world, yet he can't open a bag of peanuts.

on the plane we meet nicole noone (also known as tough english chick). guess what bob newhart tells him--"trust noone"... ahhh, priceless...

so the movie progresses exactly the way i would imagine. people do dangerous things and find treasures after solving complicated puzzles. this seems rather like "the game" that those nerd boys in palo alto play where they go on "treasure" hunts following ridiculously cyrptic clues. honestly, the premise of this movie must be their biggest fantasy.

So, of course, good triumphs over evil. the spear, is safely back in "the Library" where it can be friends with the sword in the stone (which nerd boy pulled out, so now he's the true king) and the sword of destiny (are they the same, i don't know) and ultimate power is now in the hands of the library (or whatever it is that the spear is supposed to grant) this premise, which is not explored at all, rather amuses me. I'm sure everyone wants to believe that their chosen profession is the best. But now mine is, just try to stop it. if hitler caused all that trouble with a bit of the thing, just think what the library will do to you if you stand in it's way. bow to the power of the library!

also worth noting: nerd boy gets hot chick. this is something that's really lacking in most things i watch. i don't claim to be an expert, it could be more widespread than i believe. but i like seeing it. it's something that so rarely happened in all those 80's movies where the social classes all try to get along. they all learned a lesson in the end--but the nerd boy never got the girl. wussy, weak nerd boy who needs a girl to protect him gets her in the end. granted she's a bitch, but she's hot so she doesn't need to be nice. anyway, she fights off streaky haired asian chick saying, "get your own geek," to cement the beautiful relationship.

conclusions:
Wylie is geeky, even for a librarian. and mostly he seems to act like a little kid, not a 30 something. also, who freaking gets 22 degrees? if you like college that much why can't you just get a phd or two and start teaching. honestly!

Bob Newhart is fantastic. I didn't know. I'm going to have to start watching his stuff on tvland. it's still on tvland right?

Not that I care about writers, but a very simple click on imdb tells us that the last thing this guy did was around the world in 80 days. certainly, you can't expect a good movie from that.

Isn't Giles from Buffy the vampire slayer a librarian who fights evil too? On that note, do you think they'll have a wylie action figure, because i'd like to add it to my collection.

the movie isn't as bad as a lot of crap i watch (like anything on the disney channel), but i didn't really enjoy it as much as that crap. mostly i'm not so into action movies. i was rather into the young indiana jones tv show when i was in middle school. but mostly because my dad watched it, and i had a crush on young indy . even though, i just looked him up,it turns out that he's freaking old!

I don't really see this a changing the image of librarians. curtain does a good job of reinforcing the dowdy spinster librarian with cats image. and while wylie has lots of fun adventures, he doesn't do one single thing that a librarian does, except maybe eat and breathe and get dressed and
such...although, newhart is fantastic and i hope to one day have someone like him as my supervisor and mentor. i wonder if the torrance librarian with the strange moustache has newhartish traits

The librarians are saying things like: hmm, nerd boy with 22 degrees, yet not one of them is an MLIS? and he gets to be librarian. it's a good thing we have rules against that crap in california.

Issued by the ALA :
press release

reviews - i haven't had the patience to read through much of them, but i may get bored enough today. (or i may just keep blogging)

other links
http://www.hollywoodlibrarian.com/ an interesting project, lets hope it gets off the ground
http://www.filmlibrarian.info/ i'm gonna get netflix for a month. maybe i'll watch some of these movies. if i make it through all the jem, carebears, and rainbow brite and strawberry shortcake episodes. unfortunately the browse by rating feature doesn't quite work. because, it would be quite an interesting survey of librarian porn. (it does mention that lovely alice in wonderland movie we watched in class) although i go to a real school now, not the type that would really encourage me to write about librarian porn.