perfidy

Over the weekend the Goodwyfe and I caught the filmic version of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Was it good? Weeeellll.... it didn't suck. There were some brilliant bits and it was lovely to see Douglas Adams brought to the screen with his point of view and wit intact, but the whole thing didn't really hang together particularly well. See it, but at a matinee or at home.

Considering that a fairly large proportion of weblog readers are also Douglas Adams fans, I will refrain from tossing spoilers out here. I will just quickly note a couple real highlights: Sam Rockwell plays Zaphod Beeblebrox as a fuddled and slap-happy George W. Bush, down to the tipsy smirk and the West Texas accent (and gives Trillian the opportunity to speak the line, "Buttons are not toys!"). Somehow, it really really works. Martin Freeman from the BBC's The Office is pitch perfect as Arthur Dent, and Alan Rickman is perfect as the depressive robot Marvin. Magrathea, the Infinite Improbability Drive, the Vogons and their penchant for brutal yet stifling bureaucracy, and the British ability to stand in line like no other race in the galaxy are all pretty much perfectly done.

Pretty much, if you don't mind seeing one of your favorite books interpreted lovingly as a semi-disconnected series of sketches a la Monty Python, be my guest.