I finally saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides tonight, and I’ve got to say…Tim Powers was robbed. It was a mess of a movie that wobbled from point to point, with no sense behind it, and a plot that had nothing to do with what I expected.

Skip the theater and read the book, On Stranger Tides, instead. This movie could have been stunning if it had simply used that wild and thrilling story from Powers, instead of stealing only the title, giving a feeble acknowledgment (“Story suggested by Tim Powers”), and then ignoring everything in the book.

Someday, I would like to see something by Powers given the full movie treatment. If not On Stranger Tides, somebody should take a shot at The Anubis Gates, the best damn time-travel novel ever written. It would beat the pale and hackneyed writing that characterizes most SF movies nowadays, that are little more than clumsily plotted vehicles for CGI and confusingly violent action.

Also, this movie didn’t have any cephalopods in it. Not a glimpse of even a single tentacle.

O Delight! Savage interviews Minchin. It’s beautiful.

I’m also very sad. Minchin is coming to Minneapolis…on the same weekend I have to be in Las Vegas for TAM. Or I’d be there.

You other Minnesotans better buy out every ticket to his performance so he’ll feel like coming back.

The new threat to humanity and specifically New York: A glacier. A really, really fast glacier.

I hope everyone involved in creating it is really, really ashamed.

I don’t understand how this could happen. You can buy the new Lady Gaga album for 99 cents? I am in shock.

I also have it on my iPod now.

It’s an annoyance that the History Channel is part of the basic cable package I get — I haven’t watched the acceleratingly awful channel in years, but they still get by on their slice of the cable pie. Now they have announced that they will be turning the Bible into a “five-part, 10-hour scripted docu-drama with live-action and state-of-the-art CG”. There is no part of that description that doesn’t make me cringe.

An honest survey of the Bible wouldn’t be a bad thing — as we often say, it’s a great tool for making atheists. I don’t think that will be the case here, though.

The idea for the project came from Burnett and his wife, “Touched By An Angel” star Roma Downey, and will tell biblical stories from the old and new testaments.

Oh, man. Could this possibly get worse?

Burnett is the man behind such successful reality show franchises as “Survivor” and “The Apprentice.”

<Runs screaming from the room>

Wait…maybe this could be salvaged if they cast Donald Trump as God.

I saw the new Thor movie tonight. I’ll give you the gist of the movie, with no spoiler details.

First of all, atheists are allowed to watch the movie. The Asgardians are actually super-advanced aliens who live in a high-tech mega-city with trans-galactic transporter technology that uses wormholes. They use it to oppress distant worlds and impose their medieval political system on the universe. We’re supposed to feel all right about that because the king is Hannibal Lecter.

Thor is a bad, foolish bully-boy who picks fights with the Blue Man Group, so Hannibal Lecter flings him to Earth to learn wisdom. He meets Natalie Portman, who smiles at him and buys him lunch, and then suddenly when a crisis comes he has learned self-sacrifice and respect for life, i.e., he is now wise. With wisdom comes a cracking great hammer which he can use to smash things, which seems an entirely appropriate reward for learning the virtues of restraint, although the fact that he spends the last half of the movie demolishing a flaming Michelin Man and the Asgard set is a bit temper-tantrumy.

The plot was jarring, though. It’s supposed to be a movie about character development, but there wasn’t any, unless great exploding cgi is now a substitute for actual interpersonal relationships and human interactions. Or maybe just sharing a ride in a truck with Natalie Portman makes you sensitive and thoughtful. I didn’t see anything transformative, though, and am only hypothesizing the invisible Portman radiation.

To be fair, I have to admit that I might have completely missed significant parts of the plot. There’s a scene early on where Thor takes off his shirt, and I think I abruptly turned gay and blacked out from the shock. Don’t worry, Mary! Natalie Portman flashed a few more smiles later in the movie and turned me back.

She really is magical.

Also, if you’re a comic book nerd, beware: the movie completely disregards the true origins of Thor. Donald Blake is Natalie Portman’s ex-boyfriend, who doesn’t even appear in the movie, except as a sweater which was used to cover up Thor’s naked torso, causing everyone in the audience to moan and hate Donald. If you don’t know what the heck I’m complaining about, then yes, it’s perfectly OK for you to go see the movie.

HBO has this show now — you’ve heard about it? — recreating a most excellent fantasy series by George R.R. Martin. I enjoy a good fantasy story, and I think Martin is a fabulous writer…but man, I read the books, and I felt burned.

Here’s the basic premise established at the start of the first novel:

The kingdom descends into the chaos of civil war, while a mysterious supernatural threat arises far to the north, and an exiled princess across the sea plots to invade with the power of dragons. Many tangled plot lines are established with a horde of memorable characters.

Now here’s the situation at the end of the fourth novel: <SPOILERS!!!>

The kingdom is wracked with the chaos of civil war, while a mysterious supernatural threat stirs far to the north, and an exiled princess across the sea gathers her army to invade with the power of dragons. Many tangled plot lines are tangled even more deeply, a horde of memorable characters have died, and there is a new horde of memorable characters.

Martin really knows how to set a pot to boiling. He doesn’t know how to bring a delicious stew to the table. If you want to watch something churn and bubble entertainingly, you’re welcome to it, but if you’re hoping for a meal, go somewhere else.

In a too rare fit of quality, our local theater is showing The King’s Speech this week, which I keep hearing is wonderfully well made and a serious Oscar contender. I was thinking of going, but now Christopher Hitchens shreds its historicity — it’s about yet another royal fascist-sympathizer — and Katherine Preston explains that it’s got the neurology of the speech defect all wrong. I don’t think I can watch it at all now. I can enjoy a fiction without apology, but I find it impossible to watch a false story that pretends to be true.

The reviews are annoying, too — they all praise the quality of the movie-making and the acting, while telling me that the core premises of the story are false. How can I enjoy it when Something Is Wrong On The Screen?

I thought I had more than enough Valentine’s videos queued up for the day, but then this one was mentioned:

Who would have thought that a video with puppets about a mummy would be the most romantic entry of the day?

(via Neil Gaiman)