My friend Jeff first introduced me to Scott Pilgrim when we were still in Maryland. Jerks that we are, we moved before the movie came out. It seemed like a good film to invite my fellow first year MD/PhD students to come see with me, but it turned out they were in Canada, Japan, and Thailand, or in other words not California. “It’s okay,” I thought, “we’ll try again when the DVD comes out.”
That was November, and this week we got the delinquents (and a few others) together and finally made it happen. I don’t know if everybody connected with the movie’s geek cultural humor, but I think they enjoyed themselves regardless.
Scott Pilgrim is a movie that does a good job bridging mediums. It stylistically incorporates the effects, comments, and abrupt transitions that made the comic book so quirky and unique. The fight scenes and integration of comic book-style sound effects into the live action were particular highlights. They also included Knives’ “Chau down” line, one of my favorites in the whole series.
In addition to the myriad video game references, the environment of the movie has a lot of neat little nods to the plot, one of the most obvious of which is the appearance of numbers as Scott fights his way through the evil exes. The first time I saw the movie I didn’t think to start looking for them until I saw the giant four in the club where he fights the fourth ex. The second time I remembered to start looking for them at three (Todd has a three on his shirt, is in a three-piece band, violated vegan code three times), and this time I started at two (Lucas Lee has two Ls making up his logo, there’s a two on the car and trailer, he has the help of stunt doubles) so I still haven’t seen anything for one. I also haven’t noticed anything for seven, but I may just not be counting fast enough.
While it has nothing to do with the movie, thanks to our friend Matt, our party featured ice cubes shaped like brains. This is now on the must-have list for the ice tray category of my geek kitchen collection, along with pi symbols and Lego bricks. Of course, when I have the money to stock up on stuff like this I’ll probably also have a fridge that can make its own ice. These are the problems I must face.
6 responses to “Scott Pilgrim”
Brain ice cubes sounds awesome (and the pictures look awesome)!
Careful, they’ll give you a brain freeze.
Ice cubes are so passe. Whiskey stones are where it’s at!
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/ba37/
I would like some of those stones.
So, I watched the movie again yesterday. Didn’t spot anything for ‘one,’ but shortly before he meets Ramona, Scott and Knives walk through a snow path shaped like an ‘X’ for evil exes.
There’s also the part early on where he walks under a power line with five Xs hanging from it (the other two are on the support poles, making seven). That’s also when he rips an eighth X, a patch, off his jacket, foreshadowing when Ramona tells him he’s “just another evil ex waiting to happen.”