As fantastically fun as my preview of its sequel is, and it really is a joyous half-hour, I can't help feeling we've done this dance before – albeit not on the back of a jet screaming through a city's high-rises, combating heavenly centaurs, and then riding the roof of a runaway train while being chased by an enormous robotic-deity-thing.
The problem for Kick-Ass 2 is that the slicker it becomes, the more it risks losing the joyous veneer of half-baked heroism that helped make the first film so singularly, enjoyably offbeat.
We are delighted, too, that he introduces his company during a pause before the short, miraculous improvisation of Unplugged brings the first half to joyous conclusion.
Tasting Report: Flavorful Yet Light Jean-Paul Brun Terres Dorées Côte-de-Brouilly 2007 $18 *** 1/2 (Three and a Half Stars) Joyous, with precise aromas and flavors of flowers, berries, anise and minerals.
The first half highlights joyous songs for daytime fun and includes Van Dyke Parks' version of Allen Toussaint's "Occapella," the Pointer Sisters' bumping "Pinball Number Count" and Guthrie's classic "Dance Around".
The wedding photos told their own story: Rose looking pert and joyous in a white half-circle hat, with a big coat hiding the bump because she'd fallen pregnant some months before, while George was in a bad suit twiddling his fingers, and with his eyes elsewhere.
The first half is a joyous piece of popular theatre.
A 15th-century bottle with a serpentine, goggle-eyed dragon flying wildly among the clouds inlaid in white with black accents on the vessel's bulbous, gray upper half is a joyous wedding of classically restrained, 3-D form and infectiously fluid linear draftsmanship.
1/2 (Three and a Half Stars) C de-Brouilly 2007 Joyous, with precise aromas and flavors of flowers, berries, anise and minerals.
And during the time he was writing those films, he was also one half of a legendarily joyous Hollywood marriage, to Nora Ephron, fellow journalist and writer of Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally.
