Wages of Fear

The inspiration for Sorcerer is less naturalistic (there are a few New Wave gestures here and there and stars Yves Montand after all), has fewer shadows, much more nitroglycerine, trucks that are in better repair and is by far the more relevant and superior film. Sorceror has some fantastic photography, though.

Dersu Uzala

A lovely film presents a gentle metaphor of mortality. The events are presented in double flashback: a character finds himself in the same place at different times, but little that he cares about is the same. The primary star is the taiga itself. Distributed by Roger Corman!

Cinema Paradiso (long version)

The longer version of this festival of sentimentality is too long. Still a lovely movie, although the elder Toto's sneer of a smile almost ruins the effect.

Batman vs Dracula

I was not paying attention when this version of Batman—sorry, The Batman— was aired. The series, I gather, means to take up the tale in the early part of Batman's career. This particular effort is unfocused and noisy. Some fun stuff, but this Dracula has no wit or even much in the way of brains. His vampire powers are amped way up as is consistent with the general approach of the series.

Control Room

Interesting footage from inside Al-Jazeera. Watching the American spinmasters stutter around the stupidity of their transparent lies was painful to watch. The Americans come off as officious bozos with some brief breaks for confused naivete.

2010

Unnecessary but handsome production doesn't even try to match 2001 in appearance, tone or method. Unfortunate '80s ambience and concerns are draped over Syd Mead designs. David Shire provides a score that sometimes seems to be doing right by the original production (is that a shred of Alex North in the grand (and oh so not at all subtle) finale?) but what are the odds?

Sorcerer

I saw this in the theater which means I am one of a dozen or so who have seen the non-pan-and-scan presentation. An expensive failure, it is probably under-rated, but not by too much. Beautiful, sulky photography ill-served by indulgent editing and weak screenplay.
I had a poster from this movie in my room. I cannot imagine what my parents thought of that.

Troy

Successful in making the case that Achilles can be considered a rock star in the Homeric idiom. Brad Pitt's choreography and body sculpting were put to good use. Otherwise, the tedium is interrupted by flatness followed by seriously bad acting. Too many culprits to list, a cursed production. Compare and contrast Kingdom of Heaven, which far from great cinema, was beautifully done and not too, too silly.

Ghost World

Whatever this movie aims to do, it must have done it, because I was very effected by the time I got to the end. There may have been a lot of cheating via manipulation of the tone of the movie, but maybe that is my problem for allowing certain signals to mean something that they don't necessarily need to represent. Anyway, by the end, I bought the whole thing hook, line and sinker. It's a fantasy turned real, which is not only difficult to do, but hard to accept as a viewer. A few pacing problems surrounding the character Dana, but those are technical quibbles.

Hello, Darth!

From the files of Cory Doctorow: Hello Darth.

Pink Out!

Yo, V!

kyle_beatty: whither cranium?!
kyle_beatty: added RAM to iBook as part of more-serious move away from thrice-bedamned Windows
kyle_beatty: Google Notes not earth shattering instance of net application
kyle_beatty: Bionicle starting to annoy just because they take up too much room
kyle_beatty: Still on vacation?
kyle_beatty: If I had a cat its breath would smell of cat food.
kyle_beatty: we set up a trap for call center imps. We built a closet with a one way door and a sign that says 'cat fud' . The call center managers were not amused. I think they were more alarmed at the potential for proving just how special their employees are (which would reflect badly on them) rather than the lack of regard that IT feels for anyone's feelings or the managers' authority, which is nonexistent. My boss has forbidden the frozen turkey giveaway/catapult because of considerable legal liability potential. Counterproposal to use live turkeys denied on the basis of "inhumaneness." He invoked Carlson's Despair and that was the end of that!

There's Nature Out There

One evening after an especially taxing day at work, the boss took the team out to dinner. As we were leaving the restaurant, a deer ran through the parking lot. A human was trying to shoo it away from traffic, but it went where it wanted to go. It was utterly silent.

Standing at an open door to an apartment, a small cup was dropped and it rolled into the flowerbed. When I picked it up, there was a wee brown frog in the cup.

A flock of wrens were roosting one recent evening in a bush beneath my office window. I stuck my head out the window to get a better look and they were not at all disturbed. They continued to gather in the bush, sometimes looking over at me.

I saw a hummingbird in the apple tree the day before yesterday.

Update: A duck and four siblings were walking at full speed along Juanita way. It was adorable.

Night of the Hunter

Who knew that Robert Mitchum had such a nice singing voice. Too bad that every utterance out of his mouth is creepier and more disturbing than the last. Makes deNiro's Cape Fear performance look positively comforting and calming. A must-see movie.

Bionicle Colorforms?

New wine in old bottles!

Seattle Places Continue to Deprecate

They either disappear or are degraded beyond recognition: The Dog House, Murphy's, Conor Byrne's, the entirety of Pioneer Square, Leilani Lanes, Fremont for the most part, the Ave, Broadway, Cranium, soon the Blue Moon ... some of it is inevitable and some is arguably a good thing but it all saddens me. I know that every generation has precisely the same complaint. And every generation has been correct!

Toa Inika

I'll be buying this latest iteration of Bionicle, but my enthusiasm is blunted. They are burdened with an assortment of gimmicks (glow in the dark this, light up that), the very stink of shark-jumping.
The name makes me think 'iniquity' which is a bit of a stretch vocabulary-wise for the typical Bionicleer.

So Many New Lego Sets

So many Lego sets to admire: Viking ship, Jabba's sail barge, Batman's Bat Cave, Arkham Asylum (!), Bikini Bottom, and the Krabby Patty. Slight complaint: the Squidward mini-fig has only two legs. I mean, come on! On the other hand, they are normal mini-fig legs while Spongebob and Mr. Krabbs have the hipless, mini-mini-fig legs. i.e. child-stature legs.
I will post pictures when time permits.

Crash

Hated it. Couldn't finish it. Pat malarkey.

Oxi-clean

From the label: "Do not leave mixture in airtight container ... danger ... bursting ... dispose of mixture within six hours ..." Sounds only a little bit less dire than Gremlins or nitroglycerin.

Smallville

Another entry in the "I'll-get-around-to-watching-it-oh-it's-cancelled-already" catalog. The pilot hooked me but good. The introduction of Kryptonite was especially well done and even better, was not overplayed. Although the accompanying exposition was redundant. A little bit overplayed then ... it worked for me as long as I don't think about it too hard. Which is good when discussing Superman, because if you think about his alter-ego, well, it all falls apart. I mean, look at him. He's a freaking god, already, for the love of Mike! Who could be fooled by this!

Metropolis

More plotted than the version by Fritz lang, this take on the protodystopia has its own fascination. Lang's ur-fembot was a terror, to be sure, but more in a Carrie Nation / Ayn Rand vein than this version. Tima has been recast as a victim of circumstances and not really an active agent of the plan to crush der Volk, who by the way are also robots. Some striking imagery is at odds with the character design which would not offend the sensibility of Tin Tin.

Inu-Yasha

My girlfriend's children spent part of the weekend watching episodes of Inu-Yasha The demons that have to be battled are imaginative and scary even in the context of Japanese demons which are signally varied and alarming. Good adventure stuff

Wild Waves

My first visit to Wild Waves (link) was a hoot. Every town should have a couple of giant water slides and a wave pool. Sun burn was minimal. A good time was had by all.

Blog anniversary

Missed the anniversary of this blog as is usual. Five years!

Bush: Hungarian revolt should inspire Iraq

The Pretender should be more circumspect in what he wishes for. What is he trying to say? That in 30 years, the Iraquis will be rid of the foreign invader? Or, that the revolution will be ruthlessly crushed?

Re: Resuscitating Book Club

Apologies for the lacuna in book selection. I submit now these, you gentles.

Kurlansky, Mark. Salt: A World History.
Penguin Group. 2003.
and / or
Kurlansky, Mark.
Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. Penguin Group. 1998.
Vince has been going on about Salt ... ever since he read it when it was new. Someone told me that Salt... is an offshoot of the Cod ... book.

Gardner, John. Grendel. Vintage Books. 1971.
I've been meaning to re-read this for well, decades now. Will it be as good now as I thought it was then? The current movie is not based on this book. Although there is an animated movie from Australia written by John Gardner called
Grendel Grendel Grendel. Also from iMDB: "In 1982, his novel, 'Grendel', was adapted as a stage play by Indianapolis actor Bart Simpson, who is now the artistic director of
The Blue Monkey Sideshow."

Eliot, George.
Silas Marner. Dover. 1861.
The Fishing News! Pfft! Let's get it right from the melodramatic source. Lisa Simpson's favoritebook. Wait, no. Lisa Simpson's favorite book is Ethan Frome. Never mind about Lisa. Or the Fishing News. Silas Marner is another one of those Queen Anne waists, threshing in the background, tea and tatting in the parlor, muddy boots, talkity-talk books. I'm sure there's a deacon or two to spare and any number of bloodless parsons.

Flaubert, Gustave.
Madame Bovary. Dover. 1886.
Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, daughter of Karl Marx.

Atwood, Margaret. The Blind Assassin. 2001.
I looked at this on a remainder table once and it has been in the back of my mind ever since. Won a prize. Did we do a different book by Atwood?

The Madness of King George

Moral: don''t go crazy in the 18th century even if you are the king. Beautiful production but performances are hopelessly broad and unaffecting. Yet another pantomime-worthy Prince of Wales. Why don't they just cast Prince and have done with it?

Tokyo Godfathers

One-note script tells us far too many times that the homeless have feelings too. That they are all homeless more or less by choice undercuts some of the message. The finale is ludicrous. Lovingly animated.

Samurai Spy

Even though there is a thorough exposition, I could not keep track of the players. A drawwn out Mexican stand-off. Appropriately claustrophobic.