Author: mike

Movies, April 2010

** Lost, Season 2
*** District 9
*** Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

I enjoyed the first season of Lost pretty well, even while aware that it was a fairly silly and manipulative soap opera. Parts of season were still good, but I started to get tired of it, especially the way the characters just kept acting unrealistically stupid (let’s get the guns and run into the jungle again! let’s have the only doctor constantly put his own life at risk without ever training anyone else in basic first aid!). What kept me watching in the first season was the promise of having an interesting and mysterious world gradually pieced together bit by bit, but it started to become clear in the second season that a lot of things were just made up as they went along and that many questions would never be answered. And so I decided to stop there. Then, to satisfy my curiosity, I skimmed through the episode descriptions for season 3 and figured I’d made the right call — it seemed chock full of yet more new mysteries, full of pointless running into the jungle with guns, and not at all full of answers for anything. Having since dipped into the rest of the story and actually watched the series finale with friends — I don’t really feel like I missed anything, and after a few days of speculation I’ve almost completely forgotten about the show already.

District 9 was pretty great. I had no real idea where they were going to take the story, beyond knowing the basic premise, and it just went some really interesting places. Also, I liked the progression Wikus’s character follows from clueless asshole to interesting guy. Lots of good little details too.

Baader meinhof was interesting and compelling to watch, and the first half or so especially gave a great look at what the mood was like at that time in Germany. But as it goes more into the breakdown of the group and their time in prison, the new unexplained members of the group multiply, it is hard to follow what they are all doing or who relates to what, and some of it just gets annoying and dull. Overall a good movie, but I think it tried to cover too much and perhaps needed to focus a little more. Sure, history doesn’t make neat stories, but it’s good to pick and choose what you want to tell.

Books, April 2010

**** Patrick O’Brian – The Fortune of War
** A. J. Jacobs – The Year of Living Biblically
*** Shan Sa – Empress
*** Jane Austen – Sense and Sensibility
*** Georges Simenon – A Man’s Head

These reviews are way overdue by now, so let’s just get it done. Another good O’Brian book, as usual. Of course a good Jane Austen; I love Jane Austen.

The year of living biblically was amusing in some of its details but overall sort of rambling and eventually annoying. One thing that really bothered me is that he waits until about halfway through the book to reveal that he is seriously OCD (like compelled to touch things a certain number of times OCD, not like when people “I’m so OCD” and just mean that they wash their hands regularly), which I mean kind of sheds some light on the whole “following lots and lots of very picky rules” aspect of following the bible for a year. It just felt like cheating to save it for a mid-book reveal. And then I just could not stop thinking about how annoying the whole thing must have been for his wife. Poor woman. Finally, it just feels like he sort of does all this stuff and then at the end, no big breakthrough. He learns a few things, has some laughs, maybe gets a little religion, but in the end it just feels like he did a big stunt, wrote his book, and that’s that.

Empress was a reimagination of the life of China’s Empress Wu, who rose to become empress in the 7th century, told as a personal memoir. In history, she is mostly viewed as a power-mad dictator, willing to do anything to gain and hold power, but here we get her side of the story. The result is a fascinating book, with a compelling central character and lots of interesting detail about life in 7th century China.

I’ve read one or two other Simenon books, but long ago. This one was pretty good, interesting enough to want to read through quickly, though fairly throwaway once I was done. I will probably try some of his other books as well.

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Movies, March 2010

** The Horse’s Mouth
*** Body Heat
*** Rainbow Kids (Daiyukai)
*** Anvil: the Story of Anvil

I thought The Horse’s Mouth oscillated between somewhat entertaining, boring, and annoying. That does not make for an enjoyable time, especially when you keep thinking of better ways you could spend your two hours. I don’t know if we were just supposed to enjoy Alec Guinness’s character’s antics, or if it was meant to express something universal about the artistic temperament or something, but snuh. Also, the fake voice, meh.

Hey Body Heat that was a pretty good noir thriller. It being a noir, you pretty much know the general outline of how it’s going to go, but it was fun getting there.

I don’t remember where I heard of Rainbow Kids, but it was a very pleasant little surprise. The story involves a trio of inept kidnappers who kidnap an old lady who turns out to be rich, powerful, and much smarter than they. She takes over the kidnapping and orchestrates it the way she wants, and a good time is had by all.

Anvil was awesome. The obvious comparison is Spinal Tap (but real!) but it reminded me more of American Movie, the documentary about the guy desperate to make his horror movie “Coven”. This one had a similar flavor (absolute dedication to their art, a certain midwesternness, loved ones who are both supportive and exasperated). American Movie’s Mark Borchardt, though, was kind of an asshole, single-minded in his pursuit. These guys are a bit more gentle (in spite of being the demigods of Canadian metal), and some of the best scenes come when they fight and make up.

Books, March 2010

**** Charles Dickens – Our Mutual Friend
** Dava Sobel – Longitude
**** Patrick O’Brian – Desolation Island

Our Mutual Friend was very good. Interestingly, compared to Bleak House, which we’d just seen in miniseries form (and which I read a long long time ago), this one felt a lot less exaggeratedly comical/tragic. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it realist though — there are still a lot of hidden identities, crazy plot twists, and mad passions. I’ve read only a smattering of Dickens over the years, but watching Bleak House and reading this have definitely decided me to read or reread more of him.

Longitude was kind of disappointing. The story, about the search for a solution to the longitude problem, and the competition between astronomical solutions and clock-based solutions was interesting. The guy who solved it and the watch he built are both fascinating. But Sobel spends way too much time focused on a sort of soap-opera view of things, where it’s all about how so-and-so tried to sabotage his efforts blah blah and gives precious little time to the actual engineering or science involved. I mean, she never really even explains how the amazing clock worked (she sort of states the solution to an engineering problem or two but without explaining why that solves the problem). She includes one picture of the clock with a description of one piece of the mechanism. It was incredibly lame, and what I’d really like to do is read a book about John Harrison and the longitude problem by someone who can understand and express complex scientific and engineering concepts, not someone who just wants to make a soap opera out of it.

Patrick O’Brian, as I always say, is great.

Movies, February 2010

**.5 Tristram Shandy
*/**** Silk Stockings
*** Jane Eyre (1996)
**** The Hurt Locker

Tristram Shandy was funny but ultimately felt empty and disappointing. As Gillian Anderson says after the screening scene at the end, is that all? The movie has very little Tristram Shandy in it and a lot of Steve Coogan — which is okay, Steve Coogan is funny, especially playing a sort of exaggerated Steve Coogan (if it is exaggerated) — but it doesn’t really amount to much. I know this was kind of the point, Tristram Shandy being itself crazily postmodernally self-referential and so forth, but the ultimate question is whether I feel like I’ve had a satisfying interaction with some interesting people. I don’t really feel like I got much of either Tristram or Steve, and so the laughs I did get didn’t end up being that satisfying. I have trouble recommending it, but I have trouble giving it the pretty weak two stars too. I guess if you like Steve Coogan (which I do) and think he is funny (which I do) you will likely enjoy this.

Silk Stockings was pretty rotten. It’s got Cole Porter music, Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and Peter Lorre and it’s still pretty rotten. It’s not so much they’re bad but that no one (except Cyd Charisse) really seems to be trying. It’s all bad music, bad lyrics, apathetic dancing, mediocre singing, forgettable choreography.. except Cyd Charisse. She’s terrific. Her character is the humorless Soviet kommissar and she plays it pretty much like Arnold as the Terminator. That part is awesome. And then as she lets Paris infect her, she has a wonderful dance scene with Astaire where she slowly unbends and they dance a duet. Then later, alone in her hotel room, she takes out the beautiful Parisian underthings she’s bought and hidden away and dances with them. If you just take the movie as the story of her finally letting go of her duty for the sake of pleasure, it’s appealing, and those two scenes are moving. Then she gets to tell off Fred and go back to Russia, where there’s a remarkable ensemble scene of a bunch of happy Russians dancing the “red blues”. If the movie had ended there, it would have been nice, but of course she has to end up back in Paris with the tasteless conniving Astaire, to be happily married. Truly, it’s a rotten movie, but if you like Cyd Charisse, you might find it worthwhile for those few scenes.

This is the 1996 William Hurt/Charlotte Gainsbourg Jane Eyre, which we thought was pretty good. We’re both big fans of the book, and were pleasantly surprised how well this one came out.

The Hurt Locker really deserved that Oscar.

Books, February 2010

* Thomas Mann – Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories

The title story is about an old man, renowned all over for his writing blah blah blah who goes to Venice, falls in love with a 14-year-old boy, and [spoiler alert] dies. I didn’t like it that much. The second story starts with one 14-year-old boy in love with another. I didn’t feel that interested and gave the whole thing up.

I spent the rest of the month on a Dickens novel I didn’t finish until March.

Movies, January 2010

*** Lost Season 1
*** Bleak House

Lost season 1 was pretty good, even though some of the characters are kind of annoying. We burned through every DVD we got and waited impatiently for the next one, which is pretty much the entire goal of a show like this. The show has a great sense of having a grand plan behind all the strange incidents that you really really want to figure out, which is what keeps yu coming back. Though comments I’ve gotten from people who have seen most of the other seasons suggests that’s not really true, that new mysteries just keep being introduced, old ones are left dangling, and stuff just gets made up along the way; which is why, even though we enjoyed season 1, after finishing it we were debating whether to continue with 2.

Bleak House was really good. Gillian Anderson was amazing and most of the other roles, big and small, were very well performed. Bleak House is definitely one of those Dickens books with lots of funnily-named characters (Snagsby! Smallweed! Tulkinghorn! Guppy! Skimpole! Dedlock! Bucket! Krook!) and a lot of them looked pretty fun to perform too, with some over-the-top dialogue and accents. And the story itself is good, with plenty of tragic and comic bits.