The Whisper in Darkness (1931), H.P. Lovecraft - ★★★ - Lovecraft moves from pure horror to a more sci-fi mood. Aliens haunt a man with whispers and our scientist narrator lends his reflections on it.
Urbana infantil (2012), Håkan Forsell - ★★★★ - Very interesting read on how schools developed during early urbanisation in the beginning of the 20th century in Germany.
Movies
Melancholia (2011, dir. Lars von Trier) - ★★★½ - It's a painting albeit a bit boring. It reflects the emotion melancholy just fine but it doesn't mean it makes for the best of movies. It's rare to see Kirsten Dunst in anything where she has to act.
Hansel & Gretel: Which Hunters (2013, dir. Tommy Wirkola) - ★★½ - It's ironic that this is produced by MTV as the first thing I'd say without knowing that is how MTV it feels. It has its faults and they're apparent but it's still entertaining.
Yi dai zong shi [The Grandmaster] (2013, dir. Kar Wai Wong) - ★★★ - This isn't a movie as much as it is beautifully crafted fighting scenes with text explaining what happens inbetween. The least interesting Kar Wai Wong movie I've seen but damn it, it is beautiful.
Jagten [The Hunt] (2012, dir. Thomas Vinterberg) - ★★★★½ - This movie is scary. How society works. How forgiving we are. How we cope with hardships and being accused of something that never goes away regardless of it being true. Truely a great film and pure nightmare material.
Hancock (2008, dir. Peter Berg) - ★★½ - Such a fun concept that never really pans out or goes anywhere. It's entertaining but too calculated to be really interesting.
Monument Valley [iOS] (2014, dev. ustwo) - ★★★★ - Cute, playful and intelligent. A bit on the short side but a must-play on iOS.
Doki Doki Universe [PS4] (2013, dev. HumaNature Studios) - ★★★½ - While I wouldn't call it deep or engaging or inspired I would like to say that I really like it. The art work is fun and the quiz thing is addicting. I really liked it.
No, that's the common consensus. It's just wrong. I won't spoil anything, but the middle arc is by far my favorite and is the section I still go back to read again.
There is definitely a bit of a lull after that, but it picks right back up. There really aren't "bad" Fables comics in the sense there are bad Superman ones. It's a whole higher tier of writing.
I read lots of horrible comics in the 90s, so I try to keep a perspective on these things. People mainly complain because the series is so long.
No, that's the common consensus. It's just wrong. I won't spoil anything, but the middle arc is by far my favorite and is the section I still go back to read again.
There is definitely a bit of a lull after that, but it picks right back up. There really aren't "bad" Fables comics in the sense there are bad Superman ones. It's a whole higher tier of writing.
I read lots of horrible comics in the 90s, so I try to keep a perspective on these things. People mainly complain because the series is so long.
I stopped updating book by book cos I wanted to build up a backlog to update, but then I kept forgetting to actually do it, so now my Update Log is too big and has to spill over :T
Learning to Bow - Bruce Feiler ★★ - An english teacher writes about his culturally relativistic experiences in Japan, makes large-scale assumptions based on limited evidence, isn't particularly entertaining but isn't super offensive either. Not great.
The Valley of Fear - Arthur Conan Doyle ★★★★ - I really enjoyed this one, probably because of the second half where Doyle basically says "Fuck it, I want to write about someone other than Holmes" and just dives deep into a great yarn about a criminal secret society in middle America.
On Basilisk Station - David Weber ★★★★ - Once you get through the hardcore space politics and dizzying array of sci-fi new-universe information and start getting invested in the characters this book really comes alive. The giant space battle in particular was dramatic as hell and a real treat to read.
The Last Bow - Arthur Conan Doyle ★★★★ - Another solid collection by Doyle. His Last Bow is a great way to send off the famed detective, but the Dying Detective, the Bruce-Partington Plans and Wisteria Lodge are all great little tales.
Maus - Art Spiegelman ★★★★★ - What can I say? Depressing as all fuck.
Making of the Atomic Bomb - Richard Rhodes ★★★★★ - Absolutely fascinating for the first half, then gradually more depressing during the second half; a great companion piece to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if you're going to read stuff about atom bombs. The drama of the events that led to the Manhattan Project, of the Project itself, and of Trinity is so tense and exhilerating, you might be forgiven for thinking of the devastation wrought as almost like an afterthought... or perhaps more accurately like a full stop that punches you in the gut.
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson ★★★★ - An intense, almost dreamlike story that expertly weaves itself together from seemingly disparate parts. Stephenson's tendency to completely dive off wholesale into maths, crytology or whatever textbook has caught his eye gets a little irritating after a while, and the ending is kind of - well, not weak, but not as strong as I'd have liked - but it's nonetheless a great book, if huge.
Cop Hater - Eric McBain ★★★ - A 50s throwback to the very first police procedural, Cop Hater is a little dry and rubbery in this era and more than a little pulpish, but it's still fun to read, it'll keep you on your toes and it laid the foundation for what was to come.
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MOVIES
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Clue (1985) ★★★ - Zany and mad as only a movie based on a boardgame can be, the whipcrack wit, rapid-fire humour and general campiness make it entertaining enough, if not superb.
Ghostbusters (1984) ★★★★ - Although the pacing is kind of whack to be honest, and the CG has aged terrrrrrribly, Sigourney Weaver is amazing, Bill Murray is amazing, everyone is amazing and on-point and the jokes are fantastic. I can see why it's a classic.
Blue Exorcist: The Movie (2012) ★★★★ - The story's kind of corny overall but the spectaular visuals, the heartwarming scenes between Rin and the kid and the overall sense of place is just so overwhelming it elevates this middle-of-the-road property and story to higher levels.
The Emperor's New Groove (2000) ★★★★★ - I haven't laughed so hard in months. God-tier animation, especially for the villains, a protagonist who's a complete asshole, and just gag after gag after gag after gag, every single one of them on-point... probably now one of my absolute favourite Disney movies.
The Lego Movie (2014) ★★★★ - Watched it in a cinema without many people (on opening day? But it was near midday...) but it was nonetheless a total blast. A very smart, very funny movie with a shittonne of hilarious, smart jokes, especially a lot of the audio ones. The metaphor about individuality and creativity gets a bit confused in my opinion and it ends a little abruptly for my tastes but it's nonetheless a hell of a watch.
Another "meh" month. I managed to read one more book, but I also watched less movies. On top of that, my monthly update is almost 10 days late. Le Sigh....
Dubliners ★★★ < Favorite Book of the Month
The Pearl ★★
Movies:
Dial M for Murder ★★★
The Wind Rises ★★★
The 39 Steps ★★★
The Son of God ★
The Grand Budapest Hotel ★★★ < Favorite Movie of the Month
The Rules of the Game ★★★
Cropsey ★★
Mr. Peabody and Sherman ★★
Jodorowsky's Dune ★★★
World on a Wire ★★★
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Favorite Book - March: Dubliners
Anything I say can't do this book justice. Each story is a slice of life in Ireland circa early 1900s and they're all lovely. Some stories are moving, some are sad, some are depressing and even disturbing. Joyce is truly a great writer and I have to say... I learned a couple of tricks I will be using in anything I write in the future. Thanks, Mr. Joyce!
Favorite Movie - March: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Even though I don't consider myself the biggest Wes Anderson fan, I do like his movies a lot. The Royal Tenenbaums was at one point the one Anderson movie I truly loved, but now there are two. Budapest was moving, hilarious, exhilarating, and sad all at the same time. I will definitely own it as soon as I can.
Bingo. Counting individual trade paperbacks is pretty silly, since they take 20-30 minutes to read. I recommend counting an entire finished series (like Sandman or Y: The Last Man) instead.
I recently finished the entire first series of American Vampire which equates to 5 or 6 trades (32 issues plus the mini series) and counted it as one book. It's amazing, but the way, and every comic fan should read it.
What about non american comics ? Would you count them the same way ? Think I'll just stick to non graphic books.
Anyway, just added Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions) by Honoré de Balzac (1836-1843). Best book I've read this year, and for a long time too. This was a flawless masterpiece. So many timeless quotes.
What about non american comics ? Would you count them the same way ? Think I'll just stick to non graphic books.
Anyway, just added Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions) by Honoré de Balzac (1836-1843). Best book I've read this year, and for a long time too. This was a flawless masterpiece. So many timeless quotes.
I'll admit ignorance. Are you talking about manga or something? I've heard there's some amazing stuff out there, but I'm not knowledgable enough to comment on that front.
Bottom line: If you want to read and count it, do so. Beyond sticking to the general guidelines, people establish their own internal ruleset. I've counted the full run of Sherlock shows this year, which isn't entirely consistent with the rules.
What about non american comics ? Would you count them the same way ? Think I'll just stick to non graphic books.
Anyway, just added Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions) by Honoré de Balzac (1836-1843). Best book I've read this year, and for a long time too. This was a flawless masterpiece. So many timeless quotes.
I'll admit ignorance. Are you talking about manga or something? I've heard there's some amazing stuff out there, but I'm not knowledgable enough to comment on that front.
Bottom line: If you want to read and count it, do so. Beyond sticking to the general guidelines, people establish their own internal ruleset. I've counted the full run of Sherlock shows this year, which isn't entirely consistent with the rules.
He's probably referring to manga. The majority of people who talk about non-American comics tend to refer to them. I can recommend some stellar manga if anyone is searching for it.
A few manga I loved: Berserk (of course), Battle Royale, Rurouni Kenshin, Welcome to the NHK (the manga explains a lot more about Saito's condition than the anime did), Good Night PunPun (I'm currently reading this, and I am in love with the art and story), Monster, (the first half of) Gantz, and Nausciaa of The Valley of the Wind
I would go with either the New Living Translation or the New International Version.
Pretty freaking loose with the use of "New" here.
The easiest to read is the Message, but that's more like a paraphrase with modern language. I wouldn't necessarily call it a translation but a reinterpretation. I really dig it but imagine many wouldn't.
I finished Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson. Overall, I'd say that this was a stronger novel than the first one, even if the ending was a bit of a letdown. Really enjoyed reading it. Part of me wants to go on to book 3, but it took me 2.5 weeks to get through this 900 page novel, and the next one is like 1100 pages.
I also watched 2 films. The Lorax, and a documentary called Kimjongilia. The Lorax was OK. Some funny bits, but a bit heavy handed, even for a kids film. Kimjongilia was a documentary interviewing 6-7 North Korean refugees who were able to escape the country. It was an interesting look at the conditions there, but the production values were super low. The interview sections were subtitled of course, but they didn't even bother with a narrator between segments. Just text bubbles.
I have decided to read Blood Meridian next. I'm hoping it lives up the the praise.
I didn't realize how dense 'The Fellowship of the Ring' would be, once I finish that novel up, I'll have to read a play, probably 'The Counselor' to meet my quota for this month.
22. both flesh and not by david foster wallace - i really love david foster wallace's essays and journalism, his collections consider the lobster and a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again are both a joy to read for the way he draws you into the world he's covering, his warmth, wit and intelligence in his insights and a willingness to engage fairly and considerately with all sides of a topic. this collection is more of an album of b-sides and rarities by a really good band, being assembled post-humously from stuff that didn't fit into his last two, which succeeds because it's still by a talented writer but is clearly not his most interesting work . the best is the essay in the title about the tennis player roger federer, which i'd read before but still strikes me as a spectacular piece of writing on re-read (and inspired me to go see federer in the flesh a couple of years ago which was amazing), but there's also decent stuff about commercialization in sport, terminator 2 vs the terminator, the relative merits of two melodramas based on mathematicians and some lovely little notes on how to use certain words. on the other hand there's a truly baffling one about aids, a few that are too brief to be satisfying and one about the novel wittgenstein's mistress which flew over my head, though i would probably still be too stupid to understand even if i had read the book and knew anything about the work of wittgenstein.
23. about love and other stories by anton chekhov - i adored this collection of seventeen of chekhov's stories, including some of his most famous like the lady with the little dog. i've been reading a bunch of short stories this year and chekhov's reputation sort of looms over short fiction writers i love like munro and carver so i was very excited to finally read his work. it certainly lived up to my expectations, there's many things that are great, they're really subtle in the prose and unwillingness to provide clear answers, but he has a great eye for vivid, rich characters and a generosity of spirit in depicting them that draws you into them and their lives. the stories seem to focus on how people choose to live and how they seek and struggle to find happiness, which makes them very universal and easy to enjoy, despite being about people and situations in russia in the 1900s, yet within that he has so many variations and original ideas. the collection is assembled chronologically and the early stories are quite funny, almost absurd at times, with one about a fish falling in love with a human girl totally so, but they sort of get bleaker and as they go on chekhov likes using a framing device to illustrate how these passionate, fascinating lives are totally meaningless and forgotten outside of the individual search for meaning, which is something that rings with my personal philosophies.
films -
28. the great mouse detective - this disney film riffing off sherlock holmes stories is a real treat. probably just behind the incredibles and the castle of castrilogo as the most pure fun animated film, which is not to say it's the best, just that it's super easy to enjoy and relentlessly fun escapism. the real star of the film is the villain ratigan, a masterclass in expressive physical character animation and a mesmerizing voice acting performance, but the holmes character is fun too and the final action scene on big ben is so exciting.
29. pocahontas - boring characters, stupid plot but i still enjoyed it because it's such a beautifully animated film with amazing music. the story is familiar, but this is still a very poor version of it, with john smith and pocahontas as blandly perfect as possible and you never believe their romance for a second - it happens because it has to instead of through any gradual blossoming. the villain is very dull, and not in a realistic way, and the climax is a cheesy and unearned as possible. yet it speaks to the power of menken's songs and the amount of talent and money that went into the visual design and animation that it's still bewitching despite that. it's easy to complain about the story problems when you're typing on your computer days afterwards, but just like watching terrence malick's interpretation of the story in the new world it strikes you that there's so much more to cinema and visual storytelling than just character and plot.
30. mulan - this is so close to being up there with the little mermaid and beauty and the beast as the finest disney renaissance films but it's not quite there. mulan is really enjoyable lead character, complex, interesting, charming and fun to watch, to the point where they can make the villain just menacing instead of full of personality and still have it work. in i'll make a man out of you it has one of the best musical scenes they've done. the chinese setting is interesting. it's just eddie murphy. man. i really dislike him, i'm predisposed to groan upon hearing his voice from memories of the intensely irritating donkey in shrek to that 80s standup he did with vicious homphobic jokes that i found very upsetting, but even still his character in here is really unfunny and annoying. it doesn't totally ruin the film but it's frustrating to have it undermine a story with such promise.
Still reading Metro 2033. I just can't get into it properly, but I'll finish it. One day.
And I saw Grand Budapest Hotel - it was beautiful - nice story, awesome characters, oozing with style (vistas in it looked like something out of fairy tale). Which reminds me, I forgot to update my master list with Darjeeling Limited, another Wes Anderson film that I saw couple of days ago. Also beautiful. Gonna check his other work too.
-Books-
Divergent -
The Hobbit -JRR Tolkein
Dune - Frank Herbert
Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
The Final Empire - Brandon Sanderson (In Progress)
-Movies-
Ghostbusters
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Frozen
Pacific Rim
American Hustle
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clueless
The Lego Movie
Saving Mr. Banks
The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Swingers
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Crazy, Stupid, Love
In The Line of Fire
Get Shorty
Hercules
Beauty and the Beast
Rise of The Planet of the Apes
I remember being sufficiently compelled to turn the pages for Name of the Wind, but upon recall I can't remember a damned thing about it. Aside from their being a magical university. I didn't really enjoy it that much, to be honest.
I love counterfactuals. For years, my secret favorite comic books were DC's Elseworlds and Marvel's What If books. Who isn't curious about the what might have been's, the never were's? I was introduced to Niall Ferguson through his book of essays about counterfactual history,Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, when I was searching for a book to read after What If: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, edited by Roger Crowley. So, when Dan Carlin recently garnered press for criticizing the recent Supreme Court decision on McCutcheon v. FEC, I remembered that he had discussed Ferguson's The Pity of War during one of his Hardcore History episodes on World War I. It seemed like a good moment to read the book.
I quickly learned that I did not remember as much from college about World War I as I had hoped, which greatly hampered my ability to get through, much less enjoy, the book. Part of the joy of evaluating counterfactuals comes from being able to decide whether the alternative scenario was feasible. Without sufficient context about World War I, I found that I had to take Ferguson's theorizing as text, which places greater narrative weight on bold statements like "If the British Expeditionary Force had never been sent, there is no question that the Germans would have won the war." This statement runs counter to what established knowledge about the logistical problems of the Schlieffen Plan and the French defense strategies. Expand this uncertainty to an even bolder statement like "Had Britan stood aside even for a matter of weeks continental Europe could therefore have been transformed into something not wholly unlike the European Union we know today but without the massive contraction in British overseas power entailed by the fighting of the two world wars." This is Ferguson's central thesis, as he calls World War I "the greatest error of modern history," and he makes the case in great detail, but I simply don't feel equipped to judge the case Ferguson makes, whether it's because he does not provide sufficient information to support his statements or whether the statements themselves have been proven false elsewhere.
Ferguson's scope is grand as he attempts to tackle crucial elements of World War I that are assumed to be true: that militarism made the war inevitable, that there were no pacificist voices before the start of the war, that Germany was doomed to lose the war because its war economy was in shambles, that the indemnities levied against Germany were too high.
Ferguson enters curious ad hominem territory in his discussions about John Maynard Keynes, as he felt a need to include a note that Keynes's "sex life went into decline, perhaps because the boys he liked to pick up in London all joined up." Ferguson goes further and speculates that Keynes's anti-reparations position at Versailles was due to a homosexual attraction to German negotiator Carl Melchior. It's unusually personal vitriol from Ferguson.
The value of Ferguson's work may actually come from his extensive footnotes, which provide a depth of possible avenues of further research.
1. It took an act of empathy from a white bureaucrat in Blomkamp's previous film, District 9, to redeem the injustices inflicted against the literal aliens. It took an act of saintliness from a chosen white outsider living amongst all the Latino potential "illegal aliens" (who are really just undocumented immigrants to Elysium) to redeem the injustices inflicted against the poor and earthbound. Does it have to be a white guy who fixes the moral problems at the centers of Blomkamp's cinematic parables because white guys are responsible for the problems in the first place? Or could it only be a white guy because that's the only way the film can be marketable? There's a tension between ideology and commercialism here that I wish Blomkamp had exploded during the actual film.
2. Any sense of Elysium's individuality goes out the window during the climactic fight against Sharlto Copley's Kruger, which felt weightless. It looked like a badly blocked and poorly rendered video game cutscene. Oddly enough, the moment where Kruger uses his portable missile launcher to shoot down the shuttles at the beginning of the film felt more physical than the fights between Kruger and Matt Damon's Max.
3. Shifting the dramatic emphasis from Jodie Foster's Delacourt to Kruger so the film could have an action-packed conclusion, where the world's inequity is alleviated by the violence one white guy inflicts on another white guy, felt like a betrayal of whatever political message Blomkamp wanted to explore. Here again is the tension between ideology and commercialism. Did we have to get to a brawl between Kruger and Max because that's what a summer science fiction action blockbuster (with just enough of a socioeconomic justice twist to bring in viewers who would normally turn their nose at summer science fiction action blockbusters) needed, or did Blomkamp really think that this shift in dramatic emphasis was the right direction for the film?
4. The story of Delacourt, Kruger, and Elysium's brown (but powerless and ineffectual) president reminded me of Nigel Hawthorne's Doctor Cocteau employing Wesley Snipes's Simon Phoenix to kill Denis Leary's Edgar Friendly in Demolition Man. It's not a good sign for Elysium or how little progress society has made in addressing socioeconomic injustices when Demolition Man, released in 1993, seems like sharper satire.
5. The film is a socioeconomic justice parable, so I didn't go in expecting deep characterization. But flat, one dimensional characterization doesn't make the film engaging to watch. Again, it doesn't bode well for Elysium when I get a better sense of the characters' motivations and personalities in Demolition Man than from Elysium. Why does Max get a motivation switch when he's barely had contact with his crush's daughter? He goes from being focused on survival to a self-sacrificing revolutionary who takes down The System. Why? Why does Spider, a self-interested thief and smuggler, grow a conscience and become a revolutionary too? He made money on selling hope in the form of tickets on a shuttle to Elysium that would have likely been blown up by Kruger or another of Delacourt's agents. Why would he willingly give that up? Why would Kruger develop political aspirations, which happen even before he had his face blown off by a grenade?
6. If we assume that Blomkamp structured this as a parable or allegory, we can excuse some of the film's heavy-handedness. But that excuse only works so far; every moment where the film reminds you about the message it's trying to get across just makes the next moment less effective. The planet is ruined by pollution, and the wealthiest humans build their own gated, private community (okay, heavy-handed, but that's the premise). They did it to protect their culture (I don't think the world's 1% constitute a mono-culture on their own, but let's go with it). The working class are discarded as disposable spokes in the wheels of commerce (okay, but they seem to have robots, so why do they need people, and I can't imagine that Elysium would be solely responsible for the revenue that a company like Armadyne would need to operate, but sure, let's go with it). The brown people trying to cross the border to Elysium are "illegal immigrants," and we even see them through a nightvision lens that doesn't get used again in the film (pretty heavy-handed, but all right). We are told that Kruger, Elysium's operative on Earth, commits human rights abuses and rapes (great, another example of projecting villainy by using the rape trope). The cute little girl is telling a story about how helping people is a good way to make friends. (Is friendship for friendship's sake a good in and of itself?) Jodie Foster's Delacourt just referred to a brown woman and her daughter as "those people" (wow).
What do you mean Blomkamp said in an interview that "Elysium doesn't have a message"? What was the point of all this then?
7. Then, there are structural questions. I guess that William Fichtner's John Carlyle had to be a defense contractor in order for the plot with Delacourt's attempt to seize power work, but it would have made better dramatic sense if Carlyle had been responsible for controlling the access to health care that seems to drive the inequality in Elysium's Earth. And free, universal health care solves everything? Wouldn't it actually make over-population worse?
8. I can live with flat characters if the world is fully realized, but Blomkamp fails to create a world with enough micro or macro details to make the allegory work. How does Blomkamp's world of 2154 Earth work? Why is there a health care scarcity in this future world when the magical health pods seem so plentiful and easy to manufacture? Are the gatekeepers of medicine denying these magical health machines from the poor, brown people on Earth because they're mean and stupid or because they like seeing other people suffer? What kind of government rules here? What kind of economic system drives this world? What are Max and the other workers in this factory making? Why would a system that supports Elysium be invested in giving parolees like Max a job at all, when the source of labor so obviously outstrips the demand, and robots could replace people? If Max's former colleagues are car thieves, who's rich enough to have cars on Earth worth stealing, and who is buying them? Is Elysium self-sufficient, or does it rely on Earth-side industries? How has starvation not set in on Earth if it's so over-populated and polluted? Does Elysium have a geosynchronous orbit over Los Angeles, which is why young Max could see it during the daytime?
To be an effective allegory and an effective, entertaining film, the story needs to be able to dodge questions like this. But Blomkamp stated the film has no message, which leaves Elysium as a poor film.
There's a difference between dumb and stupid. Dude, Where's My Car? is dumb. Jack and Jill is stupid, almost offensively so. I suppose it's a matter of self-awareness and confidence, Cohen. White House Down falls on the right side of the dumb/stupid divide, even if it wore my patience a bit thin with how long it took to get us to the fireworks factory. The movie tries to surprise with its twist with five minutes left, but it all seems unnecessary after the explosions.
None of this works without Channing Tatum, who makes a very good John McClane (he even gets down to his own white tanktop, dark pants). It's easy to write him as a meathead, but between the subtle, physical menace he presented in Haywire, the easy-going charm he showed in White House Down, and the goofiness he showed in 21 Jump Street, I'm surprised to find myself enjoying his performances. It's also why I don't think he can play an absolute scumbag like Gambit.
It is curious that Tatum's John Cale (I didn't notice at first, but even the name isn't that different from John McClane) isn't put at the same physical peril that Bruce Willis's McClane went through in Die Hard. The indelible image I took from Die Hard is McClane's bloody bare feet from walking on broken glass; Tatum's Cale gets a bloody nose, at best, from his brawls with the Special Forces operator who plays the primary physical antagonist. Jamie Foxx as not-Obama almost works, but he lacks the gravity a President would have. I tried imaging if I would vote for Foxx's Sawyer, and I couldn't.
Write James Vanderbilt added a twist of The Rock into his "Die Hard in the White House" idea when he wrote the screenplay; here, James Woods (playing the obvious villain because why else would you cast James Woods) plays the Ed Harris role, Tatum is a bit of the Sean Connery, Jamie Foxx is the Nicholas Cage, and Jason Clarke is the Gregory Sporleder. You even have someone (Joey King's Emily Cale in this case) waving off an airstrike on a prominent American landmark at the last minute to save the protagonists.
There was a moment where the Speaker of the House, who had to be inaugurated as the President of the United States, says that the United States is more than just a house, even a house with as much symbolic importance as the White House. And it seemed like the movie was about to get into something deeper about the importance of symbols to a nation's consciousness, but that was never going to happen. I hated that I was teased with that though.
I would have loved a story from outside Washington D.C. during the chaos. An explosion at the Capitol is followed by an attack in the White House that conceivably resulted in the death of the President of the United States that then definitely led to the death of the Vice President of the United States, who replaced the POTUS upon his assumed demise, which led to a close shave of a military attack on the White House that would have killed the civilian hostages inside. That's an incredible sequence, and it would have severe global consequences, but the film basically laughs it off. And we haven't even discussed the implication of an old white guy attempted to assassinate a black president would have on racial dynamics in America. But a dumb film like White House Down wouldn't be concerned with that sort of thing.
We go from a film starring an actor who could have played Captain America to a Captain America film. I'm not sure Channing Tatum would have been able to pull off the straight man routines that Chris Evans does, since they're charming in very different ways, but it's an interesting thought experiment to wonder what a Channing Tatum-led Captain America film would look like.
I was pleased that they continue to try different things in the individual Marvel movies until the Big Three come back together for the next Avengers movie; it expands the scope and feel of the Marvel cinematic universe as much as the little asides and references. This is a franchise that can encompass genres like high fantasy (Thor), technological thriller (Iron Man), war films and political thriller (Captain America), and space opera (Guardians of the Galaxy) and new models of films interacting with television (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Netflix series of shows).
I was also very pleased by the cinematography in Winter Soldier; it's much more kinetic than the cinematography in The Avengers, possibly because it has only three characters to focus on (Captain America, Black Widow, The Falcon) rather than six (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye), but the shots just felt more imaginative. One that has stayed with me is actually not superheroic: we see from outside the elevator bank Captain America entering a glass elevator. It's very easy to make this a pedestrian shot, but it's visually interesting because of where the camera is placed.
Casting Robert Redford, star of The Candidate, Three Days of the Condor, and All the President's Men as Alexander Pierce in Winter Soldier was a brilliant piece of casting. It lends the film the political thriller airs it aspires for, and it gives the plot an extra bit of gravitas.
If you're going to use an actor to portray Captain America's antagonist to be the avatar of the military-industrial complex, you might as well use an actor who is readily identifiable as quintessentially American as Robert Redford.
The movie tackles the anxiety about the surveillance state's infringement on civil liberties, President Obama's secret kills list, drone strikes, and the general tension between security achieved through preemptive action and freedom, and it's admirable that it ties into the idea that we must all be vigilant about what our governments do. Of course, you can only be so subversive when you're helming a mult-billion dollar franchise, so it doesn't take the full cynical measure about our government. The American government is still basically sound; we are told through visual shorthand that we can still rely on the CIA, which has
loyal Americans like Agent 13 after SHIELD's dissolution
, or the FBI, which
arrested Garry Shandling's HYDRA Senator, who also was a thorn in Iron Man's side by insisting on American government oversight over Tony Stark's Iron Man technologies
. Meanwhile, in the real world, the CIA and FBI are just as dark and prone to wrongdoing as SHIELD.
The evil Nazis who infiltrated the SHIELD and the American government
can be blamed for every terrible decision the American government has made; true Americans like Captain America can still redeem America.
It also has a fundamental tension about how we're supposed to treat Nick Fury. We're asked to trust Fury
now that SHIELD has been dismantled
even though he was an advocate for Project Insight
until the moment he discovers he doesn't have complete control over it
. Once
the larger threat of Hydra comes to the fore
, the question Captain America asks about why it was fine for Fury to control Project Insight aren't raised again. The film also doesn't stop to ask why it was fine for
Fury to murder Pierce rather than disabling him or capturing him for trial
. He might be a realist, but it doesn't explain
why he is allowed to circumvent the judicial system and play judge, jury, and executioner
. The movie asks us to question who controls the apparatus, but the real question is why we should use certain technologies or techniques at all.
Pierce asks a member of the World Security Council (which looks like a cabal that happens to meet in well lit offices), "What if Pakistan marched into Mumbai, and you knew they were going to drag your daughters into a soccer stadium and shoot them, and you could just stop it. With the flip of a switch. Wouldn't you?" The World Security Council member respond, "Not if it was your switch." But it was a fine switch as long as Nick Fury controlled it?
The film has the same problem that other blockbusters like Man of Steel and even The Avengers had: the destruction is visually impressive, but the audience is asked to ignore the massive, indiscriminate loss of life they've just caused. We're told that
everyone on the Project Insight helicarriers is likely HYDRA personne
l, and they're "the bad guys." Do their lives inherently mean less then? Do they not deserve to be tried in civilian, or even military, courts? Captain America is only restrained from killing the Winter Soldier because
he's actually Bucky Barnes, his old friend
. Would Captain America have been more willing to kill the Winter Soldier if it had been anyone else under the mask?
At the end of the film, we're asked to trust the superheroes, possibly because they've been blessed to be more powerful than everyone else. And that's a troublesome message that subverts the film's message about being vigilant about your government. The film asks us to place our trust in the larger than life, the more powerful, to make decisions about who gets to live or die when that should be no individual's decision, even if he's Captain America.
Inside Llewyn Davis ★★★★★
Possibly my favorite movie of this year, even if it came out last year. I loved it so, so much. As a director trying to make it...man it just spoke to me so much. I was so broke last year, sleeping on friends couches, having money trouble. Fucking loved this. I don't really care about Oscar season but this definitely got snubbed.
Rush ★★★
Pretty good
Taxi Driver ★★★
This was okay. DeNiro's character really reminded me of some guy I used to work with
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone ★★½
Not a complete shitshow as I was expecting
Big Trouble in Little China ★★
Made a GAF thread about this and everyone piled ontop of me
300: Rise of an Empire ★★½
After watching 300 like 6 times when it came out (Hey I was 17...), this one kinda bored me. Not sure if I'm getting old or sea battles just suck but the two stars were essentially for Eva Green's...eyes...
Dallas Buyers Club ★★★½
Worth the hype
The Grand Budapest Hotel ★★★★★
Wes Anderson's best. Hilarious and still easy to watch. Instead of it being a "Wes Anderson movie", it's like a really good story with "wes anderson's eye"...if that makes sense
Frozen ★★★
Was pretty meh on it until the last 3rd
Books
Film Club ★★½
A non-fiction/biography thing about some critic who lets his son drop out of school if he would watch movies with his dad. Focused too much on the dad, didn't really have an ending
Hiroshima Mon Amour Screenplay ★★½
Happend to find the screenplay at a book sale...there were lots of extra bits to help me really understand how the screenwriter felt about writing it and building the characters
I finished A Storm of Swords tonight, and damn what an amazing book.
I read the first 3 books back to back, so what is that almost 3,000 pages? Part of me wants to take a short interlude break with another book before I continue onto Book 4, but another part of me just wants to keep going, especially because I finally want to be able to take part in the ASOIAF book threads.
Just finished "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. I always scoffed of people talking about "life-changing reads", but this one coupled with some personal issues i recently had...really left a mark.
I have a few books to burn through (The Lord of the Rings), before I can do this, but I want some suggestion of some South African literature. I'll be moving there next year, so it would help to read more about the culture. I plan to read through 'Master Harold' and the boys. I have also read Mine Boy, Ways of Dying, and Waiting for the Barbarians.
Edit: Also, does the Dune series have a definitive end?
11. Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov by Robert Chandler - ★★★★ - A good, varied collection of Russian fairy tales plus a few stories that were somewhat modern takes on them.
Movies:
38. Noah - ★★★ - Aronofsky's worst movie, but still decent. Pacing issues.
39. The Heat - ★ - A bad Sandra Bullock comedy with no real redeeming features.
40. House of Fools - ★★★ - Loosely based on a true story. Set in a mental institution during the Chechen war, it shows the lives of the patients as they deal with being abandoned by their care takers and having the institution overrun with soldiers. First half has problems, but it's salvaged by the second half.
41. The Internship - ★★½ - You know exactly what's going to happens when they get put on a team of misfits. Only works because of the actors' charm.
42. The Thing (1982) - ★★★ - Solid. Didn't love it. (Don't really understand the love for it.)
43. Trance - ★ - Why would Rosario Dawson go full frontal for this bad of a movie? It's pure stylishness on a convoluted base.
44. August: Osage County - ★★★½ - Good to great acting by nearly everyone. Nice to see Julia Roberts actually trying again. Meryl Streep's performance reminded me of some of the acting by the mental patients in House of Fools. Over done.
Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov is a collection worth getting for anyone interested in fairy tales. It doesn't spend its time retreading ground with minor variations, but instead focuses mostly on distinct stories, so you get a nice variety. It also includes information about the people Chandler translated from and who they originally transcribed their stories from, plus a nice appendix with information about the possible origins, cultural meanings and uses for the stories themselves.
Just finished "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. I always scoffed of people talking about "life-changing reads", but this one coupled with some personal issues i recently had...really left a mark.
Gotta read that soon. Thoroughly enjoyed Immortality (I'd say you'll probably like it if you liked any of his other books), and Laughable Loves is also nice. Gotta reread Immortality soon too.
Just finished "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. I always scoffed of people talking about "life-changing reads", but this one coupled with some personal issues i recently had...really left a mark.
i love this book so much. i don't mind admitting it changed my life - it weights heavily into how i think about things to this day and some of the stuff about tereza's relationship with the dog karenin made me become a vegetarian
but beyond that i found it such a pleasure to read. the beautiful poetic narration and the way every mini-sized chapter seems to contain an interesting, but easily understood philosophical idea, then the way he weaves that into the interesting stories about love and living under authoritarian government rule <3 <3
It's about time I jumped into this rabbit hole. I am still not the biggest fan of Tolkien's writing. Seeing the films made it a lot easier to picture everything in my head. Tom Bombadill is a BAMF. The first third of the source material is certainly worth the read. I'm excited to finish the other two novels.
The Council of Elrond chapter is a gigantic plot dump, thank god Jackson decided to insert these back-stories and scenes in different places throughout Fellowship. Maybe it's time to rewatch Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Cut. The urge to replay the RTS title is growing quickly.
★★★★
Movies:
Noah
A controversial film, but one I quite enjoyed. Rock monsters are the best! The visuals were top-notch.
★★★★
Captain America: Winter Solider
Best Marvel film since Iron Man 1. Scarlett Johansson can be my waifu any day of the week.
★★★★
Draft Day
Much better than I expected. I had a lot of fun with it. Football drama>>>>>>lovey dovey BS drama.
Gotta read that soon. Thoroughly enjoyed Immortality (I'd say you'll probably like it if you liked any of his other books), and Laughable Loves is also nice. Gotta reread Immortality soon too.
I buyed inmortality a year ago, but haven't touched (it's on my ever growing backlog). I'm definitively going to finish all his novels as i've really enjoyed them all
i love this book so much. i don't mind admitting it changed my life - it weights heavily into how i think about things to this day and some of the stuff about tereza's relationship with the dog karenin made me become a vegetarian
but beyond that i found it such a pleasure to read. the beautiful poetic narration and the way every mini-sized chapter seems to contain an interesting, but easily understood philosophical idea, then the way he weaves that into the interesting stories about love and living under authoritarian government rule <3 <3
I love how it seems like he, as an author, doesn't care about the book at all (breaking the fourth wall) and at the same time he makes philosophical statements right and left without derailing the story.
Also it was weird reading about how crimea was invaded by the russians decades ago.
Books
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson ★★★★
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - David Foster Wallace ★★★★★
The Pale King - David Foster Wallace ★★★★★
An Abundance of Katherines - John Green ★★
Crypto was my first Neal Stephenson book. Liked it a lot, will probably check out some more stuff of his eventually.
DFW is quickly becoming one of my GOAT authors.
Films
Slacker ★★★★
MacGruber ★
Captain Phillips ★½
The LEGO Movie ★★★
The Grand Budapest Hotel ★★★★½
Finally got to see Grand Budapest! Was amazing. Captain Phillips and LEGO Movie were underwhelming (to different degrees).
Last night I watched Interior. Leather Bar. from director James Franco. It was an interesting experience. I had read that the film was a recreation of the 40 minutes of cut (and lost?) material (read: explicit gay sex scenes) from William Friedkin's controversial 1980 film Cruising - like, I thought that would be the entire movie - but only a tiny portion of Interior. Leather Bar. is actually a recreation of those scenes.
The film is actually a documentary (or filmed in a documentary style - I think it's, like, a scripted documentary or something) that takes a look at the process of making said recreated scenes and the general hesitations that the cast and crew have about working on such a film.
James Franco's points about sex and censorship in the movies ("Why can't we have explicit gay sex in a mainstream movie when it's okay to show people being blown to bits?") are generally salient, but the film itself is actually pretty boring. It's only an hour in length though, and I don't regret watching it. It just wasn't what I was expecting.
Just finished "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. I always scoffed of people talking about "life-changing reads", but this one coupled with some personal issues i recently had...really left a mark.
I believe it's one of my best friend's favorites, and he credits it with as much as well. I didn't take much away from it though.
I'm trying to read through Asimov's work that I haven't read yet, while trying to continue my quest to read all the Batman comics. The books side of my 50/50 has suffered a lot this year because of the caped crusader. I don't feel like adding those to the list though.
Oh, and The Legend of Hercules was garbage, go figure.
Gun machine - warren ellis ★★★★★
Forty lashes less one - Elmore leonard ★★★1/2
The ultimate good luck - Richard ford ★★★★★
Junky - William Burroughs ★★★★
Summerland - Michael chabon ★★
The goodbye kiss - Massimo carlotto ★★★★
Howl, Kaddish and other poems - Allen Ginsberg (The two classic poems ★★★★★, the rest between ★ and ★★★★
False negative - Joseph koenig ★★★
The rape of the lock - Alexander pope ★★★★
Djibouti - Elmore leonard ★★★★
A piece of my heart - Richard Ford ★★★★★ (Obsessed with Richard Ford at the moment, ordered his entire back catalogue)
Gunsights - Elmore leonard - ★★★
Escape from five shadows - Elmore leonard ★★★★
Last stand at saber river - Elmore leonard ★★★★★
Web of the city - Harlan Corben ★★
The law at randado - Elmore Leonard ★★★★
Battling boy - Paul pope ★★★★★ (i'm claiming this as a book as it was 200+ pages and i've left all my other graphic novels off so far)
New films since my last update:
Oldboy (2013) ★ (Even worse than I could have expected)
The Ascent (Voskhozhdeniye) 1977 ★★★★
Dallas buyers club ★★★★★
Straight time ★★★
Alpeis (alps) ★★
A company man ★★★
Real fiction ★★★
Sexy beast ★★★★
Nymphomaniac - volume 1 ★★★★★ (Simply stunning)
Nymphomaniac - volume 2 ★★
Freakonomics ★★★
Play ★★★
Crude - the real price of oil ★★★
Norweigan wood ★★★★
Conviction ★★★★
Gravity ★★ (Ending was SUCH a cop-out, ruined the whole film)
Harmony ★★★★
Weekend (1967) ★★★★
Le cercle rouge ★★★★
Looper ★★★★
Pocket money ★★★
The unbelievable truth ★★
Romeo and Juliet (1996) ★★★★
Bow ★★★★★
Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia ★★★★★
Horror stories ★
Jiro dreams of sushi ★★★★★ (favourite documentary so far this year)
Searching for sugarman ★★★ (very over-hyped)
Captain phillips ★★
The Berlin file ★★★
Les diaboliques ★★★★★
Big boys gone bananas ★★
Ain't them bodies saints ★★ (one of my most anticipated, very poor)
Notorious ★★★★
Involuntary (de offrilliga) ★★★
Berbarian sound studio ★★★★★ (A huge surprise, great with decent headphones)
Confessions of a dog ★★★
Snowpiercer ★★★★ (Tilda Swinton steals the show)
Free to play (DOTA2) ★★★ (so-so, some of the main stars weren't too interesting)
A village without women ★★★★
The wolf Children Ame and Yuki ★★★★
The scent ★★★
A letter to elia ★★★★★
The way of the gun ★★★★
We own the night ★★★★
The Great White Silence ★★★★★ (stunning archive footage, glad to have tracked a copy down)
Himizu ★★★★
The trip ★★★★ (The best thing Coogan has done?)
The act of killing ★★★
Dreams for sale ★★
25th Hour ★★★★
J Edgar ★★★
Brooklyn's finest ★★★
