About Fred

It’s been three weeks since I last posted a roundup of the movies I’ve seen, mostly because I’ve been traveling, but also because in that time I’ve only seen 6 movies:

• 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple picks up the theme of human kindness from the first film, amplifying it by contrast against a more frightening, because human, villain, one offering cruelty masquerading as kindness. There are some frighteningly brutal moments, but also real, often surprisingly audacious, beauty, and another strong performance from Ralph Fiennes.
• There’s a compelling story in The Monuments Men—or maybe, and this is the movie’s problem, there are a dozen different compelling stories in it, an entire war’s worth of disparate stories compressed into a single narrative that can’t really contain them all while still propelling the movie forward. It’s well acted and amiable—and you know, fuck Nazis—but it’s also a collection of scenes stitched together more than an exciting story.
• Is This Thing On? is well made and well acted, and I liked it lot more than I expected to, but it never rises high enough above the cliches from which it’s built.

• No Other Choice is—and I mean this in the best possible way—batshit insane, making weird but compelling choices at every turn.
• There are a lot of very good performances in Stark Fear, and not just from star Beverly Garland and the other leads, but also from many of the non-professional locals the movie cast. It’s a pity they’re not given a particularly understandable story or script from which to work, making those performances feel less like part of a cohesive whole than a handful of interesting moments.
• Was the world crying out for a mashup of Shaun of the Dead and High School Musical? Much less a Christmas-themed one? (Much less a Christmas-themed one I watched in April?) I don’t know, but Anna and the Apocalypse is mostly good fun. Catchy, if not at all memorable, songs and a lot of playful characters and camerawork. I didn’t necessarily love it, but I enjoyed my short time with it.

I also re-watched 3 movies:

• Miller’s Crossing, which isn’t necessarily the Coen Brothers’ best collaboration, but there’s a lot to love about its style and humor.
• The Princess Bride, which is just a sheer delight every time.
• The Graduate, which I was almost surprised to discover is still really good, despite being very much of its time, and despite every beat of it having entered into the public consciousness.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done this.

But sure, why not. Let’s try it again. As always, the rules are simple. Know any of the ten song lyrics below? Post the artist and song title in the comments.

1. “Change your heart, it will astound you”
2. “A heart that’s full up like a landfill”
3. “I’m a wild abandoned ray of heat”
4. “Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you?”
5. “Tell me, are you locked in the punch?”
   “Man on the Moon” by R.E.M., guessed by Glen
6. “The most tender place in my heart is for strangers”
   “Hold On, Hold On” by Neko Case, guessed by Thudfactor
7. “I made a lot of mistakes”
8. “Where is the sun that shone on my head?”
9. “She can ruin your faith with her casual lies”
   “She’s Always a Woman” by Billy Joel, guessed by Simon
10. “My only comfort is the night gone black”
    “Only Happy When it Rains” by Garbage, guessed by Glen

Good luck!

Here’s my March music playlist:

I read just two books in March:

• Nobody’s Perfect by Donald E. Westlake
• Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow

I read 32 short stories in March, missing just a couple of days. These were my favorites:

• “An Honour to be Nominated…” by Jacob Seinemeier in Escape Pod
• “Warren’s Tentacle” by Susan Palwick in Lightspeed
• “What We Mean When We Talk About the Hole in the Bathroom” by Angela Liu in Uncanny
• “Eat, Prey, Love: A Modest Proposal for Ensuring Gender Equality Through Selective Dietary Practices; or, a Geriatric Millennial’s Guide to #GirlDinner” by Jilly Dreadful in Lightspeed
• “I Wish You Died Laughing” by Lio Abendan in Strange Horizons
• “Walking Tour of Scarborough in Nuclear Winter” by Stewart C Baker in Pseudopod
• “The Bridge” by Rory Say in The Drabblecast
• “The Tide Folk” by Jennifer Hudak in Lightspeed
• “Espie Droger Dreams of War” by Matthew Kressel in Lightspeed
• “The Sea Child” by Justin Wesley Ferguson in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• “I Once Fell in Love With a Jackalope” by Chase Anderson in Small Wonders
• “Ananconfabulation” by Mar Vincent in PodCastle
• “Meet the Mets” by ace tilton ratcliff in Escape Pod
• “All the Good You Did Not Do” by Jolie Toomajan in Pseudopod
• “I Will Bring You Tokyo” by P.S.C. Willis in Tales & Feathers

I watched 6 movies last week:

• Tokyo Gore Police does exactly what it says on the tin. Never mind that the tin is more than a little dented, or that its contents have started to go rancid, that seems like it’s maybe kind of the point. The movie is ridiculously over-the-top, certainly delivering on the violence and gore—sometimes in silly or inventive ways, though mostly just to shock and disgust—but it doesn’t offer a lot except for that, even when it finally gets around to having some kind of story. Some cheap but creative glimmers and an in-your-face attitude aside, the whole thing quickly grows tedious.
• The Hunted is…fine. It’s best when it’s a game of cat and mouse between its two leads, though mostly only because those leads are Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro, who invest more in their characters than the script does. The movie never really goes anywhere, beyond a stab at a lukewarm First Blood remake. And while William Friedkin certainly knows his way around a chase scene, this was not one of his better efforts.
• The new Anaconda doesn’t work just as a love letter to the 1997 original. Which is good, because I don’t have much if any love for that movie. This one is goofy and amiable, and if it doesn’t go anywhere even remotely surprising, at least the ride itself is good-natured fun.

• Roger Ebert said that Runaway Train was “a reminder that the great adventures are great because they happen to people we care about.” In this case, that’s Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, who really do manage to make you care about their characters and keep the tension high from start to finish.
• Imagine a cheap Canadian answer to Mad Max with a little Smokey and the Bandit tossed for some reason, and you probably have a pretty good idea of how Firebird 2015 AD ever got made. Of course, what you’re imagining is almost certainly a better movie than this lazy and tedious shamble. Some of the actors do their best with the absolute nothing they’re given, while some just do a lot, but none of it is worth watching even a little.
• I often didn’t like Marty Supreme the character, but Marty Supreme the movie takes so many weird and audacious swings, it’s hard not to largely enjoy it.

I also rewatched Coherence, which I think is a little less clever upon rewatching, and a little dated by its shot-on-video aesthetic and some of its cast—RIP to the troubled Nicholas Brendon—but still holds up as a clever explorations of science-fictional ideas.