I let it slip by without comment, but, for whatever it’s worth, this weblog turned four about two weeks ago.
Month: September 2005
Linpharm:
- from Boing Boing — Walk/Don’t-Walk-Man remixer adds clothes to traffic signals; Smiling disallowed in German passport photos; Old Yeller dogfood ; and Reenactment of Nelson’s funeral on the Thames (I do hope they didn’t entrust this last one to the Batley Townswomans Guild. That’s just asking for trouble.)
- from Generik — unintentional truths. You’ll get no argument from me.
- from Waxy.org Links — Documentary about deaf musicians released without closed captioning; The Simpsons for the blind; and Computer programmer uses Google Maps to discover Roman ruins. (Unfortunately, the Nature article in question seems to now be subscriber-only.)
- from Gwenda Bond — International Superheroes; and lesser-known editing and proofreading marks. Having done my own fair share of copyediting and proofing, I think I can safely say these would come in very handy indeed.
- from Defective Yeti — some new vocabulary to add to the lexicon
- from Gawker — Thieves snort dog’s ashes in cocaine bungle; and Martha Stewart learns to rap. (I dunno, but if he’s gonna teach her, shouldn’t Diddy learn first?)
- and from Invisible City Productions — Discardia, which you celebrate “by getting rid of stuff and ideas you no longer need.”
I’m only a week behind the times. From last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine*, a profile of director David Cronenberg by Jonathan Dee:
“The reason for making a film,” he once said, “is to find out what it was that made you want to make that film in the first place.”
Which, I think, is pretty much the reason for making any kind of art.
* The link won’t do you much good if you’re not willing to shill out the money for the new Times Select subscription service. (I’m not.) All you get is a couple of lines — less than two sentences — of preview. I’m just saying.
Hacking Netflix has a post about the possibility that some users may be switching damaged discs from their personal collections for Netflix copies:
How often does this happen to others? Is this an act of Netflix sending out alternate versions of what is supposed to be in their inventory, or are customers trying to rip off Netflix by returning their own full-screen and rated discs?
It’s interesting. I was actually tempted to do this sort of thing myself once with a Farscape disc that I thought might have been damaged. But then of course I realized something: that would be wrong.
“On the basis of ‘Dirty Love,’ I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is.” – Roger Ebert
“All that the restless viewer [of ‘Flightplan’] can do is marvel at the snazzy production design and the strange elocution of Ms. Foster’s co-star, Peter Sarsgaard (as a sky marshal), who serves up his lines as if he had studied at the John Malkovich school of cinematic expediency.” – Manohla Dargis
And, in a very roundabout way speaking of Flightplan — or at least its co-screenwriter Billy Ray — or, okay, Billy Ray’s short-lived 1994 television series Earth 2 (hey, I told you this was roundabout) — I’ve been watching the series for the first time on DVD lately. It has its good points and bad. But I was amused to find, in the episode I watched this morning, that the DVD proudly proclaims that “Virginia Madsen (Sideways) guest stars.” Which I guess I understand. With Sideways and her deserved Oscar nomination for it, Madsen’s star has risen considerably, and hopefully gone are the days when she starred mainly in bad horror movies like The Prophecy. Except she doesn’t “guest star” in the Earth 2 episode. She appears, yes, but only for about half a minute, essentially as an extra. I don’t think she’s even listed in the credits. She was there, it would seem, only because she was sleeping with one of the cast members (Antonio Sabato, Jr.) at the time. She has no lines; you probably wouldn’t know she was there unless you were looking for her; blink, and you’d have missed her.
This sort of retroactive cross-promotion isn’t all that unusual. Films are often promoted using the subsequent successes of their casts and crews. (The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, anyone?) But it’s a little disingenous to pretend that Earth 2 “discovered” Virginia Madsen before she was a big star or anything like that.
But, as I said, Madsen’s star has risen. I note that she’ll be starring in the upcoming film of A Prairie Home Companion. I’m more amused by the casting for singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty. Originally, Tom Waits and Lyle Lovett were set to play the pair. Now it’s Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly. Tom Waits, replaced by Woody Harrelson… Hmm. I don’t know if that bodes well.