Month: December 2005

Today, this time also courtesy of Boing Boing, it’s a £2,500 essay contest on What is Humanity’s worst Invention?

The snark in me wants to say something like “more humanity” — you know, all that begetting and babies and whatnot — but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the worst invention, or certainly among the worst, is that robot they used to replace Cher years ago.

A.O. Scott of the New York Times writes:

The characters speak in generalities and abstractions, and you wish someone would explain what they’re all talking about. Eventually, people do, and you kind of wish they hadn’t.

Maybe the highest praise given so far is from Keith Breese of filmcritic.com, who calls it “both gorgeously surreal and vacuously arty.”

In all fairness, those are probably complaints you could sometimes make against the original cartoons as well. They’re visually terrific, full of interesting and odd ideas, but it’s often unclear just what the hell, if anything, they’re supposed to be about. As even creator Peter Chung has acknowledged, “When it was actually on, people would say, ‘What the hell is this?'” The show could be confusing.

But it worked — in spite of, or maybe because of that. From the moment I saw the trailer for the new film, my biggest worry was that this was going to be Aeon Flux in name only. They tinkered with the story — which is, in a way, to say they gave it one — and they tinkered with the visual look of things to the point that, if they hadn’t said it was Aeon Flux, I doubt I would have known.

So the reviews so far seem to be almost universally bad. (Which is not to say badly written, although, hoo boy, there’s a whole ‘nother story.) It seems like maybe the one good thing to come out of the film is a renewed interest in the original on which it’s based. You can buy (or, I guess, rent) the complete animated collection. And, if you’re really new to the world of AF, Backwards City offers links to two primers — one from Metafilter, and the other from the Boston Globe (unofficial version here) — plus a link to MTV Overdrive, where you can watch some of the original cartoons (under “Movies”).

1. “And there in a small tin shack on the edge of a ravine, Miguel and Louis stood cooking methamphetamine”
2. “You know you do something special to me, and that’s the way I want it always to be, yeah”
   “Calico Skies” by Paul McCartney, guessed by Kim
3. “And since I’m rather smart and cunning, I took off down the next hall running”
   “Sadie Hawkins Dance” by Relient K, more or less guessed by Kim
4. “I ain’t jokin’ woman, I got to ramble.”
   “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” by Led Zeppelin, guessed by Eric (although, I think John was pretty close)
5. “Where ya going with that mask I found?”
   “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots, guessed by Eric
6. “Because the world is round it turns me on”
   “Because” by the Beatles, guessed by Eric
7. “I caught a spark from his eyes of forgotten desire”
8. “They don’t know you’ve already lived on the other side of the galaxy”
   “Black Dove” by Tori Amos, guessed by Eric
9. “Daughter of Aquarius, listen to your sister”
   “River” by Big Village, guessed by Sharon
10. “A woman is a woman and a man ain’t nothin’ but a male”
    “Jump Jive an’ Wail” by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, guessed by Sharon

At least one of should be a gimme.

The ones that apparently weren’t gimmes that movie picture meme are:

• Third row, first picture: The Way of the Gun
• Fourth row, third picture: The Saragossa Manuscript
• Fifth row, first picture: Mulholland Drive

Monday, Wednesday and Friday;
Tuesday and Thursday;
Monday, Thursday and Friday; or
Saturday and Sunday

So if, like me, you have an event that occurs on one day out of the week — in this case, Sunday but not Saturday — you’re sort of out of luck.