movies

Rainy day

It was a rainy day here, off and on, and so I went to see Super 8 at a local theater. I enjoyed the movie quite a lot. Roger Ebert calls it “nostalgia not for a time but for a style of filmmaking” — that style being early Spielberg — and I think that’s right. (As, probably, are his criticisms, although I think I minded less.

Other than that, I spent some of the day reading Kaleidotrope slush. Next year, I am definitely having shorter reading periods. Maybe January through April and September through December?

Rainy day

I thought I might give the dog a much needed bath this afternoon, out in the backyard, but the weather had different ideas in mind. (I suspect the dog and the weather may be in cahoots on this.) It rained on and off all day, and the sun never really peeked out from behind the clouds. Maybe tomorrow, although given the forecast probably not until later in the week.

Instead, I spent the day not doing a whole lot. Reading a little Kaleidotrope slush, watching a little Blackadder, getting a new propane tank for the grill, watching Apollo 13. (I’ve been reading Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars lately, and it put me in the mood to see it again.) That sort of thing. This evening I watched Jaws of Satan online with friends, making fun of what is a pretty lousy and justifiably forgotten horror movie. There’s a halfway decent movie lurking in it somewhere — or at least a quarter-way decent rip-off of Jaws — but it’s bogged down by lousy effects, worse writing, and terrible pacing. It’s notable mainly for being the film debut of Christina Applegate.

And that was Saturday.

Wednesday various

  • Human Centipede II already banned in the UK for sexual depravity. The description of the film sounds pretty horrific to me, even beyond the pale — and I’m someone who, amazingly enough, found some things to…well, not enjoy, exactly, about the first film, although I was less immediately repulsed by it than I would have expected. (Watching it over Twitter with friends may have softened the blow.)

    But the idea of censoring it, of banning it from the country, doesn’t sit entirely well with me. I tend to agree with Sarah Ditum of The Guardian on this:

    You get extremes of intelligence and stupidity as well as extremes of unpleasantness in horror, and if we’re happy to start banning stuff because of the latter, we might be losing a lot of stuff that falls into the former camp.

  • Meanwhile, the fact that there will be a G.I. Joe sequel — and that it may very well star The Rock — fills me with a weird manic delight. The original was one of the most gloriously dumb movies I have ever seen. I am so renting any sequel, as terrible as it is likely to be.
  • A lot of really interesting thoughts on X-Men: First Class. Though I liked it well enough — more than I expected to, less than I might have hoped — I’m not sure it deserves all this deep thought. But it’s all very interesting nonetheless. Spoiler warnings, of course.
  • Any story that starts with “the night a drunk John Lennon and Harry Nilsson heckled the Smothers Brothers and got in a fight with Pam Grier” has got to be good.
  • And finally, Paul Simon is simply a true class act. [via

Sunday

This afternoon, I went with friends to see X-Men: First Class. There was a lot to like about it…and a fair amount not to like. Ultimately, it was an entertaining but unremarkable summer blockbuster.

Before that, at our writing group, I penned this:

“You can kill the alien,” says Greene, “but only if you can prove the alien was going to try and kill you first.”

“I thought you said these aliens were peaceful,” says Black. “Not aggressive. That whole ‘I come in peace’ shtick they did with the Ministers when they visited a year ago. The way I hear it — spindly legs, brittle exoskeleton — they couldn’t hurt us even if they wanted to.”

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy,” says Greene. “But they won’t let you off the space station unless you can prove that it was self-defense.”

“I still don’t see why I have to get caught. You know I’m better than that. If the Company has any doubts about my experience, I — ”

“This isn’t about doubts. This isn’t about past performance or confirmed kills. We know your reputation, and we value your experience. This is about a space station so tight under lock and key that there’s just no other way out. If you want to escape, you’ll have to get caught.”

“And face a full inquest, maybe even execution or worse, the whole place crawling with surveillance, Marines.”

“It sounds bad when you put it like that.”

“And now you’re saying I have to convince them that I acted in self-defense. Against an alien who’s physically incapable of acting like a threat. That I’m not just fighting guards, but genetics. Frankly, escape sounds like the less impossible impossibility.”

“If you run, they’ll find you. If they find you, they’ll kill you. Remember, you’re not even supposed to be there. It’s only the local celebrations that are getting you on board. You don’t want to draw undue attention to yourself.”

“What, like by killing the aliens’ leader on the eve of their most sacred holiday, you mean? And by trying to convince them she made me do it, despite centuries of evolution that have already convinced that them she couldn’t? That kind of attention?”

“The Company needs her dead. You understand that much, right? The pains we’re taking to get you there?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you think we’d send you in empty-handed? This holiday — you know what it is?”

“No.”

“It’s Truthteller’s Eve. It’s the one day a year when no one can lie. Just can’t. There’s some kind of drink, a truth serum, everyone has to take it.”

“But that’s — ”

“We have an antidote.”

Oh, and I did the crossword, despite the paper copy having been ripped out by some cheap jerk at the supermarket where my father bought the paper. (If I had a nickel for every time that happened…) That was my Sunday.