movies

Tuesday various

  • Last Thursday, I posted this image to Capper Blog, and I planned to follow up with the original source article here. Better late than never. The pictures there actually give you a better sense of these so-called infinity pools, and moreover just how high up and close to the edge they are. I think I’d be terrified to swim in one these. [via]
  • Going back even further on things I forgot to follow up on: back in June I posted about a link that was going around, suggesting that every actor reads the same newspaper. Well, Slate followed up on that link and found out the story behind the ubiquitous prop. [via]
  • The world really is a poorer place without Jim Henson, isn’t it? [via]
  • I can’t say I’ll miss Blockbuster all that much, but Matt Zoller Seitz makes a compelling argument that we’ve lost something with the company’s (now almost certain) passing [via]:

    I’m talking about the pre-Internet experience of daily life, which was more immediate, more truly interactive: in a word, real. Bland and aloof as it was, Blockbuster was a part of that — and for certain types of people, it was a big part. There was nothing special about Blockbuster as a business, but special moments did happen there, simply by virtue of the fact that the stores were everywhere, and they stocked a lot of movies, and people who wanted to see movies went there regularly, sometimes alone but more often in the company of relatives or friends. You’d go through the front door and pass the front counter — where an employee was checking in a pile of returned videos (when opened, the boxes went whuck!) and check out the new releases wall (Seventy-five copies of “Hard Target?” Seriously?). Then you’d fan out among the aisles and try your luck.

  • And finally, some video game-related links:

“You’re talking about dreams?”

So, what did I do today?

Well, first thing this morning, I was woken up by Tucker, our dog, who was barking downstairs. He’d apparently thrown up his breakfast, I’m assuming shortly before his plaintive barks woke me from my dreams. (My father had gone to the store not too long before that, and I don’t think that’s something he could have missed on his way out the kitchen door.) I took Tucker out into the yard — I was still barefoot and in my pajamas — and when we came back in I cleaned up the mess. He threw up again later, but I didn’t get the honor of clean-up that time thankfully. Tucker seems fine now, so I don’t think he’s actually sick or anything, but hopefully he’ll keep down tomorrow’s breakfast.

After that, I watched this week’s episode of Burn Notice — which I enjoyed, even if the show has been better in seasons past — and I worked on the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. I didn’t finishthe puzzle, not quite yet, but I’m close. I did a little bit of writing — on my own, since my writing group wasn’t meeting this week — and I read a little bit. I also went to see Inception, continuing something of a Leonardo DiCaprio mind-bending movie weekend. I liked it, even if the movie is a little slow and too cold at times. But it’s very clever and engaging, and an expertly pieced together puzzle box. I liked it a lot.

Though Ken Jennings is right: this is kind of weird.

And that’s about it for my Sunday.

“We gotta get off this rock, Chuck.”

This morning, I mailed out copies of Kaleidotrope to contributors and subscribers, which is a fun way to kill an hour and spend a couple hundred bucks. While I was at the post office, I picked up my thank-you gift from this year’s MaxFunDrive, which had arrived in the mail. It’s a flash drive, signed by Jonathan Coulton, containing his complete discography, which is really cool. I also got a Jordan, Jesse, Go! T-shirt and some cute stickers.

Then this evening, I watched Shutter Island, which isn’t a perfect movie, or even too surprising in its revelations, but it works really well. And it’s great too see Martin Scorcese, who at this point in his directing career has nothing to prove, continually trying new things. For all its excess, it’s clearly the product of man still in love with making movies and the possibilities the medium affords him. Scott Tobias describes the movie like this:

Shutter Island may initially seem like a nerve-jangling genre piece in the Cape Fear mold, but it’s more like Scorsese’s The Shining, a horror show where it’s sometimes hard to tell the haunted from those doing the haunting.

I’m sure I must have done something in between those two things — post office and movie — but it seems like mostly a blur of sitting around, watching some TV, reading, playing with the dog, and the usual Saturday stuff.

Weekend with the dragon tattoo

Saturday went by much, much too quickly.

It rained for most of the afternoon, and I spent it mostly playing with the dog and watching TV or reading. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to mail out issues of Kaleidotrope this weekend, though I did finally mail a copy of issue #8 that I’ve been neglecting to for a little while now. (A very little while. I’m usually good about that sort of thing.) I just wasn’t going to be able to have all them printed, folded, stapled, enveloped, and mailed. Next Saturday, fingers crossed!

Last night, I watched The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (on Netflix Watch Instantly), which I think I liked about as much as I did the book. Which is to say that I liked some of it quite a lot, particularly Noomi Rapace’s fearless portrayal of Lisbeth Salander, but found the rest of it a weird mix of padded tedium and gripping (if inelegantly structured) whodunit.

It’s also funny that so much has been made of how the translated title, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is inaccurate, that Laarson’s original, Män som hatar kvinnor (or Men Who Hate Women), is more apt. And it’s true, the book is more about misogyny (and family secrets) than about Lisbeth. Her tattoo gets mentioned, briefly, but it’s hardly important, and she’s hardly the main focus of the story. And yet if you take her character out of the book — and out of the movie — you’re not left with much else that works. Certainly nothing that’s half as intriguing. Rapace is riveting every time she’s on screen; but every time she’s off, you notice. And while the movie streamlines a lot of the book — for better and for worse — it’s still two and a half hours long. Laarson’s title is more accurate, but it’s boring and underlines what doesn’t work; the English title is misleading, but it focuses in on what’s best about the book.

The movie also had what I think is a pretty big spoiler for the next two books. I say think, because I haven’t read them yet. (I may at some point, but it won’t be immediately, even with the second movie now playing in the US.)

Apparently, there’s also a TV show (starring Rapace) in Sweden. I’m a little dumbfounded by the mass appeal of the books, but there’s something there.

Thursday various