Viewing
- Coffee and Cigarettes--A dozen or so vignettes, each of which involves two or three characters conversing at a cafe table while partaking of the titular stimulants. Jarmusch bats about a .300; a few of the scenes are funny and perceptive, particularly two in which the interlocutors are made painfully aware of their unequal status. (In one tour de force, Cate Blanchett plays both herself, a glamourous film star, and her fictional cousin, a grungy loser who vainly tries to conceal her envy through sarcasm. In another segment, an obsequious Alfred Molina makes overtures of friendship to an actor at the height of his fame, Steve Coogan of 24 Hour Party People, but is rebuffed with exquisite British politeness.) The majority of the sketches, however, are so flat that they don't even rise to the level of deadpan: The White Stripes discuss Tesla's contributions to electronics, the Wu-Tang Clan talk herbal medicine with Bill Murray, Iggy Pop and Tom Waits weigh the merits of IHOP, etc. Recommended instead: Night on Earth.
- La Regle du Jeu--The best movie ever made? Nah. The controlled chaos of adulterous French aristocrats and their servants running behind each other's backs in a country manor got fatiguing, and the nonchalance with which the characters treated infidelity was offputting to my right-wing sensibilities.
- THX 1138--I never accused George Lucas of originality, and his revamped film school project borrows too liberally from key texts of dystopian literature (1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451). Some attractive shots, though, of glowing control panels and computer circuitry. (Maybe that was the best part of Star Wars as well?)
- Land of the Lost: First Season--Primarily for purposes of nostalgia, although even as a kid I thought the special effects were cheapo. And Spenser Milligan has to have been the hammiest TV actor after William Shatner. But I almost wept with the poignant realization of lost youth when I saw Holly's corduroy jeans and plaid shirt--I had a closet full of Toughskins myself. If I want to indulge further, I noticed that season 2 has just come out, not to mention the first season of Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman. Now if only I could see the Shazam/Isis Power Hour again, my retrogression would be complete.
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon--2nd viewing.
- Dragonslayer--Surprisingly good fantasy yarn from 1981 about a callow sorcerer's apprentice who rashly volunteers to kill a dragon feeding on the young maidens of Urland. The special effects occasionally show their age, but still I'll take choppy stop-motion animation over CGI any day. The atmospheric scenery from the misty, rocky Scottish highlands fitted the tale perfectly. Out of curiosity I googled Caitlin Clarke, who played the young wizard's tomboy love interest, and learned that she died just a few weeks ago of ovarian cancer.
Reading
I finally finished the big stack of Lovecraft I obtained thru ILL. It's imaginative mythmaking at a very high level, although HP's almost autistic obsession with architecture can be a bore--I'll be content to never hear the phrase "gambrel-roofed" again. Now, working backward along the chain of influence, I'm reading Poe. Fans of C. S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters should look at "Bon-Bon."
Linky
Slugfest between Greek Orthodox and Franciscan priests.
French book on slacking a bestseller.
Former library worker turned millionaire art and book dealer donates massive poetry collection to Emory library.
posted by Carlos @ 11:26 AM
4 Comments:
Thanks for reminding me of Dragonslayer. I picked up a secondhand copy of the novelization many years ago, and was favorably impressed enough by the unusually complex plot and gritty feel to want to see the movie one day. I even stole a few bits of the plot for some high school exercises in "creative writing", all without ever actually seeing the movie. Some time this week I'll make a point of settling in with the DVD (if I can find it), some guttering candles for illumination, and some coarse rye bread and dark ale for an evening of terror and adventure in the dark ages.
I take it Tom Wait's presence was not quite enough to make Coffee & Cigarettes palatable?
Your response to La Regle du Jeu tempts me to launch another political rant. How frustrating it is that the two-sided paradigm of "right" and "left" assumes that anyone who disapproves of random sexual promiscuity must ipso facto be on the side of corporate embezzlers and warmongers, and, conversely, that anyone who disapproves of indiscriminately incinerating people with the "wrong color" of skin must also be in favor of casual orgies.
Oh, and the best "revamped film school project" I've ever seen is John Carpenter's "Dark Star". Catch it if you can. It's very silly and very funny in a deadpan, zoned-out, ultra-low-budget kind of way. I think you'll particularly enjoy the dilemma of the bomb.
Felix
To be fair to Coffee and Cigarettes, the celebrity factor can be interesting in itself--seeing Tom Waits in a mundane setting talking about mundane things is anomalous enough to pique the curiosity, if you're a Waits fan particularly. And if you don't like one premise, you just have to wait a few minutes (or use the fast forward) to see a different one.
I remember C. S. Lewis pointed out that New Testament morality falls outside the usual right/left dichotomy: leftist in its concern with the poor, rightist in its sexual morality and hierarchalism (if that's a word). That observation seems borne out by people like Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, etc.
I think you'll like Dragonslayer and I'll give Dark Star a try (since I like Carpenter and Kubrick).
Glancing at your posting about Le Regle de Jou again, I'd suggest that the random promiscuous infidelity was offputting to your sense of morality, not to "right-wing" sensibilities, which as you and CSL note are quite different things.
Felix
Seems to me I've heard "right wing" applied to traditionalist mores as well as political views, but I'll concede that the phrase is vague at best. I still remember your paperback book arguing (persuasively) that libertarianism transcended the liberal/conservative divide.
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