The Fall

A few years ago, I saw this trailer, and knew I wanted to see this movie. Then I promptly forgot all about it.



Tonight M and I watched "The Fall". I also remember thinking no movie could possibly deliver what that trailer seems to promise. But it did. It was beautiful, both visually and emotionally. I will be buying a copy of the film in Glorious Blu-Ray for my own collection.

It's also the best depiction in film I've yet seen of the kind of emotional collaborative storytelling I've experienced in the best roleplaying games.

han solo, PI

courtesy of io9



Which is pretty amazingly awesome by itself, but it takes on a whole new dimension when you see it shot-for-shot with the original Magnum credits:



I would totally watch that show.

Low-Hanging Media Fruit

Here are some things I finally read or watched this week, which have been on their respective queues for a long time:

1) The Magnificent Seven. Good - easy to see why it's a classic. Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen are especially magnificent - they just don't make 'em like that anymore.

2) Be Cool. Not Cool. That's all it deserves. Any more would further desecrate the original, which I still like.

3) Freakonomics. Liked it. It's a quick read and, even if it's not as enlightening as some would make it out to be, it did spur me to reconsider a few things and see certain trends in a new light, and that has value to me.

4) Curb Your Enthusiasm. Long-recommended by friends, the show is undeniably funny. Whether I can bear the awkwardness it invokes remains an open question.

A few related media thoughts:

5) Re-watching The Hobbit and Return of the King with the kiddos has us all (well, not M, but me and the kids) singing "The Greatest Adventure", "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way!", and "Frodo of the Nine Fingers" with great aplomb. I think I like The Hobbit better (probably b/c that was the one I watched a lot as a kid), but H seems to like RotK more, at least at the moment.

5a) The Last Unicorn is en route from Netflix - it will be interesting to see if H loves it or if it scares her too much.


6) We've been playing (a simplified, extremely brief) version of Gloom, a card game based on Edward Gorey's work where you try to make the members of a quirky family suffer horribly with cards like "Mocked by Midgets" or "Marooned on the Moors" and inflict happiness ("Slept without Sorrows") on opposing players' families, until everyone dies horrible deaths! The kids saw it on the shelf and begged to play it, and we always make clear that it's comedy, and THEY LOVE IT. They want to play it every night. I'd be lying if I denied it makes me proud. Tonight we read "The Doubtful Guest" as our bedtime story.

7) As a balance for all the bits of my childhood and sense of humor/humour that I'm inflicting on my children, it's only fair that we give the classics of their own generation a fair chance. Thus, M and I will probably be watching High School Musical this week to see if we think it's OK for Hilde to watch yet.

Monthly Mix: Midnight in Istanbul

Istanbul at Night, by Yoav Lerman

Years ago, I made a mix for my sister called "Nightfall at the Arabesque" full of songs that were at least mildly Arabic-sounding. I never gave her a playlist. But a few months ago I had her describe each song, and it was an embarrassment. Dreadful stuff. Like reading 'poetry' you wrote in high school. I won't go into details - it's too horrible. Anyway, I'd been jonesing to put together a new middle eastern mix, but I only had a few bits and pieces of stuff I liked hanging around. I finally decided I would do it in a manner that allowed me to fill gaps with some instrumental scoring, and therefore it became a movie soundtrack in my head.

Now, this sort of thing isn't unusual for me. As in that conversation I had with Patriate Jeff (read about it here), it comes back to the fact that I am, at my core, an Ideas Man. The potential artwork is quite often more beautiful than the finished work. That's why I make random generators - they are little idea seeds floating past in a river of entropy, and they are often as beautiful as the other seeds that grow up to be trees, albeit more ephemeral. I brainstorm ideas for web applications I'd like to see all the time, but rarely am I interested in the work necessary to bring them to completion. I have an idea for an intensely interesting TV series, but I don't think I'm capable of writing a script I'd accept. Likewise, this month's mix is a soundtrack for a movie that I'm not sure could be made at all. It certainly couldn't be made by me. But I can come up with a soundtrack.

Elevator pitch goes like this: A tale of youth, drugs, hip-hop music, and violence, but not set in LA or Chicago - this is mainly in Istanbul, with occasional narrative side trips to Algeria or elsewhere in the Maghreb. It could only be made (to my satisfaction) by a brilliant, angry, young Turkish filmmaker, probably living in Berlin.

I'm not going to tell you who does the score tracks here, but I will give you their original titles.

1. Ceza - Araturka Fasli
2. Revenge
3. Ayben - Benim O
4. A-500
5. Fuat - Okyanuslar
6. Zara - Kesik Çayir
7. Kolera - Irtifa Kaybi
8. Shadows
9. Ceza - Yerli Plaka
10. Refinery Surveillance
11. Cartel - Cartel
12. Bakara
13. Sagopa Kajmer - Al 1'de Burdan Yak
14. Rumble City
15. Ceza - Shinanay
16. Rachid Taha - Barra Barra


Get it here or, if that doesn't work, here

I hope you can picture it.

Goodreads: 10 Bad Dates with De Niro

Ten Bad Dates with De Niro by Richard T. Kelly

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am naturally a list-reader. I make lists too, when the occasion warrants, but I like reading a good list just as much as making a good list. Not all the movie lists in this book are great, but there are enough lists and enough films covered to make it very enjoyable. And, since there's no plot to follow, there's no guilt in skipping a list that doesn't look interesting, or only reading the paragraphs about movies you've heard of in a list. This may reveal more about my personal habits than I'd like, but I should mention that I read almost all of the parts I read on the toilet. Now you know.



Be forewarned: it is impossible to read this without adding a bunch of movies to your Netflix queue. Seriously, unless you've seen them all, at least add one from the "10 Best Gangster Deaths" list.


View all my reviews.

Five Word Movie Reviews

• 24 Hour Party People - Kinda interesting, but utterly pointless.
• Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control - Interspersed clips made it boring.
• Cold Mountain - Zelweger acts better than Kidman.
• Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger - Vastly worse than I remembered.
• Doctor Zhivago - Alec Guinness makes everything better.
• Million Dollar Baby - Good, for a boxing film.
  
• American Psycho - Far too intense for M.
• Dog Day Afternoon - The oddest heist movie ever.
• The Hurricane - Actually about freedom, not boxing.
  

Five word movie reviews

Pleasantville - Interesting idea gone horribly preachy!

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Too much Sam Rockwell butt.

A River Runs Through It - Pretty; plodding. Like fly fishing.

District B13 - Best French Parkour movie, EVER!

One Fine Day - Arguing is not romantic comedy.

Spirited Away - Original, yes, but also overrated.

Transformers - HOT DAMN that was fun!

Key Largo - Hey Bogey: Grow a pair!

The Darjeeling Limited - I could watch this again.

White - Some Europeans cannot be understood.

I know.

I'm sorry. It won't be the last time I neglect this blog; it hasn't been the first. Those of you still here, thanks. Its now less than a month until we get on a plane and go to England. We're excited and stressed.

Our house got listed for renters today. Pics in the "Virtual Tour". I find it amazing that houses still get sold or rented when basically all real estate sites have such appallingly poor web design, but so it goes.

I went to England for a couple of weeks, during which I worked about 150 hours, but I still found a little time to go look at houses and eat at some pretty decent pubs and curry houses. I think we're going to like it there. I originally had my heart set on some kind of stone barn conversion out in the country, but after driving through thick fog on twisty narrow roads, and after seeing what town has to offer, the idea of living in town is growing on me. It's a small town, anyway. But it has nice parks and Victorian townhomes, and its pretty. There's still a chance we'll end up in some little village surrounded by sheep, but town is probably where we'll end up. We won't actually find the place until after we're there, but it was nice to have a look around and see what's where.

Now begins the difficult task of sorting through all our stuff; deciding what goes to storage, what goes with us, and what simply goes away. I am fortunate to be married to someone who is a natural organizer, which makes many things about this easier for me - I am not very good at this sort of thing on my own.

On to media reviews:

The England Mix is done - thanks for contributions, you probably will get your copy shortly if you're on my list. If you think you should be on my list but didn't contribute, leave me a little note below telling me what you've done for me lately and get me your address (email to dave dot younce at gmail dot com, don't go posting it in comments) and I'll see what I can do.

Spice, History of a Temptation , by Jack Turner. 3.5 stars out of 5. It's fascinating for people like me, who want to know just how pepper came to be used as a common rent payment, or why the phoenix was said to smell of cinnamon, but its tone is rather academic (I suspect it's Jack Turner's dissertation turned into a book). There are some rather tawdry portions where spices as aphrodisiacs are concerned, but mostly it's about how spices came to have such value that the quest for them fueled the age of discovery. I liked it, but then, I was stuck on planes for hours and hours.

Michael Clayton: I watched this on the plane on my way over to the UK, and liked it quite a lot. Clooney is excellent, as is Swindon. 4.5 stars.

Big Love - Season 2: Oh fine, I admit it - I watched this show despite the many ill-informed email chain letters I got from LDS friends warning me about it's evil depictions of the Church. Actually, the LDS church is rarely mentioned, and when it is, it's usually treated with respect. Mostly I came away from Season 1 saying "Man, I'm glad that's not us". But Season 2 is just too hard to make myself want to watch - the show is really, really good at drama. But watching this family held together by threads is just too much for me anymore. So I'm moving on, but amiably. It was interesting, but I've no time for it anymore. 3 stars.

30 Rock, on the other hand, just gets better and better. We're only about halfway into the first disc of the first season, but it's a keeper. 4 stars.

To Have and Have Not: There's definitely chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, and it's pretty good - if I'd never seen Casablanca I'd have thought this was excellent. I have, though, and Casablanca's the better film. Their stories are similar enough that I think you'll see the connection too. 3.5 stars.

Something the Lord Made: Alan Rickman and Mos Def as pioneering heart surgeons in the mid-20th century. Both are excellent, but the combination of racial tensions and medical suspense makes it harrowing to watch. Excellent, and recommended, but I am unlikely to watch it again. Oh yeah, and its a true story. 4 stars.

As if you care about ...The Golden Compass

Oh yeah, saw the Golden Compass - LOVED IT. Even if religious groups are all up in arms because it was "written by an atheist". Oh No! somebody might get the idea that some religions misuse their power over people! We can't have them thinking THAT!

Movie was good, though. Excellent jet-driven blimps and stuff like that. Enormous plot holes, but lovable ones. See it

4 out of 5 stars

As if you care about ... Blood Diamond

I've been thinking about doing more reviews of films I watch here, so consider this an experiment in that vein.

Blood Diamond was quite good, much better than I thought it would be when I initially saw it advertised. It was billed then as mostly action flick, and while there was plenty of action, it's really about the conflict it's set in. It joins Hotel Rwanda and Black Hawk Down as eye-opening, dramatic, and interesting films about the plight of Africans and Africa. Maybe Beyond Borders, Tears of the Sun, and The Last King of Scotland are in that category too, but I haven't seen them yet.

DiCaprio does pretty well with a South African accent, and I've always liked Jennifer Connelly (even though her performance is a little flat here). As with everything I've seen him in, though, the real standout here is Djimon Hounsou. He and DiCaprio received Oscar nominations for their roles, and its easy to see why.

Anyway, this one is recommended. Four out of five stars.

What is this Lighter-than-air vehicle, part 2

Couldn't find a shot of it in the air I liked, but here's the ship from Stardust (which I haven't seen yet but probably will soon). But since we've just had a decision tree on this, I thought I'd invite you to tell me what terms you think are OK to use on the vessel in question.