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Sunday, September 21, 2003 |
Lost in Translation
I saw Lost in Translation
the other night, and really enjoyed it, I think it's one of the two or
three best movies I've seen this year (with The 25th Hour, Laurel
Canyon, and, yes, Masked & Anonymous). It's the story of an actor,
Bill Murray, who is spending a week in Tokyo to film a whiskey
commercial. Stuck in his hotel room, and the victim of jet lag, he
meets a young woman, played by Scarlet Johansson, also in pretty much
the same situation. Murray is alone because his wife doesn't travel
with him any more because of their young children; she's alone because
her husband is there for work. The two are drawn into kind of brief
encounter, built around their isolation from the world around them.
What I liked about it was the performances, first of all, both Murray
and Johansson made you believe the characters. The direction and
photography were both fantastic. The movie never seems to go where you
think it will go, and it has a terrific ending.
In a very different vein, last night I watched The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,
from 1965 with Richard Burton and Claire Bloom. I don't think I'd seen
it before, though I had read the book and admired it, as I do that
string of Le Carre novels, from A Small Town in Germany through
Smiley's People. Burton was excellent in this; I haven't seen him in a
long time, and forgot what a great actor he was. The movie was, as I
remember the book, very faithful to it, with its devastating ending.
Watching movies on AMC is very irritating, though, only partially
helped when you Tivo the movie. AMC shows an awful lot of ads during
its movies, and with the Tivo it's easy to skip them. Just as annoying,
though is the large, bright logo that AMC puts in the lower right
corner of the screen. I hate the way everyone does this (I'm watching
KQED now, and they have one, too), but AMC's is really annoying.
Finally, on movies, the other night I saw a trailer for the upcoming Robert Downey Jr. version of The Singing Detective.
The old Dennis Potter TV show, all 415 minutes of it, is close to
greatest movie I've ever seen. The TV show was broadcast twice on KQED
back in the late 80s, and I watched it both times, video taped it, and
watched it again once then. I haven't seen it since, but there are
images from it that I won't soon forget. This trailer looked really
good -- they've updated the music, and the cast looks fantastic.
Michael Gambon was stunning in the TV show, and Downey can be so good.
The one major problem I see with this is that they've got to cut it so
much: at 415 minutes, the TV show was so textured and, well, subtle
isn't quite the right word, but certainly deep is. I need, perhaps to
pick up the DVD and watch it again.
9:53:59 PM Permalink
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Feeding a Yen by Calin Trillin
Just finished this collection of Calvin Trillin pieces, mostly about finding
food in its place of origin, and how it's better there and can't be
duplicated. Quite good, of course, though it's perhaps best to read
Trillin's food writing in small bites than big chunks. I really enjoyed
several of the pieces -- on Pan Bagnat,
fish tacos, pimientos de Padron, fried fish, and Shopsin's in New York.
But I had read some of these before. It gets a little old when he talks
about his world travels in search of food, and why you can't get, say
good Boudin sausage anywhere but Louisiana, but it's still quite a fun
read.
4:58:10 PM Permalink
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Why Would the Anti-Christ Write A Chorus Line?
Via Carpe Datum - Fair and Balanced, a link to an excellent Al Franken Interview on Beliefnet.
Other than that, what’s wrong with the religious right?
They sometimes
forget we don’t live in a theocracy. They can be in the public square
and express their opinion but to expect other people to alter their
behavior to say that, for example, that homosexuality is immoral
because it says so in the Bible…I mean it also says you can’t eat pork.
I don’t see a lot of orthodox Jews saying people who eat pork shouldn't
be allowed to get insurance benefits.
I mean there’s stuff
in the bible how about how to sell your daughter. They kind of are
pretty selective about what is important and what isn’t. I think
slavery is ok in the bible. It’s stupid! It’s like the dumbest thing
that they want to proscribe other people’s behavior based on their
belief.
3:19:50 PM Permalink
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The Right Way to Think About the President?. "Conservatives Against Bush
was founded to propound the conservative principles that this
administration has forsaken. This President has expanded the welfare
state, saddled future generations with debt, eroded some of our basic
freedoms, and waged a spurious war in Iraq that in the end did not make
the U.S. any safer. We seek to reenergize conservatives, so they will
press for change in this administration." [Follow Me Here...]
This is probably the weak spot for
Bush. True conservatives don't like his big government,
don't-pay-for-it, snoop on citizens, boost corporate profits approach;
it's not conservative (nor is it "compassionaite"). To keep this crowd,
Bush will try to go rightwing on social issues, which risks the support
of social moderates. A Democrat can get the social moderates if Bush
goes far enough. If a conservative, or even a nutcase like Perot runs,
then Bush's support could split. We can hope.
3:11:11 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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