| |
|
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
|
|
Here's a very useful bookmarklet for those who use the Alameda County Library website, making it very easy to look up tites: it looks up any selected text.
To use it, drag this link: ACLibrary to your bookmarks bar, or right click and choose Add Bookmark or whatever to add the link as a bookmark. Then, select some text anywhere on a web page, and choose the bookmark. It'll prompt you to edit the selected text if you want, then when you hit OK, will do a search for that title on the AC library web page, showing you the results. Very handy, I use it all the time.
Two caveats: I know this works with other libraries using the Innopac software, abnd should be easy to edit, but I haven't tested it elsewhere. Also, I've only used it in Safari Mac and Thunderbird Windows, though it should work in any modern browser.
Let me know how it works for you.
6:04:12 PM 
|
|
Downfall tells the story of the last 10 days of the Third Reich from inside Hitler's bunker, more or less through the point of view of his young secretary. It's an intense movie, presented in a very realistic style. Bruno Ganz, so fantasitc years ago in Wings of Desire, gives a breathtaking, unforgettable performance as Hitler. All the acting is amazing, not the least because they seem to have done a good job finding actors who look like the real characters they are portraying. Throughout the movie the tension is almost physically palapble; I was reminded of Saving Private Ryan, as they wait for the Germans to reach the little town. In both cases the tension became physical for me. In this movie, the tension doesn't really resolve, which is also part of the horror. There is also a scene of almost unimaginable horror involving Magda Goebbels, that was very difficult to watch.
There's been some "controversy" about Ganz's portrayal of Hitler as a human; it's true that while he is shown having (many) moments of madness here, you do get a, what, feeling, for him as a human being. The truth is, of course, that Hitler was human. To look at him as some sort of unhuman monster, is, in a way, to absolve him of his human responsibilities. This Hitler is more reprehensible because he's responsible.
3:51:16 PM
|
|
|
© Copyright 2005 Steve Michel.
Last update: 4/19/2005; 3:45:24 PM.
|
|
|
