My friend Marvin has posted his review of the film V for Vendetta (with spoilers, be warned). In his review, Marvin complains that Hollywood doesn’t trust its audience. It doesn’t trust its audience to understand the standard themes of a future fascist-dystopian story, so it has to spell out every little thing. Now, I haven’t seen it, yet, as I’ve been too busy, but I’ve been seeing V for Vendetta posters all over the place here. (Actually, over here in Korea, “Bwee po Bwendettuh” — the fact that there’s no V in Korean makes the title funny on a few …
Category: FILMS&TV
Bwee Po
Primer (2004)
Have you seen Primer? I watched it just before I moved, and I have to say, my initially bad feeling washed away as I suddenly got the movie, understood what it was about, and followed it happily to its conclusion. The thing is, it’s SF. It’s also deadly quiet, deadly calm, slow, and very geeky. Spooky and geeky. It’s spooky because it seems to me it’s realistic in a way that isn’t common in SF. It brings to mind the comments from Ritu’s LJ which I bookmarked on my other computer, where she linked to this essay by Pam Noles …
Scalzi’s SF Film List
If you are a regular reader of blogs, you might have encountered the Scalzi SF films list at places like Ethel the Frog, Byzantium’s Shores, or Pharyngula (or at Scalzi’s own site, of course). The meme as it is online now is to bold the ones you’ve seen. So here goes: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! Akira Alien Aliens Alphaville Back to the Future Blade Runner Brazil Bride of Frankenstein Brother From Another Planet A Clockwork Orange Close Encounters of the Third Kind Contact The Damned Destination Moon The Day The Earth Stood Still Delicatessen Escape …
Rome not quite right, he says
In this fascinating Times Online piece, one historian says that HBO’s Rome, while good entertainment, has vastly simplified the sexuality of ancient Rome. It’s a fascinating read, especially where he claims that, in fact, HBO’s The Sopranos is much closer to ancient Rome.
мастер-и-маргарита
Apparently there has been a TV miniseries made by one Vladimir Bortko from this Bulgakov novel, The Master and Margarita, a novel that was banned in the Soviet Union and went about as illicit samizdat (underground publicaton). According to Wikipedia, the 2005 production (released only last December!) was widely succesful on Russian Television, and is considered to be closest to the book. While I have not yet read the book — I have intended to for years, but never gotten a chance — I am intensely curious, and there are clips circulating, but unfortunately I see nothing with subtitles for …
Carnivàle
On a whim at the local Carrefour department store, I picked up a heavily discounted copy of the first season of the HBO series Carnivàle. I hadn’t heard of it, but it looked like something that would be up my alley, especially with the tagline, “1934. The Dustbowl. The Last Great Age of Magic.” Turns out that, at least after the first episode, I definitely do not regret picking it up. Carnivàle is the kind of show that, while it seems to be plodding along slowly, is actually bristling with information, full of all kinds of entrancing politlines and threads, …
In Honor of Watching Donnie Darko for the Nth Time: A Quiz
Here’s a neat quiz. I post my result on the evening on which I watched the brilliant movie Donnie Darko for the Nth time in my life. You are Karen. You are just trying to help kidsfind themeselves. “A linguist once saidthat out of all the combinations of words inthe English language, “Cellar Door”was the most beautiful.” Which Donnie Darko Character Are You? brought to you by Quizilla
Checkin’ Out Mr. Lee
One of the difficult things about living in Korea is that quality film just rarely makes it over here. For example, I don’t think a Spike Lee movie since Malcolm X has made it into cinemas in anyplace except maybe Seoul. A friend and I were talking last night about Lars von Trier, and she and I agreed that probably the next film he puts out won’t get released here because, well, someone made the mistake of putting Dogville in cinemas in Korea. Dogville — an experimental movie with no sets, just chalk lines on the wooden floorboards. Putting that …
Richard Pryor’s Gone
Requiescat In Pace.
What Ever Happened to Hal Hartley?
Anyone else out there wonder sometimes whatever happened to Hal Hartley? Here are an interview at Wired and a feature at New York Metro to bring you up to speed.