Movies at the Theatre
Minority Report
This movie is a blockbuster ride, and a well rounded one. I like Sci-Fi. I read mostly Sci-Fi and fantasy, and I am always hopeful that the movies will be great. I think the special effects are starting to catch up finally and we are getting some really amazing Sci-Fi/fantasy movies. This one had a good story, though predictable in a couple places. It was thought provoking and I really like that. I just found out that Phillip K. Dick has had really good luck with movies made from his short stories. (Blade Runner, and Total Recall) I honestly believe the trick is to use a short story instead of a novel. With a novel they will inevitably disappoint people, but a short story gives the movie maker room to work. The most eerily possible detail of the near future was that everything identified people with a retinal scan, including moving/talking advertising. "Hi John, don't you need a ----- today?" I found this creepy because I see it really happening. I already cringe when the clerk at the grocery store or the bank calls me by name. Anyway, this is a good movie. Good story, very pretty and well acted.
Movies On Video or DVD
Postcards from the Edge
I originally saw this in the theatre and remember liking it rather a lot. The second viewing proved my memory still works. The razor sharp humor set against serious problems worked for me. Carrie Fisher wrote a great book (autobiographical) and then turned it into the sccreenplay for this movie. Meryl Streep does a great job as Suzanne Vale, the actress who wakes up in rehab and once out has to move back in with her mother in order get hired for a new movie. This is the criteria the insurance company sets in order to cover her while filming. If only they knew that Mother isn't the best role-model. The scathing mother/daughter conversations that follow are fabulous. It has revelations on many levels. Definitely worth watching.
Princess Mononoke
Not quite what I was expecting. Several people said this was the best movie, their favorite, a real tear jerker. It was very pretty animation. A descent story with ambiguous morals. I particularly like this because I hate having someone elses morals shoved down my throat. I like the mythology incorporated. The one thing that threw it off for me was the American voices dubbed over a Japanese film. I much prefer subtitles myself. I like hearing the voices that were meant to be there. I still liked it, just not as much as I might have.
Mother
Albert Brooks is quite funny. This story of a man who is recently devorced and suffering writer's block decides to move back in with his mother in the hopes of figuring out his problems with women. He wants to know why it is that his mother seems to love his little brother more. So he moves back into his old room, and brings all of his old things out of storage. Apparently she never throws anything away. Then he takes her to the store and buys her expensive jam, and tries to learn things about her. Why does she have 10lb of cheese in the freezer? Why doesn't she support his writing? Why does she tell complete strangers his life story? When the revelations finally came I was just enjoying their exchanges so much that I forgot we needed them.
A Walk In the Clouds
A beautiful romantic film. A young man returns from the Korean War a hero to find that his wife isn't quite the person he thought she was, and hasn't been reading the hundreds of letters he sent to her. She wants 'Things' so he had better resume his old job of selling chocolates. On a train to Sacramento a pretty young woman vomits on his uniform and his life is changed forever. It seems that sometimes fate forgets all subtlety and just punches you in the face.
American Pie
Just as over the top the second time around. Funny because it pretty much makes fun of every american high school stereotype. No one is safe here. So who was most like you?
Donnie Darko
Freaky movie. It makes you think and it makes you wonder what the hell happened. You wrack your brain and you try to figure it out, and for most people it seems brilliant right through to the end. But at the end some people hate it because they didn't get a nice and tidy, well explained movie. It gives little explanation, and makes no excuses. I loved it because it drove me crazy, not in spite of it. Movie makers seem to be afraid of the audience anymore, and we get lots of lame movies. Not here.
The First Great Train Robbery
A fun movie. Written by Michael Crichton of all people. Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland are great. Two men in Victorian England are working on the hiest of the century. They plan to steal a large shipment of gold from a moving train.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Brilliant! But then everyone already knows that. Stanley Kubrick made this amazing movie in 1968. One year before the first moonwalk. I enjoyed it, but would have liked it if someone had warned me about how dreadfully slow the pace is. I knew I was in trouble right from the beginning when we spent 15 minutes with the monkeys. Then I drove Michael nuts with my commentary through the rest of it. It was the only way I could keep from going mad. But I really did enjoy it. Really!
A Knight's Tale
This movie was great. I laughed out loud a lot! It was clever and silly and it really worked for me. Do not expect this to be a historically accurate period piece. Niether can you expect the absurdity of Python. It just is what it is. The first jousting scene sets up the whole thing. The entire 'medieval' audience is stomping and clapping and singing 'We Will Rock You'. They treat jousting like a cross between soccer and wrestling (ie WWF). And of course there is a girl he falls for. She wears some amazing outfits that I don't think would have been legal 500 years ago, but she does look good.
The Spanish Prisoner
Weird. Just weird. This one has a slow building intensity. Which is fine on it's own, but they seem to almost skip the climax and the ending becomes completely unsatisfactory.
Books
The Claw of the Conciliator (novel) - by Gene Wolf
In book 2 in the series 'Book of the New Sun' Sevarian travels from Nessus to Thrax. When he is exiled by his guild his destination is to become the lictor in Thrax. Much happens on the way, though he is always determined to make it to his appointed position. His traveling companions are all extraordinary and we learn quite a bit about all of them. I was expecting Wolfe to be more vague. He actually spells a few things out for you that I thought were fairly obvious. I am enjoying this series quite a bit. On to book 3...
Tangled Up in Blue (novel) - by Joan D. Vinge
This follows Vinge's previous books 'The Snow Queen', 'World's End' and 'The Summer Queen'. This one goes back in time to the days of the Snow Queen's reign. It could be read as a stand alone novel, but I believe the world is much richer for having read them in the order they were writen. In this one a young 'Blue' (cop) gets mixed up in something that is much bigger than he is. To top it off, all of his friends and allies are dead. He's the only survivor of a raid that went all wrong. Vinge is a superb writer. She has created a universe that is vast and rich. I recommend all of her books. (Though I should warn that the Psion series is depressing.)
Seven Wild Sisters (novel) - by Charles de Lint . Illustrations by Charles Vess.
Great fun, but not nearly long enough. Which only means I was enjoying it so much that I didn't want it to end. This is a fairy tale in a more traditional sense then most of de Llint's writing. Everything he writes can probably be called a fairy tale on some level, but this one is original while containing a lot of the traditional elements. A mortal girl gets in trouble with a fairy court and has to figure her way out of that trouble with the help of a few friends she makes along the way. Simply wonderful. The illustrations by Charles Vess are a great match for the words of de Lint.
The Sword of the Lictor (novel) - by Gene Wolf
This time our hero travels from Thrax, into the mountains north of it and on until he reaches a lakeside town that doesn't seem to have a name. He has several adventures along the way. Indeed he does not simply leave Thrax, he flees. He runs into an enemy who has been hounding him through the whole thing. Even when you forget about her, she is still lurking about on the sidelines. He encounters beasts and people who try to kill him. He seems constantly in trouble, whether starving in the mountains or escaping strange tribesmen, there is always something. The sword, Terminus Est, is essential to his survival of all of them.
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