My brother and I just drove past his friend’s house, where they have erected a giant inflatable snowman, with hat and scarf and all, on their close-manicured Florida lawn. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t bring my camera on the trip. I think I could make prints of this image and sell them.
Month: December 2002 (Page 4 of 4)
Many thanks to the hospitality of Xkot, who showed me around Jacksonville during my brief stay. We didn’t get to browse through the “Stein Mart,” because it was closed, but maybe next time.
And no, they don’t sell beer steins there. Despite what you might have heard.
Word of the day
-courtesy of Jeffery Steingarten, “The Man Who Ate Everything.” Great book. Read it. It’s made some long airport waiting times somewhat bearable.
Just a quick hint, from the “Laptop Lane” (quiet!) in the Cincinnati airport: don’t attempt to fly in these security-conscious times while wearing shoes containing metal plates. I think they should start marking shoes “Airport Friendly!” so we’ll know.
There are no answers, only choices.
Kelvin: Will she come back?
Snow: Do you want her to?
I’m the wrong person to review “Solaris.” I just finished the book a couple days ago, so every frame of the film is filtered strongly through the pages I just put down. I’m pretty sure someone who has no knowledge of the book will find this movie slow, static, opaque, overwrought, and possibly even silly in spots. But I was so fascinated by the book’s themes that my fascination carried through to the movie screen.
I’m pretty sure my movie companion, Sparky, was none too pleased with what Soderbergh and Clooney have come up with, even though he doesn’t like to talk about movies afterward. He alternately checked his watch and chortled through most of it. But as I’ve said many times before, I would rather watch a deeply flawed attempt at something different than 100 attempts at the latest crowd-pleaser.
I find it hard to write about this movie because it deals with all kinds of issues, and I think those issues will be different for each person. It’s definitely a story to sit around a coffee shop and discuss. If you want to do that, let me know.
Recommended? I have no idea.
I’ll be in Florida for a short winter vacation starting early tomorrow, coming back Monday. I may be posting while I’m gone, but more likely I won’t. See you in a few days.
“We have named all the stars and all the planets, even though they might already have had names of their own.”
Just finished reading “Solaris,” on loan from John. I wanted to finish it before I saw the Soderbergh/Clooney movie. It was more an experience than a book – I’m still turning it around in my head. It’s a little too easy to get bogged down in the detailed scientific sections that describe the strange planet where the book is set, but the human relationship that is the real story here is fascinatingly ambiguous and worth a few bumps. The writing has flashes of brilliance, even in translation; apparently the book was translated into French from the original Polish, and then from French into English. That alone fascinates me.
After reading the book and some advance word on the movie, I agree with John that the movie is being marketed under false pretenses. Sci-fi! Space station! Love story! George Clooney and his butt! When what they’ll get is an introspective art film about the nature of existence. Still, that’s OK with me. One less Hollywood blockbuster in the world (Ocean’s Eleven, anybody?) is a good thing.
Today was Winter Coat Day. And the world mourns.
“Touched by an Angel” continues to smack me in the face like a giant halibut on “Monty Python.” For some reason, I found myself watching an episode last week where a geek who was picked on in high school became a Bill-Gates-like figure 10 years later. He was looking forward to humiliating the jock who made fun of him, and winning over the head cheerleader he always had a crush on (who just happened to be the wife of the jock, now a pro football player). Gates-lite was excited because the cheerleader hadn’t been to a lot of the jock’s games, so he was sure they were having marital problems. All this was taking place at their 10-year high school reunion, where Gates-lite was going to buy the jock’s team and fire him.
Well, of course, in the TBAA universe, the jock apologized, he and the cheerleader are still in love, and – wait for it – she has cancer. So it didn’t take much prodding from Valerie Bertinelli to make Gates-lite “do the right thing.”
The thing is, if this was a show where people made difficult choices despite obstacles (and without an angel hitting them over the head), I would be the first one to applaud it. Why not, for example, have the jock still be a jerk, and the wife vulnerable to Gates-lite’s advances? It would still be wrong for him to exact revenge on slights committed in high school. But they make it so easy on everyone.
To me being a good person means doing the right thing when it’s not the easy choice, just the right one. How about making a show about that?
Thanks to a mention on Xkot’s forum about the Sci-Fi Channel’s production of “Children of Dune,” I’m irritated all over again that they have chosen to portray the “children” as twentysomethings, rather than the nine-year-old twins they are in the story. I’m sure they thought precocious twins with adult intellect would be a hard sell, but that’s the story, folks. Dramatic license is fine, but not when it sells out the main strength of the underlying work.
Overheard at a “Lord of the Rings” development meeting
“Those hobbits are small, hairy people. And not particularly attractive either. They don’t even wear shoes! That’s not gonna sell. Love the magic, love the whole ‘saving the world’ angle. Great stuff. But those hobbits have got to go. Wait – how about this? We’ll have all the hobbits portrayed by supermodels! It’s brilliant!”