Clearly, my New Year's resolution wasn't to keep up on my blog. (I actually don't make resolutions, just like I never start diets on Mondays. The time for change, you know, is always NOW).
At any rate, apparently I read some books in December...
Building Harlequin's Moon by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper. I loved the worldbuilding in this, and the characters were engaging, but I'm afraid I found it overly long. I remember it being sporadic; for several chapters I'd be completely sucked in, and then there'd be a few chapters that dragged. It could just be me, though; December is a suck month of the year for me workwise and I really should stick to more upbeat reading.
Like Groucho Marx. I picked up Memoirs of a Mangy Lover, parts of which were in some of the other Groucho books I've been reading, but other parts were new. Groucho and I have a lot in common, it seems. He prefers the company of his children to most grown ups, so his social life is largely hanging out with them. They were more interesting companions than the grown ups, especially in Hollywood. But then it naturally follows that they were bright and engaging; if they were adorable little morons I don't think he would have bothered. I have my own feelings on the cause and effect there; even a five-year-old will bring their game up if it's Groucho their matching words with. Some great stories in here, some of which I think are almost true. (I'm quite partial to when he tells the same story from his childhood two different ways, or how his version and Harpo's version of the same story don't really resemble each other. There's truth and then there's Truth).
Clearly I'm in a weird mood.
I also read Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Sometimes Zeppo by Joe Adamson. It's sort of the bible of Marx Brothers movies, loaded with facts and anecdotes and pictures. I, of course, adored it.
Now, when I first started watching all these Marx Brothers movies, I was always struck with how much Groucho reminded me of Woody Allen, and particularly early Woody Allen. Again, the cause and effect is clearly backwards here. But I thought the time was ripe to rewatch all my Woody Allen movies, and dig into those books that have been lying around for years, waiting to be read. Woody Allen and Philosophy by Mark T. Conrad and Aeon J. Skoble is part of the Popular Culture and Philosophy Series. I have several of these and love the concept. Philosophy, it's not just for eggheads. As Allen well knows. I think part of me likes Woody Allen best because he like me never quite made it through the whole college thing. Doesn't stop us from being well read, and widely read.
I also dug into books written by Woody Allen: Without Feathers, Getting Even, Sides Effects, and Mere Anarchy. There are some really great stories in here. My personal favorite is the one where a (clearly very bad but very pretentious) literary writer is hired to write the novelization of a Three Stooges movie. What he comes up with... man, it floored me. But there's lots of good stuff here, like the man that gets written into Madame Bovary, the trials of dealing with building contractors, how scholars can go overboard to the point of finding deep meaning in laundry lists. If you like Woody Allen movies, you should check out his prose. 'Nuff said.
Now having moved on in the movie realm to Buster Keaton, it seemed appropriate to pick up his own autobiography: My Wonderful World of Slapstick. Mostly because he rather famously didn't get along with the Marx Brothers. It's not hard to see why; they work in completely different ways. His stories of his childhood are wonderful, but I think he's being a bit dishonest or at least reticent about his adult life. But then one can hardly blame him. Someone needs to make an Oscar-worthy biopic of his life, though. I'd love to see it. His wife and the studio system double-whammied the hell out of him. And then there was the alcohol. Johnny Depp already nailed his look and mannerism in Benny and Joon, so he's my pick.
Rounding off with a little YA, and namely Justine Larbalestier. How to Ditch Your Fairy was fun, set in a cool world where everyone has their own fairy with one particular skill. Some cool, like a shopping fairy so you always find the perfect outfit at ridiculously low prices, and some not, like the main character's parking fairy, so she always findings the perfect parking space even though she can't yet drive. So other people always want her in their cars. I get the sense this was just a oner, which is a shame. It's a cool world I'd like to see more of. I also picked up Liar, which is my favorite sort of book, the sort where you think what's going on, but then everything turns, but in a way where you really feel like you should have seen it coming, only you didn't. That moment of turning is absolutely delicious; I live (or rather read) for those moments. Saying all that is probably spoiler enough, though; I shall say no more.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Movies in December
Still on the old films kick: in December we all watched On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando and two of the three James Dean films: Rebel Without A Cause and Giant. On the Waterfront was interesting; apparently Elias Kazan's apologia for naming names. He doesn't make a particularly compelling argument for himself, but Marlon Brando is worth a watch in anything. The boys particularly liked Rebel Without A Cause, and Oliver observed "I'd rather be a chicken than a corpse", which is heartening. That's one less conversation to have in his teen years, anyway. Giant is an epic story set in Texas. I'm betting this was a doorstop of a novel; it felt like a lot of details were left out, and the movie still ran over two discs. James Dean was quite good in both of these; it's a shame he died so young, he really had something.
Quin and I watched Inglourious Basterds (do you have any idea how hard I have to concentrate to type the words that way?). Not my favorite Tarantino, but it had some moments. Brad Pitt and the fellow playing the Nazi were particularly good. But there was one point at the very end where I covered my eyes. Because there are some things I just don't need to see.
Which makes the next bit ironic. I perhaps waited too long to see Scarface for the first time. After Inglourious Basterds (which I watched the night before), both the violence and the language seemed really understated. I'm puzzled why the gangster-types love this movie so much; it's a pretty clear picture of the cost for their particular lifestyle. I don't think they're seeing the same movie as I am.
I caught up on seasons 2 and 3 of Doctor Who. I liked Christopher Eccleston and was disappointed when he only did one season, but it seems like I'm not alone in finding David Tennant quickly became my favorite Doctor. I much prefer the oner episodes, though. It seems everytime he meets a Dalek or a Cyberman or any of the old villians, the story will be resolved by the Doctor pulling some technobabble solution out of no where to save the day. I like to have some clue where a story is going, or at least a sense that I should have a clue. Things that come out of the blue, the tech-the-tech solutions I find very unsatisfying.
Having rewatched my Woody Allen films recently I found some gaps at the early and late ends of his canon which I used my birthday money to fill in. Cassandra's Dream came out just before Vicky Cristina Barcelona but I never heard a thing about it. Which is a shame; it's a tight story (although one of Allen's downer stories, with Match Point and Crimes and Misdemeanors). I've never really seen Colin Firth in anything; I've burned DareDevil from my memory except a few Jon Favreau bits, and although I remember liking Minority Report I can't recall more than a scene with a car driving up skyscraper. I thought he was just the latest pretty boy, but he's genuinely moving in this movie. When his character gets upset I want to stop the movie, step into the screen, and give him a big hug and maybe make him some tea.
Whatever Works is Allen's most recent, and it stars Larry David. Two comics with very distinctive voices; it's cool how they mesh together. This was a fun one. I distinctly remember how much lighter my outlook on life was after seeing this movie (have I ever mentioned how grindingly hard the month of December is? I needed this movie).
On the other end were a few of Allen's early films which I missed, things he wrote and appeared in but didn't direct himself. Play It Again, Sam has Diane Keaton in it, always a plus. Woody Allen is a schlemp who starts getting life advice from Humphrey Bogart (or more properly an amalgam of Bogart characters), but eventually grows beyond the need for such advice. Lots of cool touches for movie buffs, although the fact they were all in San Francisco never ceased to catch my attention in a "look at that view; they're so not in New York" kind of way.
What's New Pussycat? didn't do it for me at all. It stars Peter Sellers, a comic I've never grokked. Outside of the Pink Panther movies, that is. His multiple roles in Lolita ruined the movie for me (so distracting), and quite often for a funny man he just comes across as mean. Maybe I haven't seen his great films, I don't know. At any rate, this isn't one of them. I do rather wonder what Woody's script looked like originally, and how badly it was mangled in production. There is very little about the final product that feels like Woody Allen.
Finishing off the smaller appearances by the Marx Brothers, or at least Harpo, I watched Stage Door Canteen, a multi-starrer about troops about to ship out for WWII and the entertainers that, well, entertain them. It doesn't really hold together as a movie, but all of the musical acts are fun to watch, and Harpo shows up for about a minute and a half. (Harpo talking about WWII is one of the touching bits of his autobiography; having briefly passed through Germany in the early days of Hitler's rule and seeing the fear in the eyes of the Jews living there he was struck very deeply and while too old when America entered the war to enlist he did devote the next few years to doing everything he could do, performing for troops about to ship out or for the ones in the hospitals. Hence the several-year gap between his first son and the rest of his kids).
Less entertaining was The Story of Mankind, an extremely preachy film about the dangers of the atom bomb, with mankind on trial, blah blah blah. Each of the Marx Brothers appears for a scene, Harpo as a harp-playing Isaac Newton, Chico very briefly talking to Christopher Columbus, and Groucho - clearly having tossed the dreck script they handed him and writing his own actually funny lines - as the European who bought Manhattan for a handful of beads. Well, it was cool to see them all in color. And Vincent Price as the devil was clearly having a ball chewing the scenery.
Is this a good place to mention Cinematic Titanic's latest? Actually, I think yes. Like the Marx Brothers, they like to try their jokes out before a live audience or two by taking their act on the road before committing things to film. East Meets Watts is a taste of one of those live shows, with some pretty effective split screen work. If only I ever had a chance to get out of the house for a night, I'd love to go to one of their shows.
I'll finish off with a little Buster Keaton. I have a soft spot for Buster; the man worked hard and sincerely thought if you worked hard enough, the powers that be would recognize and reward it. Sadly, in his case he just got deeply screwed by a movie studio that had no ability to recognize what made a Buster Keaton movie actually work. Bunch of meddlers. Buster, at least in his autobiography, didn't have too much ill will about this; he kept on working, helping other acts with Keatonesque stunts (which is how he ran up against the Marx Brothers, who pretty much had the reverse work ethic: you'll only ever get what you can demand and take for yourself). I can see why Keaton felt the way he says he felt; he did always have a steady paycheck doing something he enjoyed. But man! The rest of us got screwed out of all the other things he could have done if they'd just left him alone to do it.
So in December we watched Go West with the shorts The Scarecrow and The Paleface, Our Hospitality (which features his wife; interesting to see what she looked like), Sherlock Jr. and the truly awesome Steamboat Bill, Jr. with the shorts Convict 13 and Daydreams. Buster's dad wasn't keen on movies; he thought they were a flash in the pan. Why would anyone pay to see performers on film when you could see them live in a theater?
But Buster knew why, clearly. The stunts he constructed could scarecely be pulled off in a live theater. Man, the things he could do with trains alone. His dad did eventually come around, appearing in a lot of Buster's films. Buster's mainly remembered these days for his physicality, and the man really did do some impressive stunts (I suspect Jackie Chan is a fan). But what I like best about him is his engineering. The stunts he sets up; I'm envious of that mechanical mind. Like I said, the things the man could do with trains. But on a smaller scale, I'll close with this little bit from The Scarecrow, of a bachelor pad that is all rooms in one room. Take a look, after they pull out Buster's tooth, to how they transform every thing in the house, and how they set the table.
That's so awesome.
Quin and I watched Inglourious Basterds (do you have any idea how hard I have to concentrate to type the words that way?). Not my favorite Tarantino, but it had some moments. Brad Pitt and the fellow playing the Nazi were particularly good. But there was one point at the very end where I covered my eyes. Because there are some things I just don't need to see.
Which makes the next bit ironic. I perhaps waited too long to see Scarface for the first time. After Inglourious Basterds (which I watched the night before), both the violence and the language seemed really understated. I'm puzzled why the gangster-types love this movie so much; it's a pretty clear picture of the cost for their particular lifestyle. I don't think they're seeing the same movie as I am.
I caught up on seasons 2 and 3 of Doctor Who. I liked Christopher Eccleston and was disappointed when he only did one season, but it seems like I'm not alone in finding David Tennant quickly became my favorite Doctor. I much prefer the oner episodes, though. It seems everytime he meets a Dalek or a Cyberman or any of the old villians, the story will be resolved by the Doctor pulling some technobabble solution out of no where to save the day. I like to have some clue where a story is going, or at least a sense that I should have a clue. Things that come out of the blue, the tech-the-tech solutions I find very unsatisfying.
Having rewatched my Woody Allen films recently I found some gaps at the early and late ends of his canon which I used my birthday money to fill in. Cassandra's Dream came out just before Vicky Cristina Barcelona but I never heard a thing about it. Which is a shame; it's a tight story (although one of Allen's downer stories, with Match Point and Crimes and Misdemeanors). I've never really seen Colin Firth in anything; I've burned DareDevil from my memory except a few Jon Favreau bits, and although I remember liking Minority Report I can't recall more than a scene with a car driving up skyscraper. I thought he was just the latest pretty boy, but he's genuinely moving in this movie. When his character gets upset I want to stop the movie, step into the screen, and give him a big hug and maybe make him some tea.
Whatever Works is Allen's most recent, and it stars Larry David. Two comics with very distinctive voices; it's cool how they mesh together. This was a fun one. I distinctly remember how much lighter my outlook on life was after seeing this movie (have I ever mentioned how grindingly hard the month of December is? I needed this movie).
On the other end were a few of Allen's early films which I missed, things he wrote and appeared in but didn't direct himself. Play It Again, Sam has Diane Keaton in it, always a plus. Woody Allen is a schlemp who starts getting life advice from Humphrey Bogart (or more properly an amalgam of Bogart characters), but eventually grows beyond the need for such advice. Lots of cool touches for movie buffs, although the fact they were all in San Francisco never ceased to catch my attention in a "look at that view; they're so not in New York" kind of way.
What's New Pussycat? didn't do it for me at all. It stars Peter Sellers, a comic I've never grokked. Outside of the Pink Panther movies, that is. His multiple roles in Lolita ruined the movie for me (so distracting), and quite often for a funny man he just comes across as mean. Maybe I haven't seen his great films, I don't know. At any rate, this isn't one of them. I do rather wonder what Woody's script looked like originally, and how badly it was mangled in production. There is very little about the final product that feels like Woody Allen.
Finishing off the smaller appearances by the Marx Brothers, or at least Harpo, I watched Stage Door Canteen, a multi-starrer about troops about to ship out for WWII and the entertainers that, well, entertain them. It doesn't really hold together as a movie, but all of the musical acts are fun to watch, and Harpo shows up for about a minute and a half. (Harpo talking about WWII is one of the touching bits of his autobiography; having briefly passed through Germany in the early days of Hitler's rule and seeing the fear in the eyes of the Jews living there he was struck very deeply and while too old when America entered the war to enlist he did devote the next few years to doing everything he could do, performing for troops about to ship out or for the ones in the hospitals. Hence the several-year gap between his first son and the rest of his kids).
Less entertaining was The Story of Mankind, an extremely preachy film about the dangers of the atom bomb, with mankind on trial, blah blah blah. Each of the Marx Brothers appears for a scene, Harpo as a harp-playing Isaac Newton, Chico very briefly talking to Christopher Columbus, and Groucho - clearly having tossed the dreck script they handed him and writing his own actually funny lines - as the European who bought Manhattan for a handful of beads. Well, it was cool to see them all in color. And Vincent Price as the devil was clearly having a ball chewing the scenery.
Is this a good place to mention Cinematic Titanic's latest? Actually, I think yes. Like the Marx Brothers, they like to try their jokes out before a live audience or two by taking their act on the road before committing things to film. East Meets Watts is a taste of one of those live shows, with some pretty effective split screen work. If only I ever had a chance to get out of the house for a night, I'd love to go to one of their shows.
I'll finish off with a little Buster Keaton. I have a soft spot for Buster; the man worked hard and sincerely thought if you worked hard enough, the powers that be would recognize and reward it. Sadly, in his case he just got deeply screwed by a movie studio that had no ability to recognize what made a Buster Keaton movie actually work. Bunch of meddlers. Buster, at least in his autobiography, didn't have too much ill will about this; he kept on working, helping other acts with Keatonesque stunts (which is how he ran up against the Marx Brothers, who pretty much had the reverse work ethic: you'll only ever get what you can demand and take for yourself). I can see why Keaton felt the way he says he felt; he did always have a steady paycheck doing something he enjoyed. But man! The rest of us got screwed out of all the other things he could have done if they'd just left him alone to do it.
So in December we watched Go West with the shorts The Scarecrow and The Paleface, Our Hospitality (which features his wife; interesting to see what she looked like), Sherlock Jr. and the truly awesome Steamboat Bill, Jr. with the shorts Convict 13 and Daydreams. Buster's dad wasn't keen on movies; he thought they were a flash in the pan. Why would anyone pay to see performers on film when you could see them live in a theater?
But Buster knew why, clearly. The stunts he constructed could scarecely be pulled off in a live theater. Man, the things he could do with trains alone. His dad did eventually come around, appearing in a lot of Buster's films. Buster's mainly remembered these days for his physicality, and the man really did do some impressive stunts (I suspect Jackie Chan is a fan). But what I like best about him is his engineering. The stunts he sets up; I'm envious of that mechanical mind. Like I said, the things the man could do with trains. But on a smaller scale, I'll close with this little bit from The Scarecrow, of a bachelor pad that is all rooms in one room. Take a look, after they pull out Buster's tooth, to how they transform every thing in the house, and how they set the table.
That's so awesome.
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