Buys
According to Internet-available package tracking, there are half a dozen things sitting undelivered at my post office since Thursday. Annoying, even if it's not really a problem on the same scale as, say, world hunger. I did get MetaMaus though, Art Spiegelman's new "making of" book about Maus.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: The King's Speech, last year's best picture, surprised me by moving me less than 15 minutes in. So put me down as being in agreement with the Academy this year. It shares something with the same crop of nominee's The Social Network in being entirely better than the premise would seem to suggest. I mean, a stuttering king's radio address? When I say it like that. But it's also the story of a royal succession, an underdog story, a bromance, a boxing movie (boxing with words), and played by amazing actors against the shadow of the second World War. The King's Speech is touching, funny, interesting, and has a look that psychologically underscores its protagonist's mindset (lots of recursive imagery, for example). Well worth it, as are the extras which include a director's commentary, a fairly standard making of, a Q&A with director and cast, an interview with the speech therapist's grandson, and two key speeches by the real King George VI himself, on radio and newsreel.
Another surprise for me this week was Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, a science fiction fable/thriller set in the 2020s when a child has not been born in almost two decades. Clive Owen stars as a reluctant hero who must protect humanity's last hope at surviving, but it's not really about him. It's about the world Cuaron has created, and be extension, about ours. Children of Men is the ultimate victory of the global economy over humanity, with a fascist Britain savagely protecting its borders from refugees from the rest of the world's collapse. The gritty, washed-out documentarian camera, keeping all the effects in the background, creates an entirely believable - and terrifying - future. The film has perhaps the highest count of incidental animal appearances in all of cinema, a nice touch that reminds us of who will inherit this childless Earth. The DVD also includes a half-hour documentary by Cuaron in which various thinkers from around the world discuss the global economy's effects on the world with arguments far more convincing than anything I've heard from the 99% movement these last couple weeks, a couple of small deleted scenes, and good featurettes on the cast, the design and a couple of key effects scenes.
Golden Swallow is Chang Cheh's sequel to King Hu's Come Drink With Me, featuring the return Cheng Pei-Pei's famous heroine, though as it is a Chang Cheh film, ending up focusing on the boys (Lo Lieh and One-Armed Swordsman's Jimmy Wang). To be fair, King Hu also sidelined the heroine in the first film in favor of Yueh Hua. So yes, it has the Chang Cheh trademarks like dozens of gut wounds and accidental homoeroticism, but as an early Shaw Brothers film, it also has lavish production values and amazing locations. Though martial arts choreography got sharper and sharper until the studio finally stopped making films, it has to be said that interior sets did come to dominate their output. If you have trouble with the Shaw "look", I recommend looking at their films from before, say, 1972. You'll be pleasantly surprised. As for Golden Swallow (if you can't say that with a straight face, call it by its American video release title The Girl with the Thunderbolt Kick, but be aware that it is a complete non sequitur), it's about an obsessive and dangerous love triangle set in the martial world. Wang basically plays a cross between Batman and Punisher, if either of those guys was a creepy stalker who got a woman's attention by framing her for multiple murder. So you thought modern relationships were hard...
Books: I discussed Saga of the Super-Sons in Superman Jr.'s Reign entry this Friday, but I did want to mention the trade collection on This Week. The package gets you all twelve original Super-Sons stories from (mostly) Bob Haney and Dick Dillin, plus the pulped Elseworlds 80-Page Giant story, with a cover tribute by John Byrne. There really is no reading experience like it. There's the pure comic book craziness we associate with Haney, but also a real thematic thruline as the two Juniors deal with father-son issues. I was surprised at how closely Haney stuck to the theme, not simply writing Superman-Batman stories with the Teen Titans writing the dialog.
Audios: The Massacre is a lost 1st Doctor historical, but as Hartnell is absent for most of the story, it's really Steven who's the star (doubly so, since the episode is narrated on CD by Peter Purves). The Massacre is a literate and tense historical thriller set against a not-very-well-known historical event, which adds to the tension. We don't quite know how it will turn out. Strangely, Hartnell plays the Abbot of Amboise, a strange double for the Doctor, the story's only real flaw. In a story that is otherwise played deadly serious, there's this sore thumb out of melodrama that never quite amounts to anything. A curiosity in what is otherwise a story on par with The Crusade. Worth discovering (on audio if not on tape in your basement).
Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Fodor (2007)
According to Internet-available package tracking, there are half a dozen things sitting undelivered at my post office since Thursday. Annoying, even if it's not really a problem on the same scale as, say, world hunger. I did get MetaMaus though, Art Spiegelman's new "making of" book about Maus.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: The King's Speech, last year's best picture, surprised me by moving me less than 15 minutes in. So put me down as being in agreement with the Academy this year. It shares something with the same crop of nominee's The Social Network in being entirely better than the premise would seem to suggest. I mean, a stuttering king's radio address? When I say it like that. But it's also the story of a royal succession, an underdog story, a bromance, a boxing movie (boxing with words), and played by amazing actors against the shadow of the second World War. The King's Speech is touching, funny, interesting, and has a look that psychologically underscores its protagonist's mindset (lots of recursive imagery, for example). Well worth it, as are the extras which include a director's commentary, a fairly standard making of, a Q&A with director and cast, an interview with the speech therapist's grandson, and two key speeches by the real King George VI himself, on radio and newsreel.
Another surprise for me this week was Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, a science fiction fable/thriller set in the 2020s when a child has not been born in almost two decades. Clive Owen stars as a reluctant hero who must protect humanity's last hope at surviving, but it's not really about him. It's about the world Cuaron has created, and be extension, about ours. Children of Men is the ultimate victory of the global economy over humanity, with a fascist Britain savagely protecting its borders from refugees from the rest of the world's collapse. The gritty, washed-out documentarian camera, keeping all the effects in the background, creates an entirely believable - and terrifying - future. The film has perhaps the highest count of incidental animal appearances in all of cinema, a nice touch that reminds us of who will inherit this childless Earth. The DVD also includes a half-hour documentary by Cuaron in which various thinkers from around the world discuss the global economy's effects on the world with arguments far more convincing than anything I've heard from the 99% movement these last couple weeks, a couple of small deleted scenes, and good featurettes on the cast, the design and a couple of key effects scenes.
Golden Swallow is Chang Cheh's sequel to King Hu's Come Drink With Me, featuring the return Cheng Pei-Pei's famous heroine, though as it is a Chang Cheh film, ending up focusing on the boys (Lo Lieh and One-Armed Swordsman's Jimmy Wang). To be fair, King Hu also sidelined the heroine in the first film in favor of Yueh Hua. So yes, it has the Chang Cheh trademarks like dozens of gut wounds and accidental homoeroticism, but as an early Shaw Brothers film, it also has lavish production values and amazing locations. Though martial arts choreography got sharper and sharper until the studio finally stopped making films, it has to be said that interior sets did come to dominate their output. If you have trouble with the Shaw "look", I recommend looking at their films from before, say, 1972. You'll be pleasantly surprised. As for Golden Swallow (if you can't say that with a straight face, call it by its American video release title The Girl with the Thunderbolt Kick, but be aware that it is a complete non sequitur), it's about an obsessive and dangerous love triangle set in the martial world. Wang basically plays a cross between Batman and Punisher, if either of those guys was a creepy stalker who got a woman's attention by framing her for multiple murder. So you thought modern relationships were hard...
Books: I discussed Saga of the Super-Sons in Superman Jr.'s Reign entry this Friday, but I did want to mention the trade collection on This Week. The package gets you all twelve original Super-Sons stories from (mostly) Bob Haney and Dick Dillin, plus the pulped Elseworlds 80-Page Giant story, with a cover tribute by John Byrne. There really is no reading experience like it. There's the pure comic book craziness we associate with Haney, but also a real thematic thruline as the two Juniors deal with father-son issues. I was surprised at how closely Haney stuck to the theme, not simply writing Superman-Batman stories with the Teen Titans writing the dialog.
Audios: The Massacre is a lost 1st Doctor historical, but as Hartnell is absent for most of the story, it's really Steven who's the star (doubly so, since the episode is narrated on CD by Peter Purves). The Massacre is a literate and tense historical thriller set against a not-very-well-known historical event, which adds to the tension. We don't quite know how it will turn out. Strangely, Hartnell plays the Abbot of Amboise, a strange double for the Doctor, the story's only real flaw. In a story that is otherwise played deadly serious, there's this sore thumb out of melodrama that never quite amounts to anything. A curiosity in what is otherwise a story on par with The Crusade. Worth discovering (on audio if not on tape in your basement).Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Fodor (2007)
Comments
Saw the film, then read it. It hit every note that felt off about the film just right for me.
For an example right at the start, the film had all immigrants booted with steel toes. No mercy.
Book?
They're allowed in as cheap labor, used up, and tossed back out. Just as bad, maybe worse, but considerably more utilitarian.
The film cannot go into as much detail, of course, and is not a direct translation from page to screen. The point you bring up was hinted at in the PSAs seen in the background ("He's my gardener, she's my waitress" and so on).
Also enjoyed King's Speech. I was probably in the best position possible for last year's Oscars, as I would have been equally happy had King's Speech or Social Network won.