Tag Archives: movies

Let the Right One In

{17 November 2008}

so i went to see the Swedish vampire flick Let The Right One In last night. i can’t recommend it as a feel-good date movie of the year, to be sure, but it held up under my test of a good piece of art – which is to say that shreds of it were still haunting me the next morning.

it was a quirky (but not funny quirky) mixture of classic foreign art-house flick – lots of long, softly-focused up close shots of not-beautiful people, a profound emphasis on stillness, beautiful cinematography, a moody coming-of-age story about a lonely 12-year-old boy – layered over the top of a story about vampires, complete with classic vampire-movie-camp: demons bursting into flame, severed limbs, splatters of blood across the camera lens. what was troubling was that the mood and esthetic of the film was so solidly art-house foreign-drama that it never gave the audience permission (or a break) to scream at the bits of horror. really unsettling. i think my first words post film were, “great! now I’m grossed out AND depressed,” tho i didn’t dislike it as much as that makes it sound. it was really interesting. and the young heroine-vampire is styled beautifully, with big disney eyes and these strange little animal sounds that seem to resonate from her chest. shiver. overall, i’d recommend it, but not if you’re looking for a holiday blockbuster feel-good sort of movie.

but then again, i hear the new James Bond flick is kind of a downer, too.

free association gabfest

{26 September 2008}

political angst in numbers is good; sympathetic company is best. i will be watching the debate tonight in the company of other like-minded leftys. how disappointing that next week i have to call a show during the vice-presidential debate.

which brings me to the clips of Katie Couric handing Sarah Palin just enough rope to hang herself with that are flying all over the interweb today. Emily Bazelon (of Slate.com’s excellent Political Gabfest) bemoaned Sarah Palin’s embarrassing ineptitude as being bad PR for female leaders everywhere, but i disagree. i’m plenty concerned about the damage that Palin could inflict on our country if she gets into office. but as for her ineptitude as a candidate? competent women leaders and their reputations will be fine. Sarah Palin doesn’t speak for me.

speaking of disasters of our own making, how about that economy, eh? last night i actually saw my first ever honest-to-god bank run. i was driving past a Washington Mutual around 5pm and noticed a line of people that stretched past the storefront bank and around the corner. because some news blip about Washington Mutual being on shaky financial ground had entered my brain in the past week or two, i actually thought to myself, i wonder if all those people are trying to get their money out of the bank? images of the bank run scene in It’s a Wonderful Life popped into my head. then i decided that the generally high level of anxiety in the news lately was seeping in and i must be paranoid. they’re probably queuing up for something at the shop next door, i thought. what i didn’t realize until much later that night, was that the collapse, seizure and sale of Washington Mutual had just been announced around the same time i saw the hoards of people.

moving on from the truly scary to the truly bizarre, i’m really really excited about the Tim Burton Alice In Wonderland adaptation that was announced yesterday. as you readers of slithy tove can guess, i’m deeply partial to Lewis Carroll for many reasons, artistic and nostalgic, and i’ve seen the Alice story retold and retreated about a half dozen times, some to very good effect, some not so. but i think the Tim Burton aesthetic isn’t a bad place to start at all.

however, since that won’t be released until sometime 2010, i’ll have to set my sights first on Repo! The Genetic Opera, which looks to be some sort of instant campy cult hyrid of Rocky Horror, Buz Luhrmann, Joss Whedon, and Meatloaf*. i’m particularly excited about Anthony Stewart Head playing the conflicted villain, tho i am deeply troubled by the fact that last night one of the characters on Gossip Girl was headed out the door to go watch Repo. what? fake TV characters get to see movies before they are released for real? what gives?**

we’ll wrap up this, my own gabfest, with two facebook-related topics: a link to my new favorite piece on McSweeny’s: HAMLET (FACEBOOK NEWS FEED EDITION), and a moment to mention how pleased i am that Facebook now offers English (Pirate) as a language selection. if you’re Facebook, every day can be Talk Like A Pirate Day!

* to my knowledge, none of those artists are actually involved in the project.

**in my defense, i had just run 12 miles at race pace in preparation for next week’s marathon, and i was really really tired, so tired, in fact, that i couldn’t get off the couch to find the TiVo remote and change the channel. i swear.

***this footnote is in homage to David Foster Wallace. i can’t seem offer anything at all eloquent on the topic of his untimely death, but will say that his work certainly influenced my own writing and my analytical approach to the world — footnotes being only the stylistic tip of the iceberg.