Monday's Child Is In Your Face

[snurri]

Note to the young man on the train: (Yes, I called you "young man." I'm thirty-six, but I have the crankiness of a much older gentleman.) Dude, if I can hear your iPod over the train as if I was wearing your headphones, it's too fucking loud. Or your hearing is shot. In either case, you need to get your head checked.

I had kind of a crappy weekend, but it's over. It's not like my life is falling apart or anything; overall things are really good. But I do get kind of lonely sometimes. That's all I got. Let's not make a big thing out of it.

Something cool: Ricky Gervais meets Garry Shandling. I love both these guys. Parts one, two, three, four, five and six. (Yeah, it's long.) The person who put these up on YouTube says Shandling creates some awkwardness, but all I see is Shandling being Shandling, which is awesome. Overall the interview has some unexpected depths, and makes me realize how much I miss Shandling. (I first fell hard for his comedy when he guest-hosted "The Tonight Show" and shot off this zinger during the monologue: "The Meese Commission"--ah, for the days when Ed Meese was in the public eye--"has determined that there are [four-digit number] pornographic publications in the United States. Which is frustrating for me, because I can't figure out which three I'm not getting.") Why the hell isn't more of his stuff out on DVD? "The Garry Shandling Show" was sort of cultish, so I can see it being a harder sell, but "The Larry Sanders Show" is a no-brainer. I see they're putting out some sort of a DVD set with highlight episodes, but why not the whole thing? That man's a genius.

I saw "The Departed" on Friday during the old people showing (3:30). A few people walked out, which I don't get. Was it the violence they were not expecting, or the swearing? Have they ever heard of Scorsese? It was unexpectedly funny in parts, and really very good. Unbelievable cast. I used to really despise DiCaprio, but that guy can act. I haven't quite placed it in the hierarchy of Scorsese films, but it's up there--very tense, with some great visual metaphors about voyeurism/observation. I have to admit that the last shot almost ruined it, though. I can only guess that it was meant as a humorous touch, but in the context of the last scene it was off-key.

Speaking of the cinema, I see that Strange Horizons has a review of "Children of Men" up this week, and as much as I think it might be good to review a film for them that I didn't love, I'm glad it wasn't this one. I dislike the movie even more in retrospect, which makes no sense. I know there were things I liked about it as I was watching it--it's nice to look at, and Clive Owen was good--but overall I thought it was clunky, manipulative, and heavy-handed. I know some of the reasons I feel that way, but I can't pinpoint the reason for my overall loathing for the film, especially since so many folks have loved it. It can't just be my Julianne Moore hate. Did anyone else not like the film? Maybe I am just that cranky.

I've belatedly begun doing some research on the French Revolution, since the WIP is supposed to be in part riffing off it and I don't in fact know hardly anything about it. I picked up The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert and so far it's great; very readable and evocative, with the sorts of details that make me realize there are things I've been glossing over. I'm going to want to read more of Hibbert's books after this.

I think I need a nap.

Comments

[ajjones.livejournal.com]

I liked Children of Men and also didn't. I'm fell in love with the PD James novel years ago, but despite that, the book has a very slow start, and in the film they skipped over that snore-fest. However, the film also skipped over what I thought was the real flavor of the book; the little details about how the infertility was affecting society. There was a great scene in the novel of women pushing dolls in baby carriages and a priest having a meltdown when a deer walked into the church (because animals were not affected and it was all going to be theirs soon enough), and we saw none of that.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I think that may have been part of what was missing, for me. One thing that kept nagging at me were economic things; considering how much of consumer society is built around products for children or adults with children, I kept getting distracted by, say, shots of factory smokestacks in the background. "What might they be making there?" I kept wondering. "How is it that so many of these people seem to have jobs?"

[ludickid.livejournal.com]

I didn't like it either. I thought most of the acting was subpar, and while many of the scenes were extremely well-done, they were strung together by a series of extremely implausible connections, leaving the overall feel of a smarted-up chase movie without a spine to hold it together.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree. The mechanisms of plot were far too visible, and it resulted in a sort of herk-a-jerk picaresque through the Nightmares Of Our Future, which Cuáron seemed to feel the need to illustrate repeatedly. And aside from Owen and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who didn't get enough screen time to be really interesting, most of the performances were pretty hammy.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

You weren't the only one. Although my objections were more to the dents in my hat, due to falling anvils of heavy-handed symbolism; and as our old friend Angus Gordon liked to say, some stories just use anvils, and there's nothing you can do about it if you want to tell that story.

(I just don't like anvil-stories, most of the time.)

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. I like your take on the capital-A Apocalypse thing, too. It just felt very IMPORTANT throughout, even as it was trying to be down with the common folk. When it wasn't killing them off for shock value, at least.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

Ya know I liked the movie, but I am glad we share the Moore hate. I just don't like her and I don't even know why.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Even in movies I like, she's like a black hole of suck on my screen. If they'd given the role of Maude to a different actress I think "The Big Lebowski" would be my favorite movie of all time.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

I agree with that sentiment 100%. The Big Lebowski's already in my top 10.

[jennreese.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'll jump on the bandwagon of Moore hate.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

There should be hayrides!

[tacithydra.livejournal.com]

So wait, the Moore hate, I do not understand. When I see her on my screen, she is just there with the other actors, doing the acting thing. Is the hateyness vibrating on some channel which I do not receive?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

You've seen her act? This I do not believe. To me it looks like she's pretending that she's above the whole acting thing in a vain attempt to hide her complete inability to act. Or something. . . . I dunno. I just really, really don't like her. In films, anyway. She may be a perfectly nice person IRL.

[tacithydra.livejournal.com]

This is why I go to the 'broadcasting on a station I don't receive on' theory. I know several people who hate her viciously, completely, as if she put babies on spikes in her spare time. And to me she is just... herself. I don't find anything even detectably irritating her, let alone strong enough to inspire such thorough feelings.

It is as if she is constantly emitting a high-pitched whine that is not audible to me.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

It's as good a theory as any :-)

[tacithydra.livejournal.com]

I like it. And I find the idea of Julianne Moore, or any actor, constantly emitting a high-pitched whine audible to only about 50% of the audience deeply amusing.

[stephanieburgis.livejournal.com]

If you're reading up on the French revolution, you should definitely check out Lucy Moore's Liberty: the Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France as soon as it hits the bookshelves in the States (in May, I think) - I just read it and it was full of wonderful social history and also just bizarre trivia points that would make great background no matter what the gender of your characters...and also it's just lots of fun to read, which is a definite bonus.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks! I wish it was out right now. As it turns out, once again I've got more major female characters than male ones, and it's been a bit of challenge figuring out how to keep them actively involved in the machinations of an essentially patriarchal society. That looks like a great book for ideas.

[stephanieburgis.livejournal.com]

If you have any money lying around, you could always order Liberty from amazon.co.uk - but it is a big fat, heavy hardcover, so shipping from England could be pretty expensive... (I'd bring a copy when we come to Wiscon, but it'll be out in the US by then!)

Now I'm trying to figure out whether Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert (not available on amazon.co.uk) is the same book as The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert (which is available)...

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Hard to tell, but maybe? Judging by Hibbert's Wikipedia entry, that's his only book on the French Revolution, but Wikipedia is only as good as the folks tinkering with it . . .

[http://users.livejournal.com/_stranger_here/]

I like Julianne Moore fine, but I haven't seen the movie yet, though I'm sure I'll check it out eventually. I didn't like the P.D. James novel when I read it years ago, and I'm dubious about Clive Owen.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I've only read James' Cordelia Grey mysteries. (Helen Baxendale's fault.) I can't say I'm tempted to read Children in novel form after the film, but who knows.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_stranger_here/]

Pär thought the book was interesting.

[ex-benpayne119.livejournal.com]

I found the first series of The Larry Sanders Show on dvd just before Christmas... mind you, that's in Australia, but surely if it's available here it's probably available in the US?

Shandling is indeed a funny man...

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Ya know, you're right; it turns out it did come out here at one point, at least the first two seasons--but both are out of print. Dammit.

I am jealous of your Australian DVDs!

[giantsloth.livejournal.com]

I liked the movie quite a bit (it and Old Joy have been the best things I've seen lately) but I can also see how a slightly different me would've thought it clumsy and a real button-pusher. I don't harbor any inordinate Julianne Moore hate (that I can recall) but I did think her flat affect was the weakest thing in the movie.

French Revolution: I would recommend Simon Schama's Citizens if I had finished it, but I didn't.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of "Old Joy." Looks like it's been here and gone once--I'll have to keep an eye out for DVD, unless it gets picked up.

Did you not finish the Schama because it was poorly written, or uninteresting, or hm?

[giantsloth.livejournal.com]

Citizens was good, although I probably should've read some kind of Boy's First Big Golden Book of the Reign of Terror first. Life just intervened, and I never got back to it, no fault of Schama's.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Ah, fair enough. That's kind of what Days purports to be, which was why I picked it. Citizens did pop up in my search, though, so I might check it out down the road.