Screening Log for July and part of August: Short Version

I've been too busy to keep up with this properly, so not much in the way of notes this time around - just ratings. However, I'm always happy to chat about movies, so questions and/or comments about the ratings are welcome. As always, anything that I've starred is recommended. Anything not starred I couldn't, in good faith, ask that anyone else sit through.

Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955) (v) ***** - Glad I saved this one for the proverbial rainy day, rather than rushing to check it off a list back when I was seeing movies just to say I had seen them.

The Inglorious Bastards (Enzo Castellari, 1978) (v) **

Kings and Queens (Arnaud Desplechin, 2004) (v) **** - I know: I'm a rube and a philistine for preferring this to Esther Kahn. (Or myabe I don't put such a high value on severity and perversity?)

Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski, 2009) ***

The Power of Kangwon Province (Hong Sang-soo, 1998) (v) ****

Momma's Man (Azazel Jacobs, 2007) (v) *

Hannah Takes the Stairs (Joe Swanberg, 2007) (v) **

Sleeping Dogs Lie (Bobcat Goldthwait, 2006) (v) ***

Brigham City (Richard Dutcher, 2001) (v) ***

In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009) (v) **

You, the Living (Roy Andersson, 2007) ***

La deuxieme souffle (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966) (v) *****

World's Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait, 2009) (v) **

Esther Kahn (Arnaud Desplechin, 2000) (v) ***

Two Lovers (James Gray, 2009) (v) **** - My favorite movie of the year, so far.

The Number 23 (Joel Schumacher, 2007) (v)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Scott Derrickson, 2008) (v)

12 Rounds (Renny Harlin, 2009) (v)

Eagle Eye (D.J. Caruso, 2008) (v) - It's rare that I ever want to use the word "turgid", but this film did it for me.

Public Enemies (Michael Mann, 2009) ***


Key:

(v) = Seen on home video (dvd, dvr, etc.).
(r) = Not my first viewing.
(s) = Short film.

Star system ("borrowed" from the Chicago Reader)

No stars = Not recommended
* = Redeeming feature(s)
** = Recommended
*** = Highly recommended
**** = "Masterpiece"
***** = A place in my personal pantheon

Catching up...

I've been having fun with my tumblr blog at the expense of this one.

I owe a bunch of responses to comments here as well as some new posts.

Hopefully, I'll get to them over the next few days.

Currently...

This has been a busy week at work...

What I'm Watching: Not much since the end of The Sopranos. I will say that HBO's ploy worked: my fiance and I were planning on cancelling HBO, but then we watched the first episode of Flight of the Conchords and not only was it very funny but Eugene Mirman was in it!!! So, now we have to watch the whole thing - damn you HBO! Damn you Eugene!

What I'm Reading: Lots of RPG rules and (relatedly) I'm re-reading Roger Zelazny's Amber novels. I loved these books when I read them in high school - they might be my all-time favorite fantasy series - and, so far, I'm enjoying revisiting them. What's interesting is that since then I've read some other Zelazny books that have been "farther out" - like Lord of Light and The Immortal - and now I'm seeing some of that "farther out"-ness in the Amber books. I'm not sure if I didn't notice it the first time around because I wasn't looking for it or because now that I'm older and have read a lot more books, I'm able to recognize it.

Also - I'll be going to the MoCCA Art Fest on Sunday and I hope to catch up with the indie comics scene a little bit.

What I'm Listening to: I'm a complete sheep: ever since the end of The Sopranos I've been listening to lots and lots of Journey. Hey - I was one of those kids who listened to Top 40, but never paid attention to the names of the bands (I didn't start paying attention to that stuff until my last few years in high school when I started to become a punk rock/indie rock snob and stopped listening to Top 40). So, I know and like all these Journey songs from growing up, but I've always thought that they were done by other bands. Anyway, they're now at the top of my workout playlist.

I'm continuing to listen to a bunch of interesting gaming podcasts on my commute. I've put up links to some of them in the sidebar and I mean to put up a few more links this weekend. My recent posts about story-gaming have been mostly inspired my response to some of the stuff that these guys have been saying.

What I'm Playing: Sorcerer: Dictionary of Mu, of course. Our sessions of this game just keep getting better. I'd also 100% recommend the Dictionary of Mu to anyone (not just Sorcerer players) who's interested in post-Apocalyptic sword & sorcery fiction. In terms of video games: lots of Fire Emblem 2 for the Game Boy. Unfortunately, I did not use the three "save" slots strategically and now I am faced with having to repeat a huge chunk of the game in order to be able to face the final boss with a hope of winning. I had wanted to beat the game before I moved onto Fire Emblem on the Game Cube, but now I think I might just give up on it for the time being.

I'm seriously thinking of ordering my own Jungle Speed set.

What I'm Working On: So, getting back into regularly playing story-games means that I've also gotten back into reading about story-games which means that I've once again started thinking about designing my own. Right now, I'm looking to incorporate some of the ideas from this post (and in the comments) in terms of aiming for something a bit more muted than I'm used to.

The Week

I've been swamped this week...

New content in the comments:

Movie Club: Terminator 2

A discussion of the Western genre

Also, looking forward to Recess this Sunday!

Catching up...

I've been catching up with the comments both here and elsewhere, so I've got nothing much else to post for today.

A quick rundown though:

Played Sorcerer (in the Dictionary of Mu setting) last week. It was good to finally get gaming again.

And the games continued this weekend: I ran a session of Dogs in the Vineyard for the first time. Some rough patches and a few lessons learned, but, overall, a good and entertaining experience. The game is set up so that it's pretty easy to run: I could have done a little bit more in the way of preparation (we were using scrap paper instead of nicely photocopied/laser-printed character sheets, for example), but I don't think the game suffered much. Only problem: we didn't quite get to finish the story (we moved a bit more slowly than I anticipated).

More Fun Comics

So, I received a request for more entries in my "25 Comics I Like Best" series of posts, which stalled out after counting down to number 19. The major problem with continuing that project in the same format is that I wrote up the list so long ago that I've changed my mind about a lot of the books that were on it. For instance, right now, I'd probably put Peter Bagge's Buddy Bradley stories somewhere in my Top 5 not at number 24.

The other big problem is that when I moved into my current apartment last year, I had to store almost all of my comic book collection in my parents' basement (hey - I never said I was immune to cliched behavior). For the most part, the only comics I currently have around are ones that I haven't read yet. I don't really like writing about a comic book without having it around to reference: it's about the only way I can write about the artwork without going all fuzzy.

However, I do still have some of my favorites with me and so, while I don't think I'm ever actually going to complete the countdown I started way back when, there will be more, unranked posts about the comics I like the best coming up over the next few weeks.

So...

I'm in the middle of a long post on RPGs and story-games, which will (hopefully) be ready for tomorrow night.

Until then, here's some filler:

• I liked the most recent episode of The Sopranos.


• I saw Ricky Gervais do his stand-up act at the Theater in Madison Square Garden: maybe it's just the accent, but I though his routine was a bit like Eddie Izzard's, except more offensive and (a lot) more low brow. In other words, exactly my kind of show. I was laughing pretty much non-stop.


• So, I was doing all this prep-work for a Sorcerer game I want to run and was pretty psyched about what I had come up with. Then I re-read the book and realized that "what I had come up with" was more or less a sketchier version of the default setting from Chapter 7.


• Random phrases from gaming podcasts*: "His power really came from his political acumen and string-pulling - not his telekinesis." "And then to prove my resolve, I had to keep hitting a guy in a wheelchair in the face, again and again."


• So, I watched the end of the NASCAR All-Star race Saturday night, and it really seemed like the announcers were pulling for Jimmie Johnson to pass Kevin Harvick. I mean, I was, too, but I'm a Jimmie Johnson fan and no one pays me to provide analysis/commentary/etc. They all seemed disappointed once they realized that Kevin wasn't going to let anyone get by him.

*Quotes not 100% word-for-word, but the original gist remains.

Blogging

Since I started blogging again on February 1st of this year, I had managed to post at least one item every weekday (even if it was just something like this) until yesterday, when I got home very late and wasn't in the mood to do anything but relax.

Anyway, I'm having fun with this incarnation of the blog, even if I haven't been able to write the big, meaty posts that I sorta/kinda prefer. My blog is more superficial, now, not so much in the pejorative sense, but in that I generally just write a few comments on whatever happens to be bubbling up to the surface on that particular day. My editing has gotten a lot more half-assed, but I guess I'm not as concerned as I probably should be: I'd rather try to keep to a post-a-day, even if that means a couple of typos and mangled sentences.

Favorite Fictions

My brother sent me a list of his ten favorite novels, so I sent him mine. Based on that list, I came up with this...

Favorite Fiction Stuff

1. Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
2. The Makioka Sisters by Junchiro Tanizaki
3. The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth
4. Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler
5. From Here to Eternity, The Thin Red Line, and Whistle by James Jones
6. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
7. The Parker Novels by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake)
8. The Shining by Stephen King
9. Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
10. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
11. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
12. The Bridesmaid & Death Notes by Ruth Rendell
13. Farmer in the Sky (and all the other "juveniles") by Robert A. Heinlein
14. The Tales of Jacob by Thomas Mann
15. The Maigret Novels by George Simenon

I'll probably go back and provide some commentary for this list at a later date. Right now, I'll note that it looks like I'm not a huge fan of short stories: in this case, looks aren't deceiving, although I should also point out that I'm not really a huge fan of long novels, either.

These are all books that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to (just about) anyone.

Favorite Movie-related Quote of the Day

Michael "The Academic Hack" Sicinski on Catch and Release:

Oh, and one thought: is there some rule that every men-in-the-kitchen sequence in a Hollywood film has to conclude with someone turning on the blender with the lid off? Do people ever actually do this? Is this some sort of rom-com money shot, giving women some sort of gooey, splooshy satisfaction, the pancake batter of male incompetence cumming all over the fellas' faces and dripping down the side? (Shall we christen it the "blender-facial"? Let's.)

Currently...

What I'm Watching: More or less the same as before.

Veronica Mars came back from a break with a particularly bad episode about how discrimination is, like, wrong. It isn't so much that I disagree, but when a show does this kind of thing - see also the recent Battlestar Galactica ep with Bruce Davison which was also about how discrimination is wrong - I have to wonder why they even bother. I mean, do the people who make Veronica Mars and Battlestar really think that their audience wants a little civics lesson? Especially simple, cut-and-dried civics lessons like these? The problem with them is that they make it all so easy that it becomes boring: the characters get to do the noble thing and "doing the noble thing" doesn't really cost them anything. There's no drama because their choices turn out to be either (a) really easy and/or (b) free of consequences. Man, how I hate these "very special episodes".

More problems with Veronica: Scene-by-scene, the show has handled the relationship stuff pretty well, but the problem is that the writers have had pretty lame ideas when it comes to the bigger picture. Veronica Mars should not be The O.C., where characters are constantly jumping in-and-out of relationships every other episode. We already had Logan and Veronica breaking-up and getting back together and breaking-up and getting back together again, so, this season they should have tried to show us Veronica and Logan trying to work through their issues - to dramatize a relationship in progress rather than a relationship always on the verge of collapsing or reforming.

Now, about The Sopranos: I've read a bunch of internet critics complaining that Tony's gambling problem came out of nowhere next week and that Chase et al. should have (a) used something else to dramatize Tony losing his grip or (b) spent more time setting-up the gambling stuff. I don't know: I like to nitpick as much as the next blogger, but I think this criticism is off-base. I mean, would you really like The Sopranos better if it were a "well-constructed" show, carefully setting up all of its threads, developing and resolving them on cue, like, say, E.R.? Not a slam at E.R., a show I like quite a bit, but, even when it resolves things in an unexpected manner, it pretty clearly lays out all the conflicts and issues for you. The last three seasons of The Sopranos have been a lot messier. And almost all of the episodes from Season Six have featured some "out of nowhere" element that a more cautious show would have spent some time introducing. Part of why these elements work, for me at least, is that Chase et al. have already laid the groundwork. I mean, I completely buy that Tony would like to gamble, that he'd respond to stress by gambling more, and that his marriage would be vulnerable to the resulting financial strain.

I like that the show makes these big, bold choices, even though it means that sometimes you just have to go along with it.

My personal Sopranos problem recently has been that I don't think Tony Siricco and Stevie Van Zandt are good enough actors to do what the scripts have asked them to do. Sylvio's play for Tony's position from the beginning of this season fell flat for me because it required Van Zandt to do more than just mug, likewise the recent episode that Tony spends gauging Paulie's reliability. Siricco and Van Zandt are both pretty funny and they're good personalities to have around - they add to the show's color - but they don't bring enough to the table as actors to justify the (relative) importance of their characters. I've always though it was a big mistake that Chase et al. had Sylvio kill Adriana because Van Zandt can't really do anything else with it - i.e., can't turn it into something that comes up - or noticeably doesn't come up - in Sylvio's scenes with Christopher.

Finally, the difference between Heroes when it started - stumbling, badly-paced, erratically-acted, but with some good ideas - and Heroes now - written, directed, and acted with assuredness and a sense of style - is (in the debased context of contemporary pop culture) staggering, mainly because most of the time shows go in the opposite direction.

What I'm Reading: It was a bit of a chore to finish The Flying Inn, which didn't quite work for me, although I'm sympathetic to Chesterton's basic philosophy and what he was trying to do with the book.

I'm still reading A Fire Upon the Deep, which, I have to admit, I like a little less than I did 100 or so pages ago. The main problem I have is that there's really no reason for it to be such a long book. Yes, it's full of ideas, but Vinge spends too much time on narratively redundant details that, I guess, are necessary from a world building POV.

I also (finally) read Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy. I always see sci-fi fans recommending Have Spacesuit Will Travel when it comes to RAH's juveniles. I think that book is pretty enjoyable, but Citizen of the Galazy, IMO, would be a better choice: it has a more expansive scope, the world building is more interesting, there isn't too much of the "gee whiz rocketships" vibe, and it strikes me as being more in the mainline of the sci-fi that has come afterwards (esp. "New Space Opera" stuff).

And I'm rereading the Russell Kirk edited Portable Conservative Reader. I've just gotten through the opening section of Edmund Burke excerpts and am tempted to start posting some quotes that are particularly relevant to me and to the themes of this blog.

What I'm Listening To: Lots of classic rock, as I'm sure you could have guessed. Still looking for more podcasts.

What I'm Playing: Some Carcassonne with my fiance and a friend of ours this past weekend, plus more NASCAR 06. Still jonesing for RPGing and getting to the point where I'm actually going to have to, you know, do something about it. I was listening to a Durham 3 podcast today at the gym and that reignited my desire to play Sorcerer.

Currently...

What I'm Watching: The Sopranos, of course, and Heroes, now that it's back on. Other "must watch" TV in our apartment: the Food Network programs Throwdown with Bobby Flay and Dinner: Impossible, which is probably my second favorite show right now. My favorite is Tim and Eric's Awesome Show - Great Job!. I liked Tom Goes to the Mayor, Tim and Eric's first Cartoon Network show, quite a bit, but I think the Awesome Show format - more gags, less story - suits them better. Awesome Show seems to have solved the major problem of Mr. Show: it's too short to ever feel like it's gone on too long. Oh, also: trying to keep up with as much televised motor racing as possible.

What I'm Reading: I'm almost done with The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton, and, I have to admit, it's been a bit of a chore. I like Chesterton's mystery stories and I love his essays, but the combination of whimsy and philosophy here is almost too much. I'm also in the middle of VernorVinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, which I really like: there are about half-a-dozen "Big Ideas" here, each of which could serve as the basis for a single sci-fi novel. The writing is a little clumsy, but I've read worse novels that have been far less inventive. I'll probably post more about it when I'm done.

What I'm Listening To: Ever since I signed up to Rhapsody 3 1/2 months ago, I've been trying to keep up with "new music". In general, though, I find keeping up with "the scene" to be pretty tiresome. There seems to be so little difference between these new indie bands and the ones that were new when I was in college, and all of them sound like The Replacements (who were derivative to begin with). So, anyway, I have been listening to lots and lots ofLoudon Wainwright III, little bits of the Mountain Goats, and various kinds of film music (Goblin and John Carpenter and the Death Proof soundtrack). I've also been trying to find morepodcasts to listen to.

What I'm Playing: NASCAR 06: Total Team Control on my X-Box. I didn't get the most recent entry in this franchise partly because I'm in the middle of a season in this one and I was a little disappointed that this one wasn't that much better than the one that came before it. Hopefully my schedule will open up a little and I'll get someRPGing in soon. I don't think a regular game is anywhere in my future, but I'd like to try to work something out.

Spring

The weather here in New York City is wonderful.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling a little depressed - partly because I'm stuck inside working instead of being able to enjoy the weather and partly because my schedule in general is getting to me. It's not that I'm super-busy: I have enough leisure time, but my responsibilities (mostly involving taking care of my dog) limit my choice of leisure activity pretty severely. It's been months since I've been able to play any RPGs and I'm also bummed that I'm not getting a chance to do more blogging/writing.

That's all not too big a deal, but I guess I'm also feeling guilty because I know when my time is limited like this, I tend to be less generous with it and more protective of what down time I do have. I'm less likely to get in touch with friends, for example: even talking to them on the phone begins to feel like an imposition on my free time.

Part of the issue is that I'm, by nature, introverted, but my job requires lots of phone calls and generally dealing with people, so, when I'm not working, one of my highest priorities is to "recharge my batteries", if you will. I think I really do need to spend a certain amount of every day just reading.

Anyway, I don't usually write personal "journal-type" blogs posts, but this one was kind of cathartic. I'm already feeling much better.

No posts: just links

I've got nothing to post here tonight, so here are some links:

Sean was disappointed with Grindhouse (I'll leave a comment there when he gets them working).

There's also more Tarantino chat between me and Steve in the comments section of my Grindhouse post.

Michael Blowhard has another excellent post up about lit-fic: must reading for anyone interested in arts & culture stuff.

Michael also linked to this very neat interview with Donald Westlake and John Banville.

Hopefully, I'll be back tomorrow with something a little more substantial of my own.

Podcast Bleg

I'm looking for some podcast recommendations - politics, arts & culture stuff, gaming & geekery - anything goes. (Right now, for instance, the only podcasts I listen to are Derb Radio and The Durham 3, so things that go along with those would be great).

Thanks!

Movie Chat: The Puffy Chair

The Puffy Chair

I saw this after Funny Ha Ha, which I liked more but related to less. In fact, some of my hedging on this one has to do with my suspicion that I like this movie for basically narcissistic reasons: it featured lots of moments, exchanges, scenarios that I could recognize from my own life (as opposed to Funny Ha Ha which featured moments, etc. that I could recognize as being part of the lives of other people that I know). The quest structure/symbolic level is a little bit too overt (even though the movie explicitly acknowledges this), but there are lots of great little bits of business that make up for it. The actors generally do a good job of putting the material over. My favorite exchange: "What are you doing?" "You have my Peter Gabriel CDs." In context, it's pretty funny.

I was kind of disappointed at all the negative customer reviews for this at Netflix. Netflix members seemed to groove on Funny Ha Ha, but the handheld camerawork on display here really turned a lot of people off.

Easter Weekend

Apart from the new episode of The Sopranos, I didn't get a chance to watch much in the way of movies/TV shows/etc. over Easter weekend: I spent it with the family and, when we weren't too busy stuffing ourselves, we were watching the Masters. I did finish reading John Le Carre's Absolute Friends, parts of which I loved, but I want to hold off writing about it until I finish watching The Good Shepherd.

As for The Sopranos: this episode continues with one of my favorite themes from the last half-season - the idea that for Tony to be an effective boss he needs to be top thug as much as he needs to be a master of Machiavellian strategy. I knew that once they start playing Monopoly things were going to go bad, but part of what makes me like this show so much is that I didn't know exactly how things would go bad. Tony's eventual "punishment" of Bobby was really chilling and the final moments among the most moving in the show's history. Usually in The Sopranos, irony goes hand-in-hand with black comedy, but here the irony is played as a kind of small-scale tragedy.

1st Place for Something

Considering the amount of work I don't put into this, I'm pretty happy that if you Google for "underrated directors", The Forager Blog is the number one result.

Feast or Famine

When it comes to playing RPGs its either feast or famine for me. I hadn't managed to get a game in for most of the summer, due to stuff like moving, vacation, going to a wedding, etc., and an attempt to follow up a pretty satisfying Sorcerer & Sword game with a run of With Great Power... kept hitting scheduling snags.

But then, in the last five days, I've played four different games: Shock: Social Science Fiction, 1001 Nights, The Princes Kingdom, and the much-delayed first With Great Power... session. My eventual goal is to play, consistently, at least one game a week, but I don't see that happening quite yet.

I've never done this before. Really...

I've never done this kind of post before, but I thought it might be fun (i.e., requiring a lot less effort than my last post). Here are a couple of recent searches that brought people to my blog. Since I doubt that what they found here was all that useful to them, I will do my best to help them out:

kill bill feminist: To sum up: my take is that Kill Bill is a pseudo-feminist movie, or, rather, its "empowered" heroine is really a 14-year-old male geek's fantasy.

difference between CART and Indy cars: Well, I am a bad racing pundit, because I don't know any of the specific technical differences between Champ Cars (CART is now the Champ Car World Series) and Indy Cars. However, from a more-or-less ignorant fan perspective, the main difference is that Champ Cars have something like those Turbo Buttons in racing arcade games: each car has a limited amount of "extra horsepower" that they can activate by pushing the Power-to-Pass button. This means that Champ cars can actually pass each other on road and street courses AND it adds a whole new level of tactical and strategic considerations to the racing.

indy versus nascar: In terms of money and audience, there's no contest. NASCAR is the champ and the Indy Racing League is the chump. The big bucks flowing into NASCAR has made it the place for the best American race car drivers. However, in terms of sheer racin' excitement, those open-wheel whackadoodles often have the stock car boys beat. This is partly because, it is harder for stock cars to race side-by-side on those popular 1.5-mile ovals than it is for Indy Cars, which, because of their smaller size and greater manuverability, are able to dogfight, lap after lap.

"highest grossing sports movies": The highest grossing sports movies are dumb, raunchy comedies, like The Waterboy, even though dumb, uplifting, sappy melodramas like Seabiscuit give them a run for their money.

all about wener dogs: I am a sloppy editor and this guy is a bad speller, as this took him (or her) to a post of mine where I reference "Wener Herzog". Sorry: The Forager Blog has no opinion on weiner dogs (i.e., dachshunds). Try here.

blog my girlfriend: For any and all visitors from Spain: my girlfriend's blog is here.

calvin and hobbs comics on achievement: Try the storyline involving the time machine, which ends with Calvin getting an "A" on his writing assignment. The lesson: he achieves the most when he is allowed to express his creativity.

rob zombies movies: I kind of liked Rob Zombie's first movie. The Devil's Rejects on the other hand is just about the most awful and unpleasant movie I've ever seen ("just about" brought to you by 8mm).

I hope all the folks who stumble onto this blog looking for answers to these or other important questions eventually find what they are looking for.