The Polanski petition doesn’t really cut it. I get the argument – that film festivals should be safe zones, because if you have a blanket policy of extradition then filmmakers from totalitarian regimes aren’t safe there. But no. This is not about free speech, this is about rape. It’s reasonable to make the distinction between types of crime; we do not need to protect rapists for the sake of protecting free speech.
I woke up this morning thinking about FlashForward. (Jack Davenport, so big awesome potential. Susan notes concern that the show has absorbed all the British character actors, however, which could lead to a shortage over in the UK.) So I wanted to read some discussion on it, and I wound up missing Usenet. Back in the day you could just go read the television newsgroup or the alt.tv.flashforward newsgroup and you’d get your fix of cranky geeks expressing poorly-formed opinions about new shows. These days, where do I go? I guess TWoP (original). ...
I finally coax eMusic into letting me download the bonus tracks from the new Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs. “Marquee Moon” is one of the songs. That’s most of why I wanted them. I play it. For a moment I’m worried that my headphones are broken, as the guitar is isolated in my left ear. Then the rest of the music comes in to the right, echoing through my skull. Two guitars twine back and forth like snakes kissing. It is abbreviated, terse. Every time the chorus occurs, the notes extend out, bridging across austerity with sudden melody. Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd alternate solos… wait. ...
If you aren’t watching it, you might want to catch up. The characterization has improved remarkably, and as of the end of the season the plot is equally enjoyable. We’ve taken a heavy turn into the SF. Also, Brad Anderson is producing and directing a bunch of episodes, and he is one creepy director. Spoilers follow in the form of transcribed newspaper headlines, cause we couldn’t resist freeze framing.
Even after downloading and playing this I’m still substantially surprised that Richard Thompson found his way onto Rock Band. But it’s awesome! The fan reaction has also been pretty gratifying. There’s a lot of “it started badly but then I got to the solo, whoa.” It’s weird realizing that this track has the potential to be the top selling Thompson song ever. My favorite comment on the video: “Is all of that solo really played on a guitar though? Man, I wish mine sounded like that. ;P”
Looking back, I never did talk about Fringe outside of some RPG wanking. That was because I wasn’t that enchanted with the show. John Noble is a superior being, and his Walter Bishop is a great TV character, but I found Anna Torv to be fairly dull and uninteresting. Her FBI agent was bland and played the victim a bit too much for my tastes. As of the 11th episode, “Bound,” things changed. Agent Dunham… let’s say she revealed her inner badass rather than claiming her characterization changed, because I haven’t gone back and watched the early episodes to see if I missed something. She is now really interesting, because we’re seeing this vast well of anger inside her, which she mostly has to keep repressed. But man, it comes out sometimes. She is ruthless without being apologetic and without making a big deal of it. ...
Soderbergh’s thinking about a movie (original) based on Moneyball. That is even goofier than making a movie based on Candy Land. I’m all in. Seriously, Soderbergh’s intellectual approach makes him a perfect fit.
If we lived in the future, AMC would put every episode of The Prisoner up for free viewing. There, isn’t that nice? I strongly recommend this if you’ve never seen it; it’s a perfect marriage of surrealism, British spy drama, and anti-authoritarianism.
2009 is not exactly getting off to a good start with the news of Donald Westlake’s death. He was a consummate professional. The guy knew how to write mysteries; his range went from the comic caper Dortmunder books to the hardboiled Parker novels. He was primarily a novelist, but he did a few screenplays too. The Grifters was probably too quiet a flick to get noticed a ton, but it’s one of my probably top twenty movies and the last scene still disturbs me like very few other cinematic moments. ...
Some guy named Shane Acker apparently made a student animation film called 9, which you can see online (original). It’s only like 10 minutes, it got nominated for an Oscar, go ahead. But because sometimes the right thing happens, it got picked up and now he’s directing the full-length movie version, with Elijah Wood and Crispin Glover and other people doing voices. There’s a trailer just out. I think maybe the right order is the trailer first, so your appetite is whetted, and then you can say “whoa, I can see a full version!” and watch the short, and then sit around contemplating whether or not adding voices and making it stretch longer is a mistake. It’s probably not, though.