This proposed Barry Sonnenfeld movie will undoubtedly suck, but I’ll undoubtedly see it because, come on… dinosaurs versus aliens.
Still waiting for that Devil Dinosaur movie, though.
Midweek Staff Meeting – Why Is Charles Murray Still Speaking?
Thursday Morning Staff Meeting – Poetry Chapbooks Are The New Must Have Fashion Accessory
Tuesday Staff Meeting – I Said ‘Oannes’ Not ‘Onan;’ Very Different Things
Classic Movies
Plan 9 from Outer Space is now available on blu-ray. That is all.
‘Casablanca’ On The Big Scree
Yesterday was the seventieth anniversary of Casablanca‘s release. Like any cultured raconteur worth his or her salt, I took a beautiful woman to a see in a theater in Arlington where it was playing for one night only, regaling her with witticisms about my great affection for this movie (she had never seen it in its entirety).
I love the film, but seeing it in crowded theater makes one realize how jaded one is towards objects of such broad cultural relevance. One sees them as cultural touchstones, but not as the things in and of themselves (I’m not trying to get all Heideggerian or Sartrean here, so don’t try to read too much rigor into my phraseology).
For example, there are a lot of very funny lines in Casablanca but when was the last time you laughed while watching it? Or were literally misty-eyed while watching the most moving scenes? It’s probably been a while. And maybe never.
But in a crowded theater, with one’s emotions heightened and feeding off the emotions of one’s fellow human beings, everyone (I included) laughed at the jokes and funny parts and got quiet and teary at Rick’s heartbroken depression and the final good bye.
The film even took on a sort of realism. Not ‘realism’ in the sense of a Mike Leigh film, but in seeing the characters as real people as well as iconic figures of culture, rather than almost exclusively as iconic cultural figures.
John Carter, The Movie
I saw John Carter on Monday night and I enjoyed it. If you have been reading the coffee philosopher lately, than you know that I’ve been looking forward to this more than a little.
While the plot diverges a good deal from the first book (A Princess of Mars), the spirit is firmly that of the classic adventure pulps. And it was pretty necessary to diverge, plotwise. Princess is more episodic than its sequel and lacks the single minded, narrative drive of a good adventure movie.
John Carter of Mars was created during the heyday of the adventure pulps and well before John Campbell used his editorship of Astounding to more or less invite modern, ‘hard’ science fiction. Before Campbell, science fiction (though the John Carter stories are often classified as a kind of sub-category called ‘planetary romance’ – a way to do science fiction where highly advanced species with advanced technology still find excuses to fight with swords; also to include buxom babes and strapping heroes of noble mien) was not so concerned with science and its implications (nor complex characterization, to be honest) and was more concerned with the adventure side of things, science be damned.
Anyway, this movie was fun. Everyone played it straight up with no irony. And Willem Dafoe was hilarious. I could have used some more shouting from the hero (instead of I’m on Mars… maybe do it I’M ON MARS!?!!??!), but I dive into a pulp adventure looking for strong willed women who are somehow forced by circumstance to less clothing than might normally be considered practical or modest and heroes who like to use swords and face overwhelming odds.
And there four a things that are generally guaranteed to make any movie better, and John Carter feature half of them – attractive women wearing the aforementioned inadequate (though still PG-13) clothing and fifteen foot tall sarcastic green men (for those people keeping track, the other things that make any movie better are Christopher Walken and Voltron, Defender of the Universe; I am hoping that one or more those will appear in sequel).
I do have one quibble with the movie. Ciaran Hinds is an amazing actor, but he should never be forced to wear a stupid hairpiece (is he losing his hair? I don’t know, but surely a Ciaran with thinning hair is better than a Ciaran wearing a thirty year old hairpiece salvaged from a thirty-five year old BBC production of I, Claudius). Also, in a movie where everyone wears navel revealing outfits, Hinds really stands out for being the only actor whose navel we never see. The reason why is obvious and gets to my point on the matter: Hinds’ role really didn’t need a quality actor and I would suggest that the casting director should have given greater consideration to actors of appropriate age who, while possibly possessed of less acting ability, were possessed of a reasonably flat stomach.
John Carter of Mars
I’m actually pretty excited about the new John Carter movie.
From a business point of view, it seems like an absolutely insane decision to spend a rumored $200 million on it. Is there that much pent up demand for early twentieth century planetary romances?
I’ve been reading a decent bit of Edgar Rice Burroughs lately. Not the Tarzan stories. But his hollow earth stories and his Mars novels – I’m all about those.
So, I read this first book (upon which, presumably, the movie is based) A Princess of Mars and am halfway through its sequel, Gods of Mars.
As noted, they are considered, genre-wise, as planetary romances. Essentially, they are science fiction novels that are a little loosey goosey with the science and big on finding excuses for strapping men and hideous monsters to fight with swords for the honor of scantily clad women. So really, it’s just begging to have a movie based on it.
Midweek Staff Meeting – Montmartre Edition
Though my high school buddies and I singularly failed to recreate the creative and artistic atmosphere of the cafe culture in Paris from 1900-1929 at a series of diners and coffeehouses in Florida in the early nineties, at least we can read about the real thing.
Do writers intend to by symbolic?
Remind me again, what was Modernism about?
It wasn’t about forgery, was it?
Of course, if literature has died again, it might not even matter.
the coffee philosopher 