Mari Ness

I sniffled. Especially during the first heartbreaking 15 minutes (for those who haven't seen the film, stick around: it gets considerably more cheerful after this, especially once the dogs show up.) Highly recommended. Bonus points for showing a highly correct and praiseworthy attitude towards squirrels.

( Spoilery potential quibbles )

Just some random observations on the Trek film. ( Cut for potential spoilery bits even though I think most of you have seen it by now. )

So, after dinner at the inevitable Logan's Roadhouse, we headed to see Wolverine.

( Cut for ferociously spoilery snark! )

For the first hour and fifteen minutes or so,Zach and Miri Make a Porno, is hilarious, right back in the Kevin Smith tradition of brilliant raunchiness. It's very much his usual stuff - the generally failed twenty-somethings trying to get life, this time through making porn, complete with the now required Star Wars parody bit. (The Star Wars bit alone is worth the price of admission.) He also has his usual "oh, I kinda wish you hadn't gone there" bit, reminding me of the similar scene from Dogma. (This one, like the bit in Dogma, seems overkill.) And then the movie turns sweet.

It's still enjoyable, still funny, still good, but while watching it, I realized the problem: Kevin Smith does raunchy brilliantly. He does deep, raw, emotional stuff - everything in Chasing Amy, especially the bit where Alyssa screams out that these were her choices, hers - well; he does the real questions - Clerks, Dogma, thoughtfully, insightfully.

But sweet, he's not so good at. I don't know if this stems from his general inability to write women well (Chasing Amy as an exception), or from something else. Smith clearly believes in the sweetness, the romance; wants us to believe in it, wants us to see it, but somehow, it sits awkwardly in his hands. (One particularly awkward scene: a secondary character who earlier ranted against love now defends it, for no particular reason except to advance the plot.)

But still, I laughed. And stick around until after the credits - and keep an eye out for a certain Justin Long, who if this performance was any indication, is going to hit comedy gold.

pandorable and I caught this recently. When it was over, she summarized the problem with this movie with a single insightful comment:

"I don't know why they made a movie about her."

Exactly.

Georgiana: The Duchess of Devonshire, the best-selling biography that inspired the movie, did explain: quite apart from a compelling soap operish personal story (various lovers, illegitimate kids, living in a threesome, fabulous wealth, equally fabulous gambling, huge hair) Georgiana played a major political role in 18th century events, finding a powerful political voice – this despite an ongoing series of personal screwups. (And thus reminding us that the interest and participation of women in politics is not a 20th century feminist invention.) In addition, the woman portrayed in the book was a woman easy to identify with: intelligent, witty, yet desperate for validation, with an all too human tendency for massive screwups. (In one of the best sentences of the biography, the biographer tells us, dryly, that Georgiana had "told a terrible and stupid lie," and then proceeds to explain just why this lie was to prove so terrible.) Impossible to put down; I was caught between cheering the woman on and wanting to shake her out of her tragic gambling addiction and wondering how she would survive the next soap opera twist. And survive she did; this is a biography of triumph, of overcoming earlier mistakes and personal flaws, to find a certain happiness in later life. Very moving.

The movie shows little to none of this.

Oddly, the movie seems to assume that its viewers have read the book, thus showing us certain scenes with little explanation – particularly the scenes where Georgiana begins political campaigns for the Whig party, demonstrating her unusual popular appeal. The book delineates why her actions were so critical; in the film, she shows up, waves at people, and then walks off. This problem could have been managed with a bit more dialogue, something like this: two nobles, to the side, "I cannot believe that the Duchess of Devonshire is heading out to the streets to talk to people about politics!" "I cannot believe her success – but without her, the Whigs have no hope of winning the election! They need her popularity! No wonder they're sending her out to campaign!" And so on. If you are wondering if that added dialogue might have made the movie longer, well, yes, but that could have been easily dealt with by shortening other, more turgid and boring bits, and would have explained why

Oddly, the movie creates some historical drama that did not exist. In the film, for instance, the Duke rapes his wife – an event with no historical evidence whatsoever. Also, the Duke forces Georgiana to give up her lover, Charles Grey, on the basis that the two are being indiscreet; he has found out about it, and will keep her from her children if she does not give Grey up; only later, after the end of the relationship, does she inform the Duke that she is pregnant with Charles Grey's child. In reality, Georgiana kept that relationship quite discreet; the Duke discovered her infidelity only when Georgiana became pregnant. After that discovery – an extraordinarily dramatic moment – the Duke exiled Georgiana from England, separating her from her children. She wandered through Europe, desperately missing her children. In addition, the film only hints at, rather than tells, the other major constraint on Georgiana's dealings with her husband: she was severely addicted to gambling, racking up millions in debt, and desperately needed him to pay her bills. Not sexy, but very real – and could certainly have added to the film's drama, had it been told.

And the very compelling story of Lady Elizabeth (Bess) Foster – the woman forced to turn to social climbing through economic and social circumstances and a hellish marriage – gets turned into a "well, a woman should and will do everything for her children." In the film, Bess Foster sleeps with the Duke of Devonshire and then almost immediately gets to see her sons, allowing Georgiana to understand and forgive because of course you would do anything for your kids including sleep with your best friend's husband. The reality was considerably more complex: Bess Foster was not able to see her oldest sons until they were adults; she slept with the Duke (and many others) because she needed money and liked sex – and because her place in society kept her from pursuing other professional options that might have earned her a steady income. I'm not sure how this could have been effectively conveyed in a film – perhaps with a hushed discussion of the very real problems faced by women in Bess' position.

In addition, some of the more fascinating characters in the book – Georgiana's sister Harriet, happily sleeping with most of the aristocracy, eventually giving birth to the woman who would become Lord Byron's lover, are completely absent, as is the womanizing Duke of Dorset, Georgiana's nasty sister in law Lavinia Spencer, and others. This sharp focus makes Georgiana's mother feel considerably harsher and more narrow minded.

Filmmakers, of course, need to shape a story for an audience, tightening here, expanding there, allowing the camera to tell a different tale than the one peeking through letters and journals, but the story of Georgiana and Bess was dramatic enough, without needing changes made to it, changes that ultimately deadened the film.

We just finished watching The War Room, a documentary about the inner workings of the 1992 Clinton campaign. A few observations:

1. The person that has, hands down, aged the most since 1992? Bill Clinton. Runner-up, Hillary Clinton.

Incidentally, the film gives the distinct impression that Bill Clinton, at least, was at his most comfortable in shorts and a University of Arkansas T-shirt.

2. The person that has, hands down, changed the least since 1992? James Carville. Runner-up, George Stephanopoulos. There's a lesson here about politics, punditry and the effects on your skin.

3. My vague memories of 1992 told me that George H.W. Bush was neither a good, nor fiesty, nor coherent speaker. This was, of course, before eight years of his son. My deep and profound apologies, in retrospect, to the former President.

4. Something I'd forgotten: Bill Clinton lost his voice towards the end of the campaign, shortly before election day, from too much speaking. Expect the same to happen to Obama, Biden or Palin at any time now.

5. Something I hadn't forgotten: the volatility of presidential campaigns. Even on election day, even when the polls are predicting a Clinton victory, the war room guys are still uncertain, still waiting, still nervous, still desperately needing a beer, which is precisely why it's still possible for the election to go any which way in November. Well. I don't expect the Socialist Party to win, but barring that safe prediction, I'm reluctant to rely too much on polls, which say one thing in August, something else in September, and are now saying something entirely else in October. (And if you don't believe me, believe the Obama and McCain campaigns, neither one of which is assuming a win here.)

6. In the more things stay the same category: we couldn't help noticing the exact same rhetoric, and in many cases, the exact same words, in both 1992 and 2008, from both political parties. Oh well.

Well worth checking out, although I'd advise fast forwarding through the very, very slow introduction where the filmmakers are eager to tell you just how historical they and the film are, resulting in one of the dullest arguments for history that I've heard.

New York Times decides that "strain" is starting to show in superhero flicks.

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From a purely financial point of view, this is a strange argument to make at the moment, coming right after record breaking box office receipts for The Dark Knight and Iron Man. But, to restate the obvious: this summer has featured a lot of superhero flicks, leading some people to greet the arrival of Hancock and Batman with an agonized auugh! can't Hollywood do anything other than superhero flicks?????? (Of course, this led to one of you then deciding to skip Batman thanks to superhero overload and see Mamma Mia instead, only to be apparently overloaded and sickened from Pierce Brosnan singing overload,* meaning that pain comes in all guises). So I think we can agree that five superhero flicks (six if you are including Wanted) might be putting a significant strain on the audience. (And quite possibly lowering the box office receipts for a few films -- movie watchers deciding that they could only handle one or two superhero films at the most per year possibly decided to restrict themselves to just Iron Man and The Dark Knight, a speculation based solely on box office receipts.)

But that audience strain doesn't necessarily translate to film strain, which is where I think A.O. Scott, who I usually like, goes off the mark here, in a couple of different ways. For one, he's picked a bad comparison: the Western genre. I keep hearing, over and over and over again of the "death" of the Western, only to see yet another Western (last year's 3:10 to Yuma) pop up again and again and again, and although the most recent batch of Westerns focus on "thoughtful" (read, let's chat about the meaning of violence, kids!) reinterpretations of that genre, that's hardly a new approach to Westerns -- think, for instance, of High Noon. (On a mild note, A.O. Scott's protestation that superhero flicks are under unusual financial pressure is also wrong -- Hollywood was just as interested in making money in the 1950s, and those Westerns were expected to bring in heavy profits.) Two, as A.O. Scott admits, all Hollywood flicks are governed by conventions: if you are complaining that superhero films must have a climatic fight between villain and superhero, you have to complain that romantic comedies must have a misunderstanding between hero and heroine. It's not the conventions, it's what a film does with them. Three, true, Hollywood, in general, is not known for the creativity -- or indeed, particularly interested in the creativity -- the goal is money. (Which, according to BoxOfficeMojo, all of the superhero flicks, except Hellboy II (so far) amply provided.) Hollywood rehashes old ideas, flicks, and TV shows (hello to the non-superhero flicks Sex and the City, Get Smart and the upcoming X-Files), but in some ways, superhero flicks -- especially those like Hancock and Hellboy II not as tied to audience preconceptions of the character -- can actually revel in more creativity than some other films. After all, the praise for The Dark Knight isn't because it's the all time ultimate portrayal of Batman, but because the film had something to say about law, terror and morality, combined with a pretty damn good car chase.

In other words, instead of discovering the limits of the superhero genre, as A.O. Scott suggests, I think that these particular films have shown just how much these limits can be stretched -- suggesting that quite possibly, the genre doesn't have limitations at all. I may, of course, be reacting from a long term fondness for comic books and superheroes, or I may be reacting the same way I react to any statement that any genre or art form has died. (Outside of, say, sillouettes, which probably won't be making a major popular comeback any time soon.) Because that suggests that as artists, we are restricted by the pathways carved by previous artists -- rather than finding hints of what we can do next, of how we can stretch those conventions a little bit more, and maybe, along the way, produce something original -- or if not wholly original, at least a dazzling new take on the old. Kinda the way Shakespeare did.)

Or maybe I'm just being optimistic, and from here on out, every superhero movie will be utter crap.

* I haven't seen Mamma Mia, but I have been assured by its viewers that Meryl Streep should sing, and Pierce Brosnan should not.

Batman and Iron Man chat about summer movies:



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YouTube just makes it far too easy to post these things. Real content is coming. I promise.

1. So Friday night I finally got around to watching Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. I have a mixed reaction to Anderson's films, which often have a forced artistry to them, a "I am staging this scene this way to make an artistic point, damn it," feel, which is certainly not absent here. And this particular Anderson film tends to waver between tones, from sardonic to heavy tragedy; there's a center scene that feels particularly out of place that seems to miss the tone it's striving for. On the other hand, the dialogue has some nice moments, Natalie Portman removes a lot of clothing, always a plus, and the Anjelica Huston bit at the end is excellent.

After that, we turned on Balls of Fury. It will surprise no one that this was not my choice of films, but I was amused enough to actually laugh through it. For the majority of you that missed this, it's a comedy film that crosses, god help us, ping pong with martial arts films and Christopher Walken. It will surprise no one that Christopher Walken saves the movie, which unfortunately doesn't go quite over the top enough. Had this hit the absurdity levels of, say, Top Secret, the utterly ridiculous premise might have slightly worked, but as it was, I kept thinking, ok, ridiculous, instead of ha-ha. Which reminds me that I need to see Top Secret again.

2. I missed the four part TV adaptation of The Stand last time it aired, and almost missed it this time around too – indeed, I would have if hawkward hadn't reminded it that it was on the SciFi Channel, and even then, I missed the first two parts.

It's been awhile since I read the book, so I can't be sure how close the adaptation is, but most of what I saw seemed to match my recollections, although I don't quite remember the touch of Nadine managing to find a little pink motorcycle. The casting, too, for the most part seems ok, although Molly Ringwald seems a bit off and the girl playing Nadine isn't off enough. And the special effects at the end in Vegas are really, truly atrocious, raising the question of why bother to attempt to film them at all.

What I'd totally forgotten is just how overtly religious the entire plot is, although I shouldn't have: King is usually far more religious than he's given credit for, and apocalypses in general tend to have a religious element. I'm tempted to suggest, on the first part, that King's writings contain that religious element because of the connection between religion and horror (although not necessarily the other way around) – a connection that exists since religion exists, in part, as a way to explain and distract and contend with the true horrors of the world. The second – well, many religions contain a belief in a final end, and, if a final, final end really does show up, in the form of nuclear bombs or alien attacks or the complete and utter destruction of the cocoa bean, I suspect many would turn to religion or outright atheism in reaction. (The utter destruction of the cocoa bean would probably drive me to drink and the mournful realization that said drinks couldn't contain chocolate, which would be beyond sad.)

(S reminded me of several apocalypses without a religious element, so it's definitely possible to have an apocalyptic vision/film/book without a religious element.)

3. Not that I precisely object to yet another Hercules movie/series/saga, but the tagline, "To Kick Ass is Divine" -- ??? Oh, SciFi Channel, did you have to go there?

So bayushi wanted to know what my comfort books were. That’s too long of a post right now (although I will get to it eventually) so instead I’m going to chat about something else: comfort DVDs.

Comfort DVDs haven’t replaced the pure joy of cuddling up with a cat and a old familiar book full of familiar friends and familiar words, but cuddling up on a couch or bed with a cat and a comfort DVD brings its own joy (for one, these days you can chat on instant messenger during comfort DVDs, although I rarely bother), and for two, as the cats will note, watching DVDs usually leaves both hands free for scratching the cat. These aren’t necessarily the films I consider the best of all time, or even my all time favorite films (I’ve made some disclaimers below), but almost all of them have a sense of rightness about them, a sense that even in this mad, mad world, some stories do come out ok, and they are films that have the same effect as a cheering cup of tea, or hot chocolate.

1. The Princess Bride. You thought I was going to say The Lord of the Rings first, didn’t you? But those movies, much though I love them, are not comfort movies. And that The Princess Bride definitely does. anaisis and I used to watch this movie regularly during college (usually right after midterms or after a nasty paper or after I’d written some particularly angsty poem) and it, and popcorn, never failed.

2. Love Actually. I’ll be rewatching this one either this weekend, or over Christmas, or both: it’s one of those rare movies with just enough bittersweet realism to keep itself grounded (one of the intertwined stories focuses on a troubled marriage, and another one focuses on the tug of conflicting emotions of the love of family and the potential love of a new guy) and genuinely, joyful, happy endings that make you want to stand up and cheer – or cry.

3. Shakespeare in Love Ok. So it doesn’t exactly have a cheerful ending – and yet, something about those last few moments still leaves me inspired. And the first half of the movie is hilarious.

4. While we’re on the subject of Shakespeare -- Twelfth Night (the one with Ben Kingsley) and Much Ado About Nothing (the Kenneth Branaugh version). Unfortunately, I don’t own the first, and even more unfortunately, iTunes doesn’t have, as far as I can tell, either of the tracks where Kingsley sings, especially my favorite clip, “For the Rain It Raineth Every Day.” So this may be less of a comfort movie and more of a remembered nostalgic comfort movie, since I haven’t been able to watch it in years.

5. Pride and Prejudice, the BBC 2 Colin Firth version. I like the later Keira Knightley movie as well, but it doesn’t have the same comfort or familiarity or rightness about it. (Or Colin Firth in a wet shirt, which has its own soothing and inspiring effect. Come to think of it, Colin Firth is in a lot of the movies I’m mentioning here. Hmm.) I suppose in part this is thanks to the measured pace of this version, which does feel like a Jane Austen book. I also like Sense and Sensibility, the Emma Thompson version.

6. Friends Not all the episodes work; not all the lines work. But at its very best, Friends works, partly because it bases its humour off the characters, allowing the combination of unexpected and expected laughter.

7. The Vicar of Dibley.

8. Singin’ in the Rain.

9. Angel: Not the entire run, since let’s face it, several Angel episodes are either rousing or depressing, not comforting, but “Smile Time,”(the puppet episode) “You’re Welcome,” (where Cordelia returns, even if the whole episode makes me sniffle). Note: this is a clear example of what I mean by “favorite” versus “comforting” – I actually prefer the dark arc of the second season, and some of the greatest moments there, including the bit where Angel locks the Wolfram and Hart employees in the basement but….comforting, not.

10. Ever After. It’s not a great movie. The hero is annoying. It’s one of those things that I watch with a bit of guilt, like The Greatest Show on Earth (WITH THE CLAW!). And yet. On a similar note, Ice Princess.

11. And from Disney: Beauty and the Beast and Lilo and Stitch; I also adore The Emperor’s New Groove, Sleeping Beauty and a few others, but again, not in the comforting sort of way.

12. The Seventh Seal Because sometimes, I like knowing that Death plays – and enjoys playing – the same games that we do. I should have listed this film seventh. Only for really, really rainy and depressing days where I need that view of the universe confirmed.

So I went to see Beowulf last night. It wasn't quite the poem I remembered very very painfully translating word for word several years back, garnering the memorable comment: "Were you going for accurate or poetic? You missed both, but I'd like to know what you were trying for." (Seamus Heaney I am not.) But the movie wasn't as far off as I feared it would be, either. Sure, it's added quite a few details nowhere in the original poem, which had distinctly less sex and fewer nipple moments. In the original poem, for instance, Hrothgar's barely mentioned wife kinda stands around and hands out mead, instead of going, "Wow! What a manly chest! What a pity I shall be missing the next scenes, or perhaps not, since your main attribute shall always been concealed to keep this film PG-13 and I'm sensing I'm just not good at the whole marriage and men thing anyway, but I suspect I'd be better at this whole marriage and men thing if I didn't have to be so PG-13 about it and is anyone quite sure why this guy keeps taking off his clothes anyway?" And sure, the film goes a few places the poem didn't and adds some connections the poem didn't and leaves out the bit about Beowulf being of all kings the most eager for fame and sure the ending of the film isn't exactly what happens in the original and...

But no one is heading to the film to learn about the original poem. They're going for fight scenes, a dragon, and oh, yes, Angelina Jolie's nicely nekkid and occasionally golden avatar.

The fight scenes are fight scenes. The dragon is awesome. Angelina Jolie is, well, in a phrase I never thought I'd use in reference to Angelina Jolie, disturbing.

Now, to a certain extent, Angelina Jolie's avatar is meant to be disturbing – she is, after all, a demon. But unfortunately, she's not disturbing because she's a demon, but because she's CGI, which means that we have a vision of Jolie's perfect form – with utterly deadened eyes, and a mouth and lips that do not move properly.

The same is true for every single other character in the movie.

If Jolie, and Jolie alone, had been filmed this way, it would have created a genuinely creepy effect. But as it is, she's one creepy image lost among hundreds of other creepy images and distracting moments that flip between seemingly utter realism (when the characters aren't talking and/or aren't in close-up) and the fine edge of unrealism. In other hands, this strange unrealism might have created a truly brilliant film, especially given the source material of something like Beowulf, which itself intertwines reality and history with the bizarre and inexplicable. At moments, this film does twist reality and unreality effectively. But unfortunately, the ultimate effect is more disorienting than effective.

And it led me to wonder just what the point of this sort of realistic animation is in any case. We do, after all, have an existing method of putting images that look remarkably like real people onto a screen. It's called "film," and these days, you can even use computers to do awesomely cool things with it. Sure, in a purely animated film a director can create some cool stuff with a nekkid Beowulf (lots of people are pushing the PG-13 bit in this film) jumping around with Grendel, but surely, the identical effects and images could have been created through bluescreening – while allowing Beowulf to appear human? And if not, then why not explore that boundary between between unreality and reality? It's not as if doing films through this method saves any money.

The dragon, though, to repeat, is awesome. And I suspect, based on the dragon and Angelina Jolie, creepy or not, this film will do well enough. (And for clarification, yes, I did enjoy the film – I just figured more could have been done with it – or less, using standard computerized effects without creating human avatars.)

1. So thanks to the kindness of loucheroo, I finally got around to reading Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear. I have to say that after reading the Thursday Next books, The Big Over Easy was a disappointment: it lacked the high wired humour and the satire of the first series. (Although I've been told that Fforde actually wrote The Big Over Easy first, which explains a lot.) The Fourth Bear was a lot funnier, and I'd actually recommend reading that one first, and potentially skipping The Big Over Easy altogether.

Incidentally, by an almost pure coincidence, I happened to be eating a gingerbread dog while reading The Fourth Bear, which happens to feature a psychopathic gingerbreadman. I say "almost pure" because I couldn't figure out why I had this sudden craving for a gingerbread dog (I bought it on a whim from Publix) until I sat down and went back to reading the book.

2. I'm finding myself less enthralled with Heroes this season, although this might be because I've ended up missing a few episodes for one reason or another. But Monday's "This shall explain everything" episode a) didn't and b) gave us some explanations that frankly left something to be desired or were pretty underwhelming.

Gotta love Veronica Mars going evil and sadistic though. That's a plus.

3.So I just rewatched Last of the Mohicans, and I gotta say...

...( That movie doesn't make a lot of sense, you know? )

A special DVD sale which bundled Blue Lagoon and Return to the Blue Lagoon together for the low, low price of $1.99.

Actually, "resisted" might not be quite the right word here, since that implies some initial temptation

Firefly aside, I'm not a major fan of Westerns, although thanks to my father I've seen an awful lot of them, from the great (High Noon) to the ones that currently feel freaky (The Searchers, and not just because thanks to George Lucas watching The Searchers brings back bad memories of a certain Star Wars movie) to the utterly atrocious (too many to list). Even The Magnificent Seven, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and even Blazing Saddles (cough) never make it on my list of favorite films, and most recent Westerns have left me utterly cold -- like, say, Unforgiven.

So I wasn't planning on seeing 3:10 to Yuma until a number of you recommended it to me, and I have to say, you were right: this is a damn good film, even if, at the end, all of the characters, villains and heroes alike, decide to act like complete and utter idiots solely to allow the film to have a great final gunplay scene with running and guns and roofs in the great Western tradition, but, on the other hand, it is a great final gunplay scene with running and guns and roofs, and I don't even really like that sort of thing. Also, I have to like a movie that takes cows seriously.

Russell Crowe has a lot of fun playing seriously bad guy Ben Wade, but the surprisingly good and understated performance here is from Christian Bale playing pretty mucked up good guy Dan Evans. Bale is frequently so quiet that I tend to forget just how very good he can be, but as he did in The Prestige, Bale takes the seemingly quieter, less showy role and turns in the standout performance. And now I really want to see the next Batman.

Say it with me...bisexual.

Let's repeat that, slowly. Bi...sex...u...al.

Everybody comfy with this now? Good. Because it appears that a number of biographers aren't.

I'm reacting from reading a 1993 biography of Daphne DuMaurier, probably best known for Rebecca, but also one of those people incidentally or directly connected to numerous famous people, including Eisenhower, Mountbatten and Queen Elizabeth. (Her husband enjoyed a mostly distinguished military career and was rewarded with an appointment at Buckingham Palace.) Despite, or maybe because of this, she was largely a recluse who preferred to hide away and write instead of hanging with these sorts of people, which is understandable. Recluse or not, however, she had affairs – with another man while her husband was away during World War II, and with a woman named Gertrude. Based on this, the biographer decides that DuMaurier was not bisexual, but a repressed lesbian – despite DuMaurier's own strong denials of this.

The author's evidence for this? DuMaurier's affair with Gertrude, a few it-didn't-quite-happen crushes on and affairs with women in her teenage years, and statements that with men, she enjoyed foreplay far more than actual intercourse. This is certainly excellent evidence that DuMaurier was attracted to women, but far short of evidence that she was purely a lesbian. In fact, as the biography also shows, she fell hard and deeply in love with her decidedly masculine husband, and if she restricted herself to mostly foreplay with the man she had a later affair with, this may have been partly for reasons of enjoyment, and also because she was trying, in her own way, to not completely cheat on her husband while he was at war. But the overwhelming evidence is that DuMaurier was in fact bisexual, able to fall in love with and be physically attracted to both men and women, not a repressed lesbian who put her lesbian feelings into books – because a repressed lesbian, by definition of the word "lesbian" would not have fallen in love with a man, as DuMaurier did at least twice.

I'm getting beyond tired of biographers writing about women who are clearly, utterly bisexual and arguing either that they had no real attraction towards women at all (Christina of Sweden, Edna St. Vincent Millay) or that they were closest lesbians with no interest in men. It's more than infuriating.

On another mildly irritating note, early in the book the author praises DuMaurier's dedication, focus on, and sacrifices for her writing work, a compliment that makes sense until the author explains that this dedication involved avoiding the distraction of social activities which, the biographer notes, DuMaurier hated anyway. In fact, DuMaurier enjoyed advantages that most beginning writers would die for: her parents supported her, so she did not have to seek other employment; she had plenty of isolation and books, but the ability and opportunity to seek out and talk with other writers and poets. (Her father, a fixture of the theatrical world, also knew several literary figures.) This is not to underscore DuMaurier's genuine dedication to her work, but just to note that as sacrifices go, giving up socializing that you hate doesn't count for much.


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In mildly related news, I also watched Fingersmith, which is a genuine Victorian lesbian movie. The first half of the film, alas, is overly slow, even with the bits of lesbian sex, and filled with bits that made me say, "Oh, come on, give me a break," until with a sudden and mildly unexpected plot twist it turns into pure and much more enjoyable Victorian melodrama. I'm not entirely certain I bought the ending, the explanation, or any of the plot, but the film did have moments in the middle, and let's face it, the supply of lesbian Victorian films is strictly limited.

So over the weekend I watched Russian Ark (or Russkiy Kovcheg), a film renowned largely for its technical achievement: the entire film was shot inside the Hermitage museum in a single continuous take: 99 minutes of film, and deep sympathy for the cinematographer who had the camera on his back for all 99 of these minutes. As you might expect, this is a film about an idea, not a plot: we follow the narrator and a dreamlike figure, a French marquis, through the rooms and halls of the Hermitage, encountering 300 years of vignettes along the way: Peter the Great throwing people around a room; contemporary tourists looking at paintings; an angry man facing the siege of Nazi Germany building coffins; Catherine the Great directing her plays, looking desperately for a bathroom, and in one glorious shot running happily in the snow; the doomed family of Nicholas and Alexandra; a stylized formal reception for an Iranian ambassador; and finally, a sweeping view of the last ball held at the Winter Palace, in 1913. It's a dream world, a mediation on the meaning of art and history and the clash of Russian and European culture.

My father loved the film; I admired it, but found it emotionally cold, perhaps because of its winter background, perhaps because too often the dialogue between the narrator and the French marquis is too dreamlike, or too cold, or, frankly, boring; I found my attention drifting, even if the camera focus remained steady. (And if you require plot in your film, this is not your movie.) The final few minutes, though, where the aristocracy of Russia sweeps away from the ball, down the stairs, and into the shadows of history, and where the narrator declares firmly that the Hermitage floats securely in a sea of time, guarding art, are astounding. But unquestionably most of the admiration for this movie comes from its technical achievement (which also gives the film its dreamlike quality) which for me, was not quite enough.

Demonstrates just why people should not try to make a King Arthur movie without King Arthur.

( And amusingly enough, it claims to be an  )

So I headed out to see Sunshine today, thinking that it would cheer me up. You know – sunshine, cheery happy songs, cute friendly little kittens, and absolutely nobody, and I repeat, nobody, exploding because of sudden changes in pressure. You know the sort of cheer I'm thinking about. I happily squashed myself into my little chair, which made little squeaking noises, and prepared for happiness.

And for the first half or so of the film, I was, if not exactly crowing in delight and feeling joy running through my veins, the sort of joy you get from really good chocolate, relatively decent sex, or a mental picture of a polar bear sitting on Paris Hilton, I was, at least, enthralled; the visuals and music are glorious.

Sunshine tells the story of eight astronauts and scientists sent off to recharge the sun. The precise physics of this step is kinda skipped over, but the movie does work to keep a few other things accurate – for example, the time it would take a ship to actually travel from the earth to the sun, the creation of a lovely hydroponic garden to create oxygen supplies, and so on. The crew is stuck in space, tense, claustrophobic, snapping over cooking and sending messages.

And then they get a message sent from the other side of Mercury.

( And about a half hour later, it all goes horribly, spoilery wrong. )

1) Alan Rickman rocks.

2) I so want to see what Alan Rickman will do in the seventh movie.

3) Did I mention that Alan Rickman rocks?

4) Alan Rickman does not appear enough in the fifth film.

5) Alan Rickman is incredibly underused in the fifth film.

6) Yes, yes, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the film does have non-Alan Rickman moments, but, my point is, it shouldn't, because

7) Alan Rickman rocks.

8) Alan Rickman may possibly have been born for the sole purpose of playing Severus Snape, although I admit that I lack empirical proof that his DNA was deliberately crafted for this.

9) The film as a whole would have had a greater emotional resonance, and made more sense, had it had more scenes with Alan Rickman.

10) A rather less Alan Rickman centered review, with speculation, coming up later.

Transformers is dumb.

At times it's painfully dumb – we are expected to believe that five giant robots can stomp around in the back yard, uproot a couple of power lines and smash a fountain and nobody will notice, not to mention expected to believe that Megan Fox is in high school, not to mention…we could go on. It is also not a movie overly concerned with the niceties of, say, characterization, or with picking up dangling plot threads, or with the physical limitations of 19th century eyeglasses. (You'll know what I mean when you see the film.) And as you might expect from a film this expensive, it's jam packed with product endorsements, some ok, some genuinely irritating. And some parts of the film, especially in the last 25 minutes, just don't make any sense. None. At all.

But.

Robots.

Not just robots in disguise, but fighting, stomping, transforming into cars and a truck and planes robots. Robots.

Oh yeah.

My inner robot is telling you to go see this movie like right now, 'cause, you know, it's got more than meets the eye. And after all, the stupidity actually seems to be part of the point.

( And now, the snarky stuff. )