Jason's Blog, page 105

The Limey

Terence Stamp goes to LA to avenge the death of his daughter, the leads point to Peter Fonda. Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

It's not quite Point Blank or Don't Look Now, but it's a pretty good film, an impressionistic style exercise, a dream memory mosaic. There are several 60s icons in the film, Stamp is glum, Fonda is cheerful, Stamp does the cockney rhyming thing, there's 60s music, there's nostalgia and disillusionment. Besides the non linear storytelling, the story itself is quite simple, unless I missed something. Stamp is very good. Headbutting is difficult if you wear glasses.

Top 5 Soderbergh films:
1. Out of Sight
2. Ocean's Eleven
3. Solaris
4. The Limey
5. Kafka

Some books I've read 14

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and The Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright
It's a good book. I think I prefer the Janet Reitman one, maybe because I read that one first. Some  information here you get for the second time. The crazy stuff goes up to 11, it's hard to believe some of it. The footnotes, with Tom Cruise's response to some of  the accusations, show that he actually lies on behalf of the cult. But, lying is pretty much all they do.

Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK by Anthony Summers
A pretty good, objective ABC about the whole conspiracy thing. The writer didn't have a theory first and then went looking for proof, ignoring everything that didn't fit. And he's not totally up his own ass, saying it was Jackie or the driver or Elvis.
 
Plays vol. 1, 2, 3 and 4 by David Mamet
So yeah. I got a bit hooked on Mamet. There's Glengarry Glen Ross, of course. The fuckin' leads... What can you do? And American Buffalo. (pause) I really liked Squirrels. I liked that play. That's a good play. Not everything's gold, but... (shrugs) You can always enjoy Mamet's use of language.

Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen
A collection of poems and writings, some older stuff, some from his Mt Baldy retreat period, about sex, growing old, spirituality, the usual Cohen suspects, sometimes it rhymes, sometimes it doesn't, and also including drawings that seem to be drawn on a computer. Frankly, a lot of it goes over my head, but it's still nice to read.

Hawkeye hardcover collection by Matt Fraction, David Aja and some other people
If the artist draws in the same style as David Mazzucchelli it creates big expectations. Is it as good as Batman Year 1? No, it's not. There's a cleverness in the book, but I'm not really sure if that's a good thing. Eleven chapters, and we still don't know the characters any better. Why include the last chapter, drawn in a Neal Adamsy style and with graded colours, completely clashing with the rest of the book? And I don't like the computer font.

Fran by Jim Woodring
Ring Jim Wood
Jim Ring Wood
Wood Jim Ring

Captain Easy vol. 4 1940-1943 by Roy Crane
I can still enjoy the cartoony drawing, but it's become less of an adventure strip, and at the end Easy even disappears as a character. And it's pretty much four daily strips on top of each other,  not the visually exciting Sunday page it was in the first volume.

Chapter One

We were lost in the desert. The ship was drinking sand. The parachutes were slowly twisting, out of shape, out of hope. I had a broken foot, of course. I realised my problems had only just begun. The sun was carefully touching the ground. One of the bottles had survived the jump. I drank it with a spoon, then tried to stand up. In the distance I could see the smoke turning around in circles, not knowing where to go. Maria looked at me with no expression on her pale face. She smoked a French cigarette without pleasure. -Who is the one responsible for the deck chairs?-I don't know.-No?-No. And don't ask me again.
She hummed sadly a song I remembered from somewhere. Someone had found enough dry wood to start a small fire. I warmed my blue fingers, tv images of lizards in my head. I sighed. I was tired. It had been a long day.

Happy holidays

Card made for Fantagraphics.

You The Living

Have you ever wondered what it's like living in Scandinavia? Watch this film. Eugène Ionesco meets Ingmar Bergman meets Edward Hopper. What dreams do we have, what worries do we have? It's maybe not quite the masterpiece as Roy Andersson's previous film, Songs From The Second Floor, but it's still a great film. Mostly static camera, with carefully composed images in grey colour tones, often with a door or a window in the background. Arty movies often have arty dialogue, things normal people would never say. This film is different. It's still arty, but only visually. The dialogues are very simple, anti intellectual, kind of every day exchanges. The ending, as it should be, is haunting.

Nightporter

Science fiction

Top 5 science fiction novels:

1. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
2. Dune by Frank Herbert
3. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Henlein
4. Neuromancer by William Gibson
5. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick

The Demolished Man by Bester is also very good.

Films of 2013

I saw four films in the cinema this year, in order of preference:

1. Thor: The Dark World
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
3. Iron Man 3
4. Passion (by De Palma)

So yes, I enjoyed Thor more than Inside! The scene of Loki being informed about his mother's death I found more moving than anything that happened to Llewyn Davis. I'm sure the Coen film will grow on me, and I'll probably get the dvd at some point, but I had high expectations and ended up a bit disappointed. Before Midnight, Frances Ha and the Jarmusch vampire film (is it out yet?) I'll also just wait for the dvd, no rush. I don't think there was anything else this year that I'm dying to see...

Bookmark Frankenstein

Singin' in the Rain

Some days you want to see Seven, other days you want to see Singin' in the Rain.

It has, at least, three amazing numbers: Make'em Laugh, Good Morning and, of course, Singin' in the Rain. Or five, if you count Fit as a Fiddle and Moses Supposes. Sure, why the hell not! Only the movie within the movie, the whole Broadway Melody part, drags a bit. It doesn't really have anything to do with the main story. Jean Hagen almost steals the whole film, as Lisa Lamont. "And I cayn't stand'im." It's a great comedic performance. I thought she was mostly a dramatic actor. Besides this film, I think I've only seen her in The Asphalt Jungle. What should be put in a time capsule representing the 20th century, to be found by Martians when life on Earth is over? I'd say this film.