Jason's Blog, page 79

Magritte panels

Only Pacific Rim Left Alive

Pacific RimGod, this film made me feel old. As in "Is this what the kids like to watch these days?" I didn't get anything out of it. The whole Who will he team up with? thing, the action scenes, the cgi overload, the stock characters -- nothing felt real or like something I should care about. There was one shot in the film I thought was fun, where the arm of the robot went into that building and made the Newton's Cradle toy start clicking. I'm sure it must be fun for Del Toro to get all those millions of dollars to play with, but so far his Hollywood output is just a lot less interesting than his Spanish films.
Only Lovers Left AliveOkay, Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law are classics, but Jarmusch's other films have been uneven. He's moved on, which is a good thing, I guess. He doesn't try to make hipster black and white films anymore. I enjoyed Limits of Contol, his previous film. It had an ambiguity that I found lacking in this one -- the story is pretty straight forward. And the best Jarmusch films are "saved" by having a great ending. Which doesn't really happen this time. But Hiddleston could use it as an audition tape if he wants to be cast as Sandman.

2 panels, 1 film onze

http://lewistrondheim.tumblr.com/

Watching Corto Maltese

Re-reading Corto Maltese

the short stories. Still some of the best comics ever made.

Happy holidays!

2 panels, 1 film dix

Lewis Trondheim's version: http://lewistrondheim.tumblr.com/

One for My Baby

Some book I've read 19

In The WakeIt's Fine by MeAshes in My Mouth, Sand in My ShoesI Curse the River of Time by Per PettersonThis is a Norwegian writer I hadn't read back in Norway. I discovered one of his books in French, and then started buying his other books as well. He namedrops Raymond Carver in In The Wake, and his books sort of fall into the dirty realism genre, except that his stories take place in Norway and not in the Midwest. His books have the same simple language as Carver. Curse the River is probably my favourite.
Here Comes Everybody: The Story of The Pogues by James FearnleyThe rise and fall of The Pogues seen from the inside. It's a bit sad to read. Those three first albums are still classics. And then MacGowan was pretty much ruined by alcohol and drugs. And the book fortunately doesn't try to romantisize that.
Darker Than The Deapest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake by Trevor DannSo, did Drake committ suicide or was the drugoverdose an accident? The book of course can't give a definite answer. But Drake clearly suffered from clinical depression at the end. Interestingly, his sister says she prefers the thought that it was a suicide rather than an accident. What's left is the music, as timeless and magical as ever.
Here by Richard McGuireA brilliant concept, an impressive book, but spread over 300 pages it, for me, also lacks the punch of the original comic.

The Happening

I think I'll quote Opus on this one. M Night Shyamalan's film The Happening has brought the word "bad" to new levels of badness. Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad everything. This bad film just oozed rottenness from every bad scene. Simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness. Well, maybe not that bad, but lord, it wasn't good.