Movies
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One of the better lines of all time
From the recently seen (by me) Double Indemnity
Keyes: Walter, can I be blunt with you?
Neff: Of course.
Keyes: I’m a great man. -
The two funniest things I’ve seen today
- The wonderful YouTube Series – “Will It Blend” featuring marbles, cell phones, rake handles, etc
- An edited version of Pulp Fiction that contains only the F-word. Surprisingly long. Not safe for work by any means.
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Classic movies everyone should see
- Ivan the Terrible Part II – Quite good, interesting insight into the Russian character and the central role autocracy has always played in Russian history. Visually it’s quite stunning too.
- The Seventh Seal – Man’s struggle with God and Death come across much more believably in subtitles.
- I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang – Life on the chain gang comes across as more believable than realistic, an excellent piece. The final few minutes are particularly jarring.
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Quick Sunday rapid fire
- An hourly motel in the sky, more info here.
- The funniest quote I read yesterday is from this blog, to wit
Every adult must at some point have paused during some slapstick piece of debauchery and thought, “Christ, this is ridiculous“. Having testicles is like being chained to the village idiot. Sad, but there it is.
- The famous “What year is it?” essay. What year you compare our modern times to determines your current outlook, pretty interesting. Personally I think it’s 1905, and Radical Islam is best compared to the Bolshevism of that period, but all comparisons are, by definition, imperfect.
- The Seventh Seal was an incredible movie
- This is an incredibly cool time lapse movie, regrettably, in QuickTime, but still good.
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Quote of the moment
“You know the story. Most of my life in jail; the rest of it dead!”
Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest -
I continue my way through the classics
And I must highly reccomend Paul Muni in “I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang” (1932). A somehwat true story evidently. More info here.
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Quite good
So last night, I finally saw Walk the Line last night (finally) and I was quite impressed. A surprisingly good performance by Reese Witherspoon and Joachim Phoenix as well. It does end in the late 60s and leaves a lot of his life uncovered, but that’s probably just as well.
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White Heat
I just got done watching White Heat for the first time. Not quite a film noir, but still excellent. I recommend it highly.
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Saw Sin City again
At the Fox Theater no less, and it remains very good.
On an odd note, I recently (yesterday) ordered a lens adapter, telephoto lens, and a gig of memory from buy.com for the Mighty Olympus C-8080 and for no reason that I can tell it’s coming in 3 shipments. Very strange. I’ve been extremely happy with the C-8080 so far.
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Saw Batman
Eric and I saw Batman Begins on Saturday night. I have to say I recommend it highly. They stuck close with Frank Miller’s “Year One” series and portrayed Bruce Wayne as a dark, angry figure, with none of the campyness that characterized the television series. Christian Bale performs very well as Bruce Wayne and Batman, the other characters did excellent jobs as well.The Ras Al Gul character was a bit different, in the movie, he plays more of a spiritual leader (to put it nicely) in the comic book he ‘s more of a genocidal eco-terrorist. The Henri Ducard role is different as well (at least different that the Joe Hamm story I read.) Scarecrow was extremely well done, and Gary Oldman could not have done a better job.
Missing, curiously was any mention of Batman as the world’s greatest detective, though one can’t have everything.
After the movie Eric and I had dinner at the Rusty Nail, AKA the Smoking Gun (informally named after the barbecue smoker pictured below.
Of no significant import was the waving man outside of Decatur CD. I don’t mention it because of any great significance, but mostly because the photo turned out well.
And that was my Saturday.