Rise of the Lycans

I freely admit that when I first saw Underworld, and Kate Beckinsale mentioned the war with the "lycans", I had no idea what she meant. I saw that they were werewolves, yes, and lycanthropes, yes, but somehow I thought she was saying "lichens". There was a war with the moss? How would that work?
One that note, I went to see the prequel to both Underworld movies-Rise of the Lycans. No, I did not go see The Reader, or Doubt or Milk or Benjamin Button. I wanted something mindless that would not make me think too hard, if at all, and this movie fit the bill.
That said, for a mindless movie, Michael Sheen was really giving it his all. (and when is this guy getting an Oscar nod? he's been consistently good in everything I've seen him in, yet very little love from the Academy-please remedy that). He was a welcome actor in a movie full of enjoyable overacting (Bill Nighy, I'm looking at you) and non-acting (whoever it was as the Kate Beckinsale lookalike).
Any confrontation scene between Nighy and Sheen was tremendous fun and almost got me to overlook the dark dank sets and Nighy's jeweled clothes, which I have to admit I coveted. There were a lot of fights, a lot of werewolves and a lot of "we have to fight our way out slavery" type scenes and it was all fun. It's always good when the acting is good in these types of movies (which is far from a guarantee) so to see Nighy and Sheen (both of whom have come quite aways from the first Underworld movie) both giving great performances made me happy.
Please don't ask about the plot. Does it matter? I will say that I was surprised to see Sheen showing so much skin and in apparently such good shape-good for you! If you're the type of person to even think about seeing this sort of movie, you'll enjoy it.

The Drive Back or Snow, Sun, Speed.

I had a good time in NYC this weekend and I made it back to DC before the inauguration crowds AND I found (barely) legal parking place, which was a huge achievement. I saw M and his cute dog, we did a little shopping, we ate and hung out-it was fun, although it was bitterly cold on Saturday and we went down to Battery Park City, where we managed to avoid seeing the drag the plane out of the Hudson and over to Jersey.

But my trip back was amazing. I say this as an Art History major. Not that it's ever done me any good, aside from giving me an appreciation for art and the ability to gives names, dates and styles to various paintings, buildings and styles of furniture. And I've often thought if I had any sort of God-given talent, I'd like to be able to sing.
Today I wished I could paint. My drive back from Jersey started in a small fall of snow which steadily got worse. When it started to get better, it was amazing. The sun started off as a small dull spot in the sky which steadily got brighter. And as the sun burned off the clouds, it continued to snow. And it was beautiful. The snow falling, the sun barely illuminating the haze, which cast a glow over everything, reflecting light up off the wet pavement and the speed of the cars flashing through-it was stunning. As I drove through, all I could think was that it would take the talents of JMW Turner himself to do justice to this scene. It was reminiscent of Rain, Steam, Speed-a very modern equivalent, and yet I think Turner would have appreciated it. I was hoping it would turn into a thunder snow as the last one I saw was a few years ago but it turned into so much more.
I just now thought of a scene in A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (one of the best books about nature I've ever read), where Annie Dillard describes seeing a bird dropping from the sky and spreads its wings right before it lands-it was a miracle of nature and should we not enjoy them and feel blessed to see them whenever we do see them? And that was what I saw today-a miracle of nature. Thank you for letting me see it.

Frost/Nixon and Redbelt

I realized tonight that if I don't write about these movies, they will just fall by the wayside, and I really don't that to happen-they're both too good.
Frost/Nixon is getting a lot of buzz for Frank Langella's portrayal of Nixon, which, for me, was not the best part of the movie. He seems awkward playing Nixon (who was himself an awkward man) but the awkwardness seems forced and actorish-I was never not aware that he was an actor playing a part-when I catch myself thinking the actor is doing a good job, it's a sure sign that it's NOT that great a job. On the other hand, Michael Sheen (an actor I think who has not gotten the kudos he deserves) does an excellent job. He's completely caught up in the circus surrounding the interviews and he revels in it.
I liked the interview portions the best-and Ron Howard does a nice job of setting the stage-Nixon, the wily politician who pyschs out the younger man before each interview-until Frost does the same thing to him before the last interview, dealing with Watergate. But did Frost mean to do it-mention the call that Nixon made to him the night before? It seemed me that he did it to be polite, not for the reason Nixon had-in order to throw him off his game. Regardless, it had the same effect-Nixon was thrown off and Frost was able to finally ask tough questions that threw Nixon out of his comfort zone. Would he have said "If the President does it, it's not illegal" if he hadn't been off his game? Maybe not, but I don't know the truth of the background story anyway-the only truth is in the interviews themselves. The supporting actors were all good-Sam Rockwell seems to get better and better-but I'm still not sure what Rebecca Hall was doing there other than to be the girl in an almost all-male production.
Unlike in Redbelt, where Chewitel Odjezorfor's (yes, I misspelled. sorry) wife plays a major part. He's a mixed-martial arts teacher who feels competing in the sport would demean him and his sport. The art is in teaching and doing it well-there's no need to compete. Unfortunately (as this was written by David Mamet), he's poor and his wife wants some money. And she's the daughter of a man Chewie reveres and the sister of a man who puts on mixed-martial competitions. This can't end well for anyone. The wife sets him to compete (by machinations too elaborate to go into) in order to erase a huge debt-until he finds out the (shock!) the match is rigged-he'll win and then lose and win next time. (I'm pretty sure that's the way it's supposed to go but I could be wrong). A man of honor is not happy at finding about both the rigging and his wife-and he walks away. But when he meets up with his brother-in-law (and mixed-martial arts expert himself) in the entrance way to the arena, the real fight (so to speak) begins. At least he knows it's not rigged and if he winds, he's won purely by skill. The whole thing requires a suspension of belief-the set-up is extremely elaborate-but it's not hard to believe his wife set him up from the start, especially as she bitches at him about money throughout almost the whole thing. But Chewie makes you believe the whole thing. This guy is a great actor, from The Operative in Serenity (where I spent the movie, saying "who IS that guy?"), to the transvestite of Kinky Boots, the brother of the American Gangster to a hardened soldier brought to his knees in Children of Men-he has been uniformly excellent in everything. I can't wait to see what he does next.
And it's a pretty good movie.

Thank You, Eric Holder

I don't care about the sketchy pardons. I do care that a maybe soon-to-be public official said in public what everyone knows: water boarding is torture. I am sick of the present (not for very much longer) administration using every justification they can for torture when practically every single person who has studied torture tells the same story-people being tortured will tell you anything you want to hear in order to make you stop hurting them. If you actually want the truth, sit down and talk to them. As repugnant as it may be, everyone has a story and everyone wants their story to be heard and terrorists are no exception to this.
I am just grateful that an American said out loud at a congressional hearing something many people have known for a long time.
Water boarding is torture.

I Hate What You Have On, Winter Edition

It's hard to pick on people's clothes in the winter in DC-everyone is bundled up in long black coats (me), down jackets and trapper hats (I hope they're students) and various other winter gear. Unless it's egregious (and I'm looking at you, dull red coat, pink beret and lime green scarf. Trust me, it did not work. Instead of looking like luscious summer colors, everything clashed).
But I'm making an exception today because of what I saw.
It was cold this morning, colder than it's been all winter so far and it's supposed to be worse tomorrow and the day after that. So everyone here is wearing their parkas and hats and snow pants (please don't wear snow pants unless there is actually snow. Thank you). My first glimpse was of white sneakers and black socks. Okay, I thought. Tights. You should wear boots with tights today but whatever. Until I saw that it was not in fact tights, but rather black knee socks. I know this because I saw them all the way up to bare knees and a 3/4 length coat.
What the hell? It's 15 with a wind chill and you have on knee socks with a skirt (and it had to be a shortish skirt because I didn't see the hem beneath the hem of the coat. The only people who are allowed to wear knee socks with a skirt are those of us who are teenagers or younger-it looks silly on anyone over say, 17, which she most definitely was.
Plus, she had to be cold.

A Conversation at Work

We started talking about the guy on the chairlift, who got caught in the chairlift and wound up hanging by a ski from the lift with his pants down. It then segued into prisoners last meals (I love hearing about this because it fascinates me. They usually pick steak, some kind of potato and chocolate cake, as far as I can tell but I haven't really studied it) and led to this...

Dave 1: this guy chose steak done well (so you don't catch any food-borne disease) fries, baked potato, grape drink (yuck) and chocolate cake.

Me: well the guys on death row are probably not going know really good food so they'd usually pick steak or something like that. Someone like Ted Bundy-he might have picked something good.

Dave 1: Probably Steak Tartare

Dave 2 Wouldn't that have been better for Jeffrey Dahmer?

Twisted yes, but we were all laughing.

Things I'm Grateful For

I'm grateful for many things-the continuing good health of my parents, my friendships with M and D-two remarkable people and Obama's inauguration next week.
But one thing I am VERY grateful for is that David Duchovny looks like he finally took a shower, shaved and got his haircut (and maybe work done-I couldn't tell in the picture. If so, it as very good). perhaps you remember the pictures from the premiere of the 2nd X-Files movie. You know the ones-where Gillian looked radiant and pregnant in a sapphire blue dress and David looked like he had wandered in from a three-day bender. The Awesome Fug Girls (of course) have an hilarious version of the dialogue between them, which went roughly
Gillian: Mulder-you made it
DD-Yeah, wow. I jogged all the way here.
GA I can tell-did you even shave today?
And she proceeds to tell he looks homeless (I still think a three day bender is more likely) but maybe she's just hungry and cranky-but he still needs to wash his hair.
So thank you, David for bathing, shaving and getting a haircut. You finally look the way you should and not like a skeevy homeless guy.

A Funny Story

Not many funny things happened over the holidays-no one really yelled or fought (in my family, it's not a real fight unless you drop the f-bomb or someone goes stomping off the their room/car/home and won't come out for at least an hour or maybe the rest of the day and when they do they won't talk to anyone) and none of that happened on this trip-a few snide comments and snarky tones do not count.
But one genuinely funny thing did happen.
Quite often when I talk to my Mom, I remind her of the article I read awhile ago about bands of gypsies roving throughout the Midwest, insinuating themselves into the lives of lonely elderly people. They get power of attorney and steal everything-all monies, jewelry, artwork, the house-everything. It's most often a lovely young girl preying on old mean, but it can go anyway-gypsies are pretty much equal opportunity thieves, in this case. So when I talk to my Mom, I ask her if the gypsies have moved in yet. And then, I always tell her that I would feel sorry for the gypsies if they tried this with her. Give someone she wasn't related to power of attorney? To use her phrase, it would be a cold day in hell. And she'd call the police as soon as she could, but before that, she would give the gypsies a piece of her mind and they really wouldn't want that-everyone is a little bit afraid of the fierceness that is my Mother. So, there we are sitting at the kitchen table, my friend D, Mom and I and I'm telling D about the gypsy story and how I always ask Mom if the gypsies have moved in yet and what does D say while looking at Mom? "you know, I'd feel sorry for the gypsies if they tried that with you". Mom and I cracked up. But we had to laugh-it's so true. Many gypsies have had a hard life and they do make their living as con artists-but if they tried this with Mom, they would take their lives in their hands and it would not be pretty. They'd be lucky if they only ended up in jail .

Quote of the Week

But let me say first that I can't get the score to Wicked out my head-God! Stop!

Okay, here's the quote, from a movie critic in Northern California who is famous for his pithy summaries of movies. This his take on The Wizard of Oz-"Young girl is transported to a surreal realm where she kills the first person she meets. She soon meets up with three strangers in order to kill again".

I loved this.

Wicked and I

I've wanted to see Wicked ever since I saw Kristin Chenowith and Idina Menzel performing Defying Gravity on the Tony Awards a few years ago. I bought the soundtrack on itunes, I listened to it all the time, but I didn't actually see it until right after Christmas (and even then it was in Detroit, not Broadway). I had read about teenagers loving it, even though the critics panned it aside, while praising the leads. I thought this was because of it's story of female empowerment and theme of being yourself, but that's not it. The reason the teens like it is because the outcast actually gets the guy in the end and the good girl, while she may be known as "the Good" does not get what she wants. It's a story that is near and dear to every person who has ever felt like an outsider, a freak or unwanted. Of course teenage girls and boys like it.
I don't really want to get into the whole comparison with The Wizard of Oz, but I do want to point out a few things.
1) The Wicked Witch of the West is one of the few truly frightening characters in movie history. Her counterpart in Kansas kidnaps Toto, threatens the Scarecrow with fire, puts Dorothy, the Woodsman and the Cowardly Lon to sleep in a field of poppies and basically tries to kill them all. So you're telling me that it was all an act? That she actually loved the Scarecrow, tried to keep the Woodsman from pain and rescued the Lion so he could talk? I can't buy it. I liked the reference to The Wizard of Oz, but I think there's a great story to be told how someone becomes evil and this isn't it-mainly because Elphaba isn't evil, she's misunderstood. I'd like to know she really became evil and this is not that story. that said, I liked Fieryo's song (Dancing Through Life) and how brainless he is-even the dancing was an homage to Ray Bolger. The references are nice (even the Press Secretary Madame Morrible making up words is a clear reference to George Bush and the misinformation of the war in Iraq) so all the levels are interesting and I loved the music but I still don't really buy it as the true story of the Wicked Witch of the West. I can't believe the woman who terrified me as a child is just "misunderstood".

One More Movie

I forgot that I watched Dog Soldiers last night. I saved it for when I returned-werewolves in the Scottish Highlands? Kevin McKidd? (I really hope he plays Thor)Scary and creepy? It had my name all over it.
And yet. It was scary and atmospheric-it was very well made. The scenery was good, the actors were good (love the Scottish brogue) but my really problem was with the werewolves themselves-namely:they were not scary at all. They looked like some really tall people wearing moderatly well-made werewolf masks. They were pretty strong but not very fast and WERE NOT SCARY. The story had a nice twist (the woman who offers to help them and takes them to a farmhouse to help them turns out to be a werewolf and has taken them to her house in order for her family to hunt them more easily) but I repeat-the werewolves were not scary. If you want a scary werewolf story, go watch An American Werewolf in London (a nice mix of scary/funny/gross) or especially The Howling-now that's an awesome werewolf movie. However, Kevin McKidd was very good-he made the movie worth watching-almost.

Books, Books and More Books and One Movie

I've been reading a lot lately-and I managed to squeeze in quite a few books over Christmas, despite all the shopping (a new resale store opened in East Lansing and it's really good) all the cookie making (my sister and I made four different kinds of cookies) and all the other things I had to do.

1) I re-read Traveling With the Dead on my way there-and I had PLENTY of time to do it as, due to mechanical difficulties, my original plane was delayed so much that I didn't take and had to leave the next day. Let me just say, United-you suck. It's amazing I finally made it there, although I missed the concert (that was my idea, thank you very much). So, I read Traveling With the Dead-it's just as well-written as I remembered and I enjoyed it.

2) I read the two Lee Child books I had been saving-Without Fail and Nothing to Lose. I liked them but I can't say they were the best in the series-I didn't like them as much as Persuader or the one where Reacher's old Army gang gets together to avenge their friends deaths. Still, they were fun and entertaining.

3) The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
This was a great book. A disgraced reporter is asked to investigate a 40 year-old disppearance. His investigation and involvement with a young researcher (who is both prone to violence, although never without reason, and has the dragon tattoo) starts out on one level and quickly moves to something deeper. I suspected the denouement from the beginning but it still turned out to be a bit worse than I thought. It's very well-written (and the translation by a Brit is very good) and it gave me the creeps-I liked it.

4) Thunderstruck

Also a great book-tying together Marconi's invention of the wireless radio and the capture of Crippen in 1910-the first time a wireless radio was used to call ahead to nab a criminal. Tying the two together was genius-and the author goes into just enough detail on each to make it interesting (and I loved it when he mentioned the Heaviside Layer, which I had first read about in Declare) but not so much that it bogged down. It was really good.

5) American Lightning.
Oy. Maybe it's because I read it right after Thunderstruck that I wasn't impressed by this book. I read an excerpt in Vanity Fair and it seemed to have my name all over it-the early days of American Cinema, early labor unrest, resulting in the bombing of the LA Times, the man called the Amercan Sherlock Holmes-William J Burns, the man who was the first head the soon-to-be FBI (he resigned in disgarce and his chief assistant took his job-J. Edgar Hoover) and Clarence Darrow. However-it was boring. The author tries hard to tie these diverse elements together-Darrow, Burns and Labor are all involved in this case-but it doesn't work. What is DW Griffith doing here? He's a fascinating character and he brings life to each scene he's in but there's not that much of a reason for him to be here. And there's a good story here, make no mistake, but the writing is muddy and annoying.

6) The Girl in the Glass

I'm still not sure why I put The Girl in the Glass into my bag of books. I think it was underneath Thirteen (which I didn't get a chance to read) so I just tossed it in as an afterthought. This was a great book. A marvelous book. It was haunting (both literally and figuratively), funny and touching. A 17 year-old Diego lives with Thomas Schell and Antony Cleopatra (who took his name from a theater marquee). The three of them together make a living fleecing the rich of the Gold Coast of Long Island during the Great Depression. They hold seances designed to separate the rich from their money-until Schell sees what he says is a real ghost-a little girl in a glass window (at an inconvienent time, in the middleish of a seance). What happens will change all their lives. Diego must grow up, Schell must decide what he really wants from life (is he really ruthless enough to be a good con artist?) and Antony doesn't really decide-choices are pushed upon him. The butterfly metaphor is perhaps a little heavy-handed (Yes, we get that Diego is a catapillar and how he feels once he becomes the butterfly. Change is scary and hard but once you go something transformational. it's difficult to remember what it was like before)I still can't believe I almost didn't read it-it was wonderful

And One Movie. Okay, two.

I saw Slumdog Milliuonaire before I went on vacation and it was great. It was smart, the performance were good and the stort-telling was compelling. I even liked the Bollywood-style dancing they had at the end and I usually don't like that sort of thing. And the guy from The Namesake was in it! Tha father-you know-Irrfan Khan. That guy is a great actor. And even though I started out not liking Dev Patel, he grew on me. His stroy, of how got on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and how he knew the answer to each question through a different chapter in his life-it's a great story and unlike many films, it assumes a certain intelligence on the part of the audience. If you dumb down, the audience becomes more stupid-it's like assuming students are smart and they rise to it-dumbing down doesn't help anyone and this movie does not dumb down.

I've been trying to figure out what annoyed me about Valkryie. I actually liked Tom Cruise's performance-and all the Brits in it were quite good as well (and Eddie Izzard was in it! Yay, Eddie!). Good Germans, bad Germans, Germans forced to make a choice (a little late in the war, if you ask me, it's all in there. It's a compelling story, that of a group of Germans determined to kill Hitler (which you know can't end well) and what happened. So why did it annoy me? I think it comes down to the fact that Cruise used his American accent and the Brits all use their own accents-so it had the effect on me of not thinking they were really German. Of course Cruise wants to kill Hitler-he's Tom Cruise! He's an American transposed to WWII so try and kill the bad guy-the only surprising thing is that he doesn't succeed and ends up being shot for his effort. I actually saw the spot where Stauffenberg was shot in Berlin-I had to translate the plaque on the wall for my friend, so imagine my surprise when I read what it was. Berlin is full of places lie that though-everywhere you go. Berliners pride themselves on being cosmopolitan and not looking back too much-and then you turn around and see a plaque about Stauffenberg on the wall of the building that houses the French Embassy.
Anyway, I cou;dn't get past the accents-it seemed like it was Americans and Brits who wanted to kill Hitler, not Germans. It didn't seem like it was treason to me nor did it seem like a difficult decision to reach. I may have to see the German version of the Stauaffenberg story with Sebastian Koch from The Lives of Others-there's someone who who could do justice to this story.
Also, when they have the 45 on the record player (kids-ask your parents what this is)-did it really say just Walkure? Not Die Walkure? I've NEVER seen it as just Walkure-that's very poor German grammar and another thing that annoyed me. I still did like it. though. Sort of.