One reason for a movie review is to help you decide if you want to see a movie or not. But without spoiling the experience by giving too much away. After a two-movie weekend, I do my best to fulfill the remit below.
2012 (Just opened in theaters worldwide)
Buckle up for a tsunami of disaster-movie clichés and jaw-dropping special effects. It’s hokey and overlong, but it does the job of thrilling and amazing and then some. For a three-minute version see the preview, which has most of the money shots. (3 stars out of 5). You’ll like it if you like: mindless thrills.
WWII as spaghetti western. It’s overscripted, underedited and gory as all get out. Although the movie is often charmingly weird, my interest was eventually nullified by cruelty, silliness and length. (0 stars out of 5). You’ll like it if you like: Tarantino movies.
--Julian
My review of Red Snow
Comic books and graphic novels are treated, nowadays, with a level of respect that would have been unthinkable when they were purchased more often in drugstores than in bookstores. Indeed, it is no longer controversial to say that such works can be art, and that as such they are as worthy of our attention as film, music or literature.
Read the whole thing here.
—David
But let me tell you: the rule was we had to save our shit for manuring the fields, but the peasants kept sneaking into the outhouse and stealing the intellectuals' shit.
—Jonathan Tel, The Beijing of Possibilities
—David
The new Kyoto Journal is out, and includes, in addition to lots of other good stuff, my review of Stèles / 古今碑錄
Find a copy in a bookstore if you can, but since you probably can't, it's best to subscribe.
In other KJ related news, somewhat to my surprise, I am now the proud editor of the reviews section of that journal.
—David
Riding my bicycle on this peerless autumn afternoon (warm, blue sky, sun shining, leaves turning), I was thinking about fame and about friendship. Fame, because Lady Gaga’s new EP The Fame Monster arrived in the house. It’s supposed to be reflections on the darker side of celebrity (along with more appallingly infectious beats). Friendship because John Cleese talks about it in an honest interview with Vanity Fair in support of his new alimony tour. Further grist for the mill was a New York Times column on fame by Dick Cavett, and the first online comment to follow which pointed out that posting on social networking sites (or blogs like this one) lets you feel the world is interested in whatever thoughts cross your mind. The illusion of fame.
And I couldn’t help but wonder, isn’t fame friendship on heroin? A mighty rush of a basic human need: regard from and connection with others. No wonder people crave it. And are undone by it.
--Julian
(Note: I found out about the Cleese interview from the USA Today popular culture blog Pop Candy.)
I wrote of the pleasure of cycling on dedicated paths, wishing there were more of them. I recently managed to find
some, and yesterday followed them up rivers deep into the prefecture.
It was a holiday, the sun shone, and there were hundreds of other cyclists using the paths. With the growing popularity of this sport or exercise, I look forward to the day when there are local maps for cyclists available.
I returned as the sun was setting. Just when I thought it was too dark to see more, I looked up and glimpsed one final, fleeting thing of beauty.
Up the river at dusk
a white egret flies
across the crescent moon
Alerted by the Japan controversy, I bought a bottle of this year’s Beaujolais Nouveau when it went on sale last Thursday. I was immediately taken with the price of under 1000 yen--less than half what it usually retails for here--and by the light, durable, plastic (recyclable PET) screw-top bottle that otherwise has every appearance of glass.
And by the wine. I remember Beaujolais Nouveau as a thin beverage, drunk more in the spirit of celebration than appreciation. But his year’s has a nose and flavor verging on robust, and could almost masquerade as the real thing.
Kampai (Cheers) to France, to those who grew and harvested by hand and produced this year’s vintage. To the enterprising importers. And to one more year of the pleasures of the vine.
--Julian
