Sylvia

Sylvia (2003) turned out to be a great movie for me to watch when my husband was out of town. He seemed to have a sense of that and had encouraged me to watch it while he was gone. While I don't think he would have minded it, this isn't a must-see in my book. It has its good points and the acting is very good across the board, but it's just not making the list.

Gwenyth Paltrow is great as Plath. In fact, there is no one in this cast who I doubt for a moment. I don't think that the script or direction fail so much as the topic just could not be contained in this particular vessel. The movie focuses mostly on Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes (played by Daniel Craig), but even then, I think I may have known more about that from hearsay than I got from the film. I remember when Hughes's last book, Birthday Letters, came out, there was a resurgence of grumbling about his treatment of Plath and whatnot. If anything, this film was more sympathetic to Hughes than Plath's fans generally are. Regardless of what may be seen as the film's shortfalls, however, it was lovely if a bit on the dark side. (And I mean this literally, not metaphoricallly; the cinematographer went for dark on dark here.) But Paltrow is very impressive, showing again that she is really a substantial talent and can tackle a very meaty role and that she can totally pull off everything from a twin set to a fisherman's sweater and braids. Right on.

An everyday hero

Scene: Grocery checkout line.
Clerk: Paper or plastic?
Shopper: Oh blast! I've forgotten my bags again!
[SWOOSH!]
Superhero: Not to worry, ma'am. Here, use these string bags.
Shopper: Oh thank you! Who are you, anyway?
Superhero: I'm Reusable-Bag Man. Here to help out forgetful would-be environmentally conscious folks such as yourself.
[As he flies away, getting fainter.] Reduce, Reuse, Recyyyycleee.....

Pie v Cake

Those crazy kids at Red v Blue have proposed January 25 to be Pie v Cake day.

I say 'pie.'

the 'g'

So I was doing my dutiful best a couple of months ago -- when I thought I was going to finish up my work at the Center -- to finally design my business cards. I did some preliminary designs and did some market research (i.e., had my family vote) and had almost settled on a design. But I was still waffling and didn't go ahead with printing. (Besides, my contract was extended, so I wasn't in self-promotion mode anymore.)

Last week, my boss comes in with these great new sandals. She slips one off, and there, on the footbed of the shoe, is my G.

Upon further examination, it isn't really exactly the same. But it was still, well, unsettling.

Oh well. I'd been working on another design anyway....

Happy Feet

Went to see Happy Feet for my (LK's) birthday last week. I like penguins, I like good animation, and I like tap dancing, so that was good. Some of the music was a pop style that we aren't terribly keen on, so we cringed a little here and there, but otherwise, it was really enjoyable. The score was done by John Powell (co-composer of the Chicken Run soundtrack, among other things), and there is this super-cool mass choral thing the emperor penguins do (600 voices in the huddle scene) that I would have loved to hear more of instead.

It is good animation and those little penguins sure can dance. Who knew they had those little knees?

Oh, and the movie definitely is coming down on the large-scale-fishing-operations-are-not-environmentally-sustainable side of that debate. When we went out for dinner afterward, I got tofu.

Hmm....

You just can't leave protein laying around here.

Tiny dead gecko in the bathroom went missing by morning.

There's only one explanation I can think of and it strikes fear in my heart --

Land Shark.

There's no (cheap) tortillas

Mexico is in an upheaval about the price of tortillas -- in some areas the price has risen 400% in the last month and a half. This might be blamed on everything from imported U.S. corn prices, hoarding, the threat of the petroleum industry being opnened up to foreign investment again, or just the fact that anytime there is a new president, prices spike. (B tells me that he remembers that as soon as any president assured the public that the price of something would not go up, shopkeepers would immediately set about raising their prices.)

Mexican politics and economics are fascinating.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Well, I can't tell you, as it would give the ending away. But let's just say, the blame is shared.

Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) is a documentary investigating why GM recalled their electric car, the EV1. It also touches on some other car makers and their short-lived electric cars as well.

The ubiquitous Ed Begley Jr. appears, and while David Zucker doesn't appear in person, there is a clip from Naked Gun 2 1/2.

We very much enjoyed this movie. It goes from thought-provoking to deeply depressing to charming and even optimistic. Get on your bicycle and go to the video store to rent it!


And P.S.: Despite their claims that consumers didn't want an electric car(!), GM has now unveiled their new -- you guessed it -- electric car, the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid.

We shall see...

The Time Machine(s)

Often I catch myself being (compulsively) systematic. For instance, if I become interested in a film and discover there is some series (re-makes, sequels, etc.) I want to watch them in chronological order.

The Time Machine is the latest subject of this impulse. But this time -- this time, we also ended up reading the H. G. Wells book (1895).

We sort of went out of order, because we were inspired to read it as a result of having seen these film versions that bore little resemblance to our fragmented memories of reading the story in our respective youths (I read an illustrated version, LK read the book at some point).

When we did get around to read the literary version of The Time Machine, we were able to determine several things:

1. The 2002 film is really a remake of the 1960 film rather than a reinterpretation of the novella.
2. Wells’s text is far richer than the films (duh!).
3. The ambiguity of the book may have encouraged these creative interpretations -- no motivation for the Time Traveler is ever given in the book and both films revolve around what they decided his motivation might be.
4. Both films, like the book (and in fact all science fiction), reflect more about the times in which they were written than about the historical time in which Wells’s wrote his text.

So here are the executive summaries (book, 1960 film, 2002 film):

The book:
Motivation for time travel: scientific curiosity. Reflects the idea of intellectual pursuits for their own sake (the gentleman scholar). Reason for Eloi-Morlock split: the elite grew weak, proletariat grew powerful. The Time Traveler returns briefly to his own time to relate account of adventures, then leaves again to the far future never to return. Apparent motivation for his last departure is his dismay no one believes him (takes a camera when he goes back). Weena: physical companion only. She dies, no big deal.

1960 movie:
Motivation for time travel: disgust with war. The reason for Eloi-Morlock split was the war between "East" and "West." War destroyed the earth and some people went underground while others stayed above. Like the book, the Eloi are clothed and fed by the Morlocks -- its unclear if they can survive without Morlocks. The Time Traveler returns to his own time briefly to relate account of adventures. Decides to go back to "rescue" Weena and takes 3 books with him but we never know which ones.

2002 movie:
Motivation for travel: tragic loss of loved one, becomes obsessed with wondering why he can’t change the past (and prevent her death). Reason for Eloi-Morlock split: science goes too far -- moon is damaged and causes extreme environmental change. Some went underground, developed their own society with very clearly delineated castes (hunter, spy, leader), and are barely human. Elois stayed above -- primitive, but beautiful, very human. Eloi's survival is not dependent on the Morlocks. Not cattle, like in both previous versions, but certainly food supply for Morlocks. The Time Traveller never returns to his own time.

What they have in common:
A time machine and a Time Traveller.

Should you watch them? Nah. But do read the book!

Wordplay

You know how you spent years listening to Garrison Keillor's sonorous voice on the radio, only to be a bit surprised when you saw a photo? While maybe you didn't really have a specific picture in your mind when you heard heard him, you had some general sense, and it was difficult to integrate the voice-picture you had held with a 7-foot-tall man with a slighty froglike face.

So it is a bit of a relief that although it turned out that Will Shortz didn't quite jibe with what I had in my mind, he didn't clash with it either (another picture here -- better groomed, looks like the same shirt). I suppose if nothing else, he was much younger than I expected. And -- while this likely only makes sense to me -- he just didn't sound like he'd have a moustache. (When they showed him actually reading NPR's Sunday Puzzle it was a bit...disorienting. Like, hey, that guy sounds just like Will Shortz!)

Best part (besides seeing Will Shortz): Seeing how a crossword puzzle is constructed.
Another best part: Bill Clinton can talk and write at the same time. (I'd like to see W. do that!)
And gee whiz: You wouldn't believe how many of these people are left-handed.

The movie is quite charming and we both enjoyed it (B more than he thought he would). Who would enjoy it? Puzzlers, for sure, but I think others as well. I don't consider myself a puzzler and I liked it, but I am a geek. Oh, and while there are celebrity puzzlers (Clinton, Jon Stewart, Mike Mussina, Indigo Girls, Ken Burns) its really just not a sexy movie. (Well, maybe Mussina. Maybe I should be paying more attention to baseball...) Let's just say that the crossword puzzler convention attendees made our usual academic conferences look like Cannes.

Shopgirl

Shopgirl (2005) is based on Steve Martin's novella of the same name. I certainly enjoyed the book and was more than willing to give the movie version a go (especially since I generally like Claire Danes -- ever since the short-lived tv series "My So-Called Life" -- and Steve Martin). The movie retains the thoughtful charm of the book. The shopgirl in question is Mirabelle (Danes), an aspiring artist who currently works at the glove counter at Saks. She gets involved with both Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman), who is about her age and who she meets at the laundromat, and Ray Porter (Martin), who she meets at Saks and who is not "age-appropriate" at 25 or so years older. Shortly after they meet, Jeremy leaves town for a few months. This allows Mirabelle's relationship with Ray to rise and fall by the time he returns. The fact that the narrator is also Steve Martin is a little odd, as the narrator has much better insight than Ray Porter does. But perhaps that it partly the author-screenwriter's way of linking him with this emotionally distant character. One of the refreshing things about these characters is that they are pretty much all out there. No one does anything all that surprising. (Well, Jeremy might be the exception to that -- he really does seem to grow as a result of his extended listening to self-help books on tape.) No character is all good or all bad -- they are in many ways just like normal, flawed human beings.

HI, North Shore

Finally. I no longer have to hang my head in shame. I went to the North Shore. (B had actually gone previously on the boogie board with a surfer friend. Did not drown, but learned how it could be done.)

I was granted an extra day of holiday as a result of Bush's pandering to the American public, and I decided I wouldn't waste it and wanted to do something special. It was big surf today and it was amazing to watch. When we first got there, we were just south of Pipeline and got to watch lots of boogie boarders. Awesome.

Later, at Pipeline watched mostly surfers and a couple of spongers (boogie boarders). A sponger doing a knee-drop on a huge wave. (Spongers should get some kind of valour medal when it's that big.) It was just like the movies -- these guys riding huge waves, going into the barrel and coming out the far end alive. (Did I already say it was amazing?)

We also watched people watching the surfers. Lines of guys with cameras on tripods and all kinds of other spectators. If any normal people (non-surfers) got anywhere near the water's edge, the lifeguards would call them back with their bullhorns. The surf was that big. Signs and flags everywhere. It was great! B saw some surfer guy giving autographs. No one but pros and/or lunatics would have been out there. We saw one guy lose his board when his leash broke and have to get towed in to shore. And we also saw another guy with a board neatly broken in half. (We saw the result, not the incident.)

Oh yeah. And this was nothing. The surf can get much bigger.