Making The Labyrinth
Further to my entire afternoon of cooking, I am now being entertained by the ‘Making of’ doco on my copy of The Labyrinth. It’s really long!! And it has interviews with Brian Froud, both Hensons, Jennifer Connelly (who is all of about 14 at the shooting of the film), and David Bowie… and a lot of the production people, too. It’s a real, proper, making-of: I reckon they don’t often get done like this these days. Insight into the production process, the recording process, and a huge amount about the making of the puppets – which was brilliant, because goodness they were amazing: pulleys and levers and remote controls… and there’s actually someone inside Hoggle!! And two people alternated inside Ludo.
Truly it’s an awesome movie. (Ah ha! I thought I caught sight of George Lucas on set – he wasn’t interviewed – and the opening credits say it’s Henson and Lucasfilm, so I must have been right.) I never knew Terry Jones was one of the writers! – but he was; he got quite a bit of time in the making-of (in fact, according to the credits just now, he is the screen writer. No wonder it’s so damn good). Impressively, I think I could re-watch the doco; I just like watching the behind-the-scenes stuff of the puppetry, I think.
So, in case you hadn’t guessed, I have started watching the movie proper… so back to Sarah and Jareth, and making curry, for me.
Proving George Clooney doesn’t suck
I never got in to ER; I didn’t like Clooney’s Batman in the slightest. I got very impatient with my friends who thought Clooney was sooo dreamy.
Pft.
Then I saw O Brother, Where art Thou?
I still don’t think he’s that dreamy (although Danny Ocean was more convincingly so), but this movie showed me that Clooney has real acting talent. I loved this movie – and I rewatched it today, for the first time I think since I saw it at the flicks – as I have been cooking all afternoon in preparation for my darling’s birthday party. Gosh it’s good! Firstly, the soundtrack – which I own – is one of the best soundtracks overall ever. Clooney and his two cronies are fantastic, convincing and sympathetic and inimitably entertaining. John Goodman is cool as Cyclops, I don’t know who it is plays Tommy, who sells his soul, but he’s great too… and Holly Hunter, not my favourite actress in general, is perfectly prim.
I love the cinematography, too: the juxtapositions, the close-ups and wide angles… in general, one of my favourite movies. If you haven’t seen it, you ought! And, of course, I loved the Odyssey references, which were stronger for me this time around.
It’s just so wrong
So very, very wrong.
My love and I both had crap days. We both got home tonight feeling the need for utter mindlessness, so when we discovered The World is Not Enough waiting for us, it felt like fate.
It’s just such utter crap!
Denise Richards – Dr Christmas Jones – argh! What an embarrassment to the sorority of Bond girls everywhere!
Even Sophie Marceau is pretty crap. And I loved Hamish Macbeth, but Robert Carlyle is also quite average.
As for Pierce Brosnan… well, it’s reaching Roger Moore levels of stupid one-liners, in this one. The stunts aren’t quite as daft as they get in the next one – and the speed boat chase is pretty cool – but still, I feel quite impatient watching it a second (third? Can’t remember) time.
Perfect, though, for a Monday night with the need to do nothing.
I think this won the Pulitzer Prize?
This article is long but truly – you must read it.
It’s about what happens when a seriously famous and uber-talented violinist goes busking.
It’s brilliant. The concept, the writing… part of the reason for blogging it is so I keep the link!!
Fish… the sad bit
Very sad.
My apple snails are no more.
In fact, they never were: they never came out of their shells in my tank.
Apparently – having called the aquarium I bought them from – some areas of my town have increased copper in their water due to the drought. And this kills snails, like, instantly.
Was there a mention of this at the shop? No. Was there any suggestion that there might be an issue? No. And how does the shop know about the copper? Because they had a batch of snails drop like flies a few months ago, got their water tested and found out about the copper. So this is not exactly a surprise to them.
Argh!! I sent a moderately-worded email expressing my disappointment.
No snails, again! I’m so sad. And one of my lovely new cloaches died, too. But the other three seem happy enough….
New fish!
Ah, the things that make me happy.
After being nixed in what I had hoped would be the completion of my want-a-blue-coat saga, I finally bought some new fish for my depleted tank.
I got 15 Colombian tetras, because they were on sale as a bulk – we had a fleet of them for a while but they’ve slowly died off over three or four years. So now we’ve got more, they’re happily schooling – and they have colour, too, which is nice (they didn’t in the fish shop).
To appease my love, we also got some clown loaches. Five of the beggars! (Another bulk deal.) I said we were never, ever going to get more, because it is just too, too heartbreaking when they die: they are my love’s favouritest fish ever (except for discus fish, which we ain’t getting because the tank isn’t big enough for more than, oh, one of them). They are terribly cute, and being all cloachy: going up and down in the corners, going around and around… they are like the excitable dogs of the fish world. And then they hide under rocks and don’t come out for days.
And, finally… mystery snails! It’s the first time our aquarium place has had snails in years – since my last wonderful snail died, in fact. J said I wasn’t allowed to name this one, because I was so sad when Ajax (the last one) died… but it was too late. Two snails, so I get to have Major and Minor (Ajax).[1]
So now the tank is looking more full, which is lovely. I can’t wait for them all to settle in. I still might go and get some more rasboras… but that should probably be in about a month, if not longer, to let these guys become acquainted with their tank mates.
[1] If you don’t get the reference, you haven’t read The Iliad.
History, being myopic and such things
This is an interesting little article, from ages ago now, by Daniel Lord Smail, author of On Deep History and the Brain, which certainly sounds like something I’d read. From the article, it seems like Smail is targeting that tendency of historians to ignore prehistory in accounts of human history – starting, instead, with Mesopotamia and agriculture, because that’s when you really get documents that can be used to examine history (this idea c/o Leopold von Ranke). The use of ‘prehistory’ to describe this period itself indicates this tendency, since it places undocumented times ‘before’ history proper – I really hope it’s something Smail addresses; if he doesn’t, he’ll have lost a bit of cred from me.
Couple of ideas that have been floating around in my head, thanks to reading the precis linked above:
1. I have never really understood the historian/archaeologist divide. I know, from the little bit of Sumerian/Assyian study I did in undergrad, that there is (or has been?) argy-bargy on both sides. I just don’t get it: it’s like animal handlers not cooperating with vets, or something. How can the two disciplines seriously expect to get the most out of their studies without talking to each other? It just seems daft.
2. An issue with the article itself: ” It is time we rectified our Christian-induced myopia, argues Daniel Lord Smail. … Before the 19th century, few doubted Genesis was historical truth.” Yo – if you want to argue for getting an Africa-centric beginning to history, being quite so Euro-centric probably isn’t the best way to go about it! Perhaps he is aiming his accusations primarily at European/American authors, from a Judeo-Christian society, but still… I think he’s also underestimating the amount of undermining of accepted Christian cosmology had gone on in the Enlightenment, and from then on too.
This is something that requires a bit more thought from me, and probably me actually buying the book and reading it. I can understand why historians have gone for the places with documents and so on to base their study on – and perhaps this reveals me falling into the Ranke trap that I was probably indoctrinated with in my undergrad days, and I am just so not post-modern enough to throw that off without a really good reason and several convincing arguments (with foototes).
Superior Saturday!
Oh baby!
Garth Nix reading the prologue to Superior Saturday. At last! I’ve been looking forward to this book for, oh, a year? However long it’s been since Lady Friday came out. What makes it sad is that as soon as I get hold of it… it will be read, in a couple of hours, and then I’ll have to wait a year or so until finally Lord Sunday, and I get completion. I hope.
Anyway: June this year! That’s not really that long away!
Call yourself a space fan?
If you do, and haven’t either seen In the Shadow of the Moon or made plans to do so – hang your head in shame!
Seriously, one of the best things I’ve seen at the cinema in ages. Ages and ages.
Take as many of the Apollo astronauts as are still alive (as far as I can tell; except Armstrong, who has apparently been basically a recluse almost since we got back to terra cognita), and make them talk about what it was like becoming an astronaut, flying in space and to the moon, and being home again. Splice this with genuine, rarely-seen before footage, and you have a spellbinding nearly-two-hour movie.
There’s no interviewer shown, so it’s just the blokes in their own words (and it is, by its nature, very blokey – there’s maybe two women who speak in the whole thing, and they’re in interviews from the sixties). All the men are given identical, nondescript backgrounds behind them – and they’re all only shown from the torso up. It’s almost like they’re floating in space, or outside of real time – which sounds daft, but bear with me: they’re utterly divorced from now – they only exist with relation to the space programme; they don’t interact with anyone except the viewer; and there’s nothing to date the film, except their clothes which are utterly nondescript as well. It was a fascinating way of compiling them.
The footage shown… well, I had to watch until the end of the credits to make sure it was all genuine NASA footage, with no CGI, because I’ve got a bit cynical in my old age. But, apparently, it was all real – and it was awesome. And so much that I, at least, had never seen! Views looking out as the stages separate – the moon buggies – that Earth-rise… I got goosebumps at several points, it was all just so beautiful. And there’s real audio too – Armstrong’s famous bit, of course, but also stuff from inside the command module (footage from there, too): it was almost funny listening to Jim Lovell’s voice, because I could almost recite his words along with him c/o Apollo 13. And I really did get goosebumps when they showed the first men who went around the moon – Apollo 8 maybe? – and they read from Genesis: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day.[1]
Probably the person who was most interesting to listen to was Michael Collins – the poor sucker who got stuck in the Command Module, while Neil and Buzz went walking. He was fascinating, and a great speaker. Eugene Cernan, too, was also great… actually they all were, pretty much.
I cannot stress it enough: if you like this sort of thing, you really should try to see it on the big screen. Yes, it will be OK on DVD – but some of that footage just looks so much more impressive when it’s huge![2]
[1] And then to hear that some woman sued them, when they got back to Earth, for mixing church and state… hilarious!
[2] We sat in the second row, in a tiny little cinema… it was insane, but very cool.
Randomly Yours, Alex 