in review
I was planning a longer list of bullets tonight, but I started the weblog rounds first, one thing led to another, and now it's time for bed. So I'll just fire this off quick:
I went to see Serenity on Friday with Ben and Gary and assorted others, (including Gary's newly initiated girlfriend,) and came away from it well entertained, and a little bit sad. If you know Firefly, chances are you've already seen or are planning to see the movie, so you don't need my permission. It's difficult for me to judge it as a stand-alone experience. But something that just occurred to me is that I shouldn't have to. Nobody expected Revenge of the Sith to stand on its own without the background of the previous films. Yes, Serenity works much better if you have a history with these characters, I can't lie. There is some superficial effort to help people get caught up, but really, if you haven't seen Firefly, you had better have an open mind, because this movie isn't going to coddle you too much.
Yeah, it's a good great sci-fi flick on it's own, and in many ways it's better than anything else you've seen recently. But honestly in some ways this isn't Whedon's best work. There are moments towards the end which had the potential to be utterly brutal in their emotional impact, and I felt it, but not because of anything he had done in the movie, it was all about our previous time together. In any case, like I said I had a great time, and I'll definately be buying the DVD.
(I'm declaring the comments on this post to be Spoiler Zone, so don't look at them if you haven't seen the movie.)
Speaking of movies, I finally bit the bullet and joined Netflix. I'm definately going to be watching more movies. I'm adding all sorts of films that I would never have rented at Blockbuster, even if I could find them. I've got about 45 in my queue after 2 weeks, and we've seen 4. The turnaround time for me is 2 days, one day each way to their local distribution center. I guess there's some way to put people on your “friends list”, so if you're a member let me know so I can snoop at what you're watching and you can look at my list of anime, left wing documentaries, and erotic thrillers. (Last watched: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I give it a 3.5 out of 5. Next Up: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.)
I went to see The Decemberists downtown here on Sunday night, and good god it was fantastic. When they came on stage at 10:00 sharp and Colin started the opening chords of The Tain, I thought “Wow, that would be fucking cool as hell, but there's no way… he's just teasing us.” The Tain is a single 18 minute song in 5 parts, based on a 2000-year-old epic Irish poem, and is only available on an EP. (And, I hesitate to say, on iTunes.) It's not something you should play for people that just came to hear their favorites. But they did the whole thing anyway, and only a dozen of us in the sold out crowd appreciated it, but it was marvelous. The show was too short for me, but it was definately worth the trip downtown late on a worknight. Every concert I go to these days, at this age, I think might be my last, and if that one was it then that's ok.
The photo in the previous post has been my most “favorited” and most commented picture since I started using Flickr. It's made me start thinking about my photography in a different way.