Stultitia Delenda Est

I saw The Raven last night with my buddy Erik. It’s a cool idea, and seeing as how I’m a huge fan of E. A. Poe, and not well versed in movies, I was basically the ideal audience for it. So it says something about the poor quality of the film that I was not impressed.

As I said, the idea is cool. The basic premise is that the last days of Poe’s life were spent, not in an opium-and-liquor-fueled daze, but rather helping the police track down a serial killer who was basing his murders off of Poe’s stories.

Unfortunately, the casting, acting, and pacing were all sub-mediocre. John Cusack was cast in the role of Poe, which he treated basically like an obtuse, pouty version of all of his other characters. The supporting cast were mostly bland, though Luke Evans did play a sufficiently likable and badass police inspector.

The plot particulars also left a lot to be desired. Without spoiling anything, they don’t really set up the final reveal at all, and when it is revealed, it creates a few bizarre inconsistencies in the plot.

All in all, unless you’re a huge John Cusack fan or a Poe fan who doesn’t mind Hollywood playing fast and loose with his life and works, then this is definitely a skipable film. If you must see it, spare yourself the twelve bucks and get it on NetFlix.

Nina Katchadourian is my new favorite photographer:

While in the lavatory on a domestic flight in March 2010, I spontaneously put a tissue paper toilet cover seat cover over my head and took a picture in the mirror using my cellphone. The image evoked 15th-century Flemish portraiture. I decided to add more images made in this mode and planned to take advantage of a long-haul flight from San Francisco to Auckland, guessing that there were likely to be long periods of time when no one was using the lavatory on the 14-hour flight. I made several forays to the bathroom from my aisle seat, and by the time we landed I had a large group of new photographs entitled Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style.

Link.

Seriously. Click that link. Go see. They are amazing. Go. Now.

Welcome to the future, where one passionate, committed person can create works of art like this:

ROSA from Jesús Orellana on Vimeo.

This is the work of Spanish artist Jesús Orellana. He did it over the course of two years, debuting it at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival. He’s currently in talks to turn it into a full-length, live action feature film.

I’m absolutely blown away by how much computer graphics has developed in just a few short decades. Ten years ago, I doubt you could have made a film like Rosa for less than millions of dollars. Twenty years ago, you couldn’t have made it for any price at all. Today, it only took one artist and (I would imagine) some modest, “pro-sumer” grade equipment.

I can’t wait to see what our digital art looks like in another decade.

For more information, check out the film’s website.

Edited to Add: I love the “behind the scenes” images Orellana made:

Click for Full-Size

It wasn’t as good as I expected, but far better than my Special Lady Friend expected. The plot was suitably psychotic, but the characterization was thin on the ground and a lot of chances for interesting plot points went unused. The central theme of waging a battle purely in your mind that has effects in the real world is an interesting one, but it was largely discarded in favor of over-the-top battles that got kind of repetitive.

Stylistically excellent, technically impressive, and beautifully shot, but ultimately it drags towards the end.

Worth the Netflix queue, but not worth the price of a rental.

Brilliant film. A beautiful blend of dark and adorable. It’s a potent mix of adolescent liminality and limerence mixed with the brutal, cannibalistic side of vampire myths. Combine that with surprisingly good acting from its child stars as well as insanely good cinematography and some of the best sound design I’ve ever experienced and you have one hell of a great movie.

Highly recommended.

The amazing Tim Minchin teamed up with an incredibly talented illustrator to create this stunning animated version of his poem “Storm”.

Written and performed by Tim Minchin. Animated by DC Turner.

He was not so much hostile to beauty as devoid of any consciousness of it; he stood as unmoved before its phenomena as a savage before a table of logarithms.

-H. L. Mencken, “Puritanism as a Literary Force”

I finally saw Inception tonight, and I’m going to try very hard to give this brief review without straying into scoffing philosophy grad student territory.

I liked it. A lot. The characterization was decent, even if some of the characters were pretty obviously written in for the sake of utility. The plot was engaging and I was pleasantly surprised that Christopher Nolan used a lighter touch than I thought he would. Dreams and subjective reality are the sort of thing with which a lot of directors and writers can get masturbatory. (Cf. the Wachowski Brothers, who let their fun, engaging franchise quickly devolve into a carnival of philosophical Onanism.)

The pacing was impeccable (important in a movie that uses time as so much of a plot device) and the ending was deftly handled enough that it had my Lady Friend and I slap-fighting over our two diametrically opposed interpretations. Well played there, Mr. Nolan.

The film also features the best use of an Edith Piaf song in any movie, ever.

All in all, I highly recommend it. Or would, if I weren’t the last person on the entire planet to see it. Definitely worth the price of a rental or a spot on your NetFlix queue.

5-minute video conceived, shot, edited, and scored all in 48 hours. Remarkably good polish and production, good acting, superb fit and finish. Welcome to the Future of Cinema:

PRECISION from Andrew James Sykes on Vimeo.

“Gee, You’re so Beautiful That It’s Starting to Rain”
By Richard Brautigan

Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A

Computer Magic
A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
A

Finding out about Fish
A

Marcia’s Long Blonde Beauty
A+!