Draconic

So, I'm probably the only person in the world who hasn't read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (or wanted to, frankly), since it's like the bookfad of the past year or so. I call a "bookfad" any of those books that become bestsellers beyond their actual merit as works of fiction -- like the whole "Twilight" series (which people far and wide criticize as being terribly written, but it hardly seems to matter).

I saw the Swedish original movie was in a discount bin (figuring that they were trying to piggyback on the whole American remake of it being out), and so I watched it, and was bored by the movie. It's packaged as a crime thriller, but I'd call it a crime un-thriller, honestly. It was about the slowest-paced "thriller" I've ever seen, and at something like 2.5 hours, it took a long time to mosey where it was going.

Didn't think the characters were particularly well-drawn, and the one people seem to love, "Lisbeth," was even more boring to me. Surly wunderkind neo-goth, hairy-armpitted, overmuscled, photographic memory-having, motorcycle-riding computer hacker chick? Okay. I wasn't terribly convinced by the character, didn't find her particularly compelling.

And given the obvious themes of the movie, I did some background reading on this whole bookfad, and I guess the late writer's back story was something about how he saw some girl getting gang-raped a long time ago, and did nothing to stop it, felt guilt about it, and crafted this character (who was, allegedly, her namesake) as a way of atoning for his failure to do anything in the real world. Which is very writerly, of course, but I think it is also lame, in that the character is just hard to swallow (pun intended).

She's like the perfect girlfriend for Hellboy, honestly -- there's that same kind of arc between those characters. A disagreeable superbeing who has a bone to pick with the universe. It's so clear that the writer loved this character, without there being anything particular about her to love.

Obviously, it's the movie I'm critiquing, here, but many reviews I've read of the book point to the bad writing and the poorly-drawn characters, so it looks like they translated that well in the screenplay. But, where bookfads are concerned, it doesn't actually matter. Nothing matters, because people are buying it, regardless.

There were a couple of reasonably good scenes in the movie, but it was largely a snooze for me. I found myself getting fidgety and bored watching it, and even some of the "outrageous" scenes were kind of rote to me.

Now, one could claim that Lisbeth's militant neo-feminism might have been off-putting to me, except that it's just not so. I just didn't find the story terribly striking, didn't find the mystery so mysterious, and, following my general rules of thumb regarding suspense movies, was able to figure out who the killer was with ridiculous ease. All of the components of it didn't coalesce for me.

I read somewhere that the title of the original book was something like "Men Who Hate Women" -- and those themes are very apparent, which makes me think that the book is maybe for Women Who Hate Men Who Hate Women or something like that, which probably accounts for its success. But at least in the movie, following the character's progression, she's a flat line -- she starts out bad, she ends up bad (oh, with a whisker of feeling for another character in the story, but she still comes off as one badly damaged Pop-Tart).

Again, with bookfads (and the accompanying movies they inevitably inspire), actual criticism of them as books is ultimately meaningless. Adherents might say I should read the books and decide for myself, but the concept just doesn't compel me, and I've read enough reviews that rip on the writing to make me think it's not worth my time -- life's too short for bad writing. But I certainly watched the movie thinking "Wait, so THIS is what people are spurting about?? THIS??" and feeling ever more chagrin that this is what passes for edginess with the mainstream.

It's like the pop culture equivalent of a bunch of barnyard animals calling out in fear and awe from behind the fencing because somebody spraypainted a fox on the side of the barn. Oooh!

Getting the Sled Out

I'm going to take advantage of the momentary snow on the ground to take the boys sledding today. They've been waiting for a proper snow for the past month or two, so I'm going to make the most of it, since I don't know how long the snow will last, honestly. But for the moment, there's enough, so we're on it!

Oscar Grouching

I enjoyed "The Artist" the second time around, although, having researched it a bit, I was kind of peeved that the leading lady in it is the wife and/or squeeze of the director. They have a couple of kids together. That somewhat tarnishes her otherwise great performance, in my view. I never like when the squeezes of directors get plum roles that way. But she does a good job in her performance, so I don't complain much.

The attendance was very good, too. I was glad to see that. The movie should win some Oscars, but we'll see how that all shakes out, politically. It'll probably snare the Foreign Film category, maybe Costume Design or Cinematography or something. We'll see. It likely won't win Best Picture, compared with some of the others it's likely to go against. But it should win some Oscars, to be sure. And more than one. I mean, you'd have to be a total asshole not to enjoy this. Even John Goodman's very well-played producer asshole loved it! Baha!

It was frickin' cold last night! Outside, anyway. The apartment is toasty as ever, but outside, bitter cold. It's like the area remembered that it's winter, and Old Man Winter came in with gusto. Many months of this ahead, of course. I'm cool with that (get it? Winter? Cool?)

Once Again

I'm going to see "The Artist" again this evening; it's the first time I've seen a movie twice since "Midnight in Paris." I'm greatly looking forward to it!

The winds are howling outside. Proper winter has momentarily arrived. Although, with the steam heat in my building, it's all toasty in my place.

I kept waking up last night, so I'm a little sleep-debted. Meh. I could try to wrangle a bit more sleep, I suppose, but I doubt it'll happen. When my brain wakes me up, that's that (almost always).

Gonna do a big grocery run tomorrow, my usual monthly foray, with the snow offering a slight complication to the mix, but no big deal. Just makes it a bit more of a PITA to park.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Snow, Man!

Finally got a winter storm! Can't believe this is our first one -- that we're nearly into mid-January, and this is the first proper snow we've gotten! Amazing.

The boys are stoked, of course, hoping to take the sleds out. We'll see if we get enough snow (and if it stays -- supposedly the temps are going up again).

It certainly looked pretty, though.

Shout It Out

Lost my temper the other day, which is a rarity -- this old guy blithely ran a stop sign at a pedestrian crosswalk I happened to be crossing, and the guy nearly hit me, had to swerve to avoid me, and I shouted at him "STOP SIGN. STOP. SIGN!" and then gestured, yelling "PEDESTRIAN! CROSSWALK! YOU [BLEEEP-BLEEEP] IDIOT!" The guy saw me and took off. He looked like he was afraid I was going to stomp on his car (and I was tempted, but I held back). I was so pissed, for like a minute, which is about how I operate. I so seldom lose my cool like that, but when somebody does stuff like running a stop sign and nearly clipping a pedestrian (who happens to be me), it pisses me off. The moment made me realize how rare it is for me to get pissed like that. I try to take most things in stride, and am largely successful at that -- I don't whine or complain, I don't get pissed very often. I do get annoyed from time to time, but that's about it. It takes something particularly bad to piss me off, I guess, and even then, I am probably likelier to laugh at the absurdity of it than to shout about it.

Speaking of shouting, I took the boys to their favorite pizza place, and we were in a nice corner booth, and across the room was another family -- dad, mom, and two boys, one of whom was very young, I'm guessing about 4 years old? My boys were kind of fascinated by that, because the little kid looked over at us and made noise, and my sweet boys waved to the kid. But the dad was this surly guy, and he actually yelled at his kids a couple of times (one of the exchanges was him yelling at his son "Go ahead! Take a bite of the pizza, you'll burn your mouth, and I guarantee you'll never do THAT again!"), and it totally upset my boys. They were like "Those poor kids; they have a mean, yelly daddy!" And the dad was browbeating the waitress, too, which was upsetting to me (he kept after her, kept carping about things, barking orders, like "Bring me another water. With lemon. Make it a FRESH lemon! And plenty of ICE! No, wait -- make it a LIME. Do you understand? A FRESH. LIME." -- and he's yelling this at her) and the waitress caught my eye as she went off to do that with a look like "Yeah, that guy's a fucking asshole!" B1 said to me later about it (I always know when something bothers him like that, because he mulls it over and will talk to me about it later) "Why'd he yell at the little boy? The kid was too young to know he'd done anything wrong. That'll just scare him." I just said that some parents thought yelling was the way to keep their kids in line, and B1 said "But that doesn't work; it'll just make the kids mad or scared of their own parents." B2 had his own opinions on it, mostly saying that he was really glad I wasn't a "Yelly Daddy." And I'm not, thankfully; I take most everything in stride where the kids are concerned. I think Exene yells more than I do, from what the boys say. I don't know; I think seeing a "Yelly Daddy" in action seemed very strange and unfamiliar to the boys, so they reacted to it with contempt and dismay.

Of course, if they'd seen me at that stop sign, they'd have been shocked by that, too. And if I'd had the boys with me when that prick had run that stop sign, I'd have probably broken his windshield with my invective.

The Artist

I saw "The Artist" tonight, the black-and-white silent movie, and it was great! I enjoyed it mightily. It was everything I think "Hugo" aspired to be. Amazing achievement, and I'm so glad I saw it on the big screen. As a movie lover, it was just so much fun to watch the director's clear love of movies show in how he shot it. A picture-perfect period piece, and as a silent movie, no less! I was very impressed.



I really enjoyed "The Artist." Everybody about it was enjoyable -- the casting, the costuming, the shots, the situations -- it was both staggeringly self-referential and postmodern and incredibly entertaining. It's the first movie I've really enjoyed in a long time. It was a sweet lil' love story, an exercise in cinematic style -- funny, inventive, delightful.

And it was really weird for me, since I watched "The Shadow" last night, which was a fairly lavish, if somewhat empty retro movie (which had Penelope Ann Miller in it, among others), and tonight I watched "The Artist," which had a much-older Penelope Ann Miller in it!!! WTF? That was just very trippy.

Totally worth your time, and a trip to see a silent movie about silent movies in this day and age. Bravo!

Happy Birthdays!

To the King...

And the Thin White Duke!

Remember the A La Mode

I had a strange and amusing dream last night, which was in a kind of documentary style, about this decorative Alamo that was, for some reason, in Chicago, and this tycoon who had flown into O'Hare, and had seen that Alamo as he was coming in, and had asked one of his friends where he should stay, and one of them quipped "How 'bout the Alamo?" To commemorate this, the guy then hollowed out the decorative Alamo (which was about the size of a tool shed) -- he had landscaping around it, and had stairs leading into it from either side. Inside it was this very shiny, liquid-smooth black benches, with rose- and blue-hued neon and argon lighting. The whole effect was like something straight out of the 80s. You could just sort of hang out in this odd, Vegas-seeming Alamo, with, of course, a commemorative plaque recounting the story of this bizarre construction, which had become a kind of legendary tourist attraction. I was there with my mom, explaining that to her, so there wa the straight-up documentary voiceover part of the dream, and then there was me explaining the place to my mom, who found it amusing, as well.

Landa

Having watched "Inglorious Basterds" again, the villain, Hans Landa, really stands out. The Austrian actor (Christoph Waltz) who portrayed him did a great job with the character. Definitely one of the best cinematic villains to emerge in years.

Landa Laughing

Landa montage (fake trailer)

It's not easy to take something freighted with baggage like a Nazi character and make him more than a caricature of evil, but Landa was a great character, combining a serpentine charm with a toadlike oddness and a diabolical intelligence to make for a perfect villain. Any scene he enters, you can't help but feel dread, and, to his credit, Tarantino uses him masterfully throughout the movie.

Radiator

I don't know if the hissing radiators did it to me, but I dreamed I was driving a Mercedes and the thing was perilously close to overheating, so I stopped the car somewhere and checked the radiator, which was nearly out of water, and went about filling the radiator up. Some celebrity had a cameo in the dream, like the gal who was fetching the water. It was like Claire Danes or Naomi Watts or somebody equivalent. I can't remember, now, but I kept having her get water, before realizing that there was a hose nearby, and that I could use that, instead. Anyway, I took care of that, only to wake up to the sound of the radiators, so I think my subconscious was on task, trying to solve the problem of it being too hot and/or me being thirsty, etc.

New

So, now it's 2012. Woo hoo! Nothing much exciting to say. It's frickin' cold out. Winter is finally, properly here, at least for the moment. True to form for Chicago, it'll likely hang on until March. We'll see if we get another mega-blizzard like last year. I think the pattern of the warm(er) temps and accompanying moisture in the air raises the risk of a big-ass snowfall. We'll see if it happens.

Here We Go

Wow, the end of 2011. I won't get particularly reflective about the year, except that it was a much better year for me than the past few years the preceded it, no question about it. I intend to make 2012 even better, still. This'll be the year I turn 42, which is bizarre, truly. My 30s evaporated, dominated as they were with two wonderful boys and dealing with Exene. Still, it's weird to think that as B1 turns 10, how different my world was at 32 than now. A lot of the stress fractures were there between Exene and me back in 2002, of course. In fact, having kids was probably THE ultimate stress fracture. I think I enjoy parenting more than Exene, who faces the endless randomness, chaos and disorder of the world with much more stress than I do -- and if kids represent anything, it's endless randomness, chaos and disorder. My tendency to roll with everything was exactly what I needed to be able to handle parenting. Anyway, now ten years on, it's amazing how it all moves forward, seeing my boys growing up and becoming more themselves, growing into themselves. It's such a tender time.

On to a bigger, better, brighter future for us all. The end of this year will be whacked, of course, with all the loonies thinking the world's going to end. They'll be disappointed to find that, well, no, the world keeps on going. Funny, that. And wonderful.