jack

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

The first time I saw this, it seems boring, confusing and pointless. Now I had a lot more sympathy with it.

I liked Everret (Clooney/Ulysses) a lot, his language, and his intellectual give it a go ness. Did I not like this a few years ago? I really can't remember.

As with many films, knowing where it's going can actually help; something unexpected or dragged out can be aggravating when you don't know it, but fits when you know how to take it.

Has anyone seen it who knows the Odyssey? It is supposed to be a homage of some sort, but I only know a bit about the original. The same sorts of things (a succession of bizarre encounters and delays) seem to happen to somewhat different characters for very different reasons; lots of the scenes felt tacked on, despite constituting most of the film -- does someone who's read the Odyssey feel differently? Do you get a connection between Everret and Odyssius or not?

Get Real

Has anyone else heard of this? It was incredibly sweet!

It's the story of a gay boy at school, but just works. I love *him*, he takes life with a cheeky intellectual smile, even as school life is a right pain, and lets his problems blind him to his friends; which lends him an occasional assurance no-one as hopeless as him should be allowed :)

It's *funny*, always from nothing more than a turn of phrase or expression, but they always fit perfectly, and however awkward the situation is never painful to watch, unlike so many personal comedies.

Every year a japanse school class are selected, and put onto an isolated island, where they are forced to fight to the death. They're issued basic supplies and a "weapon" each -- the weapons range from the useful to the brutal to the ironic to the lateral to the useless -- and sent out at minute intervals. They have explosive collars that kill them if they break the rules, or more than one is left at the end.

I hadn't heard of it before, but it's a weird Japanese film that I definitely liked. However, I'm not articulate enough to say why. Somehow it just spoke to me in a way that other similar films didn't.

Perhaps I don't know what the message of the film is, but agree with it?

Somehow, it just all felt right, despite not making any more sense objectively than other films.

And people tried all sorts of reasonable things one would do in that situation, they just didn't work. And the good guy wore white and the bad guy black. And were cool. And the kids felt real. And the teacher had a marvellous world-weary paternalistic evil to him.

Worth seeing.

I'm assured the sequels aren't -- I don't know anything about them, but it doesn't seem an idea which lends itself to more. The sequel to Hyperion (not quite finished yet) seems to have used up all of the "sequel which actually does successfully answer questions raised by the iconic original" fu available this millennium -- I don't think anyone else need try. ETA: The sequel is finished by Director Kinji Fukasaku's son. It apparently has shades of September 11th.

Have I mentioned film four is great? Not perfect, and maybe I'm rationalising, or having bad habits, but often what I want isn't to choose a film, it's to have a known good film be offered, whenever I'm in and want to enjoy something.

There are a couple of films I might mention individually, but first, there were a couple of other half-written comments waiting from the last night I actually spent in watching telly. Hopefully with copious footnotes.

* There was a phone in competition (on BBC3/4[1] iirc), with questions I actually didn't know the answer to[2]! -- "Beethoven's Opus 97 is a work for how many instruments?" and "How many string quartets did Shostakovich write? Subtract the number of cello sonatas. Divide by the number of cello concertos."

* Clockwork Orange. The reaction to the film made me think of Boromir in Lothlorien, where it is said men bring their own perils with them, neither of which I understood alone, but together make sense. Boromir = thugs. Ring = beating people up to classical music. Galadriel = Stanley Kubrick. Showing people the violence in them is laudable, because it expresses hope you may prevent it. But also triggers it, whcih is very painful. With Galadriel, we accept this. With Kubrick, we are not sure.

* Hercules. Maybe my superpower can be "Making the first episode of a TV show I see be a recap"[4]. Almost the first episode I've seen -- though I don't feel at all lost, as it's exactly the same fun as Xena, but with a different gender of homoeroticism -- was conveniently a clip show. Whcih is very annoying when you've seen the episodes in question, but convenient when you haven't. (Or maybe they were original. I don't know. Or care.)

[1] Watch the compsci write. Watch the compsci write english. Watch the compsci not express ambiguity between two numbers as a binary bitmask 1n_b. Write, compsci, write!

[2] OK, I lie. My point is, normally these questions are pretty obvious, presumably to make people feel good, generate phone revenue, or circumvent lottery laws, I presume. In fact, I often don't know: the question will be something like "Several things have been named after the rebellious Sir Henry 'Hotspur'[3], including Hornblower's HMS Hotspur. Is the most common today a football team or a kitchen implement?" which I totally don't know, because I don't know anything about football or implements.

[3] I was checking on wikipedia, and wondering why the opening line "Eldest son of..." gave me chills, and then I realised no-one who survives is ever known as that, are they?

[4] Don't laugh! It could help! There was a mumble roleplaying game, where one brand of wizard drew power from watching TV, which is fairly balanced because when the show you must see comes on, you're very vulnerable. Eg. quantum entanglement communication. Send me with the first interstellar colony and lots of short series. I watch one at random. People at home can know if the colony survived if there are disproportionately many clipshows in the series they made.

[5] Apologies for going on so long about nothing :) And for spurious footnotes :)