I am a happy camper.

As my roommates can attest, I was cheering all the way through Best Actor, Actress, Director, and Picture.  I was especially excited for Best Picture.  I wanted The King's Speech to win, but I thought for sure it was a toss-up between Inception and Black Swan.

I'm so very glad I was wrong.

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Poster

Light, literally and metaphorically. And lots of puns.

About two months ago, the internet blew up.

Okay, so that's not quite true.  I'm still on it.  Case in point.
What I mean when I say "the internet blew up" is really "my friends made a really, really big deal about the soundtrack to a new movie coming out."
Movie?

Music?  

 

Now, I'm all for soundtracks that fit the movie.  I don't want to watch anything of Austen's with a punk-rock score, and, let's be honest, an organ just doesn't fit with anything in Iron Man.
However, we're talking about a band called Daft Punk.  I like Simon & Garfunkel.  The Beatles.  Butch Walker.  Rufus Wainwright.
So when all of my friends (it seemed) went completely mad for this new soundtrack, practically foaming at the mouth, I didn't really pay attention.  Well, until the third time or so I heard about it, and then it just became irritating.

I was wrong.
So very wrong.

Today was my first Saturday night back at Coe, and a group of us went out to Sushi House (even better when you've been craving salmon tempura maki since November) and then to the movies.  And we went to see Tron.

Overall, I didn't much care for the movie.  I haven't seen the original, so there were some things that didn't make any sense (starting with the title).  And there were some other things, too.  From my understanding, everything in the Grid is a Program (except for the Users--which, incidentally, doesn't make Clu's genocide a genocide.  A Program, at least the way I think about it, isn't a sentient being).
A Program is code.  Code is binary--a series of ones and zeros.  Near the end of the movie, one of the Programs falls into a sea, and (from my understanding--again, not having seen the original) drowns.
One: how is it binary is affected by water?  And two: if it is, why have a sea?
I suppose most of my complaints have to do with the fact that everything in the Grid is binary.  That kind of ruins emotional attachment.  I'm not one to hug my computer.

Anyway.  The movie earned a resounding "meh" from me, but I feel in love with the music.  I don't like electronic sounding music, but Daft Punk and their 85-piece orchestra was sheer brilliance.
It's very consistent in basic form, but then it gets layered, almost like building blocks.  However, they also manage to keep it fairly minimalistic, in keeping with the visual simplicity of the movie.  In addition, the music fits into the film nearly seamlessly--one of the best I've seen/heard, if not the best.
It stands well on its own as well (listen here, and start with track four to hear what they've done with the original).

Final score:
The movie barely squeaked by in earning its $9.25.  I would gladly pay that for the soundtrack, though, and may do just that.
But the extra $3.00 for 3D is so very, very painfully not worth it.  [Did you hear that, Disney?  STOP THE 3D INSANITY!]

m.

And, just for the record, Cillian Murphy appears in one scene in the movie and is uncredited (according to IMDB).  I caught it, and knew who he was.

Review; III

In future, I will try to not do everything all at once.

Publish This Book is the most irreverent book I've ever read, but also one of the funniest. It's all about getting a book published (hence, the title). On the other hand, it's depressing to hear about how difficult it is to get something published.

Despicable Me is worth seeing.

It's clever, and it's highly entertaining to hear Steve Carell doing a Russian accent (and then to hear O. imitating it is even better, since she actually is Russian), but more than anything, it's highly endearing even though it's easy to figure out the plot from just the trailers. Unlike, say, Avatar, which you could figure out from the trailers, but then didn't give you much else (yeah, I know. Sue me, I didn't like it).

The minions are wonderful.

However, the best line belongs to Vector, the bad guy (well, the "more" bad guy):

"I'm Vector: a villain with both direction and magnitude!"

Vellum, by Hal Duncan...

...is beautifully written, but the only way to do it is to ignore the fact that time is a linear thing. Don't bother unless American Gods is your favorite Gaiman book.

But....

I did it. I finally gave in and saw it:

Inception.

I'm odd when it comes to movies. If the plot's not good, there's nothing in the 'verse that can make it good. (I'd say "think Twilight," but there just isn't anything good about those movies.) On the other hand, there are some movies I avoid because I don't like the lead.

I've never been a huge DiCaprio fan (he's too hit-and-miss for me), but the plot looked too good to ignore--plus, I love Ellen Page.

So I saw it.

I think the best way to describe it is a cross between The Matrix and Ocean's Eleven (the remake, not the original).

It was less Memento mess-with-your-mind than I thought it would be, but sleeping through half isn't really an option. They delve into the dream-within-a-dream idea, and play with the chemical makeup of dreams, and the fact that your brain incorporates what's going on in the world into your dream, and how you don't realize how weird a dream is until you wake up.

In short,

go see it.

m.

Classical

Finally, I finished my drawing final. I wanted to do something with a coffee wash, which makes the paper look antique, and I also knew I wanted to do portraits. It seemed kind of inevitable that this is what I would end up with.

Ingrid Bergman

Myrna Loy

Katherine Hepburn

Teresa Wright

Gregory Peck

Kim Novak

Cary Grant

Vivian Leigh

Grace Kelly

Audrey Hepburn

Clark Gable

Hedy Lamarr

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