I’d heard this flick gives W. a fairly brutal beating, and what I’d heard was right. After starting very slowly (and cringingly - luckily the movie spends very little time in Guantanamo), things start to pick up at about the thirty minute mark. And then they just keep getting better and better! Dougie Howser returns! Harold and Kumar smoke up with a sitting president! The governemnt nerd has his moment, then wrecks it by falling (literally) back into nerd-dom.
In a lot of ways, this movie was the opposite of its predecessor, which started hysterically and gradually stopped being funny. And the satire was pointed more at the bullying Bush style of government than at W himself. Very broadly done, but very funny.
Had it not been for the beginning, I could even say I liked the whole thing.
I’d forgotten how much I like a good tomato. It’s been so long since I had one. Ten years ago you could buy New Jersey tomatoes in the city with great flavor, but now what’s called a Jersey tomato is only marginally better than the too red, too watery, too tasteless things you get in the grocery store all year round.
So I decided to go to the greenmarket today and try some of those $4.50 a pound jobs that come in orange and yellow and purple. And you know what?
It was worth every penny.
I’m hooked. If I ever have a garden, I’m growing nothing but White Beauties and Azoychkas. And I will die happy.
I mean, how could I not? It’s happy and sweet and funny and weird. And I love the bright colors - Paris as a gigantic Fiestaware table setting.
I’m on a Jeunet kick right now. Can’t wait for the next one to come out.
This one could have gone either way. I love Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s visual style, and I love Amelie and A Very Long Engagement, but his earlier movies can be confusing. For example, in The City of Lost Children I always knew what was going on. I just wasn’t sure why.
But, like I said, I find myself mesmerized by the images. Jeunet is the French Tim Burton. Not to mention seven Dominique Pinons!
How could I not? They’re wonderful books. Great story, great characters, great writing. If they’re not among my favorite books of all time, they’re close. The omnibus edition from Subterranean Press is a delight to own, though it could have used a bit of proofreading.
And I just had an odd experience reading them for the third time, which probably says more about my memory than the books. When I’ve talked about the books with folks over the last few years, I’ve always said that I thought the first was the best and the third the worst. And I think most of the people I’ve spoken with have agreed. But this time I thought just the opposite. I found myself chafing a bit at the repetition of the first book, and really enjoying the mystery of the third.
That’s something new. I’ve changed my mind about books or series as a whole on rereading them before, but I can’t remember ever changing my mind about books in a series. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair have been my favorite Narnia books for forty years, Tarzan of the Apes and Tarzan and the Ant Men my favorite Burroughs for even longer. Which makes me wonder if I did, in fact, prefer Huaghart’s stories in chronological order before. Or did my memory, when talking about them with other people, pull a switch on me somewhere in time so that I fell into line with everyone else?
Memory is so plastic.
How about the rest of you? Which (more…)
