Apparently, there’s a new director on board. This is possibly good news, although frankly, I’m not sure this guy has a good enough track record. We’ll see how ??The 300?? comes out.
I was, frankly, happier with the rumored choice of Aronofsky, whom I would trust to tell a story in which we have to root for characters we slowly and/or quickly come to hate.
Just saw ??The Prestige?? as part of the ongoing birthday festivities. (We do birthdays a little bit at a time, not at all at once.) It was….a good movie, although not perfect, and difficult to relate to the book. In many respects, it was a loyal adaptation; it _felt_ right, mostly, in terms of the places and the times and the characters and their motivations. But the actual events differed considerably, and not just in the “Oh, yeah, we ran out of time, so we had to cut that,” sense, but in the, “No, we felt that that essential plot point wouldn’t make enough sense on film.”
What’s particularly interesting is that every horrible thing that happens in the movie — every death, every injury, almost every betrayal — does not occur in the book. Other horrible things certainly do occur (although on the whole no one’s crimes are as dire in the book as they are in the film), but it’s interesting to me that the substitutions should be *so* extensive, especially since so much effort was devoted to keeping the characters themselves so authentic.
Another strange thing, and this may be an error in my memory of the book, but I believe that many or most of the scenes in the film are viewed from the perspective of Angier in the book are viewed from the perspective of Borden in the film, and vice versa, to the point I had my sense of which was the villain change. And my sense of which was the villain was already divided — since they each play the role at different times in both stories. Swapping those around just leads to a total confusion on my part regarding how I ought to feel.
In other words, it was a lot like watching an alternate universe episode of ??Star Trek??….
The only two things that didn’t work for me were the critical changes made to the finales for the two characters — or, rather, the endpoints of the stories in the film, since the books doesn’t finish them off at the same time (in fact, they both have several different “ends” in the book). The basic function of Tesla’s machine is different in the film, in a way that necessitates actions which have drastically different moral implications for the Angier character, and Borden’s…identity problem is very different. There is an essential moment of confrontation in the book in which Borden admits that he no longer knows a certain thing; not only does this not occur in the film, but it is made absolutely clear that Borden knows exactly that thing.
This is a bit annoying.
These have been floating around for a bit, and some of them are entertaining:
Vacuum collision. Orbits diverge. Farewell, love. (David Brin)
Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so. (Joss Whedon)
Longed for him. Got him. Shit. (Margaret Atwood)
It cost too much, staying human. (Bruce Sterling)
The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly. (OS Card)
To save humankind he died again. (Ben Bova)
The article also usefully demonstrates that Neal Stephenson is a douche. But we knew that already.
Also, David Brin had several more goodies that didn’t make the print version:
Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back. (David Brin)
Bang postponed. Not Big enough. Reboot. (David Brin)
Metrosexuals notwithstanding, quiche still lacks something. (David Brin)
Well, a year older and all that stuff. Nothing much to say about that, and nothing eventful in birthday land. Got a nice old copy of ??Again, Dangerous Visions?? from Andrew, along with some of my old books. Rosie and Renee made me dinner, which consisted largely of their own peculiar variations on Korean and Japanese cuisine. Don’t ask me what was involved, as I don’t know any of the names. There was a lot of tofu and textured protein products, some pickled ginger, some bean paste-based dessert. It was quite tasty.
Oh, and did I forget to mention that they got me a cake from “Crixa”:http://www.crixacakes.com/archives/cakes/000052lemon_cream_cake.html complete with personalization? Braving the creepy Crixa-ites is a sign of real affection, and Crixa’s lemon-cream cake is an almost supernatural dessert. It’s nice to know that, to quote Cybil Shepard, “I’m worth it.” Excuse me while I remove the elastic from my hair and toss my head about.
Then, fantastically, we got to watch ??Six String Samurai?? (which I’ve been telling them about for years). It was pretty well received, and I got to lip-sync, “Only one man could kill this many Russians.” I was letter-perfect, too, which isn’t bad after, what, seven years?
Also, I just finished my ninth pair of fingerless gloves (I give away most of them as gifts, but it’s also true that I’m obsessively revising my design. I’m nearing an optimal solution.)
Just in time for NaNoWriMo…
I totally missed this news two weeks ago, but I’m certainly happy to notice it now.
Since I’m apparently Jewish now, this is probably worth sharing:
??The Replacements?? is a bad show with occasionally very clever writing. I’m not sure whether today’s qualifies or not, but I liked it a lot, largely because the Frinkman-style nerd, Shelton, is apparently a knitter, as discovered in the exchange in which Shelton offers one of the protagonists a “bench cozy” he knit, as a sign that they are “bench buddies.”
“Thanks for having my back, Shelton. Well, technically, I guess you have my butt!”
Anybody want to count the minutes before some fundamentalist parent’s group notices that line is wildly gay?
Later in the show, Shelton knits what actually looks more like needlepoint sampler (not that I know what that entails; I just know it doesn’t look knit) the content of which provides the basis for the moral climax of the story, prompting an irritated, “Aw, man, why’d you have to knit that?”
Of course, I’m not sure that we male knitters shouldn’t be offended by the Shelton character, but frankly I’m just amused to see guys knitting in cartoons at all.
Also, from the second 15-minute portion of the episode, which involves girl scout jerky sales:
“Rule numbmer 35?”
“What happens at summer camp stays at summer camp?”
Apparently this show has the lesbians covered as well.