commonplace, since 2002
Categories: film |
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Yes, I too thought the Oscars were a little boring. Bless Jon Stewart, he tried his little heart out, but what a lukewarm reception. What was it about that audience? Nerves? Boredom? Discomfort? Several times I found myself laughing and wincing all at once. What that crowd needed was more wine. Or something.
Here are some links:
Sorry about all those exclamation points.
Categories: film,links,random |
2 Comments
I haven’t seen a lot of blog-chatter on Jon Stewart’s hosting job at the Oscars last night. Did you watch the show? What did you think?
Categories: film |
7 Comments
A whole bunch of feature-film-mediocrity lately. Except for Cinderella Man, which was surprisingly good, even for someone with a pretty strict Russell-Crowe-moratorium (that would be me). And I liked King Kong well enough, 3-hours flashed by without a single glance down a my watch, a good sign. And, it would be remiss of me not to say more about The Librarian, wouldn’t it? I liked it better than I thought I would, it was a silly sort of Indiana Jones, with a geeky bookish type as a protagonist, but what did I expect? Noah Wyle was alright, there were giggles to be had at lines like, “the Librarian, he’s incredible” and “he’s just a librarian, but he could be so much more.” Heh.
Categories: film |
1 Comments
I’ve spent a goodly amount of web-noodling time, lately, in search of a fetchingly striped header for this here space and not having found such a header, resorted to creating one myself. It was easy! And fun! I think I’ll do it again! To mark the occasion, I also refreshed the tagline. There, then. Time well spent.
Some films recently enjoyed and not:
I’ve found it necessary to institute the half star; Brokeback Mountain, for example, was a brilliant and lovely film, certainly worthy of more than four, but not quite five stars.
Categories: film,site stuff |
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There has been eating and drinking and merrymaking in spades, the holidays are going swimmingly. What is it about this season that makes it okay to have sugar cookies, butter horns, and hot tea for breakfast? Whatever it is, I like it. Here are some films we’ve watched lately, starred out of five:
There was no consensus at all on Munich, the mister insisted that I tell you. We watched it with my family and we were split well down the middle: half of us thought it was brave and balanced, the other half thought it was boring and biased. The four-star rating above represents the right half, of course.
At the moment, I am warmly ensconced in Jonathan Franzen’s embrace: The Corrections is an impeccable book, I commend it to you without reservation.
Categories: festivities,film,reading/listening |
3 Comments
Starred out of a possible five, most of these were thoroughly enjoyed:
Categories: film |
4 Comments
When you spend most of your non-work time holed up at home, trying to work out the details of impending conference papers, and when you feel guilty about taking any time out to sew or bead or draw or do all those other things you usually do for procrastination on account of said pending conference papers, you tend to have movies going on in the background with your iBook on your lap and your research/presentation on your screen, because, you know, you’re really working while those movies are on in the background, of course you are. Here are some movies that have been on in the background lately, starred out of a possible five:
Categories: film |
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Good day. To-day is the birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, and Stanley Kubrick. I’m not much of a fan of Shaw’s theatre, I admit that I have never read Brave New World, and Kubrick has been on my mind lately on account of just having watched The Dark Side of the Moon, which was bizarre, and good, and makes you appreciate the subtle and challenging (and devious) work of film editors.
This is not, at all, where I was going with all this, but what the hell, here are some other films I’ve watched lately, starred out of five:
And, on a note entirely unrelated to the one already struck, I have been knitting. I’ve just finished “Earth” from Rowan 29 (scroll down a bit), which was light and breezy knitting. The pattern calls for Linen Drape, of which I have an ample amount in my stash drawer, I am just a little terrified by this yarn for its unforgiving weight and lack of, well, give (no give, zero give), so I substituted it for some Jo Sharp Soho Summer in a pale blue called “cloudless” (which it has been, both the knitting & the weather). The substitution was less than perfect on account of the fact that I was so thrilled to get the correct stitch gauge on my first try (huzzah! I don’t have to knit this with Linen Drape after all!), that I completely overlooked row gauge, which matters with Rowan patterns, doesn’t it? It’s that nasty habit they have of accounting for the number of rows instead of simply telling me how long it should be at regular intervals. Still, no matter. I am a fan of over-sized knitwear, O yes I am.
Soon after completing Earth, I started in on Swank (scroll down some more, and then imagine it without that belt and, therefore, with less bathrobe potential and more cool-summer-night potential) with a couple of bags of All Seasons Cotton that have awaited a project of just such substantial proportions. The yarn is the bluest blue I have ever knit with (and will ever have worn), a discountinued colour I got on sale last summer, that I almost immediately regretted buying on account of its incompatibility with the rest of my wardrobe. However, the colour now reminds me of the pool I’ve been swimming in daily for the past few weeks, and happy colour-associations make for happy knitting and, hopefully, equally happy wearing.
Soon, pictures! Happy, happy!
Categories: film,knitting & yarn |
3 Comments
There have been movies lately. A great, big barrel of movies, in fact, a few of which have been very good, some of which have been just good. Here they are, starred out of a possible five:
It felt like much more movies than a mere six, but that is, perhaps, because we have not seen a movie in ages, and then, this glut. And yes, there have been two Gael García Bernal films in one week. Gael is my new Latin boyfriend.
Last week, I spent an evening at a focus group whose purpose was to gather opinions on The Documentary Channel, a channel that is close to my heart (as cable channels go). Notwithstanding, the evening was a bit of a waste of time for me, and for the research house who hired me as one of the members of their 10-person-strong focus group, because I had not a single enlightened thing to say about The Documentary Channel, documentaries, cable, or even just television. At the end of the evening, I made out like a bandit with the small envelope of cash they handed me, squirelling away before someone called out, “You, there! Yes, you! You didn’t give us anything we could use, we’ll take our money back, thank you.”
And, look! It’s a quilt-along!
P.S.: The scones turned out fine. Well, in fact.
Categories: film,me |
3 Comments