Girl Detective

Me, that’s who. I’m a comics geek. I read Watchmen in 1990 and have been an avid comic reader ever since. That’s why I won’t be seeing Watchmen (2009).

Watchmen the book is brilliant. It exploded the boundary, then and perhaps forever, on superhero entertainment and the comics medium. So a faithful adaptation, as director Zack Snyder said he tried to do, misses the point, IMO. It offers superheroes and violence up as entertainment, without the irony.

Instead of investing almost 3 hours and $10 in the movie, read this interview at Salon with creator Alan Moore. (Can’t find the source of the link; sorry. It was probably Morning News or Bookslut) Read the graphic novel. Or go here for a hilarious imagining of what Watchmen might have been like as an 80’s kids cartoon, or to Slate for a parody of what other directors might have done. (Last two links from ALoTT5MA)

My husband G. Grod went to see it last night.

“How was it?” I asked.

“Exactly what I expected,” he replied. “That bad. Now I know.”

Rober Ebert liked it, but it’s clear from his review that he hasn’t read the source material. Part of what worked about recent comic-book movies like Spiderman 2, Iron Man, Hellboy II and The Dark Knight is that they were based on the larger legend, but eschewed existing stories in favor of ones crafted specifically for the movie.

TV critic Alan Sepinwall’s review confirmed my suspicions about the movie. I’ve not yet gone to see any adaptation of an Alan Moore project, though all the graphic novels–League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Swamp Thing, From Hell, V for Vendetta–are among my favorites. Movies and comics are different mediums. Sometimes one can bring something to the other than deepens the story. But with such rich source material as Watchmen, I don’t much see the point.

I found OMG, Shoes at Big Brain Comics, and had to have it. It’s an illustrated ‘zine-style shoe memoir by Sarah Morean, in the manner of Ilene Beckerman’s Love, Loss and What I Wore. Morean uses pencils and watercolor to detail 44 pairs of shoes, with a sentence or two about their history.

It’s a charming little book, made even more so by its deliberately cute black faux-lizard soft cover and assortment of decorative bindings. I chose a simple pink bow, but there were faux pearls and other pretty, shiny options. At $5, it’s a bargain; I feel like I went shoe shopping in someone else’s closet.

Mark Sarvas’ Harry, Revised, one of the contenders for this year’s Morning News Tournament of Books, is a great example of why I don’t recommend a book or not until I’m finished. When I began it, I didn’t much enjoy it. The main character, Harry of the title is such a sorry specimen it’s easy to wonder, as he does to his wife:

“Oh, honey. Why did you marry me?”

As I was wondered whether to continue, the final line of the first chapter took me by surprise; I’d read little about this book and hadn’t bothered with the jacket copy. The end-of-chapter twist was so deftly done I thought, “I’m in.”

As I continued to read, though, Harry and his bumbling were often more painful than funny. I was reminded of the cringing feeling I get watching some of the “Michael Scott” episodes of the US The Office. The best episodes get the tricky balance between painful and funny, and manage to portray Michael as clueless but well meaning and likeable. I worried that Harry might end up like Michael in the off-balance episodes: clownish and pathetic.

I found this book got better and better toward the end, bringing each of its subplots to closure. Harry’s coming of middle age is believable and sympathetic. I found the novel all the more impressive because its structure is non-linear, and details are regularly withheld then revealed. Yet the story unfolds easily, even with the back and forward shifts in time. Sarvas is the author of the well-known litblog The Elegant Variation. Harry, Revised is his first novel, but it doesn’t read like a first novel, if you know what I mean.

This is a sweet, sad well-written book with a redemptive, earned ending. It wasn’t always easy to read, but the whole made me feel well-rewarded for engaging with it.

From Harry, Revised by Mark Sarvas:

Abridged or unabridged? That is the question.

Harry stands in the deserted, brightly lit Fiction & Literature section of his favorite chain bookstore, weighing a book in each hand. In his right, The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin, unabridged) weighing in at a formidable 1,276 pages. In this left, The Count of Monte Cristo (Puffin Classics, abridged) tipping the scales at a svelte 396 pages. Harry weights the pros and cons of each, literally as well as figuratively.

He can’t deny that an irresistible bit of cachet comes with being an unabridged sort of guy. If depth follows effort, as Harry is reasonably convinced that it must, surely his best hope for a Dantes-esque rebirth must be found in these pages.

But Harry also knows himself, knows the limits of his attention span, and fears that The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin, unabridged) is fated to end up as little more than an impressive desk ornament. And, he reasons, if the story can effectively be whittled down to a mere 396 pages (Puffin Classics, abridged), then how necessary can the rest really be? (92-3)

Harry Revised is one of the contenders in The Morning News Tournament of Books. It has some impressive contortions in chronology, and can be quite funny, as I found the above passage, but it walks the thin line between humor and cringe-worthy pathos that can sometimes make for an uncomfortable read. I’ll keep reading to see if Harry can come of middle-age and pull off a Dantes-esque rebirth.

From Bre Pettis, via Boing Boing.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more

I think this might be the way to approach the kind of everyday stuff that has overwhelmed me, in general all my life, but specifically since the birth of 3yo Guppy. I have mail, email and magazines from February 2006, when he was born. Not helpful.

From Wikipedia on “Life Hack”

Today, anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way might be called a life hack.

From The New York Times, “Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems.” I’ve tested using my head as an amplifier for my car remote; it works.

From Wired, “10 Geeky Tricks for Getting Out of Bed in the Morning.” I’ve adopted the glass of water upon waking up. It’s a great idea. (This and above link from The Morning News)

At Smarterware, a snapshot of good advice for getting through one’s day, “Simple Guidelines for Workday Quality Over Quantity” (My husband sent the link to me; I didn’t get it from a site.)

From In Style magazine via CNN, “Drop 5 Years in 5 Minutes” offers simple make-up techniques that have maximum impact. The day I tried a few, I got an unsolicited compliment from a makeup-artist friend.

Also from In Style’s January issue, some down-to-earth advice on losing weight:

“Restrictive diets don’t work,” proclaims nutritionist Oz Garcia, Ph.D. Instead, he suggests:

Sleep 8 to 9 hours
Massages to reduce stress
Dark chocolate in moderation to control cravings
Sunshine (the real thing or a light box)
Exercise
Eat different things each day. Garcia recommends the Mediterranean plan from the Mayo Clinic.

Is there a better film to watch on one’s birthday than Casablanca*? As Roger Ebert notes in his commentary on the film, it’s a film that people who don’t like black and white films like, that people who don’t like old movies like, that people who don’t like romance films like, and that no critic has criticized.

What can I possibly say beyond that? It’s a lovely film. It made Bogart a star. And it rivals Hamlet and the Bible for number of lines that have become part of the warp and woof of popular culture. The famous last line, in fact, is often misquoted and was added as an afterthought.

Are there better films? Yes. More enjoyable ones? Not many.

*Other candidates: The Long Goodbye and The Third Man.

Today’s my birthday. Forty-one, and even though that sounds “old” to me, I don’t feel it. Emotionally, at least–I have some early morning and post-yoga aches that make me humble and remind me to slow down. I also wish my other February birthday friends (so many of them!) health and happiness as this month comes to a close.

I’ve had a lovely day thus far, despite an oncoming cold. We began the day with a family snuggle, then I had my favorite breakfast–two cappuccinos, with a cherry pomegranate toaster pastry AND Stella d’Oro breakfast treats. G and the boys went out so I have time to myself this morning to read, write, journal, use my light box, do yoga and my hand labyrinth, and be amazed by the well wishes pouring in.

I feel very grateful today, for life in general and the specifics–my husband G, our kids 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy, our community in Minnesota, family and friends both far and wide, real and virtual, present and absent, and for all who helped in ways big and small during my post-partum depression three years ago, part of my ongoing journey toward balance.

I feel more than a bit stunned by it all, and deer-in-the headlights when I think how impossible it would be to express all the gratitude to all those I feel it for. This quote, by Elizabeth Gilbert from Eat, Pray, Love, helps me feel a little less overwhelmed:

In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.

I am saying thank you, right now, today, and I’ll try to keep on saying it however I can. Namaste.

Tom Piazza’s City of Refuge, a novel about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, is a contender in this year’s Morning New Tournament of Books. Piazza opens with two quotes, one from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, which this book is an homage to. Like that American classic, City of Refuge tells of a forced US migration, both through the eyes of those experiencing it, and with journalistic interludes that further fill in the details. I thought I knew what happened there. City of Refuge showed me I hardly knew a thing, and more compellingly, helped explain why.

On Monday, though nobody knew it yet, the water had only just begun to rise; it would keep rising until that Thursday, from more than a dozen breaks in the levee system, which let water gush and roll in from Lake Pontchartrain to fill up the bowl of New Orleans.

The novel switches between two families, one black, one white, and their experiences during and after the hurricane. I sometimes thought Piazza gave too much detail, and veered into the didactic, problems I also had with Grapes of Wrath. Like that book, though, this is a chronicle of a national tragedy, and the government ineptitude that made things worse. Like that book, City of Refuge is a novel about social justice. It educates, inspires empathy, and fosters outrage. The writing style wasn’t always to my taste, but the scope and power of the story, and the character of SJ in particular, are such that I’d recommend City of Refuge to almost anyone.

Thorina Rose’s Heartbreak Diet is a comic-book memoir of the breakup of her marriage. Both in words and illustrations, it’s wry, sad and easy to sympathize with. It begins with a simple exchange:

Thorina (holding toddler): Where are you going?
Her husband, X: I’m going running.

Rose illustrates her husband in a runners stretch, with a focus on his ass, in a sly visual dig. Throughout, he’s shown in shadow, and mostly from behind. It’s an effective way to characterize a man on his way out of their marriage. Rose’s art, black and white and shades of grey, is striking and accessible. The story is a pastiche of events, imaginings, advice she receives, and things she does, or tries to do, to get through the unraveling of her marriage. I enjoyed reading about her journey, both in pictures and in words. She narrates her anger, sadness and bewilderment, but her story is never weighed down by them, but buoyed by hope.

I thought this year’s Oscar broadcast was a big improvement over years past, and I enjoyed it a lot. I thought Jackman’s opening number was funny and well done. The later one was over-the-top, which I think even creator Baz Luhrmann knew, since he looked sheepish when Jackman thanked him and the camera panned to him at the end. But anything that features an extended bit from “You’re the One That I Want” is OK in my book.

TV critic Alan Sepinwall has some suggestions for further improvement, like going back to showing the film clips for the nominations and removing more of technical awards. I agree that they should probably remove the sound awards, though cinematography could stay. I also think the shorts should go, both animated and documentary. I know they’re important, but few people see them and the show is too long.

I have a few other ideas, too.

One, have stylists urge their clients to wear color dresses. Light silver, white with silver, off white with silver, light gold, cream, ecru, off white, white, etc. are not colors, they’re neutrals. Do you really want to look neutral? Outlier was Viola Davis in burnished gold. Wow.

Two, have stylists urge their clients to do their hair. Jessica Biel looked like she just got out of bed, plus her no-color dress looked like it threw up on itself. Her later switch to purple didn’t improve things much. And Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I don’t feel bad for you even if the announcer did get your name wrong, because anyone who wears a knit cap indoors deserves what he gets. Your haircut in Doubt looked fabulous.

Third, Reese Witherspoon, wha’ happened? Did you get bitten by brooding, soulless, vapid, teen vampire Robert Pattinson backstage? Your black and blue dress with matching(!) eyeshadow made you look undead, and you’re usually rocking the show.

For more snarky mayhem, visit Go Fug Yourself.

At the Millions, a comparison between the American and UK editions of some of the Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books contenders. (Link from Morning News, of course.)

I am actively stifling my urge to go to amazon.co.uk

But I’m going to keep an eye out at Half Price books; often the UK editions will turn up used or as remainders. That’s where I got UK editions of Harry Potter One and Two, Bridget Jones’ Diary, and the lovely HC of Special Topics in Calamity Physics (still unread).

(See how I finagled that? I HAD to go to the UK amazon to get the links for the UK editions. Heh. I did not shop, though. Yet.)

The noir double feature I saw this week of Robert Siodmak’s Criss Cross and The Killers deserves a bit more than the passing mention in yesterday’s post about a week of movies.

The City Pages is being difficult and not providing Rob Nelson’s succinct review of Criss Cross online, so I’ll reprint it:

As an impossibly convoluted thriller stuffed with flashbacks and nihilistic voiceovers, this 1949 film noir from director Robert Siodmak isn’t quite on a par with The Killers, Siodmak’s first collaboration with tough-guy cum patsy Burt Lancaster. But it’s a skillful, brooding, highly entertaining movie nonetheless–and far more potent than Steven Soderbergh’s arty remake The Underneath. In fact, what seemed to be Soderbergh’s most innovative scene–a protracted hospital-room dialogue between the helpless protagonist and his potential assassin–actually pales in comparison to Siodmak’s more straightforwardly intense staging, in which the intersecting bars of the hero’s death bed visually represent both title and plot. Plus, the narration delivered by Lancaster, playing a wayward loser who returns to his duplicitous ex-wife (Yvonne De Carlo) works as a perfect articulation of the genre’s gender-oriented despair: “From the start, it all went one way. It was in the cards, or it was fate, or it was a jinx, or whatever you want to call it.” I’d call it a postwar metaphor for the trauma of vets who, coming home, found that their wives weren’t the compliant homemakers they were before.

Julie Caniglia recommended The Killers over Criss Cross as well. Former acrobat Burt Lancaster is The Swede, a role that made him a star. He’s handsome and tragic in a tank top, a look Siodmak repeated in the later Criss Cross.

This 1946 adaptation of a Hemingway story, which one film critic dubbed the “Citizen Kane of noirs,” is indeed a deft example of Hollywood studio tradition cast with a pall of brooding German Expressionism (director Robert Siodmak began and ended his movie career in Germany). Like Kane, it begins with a death–the murder of the Swede, a small-town gas station attendant (Burt Lancaster, looking hot in a career-launching role)–and then unfolds the increasingly complex “double-cross to end all double-crosses” that led up to it. Basically, the Swede’s $2,500 life insurance payment leads one Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) to uncover the details of a $250,000 caper years earlier. Yes, words like “caper” and “sing” are used freely here; there are also boxing matches, poker games, boarding houses, and small-time cons named Blinky and Dum-Dum. The big-time con Big Jim Colfax asks for a cigarette with his dying breath, and his dame Kitty (Ava Gardner) croons an impromptu, piano-side torch song–making smitten that lovable lug, the Swede. Such elements have long since been chewed into mealy clichés, but in The Killers they’re evergreen.

These worked well as a double feature, and were both well worth renting if you’re a fan of film noir.

Now that the Oscars are done, I want to bring last year’s movie-watching towards an end with links to some of my favorite critics’ Best-of-2008 lists.

The Village Voice’s 2008 critic’s film poll is a good source for some of last year’s films that didn’t get wide distribution.

A.O. Scott’s year-end list is notable for its focus on upbeat films, of which there were many last year, though that might not be obvious by those that won awards.

Richard Roeper went beyond a simple Top Ten to Best, Worst and specific categories.

Roger Ebert’s has a similarly long list.

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune (like Roeper’s, his list was only available reprinted elsewhere) did a nice, pithy list of big and small, movie and documentary.

Blue Iris is a collection of poems and essays, most previously published, by Mary Oliver, winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. It was this month’s selection for my book group, and because I am a reluctant reader of anything but fiction (a tendency I’m trying to expand out of), I dragged my feet. The book, though, is lovely, both in form and content. Van Gogh’s famous image of irises adorns the covers, and the interior is sprinkled with black and white photos of branches, leaves and flowers.

The poems and essays focus on love and respect for flora, with particular attention to flowers and trees. Oliver’s poetry flows easily, without rhyme, and her essays are infused with the same fluid wordplay.

Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin-flowers. And the frisky ones–inkberry, lamb’s-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones–rosemary, oregano. Give the peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

This is a brief, accessible book, especially for those, like me, suspicious of poetry. Oliver quietly contemplates the natural world, and conveys its wonder and beauty.

I’d like to thank the Academy for a shorter, more entertaining Oscar show this year. I’d also like to thank my husband G. Grod for enabling my pre-Oscar movie-watching compulsion. I saw SEVEN movies. In SEVEN days. Talk about indulgence.

G and I watched The Visitor together. It might not have been his pick for the flick to watch on his birthday, but we both enjoyed it. Richard Jenkins is winning in this quiet movie about a lonely man moved into engagement by the people he meets, and the injustice of post-9/11 US immigration laws (or lack thereof). It’s an excellent rental.

Then we did a complete 180, like a U-turn on the Batcycle, and watched The Dark Knight. 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy were difficult about going to bed. I’d wanted to start watching early, since it’s so long. Oh, well, I thought. We’ll just watch part of it. Ha. As if. Two hours and forty-five minutes later… Dark Knight is loud, scary, provocative, in your face–the antithesis of a quiet movie. Thus, I find it kinda perfect for the times. Great plot, character, actors, etc. This WAS one of the best movies of the year, no matter what Oscar said.

Then I hijacked my kids in my Oscar compulsion and we watched Wall E. And were amazed all over again. Animation? I don’t think so. Science that looks like magic? You betcha. Remember all the critics who wondered if kids would like it since there was no dialogue for most of the movie? Watch it with a kid. The kids GET it. They LOVE it. How can you not? Best movie of the year? For me, yep.

Next was The Reader. Woo. Another movie mash-up whiplash. I saw it at St. Anthony Main, not usually my first pick of theaters, and there was an enormous night-before-Oscars line. But the staff did a great job–moved people through efficiently and with smiles, and delayed the starts of movies so no one missed out. As for the movie, I don’t think the world needs another Holocaust movie. Or another movie that shows that people can do horrible things but still be good people. Ooh, look, it’s complicated. However, Winslet is still living in my head in that role. Even though her turn in Revolutionary Road seemed technically better, her role in The Reader has quietly insinuated itself into my head.

Then, after weeks of attempts, I finally made it to the ONE theater in town showing Rachel Getting Married. It was a lot darker, and less funny, than I expected. It felt exactly like attending an often-uncomfortable but still happy wedding weekend. But the performances, especially Hathaway’s, were more than worth it. Hathaway completely embodied her haunted, selfish, struggling ex-junkie, hatchet-hair, slept-in-my-kohl-liner look. She’s played an ingenue before? Coulda fooled me. Rosemarie DeWitt (Midge from Mad Men) was appropriately loving and exhausted as her long-suffering sister. But Debra Winger was the surprise standout for me–so cold and brittle I felt frost-bitten just watching her.

At which point G. Grod thought, “whew, the Oscars are tonight. She’ll stop going out all the time.” Then he looked at the calendar, and said, “D’oh!” Because last night was Take Up Productions noir double feature at the Heights, with Criss Cross, and The Killers.

I blame my friend Kate for my compulsion to mix Dots and popcorn, but thank her for the guilty deliciousness. As for the films, there weren’t a lot of happy endings for Burt Lancaster and his femme fatales, but their pain was our gain. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite manage 3+ hours of movie, and was nodding off by the end. I’m off to look up the ending to The Killers, and rest up for the next double feature, The Blue Dahlia and The Glass Key, in two weeks. The Big Clock is next week. Other than that I’ll try to give G. a break and switch gears back to reading, and transfer my consumption compulsion to the books for the Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books.

Often I feel like my life is one long struggle to be less annoying to others. So when someone annoys me, I tend to get righteous. Which is kind of meta annoying, and thus I make it worse. Sigh.

Last night at the movies the person behind me was talking. Not maliciously. Maybe not even consciously. Just saying what came into their head, like, “*gasp* he’s going to kill him!” during a suspenseful scene. But there are manners on both sides–for the talker and for the person bothered by the talking.

Here’s how I wish I would have handled it. Turned after the movie, part of a double feature, and said, “I was distracted by your talking, so I’m going to move. You may be distracting others.”

Not sure the last sentence is necessary.

The fifth installment of the wildly entertaining Scott Pilgrim YA graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, finds our hero battling not one but TWO of girlfriend Ramona Flowers’ evil ex-boyfriends.

Ramona: Is he OK in there?

Kim Pine: C’mon. He’s Scott Pilgrim.

Party Host: A tiny robot is kicking this guy’s ass, if anyone wants to watch.

Scott not only has to battle robots, but deal with Ramona’s reaction after a revelation from teen nutcase Knives Chau. Silliness and sadness ensue. Scott continues to be an endearingly clueless and inept hero. The aura of mystery surrounding Ramona grows both figuratively and literally. And the next book sounds like it will wrap up the series.

O’Malley notes at the end that this is the only book so far he’s gotten in by deadline. I also think it’s the best-done to date–the plot is tight, as is the art. Nothing feels rushed or sloppy. I hope O’Malley can maintain the momentum for a strong ending to this story. Scott deserves a good ending (one I’m thinking won’t have him dating Ramona), even if not a happy one.

News on the upcoming movie, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) with Michael Cera playing Scott: parts of the film may be animated, which should make the fight scenes really interesting, as well as provide some of the wacky whiplash that helps define these books.

Because my children are ignoring me and refusing to get dressed, I’m going to ignore them right back. So much for the high road.

The bracket for the Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books is up! Adjust your reading list priorities accordingly. (I’m reading City of Refuge now, which seems bootless, since it’s up against Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.)

At the WSJ, a bunch of financial experts on what to do with your financial stimulus money. Link from Morning News.

At New York Magazine, Nate Silver statistically predicts the Oscar winners.

A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago will be live-blogging the Oscars.

On last night’s Top Chef, Finnish Stefan wore a T-shirt and hat emblazoned with “Suomi”. According to Wikipedia, Suomi means Finnish or Finland. One of the finalists commented that Fabio’s mohawk meant there had been one in every finale. Season four was Richard. Season Three was Dale. I don’t know who it was for the first two seasons.

On Colicchio’s blog at Bravo, he gives more information to the decisions from last night’s New Orleans finale part 1. It’s brief and insightful, plus divulges the technical term pro chefs use for other chefs’ food they admire.

The reviews were mixed and the running time long, but I wanted to see Australia anyway. I’ve loved all three of Baz Lurhrmann’s previous films, Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge. Even if the movie was a mess, it would be an interesting one.

Like the other Luhrmann films, Australia isn’t distinguished by an original storyline but by its intent to entertain. Prim Englishwoman Lady Ashley goes to Australia to sell her husband’s farm. She gets caught up in a fight with nefarious cattle rivals. She bickers with a handsome cattle driver, Hugh Jackman, only ever named The Drover. She loosens up, then shows up in a beautiful dress*. Jackman shows up shaved and handsome in a tux. Cue the ending, except then the film goes on for another hour to tell another story.

I could sense the director’s passion that spurred his reach to exceed his grasp. I missed the more important role of music from his earlier films, but still appreciated the soundtrack. I’m glad I saw it on a big screen; even though it was flawed, it was a big story (or rather, stories) about a big country. I recognized the film’s flaws, like an unnecessary extra hour of a different story and an unfortunate reliance on the plot point of the noble savage/mystical native who teaches the stupid white people about tolerance and love. Yet I thoroughly enjoyed its 2 hour and 45 minutes. It’s for fans of Luhrmann’s films, and those who love sloppy, old-fashioned sweeping, sometimes weepy, movie magic.

*The red dress she wears, as with a pink one that precedes it, is lovely, but not enough, IMO, to deserve the Oscar for Best Costumes for the entire film.