Month: January 2011

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Trust your feelings!

I’ve been enjoying AICN’s “Behind the Scenes Picture of the Day” series, and for obvious reasons, I really dug this one:

I also see that the official release date for the Star Wars films on Blu-ray has been announced. I won’t be acquiring these right off the bat, unless the current DVD player at Casa Jaquandor goes belly-up between this day and that. I’m not upgrading to Blu-ray until I absolutely have to; I still don’t see any compelling need whatsoever for this new format other than Sony saying, “Holy crap, we need one last physical format to soak everybody with before everything is all-digital-download!”

And I’m amused, of course, by the huge chorus of people shouting “I’m not giving George Lucas any more of my money!”, as if he’s the one and only filmmaker releasing films successively in one format and then the next and then the next.

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Something for Thursday

A movie scene this week, from Steven Spielberg’s astonishing Schindler’s List.

If you haven’t seen the film, Liam Neeson plays Oskar Schindler, a businessman and member of the Nazi party who decides to take advantage of the increasingly punitive measures being taken against the Jewish people of Poland by using Jews as free labor. Over time, his factory gradually shifts into more of a haven, where Jews can find some modicum of protection from the Nazi brutality. This goes on until toward the end of the film, when, as Germany’s position in WWII becomes untenable, the order is sent out: Kill them all. Pack them all up and send them to Auschwitz.

This is when Schindler decides that he needs to act to save the thousand Jews who have been working for him — and this is how he does it. He runs a scam against Amon Goeth (the Nazi commandant, played by Ralph Fiennes) that is breathtaking in its simplicity: Goeth has such rock-solid faith in Schindler’s abilities as a businessman that he just assumes that Schindler is making huge money on the deal, when in reality Schindler is literally buying the lives of his workers. The deal struck, Schindler and his main assistant, Itzhak Stern (played by Ben Kingsley), begin the important task of creating the master list of Jews to be spared the trains to Auschwitz and instead sent to Poland to work for Schindler.

This is an amazing scene, from an amazing film.

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A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

The day before yesterday, this blog crossed 600,000 hits, according to SiteMeter. That’s a pittance for some, but a nicely big number for me, and since this blog has been around for almost nine years, that means that I’ve had a little less than 66,666 hits a year. Cool! So, thanks for looking in, all you regular readers!

So, if you’re a regular reader, how did you find this blog? And what on Earth keeps you coming back?

UPDATE: Thanks for all the complements, everyone! I’d actually meant that last question as a MAD Magazine type of rhetorical thing, as if, “What kind of dope reads a publication like this?!”, and not actually a “fishing for complements” query, but hey, I’ll take the complements. Just as long as none of you say, “Hmmmm, he’s right. What on Earth does keep me coming back? Time to delete that dummy from my bookmarks!!!”

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“I’ve never really had a taste for this kind of thing, but I must admit I’m deeply enjoying the suit!”

Iron Man was never my favorite superhero in the Marvel Universe. Nothing against him per se, really; I suspect that this is likely due to the fact that the Iron Man comic wasn’t terribly compelling during the years I was an active reader of Marvel comics. I didn’t have all the money in the world, so I had to at least be somewhat selective with respect to the comics I was purchasing on a monthly basis, and when I occasionally tried an issue of Iron Man, I wasn’t terribly excited by it.

So that’s one reason I’m not terribly familiar with the whole backstory behind Iron Man – I know about as little about Tony Stark as one can know. In fact, when I was reading comics, Tony Stark wasn’t even Iron Man! For some reason, Stark had given up the suit, and another guy was wearing it. I don’t recall any of the background behind that. So I came into seeing Iron Man pretty much blind. All I knew, really, was that the movie is generally very highly regarded in the superhero genre.

I can certainly see why.

Iron Man is – wonder of wonders! — a superhero movie that is actually fun to watch. It employs a story that is as old as the hills, being a “Self-absorbed jerk learns a better way to live” narrative as Tony Stark realizes that maybe he can’t live with being the world’s greatest weapons manufacturer and that he has greatly misused his enormous intellectual gifts. What’s nice is that the film doesn’t dwell on Stark’s character growth; it’s there, but it doesn’t bog down the entire movie as these kinds of superhero lessons often do.

The film opens with Stark touring in Afghanistan with a company of US soldiers, but he is taken prisoner in a vicious attack and forced to build a weapon for the Afghan Taliban soldiers. (At least, I assume they’re Taliban. I’m not sure the film was entirely clear on this point.) The leader tells him, in Arabic, “Build the weapon and then I will set you free.” Another captive, who serves as translator, relates this to Stark, who mutters, “No, he won’t.” So Stark takes the raw materials he’s been given by the Afghans and builds his means of escape: an armored suit of metal that has rocket thrusters and a whole lot of flamethrowers. In other words, Stark builds his Iron Man prototype.

It’s when he returns to the US that Stark discovers that his company is not aligned with the side of the angels, and he begins work on his new, improved Iron Man suit. Thus begins some high adventure as Tony Stark realizes too late just whom he is up against.

As noted above, I give Iron Man high marks for not following along in the Dark Knightization of its superhero story; this is at its heart a light, fun adventure movie to which one can happily apply an adjective like rollicking. I have nothing against dark, grim stories that plumb the depths of human cynicism; but I do like the occasional story where a guy is a hero at least partly because he has fun being a hero.

Acting-wise, the film is top-notch; Robert Downey Jr. captures perfectly the inherent arrogance and brilliance of Tony Stark. Jeff Bridges chews lots of scenery as only he can. I always like to see Gwyneth Paltrow in stuff, flakey as she seems to be in real life. I wasn’t as totally thrilled with the Nick Fury cameo in the end credits, because as much as I loved the Marvel Universe when I was a kid reading comics, I’m not sure I’m enthusiastic about “Marvel Universalizing” the various movies they have coming out over the next few years. But that’s just me.

I’m told that Iron Man 2 is not as good as the first, but I’ll find that out for myself at some point.

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A bookish complaint


Comparing…., originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

OK, here are two books of mine. One is the Bible, the King James Version. The other is the Riverside Shakespeare. OK? OK.

Now, I think I’ve alluded in the past that when I see a Complete Shakespeare on the shelves at the Library Book Sale, I often can’t pass it up. And there is a Complete Shakespeare to be had, more often than not. This is why I now own, off the top of my head, six Complete Shakespeare’s.

Now, these are all different in various ways. Two — the Riverside pictured here and another one whose publisher I can’t recall — are clearly intended for students, containing within them numerous footnotes, background information, essays on Shakespeare, and so on. The other four are intended for readers; they have a lot less in terms of “extras”, although one is lavishly illustrated with engravings throughout, and one is a Cambridge edition printed in 1906. I got this one because it’s pretty and old.

Will I acquire any more Complete Shakespeare’s? Maybe, maybe not. I won’t be buying any that don’t catch my eye for any particularly special reason, but I also don’t rule out that possibility, either. And one craft-type thing I wouldn’t mind doing someday is making my own hollow book, for the keeping of Various And Sundry Things. I could hollow out a Bible, but really, the only thing those are good for hiding are rock hammers, and I don’t even own a rock hammer. (Yeah, a little light Shawshank humor there.)

But here’s something that bugs me: I have never seen a Complete Shakespeare that wasn’t something of a doorstop. This bothers me, especially when I compare a typical-sized Complete Shakespeare to the Bible. Look at the comparison in size there! You can easily carry a Bible around with you in your book bag; in fact, I suspect that many Bibles are printed in such a way as to encourage precisely that.

Now, a Complete Shakespeare does have quite a few more words in it than a Bible. A bit of Googling turned up these numbers:

Word count of the Bible: 774,746*

Word count of Shakespeare’s plays: 928,913*

So, throwing in the Sonnets and other poetry, just to make a random guess, a Complete Shakespeare would have somewhere around 1,100,000 words. And that means that it would theoretically possible to make a Complete Shakespeare, using typography and paper stock, that is only half again larger than that Bible pictured above. I do own a Study Bible that is twice as thick as that KJV there in the picture (same dimensions of length and width); its extra thickness comes from all those extra materials that make it a “Study” Bible: maps, essays, sidebars, inserts, and so on.

So why can’t there be a Complete Shakespeare that is printed like most Bibles? So I can carry it around? Why not?

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Sentential Links, deferred

Sorry, folks, but the first Sentential Links of 2011 will run next Monday. This is because virtually all of Blogistan turned in substandard effort last week. Come on, people. I can’t keep doing the heavy lifting!

(Well, OK, not really. I was just doing other stuff most of the weekend. But yeah, we’ll be back next week for Sentential Links. And for those of you who haven’t looked in here in a bit, make sure you check my 2010 year’s end posts, here and here.)

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Getting Buffalo’s back!

Ken Levine cracks wise from sunny LA:

How many folks from Buffalo just saw the Rose Parade and already have the U-Haul packed for LA? It rains here and we have no NFL team.

Well, being ever the one to stick up for Buffalo when our fair city is besmirch’d, I wrote in Ken’s comments:

I’m from Buffalo, and I’ll happily put up with snow for the even greater peace of mind that comes with being pretty confident that my city isn’t someday going to fall off the mainland. Oh, and that driving to a suburb that’s 15 minutes away actually takes 15 minutes nearly every day (barring accidents) and that every summer I don’t have to wonder which of our suburbs is going to be consumed in the wildfires. Harumph!

(Oh, and our weather on Jan 1 this year? It was 50 and rainy!)

Score one for Buffalo! Hip hip…well, I guess you hadda be there.

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