Tuesday, January 31, 2012

It's A Lady Vanishes and My Fair Lady

But with more nudity!

I kid, I kid. There's no nudity at all in Night Train to Munich. It's not a bad little film, I guess, but the train doesn't figure as largely as the title seems to imply that it will. The original title, Gestapo, would have been better, but considering it was made in 1940 one can see how that might have been a bit touchy. Details after the jump!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Terry Pratchett no longer writes comedic fiction

He now writes mildly amusing morality plays. There is little that is more incongruous than an atheist who insists on telling other people how they ought to live. His latest work, Snuff, is no exception from the general rule that his more recent books contain less humour and more preaching than his early books did. He's spent a lot of time busily rehabilitating all the monsters and villains of his early books and making them tragically misunderstood and this time it's the goblins' turn. Spoileration to follow.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Dystopian Religious Fiction

I finally got around to reading A Canticle for Leibowitz after seeing it mentioned in various places over and over as the seminal dystopian future novel. It's a bit SF and a bit fantasy, I suppose. I was, on balance, surprised with how kindly Walter Miller treated religion in his book; specifically Catholicism.

I come, not to bury censorship, but to praise it.

I've long held that a little censorship now and then is cherished by the wisest men. (With apologies to Roald Dahl.)

Now hear this.

Wesley Smith over at Secondhand Smoke does yeoman service in the cause of life. He makes the excellent point in this post that one is more apt to penetrate the willful ignorance of the fact of human life in the womb by choosing an appealing tack rather than a repulsive one.

Some day, our distant descendants will look back at us and marvel that we could have ever have argued in seriousness that the babies in the womb were not human or alive or any of the other ridiculous notions some people present. It will be much like how we look back and marvel that anyone ever denied a black man's humanity to keep him in bondage.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Mmmmm... forbidden donut....

"You Americans and your due process. This is always so much easier in Mexico."

As long as I'm doing the whole photoblogging thing, I might as well post the reason that it's good to be friends with the clerks at your local French-style patisserie.

What's this, what's this?

 Did someone receive some snazzy new glassware at Yuletide?




















Why, yes. Yes, I did.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

My eyes! The goggles! They do nothing!

As much as I deprecate the effort that Peter Jackson made with The Lord of the Rings and as poorly as I expect his version of The Hobbit to turn out, at least it can't be as bad as this.

Cold comfort, indeed.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

New blog features

I've added a couple lists to the blog over on the left. The first is a running list of the books I've read this year (only 3 so far) and the other is the movies I've seen this year.

I'd suggest the mysteries only to someone who is quite interested in Edwardian England or, more specifically, mysteries set in that period. Ngaio Marsh's books would probably be of particular interest to folks who are fond of Dorothy Sayers. The early books are a bit weaker, and the lady doth protest too much about not copying Lord Peter Wimsey, but Rory Alleyn develops into his own character eventually.

Of the movies, the second movie was decidedly less good than the first. A Canterbury Tale is too maudlin generally and specifically suffers from a very weak ending. In the Mood for Love is a very good romance film set in Hong Kong in the 1960's. The main characters live next door to each other and discover independently that their respective spouses (I hate that word) are having an affair together. After they both realize that the other knows of the infidelity, they strike up a friendship and find a mutual attraction, but are determined not to betray as they have been betrayed.

On the whole, they are successful, but it's not a picture-perfect platonic, courtly romance from some medieval French poem. They're not perfect people and things don't turn out perfectly for anyone, really. I strongly suggest not watching the DVD deleted scenes. They were deleted for a reason and they would spoiled the film for me entirely if they had been left in.