Ajax The Gray chases Eartha Kitt’N around the shop area.
Did anyone else catch sight of Deception Pass Bridge and Bowman Bay featured in a Superbowl ad?
The writing of book 2 continues, with a revision of setting and some characters too, a scaling down.
While doing this I’ve watched movies at night as a break and these five films stand out:
1 ): Micmacs — This French film is by the director of Amelie and he creates just as comical, colorful and fantastical a world. The premise is a stretch but it gets the story going. A film rental store worker is hit in the head by a stray bullet while standing outside the store. He survives with the bullet lodged in his head and seeks revenge against the bullet’s manufacturer. The man also seeks revenge against the competing weapon manufacturing corporation across the street, which is also to blame for the man’s father’s death. He has an axe to grind and he’s befriended by a motley crew of street people, each with a unique talent. Fun to watch. It reminded me of a Terry Gilliam film.
2 ): Devil — I know a lot of people cannot stand anything M. Night Shyamalan has created lately. The Happening didn’t happen the way he predicted (I have a soft spot for it though). The Last Airbender made me want to go on a bender. Devil, a film he thought of, but didn’t direct, is a twisty take on good versus evil and making amends. It plays out mostly inside an elevator stuck between floors and the five sorry souls trapped there. All of them are burdened by terrible secrets and the devil has come to make them pay. It’s a cross between Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, The Omen, and many Alfred Hitchcock films where space is confined. It’s very suspenseful and the acting is good, and it’s relatively bloodless compared to the very violent and bloody suspense/horror films put out today that just mask any sense of suspense. Tak Fujimoto did the cinematography and it looks sharp.
3 ): Please Give — Definitely one of the best films of 2010 now out on dvd. It’s a drama and the acting is great with a big cast of name actors, and a meandering plot/direction circling the ideas of grief/death/love/self-loathing/guilt/narcissism. It’s also a very funny movie too.
4 ): Restrepo — The Afghanistan documentary that follows a troop in the worst part of the war torn country for a year. It is an amazing accomplishment and the sadness and bravery of the men there should be seen by everyone.
5 ): Red Hill — Another small film from Australia, a country making a string of great to brilliant films of late: Animal Kingdom, The Square. Red Hill stars Ryan Kwantan as a new deputy in a hill country town on his first day of work. It becomes a revenge flick where nothing is as it seems and I went along for the thrilling ride.
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