:: Omnia Mutantur ::

:: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 ::

Attack of the David Lynch clones

I won't even go into Attack of the Clones - you probably already know what I have to say.

Serial Experiments Lain, however, is an entirely different beast - a chimera of anime TV series I'm still trying to fit it into my memory space. It's a lot like what the end result would have been had David Lynch made Ghost in the Shell - an interesting, weird story charged with dreamlike scenes that never quite fit together and aren't always fully explained (or at all!), and that takes 5 hours to do what could well have been accomplished in a two hour movie.

Maybe the writers wanted to create something that felt larger than life, and so weird it couldn't possibly be our reality, but the end result feels self-indulgent and strange just for strangeness' sake. Much like David Lynch's recent efforts.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 7:52 PM [+] ::
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Beware of (false) Geeks bearing gifts

Interesting, Microsoft is going to LinuxWorld. The article is as much a good read for the news content itself as for the replies it has received (look for Frapazoid's five things not to do).

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 1:56 PM [+] ::
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It's the journey that matters

Lately I've been getting bored with the writers I regularly read. It is probably a side effect of having read too many books, but most of the times I not only know what's going to happen but how the writer is going to tell us about it. So what to do?

I decided to start reading books of authors I knew nothing about. While there have been some failed experiments (like Ann Benson's The Plage Tales), I've experienced some pleasant surprises like Margaret Atwood's latest, The Blind Assassin. It mixes two stories - a novel written by the narrator's sister and the narrator's own family story, told some fifty years later - and the result is more than the sum of its parts. There are plot twists and surprises you can see coming from the very beginning of the book, but like in The Bridges of Madison County (the movie, not the dull book) what matters is Margaret Atwood's beautiful narration, entrancing you and making the book worth reading.

On very much the same vein, Robert Altman's Gosford Park is a whodunit where who did it doesn't actually matter - it's all about the bizantine interactions between a group of rich British snobs, their mostly-reluctant servants and a small group of outsiders, all out for a hunting trip on 1932 at a mansion called Gosford Park. Who cares who murdered the detestable old bastard (even if we do find out later on) when the dialogue is as well crafted? Perhaps the best example of the movie's excellent script is that when it starts - and perhaps for the first half hour - you can't tell a Trentham from a McCordle or a Parks (and certainly would be hard pressed to say what Mrs. Croft does); but by the time the movie ends, you know all of these characters' personalities, secrets and longings - all of this without any expository dialogue and just through their interaction with each other.

Just be forewarned: it's a seven-course dinner of a movie, so while exquisite, you should go to it rested, with an empty stomach and ample time on your hands.

PS: I had mispelled it Godsford Park the first time around.

:: Ricardo J. Méndez 1:23 PM [+] ::
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