Pretty damn fast, too.
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Archive for Deborah Lipp
L Trivia Solutions (All Done!)
Tuesday Trivia: Starts with “L”
All solved!
(“The” doesn’t count.)
1. The female star of this movie is now banned in China because of her willingness to appear nude. The male star, who also appeared nude in this movie, is not banned.
Solved by TehipiteTom (comment #2).
2. A young prodigy wears a black cape everywhere he goes.
Solved by George (comment #12).
3. This film’s most famous sequence takes place in a fun-house hall of mirrors.
Solved by Melville (comment #1).
4. The only movie in which Christopher Guest acts with his brother Nicholas.
Solved by Melville (comment #1).
5. Woman: “You’re gonna flunk out if you don’t study.”
Man: “I am studying.”
Woman: “Bullshit. You’re looking at my legs.”
Solved by Evn (comment #5).
6. In this Diane Keaton movie, she is reading the book The Godfather, and another character mentions that he has seen the movie (which featured Diane Keaton).
Solved by George (comment #12).
7. A man delivers a message to a woman by showing her large cue cards.
Solved by Roberta (comment #11).
New Amsterdam
I read this novel by Pete Hamill called Forever. It’s one of my favorite novels; I should read more Hamill. It’s about an immortal who lives in New York. He arrives in Manhattan from Ireland as a young man in the 1760s, and is nearly killed during the Revolutionary War. A freed slave/shaman whom he once helped saves him by invoking the River Gods to save his life. As a result, he is immortal but bounded by the rivers—that is, the Hudson and the Harlem rivers—he can never leave the island of Manhattan.
This tale of immortality allows Hamill to tell the history of New York through the eyes of immortality; from the 18th century to the present. It’s a wonderful story and a wonderful conceit. Gangs of New York reminded me of the novel; the period in Gangs is covered by the book, and the flash-forward at the end of Gangs brought the notion of New York City as an immortal being to the fore.
Now there’s a TV show called New Amsterdam. Although Hamill does not seem to be acknowledged anywhere in the credits, there is no doubt it’s an adaptation. “John Amsterdam” is about 100 years older than Hamill’s protagonist, is Dutch rather than Irish, but he too is an immortal embodiment of NYC. He, too, searches for the true love who will end his eternal youth and with whom he will age.
So, okay, Hamill should sue. But I was interested in seeing the show. It’s really quite good. The lead (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is super-handsome in an Aaron Eckhart kind of way, but he’s not bland. The interweaving of past and present is deft. He’s a homicide detective (having been many things in many “lives”) and the murder-of-the-week that I saw was smart and engaging but not too distracting from the back story that’s the real meat of the show.
Mondays at 9; I’m looking forward to getting hooked on this one.
Monday Movie Review: Amistad
Amistad (1997) 6/10
On a slave ship heading for America, the captive Africans rebel, led by Cinque (Djimon Hounsou). Recaptured once they reach the United States, two abolitionists (Morgan Freeman and Stellan Skarsgård) hire an attorney (Matthew McConaughey) to defend the Africans. The case goes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it is argued by John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins). Directed by Stephen Spielberg.
I don’t know, I feel like not liking Amistad is probably like not liking apple pie or my Mom or Family Values or cute babies. But Geez Pete, I’m sorry. I really do love my Mom, you know.
Amistad is an exercise in self-importance. Everyone in it is hyper-aware that they are in an Important Historical Drama and This Story Must Be Told. It really is that heavily capitalized throughout. Freeman proves that he can be a Magical Negro even in a movie with lots of other blacks. Hopkins validates the Academy’s ability to nominate a great actor’s worst performance. And by the way, John William’s score sucks.
Look, this is kind of a beautiful story. It’s definitely a page from history that very few Americans are taught. It’s a fascinating and complex story that deserved to be told. It’s just that the filmmakers were far too self-aware of all that. The two and a half hour runtime felt interminable. At least 30 minutes were consumed by Dramatic Close-ups, Meaningful Slo-Mo, and Moments When the Music Swells. Seriously. The score punctuated every important moment with HUGE swells, often with a choir of quasi-religious voices going WILD WITH JOY. It was really all too much. I watched it alone and felt like blushing.
The period is captured beautifully. The visuals are stunning. The time spent on the slave ship is breathtaking and incredibly disturbing. The politics of the events; the attitude of President Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne) and of other politicians towards Adams, the maneuvering between North and South, between the U.S. and Spain, all of this is enormously interesting. And clearly it didn’t need to be, it could have stopped the movie cold, but it added flesh and sense to the tale. I admire the sweep of the film, to take on so much complexity and so many facets of the story and still create something cohesive. Spielberg is certainly a professional!
Kudos to Matthew McConaughey for holding his own among a bunch of heavy hitters and keeping his shirt on, to David Paymer for being one of Hollywood’s true work horses, and to Hounsou for a dignified and clear performance.
I highly recommend reading a book or encylopedia entry about this incident, and avoiding the film.
Crash! Bang! Boom!
So there was this huge-ass windstorm all day yesterday. I stayed in. Intermittent rain, sometimes lots, but mostly wind that made the house shake. At some point in the late evening loud thunder started, but the house had been shaking all day so it didn’t really register.
Except when I went upstairs and found the cable modem was fried. That registered.
Now I don’t know what the story is, except that the little light on the “online” indicator isn’t on. I have my work computer at home so I can get work done, but shit.
Blog Review Meme
Amy tagged me with this. It’s a nice meme that can get you reading new blogs you may have overlooked.
1. Once tagged, write up short review for 5 blogs that you read regularly, including the blog of the person that tagged you.
2. Leave a comment tagging the blogs you’ve reviewed, telling them to continue the meme.
3. If someone writes a review of your blog, you must respond by writing a review of their blog (unless you’ve already written one).
4. After a few days, write a post compiling what all the other bloggers say about you, good or bad, true or untrue.
And my reviews:
First Radioactive Quill, who tagged me. Amy blogs regularly but infrequently, comments on the media, loves Stephen Colbert beyond all reason, is funny and snarky, and I really like reading her. I also love the clean white blog layout, so easy on my old watery eyes. The only thing I don’t like about RQ is the lack of comments. I wish she had them. Blogs are at their most fun, in my opinion, when they’re interactive.
The Wild Hunt is king of the Pagan blogging hill. Jason Pitzl-Waters does a superb job of combining news about, and of interest to, Pagans, with a strong voice. He’s opinionated, but he makes sure each entry reports as well as opines. He has been a gathering place for some interesting controversies, where hundreds of comments slammed a few select posts; most posts have few or no comments.
Pandora’s Bazaar is a smaller and more personal Pagan blog. Cosette is thoughtful and serious. She reads and reviews books, wonders about issues of theology, discusses her explorations on the path, personalizes the transcendant, and in general is very readable.
Girls Read Comics (And They’re Pissed) is more or less what it sounds like. Author Karen Healy is a feminist comics fan. I don’t read a lot of comics, but I’m extremely interested in the interface between feminism and pop culture. Karen is really smart and really funny and there are pictures.
Rich Sommer: The Blog is just so cute. Rich Sommer plays Harry Crane on Mad Men, which is the best show on TV. He’s not a star, and he’s sweet and he has a new baby and he’s kind of geeky, and the blog is mostly, new baby, lovely wife, ohmigodz my show is a hit and I’m going to the SAG Awards, some gaming, look! Baby pictures! And like that. Just sweet and charming and a pleasure to read.
Ten Things I Love About My Body
Pagan author Dianne Sylvan asks us to list ten things we love about our bodies. Great idea.
1. I love my beautiful long neck. I can wear super-long earrings that would thwack most people in the shoulders, but on me they dangle above the shoulders. It is truly swan-like and I love it.
2. I love my big brown eyes. The neck and the eyes are typical Taurean traits, although surely I might have ended up with the fat bull-neck that Taurus sometimes has, and sleepy-brown rather than deep-brown eyes.
3. I love being busty. I don’t think these are necessarily the two best large breasts ever, but I love having an ample chest, overflowing the bra, all that. I feel stupidly proud of it (as if I had something to do with it!).
4. I have great teeth. My gums don’t recede or bleed, I’ve never had a root canal, I can eat ice cream without pain, they’re fairly white, and in excellent working order. Thank you, Mom, for drinking plenty of milk during pregnancy.
5. I have always gotten compliments on my skin. This one is kind of harder, because I notice the flaws, I notice when a pimple shows up, whereas others notice a generally flawless complexion with tiny pores. But I love the compliments, and I also adore the way my skin looks with some makeup on. (Man, do I love foundation!)
6. When I was in the hospital with a broken knee, the nurse praised me for having terrific upper body strength. I was able to use the overheard bar to move myself without any difficulty, and this was a huge help throughout my recovery. I was never complimented on my strength before. It made me feel good about myself; I’d previously thought I was so wimpy. So I love my upper body strength.
7. Speaking of being in the hospital, I really do love my scars. They’re awful and horrific and I love them. I love their strangeness and their inherent storytelling. I love the way they stop and say, my body is not just a picture of a body, it’s lived experience and it shows change.
8. And speaking of change, I love my tattoos. I have been changing my body consciously with tattooing for 25 years. I have no intention of ever stopping. My artwork is a part of me that is beautiful, special, unique, creative, and interacts with the world.
9. I love my full lips. Someone once told me I had the lips of a Victoria’s Secret model. That was cool.
10. I love my immune system. This has been a kickass season for me with getting sick, but generally I don’t get sick much, and when I do, I don’t get it as badly as other people with the same cold or flu or whatever. I feel fully capable of fighting off whatever hits me. That’s a good feeling.
Your turn.
Tuesday Trivia Solutions
All solved, very fast, despite no helpful theme and a wide range of movie eras and types.
Tuesday Trivia: Random hits (all done!)
1. A woman in riding jodphurs dancing in a gazebo.
Solved by Melville (comment #8).
2. “I gots to know!”
Solved 1/2 by Ken (comment #10) and 1/2 by Evn (comment #13).
3. A Native American shaman conducts a healing ceremony in a semi-private hospital room, frightening the other patient.
Solved by Melville (comment #4).
4. Instead of giving her friend directions to a party in Tokyo, she faxes him a map.
Solved by treecat (comment #7).
5. “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.”
Solved by Melville (comment #4).
6. A dog on rollerskates.
Solved by Evn (comment #2).
7. The milquetoast tells the heist plan to his wife, who tells it to her lover, who decides to horn in on the action.
Solved by TehipiteTom (comment #9).
