It's been about two weeks since my last post. Here's my attempt at a brief review of all the books, movies and music I've absorbed since then:
Casino Royale. This is not your father's James Bond. I admit, I was a little skeptical of Daniel Craig (above) taking over the role, but any doubts I had went out the window once the movie started. Without a doubt, this one is top 3 in my list of favorite Bond movies, behind only
Dr. No and
Goldfinger. Why did I love it so much? No ridiculous gadgets, no cheesy lines, and no fight scenes where Bond barely breaks a sweat. As Judi Dench's M refers to him in one scene, Craig's Bond is a "blunt instrument". This is Bond as Ian Fleming intended him to be—a brutal professional hitman who gets the job done and then drinks and screws his memories away. By stripping the character down to his origin (much like
Batman Begins did for the Batman franchise) and conciously trying to echo the tone of the earliest Connery films,
Casino Royale gave James Bond exactly the type of reboot the aging, graying franchise was in dire need of. The suave, smooth secret agent so many of us had come to know in the Roger Moore—Pierce Brosnan years had become irrelevant, and it was either time to retire the character or start over. They made the right choice. The opening chase scene following the credits is one of the most intense stunt scenes I've ever seen, and Craig plays Bond with just the right mix of cold calculation and darkness. I very much hope he gets a chance to play Bond again, and I hope the filmmakers continue in this vein.
Inside Man. Spike Lee's layered bank heist film was worth watching just to see Jodie Foster play completely against character as a powerful "problem-solver" for New York's elite, but I was pretty disappointed in the twist ending. After all that build-up, I expected more. Still, I was surprised Lee went so mainstream with this film until I noticed he managed to throw in a few subtle touches that made me think he's still trying to subvert the system, this time by working through it.
Bobby. Emilio Estevez surprised me with the depth and deftness of his directing on this huge ensemble piece following a variety of characters in LA's Ambassador Hotel on the day of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. If only his pacing could have been as good. The movie has an incredible cast, but after spending so much time with each of them, I was exhausted by the time the fateful event arrived. A little editing might have made this a fantastic movie. Instead, it was OK.
Nacho Libre. Jack Black wears a wrestler's mask, a monk's cowl, and a polyester jumpsuit and acts silly in Mexican-accented, PG sort of way. Good for a couple cute laughs and not much more.
Superman, The Dailies: 1939-1942. A nicely-packaged collection of all the Superman newspaper strips from the early WWII era gives an interesting look into the origin of the character. At this point, Superman spends most of his time fighting foreign agents and gangsters, rather than the supervillains we've come to know and love. Clark worked for a newspaper called the Daily Star (not the Daily Planet) and Superman's powers were quite a bit different from what we know today. They were influenced by gravity, not the sun's yellow rays, and there's no sign of heat vision, freezing breath, or flight (he can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he can't fly over them yet). Also yet to appear is any sign of political correctness. Most notably, Clark's condescending attitude toward Lois, who constantly tries to scheme her way off the Love advice column and into a "real" reporter's job.
Girlfriend (Legacy Edition), Matthew Sweet. This 1991 album gets the well-deserved double-disc deluxe treatment. The first disc is a remastered version of the album plus three demo versions from the Girlfriend EP, and a second disc contains Good Friend, a collection of live and alternate versions of songs from Girlfriend, as well as a few covers that betray Sweet's influences. The highlight here is a live cover of Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" with the Indigo Girls. Listening to this disc again takes me back to the moment when I discovered "alternative" rock. After a steady diet of hair metal in high school, I was ready for something different when I got to college. Girlfriend dropped right around the same time as Nirvana's
Nevermind and Pearl Jam's
Ten. But while those albums sometimes get dialed up in my iTunes as period pieces from the days when grunge ruled the earth, Girlfriend withstood the test of time. I listen to it as often today as I did 15 years ago.
Here's a crapload more music, either bought or downloaded, way too much to review.
A Christmas Album, California Guitar Trio
A Grand Don't Come for Free, The Streets
Ben Kweller, Ben Kweller
How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, Chris Thile
Stay Under the Stars, Teitur
Merry Mixmas: Christmas Classics Remixed, Various Artists
Long Island Shores, Mindy Smith
Awake is the New Sleep, Ben Lee
Try!, John Mayer Trio
Language Sex Violence Other?, Stereophonics
Has Been, William Shatner
Too Far to Care, Old 97's
The Black Magic Show, Elefant
Traveler '06: A Six Degrees CollectionA Baroque ChristmasNightcrawler, Pete Yorn
Shine, Trey Anastasio
The Duhks, The Duhks
2005 Warped Tour CompilationSuicide Squeeze Records: Slaying Since 1996
Hopelessly Devoted to You, Vol. 6
Sweet. (Those are lounge chairs buried under all that powder.) We've gotten at least 12 inches in the past 9 hours, and we're supposed to get 10-12 more through tomorrow. It's bad enough that the Governor has declared a disaster emergency. I'm really glad I'm not traveling for Christmas vacation today or tomorrow.
Every year, Time picks their Person of the Year (formerly known as Man of the Year until they got beat down by the PC Police) who has had a major impact on the world over the past 12 months, and this year, they totally copped out. This is a half-assed attempt to address the fact that ordinary average citizens are contributing more and more to the global conciousness through blogs, MySpace pages, and photo and video-sharing (on sites like YouTube, which anyone with a tiny level of awareness will recognize on the screen of the iMac on Time's cover).
While I may not agree with all the choices, I like Sam Smyth's idea of ranking 2006's best movie posters. After a long period of predictablity and unoriginality, interesting and creative design is beginning to make a comeback, at least for movies outside the realm of the typical blockbuster. My personal top pick would be the above poster for The Illusionist, but then again, I'm a type nerd.
I haven't posted anything about soccer in quite a while, but Monday brought the surprising news that DC United had traded starlet Freddy Adu to Real Salt Lake. Freddy was packaged with backup goalkeeper Nick Rimando in exchange for RSL's backup 'keeper Jay Nolly (who's younger and has a much lower salary than Rimando), a major player allocation, and future considerations. When my dad first emailed me the link, I thought it was a joke, but after more consideration, this seems to be a pretty good trade for almost everyone. United unloads a high-profile but somewhat temperamental teenager who hasn't always had the strongest relationship with his coach, and who also seems very likely to move to a team in Europe this summer once he turns 18 (FIFA rules prevent players from playing for teams outside their home country before their 18th birthday). They also move a goalie whose salary was much too high to be a backup and could be starting on several other teams in the league. In exchange, they receive a lot of cap space, the ability to sign several high-profile players they've been scouting before the season begins (rather than in the middle of the year, which would have been the case had they held onto Freddy and he left for Europe), and still receive a good portion of the transfer fee if Freddy does end up being sold to a Euro team.
This is me, on skis and smiling. I post this picture because this is the first known occurrence of this combination. In the past, skis and I have been like oil and water. Downhill skiing, water skiing... it didn't matter where I was, I did not like the feeling of a big board strapped to each foot. But today, that changed. I took my first cross-country lesson, opting for skate skiing (side-to-side motion) over classic (back and forth motion). As the name implies, to move yourself forward, you push off in a skating motion, as if you were ice skating or rollerblading (which helped me). I had my share of falls, some rather spectacular, but I had a good teacher, and I feel like I started to pick it up pretty quickly. By the end of the day, I was skiing 2-mile loops without falling... very much.
It's been about two weeks since my last post. Here's my attempt at a brief review of all the books, movies and music I've absorbed since then:
