Into The Night
Check out this great time-lapsed video of Chicago along Lake Shore Drive.
Into the Night from kris.wm on Vimeo.
Solaris
I recently watched Steven Soderberg's remake of the 1972 Russian film "Solyaris" which itself is an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's novel of the same name. (And, as usual, as soon as I find out about an interesting author, I also find out he or she has recently passed away. In this case, Lem died March 27th, 2006)
Andre Tarkovsky's original film is said to be a stunning masterpiece of a movie. I've not yet seen it, but it must be something because Soderberg's version is really quite amazing. Essentially there are 5 people in the entire film. Very little is said, but there is a lot of emotion. Many questions are asked and left unanswered and time flows in mysterious ways. Voiceovers do not always match the scenes being show which, for this film, is a really good effect. It's a very slow paced film, but so full of tension that there's really no other way this would have worked.
And to top it all off, Cliff Martinez' score for the film is powerful. It's almost another character in the film.
The movie I watched right after this was the low-rated "Red Planet" (Carrie-Anne Moss, Val Kilmer). Certainly not high-art, simply a bit of entertainment fodder. But I was rather surprised at how "Solaris" threw its short-comings into such sharp relief. "Solaris" forced me to focus on the film, on the characters, and on the story. But watching "Red Planet" I could drift in and out without really caring. (Indeed, I finished watching the movie while assembling the crib.)
Anyway, go rent "Solaris."
evil lair or place of employment?
In the movies, when the hero is trapped in a room, most of the time the villain will start pumping in the toxic gas. There must be some sort standard "toxic gas pumping into room" system because pretty much each time this is done, the sound is the same. The hissing sound that builds in intensity as more and more gas obscures our hero from view.
Whatever contractor or group of contractors does this villainous work also installed the HVAC system at my company. Every single time the air or heat turns on, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, I should have a gas mask in the cube and, if I did have one, how quickly I could get it on before dropping dead of asphyxiation.
Kongtastic
(note: this is one of a number of "in draft" entries I've had sitting around. I've decided to post a couple in their current state with minimal editing, just to clear them out)
helloheather and I went with Joe and Andy to see "King Kong" back on December 18th.
It is a decent film with lots of WOW special effects it does need to be seen on the big screen. This project was very near-and-dear to the director, Peter Jackson's, heart. As a result, I think some of the normal creative back-and-forth between director, producer, and crew didn't occure here. This was Peter Jackson's dream and, after coming off of LoTR, who was going to stand up and say "No, Peter, I think you don't need this many giant bugs in this scene" ?