“Hugo”
Mary and I saw Hugo last night, Martin Scorcese's new 3D family movie. He hits all the right notes. The 3D is used well, the family movie vibe is right on. And it's fundamentally about movies. Makes me want to pick up a camera and direct something again. Making movies is just a lot of fun. Maybe I'll have to adapt one of these novels someday … 🙂
Steve Jobs
One of the books I started and finished over the weekend in Portland was Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. It is a massive read, and I found it at times very good.There are a lot of stories I hadn't known, but the stories of most of the products–the iPad, the iPhone, I had picked up recently. Perhaps most interesting was the role Steve played with Pixar. I had no idea how active he was with the company, and some of the stories about the creation of Toy Story were really interesting (early on Disney kept pushing for more "edge," so Read more…
Some Recent Fiction Reads
I’ve read a few interesting books in the last month: I, Robot, Isaac Asimov. Asimov’s collection of short stories about artificial intelligence is more than 60 years old at this point. He created 3 Laws of Robotics that govern all robot interactions with humans–laws that are programmed into the robots, I mean–and most of the stories in the book are concerned with how those laws interact with each other and the quirks that result. Out of the 9 stories, I’d say 4 or 5 really worked for me. It was often too hard to get past where he had guessed Read more…
Three movies
Midnight in Paris, Super 8, and The Hangover Part II Midnight in Paris is a Woody Allen comedy. It's his best movie since Match Point, and his best comedy since the mid-90s. Owen Wilson is great, and the supporting cast is too. This was a summer charmer. Super 8 was good. It's exciting, it's funny, it's touching, and the kid actors are really great. This was a fun movie. It's directed by JJ Abrams, and produced by Spielberg, and it's definitely got flavors of both of them. It's not 100%–there's some stuff that doesn't quite work, but a lot that Read more…
Some recent movies
Recently, Mary and I saw Jane Eyre and Win Win at the Grand. My expectations for Jane Eyre were too high. It was a good movie, excellently cast, but I had been expecting a lot more for some reason. I wish also that Jane had turned to the screen and said, "Viewer, I married him." But alas, it wasn't that kind of movie. Win Win was really good. Again, well cast, funny, and also a good story. Paul Giamatti was good, Amy Ryan was good, the starring kid was good. I really liked this movie. I don't know what to Read more…
Some movies …
This past weekend Mary and I saw Arthur and The Conspirator. Arthur was meh. Some charm and good jokes every so often, but too long of stretches in between. The Conspirator was ok, but also, a litle slow. It’s the story of a trial of a conspirator of John Wilkes Booth. James McAvoy was really strong in the lead but the movie just never quite worked for me. Put another way, the story looked more interesting than the movie itself was. Still, even with two so-so movies, it was nice to spend in a little time in a movie theater Read more…
These Things I Have Watched
Downton Abbey. It's on PBS. I didn't intend to get hooked on a British show about a rich English estate just before WWI, but I did. Good stuff. Think Gosford Park, without the murder mystery, where servants and the family get equal screen time. Hall Pass. This was a pretty good movie about men behaving badly. It was funny, though some jokes thudded. But it avoided what could have been egregious mistakes. One of its best qualities was its focus on the women. From the previews, it looked like it would all be Owen Wilson and Jason Sudekis, but Jenna Read more…
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