Movies & Books, Books & Movies

(the reason for the time machine cartoon will be made perfectly clear towards the end of this blog entry)

Book talk first...

So I'm almost halfway through my current read:

Winchester, Simon. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded.

New York: Harper Collins, 2003. Print.

I'm just getting to the part where the volcano erupts, exciting! (Spoiler alert: the volcano does in fact erupt!) So far the author has gone through sort of the history of the islands & the volcano, given some background on the events which occurred leading up to the eruption (such as the rivalries between the major European powers of the day competing against each other for influence, power & riches in the far east; the impact of trade & colonisation in Indonesia & Java; the growth and development of the settlements; relations between the various foreign groups & the indigenous peoples; political, technological & scientific developments relevant to the story; and so on & so forth), as well as going into the natural history, a bit of primer on the geology (including plate tectonics theory & the development of said theory) & geography. It's all been really quite interesting.

But now it's getting to the part where things are going to go KABLAMO! and start to get all crazy and catastrophic and disaster-y. So yeah, I'm really enjoying it and looking forward to getting farther into it.

Now onward to the movies part of this post...

The two most recent movies I've seen (just this past week and a half or so) have been Avatar & The White Ribbon. I'll give some thoughts on them.

Avatar

I watched it with my siblings in 3D at the IMAX, which was rather neat. I had some difficulties getting into the 3D thing at first, as I felt very aware of the 3D camera trickery stuff going on. Do you know what I mean? Like I was very much noticing the glasses on my head (wearing two sets of glasses at once feels really weird), and seeing the different 'layers' of the film & having a hard time consolidating them into a single picture. Like the 'foreground', the 'middleground' and the 'background' were seeming very separate and therefore weird. But after a while, maybe an hour or so into the movie, I gradually got into it & wasn't noticing it as much.

Anyhow, it was a good "popcorn movie" which I suppose it what it is supposed to be. All spectacle. I didn't find the story to be that substantial, and some of the story that was there, seemed a tad corny. It was way too predictable, and I found so much of the alien stuff to be too "kumbaya" and "cowboys and indians." The heavily idealised fairy tale "one with nature" stuff that was incorporated into the aliens seemed like it was being laid on a little bit thick.

Having said all that, it was still a very fun movie to watch & I'd really like to go see it again before it ceases to be playing in the theatres (although at this point it is starting to seem likely that it will never ever ever leave the cinemas, never ever!)

The White Ribbon

I saw it on it's final day showing in the theatre with my friend Jen. This movie was not very good at all. I didn't get it. I like for a movie to have an actual plot structure. At first I was thinking that it was just being a little slow to get started... then really slow to get started. They sort of set up a bunch of different little subplots, but there was nothing to really tie any of it together & in the end NOTHING was resolved. There was no resolution at all and so the movie felt very unsatisfying.

There was the bits where the schoolteacher was narrating, as if reminiscing over it all and telling the story many years after the fact. But that just leaves you wondering, why would he even be bothering to tell the story because he doesn't actually tell you what happens, so the entire thing seems completely pointless! At one point towards the end, maybe a third of the cast is just gone, vamoosed & vanished never to be seen again apparently, but even with the characters that remain you are not told or given an impression of what happens with them. Everything is left hanging.

The stupid part is that they had a lot of material that could have made for an interesting film, but they just never did anything with it or took it anywhere. They could have done so much more with what they had. But there was no rising action, no plot, no climax, and no ending. It's just a lot of bitter, miserable German villagers wallowing in a bottomless mud puddle of futility. So you're left feeling kinda cheated. When it was ending and the credits began rolling I was left with the feeling, "that's it? Really? That can't be it, it can't finish like that without really being finished, can it? Seriously? I've been bamboozled!"

I'm lucky I had great company & so for that reason I still enjoyed going out and seeing it. If I had went to see it on my own I probably would have walked out and asked for my money back. Or perhaps after having seen it on my own, I could/should have invented, designed and constructed an ingenious contraption that I shall call a "time machine" and used that quite marvelous and rather remarkable device to travel back in time to before I went into the theatre & so regain the three hours of my life I had lost to it. I suggest avoiding the White Ribbon as if it were the plague. Or a least get yourself vaccinated.

Wow, I'm really rambly today aren't I? I totally should have broken this up into three smaller posts. You live and you learn, right?

PS: I love time machines. Best invention ever.