Actually, I suppose I should fess up and say I heard this second-hand, and have no cites to prove it.

Well, I have seen footage of a pigeon and a cat subject to zero-G.

(The cat dealt with it better.)

Escape From L.A. is on USA. I've never seen this, or the first one, but I don't feel like finding anything else and I caught this at the beginning. I'm kind of into it so far. Worth even trying to stay up for without any backstory?

I think I will have to meditate on Hero for awhile. It was a very different movie from what I was expecting, but it was interesting and very beautiful. I think it might be one of those experiences that gets better with time.

Just came back from Mean Creek which I was expecting to be a lame retread of River's Edge, and was very pleased to discover was a well-written, AMAZINGLY acted little film about one powerful event in the lives of five kids and how it effects each of them. It's not an easy film to watch, but that's because you care about each of the kids. A very satisfying night in the mvies.

cry...I'd pop in Project X.

I guess you had to be...me.

No, Beej. Me too.

I think we're going to see Hero tomorrow. Either that or Alien vs. Predator. I know, but he's buying the tickets, he gets to choose. I will lean, though.

OK, who's gone helmet-less into an airlock in vacuum?

Ok, I'm being sorta' facetious, but how has this been proven possible?

They actually did tests with controlled exposure to airlessness back when the space program was in development. As I recall, the pilot being tested remained conscious for about 15 seconds in the closest they could generate to hard vacuum, and upon awakening reported the weird sensation of saliva boiling off his tongue.

On the boring-ness of 2001, some of it is entirely satirical - you've got these wondrous eye-popping space sequences, and yet the people are just outrageously banal and mundane. Petty concerns, beauracratic methods, etc. And the movie goes a long way towards doing its best to stretch that stuff out so it becomes just as mundane to the viewer. The biggest problem with the stargate sequence is that far trippier things have been done since, as that was supposed to be the moment when things stopped being "ordinary" (i.e. the view of the characters) and were supposed to become awe-inspiring. It's probably the most dated thing about the movies at this point.

Yes to all of this. Poor dated chroma key.

the movie goes a long way towards doing its best to stretch that stuff out so it becomes just as mundane to the viewer.

I still think this is the kiss of death to any movie. "Mundane" is, generally speaking, a word to avoid evoking.

I do think there's a difference between movie-spectacle and lack of narrative. I mean, in musicals, yes the plot comes to a complete halt for the song to proceed, but that song contains clues about the emotions and motivations of the characters. Even the wordless dance sequences with Cyd Charisse in Singin in the Rain show what it is Gene Kelly gotta dance about. (And are full of this wonderful longing.) Of course, in West Side Story, a major plot point happens wordlessly in song, as Tony and Maria meet and fall in love.

I would call The Thin Red Line about 80% narrative-free, focussing instead on the beauty of the landscape (that the soldiers are churning up as they cross it). The other 20% was dress rehearsal for The Passion of the Christ, so I coulda lived without it anyway. But, you know, some people did like it. (Me, I like Malick more when he can make his sense of beauty serve a story.)

I think 2001 is the kind of movie that now, in the fullness of my adult understanding, I can appreciate as long as I never see it again. I can think about its intent and technique and processes (and poor dumb HAL, who was the only character who moved me), as long as I can forget the boring parts.

I think 2001 now suffers on two points, neither of which are the actual point. One is, as stated the unspecialness of the effects. To that end, I think a Jurassic Park or Terminator 2 does a better job (not saying they are better movies, note) of doing big new things with SFX, but not spending too much time dwelling on them.

And then there's space. I think we're horribly blasé about it now. So the whole looking and revelling thing? Not so exciting. We're used to space with thing happening (which pretty much means explosions or chases) in it.

I saw Garden State yesterday. It is fantastic -- I think I liked it more than (or, at least as much as) Lost in Translation, which is high praise.

Two plot questions, whitefonted for the sensitive:

1. The journey Mark takes Andrew on on his last full day in town -- was he actually doing what he seemed to be doing, that is, trading favors until he could get the necklace back from the antique dealer? Or was it all a ruse so Andrew would appreciate the necklace when he got it, in a way he wouldn't have if Mark had just handed it over? I thought the latter, my husband the former.

2. This is a nitpicky thing, but did it bug anyone else that Sam didn't seem to actually need to go to work at any point during the filmm, after it is established that she needs her job for the health insurance?