The Extraordinary Adventures of Foundling Mick, by Jules Verne

Another "lost" Jules Verne novel - a better one, fortunately. But still not that good. This is Verne's tribute to Dickens, ie, attempt to write a Dickensian novel. Except he sets it in Ireland. So it's basically a kind of sentimental picaresque, which is Dickensian, sure, but Dickens is a lot better at it. I'm trying to figure out why, and all I can really think of is that his characters are more compelling, even when they are almost wholly saccharine. Verne does a fairly admirable job mustering outrage on the condition of Ireland, and getting in plenty of jabs at absentee landlords and colonial oppression, but the novel is still riddled with stereotypes. Full of "Irish" characters whose Irishness is repeatedly trumpeted. It really makes you appreciate Irish literature of the period, and its bizarre semi-ironized deployment of these same tropes, a lot more. I'll take Maria Edgeworth, or even Lady Morgan, any day over this. Sorry Jules.

The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan

As with The Omnivore's Dilemma, what makes this book worth reading isn't the prose, but the ideas. Although the introduction sets up an idea of considering the world from a plant's point of view, and there are recurring themes that run throughout the book, the whole reads more like 4 interconnnected essays. The first is about apples (really, about Johnny Appleseed), the second about tulips, the third marijuana, and the fourth, potatoes (particularly genetically engineered ones). It feels somewhat hastily connected, or maybe as though Pollan freely allowed himself to be overrun by tangents. Which is fine - as I said already, the ideas are fascinating. The book is also fantastically well researched (I was really pleased to see that he cited Catherine Gallagher's essay about the potato) and generally very interesting.

It's not, however, as good a book as Omnivore's Dilemma, for several reasons. One, that the material just isn't quite as interesting. And at moments, it really drags. But another is that the writing is clumsier - there's a lot of repetition, or just self-indulgence. I found myself wishing that he had a better editor.

Still, it IS an interesting book. The apple and marijuana sections are where it really shines - the potato is somewhat interesting, but covers a lot of the same material as OD, and the tulip section is pretty forgettable. Not a bad book, but not one I'd really wholeheartedly recommend.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

I don't like Tim Burton. So I wasn't really excited about this movie, despite the fact (or maybe especially because) I love Alice in Wonderland. Nonetheless, this movie far surpassed my expectations of suckitude. It was so unbelievably bad that I don't even relish hating on it. It was just an utter waste of my time.

Let's leave aside the fact that it bears no real relation to Lewis Carroll's phenomenal books. Though it doesn't. Aside from the scene where Alice grows and shrinks to get into the tiny door at the beginning, there's pretty much nothing else from the original story at all, aside from the names of the characters. Not only do the characters not resemble themselves as characters except somewhat in appearance, they also don't serve the same plot functions. But if you changed the characters' names, you would never in a million years guess that this was Alice in Wonderland. Which of course I find annoying - why sign on for the project at all if you don't actually like the story? I understand that you may think, eh, it's been done many times, let's change it a bit, make it new. But this isn't making it new. This is just a different movie. So the only real reason, that I can tell, that it's called Alice is because he figured then people would go see it.

So let's pretend it IS just a Tim Burton movie, with no original text. You know what? It SUCKS. The plot is completely stupid and overwrought, the dialogue is painfully bad, and much of the acting - particularly Alice herself - is awful. The shining star of the film, curiously enough, is Anne Hathaway, who's surprisingly amusing if somewhat stilted. Helena Bonham Carter is pretty good, and Johnny Depp is too (though why he suddenly becomes Scottish is a bit beyond me). But they can't save this steaming pile of crap. I really cannot impress upon you just how trite, tedious, and predictable the plot is. Well, predictable isn't entirely right - you can see the ending from a mile away, but meanwhile, there's plenty of unnecessary filler that does nothing whatsoever for the story except take up time. There's plenty of sentimentalized moralizing and oddly empty politicizing - ugh. It's just so bad.

Finally, what really surprised me was how visually uninteresting it was. There is absolutely no reason to see the movie in 3D. Actually, at some moments the 3D was so clumsily rendered that I actually tried to take the glasses off. Furthermore, the look of the film - where one expected Tim Burton to really shine (albeit in fully cliche goth fashion) - was largely uninteresting. Yes, the Red Queen's big head was neat. The Mad Hatter looked rather like Burton's Willy Wonka, except with clown makeup, and everyone else was basically a slightly goth-er version of the Disney adaptation. Actually, no - the Disney cartoon is far more visually lush and interesting.

Please don't see this movie. Please let it be a crashing failure at the box office. It's not even the kind of bad where it's so bad that you should see it just to see how terrible a movie can be - it's just banal. It's really not worth your time.

The African Queen

I have to say, this movie took me completely by surprise. I guess I was sort of expecting Casablanca, so the bar was set pretty high, but still, I was astonished at just how silly it was. This movie has been around for ages, so yes, there are some spoilers ahead, though I'm not gonna blow it completely.

The first 45 minutes are straight up terrible. It's boring, unconvincing, and just plain stupid. Hepburn is a missionary's sister who ends up on a boat with Bogart, who's meant to be a hard-drinking sleazy sort of guy. They are supposed to not like each other very much. Problem is, Bogart is actually a perfect gentleman, and Hepburn is surprisingly laid back for a prissy prude. Then they actually get into an argument. And then... they fall in love. But what's curious about that is that it actually dramatically improves the film. The chemistry between them is actually really lovely. They do a perfect job as a middle aged couple in the throes of first love. It's touching and sweet and it fills you with joy as they call each other old girl and dear and brave the wilderness together. Hepburn's character, given the times, is a raging badass yet still rather demure, a very nice female character for once. Bogart is a total sweetheart. It's all very nice. By the end though, you can't help but roll your eyes a little bit. I mean, it's just so over the top. The whole adventure plot is completely subordinated to the romance in a really extreme way. The obstacles they face become more and more extreme, and their solutions become more and more implausible, but it's ok! They LOVE each other! Still, it's sort of charming. Probably the greatest scene in the movie is when Bogart does an impression of a hippopotamus and Hepburn laughs with delight.

One does feel compelled to point out though, that Achebe's famed critique of Conrad's Heart of Darkness - or more broadly, of Western depictions of Africa - has rarely been quite so fully illustrated. Africa in this film is nothing more than a symbol of wilderness and adversity. The continent is represented by the landscape, which is basically the unknown, full of terror and danger. The few scenes with actual Africans are mostly of chaotic masses speaking a language that's incomprehensible to most viewers, and behaving basically like a mob (shooting happily at the ship, fleeing in terror, singing discordantly in church). Though here, as in Heart of Darkness, it's worth considering how the other Other of the work figures in. Namely, The African Queen also features lots of Germans, who are either represented metonymically by scenes of destruction, or in groups, speaking an incomprehensible (to most viewers) language and killing stuff. I think there's still a difference between the two, but still, it's worth considering.

Overall - I can understand, I guess, why this movie was so loved in its time, in that it IS Hepburn and Bogart, and a very sweet love story. But time has not been good to this movie, and watching it now, you have to admit that it's pretty ridiculous and over the top, not to mention, it takes a long time to sort of get in the swing of things after a pretty drab beginning.

Ponyo

Like many of Miyazake's movies, Ponyo is first and foremost visually lovable. Cute creatures moving in wonderfully strange yet lifelike ways - what's not to like? Secondly, the English language versions are regularly dubbed by famous actors, and there's just something great about hearing those familiar voices as cartoon characters - especially Liam Neeson and Tina Fey.

The movie is pretty lighthearted and jolly, but there's not much to the plot. It's got some elements of The Little Mermaid (the Hans Christian Anderson version, not the Disney one), and a bit of eco-moralizing, but overall it's pretty random. Towards the end it suddenly seems to be about the fate of the universe, but it's never made clear how or why. The main characters are confronted with some kind of dramatic trial, but you don't know what they have to do or what the stakes are really, and you kind of figure it'll work out ok anyhow, so who cares. Fair enough for a children's movie, but it's not nearly so compelling for adults as other Miyazake films.

Paris in the Twentieth Century, by Jules Verne

Not one of the masterpieces of dystopian fiction, my friends. It's mostly pretty boring, despite Verne's affable style, and pretty crudely constructed. In terms of dystopian speculation, it's pretty disappointing. Basically, it's 1960 and machines do everything, and nobody cares about the humanities anymore. I have some sympathy for this of course, but really, the book just comes across as whining. The one thing that is of some interest is the fact that the only other complaint the book keeps returning to is the elimination of war. Because when people fought wars, there was honor, and glory, and men were manly and things mattered.

One could probably think a lot more deeply about the philosophical implications of this work, but at the end of the day, there are much better dystopian (and utopian) texts that merit the consideration - some of them by Verne himself. This "lost" novel, on the other hand, could probably have stayed lost without too many tears being shed.

Red Cliffs International Version Parts 1 and 2

John Woo made his massive epic in two 2+ hour long parts, but apparently someone decided that Americans didn't wanna watch 5 hours of epic glory and in any case wouldn't be able to keep all the characters straight, so the film was condensed into a single 2 1/2 hour version for US release. Luckily, Netflix has the original version, so you don't have to settle for less.

I watched Part 1 the other night, and oh man. The fight scenes are so fucking sweet. The plot takes awhile to get going - aside from a few (pretty awesome) fight scenes, the first 45 minutes are basically alliance formations, etc. They're still kind of cool - lots of poetic reflections, nice music, some good sex scenes, and surprisingly well developed characters - but what you really want is the actual battle. The battle is SO tight. I haven't seen awesome fighting like that in, gosh, at least a month if not more. There's lots of spraying blood, which seems somewhat campy, but the tactics and maneuvers and general bad-assitude make it all worthwhile. I can't wait to see part 2.

EDIT:

Oh man, Part 2 was even better than Part 1. All the character development pays off, plus the military strategizing gets even more intricate and awesome. And the battle scenes continue to be totally sweet. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire two and a half hours. So quality.