Thursday, March 15th, 2007
Osamu Tezuka – Ode to Kirihito (1)
About two thirds of the way through this magnificent medical thriller, I suddenly realized that the gripping storyline had made me turn the pages way too fast, glossing over much of the amazing artwork and visual detail. I then stopped for close scrutiny of one particularly rich panel – which in act had caused my realization in the first place – but soon returned to flipping the pages as fast as I could read the text. I’ll have to reread it, I suppose. Bummer.
“You have been sick, but now your well again and there is work to do.” This is one of the repetive mantras Vonnegut uses as a shield against the futility of being, and the certainty of destruction and decay. In a touching and hilarious collection of ramblings and biographical fragments, he explores the frailty of the human spirit, and it’s extraordinary strength in finding the good among the evil. “We’re here to help each other through whatever this is.” Indeed.
From Jonathan Lethem, who recently masterfully argued the fruitfulness of apropriating someone else’s intellectual property and turning it into something original of one’s own, and Carter Scholz, whom I hadn’t heard of before, comes this set of reinventions of Kafka’s themes with the frame of American culture. Witty, dark and unexpected, these stories toy with great ideas in a very delightful way. My favorite of the bunch is easily Lethem’s and Scholz’ collaboration on the story of how Kafka and Capra collaborated to make “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Great stuff.
Maybe it was because I had felt to be in a similar place to Mastroiani’s manic director recently, or maybe it’s just the fact that Fellini can make you feel things you didn’t realize you had in you, but in the final scene’s taking down of the main character’s overblown ego machine it felt like part of me was coming down with it, in oddly satisfying melancholy.
Not knowing much about the conditions in the south african townships, this beautiful movie left me with the feeling of having been there, and a deep sympathy for its deeply troubled protagonist. While the story is troubling and uplifting at the same time, the cinematography is gorgeous, and the desert townships with the downtown areas as a backdrop are weirder than anything out of dystopian scifi could have been thirty years ago.
Finally, the non-sucking sequel to the Matrix. While V is still wordy and rich in pseudophilobabble, it is mostly stylish and ironic enough to get away with it. Weaving and Portman both are excellent, him being all the more impressive for doing it all from under a cheesy mask. A comic book version of political discourse still, at least this impromptu is enjoyable to watch and visually pleasing.
A very inventive story and cool story, with the same weakness Stephenson’s other books have in my opinion, a forced ending. Creating complexity, just to then shoehorn it into some resolution so readers can feel better is not something I approve of. Otherwise it’s quite flawless, though. It’s also quite interesting to see how Stephenson obviously churned on the themes he scratched upon in this novel for the later Diamond Age, and then took them into more realistic contemporary fiction with the Cryptonomicon.
If you need to be told that Familiy Guy is funny, you shouldn’t be surfing the web, you should watch TV and fill the gaping hole in your life. Go. Now.
I fondly remember the songs from my first Cowboys record, We Cum From Brooklyn, such wonderful playful sounds and humour. I was happy to find that much of this best of collection is taken off that older album. Together with the new album this unfortunately also confirms my suspicion that the Cowboys have lost their mojo.
Never before has the decay of society, the random death and destruction, and the hopeless metaphysical void that was left by the scourge of the black death depicted as stylish as in this chessgame action thriller. I expected dreary symbolism and found a wonderful meditation on death and life.