Argobot

Saw Inherent Vice last night and I'm still not sure what to make of it. The trailer and some of the early comments I saw described the movie as PTA's version of the Big Lebowski, a madcap, zany movie. It was definitely not that. The movie keeps all of the plot beats of the Pynchon novel, but drops the interesting commentary on California at the end of the 60s that made me love the book. I wasn't expecting any of that, not that it's necessarily bad, it just made watching the movie such a strange experience. I'll probably see it again and enjoy it more, now that I know what I'm getting in to. I saw it near Times Square because that was one of the few theaters in NYC playing it, so there were a lot of holiday tourists who wandered in looking for any movie to watch. Subsequently, this particular screening of Inherent Vice had the most walkouts I've ever seen in a movie. I guess that system of going to whatever movie is playing, sight unseen, can really backfire.

Really excellent points made about how women are represented in this show. Of course women from an already marginalized town like Twin Peaks would lack agency, and I appreciate how it is explored.

Our own PatrickR asked me to be on his movie podcast....to talk about books. It was a lot of fun! http://t.co/nxRObyCrRl

I didn't realize he was Lynch's kid at first either and I spent a fair amount of episodes assuming that Lynch had gone out of his way to mold some poor child actor into his miniature.

I really liked Under the Skin's presentation of female and male sexuality. It takes a very adult —adult in the sense of well-considered, not gratuitous — look at both and presents them in a very unapologetic way. It's definitely a strange movie (so many people in the theater I saw it in walked out) but it struck a good balance between being smart and not taking itself too seriously. I wish there were more movies that are baffling to grapple with.

Haha, oh man. What? (Thanks everyone for the congratulations)

My last name is too perfect to ever change.

I agree that "buffoonish man dumbly stunned by pregnancy while annoyed woman looks on" is a reductive gender dynamic.

That scene reads more as Lucy reacting to Andy being in danger and that causing her to soften a tiny bit, not so much that she's impressed by him firing a gun. And Andy's response isn't revulsion to the pregnancy; he has classic deer-in-the-headlights face when he learns, holy shit, he's going to be a dad.

Early season 2 Donna is some of my favorite writing on this show. I find it so heartbreakingly realistic that someone in her situation would start to act out in this way. It's clear that she envied Laura as much as she loved her and can't handle the idea of remaining in Laura's shadow, especially now that Laura is dead. Her arc has the most devastating pay off later in season 2 when

WOW. All of this is incredible. They called themselves Peakies???!!??? People in the early 90s were so much more innocent about spectacle television.

The second Star Trek movie was definitely a misstep that I suspect had a lot to do with Abram's general ambivalence to the Star Trek universe (and having Damon Lindelof as a script writer). Hopefully Abrams professed love for the Star Wars universe will make him better at balancing what fans want with what general movie goers need to enjoy watching a film.

The problem with shows that use mystery as their central driving force (Twin Peaks, Lost, The X-Files, True Detective, The Killing) is that the ending is rarely satisfying to the audience. Viewers spend so much time piecing together clues and coming up with theories for the meaning of every single object on screen and are disappointed when the finale fails to live up to that obsession. So I think it's harmful to try and solve this kind of story before the episodes have run its course because either you come up with the correct solution and the ending is boring, or you come up with an insane solution and the ending is still boring. This crowdsourced sleuthing has gotten worse as the Internet has grown in popularity to the point where it feels like showrunners are purposefully filling their shots with little references and clues that they know fans will take the time to puzzle out. Twin Peaks just missed this phenomenon (or maybe it helped usher it in) and it will be interesting to see how the third season of this show is received. All of this is just a really long-winded way to say that if you don't know who the killer is, don't try to figure it out before the show tells you.

For as goofy as I find that opening shot of the trailer (Narrator: "Something has awoken" *almost comical shot of a man waking up in the desert*), the significance of having a black Stormtrooper being the first thing you see in a Star Wars movie is not lost on me. That character and the prominent woman are hopeful signs that Star Wars is moving away from its male, whitewashed universe. I don't think these films will be My Thing, but if they are good, I like the idea of a six-year-old girl watching these new movies and getting better role models than I had as a little girl watching Empire Strikes Back.

Yeah, I think you're right about the cocaine. Also on the spoiler content for this episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5gbNtYw9KA Out of curiosity, I went and rewatched the 1993 Jurassic Park trailer. Remember when kids movies were fun? Schlocky, sure, but still fun. Man, the evolution from Jurassic Park 1993 - Jurassic Park 3D - Jurassic World is so sad, says grumpy old person (me).

Is anyone else a little bummed that the two kids in this movie are both boys? Where's the 13 year-old hacker girl? The look (the colors, the CGI, setting) really reminds me of the Star Wars prequels. All of these movies (big tentpole sci-fi action adventure films) love to use oversaturated colors that, to me, make everything look that much more fake and bland.

Wasn't Jacques in the pilot episode as well? When Hank tries to defend Donna from Bobby and Mike, but immediately collapses, he blames Jacques Renault for slipping something into his beer.

You make a really great point. I too went through an anti-pop star phase in my teens that is embarrassing to think about. It's created a lot of doubt in how I react to this music now, where I never feel fully confident that I dislike pop music because it's just not to my taste or if it's because of the waning influence of my shitty teen years. I tend to avoid pop music all together so I don't have to deal with that conflict. I hate that the cultural nonsense that young women feel they need to go through in order to justify their likes or dislikes. The marketing around Taylor Swift still makes me uncomfortable, but I really hope my discomfort has more to do with the confusing expectations we put on young women and less to do with artificial gatekeeping and attempting to retain this nonexistent I'm A Cool Girl image. (Confession: I really enjoy the We are Never, Ever Getting Back Together song)

Woah, I didn't know any of that. Fascinating!

Many fantasy tropes can't intellectual justify themselves. What does a race of immortals who literally kill children to stay young forever tell me about humanity except that cartoonish evil is cartoonish. Myth, magical realism, and other styles of writing can be extremely powerful and moving, but writers can go overboard and rely on those tropes to the point where it feels like a cop out and a way to avoid saying something meaningful. There are plenty of books that I've read that have used fantastical elements well (Toni Morrison is definitely one of them), but I think David Mitchell is increasingly letting his fantasy obscure the actual interesting parts of his writing.

I rewatched the Gilmore Girls pilot last night and it has way more of a Twin Peaks vibe than the later seasons. (Let's just keep connecting this back to Gilmore Girls)

I take your point, but there are plenty things in life that are fantastical without having to inject immortals or magic. Made up fantasy, especially when it is put next to the real world, always falls flat for me.

Overall I am not a fan of fantastical stories, especially when the description of those fantasy elements overpower other interesting parts of the story. That's what happens in Jacob de Zoet; the book begins as this very measured story of a man with specific beliefs, and then it devolves into baby murder and drinking blood to stay youthful. Those parts are completely incongruous and including the latter diminishes the weight of the former. I was willing to ignore what I see as bad parts of Jacob de Zoet, but the connection that Mitchell forces between that book and the events of The Bone Clocks makes it that much harder for me.