I had a nice review of The Secret of Kells ready to go, and naturally I had to restart Firefox and lost it. Oh well.

It's truly a sad pity I lost the review, because I went into detail on what a beautiful movie it is, not only in terms of the abstract but detailed art, but also thematically. Not to mention that in terms of storytelling it's far more sophisticated than its peers in animated movies. I enthused about the symbolism in shapes and colors, and the fact that Aisling, the Tuatha Dé Danann moved like how a faerie should move; graceful infused with magic, more like a wind or animal than a human. How Aisling at once was nonhuman in appearance and movement, and yet human in feeling.

Oh and in this wonderful lost review I also went into detail about the contrast between the beauty of nature (as represented by the Tuatha de Danan Aisling) which Branden and the artistic monks can see, and the rigid fearfulness of the Abbot; likewise, I examined the contrast again between the greed and violence of the Vikings, and the hope represented by the Book of Kells.  I talked extensively about the way it shows (not tells!) important values, like courage, standing up for what one believes in, and being open to the natural world...without engaging in the easy solution-based moralizing that most cartoons do. I pointed out that the ending is bittersweet, in terms of loss- the Book of Kells may absolve and heal, but it can't bring back the people that were lost, either killed or separated from due to their different natures.

More's the pity, in my most brilliant section, I pointed out how The Secret of Kells is a wonderful example of Irish-style syncretism; the old gods are not destroyed or absorbed, but made accommodation for. While I admitted in the review that there's a degree of playing fast and loose with some myths to fit the story, I also make the case that it's probably no more than Irish storyteller's have done since time immemorial. And if an Irish director can't borrow some myths, who can?

Anyway, it's a terrible terrible sad thing that you can't read that review, because it was wonderful Long and detailed and authoritative. All I can do , all that's left for me to do now then I suppose, is recommend Secret of Kells wholeheartedly. Go and see it, hopefully in a theater that, unlike mine, has a good speaker system, and watch that beautiful film.  Myself, I'll just be staying in tonight and mourning my review.

Caged from a discussion on worst movie endings, this is a bit specialized: what movie adaption took a great ending to a book, and screwed it up? That is, at what point did you gape at the movie and scream "WRONG!"

For me? There's so MANY candidates, but for the one that made the worst impression, the one that made me realize that the studio just didn't care about the authors idea, we'll have to go back about thirty years or more. Back to a film I saw in school. Back to a grade school English project.

Back to "My Side of the Mountain".

<lj-cut text="The book was cool!">

The resourceful Sam Gribley runs away from home to live on a mountainside his family owns. In the process we get detailed descriptions of how he survives, and in the process learns independence, makes a house out of a tree stump, and tames a pet falcon named Frightful. In the end, his parents visit him, and decide to move out to the mountain with him. It's a great example of a kid developing independence, and parents accepting his decisions.


<lj-cut text="The movie though...">
A hunter shoots Frightful the hawk, and Sam decides to abandon his camp and go back home.

I mean seriously....what the FUCK!? Was Paramount so afraid of lawsuits from the parents of kids who would also go out in the wilderness, that they had to completely reverse the meaning of the movie? The book has adults accepting the kid's counterculture ways, and adapting to it; the movie has the kid abandoning his independent ways and returning to civilization.


So basically, we had an inspiring book turned into a depressing movie that was one more step in making me the cynic I am today. Bummer.

This Friday it's opening, and I've heard some really great buzz on it.  So, this Friday evening I'm planning to go see it.  Is anybody interested in coming with?

That's right: in The Kids Aren't All Right, Vanity Fair reporter Christine Everhart conducted a series of interviews over the course of a year, revealing the man behind the mask. It's a quite insightful profile of the troubled mind of one of the most brilliant (or at least most famous)inventors of the age.

In reality, this is possibly one of the most brilliant fanfics I've ever seen, in that it actually DOES take the perspective of a Vanity Fair report; it fills in a lot of the psychology and history in the speculative manner that VF uses.

LiveJournal summary and commentary here

Tonight RxM and I sat down and watched the Star Wars DVD I acquired a few months back, which had the original, unaltered theatrical release of Star Wars.  I had been putting off watching it, because I was afraid that the film that literally redefined my life wouldn't stand up to the test of time.  Interestingly enough, it stands up very well.  Sure it's hokey, but with the perspective of time, I can appreciate the pulp influences in the action and dialog (Leah actually sounds very 1930s-ish in tone and voice, come to think of it).  The plotting and pacing is very tight and spare; thinking about it, I can really not think of any scene that would need to be either cut down or substantially altered.

What was fascinating to me is that even in the era of CGI effects, the 1977 effects largely stood up to modern work; models, mattes, and rubber masks still work as well in nearly all the situations that CGI is now put to.  It was also apparent that the extra CGI that the newer versions of Star Wars really didn't add anything. think that's partially because they had a "good enough" attitude- Mos Isley for example, didn't need anything more added to it to give the impression of a run-down, seedy starport.  The masks and puppets of the aliens in the bar were enough to give the feeling of a worderfully diverse and exotic universe.

There's a tendency for artists in general to go back and redo their works when they have additional experience, time or resources to do so.  In some cases this is definitely warrented, but it's also worthwhile to preserve earlier, worthwhile versions, and to know when a film is complete enough.  I can't really think of anything that the later versions add to this film, and given a choice between showing my niece the original or the expanded edition, I would go for the original.  

I came away from this film thinking that there's a lesson in this for all artists in any medium I think.  I also ended up thinking I really REALLY want to see this good DVD version of Star Wars on a big projection screen, someplace where we could listen to that incredible Williams soundtrack on surround-sound speakers.