{"id":132,"date":"2006-11-19T22:16:30","date_gmt":"2006-11-20T05:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/19\/october-recap\/"},"modified":"2020-10-08T14:29:13","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T21:29:13","slug":"october-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/october-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"October recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

And you thought September was pathetic. Truly, my visual media time has been more focused on television than movies, due to a desire to keep my DVR from filling up. And I have been reading a ton, just not complete books–articles or individual essays, or sections of books relevant to whatever I’m writing. And unfortunately for my book count, I refuse to count partially-read books. (However, if you’re interested in adaptation theory, Film Adaptation<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, edited by James Naremore, is an excellent set of essays and I recommend it highly.)<\/p>\n

Movies<\/h2>\n

<\/a>White Heat<\/b>
\nOne of Jimmy Cagney’s last great crime films. I was about to say “gangster films,” but it’s not really a gangster film, not in the same sense that The Public Enemy<\/i><\/a> or Scarface<\/i><\/a> are gangster films. He plays Cody Jarrett, the leader of a group of hoods who knock over a government train, killing the conductors in the process. They hide out for a while, but soon it becomes more expedient for Cody to confess to a less serious crime and serve out a short sentence to provide an alibi for the train crime. Suspicious but unable to prove anything, the police assign their top undercover guy to join Cody in jail and try to find out from him where the money is from the train job. Meanwhile, Cody’s second-in-command is making a play both for Cody’s wife and his gang. What starts out as a simple crime caper becomes increasingly complex, no less so by Cody’s own mental instability. As 1940s crime movies go, I’d have to put this near the top. It doesn’t have too much of a noir sensibility, and Virginia Mayo is Cody’s wife is frustratingly flat, but Cagney carries the film with his over-the-top portrayal of a bigger-than-life criminal. The complexity of reactions it evokes is welcome, too–especially since by the end, we both want Cody to win out over his scheming subordinate and also want the undercover cop to catch Cody.
\nWell Above Average<\/b>
\nbuy from Amazon<\/a>\"\" | imdb<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Kiss Kiss Bang Bang<\/b>
\nNow, this is a film for film buffs. :) Robert Downey Jr. is a petty thief who accidentally stumbles into a casting call\/audition as he’s trying to escape from the police. The producers send him to Hollywood to hang out with a detective for a while and study up for the detective part he’s going to be playing. Before long, there’s femme fatales, bodies, murders, corruption, intrigue, etc.–it’s a parody that hits all the film noir angles. It is broadly humorous, though, so there’s never any doubt that it’s a send-up. In fact, the idea “let’s make a film that throws in every single film noir cliche and then make it funny” is the presiding factor in the film; hence, it’s not as coherent as is could be, and it’s a bit uneven in pacing and style. Still, it’s plenty fun. (Aside from the fact that it shares a name with one of Pauline Kael’s books of criticism<\/a>\"\", which is an unwelcome connection to me, since I heartily dislike her criticism.)
\nAbove Average<\/b>
\nbuy from Amazon<\/a>\"\" | imdb<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>The Departed<\/b>
\nScorsese and DiCaprio do it again! That makes three in a row if you liked Gangs of New York<\/i><\/a> (I didn’t, particularly, so I only count it two in a row, with The Aviator<\/i><\/a> and The Departed<\/i>). I can’t imagine you haven’t heard about The Departed<\/i>–it monopolized hype for several weeks–but it’s a gangster film, basically, with an Irish mob instead of an Italian one, which confused me at first, since my stereotype for movie-Irish is cop, not gangster. Well, here they’re both. Jack Nicholson is the crime boss, Leonardo diCaprio is the cop working undercover to infiltrate his gang, and Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg are also cops. It’s violent, it’s twisty and turny, it’s intense, and it’s very good. DiCaprio especially turns in another fine performance. Honestly, Nicholson is the only thing that brings it down from a great movie to a very good one. I don’t doubt that the man’s a legend, but by this point in his career, all he’s doing is chewing the scenery and distracting us from the younger, better actors.
\nWell Above Average<\/b>
\nIMDb<\/a><\/p>\n

Heh–I just realized that all three films I saw in October were crime films! Wonder what that means…<\/p>\n

Books<\/h2>\n

<\/a>Mrs. Dalloway<\/b> by Virginia Woolf
\nMy professor suggested that we read this in one sitting if possible. Sounds daunting to read a 250-page novel all at once, but he’s really right. It flows together so well that it’s all but impossible to find a stopping place, even if you wanted to, which you don’t. Mrs. Dalloway<\/i> and James Joyce’s Ulysses<\/a>\"\"<\/i> (which I haven’t yet been brave enough to attempt) are THE Modernist novels, and Woolf really solidifies her stream-of-consciousness style here. The most brilliant thing is the way she uses third-person stream of consciousness in order to explore the thoughts and feelings of multiple people in the novel, whereas you’d expect for stream of consciousness to be in first person and stick with one person’s thoughts. But Woolf moves between people so smoothly and so perfectly, and then out again to get a wider picture of the whole thing–it’s really masterful in terms of narrative and point of view. Oh, story. Right. See, it sounds mundane. Clarissa Dalloway is giving a dinner party, and as she’s preparing for it, she reminisces about her youth, especially about one Peter who she nearly married before she chose to marry the steadier but less charismatic Richard Dalloway. Peter is returning from India that very day, and visits her–we also spend some time in his head, and get his reminiscences about their youth. Meanwhile, elsewhere, a lower-class war veteran is struggling against the doctors who want to put him away because of his shell-shock, rather than figure out how to treat him. Very few things actually happen–it all takes place on one day, but by the end, there’s an almost operatic intensity made up of the interweaving motifs from these three people. Virginia Woolf=genius.
\nSuperior<\/b>
\nbuy at Amazon<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/a>Utopia<\/b> by Sir Thomas More
\nThis was an “additional reading” assignment for Early Modern English…I of course knew of it, but I hadn’t read it. It’s really quite interesting. Basically, it’s the 16th-century work from which the idea of Utopia comes. More presents Utopia as a real place, discovered by travelers to the New World. One of the travelers returns to England, sees the state of affairs (he’s particularly concerned about the laws which hang thieves after, he says, social conditions force them into thievery), laments that England can’t be more like Utopia, and proceeds to explain the narrator (also named Thomas More, but probably a persona) how the governmental and social system works in Utopia. There are too many parts to it to go through them here, but it’s fascinating, because so many of the issues that are brought up are issues that are still hotly debated. More anticipates socialism, communism, fascism, most of the isms of the twentieth century, in fact…Utopia is a combination of them all, oddly enough. There are a lot of good observations in here, but overall, More’s Utopia requires so much governmental control to make sure that everyone stays equal and happy (of course, the people also happen to be perfect, so they don’t mind the governmental control, which is also perfect, since it’s made up of perfect people) that it creeped me out a little. It’s easy to see it turn into 1984<\/a>\"\"<\/i> with just a touch of misuse.
\nAbove Average<\/b>
\nbuy at Amazon<\/a>\"\" | Read or download free etext from Project Gutenberg<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And you thought September was pathetic. Truly, my visual media time has been more focused on television than movies, due to a desire to keep my DVR from filling up. And I have been reading a ton, just not complete books–articles or individual essays, or sections of books relevant to whatever I’m writing. And unfortunately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,2,1016],"tags":[480,296,321,482,481,153,479],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":141,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/adaptation-rexamining-fidelity-criticism\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":0},"title":"Adaptation – Rexamining Fidelity Criticism","author":"Jandy","date":"November 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Most film criticism dealing with adaptations of books focuses on how closely the film sticks to the book. In other words, an adaptation is often judged based on whether or not the film accurately recreates its source. And of course, many films do try to be faithful to their sources,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":200,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/the-ruin-old-english-film\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":1},"title":"“The Ruin” (Old English) film","author":"Jandy","date":"January 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I came across this short film in a blog by an Anglo-Saxon scholar, the Unlocked Wordhoard. It's a 6-minute adaptation of an Old English elegiac poem, \"The Ruin,\" done by some students at the University of Oxford. I hadn't read the poem before (Old English and modern English text here),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/toward-a-nontheory-of-nonadaptation\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":2},"title":"Toward a (non)theory of (non)adaptation","author":"Jandy","date":"November 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote out a bunch of this last night, but then lost it just before I posted. Grr Arrgh. So this is a recreation, and I'm not sure I got it all. Anyway, these are questions that are bouncing around in my head as I work on a paper about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/research-is-fun\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":3},"title":"Research is fun","author":"Jandy","date":"October 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"One of these days I shall have a lot to say about adaptation. Unless I burn myself out first on the paper I'm writing about Jane Austen adaptations. But I expect I shan't, because adaptation is one of the few subjects I find endlessly fascinating. Anyway, one of the more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11111,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/no-more-the-book-is-better\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":4},"title":"No More The Book Is Better","author":"Jandy","date":"November 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm going to make a vow right now to never again say in print or in conversation the words: \"The book is better.\" Not because the book isn't better, not because I don't think the book is better in many cases, and not because I don't think it's ever valuable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/booksfeat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/february-round-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":132,"position":5},"title":"February Reading\/Watching Recap","author":"Jandy","date":"March 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This year I've been posting short run-downs of what I've read and watched each month over at my LJ. Thought I'd post them here, too. Because I can. Mwahahahaha. I suppose I could just link to my LJ entry, but where would be the fun in that? Without further ado,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}