Sunday, March 19, 2006

V for Very Good

I really hate it when Blogger gets all temperamental and shit. I finally have a spare mo’ to post or troll-and-comment, and Blogger’s all “Request Timed Out – Repost Your Comment 97 times?” with two buttons – “yes”, and “yes, and please repeat this question”. Also, the fucker won't post my picture this week. Fortunately, I know a workaround or two. Bite me, Blogger.

So, St Paddy’s day was pleasant. The previous week was an endless and exhausting rush from one thing to another after being shorted on Monday due to the weather. Also, my agency had a technology fair on Thursday, and that’s usually my other meeting/consulting/development day, which instead I spent in a large conference room showing my nifty PowerPoint presentation (that’s what I did at home on Monday) over and over and over again to hundreds of my fellow employees, and making small talk about what exactly it is that I do. After hearing the music I selected for my PowerPoint about 90,000 times, I think it will be a while before I voluntarily listen to Sippie Wallace or The Polyphonic Spree again.

For Friday, while I really would have loved to have fixed a brined pork roast (Irish “Bacon”) with cabbage and taters, there was absolutely no time to get that together, so I went with a nice, simple, Stout and Irish Cheddar Fondue from last month’s Bon Appetit. While in the liquor store, I flirted briefly with the idea of trying to get Boo blitzed on either Irish Car Bombs, or Irish Flags, but settled for just the Guinness, and threw the whole meal together in about 45 minutes. Which for a Friday was just about perfect.

Also worked out well since S and M (of North Dakota trip fame) came over for dinner, and M is a notoriously picky vegetarian. After dinner, they swept us off into the wilds of downtown on a Friday St Patrick’s Day (“Go back to Edina, ya drunken freaks!”) and we went and saw V for Vendetta at the Block E theaters. Ehhhhcellent!

Highly recommended. I haven’t read the graphic novel, so I don’t know how it pleases the purists, but I thought it was really great for an issue movie masquerading as an action thriller. I’m hoping the somewhat-misleading trailers bring in lots of people who could stand to have the polemics spoon-fed to them. It’s a wry commentary on mass-culture, current politics, the nature of terrorism, The Count of Monte Cristo, and the power of symbols.

I particularly enjoyed seeing Stephen Fry (who has written his own take-off on Count of Monte Cristo themes) make the most of a small but pivotal role, and Priscilla's Hugo Weaving, in the Guy mask, is actually less wooden and more emotive than he was in LotR. This would be a brutal role for any actor (and in fact the first guy they cast bailed part way through) but he really rises to the challenge.

Lots of good performances all around, and while the pacing, and sometimes dialog, can be a bit uneven, it hits enough thought points to be impressive. It’s by no means a perfect film, but it’s pretty damn good. Go already!

In closing (and without any relevance to that which has gone before), I noticed this article in the New York Times today about the search for next great American opera. Which got me thinking – will Brokeback Mountain resurface again first as an opera or an ice capades show?


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw V for Vendetta last night. I was definately moved, something that Brokeback failed to do for me.

Noel Vera said...

Brokeback on Ice! The mind shudders.

julie beth said...

someday i'll get off my butt and go out and see a movie. this post maybe will talk me into it soon...

Grouchbutt said...

Post more, damn you!