So far this session I have enjoyed one clear night. A very chilly clear night. My lonely sight near giant windmills had snow and ice on the ground. On arrival just after sundown it was 25 F. Upon leaving around 11:30 pm it was 21 F. I usually use a small computer to locate fainter objects that are difficult to find by just "pointing," but it was too cold for the little 9v battery that powers it. So I went back to my primitive observing days and "pointed." I didn't do too badly, either. I am currently observing the tail end of winter constellations. The spring ones are well up by the time I pull out. I am on the fringe of the Milky Way in Canis Major and Puppis, both low lying constellations from northern latitudes. But talk about stars! When observing galaxies, the observer is usually looking away from the Milky Way, into deep space. But when looking towards the Milky Way (summer and winter, mostly), the observer peers into the star fields and clusters that make up our galaxy. So Tuesday night was all about observing star clusters. I managed to log 13 new ones for me, including a deep southern globular cluster in Puppis that I never thought I would see so clearly. It was a spectacularly clear night.
It is now cloud, rain, and snow season once again, but Sunday night looks promising (but cold).
Deb has been sorting through our vast comic book collection from the 70s and 80s. She is preparing to sell them off tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Had the mice not chewed a good many of them, and water not damaged many others, we might have made a sweet bundle from the sale.
Deb's newest film is now out there, as it begins to enter festivals. And there has already been an acceptance, from Atomacon in North Charleston, South Carolina. It's a major SF event that also has a SF film festival. The short (12') animated film takes a short story I wrote many years ago, updates and improves it, and has the look of a graphic novel. We are both hoping it will be widely accepted by certain kinds of film festivals, and we seem to be off to a good start (if you wish to see the film, go to Deb's website (see link at upper left). Near the top of her "films" page is a link to Will Ye No Come Back Again).
In film news, possibly the stupidest film to ever win a major Oscar managed to win an Oscar. As I said in an earlier blog, the movie seems perfect for its time. Everyone everywhere wants everything, and they want it now. The breakneck pace of the film is also indicative as to what social media and instant gratification has done to the human brain (so far). It can (and will) get worse, especially when the slew of copy cat films begin to emerge. I might have been the only person on the planet in the 1970s who thought that Star Wars was the worst SF movie I'd ever seen (my opinion hasn't changed much). So I might also be the only person on the planet (though Deb agrees with me) who thinks that the 2023 Oscar winner is a load of virtually worthless celluloid.
At the opposite end of the film spectrum from the 2023 Oscar winner is a film we recently saw by Jim Jarmusch, and both loved. Take this review as the kind of movie that I think people really ought to be watching. Paterson, from 2016, is a quiet film where not much happens. It's about a man named Paterson who is a bus driver in Paterson, NJ. We follow him and his wonderfully quirky wife through one week of their day to day existence. It will be a rewarding week in many ways, mostly for viewers. Paterson (the bus driver) is also a poet, and his mind is constantly turning over words and phrases as he goes through his day. They live in a small house and own a small dog. Every evening Paterson takes the dog for a walk, leaving the dog outside a neighbourhood bar as he sips his nightly glass of beer.
Besides the man, the wife, and the dog, we get to know the bartender, a few of the customers, and two people interested in poetry that briefly encounter Paterson. There is only one dramatic moment in the whole movie, and it is brief and thankfully resolves calmly. Even when the bus breaks down with passengers, it is a quiet event, though the director gets some mileage from it. With just the right amount of humour, love, passion, and memorable moments, this film should have won even more awards than it did. The dog did win the Palme Dog at Cannes, anyway. A true sleeper film, it should not be missed by any cinema lover.
.jpg)
My leaving choice for the week was Maelstrom, a film by Denis Villeneuve from 2000. Entertaining if somewhat forgettable, it follows a troubled young woman through several catastrophic events that occur almost simultaneously: she has an abortion and it truly bothers her, she loses her job, and she kills a man in a hit and run accident while drunk driving. With three strikes like that against you, it's tough to go on. She meets the son of the man she killed, and things get even more complex. His earlier film, August 32nd on Earth was also a challenge to watch, though it did have its rewards, like this film. Not for everyone, but a credible film nonetheless. However, coming right after the Jarmusch feature, well, it just doesn't stand up.
Deb's main film choice last weekend was Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, a fascinating look into the famous author and neurologist, with plenty of film devoted to him speaking in his last year of life. He brought the subject into the 21st C, and though he was ridiculed and ignored for much of his life, he now has a worldwide following and a legacy that has led many into the field for themselves. His observations and insight into the human mind, especially as it relates to Alzheimer's, Tourette, and other almost untouchable problems of the mind have advanced the cause several degrees. His life was very troubled. As a gay doctor he was unable to fulfill any kind of relationship on peril of being jailed until his later years, and his treatments and written studies were rejected by the medical community. The documentary is a pretty straight forward one, but fairly representative of a helpful life lived to its fullest. Highly recommended. We have only read his music book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. I will be adding to that list very soon.
Finishing up Deb's weekend choices was Guy Madin's film of the Winnipeg Ballet's version of Dracula, Pages From a Virgin's Diary. From 2002 it has a running time of less than 75 minutes, but seems way longer. It is not that riveting to watch on the screen, despite many cinematic techniques at work. I'm not sure I would have even enjoyed the actual ballet. Let's just say that it's a story that has been done before, and though to my knowledge it has never been danced till now, that might just be a good thing. Not the way to start getting into Guy's films. In b & w, with colour accents (such as blood).
Mapman Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment