This is a really great, deep movie if only you decode the hidden meaning! Ha ha, just kidding. Despite some funny political satire and a gem of a performance by Burt Reynolds, this movie showcasing Demi Moore as a virtuous stripper is pretty darn bad.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be a fan of this kind of animated movie. The animation is great, but there always seems to be at least one shrill-voiced character that grates on my nerves, and I usually don’t find the plots compelling. It’s the same to some degree with other animation films like Princess Mononoke and even the more serious Grave of the Fireflies. Too bad, because otherwise I’m blown away by the artistry that goes into these productions.
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With a clear sky and temperatures soaring into the 60s, we weren’t the only ones that headed up to Horsetooth for some bouldering. We met Lisa there with her 3-month-old Dyson on his first bouldering outing. It didn’t take long to shred the fingertips, but it sure felt good. Very nice also to finally get introduced to some of the problems at this local area.
I thought I’d catch more my second time through this movie, but it’s really challenging. It’s like actually being at a party in a foreign place and time, the many conversations going at once in unfamiliar accents make it a little overwhelming. The bits I do catch are witty and revealing, and thankfully you can catch less than half and still follow the basic plot. There are really two movies, the one you watch at a shooting party in a wealthy country home in the 1920’s, and the one that is constructed in the conversations that take place there, building the history behind the event. The latter, unseen movie is dark and horrible, while the surface one is satirical and a little tongue-in-cheek. An impressive, if difficult, piece of work.
Well, it’s not as fresh the second time around, but these movies make fun of things in a way that works for me. Vulgarity implied instead of shown, stereotypes teased and then broken, and out-of-place cultural references all kept me laughing again this time. A Tom Waits tune in the soundtrack doesn’t hurt either.
We head up to Echo Lake after an early breakfast for an exploratory cross-country ski. We also try a solution for Jezze’s icy foot problem, Ruffwear dog booties. She tolerates them once they’re on, if we yell at her when she bites them, but as soon as she rockets up the trail they’re left on the hillside. Oh well, strike two. She does better today on the well-packed trail. Ann does well also on her first x-country ski going up, but the icy, narrow, tree-lined trail is no good for learning how to get down on the spindly-feeling boards. She walks, resolving to practice in an more open space before our next trip. Dad and I poke around Echo Lake a little, climb a steep, powdery hill to the Mt. Evans road, and descend the crust back to the parking lot, which is now packed and crazy. We conclude that this is a spot to hit early on a fresh snow day.
For a morning that started by looking out the window, seeing big snowflakes falling, and turning over again, we got a few good climbs in. My Dad said on the phone later that the weather looked OK at his place, so we threw the climbing gear in the car with our skis just in case. It turned out that the Golden Cliffs were truly bathed in warm, golden sunlight – impossible to resist. Dad drove down and met us to try a few routes. Climbing next to us were three women who entertained us as much as the climbs with their tawdry tales of temptations unconquered and lewd jokes about the Coor’s beer being busily brewed five hundred feet below us, all the while complaining about struggling on 5.10c and gearing up for something harder. They joined us in our praise of my father, who displays great climbing instincts for someone with little experience on a rope or steep, roof-riddled basalt. Before we knew it the sun was dipping under the horizon, prompting a scramble to exit before the gates closed.
This was my first experience of the MacBeth story, and I think for me the tale will always conjure up images of the aldritch Spider’s Web forest from this film. I think it’s the best black and white cinematography I’ve ever seen. It’s facinating just to see a western story acted out in a Japanese setting. Akira Kurosawa is some kind of movie-making miracle. He had been making films for more than a decade already when this came out in 1957, and his next Samurai movie Oni is slated for 2006.
A number of years ago I helped my mom get set up with a web host and a copy of Dreamweaver, and she managed to build a website for her business. She always described it as “a little funky”. Navigation and broken links were always a problem, and she struggled sometimes with presenting the many images she produces.
This year I’ve been working with Typo3, an open source Content Management System (CMS), and when Mom visited this Christmas I decided to see if we could build her a new website using Typo3. A CMS is a differently world conceptually from Dreamweaver, and at first she struggled. After a few days, she started getting excited. Now she’s gone to town, and has a well-organized, professional-looking website to show for it. She’s been putting up fresh, interesting content daily, and has never had to learn a lick of HTML!
