Okay, here's the comic book list.

• Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, volume 2, #1. Hooray! There's a heckuva lot of Martians. And, well, that's all, really. I don't think I've linked to it before, because I'm selfish, but these annotations are wonderful. I have read exactly none of the various adventures on Mars being referenced in this, so I really need the annotations. I did much better with the first volume.

  Of course, I'm familiar with The War of the Worlds. Although I haven't actually read it. I've got a record of the Orson Welles' Mercury Theater broadcast! It's fun. I'm straying from the point, though. The comic also has part of "The New Traveler's Almanac," which is a bit like those Dictionary of Imaginary Places books. This part is just about the British Isles, so there are references to E. Nesbit and Lewis Carroll and Conan Doyle and Flann O'Brien. And Lair of the White Worm is in there. Synchronicity! And again, thank heaven for those annotations.

• Warren Ellis' Ruling the World, a one-off crossover between Planetary and The Authority. I liked having both groups wonder about each other. In fact, I probably liked that concept more than the actual story, just because I am terminally confused about the Bleed and the Snowflake and all that, so I don't necessarily understand what the hell's going on. I've got reasons though: I haven't read all of the backstory, I've read some of it out of order, and I'm completely clueless about most of the comic mythos Ellis is playing with. I did read a really detailed explanation for the Snowflake, which I've saved, but it involved fractals and kinds of mathematics that I don't even know the name of, so I'm not sure how much it helped. I wish Ellis provided tutors free with his comics. But I enjoy them, even if I don't understand them.

• Bill Willingham's Fables #s 2 & 3. I wish the colors weren't so muted. They really looked muddy after the other stuff, although I vaguely recall DC tends to look like that. Anyway, this is about how characters from fairy tales have taken up residence in New York. Rose Red has disappeared, possibly murdered, and "Bigby Wolf" is in charge of the investigation. It's cute, and so far it looks as if the mystery is plotted well enough that as you learn more, you can go back and understand the characters' reactions a little better. It's cute.

• J. Michael Straczynski's Midnight Nation #12. Okay. I mean, I'm satisfied by the ending. JMS did another one of his time-travel things, where you see the same event from both points of view, as he did on B5. It worked pretty well. I still need to reread the whole series now that it's all wrapped up, since it's taken about 2 years to get through. More when I've done that.

• JMS's Rising Stars, #s 17 & 18. I continue to dislike the art. It's hard to avoid comparing the superhero treatment in it to Watchmen and The Authority. It sort of combines their strengths and weaknesses. I don't know, I keep saying "It's not bad," which isn't really a ringing endorsement. I like the fact that it covers such a wide timespan and keeps moving along, since I thought the first storyline was going to be the plot for the entire run. But it's just... not bad. There's nothing that jumps out as an amazing moment, or a inspired plot twist, or a fascinating character. It's really a C+ kind of book, I guess. Perfectly adequate, but if I weren't so far into it that I feel like I have to find out how it ends, I'd probably stop buying it. Midnight Nation was much better.

• Rick Veitch's Greyshirt #6. Tee hee. Hee hee hee. The, uh, "cover story," is about Indigo City being invaded by "furry and ferocious eyeball warriors that, according to scientists, might or might not actually exist." The "Eye-Borgs" were the result of an argument between Quantum Probability and SuperString researchers, who regularly meet to play a fantasy role-playing card game called, ahem, "Thaumaturg." Hee.

  And that's just in the newspaper in the back of the issue. There's a short with art by Frank Cho, and then the main story wraps everything up rather tidily. With gratuitous continuity, as just about everyone featured in previous stories gets at least a mention. Nicely done.

I went to the comic shop today, and bought a bunch of stuff that I'll talk about after I've read it all. Which will probably be tomorrow.

And I was seduced into entering the... uh, record store? What do we call them now that they don't sell records? And they do sell movies? The media store? Whatever it is, I went into it. And found The Lair of the White Worm for eight bucks. Eight bucks! I'd pay that just to listen to "The D'Ampton Worm" whenever I want. Plus it's got a commentary track from Ken Russell. He's goofy, y'know. His comments aren't particularly insightful, and he repeats himself sometimes, but he also makes a lot of dry remarks about how this was Hugh Grant's greatest performance and so on. He's very droll, and sounds kind of like Hitchcock or Price. I can't exactly explain why, but that's who he reminded me of.

I also got The Boondock Saints, because it was $10. Just last week I suddenly saw a bunch of people talking about it at the WEF and elsewhere, I guess because they announced that they're doing a sequel. And a lot of the quotes sounded funny, so I was planning to rent it, and then there it was, pretty cheap, so what the heck. I haven't gone through all the extras yet, but the movie is fun. Sort of a combination of The Crow and Pulp Fiction.

As expected, I did not finish Don Quixote in time for "John Quixote" on Farscape tonight. Although I might have come close if I hadn't needed to sleep for a few hours earlier tonight. So tired. I do think I might finish this weekend though. And no, it wasn't important at all, but I like arbitrary deadlines. Especially when there's no consequence to missing them.

Farscape was demented, and a bit predictable, but I loved it. Actually, I almost always like their more "standard" stories, because that's where they get especially weird -- we all know the plot because we've seen it before, so they work extra hard to make the journey more fun. And there were references to Monty Python, Max Headroom, and Macbeth (and that's just the "M" entries). I love Ben Browder more than usual -- he wrote the episode. He's just nuts.

I guess my final verdict on Geldof's Sex, Age & Death is that I like it. I mean, given that I listened to it straight through three times this evening.

This means I'll have random tracks from it playing in my head all day tomorrow, of course. Oh well.

Last Friday I discovered that I get Noggin now. They show Daria! And The Adventures of Pete and Pete! You'd think this would make me happy, but actually it's just annoying, because I keep forgetting that they're on, and then I tune in for the last five minutes.

I guess I'll remember eventually. But I'm grumpy, and this seemed like a good thing to grump about.

Grump.

Okay, I might have gotten that out of my system. So the Twilight Zone DVD I rented arrived. It was pretty neat. It had "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," which is why I rented it. And also the pilot episode, "Where Is Everybody?" and "The Encounter," which apparently was too controversial for syndication or something. It had George Takei! That wasn't the point of controversy, mind you.

Then there were some all-text extras about the show, and a bio of Serling. There was also the promo tape Serling did to sell the show to advertisers; it went out along as an intro with "Where is Everybody?" as a sample of what they'd do. It was fairly cute, with Serling giving a hard sell: "The audience will be glued to their seat for half an hour... but they'll be able to get up afterward and go to the store and buy your products." Heh.

But the coolest thing by far was a copy of an interview Serling did with Mike Wallace in 1959. Not the best quality, but what dates it the most is that Serling and Wallace are chainsmoking throughout the interview. There are clouds of smokes drifting by throughout the whole thing; it's kind of amusing. Serling impressed the hell out of me though. He speaks so wonderfully. Well, not flawlessly, but you've seen celebrity interviews. He was miles beyond that; articulate and interesting... and man, he had a lovely voice. The interview was done just as he was starting up TZ, and it focuses mostly on how network censors and sponsors mangle stories, and how frustrated Serling had been by demands to change his scripts. Serling lays some of the blame on the audience, and good for him, and tells a great story about how an episode of Lassie where the dog had puppies got all kinds of hate mail saying "if I wanted my kids to learn about sex, I'd take 'em to a burlesque show." Yeesh.

Wallace keeps angling toward the idea that Serling is selling out, doing some goofy fantasy show instead of hard drama. Serling hedges a bit, because he can't say, "No, we can actually do all kinds of social commentary because when you frame it in an SF story, the sponsors are too dumb to notice." He admits that he's tired of battling over scripts, I think he just decided to leave out the part where he found a way to win. Smart guy. (And see, that's what I mean about how obstacles can inspire you!) Cool interview.

I bought and read Coraline on Sunday. It was good and a little creepy. I wanted more pictures, but I still liked it a lot. I do think the blurb about unseating Alice in Wonderland is ridiculous; it is very good but that's just crazy talk. I'm just complaining about that because the other blurbs are perfectly fine (and there's one from Lemony Snicket!) and it just seems silly to use one that's so over-the-top. But I don't hold that against the book, honest. I also think an "other mother" Halloween costume would be really neat.

Tonight I read about 30 pages of that albatross around my neck. And I'm going back to it when I go to bed. Progress! There's still a (slim) chance I'll finish by Friday. Place your bets! At this point, my personal guess is that I'll make a valiant effort but won't actually finish it until Saturday afternoon. Although I'm out of DVDs to watch until new ones arrive on Wednesday, which should help.

Oh yeah! And on Saturday I hung out with my family and played with kitties and then we played Save Doctor Lucky. Which I'd borrowed from Johanna. It was quite fun. Originally we were going to play Save Doctor Lucky on Moon Base Copernicus, because that's just a cooler name, but since it's an expansion set for Save Doctor Lucky, we got confused after about five seconds of looking at the rules. And then realized we should probably play the original (well, original spin-off) before we played the expansion. Anyway.

Then my brother & sister-in-law left with their traumatized kitties (my mom had been cat-sitting.. um, that's not why they were traumatized; it was just the getting them into their carriers that upset them) and my mom and I played Awful Green Things. My mom, playing the Awful Green Things, won. I seem to recall that they usually do. I mean, not always, but I think the odds are in their favor. That's okay, though. Oh, and I did find the missing die I'd lost, but now I've lost one of the counters! Damn it. I assume that it, too, is floating about in the living room somewhere. This is why I can't keep anything nice.

Today -- well, Friday -- I spent a lot of time on my couch. I did something stupid to my back Thursday night, which made standing or laying flat much, much better than sitting. So that sucked. A heating pad and as little movement as possible seem to have helped a lot, though, so I guess I just pulled a muscle and I seem to have mostly recovered. (I am using a rolled-up towel as extra support right now, but at least I can sit up without wincing.) Except now I'm wide awake from napping all day.

Since I was trying not to move around much, I watched a lot of bad daytime television. And I read. And, as already mentioned, I napped a lot, because that's what bad daytime television will do. But let's stick to the TV part. I saw a fabulous infomercial for a movie called Escape From Hell. Strangely enough, it isn't the sequel to From Hell. Nor does it star Kurt Russell. It's an evangelistic movie -- here's a "review." They showed a lot of clips, and boy did it look good. In the "unintended comedy" sense. I wish I could remember some of the dialogue.

And then I watched Muppets in Space, which I'd rented. It was about what I expected, which wasn't great. I'm resisting the urge to nitpick about a few things, because that would be taking it too seriously. A friend of mine once pointed out that Jim Henson was always trying to do new things, but since his death they'd been pretty conservative. This seemed like further evidence of that pattern. Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal aren't perfect by any means, but they were attempts to stretch. Hell, there's even stuff like the bicycling Muppets in the first two movies; there didn't seem to be anything in this one that wasn't routine. I mean, it's not terrible, but I did zone out a few times.

However, it's worth seeing just for the gag near the start when Dr. Honeydew is cleaning his glasses while Beaker cleans his ears. Trust me. And the DVD has some fun stuff. There's a commentary track with the director (who barely says anything), accompanied by Rizzo, Gonzo, and (too briefly) Kermit. It was probably more amusing than the movie itself

The best feature though, is the outtakes section. It's worth renting just for that part. Muppets flubbing their lines, Kermit accidentally getting a mouthful of Gonzo's nose... My favorite thing is that sometimes when the puppeteers realized they've screwed up, they immediately lower their arms. Which means that the Muppets suddenly sink out of the frame. It looks like they're all fainting. And the puppeteers always react to this stuff through the Muppets, so it's Kermit or Gonzo complaining and apologizing and asking to start over, which is what makes it so great. Oh, and there's also one where Rizzo says, "I'm weird for you" to Gonzo, instead of "I'm here for you." Gonzo's reaction is priceless.

There were also some trailers, including ones for Labyrinth and Dark Crystal and... The Storyteller. Why, oh why, isn't it out on DVD? Just seeing the clips made me wistful. There are a few episodes available on video, but I'd probably pay a ridiculous price to get them all on DVD.

Oh yeah, and I really enjoyed tonight's Farscape. But I still hate the old woman. Much more than I ever hated Stark. At least his tics were more amusing; hers are just annoying. Plus, her FX makeup is highly stupid. I hope she gets killed soon.

I also made some progress in reading you-know-what. Which is good, because I actually have just a week left before my self-imposed deadline. So maybe I should go get back to that right now. Yipes.

Once again, for odd work-related reasons, I spent a lot of time today riding the Metro. Which gave me just enough time to read Jim Thompson's Nothing More Than Murder. Well, technically I had to finish the last bit after I got home, but I read most of it on the Metro. It's not important.

I liked it a lot. I think I enjoyed it more than After Dark, My Sweet, which I certainly didn't dislike. But this one was funnier, and had more plot complications. It's about a guy named Joe who plans, with the help of his girlfriend and his wife, to fake his wife's death and collect the insurance. So, naturally, it reminded me of The Good Soldier. Er. Okay, that's not why, but it did remind me of The Good Soldier because the narrator describes a lot of things out of order, in flashbacks, and so you have to get halfway through it before you really know what was happening in the first chapters. And it's got a lot of oddly funny lines. And, y'know, there's adultery. I admit that there aren't too many similarities in tone, but I'm just telling you what I thought of while reading it. I'm only a tiny bit crazy, honest.

I mean, here: "I still wasn't hot for the killing -- who would be? -- but if that was the only way to lead a happy, decent life, why..." And I liked this one too, about the hefty wife of a minister: "She'd been going through doors sideways for so long that she kind of waltzed when she walked."

I couldn't find many reviews of it online, but as I suspected, the plot is kind of similar to Double Indemnity (which I haven't seen yet). But the fun comes in with all of the subplots; I'd actually guessed the big revelation at the end very early on, but I guess I can excuse Jim for not catching on because he was busy dealing with the fact that everyone in town was blackmailing him or trying to steal his business. And those are the more interesting stories, anyway, so I can't blame him. There's a lot of shady business tactics and wheeling & dealing, and watching Joe try to play one side against the other is really amusing. I did get a little confused a few times, trying to keep track of who was who, because all of the antagonists start to blur together if you don't pay attention. And the Metro isn't exactly the best place to concentrate on a book.

I'm also about halfway through with the Yes, Minister book. And I'd like to quote lots of it, but I don't think I could just stop at one or two selections, so I guess I shouldn't . I saw the series a few times -- I think it was on before or after To The Manor Born when we watched that. But I don't remember it well enough to know if these are expanded versions of stories they did on the show, or totally different plots. I'm guessing they're different, because a lot of the jokes depend on getting different points of view of the same event, and reading personal memos from the various characters, and so it seems like they're telling stories that are better suited to text instead of adapting TV scripts to a different format. Which is something I highly approve of in tie-in merchandise.

I've still got a couple of weeks left for Don Quixote, right? I've made a little progress in it, but just a little. Too many distractions.

I knew I forgot something. There was also a trailer for Signs before Men in Black 2, and while watching it, I wondered if I could guess the surprise ending ('cause you know there's gonna be one) after only seeing the ads. I've given it a lot of thought, and I think that I've figured it out. I haven't read any spoilers, mind you, this is just a theory, but I'm convinced that in the last five minutes of the movie, we're going to find out that all of the mysterious happenings are the work of gophers.

You heard it here first.

I watched Mulholland Drive this afternoon. I'd been spoiled for some of it, but I don't think that really matters. I'll probably have to watch it again, but my immediate reaction is that I preferred Lost Highway, which is somewhat similar. However, I have absolutely no justification for that -- I don't especially think one is better than the other, and in fact I realize that Lost Highway is a lot slower. I dunno. It might be just because it's a lot creepier overall, because I like mood pieces.

Anyway, then I went surfing for info about Mulholland Drive, to see what all I missed, and I ended up reading this interview with Lynch. I really liked this part:

"[I]n television you can imply things; you can do much more than you think. You just have to do it a hair differently. I found out in 'Twin Peaks' that a lot of the restrictions in television led to some very interesting things that were even better. You know: Your mind goes to work to solve a certain problem, and, because of this need, sometimes the solution is pretty interesting."

That makes me happy, just because it supports something I've thought for a while: restrictions in art aren't necessarily bad. I forget why it came up, but I was talking with a friend years ago about the "artistic vision" and such, and how I thought that obstacles can make something better, because in overcoming them you're forced to think of things that you might not otherwise come up with. I wish I could remember the context, because I know there was something in particular that inspired that thought. (It's sorta related to the way, when I was in college, I'd wonder if I'd have come up with the same insights in my essays if I hadn't written most of them at 3 AM. I work best under pressure. But I'm pretty sure that's not what we were talking about at the time.)

Well, that's my philosophy of the artistic process note for the day. In other news, I would have picked up my DVDs of Donnie Darko and the first episode of Twin Peaks yesterday, except the post office changed their hours without telling me. Which was mean of them. I'll get them tomorrow. They're from Hong Kong! And cost practically nothing because of that! Nice to know the dollar is still worth something somewhere in the world.

Oh, last night a bunch of us got together to celebrate birthdays, and we played Chez Geek and Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Expedition. Katie won the first, and Johanna won the second (I was one turn away from snatching victory away from her, too. Damn it.). Both were fun; I was happy about getting to try Chez Geek. But we didn't have time to try all the new games Johanna has, so that needs to happen. We really need to have an all-night gaming session sometime. It's the geeky version of a slumber party.

Catching up... I listened to the commentary track for The Man Who Wasn't There; I'll probably watch the actual movie this weekend. It's nothing remarkable, but fun; Billy Bob Thornton and the Coens mostly giggle at the movie, although that's more entertaining than it sounds.

I also watched Ghost World, which I'd rented. It was very funny, and Thora Birch is cool and pretty and excuse the shallowness, but she is. A lot of it did have me cringing in expectation that something really awful might happen at any moment. Nothing too terrible actually happened, but the possibilities made me nervous. I'd probably enjoy it more if I watched it again, now that I don't have to be so tense. Not that I didn't enjoy it the first time, mind you.

And I rented Lolita. The "older men obsessing over young girls" theme in these movies wasn't intentional, honest. This was the Kubrick version, and I mostly got it because I like Kubrick. His movies aren't always great, but they're interesting. This one was, I think, his second or third film, so it's less, uh, Kubrickian than his later stuff. I haven't read the book, but I'm somewhat aware of the differences between it and the movie. Anyway, it's odd. Surprise! Peter Sellars is wonderful (yeah, another huge surprise) and reminded me a little of John Cusack for no reason I can identify. I might have just been nuts at the time. It was amusing, although I don't think the flashback structure worked very well. On the other hand, I know that's one of the changes they made from the book, and I think it was primarily to set a comedic tone before Lolita was introduced, which is understandable. Really, it worked okay at the start, but when you end up at Quigley's again at the end it seems awfully abrupt.

In reading news, I finished After Dark, My Sweet. Quite depressing. I liked it, but youch. Thompson manages to make the characters more likable even as they're doing things that get worse and worse, which I think is a neat trick. Especially with Fay, who doesn't make a very good first impression. Or second, or third. I alternated between it and some Wodehouse, which is probably a dangerous combination that only an experienced multi-tasker should attempt.

And then I zipped through Gun, With Occasional Music. (Aside: Thanks to Angel, I have to concentrate not to write "Gunn" every time I mention that book. Curse you, WB.) I think that when I first read it, I took a lot longer... like maybe I was reading three other things at the time. Y'know, for a change. This time I read most of it in one night, and finished the last chunk the next day, so it was a lot less confusing than I remembered it being. There's probably a moral there that I could benefit from, but reading one thing at a time seems so predictable.

I saw Men in Black 2. It was okay. Eh. I think the biggest mistake was not getting J back into things until, what, like halfway through? Admittedly, they kind of screwed themselves up by ending the first movie with his memory getting wiped, but even so. The interaction between Smith & Jones doesn't work as well when their roles are reversed; Jones does great deadpan, which is very funny when he's got no reaction to freaky things while Smith freaks out. It doesn't work so well when Smith is still slightly freaked, and Jones is supposed to be astonished but isn't really that astonished.

There was just something off about the whole thing, which I think is mostly attributable to sequelitis. Which is the disease that affects a movie when everyone involved realizes that they've gone from gambling on an oddball production to becoming involved in a franchise. And there's also the problem that in the first movie you could get a lot of mileage out of just explaining the world and establishing the premise. This time they couldn't do much more than say, "See! Still goofy!" So yeah, not great, but I enjoyed it well enough. I'm kind of confused at the way some reviews have been savaging the plot, because hi, did you see the first movie?

Moving on the always-thrilling trailers... Let's see. There was XXX, which looks so godawful I can't believe it exists. The Two Towers looks so pretty that it almost makes me wish I cared. Although I didn't like the CGI Gollum. Poo. I'm excited about Signs, despite Mel Gibson. I just respect Shyamalan for admitting that all of his movies are basically episodes of The Twilight Zone

Terminator 3 had a teaser trailer that consisted of blobs linking up to form a giant "T3." I'm sure that would have generated a lot more excitement if it hadn't been a decade since the last movie. Note to the studio: I know you want to believe that we've been doing nothing but wondering when the next Terminator movie would come out, but I'm afraid you're mistaken. I overheard at least one person asking what movie that was a trailer for. =

Star Trek: Nemisis. And are they reusing Horner's soundtrack for Wrath of Khan in the trailer, or did he do a new soundtrack that just sounds exactly like all of his other... oh. That's kind of a moot question, isn't it?

And I Spy. With Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy. Gah. I know Johanna cherishes a great deal of affection for Owen Wilson, but he's no Robert Culp. And the idea of turning I Spy into a big action movie chock full o' 'splosions.... okay, it's like turning Mission: Impossible into a big action movie chock full o' 'splosions. Fine. I guess it works, but I still think it's wrong. When the movie you're making contains none of the elements that made people enjoy the original TV show, don't use the title. You don't even care about the people who remember the show, really; I don't think this movie is trying to capture the Boomer audience. So why bother? I don't understand.

There was also a movie ad mixed in with the slide show of advertising for local businesses and terrible "trivia" questions brought to us by Coke. It was a still from Reign of Fire. Just a shot of Hawke & McConaughey looking at each other. Another note to the studio: when you're trying to lure people into a movie about an apocalyptic futuristic SF battle against dragons, use an action shot! Not a picture of two guys in funny clothes having a chat! Especially two B-list actors that nobody recognizes!

After the movie I ran around and did some errands and looked for clothes and didn't find anything I wanted and then I might have sort of accidentally wound up buying a couple of books and maybe a DVD. Okay, maybe two DVDs. Another Farscape disk and The Man Who Wasn't There. I think I've used up my "spending spree" budget for the month now, so I'll behave myself for a few weeks. Probably.

Games! I'd ordered a couple of things from Steve Jackson Games because after months of effort, I've paid off all my credit cards, and I'm pretty sure that's bad for the economy. Don't say I'm not doing my patriotic duty.

Where was I? Right, so the games arrived. I got The Awful Green Things From Outer Space and Chez Geek. Awful Green Things is a game my brother used to have. Actually, he still has it. And I expect that, now that I've bought a new copy, he'll find his with no further delay. But he'd been looking for it (or claiming to) for a while, and then I was thinking how fun it was, and I figured having my own copy would be nicer than trying to borrow his. Plus, it's a two-player game, and I actually don't have many of those, which is silly considering how rarely I have multiple guests.

And my copy has the video cassette box and the "outside the ship" rules, which my brother's copy doesn't. Didn't. Whatever. Although his copy has the spiffy wraparound board/cover with the velcro closure, so it probably balances out. The game's arrival meant that I spent a while cutting out counters with an exacto knife, but that was sort of geekily fun. (I was watching Howling 3 at the time, if that gives you any idea of how I spent my day off.) And I think I managed to lose one of the dice the same day I got the game, which has to be some kind of personal record. I'm pretty sure I'll find it, probably by stepping on it, since it really has to be on the living room floor somewhere.

Chez Geek seemed amusing, too. It's a card game, and you can just go read about it by following the link. I haven't played it yet so I can't offer much insight. But it looks funny. The fact that cats give you valuable Slack pretty much says it all. I may be getting together with Johanna and Katie next weekend, to give Katie her long-overdue birthday presents, so if that happens we might give it a try.

Thinking about Awful Green Things reminded me of Snits' Revenge, from the same creator. It was kind of the same premise, but you were inside a creature instead of a spaceship. That's another game my brother should have somewhere. Hmmm.

I also got random goodies because such is their way: an Illuminati temporary tattoo, and some flyers for, uh, stuff, and some "cardboard heroes" cut-out player tokens. Mostly SF-type characters: robots and people in spacesuits. Ooo, and it just occurred to me that they'd make playing Kill Doctor Lucky even more fun. People in space-suits running around a mansion trying to kill a robot? That's comedy.

As for books, I started After Dark, My Sweet earlier this evening, but I'm not very far into it yet. The introduction mentions that in one of Thompson's books, there's a character who tortures people by boring them. So I need to go look for that. Um, the next time I need more books. Which won't be for a while.

And last night, very late, I listened to the commentary track for Blood Simple again, I talked about it a little way back whenever I got it, but I've got to repeat: get this DVD. You can hear about the cut scenes, and about the roles Fred Astaire and Rosemary Clooney were considered for, and learn the sad story of the CGI fly that crashed the computers, and it's complete nonsense and a parody of commentary tracks and god, it's just so funny. I was lying on the couch at 4 AM, kind of wanting to fall asleep, and giggling instead. Highly recommended. And yes, the actual movie is very good, too.

After a very pleasant, and very very very hot, day of socializing, I came home and checked out the other commentary track on Dark City. It's actually Proyas, one of the co-writers, and, uh.... the DP? Someone like that. Sadly they're all spliced together from different sessions, which is a shame just because I like commentaries where the people talking are actually interacting. They tend to ask each other good questions or prompt funny stories. But it was still interesting. Nobody said a thing about Cat People, damn them.

But Proyas did mention Dennis Potter! Yay. Apparently he was hoping to get Potter to work on the script with him. Potter read and liked the script, but said it was fine as it was, and later Proyas realized that Potter might have been a little busy dying at that point. But he dedicated the movie to him, which pleases me. The other writer also tells an amusing story at the very end about all the various name changes the movie went through before they finally went back to the original title. Someone also mentioned that the opening narration was a last-minute addition that the studio wanted, which makes sense, because it was a bad idea. With it, from the start you know this is an alien experiment; it'd be much more fun if the first fifteen minutes or so had you believing it was a period noir piece, and then when midnight strikes you realize that other things are going on.

Oh, and someone -- I think the other writer, again -- also commented on the fact that the climactic battle scene is a bit tired. Which is another thing I liked, because I happen to agree; the movie is this neat layered, complex story with all kinds of philosophical questions, and then at the end it's still resolved with an amped-up fistfight. It's still better than The Matrix, though. I will never understand why people got excited about that movie.

Dark City actually made a good double-feature of sorts with Hudson Hawk, because with both of them I could spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make them better. I enjoy doing that; I think it appeals to the puzzle-lover in me.

I also finished Leave it to Psmith in the course of the two hours I spent on the Metro today. It was quite fun, and I may have to resist the urge to talk like the characters for another day or two. I think my favorite joke is that Psmith falls in love with Eve partly because "she let him talk oftener and longer than any girl he had ever known."

I rented Dark City on DVD because I heard the commentary from Roger Ebert is "a mini film class." I think that's exaggerating a tad, but it was interesting. Maybe I'm just vexed because he didn't mention the Cat People homage. Because I'm not making that up. Am I? I'm pretty sure that it's not all in my head. I'll have to listen to the director's commentary and see if he mentions it.

That's a pretty movie. So is The Crow. In both movies, the final act isn't quite as enthralling (at least to me) but I like both movies and I think they're both beautiful. Ebert compares Alex Proyas (the director) to Kubrick in his perfectionism, which isn't a bad comparison (bearing in mind Proyas hasn't achieved the same amount of work yet). Apparently his next movie is a comedy called Garage Days, so I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

I'm about halfway through Leave it to Psmith, because I'm slavishly obedient. Shhhh. And I'll probably see Men in Black 2 sometime this weekend. Maybe I'll go to a matinee on Friday.

Finished Chicago Days, Hoboken Nights. I started with it, figuring it would be a quick read. Pinkwater is so quotable. Egg creams are "a whole lot of trouble just to get a chocolate-flavored burp." "Bagels can be an enormous power for good or for evil." "I often wish I had lived at the same time as Mozart. I could have been of considerable help to him. We might have worked on a comic strip together."

Okay, I'll stop quoting. Good book. If you plan to read it, you might want to arrange to have someone nearby who won't mind if you read them passages occasionally. There were a few sections I reread to myself so I could enjoy them some more, but that's not as much fun as having an audience.

Oh, and we played Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Expedition. It's quite fun. Sort of similar to Kill Doctor Lucky, but instead of killing someone, you're trying to avoid him, while collecting cards that you'll use to support your fictional tales of thrilling adventures. The cards are very funny; there are Facts, Artifacts, Photographs, Anecdotes, and Heroes. Most have little comments and stories, so part of the fun of playing is reading them. The Fact cards teach valuable lessons such as, "Love is Blind" and "Noodles Are Yummy." And of course, "Ignorance is Bliss," which reads, "My journeys have taught me that the happiest peoples in the world are the most stupid. And I was happier knowing nothing about them. But mostly, they have taught me to love." Hee.