Quote of the Day (and other randomosity)

From The Storyteller (John Hurt) in "A Story Short," The Storyteller:

"I am not domestic. I am a luxury, and in that sense, necessary."



Also, a not very positive review of the Master and Commander score album (score spoilers, if there is such a thing), from Filmtracks. They didn't hate it; they just weren't very enthusiastic. I haven't heard any of the score tracks yet, so I can't legitimately agree or disagree with the review, but the types of complaints they have don't seem that bad to me. I'm okay with it not being Korngold (especially considering the tones and textures of O'Brian's writing), as long as whatever it is, is good. The non-score tracks, which fittingly and happily include pieces by Corelli and Boccherini, look encouraging. And despite that fact that Tallis and Vaughn Williams are both anachronistic for the setting, I love "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" madly, so I won't complain if it's used well in the film (like using Mozart's Requiem in Elizabeth- completely random timeline-wise, but a nice choice artistically, I thought).

Kino is releasing Die Niebelungen, uncut, on DVD! Yay! It's Fritz Lang and all that that implies, but if you only see one silent movie version of the Siegfried story, make this the one (actually, I think it may be the only one. Oh well). Margarete Schoen as Kriemhild is one intense lady and well worth the... 291 minutes. Wow, that's long. Keen! Nice dragon, too. Always a plus. Kino, like Criterion, does an amazing job with remastering classic films and compiling interesting extras for them, so this should be a treat.


My luck with commenting today is spotty at best- sometimes they work fine, sometimes I get an error message again and again, and sometimes I end up with five copies of the same comment, so I may just leave it again for now, though it seems so rude. I keep telling myself that LJ is only a couple of bucks a month, but at the moment, that's not very soothing. And I owe emails. And there's a review of Joan of Arcadia in the new EW that I haven't read yet. Oh, speaking of JoA, Eliza Dushku's older brother is in tonight's episode, which is neat. And one of the cats just brought me a wee mole for lunch (oh, thank you, Ross). And, um, that's more than enough babble for today, I think.

*Joan* in brief, for now

As usual, I want to watch Joan again before I post on it. I'm not sure why I always need to ponder this show before I have anything to say about it, exactly. It's not like I post anything deep. It's pretty much the same sort of things I say about CSI/WaT, except all the "Eeee! Archie!" stuff is replaced with "Eeee! Adam!" But briefly- this was a much darker episode than the previous ones, and while it turned out as I had expected (based on the unsubtle previews), I wish I'd been wrong. Helen and Will's relationship gained a lot of needed depth, though, so I guess that's a plus. Nate Dushku is a lot less attractive than his sister. Sydney Poitier, on the other hand, easily as gorgeous as her father. I want the Girardis' house so much. And Lieut. Dave... I can't talk about him yet (sob!).

Here's the review of Joan from EW that I mentioned earlier. Actually, I have no idea if that'll be accessible without the Super-Secret Password, so if you can't read it and want to, let me know. It's one of the least enthusiastic reviews I've read for the show, and while I don't agree with it (obviously), there's not really a lot I can specify to counter it. Ken Tucker and I just watch the show differently, I guess (and it might help that I don't have his strong preference for Miss Match, never having seen it). But one thing that I do think he misread is this: "Joan's God is not all-accepting and forgiving. Instead, we get the Old Testament Jehovah: full of commands, vengeful, and capricious (thus the small-town crimes Mantegna tackles)."

I don't know, I've yet to see Joan's version of God be vengeful (full of commands, sort of. But they're "suggestions, not assignments"). The emphasis in the show has seemed to be less on the effects of God's actions than on humanity's (and the representative Joan's), as we've had illuminated for us by Mime!God and his reality strands, Chess!God and his "touch move", Mrs. LandingGod, the boat mojo, and the weight of others' burdens, and the rest. It seems to me that Will's cop plots have far less to do with the Vengeance of God than the evil that men do. It's the downside to the whole "free will is one of my better innovations" deal, after all.

(I wouldn't consider them "small-town crimes" either. Murder rate like that in a small town and pretty soon you'll run out of people to kill. But that's another issue.)