Just for fun

Quote of the Day

"On Saturdays he would type -- ejaculations of clatter after long foreplay of silent agony."

--John Updike, from A Month of Sundays

Funny Games

It was Saturday afternoon. 6 degrees outside. There was a painful lack of something good to watch on television.

Mike began scrolling through On-Demand movies.

I called out ones that looked good:
"Juno!"
"No thanks," he said.
"Jaws!"
"For the 3 millionth time? You can't be serious," he replied.
"Cats in the Womb!"
"You hate insides."


Against my wishes and recommendations, he selected Funny Games. Mike sold me on giving the unknown movie a try by saying, "Has Tim Roth and Naomi 'THE RING!!!' Watts in it. You like Tim Roth."


It started slow, with lots of bright light and white walls and quiet. The camera focused on weird things instead of the actors' faces as the family packed to go to their lake house.


When a strange guest of their neighbor's knocks at the door asking to borrow eggs, everything starts to feel tense and then scary. At this point, we hated the movie and planned to turn it off, but wanted to wait until the scene with the weird guy and the eggs ended.


If you make it that far, you won't shut it off. The tension just gets worse, you feel like you can't breathe. If you like thrillers, this is a good sensation, as painful as it is. You have know what happens next. You need this to make sense or be explained.


This movie is likely to leave you annoyed. Or angry. Possibly scared. You may consider purchasing a gun to defend yourself. Or you may do what we did, which was to discuss the decisions we would want each other to make if we were ever confronted with a situation like the one that results from the egg-borrowing.


I do not recommend starting Funny Games at all, no matter how boring your weekend afternoon may be.

Zombies in Literature

As I may have mentioned in the past, I love spoofs, often more than I love the originals.

This is sure to be the case with this book, which may horrify the literati in more ways than one.



I always felt embarassed that I could barely force myself through Jane Austen. As an English and literature major - and feminist - shouldn't I love her? I plan to give Austen another try when this version releases. I mean, check out this snippet from the summary:

Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.

I was in a book club whose theme was books that had movie equivalents. We'd get together, talk about the book, then watch the movie and compare. We had a dozen movie versions of Pride and Predujice to choose from, and opted to watch one set in modern times, in a Mormon community in Utah. It was funny, but the threat of zombies would have been better.


Will someone please make a movie from this version of the book?




P.S. - In addition to spoofs, I also love zombies.
P.P.S. - Thanks, Rasimick.

John Updike, 1932-2009

This one hurts. He'll be missed. Probably my second-favorite writer after Steinbeck. I've read his novel The Centaur, about a father & son caught in a blizzard, every December since college -- except this year, when I was distracted by Twilight. I hope my missing a year didn't contribute.

Babies?

Her: I'm trying to get pregnant.
Me: No kidding! Congratulations, that's great. I have so many books to loan you.
Her: Really? Are you thinking of having a baby?
Me: No, it just takes me an incredibly long time to make a decision. I'm in the information-gathering stage. It lasts about 3 years.
Her: Oh.
Me: Yeah, I don't do anything without thoroughly researching it first.
Her: That's such a librarian thing to do.
Me: I'm about the least spontaneous person you'll ever meet.