Absolutely charming, I loved every single second of this movie. It is without a doubt, and by many degrees, my favorite-ever Wes Anderson flick.
And man if it doesn’t make you want to spend 97 billion hours at flea markets/swap meets repurchasing the kitschy items of your 1970s childhood.
Yes, we did come out of this movie and spend a good 45 minutes discussing all the huge, gaping, ridiculous holes in the plot.
I enjoyed the watching of it DESPITE ALL THAT. So. Award-winning? No. Logical and well-done? No. Enjoyable anyway? Why, yes.
Also there are lots of visual (and otherwise) ties to previous movies in the franchise, especially noticeable since V. and I had just (re)watched Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection over the previous week in preparation.
Beautiful, amazing costumes, particularly for Charlize.
Beautiful set design, art direction, filming, special effects, etc. Some really visually stunning moments.
Lame plot, bad dialogue when there even was any, and then it.just.ends.
Teaching: Sixth-grade language arts! It’s just a maternity leave position and I 100% acquired it via nepotism…but hey I am getting paid to be a teacher for roughly seven weeks (only 2 left) and that’s better than if I hadn’t gotten any teaching this semester at all, which is what is really looked like was going to be the case.
Reading: A very very LOT of things. Thank you, full-hour morning commute and sometimes-longer afternoon one. I’m just about to start Bitterblue, book three in Kristin Cashore’s series (books 1 and 2 were wonderful) and I can’t wait!
Watching: I just did an epic rewatch of all four seasons of Everwood in just a couple of weeks. I had forgotten how whiny whiny OMG SO WHINY the first season is but it does get so very good after that and it’s really worth watching S1 so you have the entire Amy/Ephram story at your fingertips. The Bright/Hannah stuff from S3 to S4 is still oh so very awesome as well. I still have a couple episodes of Awake and Once Upon a Time to finish out from the past season waiting in my Hulu queue. And I really want to watch Tiny Furniture (on Netflix) now that Girls is getting such buzzity buzz. (Not that I’ll be able to watch that. Did I mention I finally got all the way rid of my cable some months back when it became clear I would not have a teaching job? [I had gotten rid of all the awesome channels back when I quit my job to go back for MA #2.])
Listening to: Kishi Bashi “151A”!!!. NPR’s Stephen Thompson just kept recommending it over and over on what seems like every podcast I listen to and although he is not my favorite person on any of those podcasts I finally gave it a chance and holy toledo it is just beautiful. So beautiful! Dang, I guess I might like you after all, Stephen Thompson.
Eating: A metric tonne of berries. Blue, black, straw, rasp… I am berrying it up over here.
Drinking: Magic Hat Elderberry, Magic Hat Pistil, Shiner Ruby Redbird, Lefthand Good JuJu (probably my very favorite these days), Fat Tire Shift… There’s more in the fridge but I am too lazy to go look. Suffice it to say, the options seem to be particularly plentiful and yummy these days. Hopefully for you as well. 🙂
Knitting: Technically I am testing a design for someone but it took me forever to even get started so I bet all the other testknitters will be done before I’m even halfway through. There are a couple other things on the needles but I haven’t looked at any of them in ages and by ages I do really mean many months.
Quilting: Just finished a doozy. Have three baby tops ready and waiting to be quilted. Hopefully I’ll get to those right quick so I can make another one for ME ME ME.
Sewing: About to make a second Renfrew (short sleeved and V-necked this time) and then going to do some ‘muslins’ of skirts (but not out of muslin!) and see how that goes.
Getting: Not much sleep. 5:40 a.m. wakeup call means I have to really try hard to curb my nightowl tendencies and sometimes that just doesn’t happen. Speaking of…it’s 12:45 and I’m getting picked up at 8:45 tomorrow to drag some stuff to Goodwill. So I’d best be on my way to bed right quick now. Laters, yo. 🙂
Wow, I am seriously behind on Snip. And to think I’ve actually been keeping GoodReads fairly up to date. As if that’s significantly fewer steps (not really). Well, I won’t have a job again in two weeks so maybe my mission will be to catch you up, dear reader. In any case, on to Arcadia.
Lyrical, beautiful. Completely compelling. I liked Groff’s debut novel a lot, I liked the stories she put out next even more, and I loved this book quite deeply. There’s some seriously gorgeous pieces of writing in it, even in the moments where the story seems to be twisting in on itself. And Bit’s mind just thinks through things in such a wonderfully textured way.
TINY POSSIBLY MINI SPOILERS CONTAINED HEREINAFTER.
I think I also loved this because this story basically covers my lifetime and there was a real sense of having been in those times at the same time as the character. I mean, that doesn’t even really describe how I felt while I was reading it but that’s about as close as I can come to encapsulating the feeling: I was born in 1968, my parents never became part of a commune but they were quite hippie-esque in some ways, and in 2018, six years from now, I’ll also be 50 and we (as a global society) could very well be facing something similar.
There were so many moments I loved in this book but one from near the end that was especially lovely was when Bit gives his students the “digital free” assignment; Sylvie’s essay is very cool.
Also when the fox and the deer run into each other and Bit’s laughter breaks the bad inside him… So many times Bit has these sensations of breaking through that feel very much like there’s an actual audible breaking even though it’s a mental or emotional state that’s being transformed… Oddly was I was walking home tonight musing on something that’s been upsetting me, I suddenly realized that I was feeling like the witch at the end of Dark Shadows (Johnny Depp/dir. Tim Burton), when she can no longer hide behind the false veneer and her skin begans to crack apart like a porcelain doll; sometimes I feel like this front I’m putting up to get through my days is just teetering right there on the breaking point where the next bad thing that happens may just go POP and half my cheekbone may just fall off as the porcelain “hey I’m cool, everything’s fine” begins to crack away from the dark bitter innards.
That’s more about me and less about this book but Bit is the kind of narrator who’s so deeply into his head that it sends you a bit into yours as well.
Dear Lauren Groff,
I love your writing. A lot.
Sincerely,
keep it comin’, more more more!
Duff.
Bought:*
Read:
*WAY too many books for a girl with no job all year, I know. GAAAH. I mean, I was working this month but given I’ve only worked two other weeks THIS YEAR before this month of teaching… Yeah. But I’m just so lonely and miserable, it’s really hard to deny myself books TOO.
Enjoyable, enough.
Not as good as: Ironman (1).
Better than: Ironman 2. Thor.
Has Gwyneth Paltrow given up shoes? I couldn’t figure out why she was barefoot in both her scenes in this movie.
Ignoring the actual few and far between tie-ins to the game of Battleship, which were actually the best parts of the movie and used so sparingly you almost didn’t notice them:
This was the schmaltziest, most sentimental, ridiculously attempting-to-pull-at-your-heartstrings action film you will ever see. The minute that group of WWII soldiers starts to walk across the deck? COME ON, NOW.
Sadly not very good at all.
I say sadly because hello a) SKARSGARD, b) Peter Berg, c) Taylor Kitsch, d) Liam Neeson, e) sailors, f) ships, g) aliens. Those are all things I like.
Unexpectedly a LOT of fun. And also lots of cool stylin’. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Bought:
Read:
*From a day when Kindle editions of books were on super super sale. 🙂 I use the kindle app on either iPhone or iPad. Works just fine.