Like the book within the book WoF succeeds better as a travelogue then a narrative.

Which is not to diminish, but rather to classify, accurately and exuberantly in the “great fantasy cities” sub-genre or which Perdido St. Station is merely the one that springs most readily to mind.

Getting bogged down. Maybe I don’t like hard SF as much as I used to.

You can debate the success of the storytelling, or the applicability of old cliches, but as a meditation on loneliness Notes is undeniable. Which is far from saying enjoyable. Still surprised it was so savagely reviewed by the professionals.

Judi Dench and Bill Nye are brilliant as (nearly) always. If Nighy plays to character, it is fun (and intimidating) to see Dench refuse to be typecast in to safe, aging roles. And Blanchett is luminous.

Content might not be surprising to a Boing Boing reading crowd, or anyone who has paid attention to the media monopoly. But this is well done, engaging, and human, an excellent documentary on the MPAA’s secret rating board. A subject that would be quirky and odd if it wasn’t so problematic.

Make sure to watch the deleted scenes on the DVD, I think they cut some of the best material from the movie.

Unless you take time travel seriously, in which case it was terribly offensive, but I don’t, and besides that isn’t the review I set out to write.

I haven’t been able to sleep this week, not really relevant to most movie reviews, but it is to this one, because, and reviewers don’t acknowledge this nearly enough, treating each consumed objects as though its qualities were innate, objective, and timeless, rather then purely subjective evaluations that come into being at the moment of consumption.

So, I haven’t been able to sleep this week, like really, barely at all, and on a week when you’re having trouble sleeping, and you need something not too challenging, not too boring, not too engaging, pleasant without being overly stimulating for the long cold hours from 2-4, this is the perfect movie.

Kind of niche really for such mainstream actors.

A children’s movie unsuitable for children. A study in beauty that lingers lovingly over primitive surgery and brutality. A pretty, pretty meditation on fantasy, faerie, and fascism.

Someone asked me, “Sure it was pretty, but was it good?”

Does it matter?

A break-neck, intellectual joy ride very much in the spirit of “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (and significantly more fun then “Collapse”), I found it enthralling, and a page turner.

To his credit Mann manages to represent multiple confliciting views (even wrong ones alas!) in a balanced nuanced manner (guarenteed to drive experts crazy), delicate and fraught given how political charged the study of history in the Americas is.

These grand generalist histories, with millenial sweep fill the void of “Just So” stories for the 21st century, explaing the big bad world in an engaging, entertaining way. Pure candy if you’re into that kind of thing.

Its hard to appreciate both this movie and The Departed. You’ll have to choose which one to see first, and which one to watch wondering how good this would have seemed if you didn’t know everything that was coming.

Reviewers seem oddly split on this, but I, for one, loved it. A small movie, shot close and intimate, well suited for watching on a laptop screen, in a quiet room, and listening hard to the language.

Stylized, romatic, engaging, acessible. You could argue that knowledge of Moby Dick would deepen the experience, but actually the clever interplay occasionally snaps you out of the reverie of Naslund’s lyrical words.