(no subject)

[chipotle]

I finally bought a digital camera. Not the über-camera I'd been thinking about, but a decidedly more modest Canon PowerShot A70. It's not any bigger than the 35mm point-and-shoot camera I also own, but--setting aside the inherent limitations in a 3-megapixel CCD compared to good film--it's a considerably more capable camera than the point-and-shoot is. Actually, it has most of the features I'd like in an SLR body that my AE-1P doesn't have: autofocus, shutter and aperture priority (the AE-1P only has shutter), exposure compensation. But, it's also fairly cheap and may--may--get me posting pictures online. This reminds me of my long-delayed road trip website, which I really should get together online before it becomes a full year out of date.

Yes, I've seen The Matrix Reloaded. Left to my own devices I doubt I'd have seen it this soon; actually, left to my own devices, I didn't see the first movie in theaters. Reviewing it is almost irrelevant--stunning visuals, dialogue veering erratically between witty and leaden, shot through with the earnest pop philosophy of a "serious" super-hero comic--we knew that all going into it. Does it have longer action sequences broken up by longer "weighty conversation" scenes? Sure does. Whether that's good, bad or neutral depends on who you ask. I go with neutral. A worthwhile movie, but seeing it--and its predecessor recently on DVD--makes me want to go back and see Dark City again. (Looking back at Ebert's review of the first Matrix, he writes, "Both 'Dark City' and 'Strange Days' offered intriguing motivations for villainy. 'Matrix' is more like a super-hero comic book in which the fate of the world comes down to a titanic fist-fight between the designated representatives of good and evil.")

Now off to sleep. I've gotten the vague notion of visiting the Mountain House, a restaurant on Skyline Boulevard in Woodside, at some point--supposedly very good continental cuisine in a beautiful surrounded-by-redwoods setting. But I have too many other restaurants to get through on my list first!

Comments

[brahma-minotaur.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm...Dark City. Very well done movie.

[chastmastr.livejournal.com]

I still need to see Dark City.

I know some serious super-hero comics (not many, I'll grant) which have very good stuff in them. Not counting Alan Moore, who's off the scale entirely, but James Robinson did some incredible stuff in Starman. And not surprisingly he's doing a lot of film work these days, and has worked with Goyer who worked on Dark City, so the circle is complete.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. The "'serious' super-hero comic" stereotype I was thinking of was (my impression of) Marvel mainstream in the '80s: deeper than its detractors saw, but shallower and less original than its fans either knew or were willing to admit.

I think "The Matrix" might have the best shot at the "'Star Wars' of its generation" title simply for getting the right ingredients in the right place: a first movie that's visually groundbreaking and set the stage for countless rafts of imitators, and a plot driven by quasi-religious pop philosophy of the sort you'd get if you sat in on an all-night drinking session of twenty-something liberal arts students. For all the new spin and fancy dressing, it connects with audiences by being a pop-up book of iconic (and utterly non-ironic) archetypes.

It *is* ironic that the actual "Star Wars" of this generation--i.e., the second trilogy--is utterly lacking in its own iconic power. What little it has is what harkens back to the first trilogy.