The Sunset of Good Taste

So the Twilight books each feature a different monster boyfriend for the heroene?  Did the Mummy make the list?  Also, I’m disappointed that although I was able to find Boo-Berry this week, no one was selling monster cereals in single-serving boxes for trick-or-treaters.

Noble Savage vs. Silver Screen

I managed to watch most of The Gods Must Be Crazy this week.  Having forgotten all but the framing plot involving the Coke bottle, I was surprised by how well the movie’s central conceit is served by all the sight gags with the Land Rover.  I don’t think you could make a film today with a sincerely Rousseauean thesis contrasting primitive and civilized man; there would have to be a meeting of the minds, rather than a brief crossing of paths ending in mutual bewilderment.

That could be a blog category, couldn’t it?–movies you couldn’t make today.  How about another 1981 film, Chariots of Fire, a film with an unironical treatment of Christianity, sport and upper class youth in which the Jewish character is neither a martyr nor a nebbish?  Or try picturing Cary Grant in any comedy made in the last 5 years–how would he react when a 30-year-old man-child took ill from smoking weed and vomited on his suit, one wonders.

The Real Monsters

After watching (most of) Battle Royale last night, I’ve come to two realizations:

1. Japanese movie-goers are more interested in the inner lives of school girls than I am.
2. The Japanese entertainment industry still lets sick ****s make mainstream films, instead of shunting them into porn and cable TV.

Pleasure delayed is Pleasure denied

Waugh is back in the news with a film of Brideshead Revisited presently in cinema.  I’m always meaning to read more Waugh; I’ve only read all of Vile Bodies, which was itself made into a movie some years ago (called Bright Young Things for some reason).   How is it that I managed years ago dutifully to plough through every word of Moby Dick (which I hated) and somehow put off for years to start reading a book I’m sure I’d like?  Thanks to reviews such as this one, and this one, I know the outcome of the story, at least.  Perhaps I should simply see the movie.  [Don't you enjoy how the reviewer, self-conscious at panning an acknowledged literary giant, feels compelled to fill his review with five-dollar words like "arriviste" and "procrustean"?]