Star Trek Beats the Million Dollar Baby
Sigh. I am being thwarted in my efforts to acquire the Star Trek boxed sets. So far, I have exactly one of them. I have DS9 Season One. I WANT to have all of TNG and DS9. They're frickin' expensive. New, each set costs about $130. I'm watching a few of the DS9 sets on eBay right now and they're going for like $70, which I can appreciate is almost half-price, but I still balk at shelling out such a sum for a boxed set given that most other boxed sets RETAIL for that much. Damn you, Viaborg. Picking the pockets of your loyal geek fanbase and jacking up the prices of these Trek boxed sets because you know we'll pay it.
I just keep telling myself that if I watch closely enough I'll be able to get miraculous deals on the sets on eBay when one of them just happens to go unnoticed. Yeah, that'll happen. Not.
So after finishing Ian McEwan's "Amsterdam" (most excellent) I'm picking up a book that I started reading years ago, loved intensely, but somehow stopped halfway through and never resumed. It's "Carter Beats the Devil" by Glen David Gold (who's married to Alice Sebold, incidentally) and it's a fantastic book. I'm looking forward to re-reading what I'd read before and then finishing it. It's about a magician. Vunderbar.
Last night I finally watched "Million Dollar Baby." It was...well, extraordinary. It was so delicate. Everything about it was fine-tuned, carefully crafted, and elegantly done. There was no big brassy intrusive music, no grand operatic displays of emotion, no giant fights, no overwrought tears...the whole movie was like a razor-sharp blade, cutting a fine line through its own story. I was already aware of the controversy about its ending (and the ending itself) but honestly, I didn't see the problem. The film was so focused that it did not feel like some statement was being made about the fate of the disabled in general, but the conclusion of THIS story in particular, and these characters.
I just keep telling myself that if I watch closely enough I'll be able to get miraculous deals on the sets on eBay when one of them just happens to go unnoticed. Yeah, that'll happen. Not.
So after finishing Ian McEwan's "Amsterdam" (most excellent) I'm picking up a book that I started reading years ago, loved intensely, but somehow stopped halfway through and never resumed. It's "Carter Beats the Devil" by Glen David Gold (who's married to Alice Sebold, incidentally) and it's a fantastic book. I'm looking forward to re-reading what I'd read before and then finishing it. It's about a magician. Vunderbar.
Last night I finally watched "Million Dollar Baby." It was...well, extraordinary. It was so delicate. Everything about it was fine-tuned, carefully crafted, and elegantly done. There was no big brassy intrusive music, no grand operatic displays of emotion, no giant fights, no overwrought tears...the whole movie was like a razor-sharp blade, cutting a fine line through its own story. I was already aware of the controversy about its ending (and the ending itself) but honestly, I didn't see the problem. The film was so focused that it did not feel like some statement was being made about the fate of the disabled in general, but the conclusion of THIS story in particular, and these characters.