[For the previous episode, see AmsterdamMost of my traveling around Europe over the years has been via train, so the idea of a roadtrip by car was something of a novelty. I can't actually remember how we arrived at this plan, but it was probably because we wanted to have a car in France so that we would have more flexibility in our exploration of ( Read more... )

Saw the latest Jean-Pierre Jeunet film at the Egyptian last night with holyoutlaw. I love Jeunet's films, and I've seen all of them except Alien: Resurrection (1997). This one seemed the least of the ones I've seen, although it was still a lot of fun. There's much to laugh and cheer about in this tale of the lumpen proletariat's revenge on evil corporate ( Read more... )

I slept for twelve hours last night. I continue to feel wiped out. It's just fatigue, as far as I can tell, but it's weird. Guess I'm not as young as I used to be, eh? I have to think this is the depravity of Worldcon catching up with me.

Finished watching Seventh Heaven (1927) and didn't like the "transcendant" (hallucinatory?) ending as much as ( Read more... )

Last night I watched Georges Méliès The Palace of Arabian Knights (Le palais des mille et une nuits, 1905), which I had seen a fragment of before. That bit, which I think was included in VCI's disk of the British Ali Baba musical, Chu Chin Chow (1934), transfixed me with its clever in-camera special effects. The full movie is around twenty minutes ( Read more... )

Saw this French thriller with holyoutlaw at the Egyptian last night. The French title is Ne le dis à personne. Very solid, very engaging, and as full of twists and turns as a mountain switchback. It's about a man whose wife was murdered eight years before, who begins for various reasons (including renewed suspicions of his own involvement) to delve into ( Read more... )

Fascinating and provocative guest post about France and Sarkozy by a Princeton computer science professor named Bernard Chazelle on Tony Karon's Rootless Cosmopolitan. (Karon apparently writes for Time magazine, but his blog posts about the Middle East are great stuff. I also highly recommend his post on the current resurgence of fighting between ( Read more... )

So holyoutlaw and I saw The Science of Sleep yesterday. It's the new movie by Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and many fascinating music videos. This movie reminded me more of the music videos than of Eternal Sunshine, although it is another romance of sorts. What it is mostly is a dream within a dream within a dream -- ( Read more... )

So it was a good weekend. The Solstice Parade on Saturday was a blast, with the weird giant babies and the goddess with the fountain breasts a particular highlight, even if it did slow the parade down. Afterwards, I got a cajun salmon burger at Ballard Brothers and visited with Art Widner, holyoutlaw and juliebata for a while. Art confessed that he invented science ( Read more... )

Yesterday holyoutlaw and I saw the French action film District B13 (French title: Banlieue 13) at the Uptown. It features a lot of running around and soaring leaps off of ledges and climbing the sides of buildings and gangster shootouts and car chases and shirtless guys sweating through their tattoos ( Read more... )

Third time's a charm? The first two times I watched this movie, I thought it was a gorgeous misfire. Maybe I was just having a hard time swallowing the new-agey premises, because on a third viewing, I think it actually works quite well on its own terms. Make no mistake: this movie presents an unrealistic, idealized (or perhaps mythologized) ( Read more... )