--- More good news today. I made yet another blogroll and apparently
I'm a "celestial being." I like the sound of that! Woohoo!
Two in one week! My head is going to get really big here soon,
methinks.
Go and check out Miss Apropos when you get the chance. She said some very kind things about a post I made over at A Small Victory last week.
{Still Blushing, but doing the Happy Dance}
--- Ok, since not much was happening yesterday, the husband and I rented Revolutions
and had a film fest.
We watched all three films back to back and didn't wind up going to bed
until about one-thirty in the morning. I came to a number of
conclusions about this series---and we all know I have no shortage of
opinions regarding it, but to add to them, here we go.
1. You need to watch Reloaded and Revolutions back to
back for them to get the full-on Matrix frisson that we all got when we
watched the first one. The first one is a stand-alone. Numbers two and
three aren't. This was one of the few things the critics got right when
they reviewed Reloaded.
2. Monica Belluci really has some serious cleavage. (I still don't know how they squeezed her into that dress in Reloaded.
Methinks K-Y must have multiple uses.)
3. I still think the reason everyone was disappointed was because the
Wachowskis didn't spell the message out for their audience. And I do
believe there's proof of this: one of the Oracle's frequently repeated
lines was: "You just have to make up your own damn mind." I think this
is a hint to the audience from the brothers about what is or is not
right in regards to the conclusions their audience will inevitably draw
about the message of these films.
4. Keanu still has a really nice butt. 5. These movies got the shaft
from the Academy.
6. The attack on the dock was not too long. To my mind, it was
just the right length. 7. The "there are some things that will never
change," exchanges between Naiobi and Morpheus are tiring after the
first viewing.
8. These movies are not about a search for God. They are about faith.
The search for it; the finding of it; the acceptance of it; what it
requires of you; what sacrifices you will have to make, etc. All the
philosophical questions of the movie relate to this struggle. They
chose the Jesus archetype to tell the story, but that does not
necessarily mean that these movies are just one big Christian allegory,
and if you think they are, perhaps you should learn that organized
religion does not equal faith. When we were finished, I had the same
feeling in the wee hours of the morning as I did when we saw Revolutions
in the theater: I was satisfied. The story was complete---and more
importantly no one had wimped out in the telling of it. They pushed the
envelope. And I'm still having a hard time understanding why more
people just didn't get that this was an extraordinary achievement.
---Viewing recommendation for this coming week. Band of Brothers
is airing on The History Channel starting tomorrow and going for the
next ten days. If you haven't seen this miniseries, you need to sit
your butt down in front of the TV and watch it. Many people have sung
its praises, but I'll add my two cents to the cavalcade of praise:
this, I have to think, is the best description of what WWII was most
likely like for the American soliders that fought that war. If you're
not familiar with the story, it follows the trials and travails of the
men of Easy Company, a paratrooper company of 101st Airborne from
beginning to end. You meet them in training and you leave them in
post-war Austria. Easy Company was on the front lines of every major
European campaign, including D-Day up until the end of the war. They
took part in the failed Operation Marketgarden in Holland. They were
beseiged at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. They liberated a
concentration camp and were the first outfit into Bechetesgarden and
the Eagle's Nest. Their story is remarkable in that they were asked to
do much when it came to the war---they were always the first in and in
some cases, were the last to leave---and they almost always succeeded
in their tasks because they were so tight. Invariably there was a price
to be paid for their successes, and they did pay. Dearly, in some
cases.
Every episode begins with commentaries by the living members of Easy
Company, but they never said who was who. It's a very pleasant
realization at the end of the series when you can finally match up
characters in the series with the real individual. I'm not sure how
much The History Channel has sanitized this miniseries, but I'm
assuming they have. There was a reason---beyond the time limits---that
you would never see this on a regular network. They're gory and the
language is foul in some circumstances. But it's as close to real as
it's going to get without being there and it is so totally worth your
time to watch it. --- Ok, so I wrote this earlier today, but for some
reason it didn't publish---let's try that again!