Art and shiny things…
“My father steps into a field of lost
sensation, sunflowers, a yellow star”
I had the pleasure of interviewing Beth Copeland about her gorgeous poem “Falling Lessons: Erasure One.” The poem is about the loss of her father to Alzheimer’s, and was transformed into the above video for Motionpoems by Ahn Vu (it was also featured on PBS Newshour!)
Like a stone switched with a jewel,
in another world I’m thrown into the sky.
The day ends with my voice
still sleeping upside down in my body.
I need an x-ray to remember my life.
I sit in my car until whatever it is
returns to me, until going home stops
feeling like a crash scene.
-Jeffrey Morgan, The Journal
Fox Searchlight released the first, gorgeous poster for the upcoming adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, starring Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts.
In news that had me gibbering with nerdy glee, Steven Stielberg is to direct an adaptation of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. Ready Player One is a hugely popular sci-fi/dystopia novel that is a blast of inventive good fun as it follows the adventures of Wade Watts, a brilliant, somewhat overweight pop culture fanatic (I mention this because I wonder if the film will be true to this or replace him with someone who looks like, I don’t know, a Hemsworth) who spends his life, along with most of humanity, inside a massive virtual reality game.
The Flash‘s Jesse Martin, Carlos Valdez, and Rick Cosnett sing a gospel, acapella version of The Serenity Ballad and it is everything you want from life. Apparently it was a big thank-you to Joss Whedon for donating a large sum to their Kickstarter project.
Erich Campbell on consuming broadly in order to create with focus – “In my opinion, creativity and problem-solving are cultivated, not granted like a wish; they grow, and like any growing thing they must be fed and cared for, given the proper environment. Once grown, the resultant creativity must be trained and exercised, pruned and the selected offshoots allowed to flower. Taken step by step, I think all people are capable of incredible creativity.” RT
Good read on how Singaporeans have developed a misplaced sense of entitlement in the wake of the city-state’s massive economic success- “The level of materialism – what you wear, where you live, what you drive, what you wear on your wrist – has become a key determinant of the value of human life. This is absolute nonsense.
But it’s the unintended consequence of the fantastic economic success which we have enjoyed. In our headlong rush for more money, a lot of values seem to have been lost.” RT
Incredible video essay mashup of some of the greatest action scenes in film history. Scenes from classics of the past ten years and more including Batman Begins, North By Northwest, Scarface and more. RT Indiewire
Ta-nehisi Coates on the resurrection of the Peter Parker/Mary Jane marriage in the upcoming Marvel comics. “I say this because I knew, from a very early age, that there was love in my house, imperfect love, love that was built, decided upon, as opposed to magicked into existence.That was how Peter loved Mary Jane. They were not destined to be. She was not his Lois Lane. His Lois Lane—Gwen Stacy—was murdered for the crime of getting too close to him, and the guilt of this always weighed on him. Whatever. While the world was fooled, Mary Jane Watson knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man.” RT Atlantic
Miles Teller and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in the New York Times’ inspired “The Year’s Best Actors: 9 Kisses” video series.
Sometimes, in my quest for action films/thrillers I have not yet seen, I dive deep into the IMDB archives. Which is how I came up with Cypher, a 2002 spy film starring Jeremy Northam and Lucy Liu. Of course with that cast I had to watch it, and it obtained a not-negligible 6.9 rating on IMDB, so I thought, how bad could it be?
Alas…it was awful. I’ll spare you the details, except to say that the entire film was shot in muted sepia tones, as if attempting to give some noir-ish credence to a very silly plot that draws heavily on post-Cold-War paranoia in a story about brainwashing, double agents, and corporate espionage. Morgan Sullivan leads a very dull suburban life until he’s recruited to act as a corporate spy…and then recruited by that company’s competition. Morgan quickly adapts to his new identity, taking up smoking and switching his alcohol to “Scotch…single malt…on the rocks” like any good Bond-pretender. However, not all is as it seems…
And it wasn’t even so bad it’s good, it was just ludicrous and boring, an odd catch-all of Bond films, noir spy conventions, and Walter-Mitty surrealism. However. The cast is stunningly good-looking (I would positively kill to see them paired in some other film), so have some screenshots to please your eyes.
Joe Wright is a master of bringing a cohesive, deft magic to updated versions of old stories (Pride and Prejudice anyone), so I’m excited for this. Stars Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried, Rooney Mara, Garrett Headland and Levi Miller.
Really, really good Lumineers-esque music, father-figure bonding, and more? Me wants it precious.
Captain America: Winter Soldier was one of the better movies I’ve seen in a while, and easily one of the best superhero movies. I’m particularly loving this article from EW about the Black Widow/Cap relationship. “Which is why it feels weird to take up “Who Will Black Widow Hook Up With?” as a talking point. The answer could totally be “no one,” and that’s fine. But I don’t think I’m the only one who felt the Cap-Widow chemistry in Winter Soldier. There’s a nice bit of mutual dislocation in their characters: He’s a man out of time; she’s a woman without a past. (She’s from Russia, question mark?) He’s pure pre-’60s sincerity, she’s pure post-’90s cynicism. (Evans and Johansson even have an onscreen past: Friends in The Perfect Score, dating in The Nanny Diaries.)” RT
Colin Firth gives a very funny and endearing appearance on The Tonight Show in which he talks about learning to do a somersault. RT
Bill Morris at The Millions writes eloquently about the rise of second novels. “Of course, second novels don’t always flop — or drive their creators away from fiction-writing. Oliver Twist, Pride and Prejudice, Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, and John Updike’s Rabbit, Run are just a few of the many second novels that were warmly received upon publication and have enjoyed a long shelf life. But until about a year ago, I regarded such stalwarts as the exceptions that proved the rule. Then a curious thing happened. I came upon a newly published second novel that knocked me out. Then another. And another. In all of these cases, the second novel was not merely a respectable step up from a promising debut. The debuts themselves were highly accomplished, critically acclaimed books; the second novels were even more ambitious, capacious, and assured.” RT
TWC Central on The Mindy Project. “Ms. Kaling may have been something of an annoying caricature on The Office, but on The Mindy Project she has written herself a plum role – and become a role model. Her Dr. Mindy Lahiri is based on her late mother, who was also a doctor, and like her mother is a smart, well-educated professional. She is both self-conscious of her weight and other body issues, but also remains proud of her curves, her color and her culture. Her character, like the woman herself, is not the cookie-cutter cuddly cutie pie so often found on sitcoms. She is smart, yet makes many bad decisions, mostly by following her heart rather than her head, and that is just another reason why so many viewers love Dr. Lahiri – and Ms. Kaling herself.”RT
Coffee and Irony 