the written word and the moving picture

i went to kyoto a few weeks ago. it was beautiful; the maple leaves had just started to change to gold and red. a thousand wide eyed tourist cooed and stared at the ancient temples and ephemeral colours.


somewhere in translation

lost in translation has just come out on dvd. i expect most of you know it: bill murray and scarlet johansson meet over sushi in tokyo. sophia coppola directs and gives us a rollicking old soundtrack. someone came over from england over a year ago and they said they saw it then. i wonder if it would be different if i saw it before i came over here. i could understand some of what the doctor and whisky director were saying. the flashing neon no long hypnotise me, nor the food seem strange. fish out of water movie which are set in japan may never again have the desired effect on me. i've been recommended mr baseball with tom selleck. johansson is unbelievably beautiful as she drifts around; she is waiting to be loved, as is murray with his awkward body and manner. some people, who must be the same people who say that video games promote violence, say that it is racist. i will let you decide.


somewhere here

i read somewhere south of here by william kowalski. it's the sequel to eddie's bastard which i read last year. it isn't very good. i've never read a sequel to a book before, and it still seems like a bad idea. the problem is that it spends the first 100 pages destroying the final pages of the previous book to make way for the new character and then 20 pages later goes back to try and rebuild it all again. the characters are cliched (vietnam vet, who's mad; rich kid who wants a motorbike) without invention. the style is lazy. 2 letters are printed in full and 2 full chapters he changes the point of view to the girlfriend for no reason. the dialogue is like a spanish soap opera. people don't react or change, even when they get shot in the leg or their mother dies. it's a bad sequel in that it makes the original worse.


somewhere's gotta give

i saw that jack nicolson and diane keaton movie: somthing's gotta give. someone in hollywood should concentrate on writing scripts especially for keaton, for she is amazing, even outshining the ever sparkling jack. her and jack make me want to grow old and rich; that despite a lifetime of living, you still don't know shit about yourself or her. damn the cheesy ending though.


somewhere in middle earth

i saw return of the king at last, the final lord of the rings movie. i could only think of 2 things as i watched. iris chang, the author of the rape of nanking, died last month, and i only found out a few days ago. i read her book and in it it details the beheading competition that some of the soldiers inflicted on the civilians of nanking, the game being the first to get to 100. i thought of it as the scottish dwarf and elf are rushing into battle, counting the fallen orks. the other thing i thought of was the holy grail, that monty python movie. more specifically i was thinking about eric idle's speech about not having voted for the ruler. who says that aragorn should rule? i didn't see any ballot boxes. i also must add that elijah wood looks tired for the whole 9 hours or so that makes up the 3 movies. in every scene he looks tired. that is his role. mr wood, for this scene just look tired. no no, not sleepy, i said tired. tired. that's it. action.


somewhere out of date

if found stupid white men by michael moore in a secondhand book store for 500 yen (2 pound fifty). i bought it and read it. it was ok. i didn't know clinton was such a scumbag. how did he ever come up smelling of roses?


somewhere in the paper

i read that 100,000 iraqi civilians have died since the invasion. civilians, not soldiers, insurgents or terrorists. civilians. who are civilians? they are librarians, post men, plumbers, doctors, teachers, shopkeepers and taxi drivers. they are the people that didn't want to get involved. 100,000 doesn't include those that die from lack of fresh water, food and shelter. 100,000 people. the town i grew up in had 20,000 people. the nou camp in barcelona holds 60,000. can you even imagine 100,000 people? 100,000 people burning in the desert sun.


somewhere on the net

rodger ebert likes once upon a time in america. he knows nothing.