p e n g u i n d e v i l

Well, as the first post in the new digs, I feel I should start off with some good news… After all of these years the Second Season of Twin Peaks is finally coming out! They waited so long that the 1st Season is now a $150 rarity! Just another reason that the 2nd is a must by. Heck, I’ve never even seen it.

Since we’re on the subject of TV, how about The Sopranos? This week we finished the first six seasons of The Sopranos (officially to season 6, part 1) again. I swear I could watch these seasons over and over again, in fact, I have. I don’t know how many folks have read the cover story in the Vanity Fair, but it certainly is positive. I don’t know if the author is right in his claim that it’s the best written television drama in history, but if he’s wrong, I can’t imagine what show would be better (though I thought that Six Feet Under was quite strong). Anyway, now we only have two weeks until Season Six, part 2 starts… And no way to watch it! I know, it’s a trauma. We don’t know anyone who has Sopranos gatherings and I fear that I’d be hard pressed to hold out for the months before the DVD release without finding out anything I don’t want to know in advance… Hmmm…

yeah, and another one hits the table
the sopranos, sixth season, episode 11
Anyway, we took in some movies this week.
The Prestige.
I didn’t know what to expect here. The little I’ve heard I thought it could be pretty interesting, or pretty dumb. I also must admit that the first hour or so, I was quite dumb as to what was going on, the changes in time and trying to arrange the story line caused me a bit of … Then, after the cat and hat scene, it all started to make sense (though at the end of the film, there is a bit too much exposition, explaining everything that had happened, in case you didn’t get it). The Prestige is sort of a film about period magicians, but it is really a film about revenge. A life encompassing need for revenge. The story of two magicians in Olde London who are at odds as they both attempt to further their own careers while ending the others. They are quite relentless and harsh in their attempts to sabotage each others tricks and cause harm (both physically and in their reputation). The movie is actually quite good. It has some good characters, an intriguing and tricky mystery, some nice visuals and a bit of the fantastic… The engineering of the magic tricks is fun to see and I like how the Edwardian era was evident but muted and so it seemed more like the era that the story took place rather than part of the story. It’s also good that Tesla is back in vogue and I found Bowie’s Tesla to be just fine. And it was good to see him in a movie again.

sights and sounds and…
the prestige 1:42:36
The Resurrected.
Okay, first off, the bad 80’s snthy sound has to go… Next Chris Sarandon (a terrible pick to play Charles Dexter Ward). Some of the cinematography is good, just right for one of these kinds of films, but the direction and acting are second rate and it just doesn’t look good… Though it is a Dan O’Bannon movie, so for some it might be worth checking out just for that. It’s the story of a woman who has called on a private detective to investigate her husband’s activities. No, not that kind. His secret time seems to involve: a lab, the mysterious Doctor Ash, long boxes delivered that may contain old corpses and lots of study of his family tree. In fact, he becomes a bit centered on a dead relative and raw meat! It also stars Robert Romanus, who was giving me flashbacks of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The first half plays like a bad tv show, the second half picks up a bit, starting off with Chris Sarandon’s best scene (an actual good one) straightjacketed in the hospital and it also has some fun creature effects (albeit stop-motion) & some good sets. So it’s not really a good movie, but it is probably the strictest Lovecraft adaptation in all of the feature films based on his stories. So certainly worth watching for that reason alone.


the abomination…
the resurrected 56:42
Lonestar
Okay. I was a bit hesitant to see this. I thought “A western? With Kris Kristfferson?” But we gave it a chance and it was actually good. First off, it’s not a Western (well, it takes place in Texas, but in the last 40 years) and Kris Kristofferson plays a bad guy, which makes it easier to handle him. It’s a generation spanning small town police corruption murder mystery with a good bit of dealing with Texas racial issues. Chris Cooper is a present day sheriff who is trying to come to terms with who his father was (aside from a legendary past sheriff of the town) and his own past. The story circles around an old skeleton found in the desert and the obvious fact the people are hiding things from him. As he was warned, he does find out more than he would have expected. The movie spends quite a bit of time going back and forth between two time periods, but the transitions are very well done. Of course, like everything filmed in Texas it makes the state seem very unappealing (at least to those of us who like greenery).

And on a completely unrelated note… What is up with iTunes 7?
Yes, I was entranced by the coverflow. I had been happily using iTunes 6 and I read the warnings about iTunes 7, so I waited until 7.1 (warnings still) and I upgraded. Well, I do like the coverflow. B if I have the iPod selected in the source list and I click on anything else there, iTunes just vanishes. I tried upgrading to 7.1.1 but that didn’t help. So that was a little annoying but I lived with it. Until I realized that it wasn’t syncing anything to the iPod! So if I added new songs to the playlist, they wouldn’t ever make it over to the iPod! Well, well, well, not wanting to lose my precious coverflow, I am sticking with it for now (though if Songbird picks up something like coverflow I may fly to their coop). I’ve tried all the resetting/restoring/reinstalling… Nothing. But all of my online research has only lead to one other person who has this same problem. Anyway, I don’t know, I guess I’ll just wait until they give me another 30MB download to drag through my 56k. The point is… Coverflow is cute, but I’d watch out for iTunes & (or 7.1 or 7.1.1)