You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Dentist and FF14

If I had an infinite amount of money, it would be tempting to buy a bunch of tattoo shirts for Larps... unfortunately, I have neither the cash nor the physique to make this a viable option.

***

Went to the dentist today. They found seven places that need fillings, plus I've got to keep a log of the food I'm eating to see what changes I should make to my diet to slow down my rush towards mouth-based entropy. (Apparently too much citrus can be a problem, so the fact that I tend to eat two or three oranges a day probably has some affect.) At least my gums are fine, so I don't feel like all the brushing and flossing and so on are completely wasted.

I'm not particularly excited by the prospect of having to change my eating habits (Well, I'm not keen on changing any habits, to tell the truth.) Part of this will be the semi-gnostic "disdain of the body" current that runs through geek culture, and the resentment of having to track yet another thing - I have rates and GST to worry about, I don't want to have to think about my unrefined sugar intake! Bah. Coupled with a flare-up of arm pain, and the big bruise on my elbow from when I sent myself sprawling in the rain a few days ago (which makes leaning on that elbow quite uncomfortable), I'm quite tempted to feel sorry for myself.

Maybe I'll try and get an early night or two -- that normally helps. :)

***

Thursday was another "rush into town" day; I don't understand why I always leave the house at the last minute. Something to look improving next year, methinks.

Up and Down was another "lots of apparently separate stories that intertwine" film -- Czech this time, and touching on a bunch of social issues, including people-smuggling, the camaraderie and casual racism of football hooliganism, a woman's desperation to have a baby (and her partner dealing with her solution), the wierd politics of remarriage (especially when your estranged son and your lover had a thing before you were involved), and how the racial politics of the area could appear to someone who's escaped. It was quite funny at times, but also tragic; there are no easy answers when some of the stereotypes are bound up in experience, and the poverty that drove illegal immigrants to come drives them to beg or rob. In some ways, NZ is incredibly lucky that we're hard to get to and pretty obscure -- I suspect that racial politics could turn septic pretty quickly if we had economic refugees pouring in across our borders. Anyway, a movie worth watching again.

Hari Om was very cool - not a hugely plotful movie, but beautiful and interesting in a mix of Indian, French and English. A French woman travelling first class with her boyfriend in India ends up travelling with a rikshaw driver who's on the run. Unlike her boyfriend, she's intrigued by the alien culture, and I enjoyed the friendship that developed between the driver and the woman (which had to be in English, a common language that was native to neither). The backdrop was gorgeous... and so was the actress, come to that. :) I found it weird how fearless her character was -- she seemed more frustrated than frightened to be left behind with nothing more than a bag and what she was wearing. I liked this movie a lot, and may buy it.

Bitter Victory was an older film -- the intelligent, well-educated volunteer versus the army career-officer who's ridden a desk all his life, and the way they deal with fear and duty. It's very much a morality play, and some touches are a little over-the-top by modern standards, like the career officer being a South African who's retained a pronounced accent. And the violence was a lot less glamourised than it is in a typical army film - nothing spectacularly gory, but a major plot point involved the officer being squeamish when the time to act is upon him, while the intellectual goes out and does what needs to be done (namely, stab the patrolling guardsman in the neck). Another would-watch-again.

Kings and Queens was structured a little like a biography, with one of the main characters talking to the camera at the beginning and end. It focused mainly on a woman dealing with remarrying, and dealing with her father's death, with a subplot watching her ex-husband living his life and being dealt with through the mental health system. Funny at times (the two big asylum attendants are called Rozencrantz and Guildenstein), the tone was mainly dark, and while there are hopeful ends for some of the characters, others are left in an ambiguous state. I don't know whether I'd watch this again, but I'm not sorry that I did.

Finally on Thursday, Steamboy. As Jenni noted, there were plenty of people that we recognized -- and in addition to those I know socially, there were quite a few from work. The movie was very good indeed, and while the science didn't make sense, it kept on almost making sense, and there were little nods to reality (like a misarrangement of lenses resulting in an upside-down image). There was some argument about the moral responsibility of inventors, and whether some things should be suppressed until society is ready to deal with them; but since most of the inventors were pretty crazy, it should be unsurprising that the debate was unresolved. ;) Personally, I think making judgements about what society is or is not ready to know smacks of the kind of hubris mad scientists are meant to have... but on the other hand, I don't believe it's okay to sell guns to people you think are going to go out and kill innocents. I don't think information wants to be free, particularly -- it's information, it doesn't need to want anything -- but supressing scientific research because you think it's dangerous seems a bit dumb in general, since the universe is still the same, and someone else will find out whatever you found out eventually. However, that's speaking in general; I suspect that there are particular cases where there is a moral decision to be made, and desctruction of research is the right course of action.

The movie itself was good fun, though not super-surprising, and I can easily imagine buying it and watching it multiple times, if only to spot things like a pub in the background being called "The Rover's Return". ;)

***

Eleven o'clock means hometime, methinks. :) Only three FF days to blog about, and I'm pretty much caught up with other's bloggage, though I haven't even looked at some of my regular news sites. That's the problem with taking time off -- you fall too far behind. :)

Posted by svend at August 4, 2005 11:03 PM