Plain View #42 4/19/06

Chernobyl - Biker Girl's Pics are back online!

The Sky Unwashed

Bush's new press guy

Idby Goes Down

Flat/Shallow Characters

Kids' uniquness & fart jokes, always funny

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Pictures of animals looking ridiculous always make me happy. Especially if they are huge. Like this rabbit. Just look at him and try not to be happy. That is a nearly impossible task, my friends.

~Kelly

Ric and I are finally catching up with my Netflix queue again. I swear, Netflix must love people like me. I went for a couple of months without watching my movies (too busy Tivoing) but was still paying my monthly fees. Don't worry. I'll start using it a lot more now that the spring TV season is ending and we'll have a summer free for tons of movies to watch!

Nine Lives is basically a series of short stories. Some of the characters in different stories overlap, and as they overlap, we learn more than we thought we knew about some of the characters. Each story deals with family and love relationships in different situations, and most of the time a particular character is alone or longing for something. From a woman who attends her ex-husband's second wife's funeral and discovers the ex is lusting for her at the funeral itself.. to former lovers who meet up at the grocery store for the first time in years and still feel a connection even though both have moved on and married.. to a wife who is so tired from taking care of her disabled husband that she considers an affair.. the stories are all over the place, but all featuring a woman as the main character.

The stories are able to engage their audience in a very short amount of time, making us either identify with a character's longing or feel confusion/dislike of another character's behavior. The universality of human emotion allows the movie to bring about the proper reaction in a matter of minutes. I really admired that about this movie. There was no need for a couple of minutes of dialogue here and there that pondered the stars and whether or not we're all connected. The stories already made that connection in they way each of them unfold.

The one scene that a lot of critics have talked about is the one in the grocery store. Actually, it reminded me a lot of Before Sunset (also about two people who once had a thing together who meet up after 10 years and realize they still have a connection even though they have gone their separate ways in life). Both stories let the main characters chat a while before they realize they might still love each other; and, like the scene in the car where Julie Delpy almost reaches for Ethan Hawke in the taxi in Before Sunset, the final moments of the story in Nine Lives are just as powerful.

One thing Ric and I loved about Nine Lives is the camera work. Not unlike watching something like Hithcock's Rope, almost every story is filmed with as few edits as possible. We follow the featured character of each story from room to room, down hallways, the camera always moving along with them instead of cutting to another shot or scene. We experience what the characters experience because of this, which makes the impact of their stories stronger.

As a recently won over fan of short story collections, I felt like I was experiencing a book full of short glimpses on experiences in people's lives, and I loved that. Great movie.

Now that I've seen this one, I can finally compile my movie rankings for 2005. Haha.

This has to be the nerdiest blog I've ever seen. And I love it. The fact that someone takes the time to maintain a blog in Middle English astounds me. The fact that this person manages to update the blog more often than I do embarrasses me.

Here are my favorite posts:
Straight Ovtta Londoun (Chaucer's plagiarism of NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" located at the bottom of the post)

Galfridus Chauceres Lynes of Picke-uppe (Pick-up lines again located at the bottom)

This individual has also created a whole line of Chaucer-related merchandise you can buy. I love this shirt. And I can't tell you how much I want to get this for my baby.