Lueders Haus Blog

With the girlfriend gone, the cat and I watch lots of movies. Tonight it was Babel. It was good. The setup reminded me a lot of Crash. All I’m going to say is that old Japanese man, what a jerk! Apparently it is part of a trilogy, with Amores Perros and 21 Grams. I’ll have to add them to the list.

I rented Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd last night. I’ve always loved a good spy movie and this movie did not disappoint. It had all the twists and turns of a good spy flick without all the glitz and gadgets that ruin lesser spy flicks. The only disappointment was Matt Damon’s acting. He seems to equate showing emotion with giving us a blank stare. But maybe that was part of this hardcore CIA character? The movie also ran a bit long, pushing the three hour mark.

We head out to see the “Lives of Others” last Saturday night. This movie was a fantastic movie and definitely tops my list of best movies I’ve seen this year. (Even if that list is fairly short so far. The only other movie on it is “The Departed” which was good as well, Leo can really act.)

Finally got around to renting “A Scanner Darkly“. Philip K. Dick stories sure do make for entertaining movies. I think this movie is more entertaining then Licklater’s earlier work, “Walking Life“. Which also was done in rotoscope. But in “Walking Life” the rotoscope was used to a better effect. It actually added something to the scenes where in ”A Scanner Darkly” it gave the movie a comic book feel to what was originally a novel.

On one of the DVD bonus features (which I get to watch now that Sherry is not around) had some interesting footage from an interview Dick gave in the ’70s. He complained how because he was a science fiction author he was not considered a serious author. Science fiction was instead meant for kids and could contain little sex or violence. That science fiction limited itself to “Westerns in Space” instead. I haven’t read much science fiction since I was a kid. (Except for the odd Lethem.) I call that my Heinlein phase.