Saturday, November 8th, 2003
Let's Get Lost
I managed to get up this morning without a hint of ill effect from the half-pitcher of Keiths I finished off last night. Not a huge amount, but more than I usually take on a half-full stomach. Puttered around a bit, paid some bills, went clothes shopping. The excitement never stops around here, I tell you.
I finally got into the couple movies I rented earlier this week but hadn’t had a chance to watch. The City Of Lost Children is a wonderfully dark fairy tale from French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, best known for making Amelie. It’s the story of a carnival strong man who teams up with an orphaned girl to rescue his adopted little brother from the clutches of a mad scientist who kidnaps children to steal their dreams. On the way, they encounter all sorts of weird and wonderful characters including evil co-joined twins who run a gang of thieving street urchins, a half-dozen narcoleptic clones and a talking brain in a fish tank. Visually, it owes a lot to Terry Gilliam’s work, but was still plenty creative, fresh and equal parts funny and creepy. I enjoyed it quite a bit and am going to have to get a copy of Alien Resurrection, which was also helmed by Jeunet.
You may notice I’ve taken to adding links in the sidebar to the Allmusic.com entry for the albums I’ve recently bought, where applicable. In case you were wondering about them. I’m also going back and adding the links to the rest of my collection, in the music section.
Belle & Sebastian tonight – but first, I needs to rustle me up some dinner…
np – The Wedding Present / Watusi
![[Valid RSS]](http://www.chromewaves.net/images/interface/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
11/8/03 8:45 pm
I looooooooooooved The City of Lost Children, as well as Delicatessen (Jeunet & Caro’s first… or, well, the first I know of), but Alien Resurrection is just a mess. A horrible, horrible mess. I was a fan of the first two Alien movies, as well, so it was just incredibly disappointing. Just a warning, if you do get it…
11/9/03 10:44 am
hey, about city of lost children – you didn’t by any chance rent that online, did’ya?
i’ve been trying to find that one on dvd but the stores around here don’t have it.
same with delicatessen (is it out on region 1 dvd?).
11/9/03 11:49 pm
nope, I rented it from Queen Video, downtown T.O. I don’t know about Delicatessan – I haven’t seen it in the stores but I haven’t sought it out either. I am going to keep an eye out for it now, though.
11/10/03 1:06 pm
Delicatessan was supposed to be out on DVD back in April or somesuch but, alas, I still havn’t seen it.
A quick search on Amazon reveals… well, nothing… one can put themselves on notice for pre-order or whathaveyou, but alas, no DVD. I recall both Queen Video Shoppes had posters for it at the height of Amelie fever.
Tis true that Alien Resurrection is a mess.. but it’s a visually pretty mess. The story is quite awful, but it’s styling highly. The Alien Quadroligy comes out soon with all new 2-disk sets for each film and extended cuts (as well I’m interested to hear Jeunet’s commentary/explanation for Resurrection.. sadly Joss Wheden didn’t do a commentary to describe how they butchered his screenplay).
The Quadroligy also has an extended cut of Alien3 by Fincher (the cut was recreated with Fincher’s approval and notes, although he declined to participate himself). I always liked Alien3.. inexplicably so.
11/10/03 1:09 pm
I liked Alien 3 as well. Sure, after the over the top testosterone party of Aliens it was a hard right turn, and I was bummed they killed Hicks and Newt before the credits ran, but it was pretty suspenseful and clever.
I hadn’t realized what a run of great directors the Alien franchise has had. Scott, Cameron, Fincher, Jeunet… I think they got some blow-em-up mook for Alien Vs Predator, though, so we’ll just ignore that one…