Friday night, deciding which book to curl up with

[cleolinda]

So I was stuck inside today as we had our first rain in a while--oh! Safeco has run out of dogs and buses, so they've decided to accept their driver's liability. Thus, my mother took half a day off work to take Sister Girl car shopping. I don't think they actually sealed any kind of deal, but with any luck, she's found something she likes. Anyway, I had the house--and the dogs--all to myself today, which is... not really all that out of the ordinary, except that they couldn't go outside and play, and therefore drove me even crazier than usual. They're always wanting in and out and in and out, and when you have a dog that's big enough to start bodyslamming a screen door, the inning and the outing becomes paramount. Also, there's Sam, who doesn't actually want out, but rather to stand in front of the door and yip and then not go outside when you open it. This makes watching a movie, particularly one you've never seen before, an exercise in futility (and Sam particularly likes to do this when we all settle down to watch a DVD). Nonetheless, I felt like trying, so I went channel-surfing and ended up watching the last hour of Infamous (note: I never actually got around to seeing Capote) and all but the first half hour of The Interpreter. We have the latter on DVD, so I've made off with that, but I'm going to have to go get both Capote and Infamous so I can see both of them in their entirety, mostly because I'm interested to see how they handle the Perry Smith storyline. Infamous suggests that Smith only killed the Clutter men and made his partner kill the Clutter women (Smith's original confession), while Capote (as far as I've read) sticks to Hickock's story that Smith killed all four of them; again, from what I've read, there's no way to be sure what really happened. I'm just curious as to whether the Perry Smith Is Gay and Sensitive storyline had any basis in real life at all, or if the movie completely made it up extrapolated it from the places where the truth goes vague.

Also, Sandra Bullock has a lovely monologue towards the end about what it's like to be a writer, and I wish I could remember it in its entirety--"The great American question, 'What's next?' " Also, as a connoisseur of Southern accents: I don't know what Harper Lee actually sounded like (and isn't Bullock already Texan?), but I really liked listening to hers.

As for The Interpreter (which I'm going to have to watch again, as I missed the beginning, the last five minutes, and a good bit in between because OH MY GOD STOP BARKING), it was surprisingly good, and kind of weird on a personal level because "interpreter for the U.N." was the job my mother always thought I should get, back when I was a Spanish major/French minor. Never mind that I specialized in written translation and totally freeze up when trying to speak a foreign language, you know.

Meanwhile, over on Facebook, I got the kind of hey-baby message I thought people only got on dating sites and MySpace:

hello cute one

iam Daniel.i just feel i should drop a few lines for you.i like your profile and will very much like it if we can get to chat sometime my yahoo i.d is [redacted]@yahoo.com i also have an msn its [redacted]@hotmail.com...i seriously anticipate your response.
Daniel...........

My "cute" userpic is of a book. It's the personal touch that means so much.


New Jersey teen unlocks iPhone, "freeing the most hyped cell phone ever for use on the networks of other carriers, including overseas ones."

Astro-romance rivals face off in court.

Scientists recreate out-of-body experiences (no drugs).

Online 'rogue pharmacies' booming.

Salem 'witch' denies littering raccoon parts.

Irishman bites girlfriend's snake in half. AHHHHHH.

'Anchorwoman' canceled after one airing.

"Vladimir Nabokov was a happy guy."

MTV revamps the VMAs -- and itself.

Dunst's $13K handbag, belongings stolen. Wait, the handbag alone was worth $13K?

Kristen Bell: ''I love nerds'.'

'Brokeback' director's latest gets NC-17.

P.S. I Love You Poster.

The Poster for Jesse James.

New 'American Gangster' international trailer.

Trailer Blazer (Special R-rated Edition): 'No Country for Old Men' and 'Beowulf.'

Rainn Wilson Wants To Be An Alcoholic Ninja.

Switzerland Still On The Cards For 'Bond 22.'

Fall movies preview: It's the fall of the gunslinger in theaters.

"So That 'Dallas' Movie is Back On Again. (Yay?)"

Comments

[dramedy.livejournal.com]

I really liked Capote. I thought it was quiet and understated. I never saw Infamous because it just didn't seem like the way I felt about the story. Maybe I'll try it.

Oh, Kristen Bell, I love your geek-love. Now if you would have not been so anti-Logan/Veronica, we could get along.

And PS, I Love You? I can stand listening to Gerry's voice alone for three hours :)

[morganwolf.livejournal.com]

I don't get what's so "restricted" about the Beowulf trailer, either, with the exception of some blurry body parts, a pike through a torso, and Angelina Jolie's cartoon sidebutt. Maybe it's just because I'm Growing Up, but I thought it was pretty funny that I had to offer to let them verify my age via government-issued IDs just to see some CG blood and fake sidebutt.

[hulamoth.livejournal.com]

I had to offer to let them verify my age via government-issued IDs just to see some CG blood and fake sidebutt.
quoting

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

You can own a piece of iPhone history, the World's Second Unlocked iPhone, for only TWENTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230164884672).

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Okay, now it's at over $79,000,000. Something certainly is fishy.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure that's people running up the bidding for the lulz.

[amaelamin.livejournal.com]

Ninety-nine million now. This... this is a joke, right? No one's actually going to pay that for an iPhone?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

No one ever does--people run up auctions like that all the time and then disappear when it's time to pay.

[amaelamin.livejournal.com]

It probably signifies something about American culture that I was almost entirely sure that was the case - but not quite.

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

Did Dunst have a Birkin bag? Because those go for $10,000 easy. I've seen really expensive ones for $50,000+ if they're crocodile or something else really pricey. It's ridiculous. I love designer bags, but anything over $10,000 is not a handbag, that's like a CAR.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

Did Dunst have a Birkin bag?

That's what I popped in here to suggest/ponder.


I love designer bags, but anything over $10,000 is not a handbag, that's like a CAR.

HA!

[ciara-belle.livejournal.com]

That was immediately my first thought, because I know like every celebrity has one and most other bags aren't that much.

Heh, I'm a big handbag fan and I'd love a Gucci bag, but the thought of spending even $1,000 on a purse makes me a bit ill. I can't imagine spending $13,000. That's like half a year of grad school.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

.....but the thought of spending even $1,000 on a purse makes me a bit ill.

Designer bags are just not made that much better than my last handbag from Macys. I get the leatherwork cost and the materials value, but it's the cachet people are really buying.

I have suits and coats I splurged on that I expect to wear over several years. But there was no comma in the price!

[kookaburra1701.livejournal.com]

On another website it mentions that it was a Marc Jacobs bag. Which explains the price, but I can't imagine spending $10 dollars on the crap he puts out. /end rant

[zrath.livejournal.com]

Birkin? As in Jane Birkin? Serge Gainsbourg's old main squeeze?
Or is this a different Birkin?

[karintheswede]

Jep, that Birkin.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

She designed it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkin_Bag), but she doesn't sell them or anything.

[lauramcvey.livejournal.com]

There's an MPAA restriction on how many pelvic thrusts are too many? Shouldn't it be more along the lines of how much skin is shown?

When I read that thing about the Salem witch, I thought for sure that it was Laurie Cabot. I've never really understood the appeal of Salem for Wiccans- nineteen innocent people who had no connection to Wicca whatsoever died here, so let's turn it into a Wiccan hotspot? The whole Salem industry makes me kind of angry. People died needlessly and horribly, show a little respect and stop making money of "witchy" stereotypes- especially the ones that cost them their lives in the first place. And Laurie Cabot and her group acting weird for the sake of publicity just pisses me off. Most Wiccans out there are trying to be seen as normal people, and she seems intent of screwing it up sometimes. [/rant]

[elbales]

That story on Ang Lee's movie was hard to get through because I kept having mental car wrecks over phrases like "number of allowable pelvic thrusts" and "non-S&M restraints."

Best Quote award has to go to the person who said, when asked if the characters were ever upside down, "It depends on where you're standing. They're very flexible."

[theatre-angel.livejournal.com]

I didn't see Infamous, but I did see Capote, and afterwards I swore I would never see Infamous because nothing could ever be as incredible as Capote. Which is kind of a dumb thing to swear, because from the way you've described it, it sounds really good. And, let's face it, who doesn't wish they were a UN interpreter (and as attractive as Nicole Kidman) so they could get swept up in political intrigue (and Sean Penn)?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Also, she had really cute (but serious!) outfits in that movie. And even I found Sean Penn strangely attractive--his real-life personality annoys me, but I think I'm going to have to put him up there with Gwyneth Paltrow as one of those people I can't stand offscreen but find myself really enjoying onscreen.

As far as Infamous--I don't know how these movies always come out in twos, but yeah, it's usually a pretty good assumption that one of them will be a lame also-ran, so I don't blame you for thinking it. Again, I only saw about half of it, but it was pretty good, and it seems worthwhile to rent/Netflix it. Side note: Toby Jones is actually a really good Capote, and perhaps a little less mannered than Hoffman, which makes it a bit easier to watch and understand how he interacted with people at all. I saw about the first five minutes of Capote before I had to leave one day, and Hoffman's performance is obviously brilliant, but a bit showier. Also: Perry Smith in Infamous? Played by Daniel Craig. Blew my frickin' mind.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

I liked Infamous for Jones (touching, and not actory), Craig (convincing as an American, and as quirky as Capote), plus Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee. The tone of the film is a mix, moving from banter and gossip in New York, to Harper Lee and Capote as out-of-towners in Kansas, and the harrowing (am I spoiling this for people?) scenes near the end that change Capote and his career.

The film shows Capote's turning point into the caricature and eccentric celebrity of the latter part of his life. It's a mix in style, just as the collection of his works are.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a mix of tones--I think one of the most striking sequences was when they'd go back and forth between the very serious parts with Smith and then the parts with Capote blabbing all of it to the society ladies--and then changing and embellishing it as he went along. It's fascinating to me that someone who wrote a pioneering work of non-fiction (a non-fiction novel, yes) could be shown massaging the truth, and in the case of Smith's "apology," outright inventing it. And it's fascinating to me that we could see what seemed in the moment to be a very serious, tender relationship become a story, a commodity, a form of currency. Because that's one of the terrible things about writers, and I can recognize it in myself, too--we're completely sincere in the moment, but afterwards (or even during), the urge to tell and tweak the story can't be resisted. It's the same impulse that makes people stop in the middle of some everyday incident and think, "This is going to be a great story to tell on Livejournal." And it can be a really shitty thing to do to people, particularly in the way he seems to care for Smith but "needs" him to be executed for the book, but--I recognize that impulse.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

And it can be a really shitty thing to do to people, particularly in the way he seems to care for Smith but "needs" him to be executed for the book, but--I recognize that impulse.

I see this every week when I analyze the blurbs for new book deals from Publishers Weekly. The non-fiction section of memoir and biographies will have stories from real life with the structure of drama. There must be some turning point event or lesson learned for the events (someone's life) to become a narrative.

Carole Matthau (wife of Walter) wrote a memoir that included tales of her friendship with Capote. She could see bits of herself and their New York habits in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Lifting from life and reflecting it is part of art, and the one thing every work of art (decorative or prose) has in common: it describes what it's like to be alive now, even if it's historical fiction or fantasy.

I can't read Anne Perry's books after learning she went to prison for murder as a teenager. She is way too good at crafting criminals whose motives and feelings I can understand, and that's somehow not quite art in this context. I heard Perry read in Berkeley before I saw Heavenly Creatures. Kate Winslet may not know it, but she did a very apt version of Perry. Eerie. Possibly creepy, if Jackson did a lot of research.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Kate Winslet may not know it, but she did a very apt version of Perry.

Oh, wow, that's crazy. I can't remember if Perry got outed as Juliet Hulme before or after the movie, but I do remember finding out for myself shortly after it came out. I've just never been able to pick up any of her books, if only because of the way Jackson filmed the murder scene at the beginning and end of the movie. I would just never be able to get that out of my head--the bloody faces and the screaming.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

I can't remember if Perry got outed as Juliet Hulme before or after the movie, but I do remember finding out for myself shortly after it came out.

The timeframe for the outing and the film release were close. I saw the film knowing who Juliet became in later life, and within that year I'd attended Perry's reading and Q&A. I'd also worked on a production of the play Minor Murder which is based on those people and that case, with names changed and fictional houseguest characters who solve the mystery. So I knew way too much about the case. Powerful, unusual film, but I don't think I can ever see it again.

Anne Perry is one example of a writer using what they know to craft fiction that really bothers me. But her books keep selling and she's got three series now.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Wow, I did not know that. I've never heard of that movie. I wonder what happens when she meets other mystery novelists, if they know. Seriously, this is like finding out that Anne Rice is a vampire, except more surprising.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

Wow, I did not know that. I've never heard of that movie.

Peter Jackson directed the film, based on a notorious case in Australia from mid-century. It was also Kate Winslet's big break, and she is mesmerizing in it.

Perry's background is well known in publishing circles, but people seem to generally treat her politely, or avoid her. She lives a bit reclusively in Scotland most of the time.

It's all fascinating, if creepy.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Seriously? It's fantastic. You'll understand why they hired Jackson to do LOTR after you see it.

[lilitou.livejournal.com]

Dude, that is the second fucking creepy dead python story I've read today. While this one (http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/24/boy_kills_snake_in_p.html) doesn't involve the FUCKING CREEPY snake-eating part, it does involve a FUCKING CREEPY small child. Who appears to have a history of this shit.

[delle.livejournal.com]

Since the details are public, it seems likely that a small industry may spring up to buy U.S. iPhones, unlock them and send them overseas.

“That’s exactly, like, what I don’t want,” Hotz said. “I don’t want people making money off this.”

Then perhaps you should have considered that before posting the unlocking 'fix' on the goddamn Internet?!?!??!

::headdesk::

Having worked for A Very Large Cellular Company, I can understand the business reasons for tying the IPhone to ATT only; I can also understand the buying public's desire to use the phone on their existing plan and network and not be tied to ATT's crapatilistic service... but to post what he freely admits is a hack of the service.... I'm torn.

But he *doesn't* get to post it on line and then claim he's 'all about the good' and that people shouldn't make money off his hack. It's on the freaking Internet!!!

[adaorardor.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, I get done yelling at my friends about why I love Nabokov so much for the third time in a week or something and you post that. <3

What a man. What an awesome, awesome man. My hero.

[quasar360.livejournal.com]

Have you read In Cold Blood? We did back in AP 11, and I can’t remember if this is in the book or if it was part of my teacher’s background presentation, but I remember him talking about how Capote sort of read himself into Perry, and that Capote’s sympathy toward him severely skewed his portrayal. There’s a line, which was also used in Capote, that went something like “it’s as if we grew up in the same house, and one day, he got up and walked out the back door, and I walked out the front.” I don’t know if Capote just wanted Perry to be all Gay and Sensitive and therefore wrote him that way, or if that was how he was actually described elsewhere, since I haven’t done any other reading on the subject, but I definitely got that feeling from the book.

I felt the same way about Capote as most of the other commenters – I saw no point in seeing another film on the same topic, because I didn’t think anything could top it.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

You know, I tried to read the book when I was a lot younger and in my first true crime phase, and I couldn't get past the first couple of pages. I really think I was just too young--mid-teens, I think--or else the timing just wasn't right. I'd like to pick it up and try to read it again.

[bibsy.livejournal.com]

In all fairness, it is a very sexy book.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh. There are days I want to get down on my knees and thank God that they put such an awesome cover together for me, as opposed to, "She's a girrrrl! Let's make it pink, with a high-heeled shoe and a lipstick!"

[bibsy.livejournal.com]

Oh, heck naw. The cover is awesome; I just need to get around to purchasing the book (and soon since I'm giving a copy to someone as a birthday gift.)

[neveth.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a Texan, the accent differs depending on which part of the state you're in. Bullock is from Austin, I believe, and thus has the south/central Texan accent. East texan sounds like your average Redneck, while out in West Texas, yes, they really do talk like cowboys in westerns. (I know as I had a MIGHTY Texas Twang when I was little, but trained myself to sound urban.)

... I love accents.

[sfulton229.livejournal.com]

Sandra Bullock is from Virginia, she's just lived in the Austin area recently.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hmm, interesting--she's still got a native Southern accent of some kind to work with. (I know a lot of people would argue that Texas isn't the South--Texas is Texas--but for my purposes, it counted.)

[hulamoth.livejournal.com]

(yeah, well, Texas still fought for the Confederacy, so even if they're not Georgia/South Carolina, they're Southern as far as this here Texan sees)

[grnarmadillo.livejournal.com]

"My "cute" userpic is of a book. It's the personal touch that means so much.

Literary chicks are hawt, yo. ;)

I wish I could say the whole exchange surprises me, but nothing that happens on the internet really does anymore.

[scarletsherlock.livejournal.com]

I saw both Capote and Infamous, and liked the latter about a thousand times better. I just couldn't separate Philip Seymour Hoffman from himself, whereas I thought Toby Jones really became Capote. I think Infamous is a bit more subtle in its storytelling and not as flashy, which is a shame because it really got overlooked. Sandra Bullock is very good in it, and Daniel Craig is amazing. I've been touting it up ever since I saw it.