Song of the month(?) 98
Annie and I saw Juno last week. It’s a great movie overall. There were two annoying parts (highlight text to read partial-spoilers: There was one use of “gay” as a pejorative and it was a bummer she didn’t just get the abortion (of course, then there wouldn’t have been a movie. that’s a longer discussion of how to script that in a non-anti-abortion way).).
Anyway, the opening credit sequence is amazing and the song is great. If the job of credits is to get you in the mood for the rest of the film and feeling pumped to be in the theater, these credits are a solid 5 out of 5.
Fresh Air also had a long interview with the writer and director.
Here’s the song: “All I Want” by Barry Louis Polisar.
Enjoy!
Movie Review: Helvetica 61
It’s a documentary about a font. But not really.
It’s really about design over the last 50 years in Europe and the United States.
It’s about typography. But it’s also about the different movements of modernism, postmodernism, and the more recent responses to that.
If you have any interest in art, design, the history of ideas (how they change and why), or, obviously, typography, you should see this movie. Watch it with someone else.
Warning – this movie is not about the intricacies of type design, the relative merits of sans serif and serif fonts, or other major developments in fonts. For example, it doesn’t cover the new US highway standard font, Clearview. If you want to learn about that, check out this New York Times article.
Instead, this movie looks at how Helvetica’s ubiquity developed and how designers have responded to it. So you should ignore whiny reviews that don’t get it.
You can learn more about the movie at their website. 83 on Rotten Tomatoes. 100% from Cream of the Crop.Do not go see No Country for Old Men 68
There are no spoilers in this review. Although I’d probably be doing you a favor if there were.
It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. A new Coen Brothers movie is out. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 95%. My brother-in-law is in town. Seems like the perfect setup to go out to a “late” movie (9:45pm. Oy, I can’t believe I now consider that late) and have a good time.
Sure it’s supposed to have scenes of graphic torture, blah blah blah. (There’s some violence, but after some gruesomeness at the beginning, it was about as bad as episode of CSI).
The first two-thirds of this movie is great. Fantastic. Coen brothers at their best.
Then they decide to tell the audience to go screw. I believe the film makers enter into a social contract with the audience based on the kind of story they start to tell. The Coen brothers decided two-thirds of the way through to change everything. It felt like they just hated the audience. At least with Spiderman 3, Sam Raimi didn’t hate us – it just seemed like he was sick of making Spiderman movies.
I have not read the book. Perhaps they were being slavishly faithful to the book. But I doubt it. When making a movie, there’s a bazillion choices they can make and it seems like all of them were made to set the audience up for being disappointed.
I say this as a Coen Brothers fan. I even liked The Hudsucker Proxy. But Do Not see this movie. Or at least wait to rent it.
I would’ve been better off spending the time rewatching a movie I know that I like.
UPDATED (2007-12-13) Here’s a funnier, better version of my rant. I’d like to think I just was too angry when I wrote this post, but I think the person who wrote this may just be funnier than me. Peter – thanks for providing this. Your intellectual honesty is a great as your penchant for abuse (judging by your comments below).