Thanks to my good friend, Sarah Dollar, I now have a free month of Netflix. So, I thought I would share what I'm watching. First, I watched "Neverwhere," which is a six part TV series written by Neil Gaiman. The show was okay, the book is much, much better. Anyways, "Neverwhere" is set in London Below, which is a realm where magic holds sway and wonder and danger lurk around every corner. Definitely read the book though, because it is filled with Gaiman's touches of wry humor and horrifying imagination; film cannot capture the terror of Croup and Vandemar that the mind creates.
Next, I watched "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and was blown away by Johnny Depp's performance. This was Depp as I'd never seen him before: gawky, strung-out, muttering his lines around the perpetual presence of a filtered cigarette, and moving about like a paranoid monkey. The movie itself was an education on the various types of drugs and their effects on the human mind and body: hilarious and very sad. In the midst of the crazed drug binge is a poignant eulogy for the brief and hopeful era of 1965 in which the youth of America rebelled and indulged in the movement of free love, psychedelic music, drugs, and a belief that they could change the world. Johnny Depp's character, Raoul Duke, talks about San Francisco in 1965 with longing and regret because it did not last or solve any problems. It is 1971, and all that is left is the drugs and the fading memories.
On a somewhat lighter note, I watched the pilot for "Firefly." It wasn't a bag of giggles, but I really enjoyed it. The future never looked so futuristic or so backwards.
Speaking of the future, tonight's movie of choice was "Blade Runner," set in LA in 2019. Dystopia reigns and Harrison Ford is looking good. The film is described as literate science fiction and neo noir, and that's exactly right. I guess that in the future all the genres will continue on, complete with the cigarettes, the rain, dark shadows, beautiful dames (even when they're not human), trench coats, guns, and grim narrators who tell it like it is. All hail, Ridley Scott. I guess my favorite part is the futuristic LA: dark and rainy, you have to wonder what happened to the climate that brought about such a drastic change.
Well, that's all folks. By the by, I am reading and doing a bit of work. What I'm reading is Nocturnes by John Connolly and The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton.
