Kaedrin Weblog

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Trigger Man
An earlier post on Ti West's excellent The House of the Devil lead the cryptic emailer mentioned in that post to recommend West's previous film, the ultra-low-budget Trigger Man. It's an interesting little film, mostly because it is essentially a concentrated version of what some people really hated about The House of the Devil.

Like, House of the Devil, the plot of this film is easily summarized: three buddies head out to the woods for a relaxing hunting trip. With a title like Trigger Man and three apparently inexperienced young guys with guns, it played out almost exactly as I expected. But not right away.

I suppose there are some who'd say that the first half of the film is a bit dull, and there's probably something to that. The film is certainly slow. But there's also something effective about being lulled into a sense of security that this film exploits. At one point maybe 20 minutes or so into the movie, after our heroes have been quietly walking through the woods for a while, one of the characters hefts his rifle and pans around the area... and spies a doe! Never has a female deer been so menacing.

I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that the deer does not shoot back at our hero, but there's no way that sequence would have carried the weight it did if we hadn't spent the previous 20 minutes trudging silently through the landscape, building atmosphere with every step. As someone who has been deer hunting myself, this movie actually does capture that sort of excitement that can only come after spending a morning waiting for something (anything!) to cross your path. After a while, even a squirrel can be exciting.

Of course, that's not all this film has to offer, and while I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen, I did find myself startled when it actually did happen. From that point on, I found myself surprisingly off balance, even when West reverts the film back into quiet nature walk mode (only to jolt me out of my reestablished reverie, I should add). There is even that horror staple of gratuitous gore at one point, but that sort of thing works much better in a movie like this than it does in a lot of other schlock-fests (though I do have a soft spot for slashers, for some unfathomable reason). Later in the film, an eerie abandoned factory makes an appearance, and West takes ample advantage of the strange shadows thrown by overpasses.

This is pretty clearly a low-budget film, and at times I did find myself wondering if the stylistic choices were done for artistic reasons, or because of technical limitations (or, as is sometimes happily the case, both). For instance, the film does have a distinct vérité feel. West never goes all Greengrass on us, but a handheld camera is clearly used for most of the shots. This does sorta put the viewer in the position of voyeur, as if if we're actually there, following the characters with a camera (but without the whole found-footage conceit). Indeed, there are numerous shots from behind, following characters as they move. I would be curious what choices West would have made if he had more of a budget.

The DVD had a Q&A session with West, cast, and crew, and one of the things that really surprised me was that he says almost none of the film is improvised. The film only has about 20 lines of dialogue, and most of it is pretty simple banter between the three leads (I thought for sure that the Predator reference was an improvisation). After finishing the movie, I contemplated whether it would have made for a good silent film (the concept of a modern-day silent film intrigues me) - and I think it would, so long as you could leave the sound of gunshots and maybe the babbling water of the creek.

Ultimately, while I enjoyed the film and found it satisfying, I would have a hard time recommending it to anyone but the most strident fans of West or slow burning horror (i.e. people who think The House of the Devil is for speed junkies). Perhaps being immersed in the hustle and bustle of teh internets primed me for spending some down time following some doomed hunters as they trekked through an eerie environment. I guess it's not a film I see myself popping in all the time... It's a wonderful experiment, and I enjoyed it on that level, but it certainly has its flaws. In any case, I guess this means I should check out The Roost (which, I have to say, seems like it would be very different from the other two West movies I've seen).

Posted by Mark on August 11, 2010 at 09:34 PM .: Comments (0) | link :.

Sunday, August 08, 2010

Link Dump
I have about 5 posts brewing right now, but none are quite ready for the show, so here are some links in the meantime.

In Praise of ‘Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers’: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas mounts a vigorous and surprisingly convincing defense of what most people consider to be a mediocre entry in an unimpressive series. I love reading film criticism like this, though I have to admit that reading this post is probably more entertaining and interesting than watching the movie itself. As a slasher sequel, I suppose you could do a lot worse than Halloween IV and I will happily admit that the ending was oddly effective in its own way, but it's ultimately not that great of a movie (especially when it invites comparison to one of the greatest horror movies of all time). I haven't seen the movie in about 10 years, but it's probably better than the Zombie reboot series, right?
Everything I Know About Tennis I Learned from Cow Paths: Paul Kedrosky takes the (apparently apocryphal) stories about desire lines and applies the concept to tennis, noting an interesting difference between 1980 and 2010.
Heat Wave Strategies, Or: At What Temperature Would You See 'Twilight'?: The title pretty much says it all, though I think our respective tolerances are a bit different. I'd probably have switched The A-Team and Twilight on her list. Actually considering that I was surprisingly taken by The A-Team, it could probably drop even further than that...
Rise of the Literature Machines: Madeleine Schwartz notes the popularity of the I Write Like meme and points to another automated literature analysis tool that summarizes entire novels.
Chewbacca fights Nazis while riding mutant squirrel: No commentary necessary.
Minimalist Movie Posters: A ton of great ones here.
Helping Johnny Remember: Creepy kids are creepy.

That's all for now...

Posted by Mark on August 08, 2010 at 08:27 PM .: Comments (0) | link :.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

A/B Testing Spaghetti Sauce
Earlier this week I was perusing some TED Talks and ran across this old (and apparently popular) presentation by Malcolm Gladwell. It struck me as particularly relevant to several topics I've explored on this blog, including Sunday's post on the merits of A/B testing. In the video, Gladwell explains why there are a billion different varieties of Spaghetti sauce at most supermarkets:

Again, this video touches on several topics explored on this blog in the past. For instance, it describes the origins of what's become known as the Paradox of Choice (or, as some would have you believe, the Paradise of Choice) - indeed, there's another TED talk linked right off the Gladwell video that covers that topic in detail.

The key insight Gladwell discusses in his video is basically the destruction of the Platonic Ideal (I'll summarize in this paragraph in case you didn't watch the video, which covers the topic in much more depth). He talks about Howard Moskowitz, who was a market research consultant with various food industry companies that were attempting to optimize their products. After conducting lots of market research and puzzling over the results, Moskowitz eventually came to a startling conclusion: there is no perfect product, only perfect products. Moskowitz made his name working with spaghetti sauce. Prego had hired him in order to find the perfect spaghetti sauce (so that they could compete with rival company, Ragu). Moskowitz developed dozens of prototype sauces and went on the road, testing each variety with all sorts of people. What he found was that there was no single perfect spaghetti sauce, but there were basically three types of sauce that people responded to in roughly equal proportion: standard, spicy, and chunky. At the time, there were no chunky spaghetti sauces on the market, so when Prego released their chunky spaghetti sauce, their sales skyrocketed. A full third of the market was underserved, and Prego filled that need.

Decades later, this is hardly news to us and the trend has spread from the supermarket into all sorts of other arenas. In entertainment, for example, we're seeing a move towards niches. The era of huge blockbuster bands like The Beatles is coming to an end. Of course, there will always be blockbusters, but the really interesting stuff is happening in the niches. This is, in part, due to technology. Once you can fit 30,000 songs onto an iPod and you can download "free" music all over the internet, it becomes much easier to find music that fits your tastes better. Indeed, this becomes a part of peoples' identity. Instead of listening to the mass produced stuff, they listen to something a little odd and it becomes an expression of their personality. You can see evidence of this everywhere, and the internet is a huge enabler in this respect. The internet is the land of niches. Click around for a few minutes and you can easily find absurdly specific, single topic, niche websites like this one where every post features animals wielding lightsabers or this other one that's all about Flaming Garbage Cans In Hip Hop Videos (there are thousands, if not millions of these types of sites). The internet is the ultimate paradox of choice, and you're free to explore almost anything you desire, no matter how odd or obscure it may be (see also, Rule 34).

In relation to Sunday's post on A/B testing, the lesson here is that A/B testing is an optimization tool that allows you to see how various segments respond to different versions of something. In that post, I used an example where an internet retailer was attempting to find the ideal imagery to sell a diamond ring. A common debate in the retail world is whether that image should just show a closeup of the product, or if it should show a model wearing the product. One way to solve that problem is to A/B test it - create both versions of the image, segment visitors to your site, and track the results.

As discussed Sunday, there are a number of challenges with this approach, but one thing I didn't mention is the unspoken assumption that there actually is an ideal image. In reality, there are probably some people that prefer the closeup and some people who prefer the model shot. An A/B test will tell you what the majority of people like, but wouldn't it be even better if you could personalize the imagery used on the site depending on what customers like? Show the type of image people prefer, and instead of catering to the most popular segment of customer, you cater to all customers (the simple diamond ring example begins to break down at this point, but more complex or subtle tests could still show significant results when personalized). Of course, this is easier said than done - just ask Amazon, who does CRM and personalization as well as any retailer on the web, and yet manages to alienate a large portion of their customers every day! Interestingly, this really just shifts the purpose of A/B testing from one of finding the platonic ideal to finding a set of ideals that can be applied to various customer segments. Once again we run up against the need for more and better data aggregation and analysis techniques. Progress is being made, but I'm not sure what the endgame looks like here. I suppose time will tell. For now, I'm just happy that Amazon's recommendations aren't completely absurd for me at this point (which I find rather amazing, considering where they were a few years ago).

Posted by Mark on August 04, 2010 at 07:54 PM .: Comments (0) | link :.

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Groundhog Day and A/B Testing
Jeff Atwood recently made a fascinating observation about the similarities between the classic film Groundhog Day and A/B Testing.

In case you've only recently emerged from a hermit-like existence, Groundhog Day is a film about Phil (played by Bill Murray). It seems that Phil has been doomed (or is it blessed) to live the same day over and over again. It doesn't seem to matter what he does during this day, he always wakes up at 6 am on Groundhog Day. In the film, we see the same day repeated over and over again, but only in bits and pieces (usually skipping repetitive parts). The director of the film, Harold Ramis, believes that by the end of the film, Phil has spent the equivalent of about 30 or 40 years reliving that same day.

Towards the beginning of the film, Phil does a lot of experimentation, and Atwood's observation is that this often takes the form of an A/B test. This is a concept that is perhaps a little more esoteric, but the principles are easy. Let's take a simple example from the world of retail. You want to sell a new ring on a website. What should the main image look like? For simplification purposes, let's say you narrow it down to two different concepts: one, a closeup of the ring all by itself, and the other a shot of a model wearing the ring. Which image do you use? We could speculate on the subject for hours and even rationalize some pretty convincing arguments one way or the other, but it's ultimately not up to us - in retail, it's all about the customer. You could "test" the concept in a serial fashion, but ultimately the two sets of results would not be comparable. The ring is new, so whichever image is used first would get an unfair advantage, and so on. The solution is to show both images during the same timeframe. You do this by splitting your visitors into two segments (A and B), showing each segment a different version of the image, and then tracking the results. If the two images do, in fact, cause different outcomes, and if you get enough people to look at the images, it should come out in the data.

This is what Phil does in Groundhog Day. For instance, Phil falls in love with Rita (played by Andie MacDowell) and spends what seems like months compiling lists of what she likes and doesn't like, so that he can construct the perfect relationship with her.

Phil doesn't just go on one date with Rita, he goes on thousands of dates. During each date, he makes note of what she likes and responds to, and drops everything she doesn't. At the end he arrives at -- quite literally -- the perfect date. Everything that happens is the most ideal, most desirable version of all possible outcomes on that date on that particular day. Such are the luxuries afforded to a man repeating the same day forever.

This is the purest form of A/B testing imaginable. Given two choices, pick the one that "wins", and keep repeating this ad infinitum until you arrive at the ultimate, most scientifically desirable choice.

As Atwood notes, the interesting thing about this process is that even once Phil has constructed that perfect date, Rita still rejects Phil. From this example and presumably from experience with A/B testing, Atwood concludes that A/B testing is empty and that subjects can often sense a lack of sincerity behind the A/B test.

It's an interesting point, but to be sure, I'm not sure it's entirely applicable in all situations. Of course, Atwood admits that A/B testing is good at smoothing out details, but there's something more at work in Groundhog's Day that Atwood is not mentioning. Namely, that Phil is using A/B testing to misrepresent himself as the ideal mate for Rita. Yes, he's done the experimentation to figure out what "works" and what doesn't, but his initial testing was ultimately shallow. Rita didn't reject him because he had all the right answers, she rejected him because he was attempting to deceive her. His was misrepresenting himself, and that certainly can lead to a feeling of emptiness.

If you look back at my example above about the ring being sold on a retail website, you'll note that there's no deception going on there. Somehow I doubt either image would result in a hollow feeling by the customer. Why is this different than Groundhog Day? Because neither image misrepresents the product, and one would assume that the website is pretty clear about the fact that you can buy things there. Of course, there are a million different variables you could test (especially once you get into text and marketing hooks, etc...) and some of those could be more deceptive than others, but most of the time, deception is not the goal. There is a simple choice to be made, instead of constantly wondering about your product image and second guessing yourself, why not A/B test it and see what customers like better?

There are tons of limitations to this approach, but I don't think it's as inherently flawed as Atwood seems to believe. Still, the data you get out of an A/B test isn't always conclusive and even if it is, whatever learnings you get out of it aren't necessarily applicable in all situations. For instance, what works for our new ring can't necessarily be applied to all new rings (this is a problem for me, as my employer has a high turnover rate for products - as such, the simple example of the ring as described above would not be a good test for my company unless the ring would be available for a very long time). Furthermore, while you can sometimes pick a winner, it's not always clear why it's a winner. This is especially the case when the differences between A and B are significant (for instance, testing an entirely redesigned page might yield results, but you will not know which of the changes to the page actually caused said results - on the other hand, A/B testing is really the only way to accurately calculate ROI on significant changes like that.)

Obviously these limitations should be taken into account when conducting an A/B test, and I think what Phil runs into in Groundhog's Day is a lack of conclusive data. One of the problems with interpreting inconclusive data is that it can be very tempting to rationalize the data. Phils initial attempts to craft the perfect date for Rita fail because he's really only scraping the surface of her needs and desires. In other words, he's testing the wrong thing, misunderstanding the data, and thus getting inconclusive results.

The interesting thing about the Groundhog's Day example is that, in the end, the movie is not a condemnation of A/B testing at all. Phil ultimately does manage to win the affections of Rita. Of course it took him decades to do so, and that's worth taking into account. Perhaps what the film is really saying is that A/B testing is often more complicated than it seems and that the only results you get depend on what you put into it. A/B testing is not the easy answer it's often portrayed as and it should not be the only tool in your toolbox (i.e. forcing employees to prove that using 3, 4 or 5 pixels for a border is ideal is probably going a bit too far ), but neither is it as empty as Atwood seems to be indicating. (And we didn't even talk about multivariate tests! Let's get Christopher Nolan on that. He'd be great at that sort of movie, wouldn't he?)

Posted by Mark on August 01, 2010 at 09:57 PM .: Comments (0) | link :.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Link Dump
Well, it's actually been a while since the last link dump, so here's a few interesting links:

God of War Movie Trailer: If it were directed by Wes Anderson, that is. Excellent spoof of indie movie tropes.
I Write Like: David Foster Wallace, apparently. Mayhap I should finish off Infinite Jest sometime. Actually, it looks like they updated the algorithm. I still get mostly Wallace, but I'm also getting lots of other folks (Lovecraft, James Joyce, etc...) which is a bit strange. I mean, I write like everybody! I'd like to know more about how they determine the key indicators for each writer.
Film Longevity: Box Office vs. Oscars: Sam Stoddard (of the excellent but sporadic All Movie Talk podcast) takes on two inevitable movie topics:
1. Those snooty Academy Awards! Why do they always nominate obscure art films? In 20 years, nobody will remember them. When the films of today have stood the test of time, they’ll have been forgotten. The films people will remember, see, and cherish are the ones that dominate the box office!
2. The public is stupid! Every year they turn the most mindless drivel into cash cows. But the fame these movies have will not endure. When the films of today have stood the test of time, they’ll have been forgotten. The films people will remember, see, and cherish are the ones that win Academy Awards!
These claims are obviously at odds with each other. They can both be false, but they cannot both be true, except in cases where the movies that win at the box office are also the ones garnering awards attention.
He then goes into a relatively thorough examination of the Oscar Nominees and Top Grossing films for each year, going back to the beginnings of the Oscars. Fascinating stuff.
KFC Drive-Through: Doublelicious all the way. You know, the great thing about laughter is that it just happens. You don't have to think about it or explain it, which is a good thing, because I have no idea why I laughed so much at this.
Cognitive Surplus Visualized: Wow.

That's all for now...

Posted by Mark on July 28, 2010 at 09:31 PM .: Comments (0) | link :.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

The House of the Devil
This month's selection for the Final Girl film club is Ti West's 80s throwback horror film, The House of the Devil.

When I was growing up, there was a local legend about a building known as Satan's House (also known as the Cult house, the Devil's house, and probably a dozen other variants). Located in Southeastern PA, not that far from Delaware, the house sits at the top of a hill, and the road that winds around the hill is probably the creepiest part of the whole experience. The windy road is narrow and lined with trees. This alone would not be cause for alarm, but it seems that all of the trees... instead of growing up towards the sky, they grow horizontally, pointing away from the road (as if trying to escape the unspeakable horror of Satan's house). This isn't the best picture of the road, but it gets the point across:

Obviously this is proof that the house is home to some sort of satanic cult. Some of the more fanciful conspiracies claim that the house is owned by the Du Pont family and that various members of the family married their cousins in the house (so as to keep their money within the family), and then used the house to hide away the inbred children (or monsters or whatever).

The funny thing about this is that it's probably just a house, and the trees lining the road probably grow like that because of the way the sunlight hits the area, but the conspiracy theories of Satanism persist even to this day. This sort of irrational fear of Satanism was rampant during the 80s, and director Ti West has latched onto that idea and created a remarkably authentic 80s-style horror movie featuring shifty families, satanic rituals and a creepy house. The film even starts with a cheesy text opening informing the audience that in the 1980s, over 70% of Americans believed in abusive Satanic cults and that another 30% rationalized the lack of evidence due to government cover-ups... Plus, it's based on a true story! Not sure if it actually is or if West is pulling a Fargo, but it doesn't really matter, does it?

The basic premise of the story is that a college student in need of some quick cash agrees to take a babysitting job at said creepy house. And that's pretty much it. However, writer/director West manages to wring a lot of tension out of this simple and seemingly overused premise.

I first saw this movie earlier this year, when I was still attempting to fill out my Top 10 of 2009. At the time, I was comparing it to another haunted house movie, Paranormal Activity. There are some superficial similarities here: both movies feature quasi-haunted houses, they both have something of a gimmick at their core (one a "found footage" film, the other imitating 80s conventions), and they're both pretty scary. However, The House of the Devil is made with more artistry and in a more unconventional manner. It's a masterpiece of misdirection and tension building. Unlike the repeated tense and release of Paranormal Activity, The House of the Devil opts to continually build tension while withholding release until the end. This is an interesting approach and the foreboding atmosphere of dread is hard to shake. Of course, from the title of the film alone, you know where it's heading, and aside from one moment early on in the film, it mostly proceeds along an expected path.

The other film this reminds me of is Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Both films are an ode to underappreciated grindhouse genre films, albeit films of a different era and genre. Tarantino is going for the great car films of 70s with a little horror mixed in for good measure. West is going for those 80s horror movies where irrational fear of satanism was rampant. I think both films are hugely successful at evoking the feeling of their respective genres, but I think the one major problem with this approach is that these new films suffer from the same major flaws as the films they're imitating. In particular, the pacing is very slow and the characters tend to act pretty stupidly... For film nerds like myself, this isn't really much of a drawback, but it does tend to limit the appeal to more mainstream audiences. It's strange though, because these flaws are so obviously and lovingly reproduced in exquisite detail and with a lot of artistry. Indeed, getting that cheap, grainy filmstock look probably cost way more than doing it "properly" would.

That being said, once things begin to happen, the pace picks up and it's very engrossing stuff. I'm still not sure if it would crack my top 10 of 2009, but I will say that I'll be very interested in what Ti West decides to do next (apparently another haunted house style story). As usual, more screenshots and comments in the extended entry...

Update 7.26.10: Stacie has just posted her review and links to all the other Film Club Coolies (y'all!). I'm also informed via cryptic second-hand email that Ti West has seen my review and that he said the creepy trees in the photo above are just 10 minutes away from where he grew up, which is pretty awesome.

Read More »

Posted by Mark on July 25, 2010 at 06:46 PM .: Comments (0) | link :.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Inception's Sense of Wonder
One of the things that really differentiates science fiction from other genres is the emotional thrill derived from expanding your awareness of what's possible. This doesn't always constitute a complete understanding of the universe around you, just a dawning realization that there's more to the story than you've thought (sometimes this can take the form of contemplating the incomprehensible or even just realizing what you don't know). This feeling is referred to as a "Sense of Wonder" (often abbreviated as sensawunda) and while a large portion of science fiction literature manages to evoke such emotions, SF cinema rarely even approaches the same accomplishments. There are some exceptions, of course, but for the most part, SF movies settle for gigantic spaceships and thunderous explosions and whatnot.

The opening shots of the original Star Wars provides us with a typical cinematic example. The camera pans across a sea of stars. You see a spaceship move across the screen. This imparts a frame of reference for the universe of the movie. Then a much larger spaceship (indeed, it doesn't seem like it will end) move across the screen in pursuit of the original. The frame of reference established by the original spaceship is thus immediately revised in light of this new data. Part of this revision is, no doubt, the expectation that the Star Destroyer will probably be dwarfed by something else (and later in the film it is, by the Death Star). This short sequence actually encapsulates a ton of information: the rebels are small and poorly equipped, the empire is large and powerful. The way the ships are framed on screen also underlines the empire's power over the rebels. And so on.

The realization of the scale and size of the empire is a very small example of sensawunda. And most films don't even contain that much (indeed, the really mind expanding things about Star Wars aren't really SF so much as they are mystical, but that's probably another discussion). There are analogs to this concept in other genres, most notably the horror genre, but the emotions are distinct (the emotion evoked in horror as you realize the scope of the conflict is fear, tension or suspense, rather than the awe or wonder of SF).

Christopher Nolan's new film, Inception, is one of the few films in recent years to actually even attempt to impart a sensawunda, and for that alone, it should be applauded. The interesting thing about Inception is that it manages to impart that sensawunda feeling without relying too heavily on precise explanations of the technology involved. Indeed, I don't think the movie would fare too well if judged solely on the basis of realism.

However, despite this lack of precise technological detail, the film does manage to evoke the sensawunda feeling by devising a set of rules and limitations, then playing around within that box to consistently expand possibilities and sometimes even surprise the viewer. The key catalyst for sensawunda here is that all of the various twists and turns in the story are all internally consistent and logical extensions of what has already been established.

I don't want to go into too much detail right now simply because I don't want to spoil the movie, but things do get pretty complicated and Nolan does manage to ratchet up the stakes considerably more than I had initially expected. There are some concepts or details that I must admit that I'm not entirely clear on, but even in those situations I have a gut feeling that everything does fit.

The critical reception seems to be very positive, though there have been a few high profile dissenters, notably David Edelstein and Jim Emerson. Edelstein writes:

Inception is full of brontosaurean effects, like the city that folds over on top of itself, but the tone is so solemn I felt out of line even cracking a smile. It lacks the nimbleness of Spielberg’s Minority Report or the Jungian-carnival bravado of Joseph Ruben’s Dreamscape or the eerily clean lines and stylized black-suited baddies of The Matrix—or, for that matter, the off-kilter intensity of Nolan’s own Insomnia. The attackers in Inception are anonymous, the tone flat and impersonal. Nolan is too literal-minded, too caught up in ticktock logistics, to make a great, untethered dream movie.

(emphasis mine) I found that last line the most representative of complaints with the movie. Emerson's main complaint, that the dreams in the movie don't seem to be very dreamlike, is instructive, because from what appears on screen, Nolan is clearly not even attempting to make an "untethered dream movie". I think it's funny that Edelstein also throws out a number of other movies, none of which I like better than Inception. I do really enjoy Minority Report, but I don't think it captures that mind expanding sensawunda feeling anywhere near as well as Inception does. If you have a lot of problems with Inception, I really have a hard time believing that you'd think that Dreamscape was a better movie. There is some similarity in basic premise, but I think "Jungian-carnival bravado" is far too much praise for that film (which is an enjoyable enough movie, but also kinda silly and overblown in the way a lot of 80s movies were). The Matrix is the only film on the list that I think gives Inception a run for its money. Both films are derivative in the extreme, though I got a fresher feeling from Inception than The Matrix. On the other hand, The Matrix clearly outclasses Inception when it comes to action. In any case, I don't think any of those films should preclude anyone from seeing Inception.

Emerson also seems to hate Nolan's visual style, but to my mind, Nolan is much more distinctive as a writer than he is as a director. It's not the visual style of movies like Inception or Nolan's true masterpiece, Memento, that strikes audiences - it's the way Nolan plays with narrative and time that really differentiates him. This is more a function of the writing and editing than anything else, and even Edelstein admits that Nolan "thinks like a mechanical engineer" when it comes to his scripting (and this is a good thing). The editing in Inception is certainly worth praising here. Though perhaps not as extensive or bombastic as the eding in Memento, there's a real challenge here and editor Lee Smith deserves a lot of credit for whatever degree of suspense you feel as the film reaches its climax.

Nolan also seems to do a great job combining various genres and then putting a new twist on them. For instance, Inception contains elements of action films, heist and con movies, and of course, science fiction. Elements from each genre are mixed and matched in a way that hasn't really been done before (at least, not with respect to the layered "ticktock logistics" of the plot). This isn't a straightforward version of any of those genres, nor is it a simple combination.

The performances are all pretty good, though I think the real standout is Tom Hardy (of Bronson fame), who just devours the screen. Longtime Kaedrin friend Sovawanea pointed out one of the refreshing aspects of the film: "I found it rather refreshing that they didn't try to contrive a romance in the middle of the mission between Ellen Page and the rest of the guys." There's another element of the characters that I found really refreshing, but I don't want to say it because it might spoil the movie.

This has been a slow year for movies, but between Inception and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, things are at least looking up a bit, and both will most likely find their way onto my top 10 list at the end of the year.

Posted by Mark on July 21, 2010 at 09:11 PM .: Comments (5) | link :.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Decade of Kaedrin Weblog
Believe it or not, it's been ten years since I started blogging here. Sure, I started the website even before then and the blog has changed a lot since those initial entries, but it's still an important milestone. Going back to read those first posts is a bit painful, what with the embarrassing attempts at humor and reliance on some of the lame weblog tropes of the day, but I'm ultimately pretty happy with my blog.

In the beginning, I had focused on smaller entries and reached a peak posting rate of just a little less than one a day. However, this was unsustainable, especially if I didn't just want to keep repeating stuff that other people were posting. From there, things floundered a bit for about a year or two until I set a weekly schedule for myself, committing to at least one entry a week (on Sunday). The thought was that having a regular posting interval would make it easier on readers, who would know when to expect new content. The schedule was later amended to include at least two entries a week, and I've kept to that schedule pretty well over the past several years.

I'd also like to think that the quality of my writing has improved, though I have to say that I feel like I've been a bit of a funk lately. I've been relying on formulaic and not terribly inspired posts like link dumps and doing less writing of consequence. More and more it seems like I don't really have a good idea what I'm going to write about when I sit down on Wednesday or Sunday, and all too often, I end up firing out an entry in about an hour or so (this post will probably fall into that category, though I knew I wanted to write it). These entries often come out better than I thought at the time, but they're still not my best work. I've been blogging long enough to recognize that this sort of thing happens from time to time though, and I often feel better after a few months, so I'm not looking to make any drastic changes. I considered taking some time off to see if my brain would recharge or reconfigure itself or something, but I think whatever success I've had with this blog has been due to my schedule. Plus, I do have some longer and more involved pieces in the works, so hopefully I'll be able to polish some of those off soon...

One of the interesting things about running a blog for so long is that I've developed some strange habits. For instance, I often find myself thinking about whether or not something I'm doing or watching or reading is blog-worthy. A lot of people blog because they have something to say or because it's timely and relevant, and I suppose I do that too, but I also blog to learn about things that interest me. Most current events don't really fall into that category until after the fact (if at all). But I am, of course, interested in lots of things and even writing a quick post on a complex subject can lead to deeper understanding. Writing a a longer form essay often takes me to all sorts of interesting places that I never even intended to visit when I started writing, and those end up being my favorite posts. Usually such posts burrow into my mind and grow follow-up posts (which is perhaps another thing that only a blogger could appreciate).

In the ten years I've been running the blog, I've never really had that large of an audience. I've had a small and loyal following, and for those readers I am very grateful, but this blog was never entirely about that. Of course, the blog is public, and so I do very much appreciate whatever limited attention I get, but it's always been more about what interests me at any given time, and often that doesn't lend itself to the sort of thing that make blogs popular (i.e. timely events and controversial stances in short, easy to read chunks, etc...). This isn't a complaint, as I don't think I'd enjoy having a tremendously popular blog; that entails all sorts of other frustrations that I'd rather not deal with.

In any case, since I've already done a detailed look at the history of the site, I figure there's not much to say at this point. I realized that I hadn't updated the Best Entries category in a few years, so I added a bunch of posts I thought worthy (if you have any favorites of your own, let me know) and hopefully I'll be writing many more posts that belong there in the future. Just for the heck of it, here are some of my favorite posts from the past year or so:

And I think that about wraps it up for now.

Posted by Mark on July 18, 2010 at 08:05 PM .: Comments (0) | link :.

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