Short Review: The Diving Bell And The Butterfly.

Premise: After a man has a terrible stroke, he becomes fully paralyzed, except for his eyes (one of which is immediately sewn shut). So after a bout of self-pity, he decides to do something productive and write a book using a method of blinking while a scribe goes through the alphabet (in order of most commonly used letters).

Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Anne Cosigny, Max von Sydow, and Isaach De Bankole.

My Reaction: Not much to say. I've wanted to see it since it first came out, and I've even had it on my Netflix for months, though I kept pushing it back in favor of other things. But this movie is beautiful... in every way. Though I kept thinking that the main guy looked like what would happen if you merged John Francis Daley with Robert Downey Jr. My only real negative comment is that all the women confused me. They all looked similar, and you didn't often hear their names put to their faces... so I was never sure who was who. But that's only a small issue in the scope of the film. Absolutely brilliant and beautiful.


Royale With Cheese

DVDs Or Death!

I know I haven't posted anything since last week when I did this, but it's been a super-busy week. In this time span, I've written 2 papers, a case study, other bits of homework, and 5 chapters for my newest novel (2/3s of the way done!). Anyway, here's the newest DVD update. These will be coming out tomorrow... and there's really nothing all that spectacular (save for one).

The Golden Compass.

Brief Synopsis: Bad people want to separate animals from people. Controversial book-to-film. But not really.

Comments: This one is probably the big blockbuster DVD of the week. I've read all the books and I saw this one in theater. It had all this controversial hype around it, and it was probably as least controversial as they could have made it. There's only single disc versions, too. It wasn't God-awful (no pun intended), but the only reason I would buy this is if they released a version with the... you know... ending... that the movie decided to skip. And I don't mean to say it like that to avoid spoilers. The movie actually skipped the ending.

Viewing Option: Wait for TV (or special edition DVD).

27 Dresses.

Brief Synopsis: Always the Bridesmaid, Never the Bride: The Movie.

Comments: Didn't care about seeing this one in theater, don't really care too much now that it's out on DVD. 1 disc.

Viewing Option: Wait for TV.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Brief Synopsis: Paraplegic blinks a novel with one eye.

Comments: I totally wanted to see this when it was in theater, but it never came here. I still really wanna see it, and I heard it's awesome. I haven't decided if I wanna buy it or rent it yet, but it feels like one of those impulsive buy kinda movies.

Viewing Option: Buy or Rent.

First Knight.

Brief Synopsis: 90s Re-release of Sean Connery Camelot film.

Comments: Just thought this was worth a mention that it was being re-released. If you don't already own it... or haven't seen it enough to last you a lifetime... go for it.

Viewing Option: This movie already comes on TV.

Joseph Campbell - Mythos II.

Brief Synopsis: Founder of the monomyth. Inspiration for millions (including Star Wars). PBS documentary.

Comments: I only bring this one up because Joseph Campbell was such a genius in the world of literature (and then some). He founded the monomyth format (which is the basic 'Quest' format that has been used since the beginning of stories themselves... he just organized it). He inspired George Lucas into writing Star Wars (which follows the monomyth dead-on). He inspired Christopher Vogler to re-work the monomyth format and use it for screenplays, which is used for basically any film school now (and has inspired such works as The Lion King).

Viewing Option: N/A. I already know all I want about Joseph Campbell and the monomyth.