1. Earlier this winter, many of us went bonkers for the recent video-game documentary King Of Kong. I don’t know how we missed it but a writer for Harpers spent 5 years with the infamous Billy Mitchell (he-of-perfect-pacman-and-mullet-fame) and published a fascinating and rather touching write-up this past summer. A few choice quotes:
“‘[Playing the perfect game of Pac-Man] is like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon,’ [Billy] told reporters afterward. ‘No matter how many people accomplish the feat, it will always be Armstrong who will be remembered for doing it first. And, best of all, it was an American.'”
“‘Pac-Man set the tone for my business, my family, my relationships, everything,’ [Billy] says. ‘Since I perfected Pac-Man, I’ve become obsessed with perfecting everything else.'”
What’s that thing that starts with an “L” and rhymes with “saw” again?! To read the whole thing, click here. And for the record, I would really love to give Walter Day a hug.
2. Some great news for the Whit Stillman fans out there: his long out-of-print third film The Last Days Of Disco is now available to watch for free on hulu! It’s my second favorite of his “trilogy” – I’ve posted on it not once but twice – and proves once and for all that Stillman makes America’s finest foreign films. Sample dialogue:
DES: “‘Do you know the Shakespearean admonition ‘To thine own self be true’?’ [Jimmy nods.] ‘It’s premised on the idea that ‘thine own self’ is something pretty good, ‘being true’ to which is ‘commendable.’ What if ‘thine own self’ is not so good? What if it’s ‘pretty bad’? Wouldn’t it be better not to be true to thine own self in that case? You see, that’s my situation.'”
3. I have long been a fan of Noel Murray over at The A/V Club. His First Quarter Report echoes my feelings about recent pop-culture so exactly that I almost feel violated. In short: LOST feels like a different show this season (in a good way), Friday Night Lights is enjoying something close to perfection right now, the Battlestar finale paid off (for a BSG laugh, click here), Top Chef petered out toward the end, Dollhouse is heating up, Breaking Bad keeps getting better, Coraline and Duplicity are the only memorable movies of the past three months, Neko Case rocks, Springsteen’s latest flounders and “Unknown Caller” is the true musical standout of No Line On The Horizon [note: he’s a little unfair to U2]. I guess HBO was off-limits, otherwise he would’ve mentioned how phenomenal the recent season of Big Love was.
4. Some interesting and potentially sympathetic stuff being said over at theresurgence.com.
4a. Fascinating review in The New Yorker of a new book about the family dynamics that shaped Ludwig Wittgenstein. Enormously gifted and enormously neurotic/troubled – who would’ve thought?! Quick quote: “When they believed that an important principle was at stake—which, for them, was often—the Wittgensteins were not inclined to be nice.” I was also unaware that Wittgenstein had been so influenced by Tolstoy’s “The Gospel In Brief.”
4b. A great round-up of Christian allegory in recent sci-fi, over at City Journal of all places.
4c. A new EP from High Street Hymns – Love’s Redeeming Work Is Done! For those of you that were digging “By Thy Mercy” at the conference, the credit belongs solely to them (and Alex Mejias). Order your copy today. It’s also available on itunes.
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6 responses to “4.75 Links 4 The Weekend”
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I feel violated by the AV Club review as well . . . I NEVER fast forward through the “Friday Night Lights” opening credits. Instead, I cherish the montage of slow motioned clips set against the get-your-heart-strings score that builds, and builds, preparing you for the perfection that is the show.
Long live the Dylan Panthers.
“I’m a little concerned,” first lady Michelle Obama was overheard saying at a fundraising event Tuesday. “When Firefly was canceled, [Obama] walked around like a zombie for a week, and Serenity was the only thing that snapped him out of it. Last night he said he felt like he had just discovered David Axelrod was one of the Final Five, whatever that means.”
A devoted fan of the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica, Obama was initially hesitant to watch the new series, saying he was upset to learn that hotshot pilot Starbuck would be played by a woman. However, during a particularly slow week in the U.S. Senate, Obama decided to rent the first season from Netflix.
Aides said Obama “blew through” season one in a weekend, then purchased season 2.0 from a local Best Buy, and, in order to catch up in time for season three, downloaded the majority of season 2.5 from iTunes.
“When we spoke last month, he said season three was his least favorite because some of the episodes with Helo and the Sagittarons—and pretty much anything that involved Cally—were boring and didn’t advance the plot,” Afghan president Hamid Karzai said. “But I told him that when you watch it all on DVD, and you don’t have to wait a whole week for a new show, those peripheral episodes actually add new color to the already established world.”
C-
i think you say it well! The “we change change our context, but we cannot ourselves” is played out in all his movies. That is, both Ted and Fred are changed but it’s not through a Mira-like resolution to do so; they are changed by the tragedy that occurs. So i never thought Stillman was maintaining that people can’t/don’t change, only that they can’t/don’t by sheer willpower. I guess i don’t see it as a sad line in that respect. In all his films, there’s a real sense of hope that comes across – people undergo things and are changed for the better! And Stillman’s not-so-subtle use of “Amazing Grace”/”Dear Lord and Father Of Mankind” in Last Days and the prayer/angel drawing in Barcelona seem to indicate that God plays a primary role in these transformations.
JAZ talks a lot about this in the recent “Grace In Addiction” session that he and Kate Norris led at the conference, which i commend to you: the idea being that AA is a place where God is understood to work through defeat (exclusively) rather than effort. I wonder if Stillman would concur. Maybe we’ll have the chance to ask him before long!
btw, if you miss the sight of Helo flaring his nostrils, you might want to check out Dollhouse. it starts out slow, but if you can make it to episode 6, you’ll be hooked…
I’m with Cliff, DZ. Can you tell us more about this assignation with Whit Stillman you are planning? You have alluded to it a couple times somewhat cryptically. I’d love to hear more.
Love all the talk about Whit S. I like all three movies but remain totally crazy about METROPOLITAN. So much I love in that film, especially the character of Audrey. The scene of her crying in church (O come All Ye Faithful), of her running to her room in her deb outfit, of her whispering with her girlfriends about how much she likes Tom — I love them all. (And what a great line to Tom — “So… what Jane Austen novels HAVE you read?”)
As a brief aside, since this thread mentions that Shakespeare admonishes us “to thine own self be true” — it’s worth pointing out that he places that cliche in the mouth of the stupidest person in HAMLET (Polonius). 🙂
love this stuff. your 4.whatever links are always so well done. keep it up!