Dances With Wolves

I saw Dances With Wolves when it came out, and remember being disappointed by the film. But I think maybe I focused a bit too much on the bits and pieces I didn't like. Watching the special edition, almost four hours long, it's actually quite good. It's still a bit too cute - Costner falling on his ass, and so on. His character feels too modern and touchy feely for a soldier who's seen war. The film is a continuation of the revisionist Westerns of the 70s, like Little Big Man, and is like that film maybe too black and white - the Indians are all noble and wise, the whites are crazy or ignorant swines. But there are some nice images or sequences, like the buffalo hunt, and it has some humour. I was quite moved by the ending. There are also some places you can see that it's a debut film for Costner as director - images he fell in love with, but that don't bring the story forward. A bit tighter editing might have helped.
And really, the title is misleading! There's only one wolf! I expected at least two! Shouldn't it be Dances With Wolf In Distance or Dances While Wolf Is Watching, Not Sure What Is Going On? Well, possibly Indian names didn't have commas.

More books

More books from amazon in the mail:

The Carter Family by Young and Lasky
Krazy and Ignatz: 1919-1921 by George Herriman
Rendezvous in Black by Cornell Woolrich
Winter Journal by Paul Auster
The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing
American Elf: Book 4 by James Kochalka
The Cavalier Mr. Thompson by Rich Tomasso
Pirateria by Calef Brown

While in Nérac I bought
Nightclubbing Desperados by Serge Clerc
Rébétiko by David Prudhomme

and got the book signed by David! Now all I need is the time to read all this stuff.

BD à Nérac

I'll be in Nérac this weekend for Les Rencontres Chaland.

47%, Looper

I spent far too much time watching CNN, back when I was in Montreal. It was pretty depressing following the reports about the two candiates, behaving like little kids in a sandbox. I'm not sure I get it - why couldn't Romney apologize for his 47% comment instead of desperately trying to back it up? Why should a politician lose credibility if he apologizes for something he said? I think I would have more respect for the guy if he had. McCain actually seems like a pretty decent man in comparison. And don't start on Ryan, who has the same crazy, brainwashed look in his eyes that Bachman has. I'm sure he would be a great president if Romney won and then keeled over! And why hasn't anyone talked about global warming?!

Saw Looper before I left, and was kind of disappointed, after the rave reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. I have no problem believing the time travel stuff. The telekinesis stuff is a lot harder to swallow. Combined it's a bit too much. The first half hour is pretty good, but then it really drags a bit for the next hour. Some nice images, though and Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a good young Bruce Willis..

... and Backcover

Lost Cover Found

This will probably be the final cover for Lost Cat

Books and Stuff

I went a bit nuts ordering stuff on amazon before leaving Montreal, so there were a bunch of packages waiting for me when I got home. I had a little Christmas morning by myself, opening them. And only hard packages this time, no socks or underwear, thank you very much.

Hemingway's Boat by Paul Hendrickson
Hemingway's First War by Michael Reynolds
That Summer in Paris by Morley Callaghan
Raymond Chandler: A Life by Tom Williams
Prince Valiant vol. 5 by Hal Foster
Captain Easy vol. 3 by Roy Crane
The Twenty-Year Death by Ariel S. Winter
Mad Men season 1 and 2 package
The Aki Kaurismäki Collection vol. 3
Careless Love by Madeleine Peyroux

How many books about Hemingway do you need, really? I don't know. Apparantly lots. The Callaghan book is about his days in Paris in the 20s and his notorious boxing match with Hemingway, so that should hopefully be interesting and give some definite answers of what actually happened.