Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

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Wednesday, July 3, 2002
18:37 - Minority Report Report	(top)
Chris and I saw Minority Report last night, and I must say it's every bit as good as everyone has said. It's a lavish and surprising storyline with lots of very satisfying twists, the cinematography is somehow both rich and gritty, the casting and characterization is outstanding (the woman in the greenhouse merits buying the DVD all on her own), and the tech design is truly something to behold. I so dearly love it when a movie about The Future (2054 in this case, I believe) doesn't look entirely alien-- you know, a setting that looks about as odd to us as today's world would look to people in 1950. Yes, the infrastructure is somewhat different, there's a lot more technology in people's pockets and on people's desks-- but it's still all cars and roads and ice-cream cones. Likewise, in MR, the cars are ingeniously designed to fit into a chaotic but well-organized commuter structure, and they've got those transparent computer screens that moviemakers are so fond of-- sitting right alongside spray-bottles and lawn sprinklers and kids' bicycles and playground equipment that could just as easily have been bought in Wal-Mart today. That kitchen timer that the eye surgeon uses (another brilliant character, by the way) is styled like a timer from the 1970s, but with a luminous and interactive dial. Instead of the "future of the past" that the Rocket Age gave us (think Jetsons), here we have a future with retro. I love it. Likewise, the virtual interface that the cops use to sort through the imagery they're fed is a brilliant piece of iconic humans-interacting-with-machines the like of which I haven't seen since Fritz Lang's Metropolis; it's the same kind of system of gestures, firm and forceful-- something of a three-way cross between Tae Kwon Do, cyborg-like mechanical movements, and the nuanced touch of a symphony orchestra conductor. (The classical music overlaying the scenes where Tom Cruise conjures up those images is just as effective as the warm chamber jazz in Cowboy Bebop-- which is to say, very much so.) And there's so much unexpected humor in the movie. The way the quarrelling couple interacts with the spiders, the cereal box with the moving digital-ink logos-- the script smirks at you from beginning to end, not letting up even when the action gets heaviest. It's hard to suppress the giggles when Cruise tries to pull his old eyeballs out of a bag to show to the retina-scanners, and they roll down a slope and into a drain grating like a couple of prized aggies. But... There's one problem with this movie, without which it would be drop-dead brilliant. (This is actually Chris' observation, but I'm sure he won't mind me broadcasting it-- after all, he doesn't have a blog; he just fact-checks mine's ass.) It's the last two minutes. The movie gets Spielberged. Right up to the last gunshot, the plot careens and power-glides, jerking the audience expertly back and forth... but then, right after that last shot, you'd better just stand up and walk out of the theater and not look back. Because everything gets tied up with a neat little warm and happy epilogue that feels entirely out of place. It's like hearing "And they lived happily ever after" at the end of The Terminator. As the credits rolled, Chris sat in his seat shouting at the screen: NOOOOOO! YOU BASTAAAARD! DAMN YOUUUUU! ...Incidentally, am I the only one who noticed that this movie and Harry Potter seemed to be cut from the same cloth? They both have funky tendril-vines that grab for you, and they both are packed full of pictures that move-- newspapers, cereal boxes, trading cards, wall ads, paintings. It's like Harry Potter is really just the future-- you know, because the technology in Minority Report is sufficiently advanced that we can't distinguish it from magic. ... Okay, maybe I should just shut up before I dig myself in waaay too deep.