Young and Mean

40 years ago, Ebert was not even 30. He wrote in his review of "Love Story" (1970) --

I read Love Story one morning in about fourteen minutes flat, out of simple curiosity. I wanted to discover why five and a half million people had actually bought it. I wasn't successful. I was so put off by Erich Segal's writing style, in fact, that I hardly wanted to see the movie at all. Segal's prose style is so revoltingly coy -- sort of a cross between a parody of Hemingway and the instructions on a soup can -- that his story is fatally infected.

Mean, Roger, you are evil and oh so cool. :D

War of the Worlds (story idea)

What would alien invasion look like?

Not Independence Day, of course.

It's been too long (3 decades) since I last read HG Wells' story. I can't remember how the struggle went there, except the ending.

Nevertheless, here is my plan:

The war looks less like a war, but more like colonization. It is long and drawn out, with casualties on both sides. The course is twisty and full of coincidences and self-sabotaging stupid decisions on both sides (or only the Earth's side?).

The Future

Miranda July 的第二部电影。充满了很逗的段落，对中年生活的观察、反省、自嘲。例如剧中两主角听说楼里上网信号要中断的时候抓紧时间上网。例如两个人都感慨自己奔四十了还一事无成的人生。让我看得很戚戚。

July 的脸象洋娃娃，有种塑料感，眼睛总是张得老大，一副惊奇加迷惑的表情，而且眼珠颜色颇淡，更让人联想到洋娃娃的玻璃眼珠。男主角 Hamish Linklater 几乎是男版的 Miranda July，也是卷卷的头发，永远迷惑不解的表情，仿佛一早走错了路，摸索至今。

****

看完后溜进另一间放映厅把 Another Earth 给看了。很难看，剧本与导演都挺幼稚的。

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Werner Herzog 的黑色幽默感不算是我的菜，不过这片儿还是有不少地方让我笑出声来，特别是有爬行动物出场的戏。或许是特意向 noir 类电影致敬的作品来的，很容易联想到 Coen brothers。

The Fifth Witness

有声书。Michael Connelly 之 Mickey Haller 系列中之新书。So so 吧，不算特别出色。

倒是听说 George Pelecanos 和 SJ Rozan 的新书都快要出版了。Something to look forward to.

Depressed and Right

The theory that depression is a positive trait, proposed by psychiatrist Nassar Ghaemi, is hardly new. In fact, it is almost fashionable for pop-psych talking heads to try to uncover the evolutionary advantages (yes, advantage, not dis-) of depressive tendencies. I have seen studies suggesting that depressed patients judge reality more accurately, have more empathy, and focus their attention better than non-depressed people. I take them with a grain of salt, especially toward the habitual rush to read "evolutionary advantage" into any pointless and accidental byproducts of this extremely imprecise, unreliable, and non-anthropomorphic process known as "natural selection."

I'm not clinically depressed, yet --- a fact that often surprises myself, because I am an above-average pessimist. And I have a possibly perverse fondness for tragedies and bleak stories. I think I'm right a lot more often than the normal optimists around me, but they disagree. Nevertheless, I have to wonder whether this "healthy people have a slight bias toward optimism" is a biological phenomenon or a cultural one. Could very likely be localized to a few especially self-congratulatory and delusional cultures, but far from universal.

世界科幻大会

前两天从GRRM的自称不是博的博逛一圈回来，心血来潮地跟某同学说，要不咱们去内华达州参加世界科幻大会吧？某同学还挺积极地说，好主意，你去查查订旅馆和入场券要多少钱。然后我一不小心就漏了口风：GRRM在博上说他要去，我想去追星... 某同学立刻跳起来：啊哈，原来你扮成科幻迷，实际上是要去追那个臭老头！说不定还打算对他动手动脚... 我赶紧安慰他：别嫉妒嘛，我就是想去瞅瞅他真人有多胖而已。男人真是神经脆弱啊。某同学气呼呼地说：早告诉你这人不是好人了，参加什么会？他怎么不呆在家里赶稿子？后来查了下网站，发现离开会时间太近，旅馆预订期早过了，只好作罢。不过某同学动了心，正在考虑明年要不要去芝加哥参加下一届的大会。对此我俩各怀鬼胎：我希望胖老头明年也去，某同学希望他不会出现。