So, we finally saw Attack of the Clones tonight, at one of the few digitally-equipped theaters nationwide (I heard, but, like, don’t quote me on this, that there are only two on the West Coast: Mumble’s [formerly Graumann’s] Chinese, in Hollywood, where the film premiered and one of the places we visited while in Cali, and the Cinerama here in Seattle, the place to catch SF and epics here in town, with a full cinescope setup).

My experience was marred by technical flaws, both within the film and in the screening: the film seemed dim throughout, as though I were watching it through sunglasses, and there were several times when the soundtrack became at least a quarter-second out of synch with the actor’s mouths, giving the impression of a poorly dubbed foreign film.

Additionally, and truly trivially, there was a visible moment of MPEG blocky corruption in one shot. But damn, this was supposed to be the poster child for digital projection! Once I’d been tenderized by these warts I was sensitized to every problematic use of digitally-derived FX in the movie, from the jerky motions of the digipuppet riding the herd-tick in the meadow to the inexplicable decision to shoot Princess Amidala’s recovery from a tumble to the sand with digital sand and shadows that failed to properly meet the lovely Ms. Portman in motion, causing that irritating “floating” appearance.

It made me grumpy.

As reported, the romance is a fine time and place to take a nap – I couldn’t begin to tell you why, but I yawned and yawned and Y-A-W-N-E-D.

Other than that the vastly more positive blog-world feedback you’ve undoubtedly noted is by and large borne out. Mostly, the big scenes go over well. The battlecruisers taking off in the final moments of the film, for example, was a perfect realization of the scope and power of seventies SF art that partially hooked me on SF to begin with. Also, the only time I actually felt emotionally involved in the film was in the climactic scene involving Yoda; again, as advertised.

So, I guess my take on it is, go see it on film, screw digital. At least the soundtrack ought to remain in synch.

Although seeing Christopher Lee reprise his role as Sauruman so soon was interesting, to say the least.

Currently:

The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd by Robert Zacks.

Tasty! Me timbers are shivrin’ to this exhaustively researched historical recounting of how the good Cap’n, one of the leading lights of the striving bourgeosie of 1680’s New York City was, er, tarred with the brush of piracy. See, Kidd started out on a voyage of pirate interdiction, armed with a commission that allowed him to sieze pirate cargo, and then, via various mishaps and miscalculations, found himself prosecuted for the very offense he sought to eliminate.

Did he deserve it? Mr Zacks stoutly defends the seafaring Scot, but reading the book actually created more questions for me than I had coming into it.

UPDATE: D’oh! I left it at me in-laws in Laguna Beach! Arrr!

Published by Theia, an imprint of Hyperion, in 2002.

Banvard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck, by Paul Collins

So perfectly up my alley, I grabbed it and finished it in about two days. Collins originally published some of the book in McSweeney’s, and this book can be found in the rapidly expanding McSweeney’s section of your local booketorium. You can recognize the works by their McSweeney-derived typographical cover design (centered, wide-justified Times or Century type with a single illustrative element subordinated to the type).

Thirteen kooks of varying obsessed success, only a few of whom I’d ever heard and none of whom I knew anything in detail. Amusingly, those that I had heard of I learned about via short, short capsule stories in a book that got me a-readin’ as a child, the Reader’s Digest book of >Strange Stories, Amazing Facts. Yummy!

Come to think of it, I believe I first read of dirigibles AND Captain Kidd in that same tome.

Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms by Steven Jay Gould.

Saddened to hear of the death of this entertaining essayist, when I saw this collection I glommed it and look forward to it. I always enjoy Gould’s prose and his joy in linking the diverse into tales that reveal the structures of human society or the natural world. The flashiness of his ability in so doing is something I still take a child’s joy in.

The Mummy Congress, by Heather Pringle

A survey of the underfunded and eccentric world of mummy studies, including info about the mismatch between the public’s fascination with mummies and the scientific establishment’s rather arms-length relationship to the topic.

“Noodles… I… slipped!”

I flipped into what I thought must have been the last 30 minutes of Leone’s spaghetti gangster epic (make that matzoh gangster epic, the only pasta in the pic is De Niro’s character name, Noodles). Oops!

The film actually starts with a grisly scene that turns into a transition from flashback to 1968 NYC, with virtually no dialog for the first 40 minutes of screen time. It had been so long since I’d seen it I’d totally forgotten it.

Anyway, it turned out to be the super-extended dance remix of the movie, and nearly four hours later, there I was, watching a big Mack truck drive off through the Long Island night. It was pleasant to see again. It’s a pretty undisciplined film at four hours though – extended sequences of great brilliance followed by tone-deaf schmalz. But I did notice that, yes, just as Ken Goldstein once wrote, Jennifer Connelly as the younger sister of Fat Moe is an attractive screen presence, even years ago.