XP: Compelling book!

Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey
If you're interested in an absolutely riveting (and often humorous) story oriented toward NASA, here's one that is available in hardcopy and electronic formats...

The Martian by Andy Weir

Given my former career on the Apollo and Space Shuttle projects, I found this book most compelling, but I would expect anyone to appreciate it.


. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Saw Far From the Madding Crowd on the airplane, enjoyed it very much, in that peculiarly English sort of way.
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I remember crying nonstop from intermission to the end of the Julie Christie/Terrence Stamp version - of course i was just a youngster but even then i felt the heat between them. Didn't feel it all in the new version.
 
originally posted by maureen:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Saw Far From the Madding Crowd on the airplane, enjoyed it very much, in that peculiarly English sort of way.
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I remember crying nonstop from intermission to the end of the Julie Christie/Terrence Stamp version - of course i was just a youngster but even then i felt the heat between them. Didn't feel it all in the new version.
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Ah, must seek that out. The new version is indeed somewhat heatless, but that's pretty much Michael Heneke's style, cool and mannered. He made the lovely The White Ribbon in the same style. I also chalked up the heatlessness to stereotypical Victorian reticence (double-checked for grammar, usage and spelling, though I am uncertain whether double-checked takes a hyphen, as it would if it were the compound noun double-check).
 
I really liked La Pianiste in a kind of creepy/button-pushing vein, but I haven't been able to sit through anything else of his, despite interesting cinematography and good actors.
 
Interesting. Would you recommend I give it a try? I crapped out on Caché, The White Ribbon, and Amour, and figured that was enough of a college try.

If someone can make a movie with Daniel Auteuil or Jean-Louis Trintignant unbearable, what is left?
 
I thought it was brilliant but I don't know if I'm comfortable recommending Funny Games to anyone. I tend to like my cinema on the dark side though.

Crapped out on The White Ribbon? How do you feel about Bergman?

Although I thought Melancholia was a gorgeous film I'm not a big von Trier fan either. Watched the first 30 minutes of Nymphomaniac and turned it off. A week later watched the next 30 minutes and turned it off again. That's like a double college try.
 
I love dark stuff, as well, but perhaps I like it more tinged with absurdist humor? Buñuel's Mexican period is one of my favorite things, but that shiz is dark. (I also love the late, French straight-up brilliantly hilarious stuff like The Milky Way and Phantom of Liberty.)

originally posted by Todd Abrams:
Crapped out on The White Ribbon? How do you feel about Bergman?
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Maybe that's what didn't work for me? It was like Bergman but... less compulsively inviting? I love Bergman. Or maybe I tried The White Ribbon at a bad time; I rarely go back to things that don't catch me on first go.

Or should I say that I love Bergman, but I haven't been able to do it with Bresson?*

And it's not about pace; I've been trying to figure that out, too. I love Antonioni. I could watch Rohmer for hours and hours and hours (though he's more peppy; though some would say that there is no plot). And then I draw my Godard line at 1965 and earlier. And my Truffaut line zigzags between things that are great and things that are jaw-droppingly pandering.

Sorry, not sure all of WD wants to read about my own SUPERDUPERPERSONAL film tastes. But that was part of my reaction to the A.O. Scott piece you linked to. I'm not a film illiterate, but I wouldn't tell every person that HEY, 8 1/2 IS AWESOME BUT BICYCLE THIEVES SUCKS BECAUSE MY TASTES ARE THAT (and/or) the one is intrinsically better. But I love the former and I dislike the latter.

Does that make sense?

*ETA: Except "Les dames du Bois de Boulogne," which rules—perhaps underscoring my point about what is liked by whom.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
It was like Bergman but... less compulsively inviting?
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Totally.

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Sorry, not sure all of WD wants to read about my own SUPERDUPERPERSONAL film tastes.
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I'm sure Pete is happy there are so many replies to his initial post.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
...I haven't been able to do it with Bresson?*

*ETA: Except "Les dames du Bois de Boulogne," which rules—perhaps underscoring my point about what is liked by whom.
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Au hasard balthazar I understand, I did not last very long with that. But I really enjoy Pickpocket and L'argent. Maybe it's my weak spot for delicately sensationalized crime dramas, with Paris atmosphere as a bonus.

But I also dig Mouchette and surprised myself by enjoying the Trial of Jeanne d'arc. Plus of course Les Dames. And Un condamné à mort s'est échappé. I guess I'm a fan!
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Explain why, please.
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I'd have to re-watch them to answer that in detail, but I remember coming away from them dazzled at his formal inventiveness (each film is completely different), the originality of his approach (seldom reminds me of other directors) and his dark psychological insights into people. They seemed like the perfect fusion of an effortlessly contemporary cinematic craft with a probing analytic intelligence, all wrapped in a distinctly European sensibility. They are not easy films, comfortable films, but for me they raised the bar for the craft in a way no other director has done in recent times. They gave me that uncomfortable pleasure that I get from art that challenges and changes me.
 
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