How to Make a Book with Steidl

The Steidl in the title is actually the book company, but since they never really introduce the 'lead', he gets that name in my head. (He is Gerhard Steidl, so it still works.)

This is a documentary about book maker Steidl, and the exacting standards he puts in when creating each book. We visit with him to various artists and discuss their needs and he's certainly forthright about putting forward his own opinion (some times in 'earthy' words, as one might put it). And so he also gets to hobnob with the big names, and seems to fly first class a lot.

This is by the make director who did El Bulli, so once I was told that, I knew what sort of film to expect. And as with that one, this is people going about their business, not talking to camera, not introducing anything... and not really getting much of a sense of narrative either. At best, we see a few projects from mid-point to some form of completion, but most times it's just a slice. (And in one shot, he's talking to Alan Tudyk! - At least, I think it was him.) And speaking of people who look like other people, I spent most of my time wondering who Steidl reminded me of. Any help? [EDIT: Got it! John Billingsley!]

So, a decent documentary, and I'm glad I saw it.

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Dra cool la

Because of HPPodcraft, I dipped into Dracula... the audiobook, 'cos I'm lazy. (There are a lot of books on LibriVox, so I might be back there soon.)

This book is oddly balanced. The initial part is Jonathan Harker in the Dracula Castle, then we slip over to London where Lucy falls prey to him. This is most of the book, then Mina starts to do the same thing, but now the heroes are gathering for the strike. It's almost like Lucy is a Disposable Woman, and doesn't get to really serve a function in the plot but to give the guys a reason to fight and to practice fighting against. Not that women in general get a fair chance in this book, but hey, 19th century.

Overall, it's a decent monster story (although the structure did remind me a lot of New Century), and a good foundation for when I start watching the Hammer Horror movies (which I will at some point). Bram Stoker is fairly free wheeling with vampire mythology, and it feels like he makes up what he needs as he goes along. (Although I do have a possible plot continuity point I might have missed. If Dracula hasn't been in London/England before, where does Renfield come from to get crazy and put in an asylum before Dracula turns up?)

My breadth of classic novels grows, and I see (or rather, hear) they have Lair of the White Worm there...

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Mishop

I had a bit of a Mishap, but that's all right, it was intentional.

On of the many hidden object games I have, this one is set in a haunted house. Like, really haunted. Each segment of the house has a ghost, and is made of a main room and three secondary rooms. Each main room has two extra ghosts, and each secondary room has another ghost. That's a lot of ghosts! But the majority of them are easily defeated with a simple 'hot cold' minigame. The main ghosts need bigger mini-games to beat them... and only one of them was any fun.

The time based mini-games? Not fun. The card game mini-game was actually fun, although I couldn't 100% it. (I 100%'d few things, because I didn't care enough.) They were annoying, but I will give that you could completely skip them.

The hidden objects themselves weren't terrible... for the most part. Some of the objects I had no idea about. Fortunately, the game didn't penalise you for using the hint system like some others do.

The story was rather basic. Just enough context to give some meaning to the rooms and mini-games, but largely ignorable.

The worst part - not having a resolution option setting. Not even a 'here's a range of options from back in the day', but nothing at all. I have to go full screen (there are some very small objects), which means anything else I'm watching gets resized and moved in odd ways. Get gud, games!

Still, it only took me around 4 hours to complete the game. And there is a sequel I already have.

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Woserater

With Jason Jones leaving The Daily Show, let's celebrate(?) with a movie that he inadvertently inspired.

Mazier Bahari went to Iran to see in the 2009 elections, and stick around for the aftermath. As part of that, he did a goofy interview for The Daily Show in which he interacted with master spy Jason Jones. For that and other reasons, he was detained and interrogated and told to fess up that he was a Western media controlled pawn. But even that didn't help him.

This is the film famous for having Jon Stewart direct it, and it's a good movie. There are a few moments where it was 'let's be flashy because we can be', but the basic story was well told. I'm not sure how true it was to the book, but no doubt it was similar and took components of it to relate.

I enjoyed this, and yes, definitely worth watching.

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Don't Want No Selfie

Music time! I like mashups, and this one in the latest Bootie Mashup has stuck with me... and so I insert it into your ears!

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Bank Dick

I've heard of W C Fields more than I've seen his work, so yeah, I wanted to see this.

Egbert Souse (accent on the e) is a big of a hopeless case, wandering into lucky moments. He starts off accidentally becoming a movie director... but that scene stops for no reason what so ever (was this some amusing short reference thing?), and then is found with a bank robber and claims credit. So obviously they offer him a job, and from there he gets involved in a silly shares scheme and has to keep the bank inspector out of the way, until everything comes together at the end with a big chase that was clearly where the money (such as this had) went.

Yeah.... uh... I've seen a few comedies from that time, and generally liked them, but this... it just... it was a collection of moments more than a sustained story, and there were lots of moments that were intended to be funny... I think... but, nope. Didn't work for me.

Is this a typical movie of his? If so, I think I'm good...

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CHiPPiE

The trailer for this movie wasn't particularly inspiring me. But I like Neil Blomkamp's previous movies, so yeah, I gave this a go. And this movie is the RoboCop movie we should have had.

In JoBurg, the police force are largely replaced with just 100 robots (and human cops with them). One Scout gets a little too beaten up, so is consigned the scrap heap, but then his maker gets a little idea about trying out a consciousness program he wrote... In the meanwhile Ninja and Yo-landi(*) are trying to do a heist, and grab the maker to find out more about the robots. But what they end up with is Chappie.

[* Their actual names. They are in a rap group.]

This goes more into what it means to be human than the other movie I mentioned. It also goes into being raised with 'bad influences' and what it means to live and die in JoBurg. And they even have their own version of ED-209!

Good acting, and good production too. I have no idea if Chappie was an animatronic, or CGI, or puppet, or what... or when he was different things. Possibly a little off eyelines in some scenes, but good integration throughout the movie.

Yeah, another good movie from Mr Blomkamp.

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