When there is something I want to read, I look for it at the library because I am cheap and I don't want to fill my house up with books any more than it is already so. When a book is not at the library I get the necessary information from amazon and fill out the "suggest a title" form from hclib.org. Then, back on amazon, I add the book to my private "recommended to library" wish list.
Periodically, especially when I am between books with nothing in mind to read next, as I was recently, I check on whether any of my recommendations have been purchased. I'd say this whole system works less than 10% of the time.
However!
The library recently purchased no fewer than thirteen Star Wars novels from the '90s chronicling the adventures of Luke, Han, Leia, etc. and their kids. Thirteen! Several of these were books in trilogies of which they had a maddening one or two. With a sense of a job well done, I moved them to my "purchased by library" list. Fellow nerds of Hennepin County, you're welcome. Enjoy. (Please note the "On Order" status of most of these books.)
Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina
Tales from Jabba's Palace
Shadows of the Empire
Star Wars: The Hand of Thrawn: Specter of the Past (Book 1)
Star Wars: The Corellian Trilogy: Assault at Selonia (Book 2)
Star Wars: The Corellian Trilogy: Showdown at Centerpoint (Book 3)
Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy: The Paradise Snare (Book 1)
The New Rebellion
Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis: Before the Storm (Book 1)
Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis: Shield of Lies (Book 2)
The Crystal Star
Children of the Jedi
Star Wars: Republic Commando: True Colors (Book 3)
In the wake of this week's elections, this qualifies as activism. It's what I can do for our community.
Still waiting for them to get "The Lando Calrissian Adventures" Omnibus...
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Friday, November 05, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Or Am I Just Too Old?
You know how sometimes you watch a movie or tv show you used to really love and you're just like, "Why did I like this? This is crap!" I recently invested four and a half hours of my time in watching Dances With Wolves. And guess what? That is still a great freaking movie. And it made me realize something I like about old movies.
In the past, if creators of films wanted something to be in a movie, they had to create that thing or a very near facsimile of that thing in real life, then point a camera at it. Movies that are made this way are fundamentally different than movies now. Even movies that could have been made this way in the past are given superfluous special effects, usually by Industrial Light & Magic and a staff of hundreds, all of whom get their names in the overlong credits.
I remember watching the otherwise excellent movie Primary Colors about the election of a pseudonymous Bill Clinton. There's one scene where a character is driving in a car. The reflections on the car window jumped off the screen, took me out of the story, and screamed, "Look! I'm a computer! We added scenery reflections after we shot this scene. We did it for the same reason dogs lick their butts - BECAUSE WE CAN! I'm a computer! This is a movie! These are actors! La la la la la!"
I'm so used to this happening now that I was dreading the moment in Dances With Wolves when I'd see the special effect and go, "Oh yeah, it's that part of the movie where something totally obviously fake intrudes." Never happened. I watched the making of feature (also old-school, btw) and when the script called for a buffalo hunt they actually got real-world buffalo sculptures, covered them in real-looking fur, smashed them into the ground using various ramps and ropes, and pointed cameras at them while they were smashing into the ground. They got real Native Americans who rode horses in a herd of stampeding buffalo and pointed cameras at them while they did that. They trained a real wolf and pointed a camera at it. Sure it was hard. But it's so very much more effective at drawing me into the world of the movie and making it feel real.
It seems like no one will ever make a movie like this again. I liked Up, which was fully a cartoon, and I liked Moon, which was modern sci-fi with seriously batty, mind-blowing special effects. But I would love to see a new movie that creates its reality by making things in the real world and pointing cameras at them as they do their thing. What is the most recent great movie that has no intrusive special effects? It can't possibly be Dances With Wolves, can it?
There's this whole era of late 1990s/early 2000s movies where they used computer effects when they wouldn't have had to. And the effects weren't that good yet and so the worlds of the movies are kind of emotionally uninhabitable. Unfortunately the Star Wars prequels fall right in the middle and serve as cautionary tales of this era.
There's an interesting, contemporaneous parallel in the world of baseball, with a whole era of superstars who will never be taken seriously as Hall of Fame candidates. Would Rafael Palmero have hit 500 homers without the drugs? We'll never know and he'll always live under a cloud of shame and he'll never be in the Hall.
So please, someone make a movie by creating real things and pointing cameras at them. And if you're going to play baseball, stay off the drugs and high on life.
Oh, and don't even talk to me about the 1980 Yoda puppet or 1983 Jabba puppet versus their fake incarnations in the prequels. Blech.
In the past, if creators of films wanted something to be in a movie, they had to create that thing or a very near facsimile of that thing in real life, then point a camera at it. Movies that are made this way are fundamentally different than movies now. Even movies that could have been made this way in the past are given superfluous special effects, usually by Industrial Light & Magic and a staff of hundreds, all of whom get their names in the overlong credits.
I remember watching the otherwise excellent movie Primary Colors about the election of a pseudonymous Bill Clinton. There's one scene where a character is driving in a car. The reflections on the car window jumped off the screen, took me out of the story, and screamed, "Look! I'm a computer! We added scenery reflections after we shot this scene. We did it for the same reason dogs lick their butts - BECAUSE WE CAN! I'm a computer! This is a movie! These are actors! La la la la la!"
I'm so used to this happening now that I was dreading the moment in Dances With Wolves when I'd see the special effect and go, "Oh yeah, it's that part of the movie where something totally obviously fake intrudes." Never happened. I watched the making of feature (also old-school, btw) and when the script called for a buffalo hunt they actually got real-world buffalo sculptures, covered them in real-looking fur, smashed them into the ground using various ramps and ropes, and pointed cameras at them while they were smashing into the ground. They got real Native Americans who rode horses in a herd of stampeding buffalo and pointed cameras at them while they did that. They trained a real wolf and pointed a camera at it. Sure it was hard. But it's so very much more effective at drawing me into the world of the movie and making it feel real.
It seems like no one will ever make a movie like this again. I liked Up, which was fully a cartoon, and I liked Moon, which was modern sci-fi with seriously batty, mind-blowing special effects. But I would love to see a new movie that creates its reality by making things in the real world and pointing cameras at them as they do their thing. What is the most recent great movie that has no intrusive special effects? It can't possibly be Dances With Wolves, can it?
There's this whole era of late 1990s/early 2000s movies where they used computer effects when they wouldn't have had to. And the effects weren't that good yet and so the worlds of the movies are kind of emotionally uninhabitable. Unfortunately the Star Wars prequels fall right in the middle and serve as cautionary tales of this era.
There's an interesting, contemporaneous parallel in the world of baseball, with a whole era of superstars who will never be taken seriously as Hall of Fame candidates. Would Rafael Palmero have hit 500 homers without the drugs? We'll never know and he'll always live under a cloud of shame and he'll never be in the Hall.
So please, someone make a movie by creating real things and pointing cameras at them. And if you're going to play baseball, stay off the drugs and high on life.
Oh, and don't even talk to me about the 1980 Yoda puppet or 1983 Jabba puppet versus their fake incarnations in the prequels. Blech.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Dream I Had Last Night
I dreamed I lived in a stone fortress but with modern windows. I had the kids. We were under ground assault by the helmeted TIE fighter pilots from Star Wars. I got the girls away from the windows. All I had was a muzzle-loading mid-size rifle. I also had very high walls. I started shooting and felt tremendous joy as I realized the attackers were dying from my perfect, single, head shots.
On a railingless precipice, I faced an attacker who had scaled a wall and turned into Steve Martin. I shot him once in the forehead with one of the steel marbles at my precision command and, laughing, he fell several stories to his death. My family was safe. I woke up and took care of them for real.
On a railingless precipice, I faced an attacker who had scaled a wall and turned into Steve Martin. I shot him once in the forehead with one of the steel marbles at my precision command and, laughing, he fell several stories to his death. My family was safe. I woke up and took care of them for real.
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