Red

Five minutes in: The red is such a welcome contrast after the cold, dreary white of White. It's also more natural - taillights, jackets, no-left-turn signs - than the blue of Blue - candy wrappers, glass mobiles.

Fifteen minutes in: Okay, enough with the red already! Every thing that doesn't move is painted or dyed red, and if you count the dog's blood, then some of the moving things as well. Even the protagonist is named Valentine.

On the other hand, it does have two dogs in it.

An hour ten in: I'm sorry the young judge guy's girlfriend is cheating on him, but the fact that if she doesn't answer her phone, he goes to her place and, with some effort, spies on her with her new lover - that's creepy. In fact, Marie's own boyfriend sounds pretty creepy and controlling, too - and Kieslowski doesn't seem to be commenting on it, it seems like neutral depiction. Hope I'm wrong, that it (critisicm) just doesn't come across in translation.

Auguste, the scorned lover, has just tied his little dog out on a post and is abandoning him. I hate him. Ah, later, we see he couldn't go through with it. But does the dog survive the ferry capsize??

White

As with Blue, I get more out of it on every viewing. This time, I was struck by Karol's weakness and ineffectualness in France - before the film starts, he wins prizes for his hairstyling, but by the time we meet him, he is one sad sack loser - but when he returns to Poland, he quickly grows in cleverness and determination. In contrast, Dominique is the dominant personality in France, but after Karol lures her to Poland, their roles reverse and she becomes the needy loser. Is it the natural difficulty a foreigner faces when dealing with the court system of a strange country? Or is it something more mystical, about drawing strength from one's native soil? (As opposed to Blue, which at least superficially celebrated the EU.)

The film certainly makes Poland look like a cold, dreary place, with rusted-out infrastructure apparently not renewed since WWII and a post-communist economy where only the corrupt survive.

Maybe next time I will figure out the ending: she's to be hung, then she'll climb up to heaven and they will be married there??

Frasier vs. Cheers

Blogger Lance Mannion always holds up Cheers as one of the premier television comedies of all time. Right now, I'm watching Cheers and Frasier in tandem, and I'm up to Season 5 for both. Cheers has truly archetypical characters, and is very funny, but Frasier makes me laugh out loud in every episode, even though I've seen them each a dozen times or more.

Perhaps the thing that makes Cheers the less funny of the two, for me, is that I know the whole story - the center couple ultimately does not stay together. And so much of the humor is one person insulting another (Diane/Sam, Sam/Diane, Carla/Cliff), which grates on my humanity after a while.

Presumably Lance Mannion likes Cheers so much because he identifies with Sam - I just saw the LM episode a few days ago - and certainly I always identified with Diane. But her story is a sad one. Whereas there is no one on Frasier with whom I identify (aside from Niles).

Frasier won Emmys 5 years in a row, I believe - a record - and I can see why. It plays to the strengths of the actors in an amazing way. Ep. 1 of Season 5 - Frasier's Imaginary Friend - is one of my favorite episodes and has one of the best-delivered lines in the series. In any series. And David Hyde Pierce is possibly the finest comedic actor of this generation. Posture, gesture, facial expression, timing, delivery - he can do it all, and plays the piano too.

Plus, Frasier has Eddie (see esp. Season 4).

Elizabeth Edwards's cancer

I remember a time when the First Lady and Second Lady had one breast between them. No one accused their husbands of using the women’s health for political gain, or claimed that the women’s health affected their husbands’ ability to govern.

I strongly suggest that if the candidate in question were a Republican, neither of these issues would arise in the mainstream media; rather, the talk would all be of the couple’s strength and commitment and courage.

I Am Spartacus

My html skills are not such that I can insert Shakespeare's Sister's bannerhead. But I am extremely disappointed that Edwards did not do more to keep SS and Amanda Marcotte on board. Instead, he made them apologize, and said nothing about Donohue and his ilk. Why weren't they vetted in advance of their hiring?

The Minstrel Boy has a good post on this topic.

I was ripping and listening to Taking the Long Way this morning, and began thinking about the similarities between both groups of women. The Chicks stood up to as bad insults and threats as SS and Amanda received, but the latter two caved. I'm not blaming them - presumably the famous and wealthy Chicks had more resources to back them up, and each other. But I am so glad they persevered and created that wonderful album (which just won Album of the Year Grammy, the Grammys being something I seldom pay any attention to). I'm sorry the other two didn't. And I'm very disappointed in Edwards.

Wilson / Plame

Since when is a trip to Niger considered a junket? It's not exactly the Bahamas, not even any beaches. I have never heard of Niger being a tourist destination.

Johnmentum

Amanda Marcotte and Shakespeare's Sister have both begun to work for JRE! This, despite the fact, for both of them, that he is still "struggling" with gay marriage rights. He says he is all for civil unions and other rights, but personally has a prejudice regarding the term "marriage." Hopefully his daughter and other influential persons (like his new Webmaster) can help bring him along.