A Good Yarn

Saturday, November 11, 2006

More Movies

Another weekend that just raced by. Now that the holidays are almost upon us, I guess I should get used to it. This weekend I had Talk Cinema again and the film this time was a little more obscure than Borat:



This is an independent film that has been playing in film festivals and is scheduled to open in a couple of theaters in New York next month. Hopefully the word of mouth will keep growing and it will get a wider distribution, because I really enjoyed this film. Nick Nolte plays a baseball umpire who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Trevor Morgan's character, a high school pitcher, after Morgan is caught vandalizing Nolte's house in retaliation for a pitch being called a walk, which cost Morgan's team the game. The movie starts out very, very slowly and the editing was really choppy. I couldn't understand where all these separate scenes were going and what the point of the film was. But eventually, it really caught me and I understood everything. Nolte's acting is incredible in this film - the way he expresses really intense emotions without a word. Amazing. One thing that became clear during our discussion after the film is that each viewer puts a little bit of themselves into the interpretation of the film. Everything isn't completely clear and spelled out, and depending on your own life and experiences, you may read it slightly differently than your viewing companion. I love that about a film. I would highly recommend this film if you get a chance to see it.

I also saw this film this weekend:



It's been out for a while, so you probably already know the basic plot - Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play rival magicians whose competition becomes increasingly dangerous. Bale and Jackman are two of my favorite actors and the film is directed by Christopher Nolan, who always makes intriguing movies that I quite enjoy. None of them disappoint me, although this is not on the same level as my favorite Nolan film, Memento. The film has a number of twists and turns and I have to admit that I did not find them surprising - I generally figured out what was going to be revealed before it was revealed. However, I still enjoyed the film.

I also did some felting of those projects I showed you last week, but I'll save that for my next post. I do have one addition to stash. Earlier this fall I joined the Sweet Sheep Sock Club and the first shipment arrived:



It's Mama-E's C*Eye*Ber Fiber in the Jolene colorway. The yarn itself is a very nice superwash wool with nylon and feels wonderful. I'm not crazy about the colorway. Teal and Peach are two colors that aren't my favorite and they're very strong in this skein. I like the pink and the robin's egg blue, though. Maybe I'll knit something for a baby instead of socks with it.