From the Desk of…
Eh, maybe I’m wrong, and maybe you’re right. Some weather we’ve been having! I wonder if this portends a stormy start to April then.
My mind tuned out of the news last week. Can’t put my finger on why…
…
So… heard any good jokes lately?
…yeah, me either.
But hey, this bike loop could be cool in a couple years. If it happens. And Mitch McConnell is one step closer to retirement and, maybe someday, the grave!
The Brain Dump
if my house isn't destroyed in this weather event i should be compensated with a free 1996 Dodge Ram
can't even get a decent night's sleep anymore. because of woke
░T░O░R░N░A░D░O░I░N░B░I░O░
muttering "Lisan al Gaib" under my breath as I watch my buddy beat the breathalyzer when I know he's got a road pop in the console
yeah I did it. I made the call shut down Facebook. and I'd do it again
If I haven’t been thinking about Dune: Part Two now in theaters (experience it in IMAX), I’ve been thinking either about the horrible Wonka experience in Glasgow or Chilean Star Wars beer commercials.
At the Movies
Alright, I gotta crack my knuckles here because I have some thoughts. Let’s get some lighter fare out of the way.
Hardcore (1979), dir. Paul Schrader ⭐⭐⭐⭐
No, you’re not hardcore unless you live hardcore.
Seconds (1966), dir. John Frankenheimer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ❤️
And you may say to yourself, “My God, what have I done?”
Dune: Part Two (2024), dir. Denis Villeneuve ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐❤️
I would pay double the ticket price just to hear Christopher Walken say Dune words
the perils of letting a quirked up white boy become goated with the sauce
Alright, I promised on Letterboxd to write more about Dune: Part Two now in theaters. Experience it in IMAX (ask for Babs). Apologies if you’ve already heard me tell some of these stories and bounce these thoughts around. Hey, I’m not making you read it. Let’s start from a technical level, the formalities of “is the movie made well?” I think that we can pretty definitively say “yes” to that. I’ve yet to see someone claim otherwise, and that claim would have to be supported with textual evidence I didn’t spot during my two viewings (shh). The design elements all come together incredibly well. I loved the costumes. The score suited the film’s desire for bombast during the action sequences, and I thought Paul and Chani’s love theme was appropriately tender. The acting was solid across the board. Some higher marks than others, but I think we should also consider how much people are given to work with in a given role.
Alright, I’m back. Sorry, I just took a moment to re-read Dune. Don’t believe me? There’s a typo towards the bottom of 690. MF says “Maud’Dib.” Anyway, I think the movie does a great job of capturing the spectacle and scale, but I maintain that the true depth of the books is unadaptable. I'm alright with them in large part, mostly because the film will lead people to the books, and some I think were smart changes - Alia, for instance, is very hard to do and not completely lose the audience when the wise toddler gets involved. Some changes, I'm less keen on. I think that compressing the time takes a lot of the weight out of the actions because it seems as though Paul is preparing for tomorrow or a week out instead of things being shaped over years and years, the gradual accumulation of small choices making an outcome inescapable. There's a lot of just setpiece-to-setpiece movement, but Villeneuve is very good at setpieces. I think that the swapping, by and large, of Chani and Stilgar and their readiness to believe allows the film to play better to contemporary general audiences. We couldn't have Book Stilgar with his trepidation and concerns about the prophecy alongside a Movie Chani actively resisting it without making Paul look like an extreme jackass. Likewise, Movie Stilgar and Book Chani would've declared Paul the Mahdi almost immediately. Paul needs someone gassing him up in the Fremen cast, and I think that the northern/southern idea is a pretty savvy way to set up some of the elements of Dune Messiah, should they adapt it. That said, there’s another rub from the time compression. As the Princess Irulan wrote in The Wisdom of Muad’Dib, “The Fremen were supreme in that quality which the ancients called spannungsbogen—which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.” Having Dune: Part Two play out over months rather than years prevents this quality from being demonstrated and makes a lot of them seem overeager for a messiah.
But, as the old Bene Gesserit proverb goes, “any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a bit to test that it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.” We’re atop the mountain now, folks. We’ll not be able to see its true shape and size now until we’re off it—be that abruptly, a sudden tumble off the side, or in five to seven years when a third movie is made that completes a number of set-ups and character arcs in Dune: Part Two. Go watch it, or don’t. I’m not your boss. Probably.
One Picture
It ain’t easy being cheesy.
In closing,
I’ll leave you with one of my all-time favorite passages from Dune. I’ll let you draw your own readings as to why.
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never persistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.
Until next time, get a feeling for the myth you’re in, and reflect on what’s projected on you. Don’t be afraid to face the unknown.