Sandman, Batman Realities, Etc.

Last week was a busy one for me, and I completely forgot to post a link to my latest Sandman Meditation, this one on the fourth issue of the series, "A Hope in Hell".  I'm tempted to say that just as Sandman seems in the later issues in the Preludes & Nocturnes collection to be finding its feet and style, I'm beginning to feel like I sort of know what I'm doing with these columns, but I know if I say that then writing the next one will be nearly impossible.  And really, no matter appearances or what I think at this moment, I haven't any idea what I'm doing.  And that's okay.

Speaking of having no idea what I'm doing, my latest Strange Horizons column, "Real Action", has just been posted, and as occasionally happens with these things, I read it over and disagreed with myself.  I like the structure of the ideas in the column, but I think that structure led me to simplify some of the points, and in particular to elide important complexities in the idea of "reality" in action movies, especially action fantasy movies like The Dark Knight.  No big deal, though ... those complexities now give me an idea for another column...

For far more insightful writing about Christopher Nolan than I am capable of, be sure to check out two posts by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell: "INCEPTION; or, Dream a Little Dream within a Dream with Me" and "Revisiting INCEPTION".  The vast amount of discussion of Inception on film sites has been fascinating to me, even though my feelings toward the movie itself were lukewarm -- I'm with Jim Emerson in finding it "more fun to theorize about than it was to watch", though I don't think I found it as tedious when watching as Emerson did.  This summer's been pretty weak as far as blockbusters go, so maybe everybody's just so thrilled to have a movie to talk about that's not 100% stupid that Inception's getting an inordinate amount of time and thought.  No matter.  What else are film geeks supposed to do?

Well, we could all read the last interview with Francois Truffaut, which Richard Brody just posted (the interview was conducted by Bert Cardullo, though).  (I know it brands me as an inveterate middlebrow, but Truffaut is my favorite French filmmaker after Jean Renoir.  Oh well.  Godard, Rohmer, Renais, etc. aren't lacking for passionate admirers, so my basic, unpassionate admiration is unlikely to cause the world to stop spinning on its axis...)  Brody follows this with some thoughts on Truffaut.  Well worth reading.

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