I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

STEPHEN MARGOT AT THE WEDDING...

Here I am at my sister's rather low-key wedding, in my first ever Autostitch self-portrait.

One of the component photos was my full face, but Autostitch, for whatever reason, didn't accept it as part of the panorama. I guess I wasn't still enough. I could have just added it in using Photoshop, but I kind of like the half-face view. Reminds me of all the half-face shots in the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoons.

By the way, my sister is signing her wedding certificate. I wasn't allowed to take pictures during the main part of the actual ceremony, as there was an official wedding photographer there to do that.


ORIGINAL CONTENT FOR BLOGGER: Look, I wish I would write here more too, but, since I started working five days a week, I just haven't had the impetus to do so. I don't think "energy" is the appropriate word because it's not like I don't do anything else the 19 hours a day I am not working, but it certainly does eat into my spare time and most of the remaining creative drive I have is put into photography rather than writing.



I also received (well, more like co-financed along with my mother) an XBox 360 for my 33^rd birthday last month and have obviously been playing that a fair bit, especially Forza Motorsports 2, about the only driving game in the modern era to have all three of the most coveted exotic automobile licenses: Porsche, Lamborghini, and, of course, Ferrari. Project Gotham Racing 3, which I got as one of the two pack-ins with my system, has slightly prettier backdrops, but Forza 2 has got to be the most challenging driving experience I've had since Metropolis Street Racer, the original Sega Dreamcast game that got upgraded into the first Project Gotham Racing game on the XBox. Difficulty is a sign of a good game, at least if you like games that you won't play through in a couple of days, though it can be a little frustrating: I spent about two weeks trying to be "first" in one specific Corvette race, playing the first couple of laps over and over and over and over and over and so on, just trying not to crash into a wall or get slowed down too much on the grass or sand.

Also, I don't know if I'm the only one with this problem, but the graphics on the newest generation of videogame consoles are so fluid that I do find I get mild motion sickness (in the form of plain nausea and minor headaches) and sometimes have to stop playing after just a couple of minutes.



I don't want to write a full review, at least not yet, but I am very pleased to report that The Darjeeling Limited is more or less a full return to the fine form of The Royal Tenenbaums for director Wes Anderson after The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, a film I have very mixed feelings about with a lot of interesting touches and Eric Chase Anderson-illustrated visual flair, but with a story that just felt a bit emotionally hollow and even a little weird compared to Tenenbaums and Rushmore, as though Wes Anderson was relying too much on his own personal directoral flourishes and overall quirkiness at the expense of telling a compelling story.

I don't think that The Darjeeling Limited is the sort of film that can easily be spoiled with a one paragraph plot description, as it's more of a character study than it is a straightforward narrative adventure, but I don't think I have the writing skill to convey all the wonderful little nuances of the situation. In a nutshell, it's a story of three brothers, Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson), Peter Whitman (Adrian Brody), and Jack Whitman (Jason Schwartzman), who became estranged from each other following the death of their at least somewhat wealthy father a year before the start of the film and who take a trip on a train together in India in an attempt to reconnect with each other and salvage what's left of their family. The Dignan-like Francis seems to believe that exposing themselves to exotic forms of recreational spiritualism is what they need to "locate" themselves, but they're too mired in their own hedonism and their petty materialistic squabbles over fairly worthless personal items from their father that Peter mostly claimed for himself, in the belief that he was his father's favourite son. They really only begin to find, not what they believe they're looking for but what they truly need, when they stop trying so hard to fill the holes in their souls and begin to let go of their emotional baggage (and some pieces of literal baggage). I wouldn't say that message is particularly profound, but it's one of the most uplifting presentations of that message that I've seen in quite some time, and I heartily recommend that you see this film at least twice, as it's the kind of film that needs multiple viewings to totally absorb.

posted by Steve Brandon @ 6:45 AM