Sunday Sierrablogging

Mt. Silliman at twilight, from Montecito Lake Resort, Sequoia National Forest.

Friday Random 10

Cedric IM Brooks & the Light of Saba - Song for My Father
Tinariwen - Alkhar Dessouf
Runabouts - The Strangeness in Me
Ultravox - I Want to Be a Machine
Combustible Edison - Solid State
Johnny & the Hurricanes - Sheba
Young Marble Giants - Final Day
Combustible Edison - Syncophant
Dead Moon - Demona
Minutemen - Untitled Song for Latin America

Back from the mountains last night; still adjusting to re-entry. What are y'all listening to this morning?

Hooded Mergansers

Hooded Mergansers are small, diving, fish-eating ducks. Here an immature male is followed by an adult female. One of these weeks I'll post a shot of the adult male, who is the real beauty of this species. See a low-resolution enlargement here.

[cross-posted]

Sunday Sierrablogging

Dusk at Lake 10,200 on the LeConte Divide, John Muir Wilderness.

And with that, we're off to Sequoia for 4 days of not-too-strenuous snow play.

Friday Random 10

Blue Orchids - Work
Residents - Kawliga
Big Dipper - Humason
The Green Fuz - Green Fuz
Wanda Jackson - Sticks & Stones
Pixies - Where Is My Mind?
Siouxsie & the Banshees - Happy House
Eno - By This River
Laike & the Cosmonauts - Silenzio
Shadows - Thunderbirds Theme

Bonus video below the fold. What are y'all listening to this morning?
More...

Moments Later...

Downy Woodpecker beats a retreat.

Downy Woodpecker

Male, Eastern Race
[cross-posted]

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

California Gooseberry (Ribes californicum) in Edgewood County Park, San Mateo County.

Slowly but surely, wildflower season is arriving...

Monday Movie Review: (500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer (2009) 4/10
Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and begins a romance that we know from the outset will end. Title cards show us which of the 500 days we are looking at in each of the scrambled-time-sequence scenes.

About half the reviews I've seen of (500) Days of Summer were delighted and laudatory. Most of the others suggested that the movie was too cutesy and self-satisfied with its own happy cuteness. In response to those, I thought, Wow, sounds like the movie for me! I love cute. Finally, some reviews suggested that the movie was sexist, and while I don't love that, I love movies, and a lot of them are sexist. I survive.

Boy, was I not prepared for the hellfest that was (500) Days of Summer.
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First of all, cute just doesn't cover it. Cloyingly cute. Smugly cute. Derivatively cute. Me shouting at my TV "STFU with your cuteness you stupid cute thing!" cute. Dude, you are not Ferris Bueller, stop trying to trick me into thinking so. Your cute checklist is so obvious! Wise-beyond-her-years preteen, adorable musical moment, cute jobs (at a greeting card company, of all things), cute drunkeness, and Zooey Cute-chanel.

Now, all of this is not to say that the movie isn't often witty. It is sometimes well-written, and its stars are six kinds of awesome. My love of Joseph Gordon-Levitt is well-established at this point. And yes, there were several times I laughed out loud. Even during greeting card scenes.

But in order to fully examine what's wrong with this movie, we have to move on to the sexism. By which I mean, the deep-seated misogyny. The movie opens with three screens of white text on a plain black background: (1) The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. (2) Especially you Jenny Beckman. (3) Bitch.

When I saw that, my stomach knotted up. Anything that followed, no matter how cute, was now tainted by this angry, gendered outburst. Later, during one of the late-relationship days (circa 280), Tom writes a greeting card that says: Roses are red, violets are blue, Fuck you, whore. Fuck you, whore. For the record, Summer has not cheated on Tom; the only thing she's done to warrant being called a whore is to be female and hurt Tom's feelings. There's just this deep undercurrent of misogyny throughout the film, and again, no matter how sweetly it's painted, how do you forget that? Even the final scene, which is obviously going to be about closure and moving on, seems pointedly designed to erase Summer as if she no longer deserves to exist.

So I dunno. Some people liked it. But if you're reading my reviews and going by my opinion, I have to tell you, Do Not See This Movie.

(Cross-post: Day 21)

Sunday Sierrablogging

Post-storm evening light on the Sierra crest, from Adair Lake, Yosemite National Park.

Friday Random 10

Mekons - The Prince of Darkness
Warren Zevon - Lawyers, Guns[,] and Money
Minutemen - Jesus & Tequila
Bomboras - The 7th Veil
Marty & the Munks - Mexican Party
Dengue Fever - Made of Steam
Menahan Street Band - Heartbeat
Undertones - Runaround
Fall - Gut of the Quantifier
Talking Heads - Walk It Down

Bonus video below the fold. What are y'all listening to this morning?
More...

Black-Capped Chickadee

[cross-posted]

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Western Dog Violet (Viola adunca) at Point Arena, Mendocino County.

Monday Movie Reviews: Quick Hits

Escape From Alcatraz: Clint Eastwood stars in a real-life escape story set in 1960. Directed by Don Siegel.
Everything you'd expect from a Siegel movie of the 1970s. Hard-boiled, intelligently spare, ultra-masculine, pacing that grips you like a vise. Clint Eastwood & Don Siegel were such a great collaboration. 8/10
More...

Lady Sings the Blues: Biopic of Billie Holiday, replete with gritty drug addiction, starring Diana Ross.
I'd heard, long ago, that this was a bad movie. Recently, some folks in some film discussions praised it highly, so I decided to see for myself. Dear Gods, this is bad. 4/10

Quigley Down Under:
Tom Selleck is the sharpshooter, Alan Rickman is the bad guy, in the Wild Wild Australian West.
You know I love Westerns. You know that. But this one is just so-so. San Giacomo's crazy lady thing is way too over the top, and everything else is serviceable and by-the-numbers, except in Australia instead of the American West. Alan Rickman is always a great bad guy, and Selleck is pleasingly macho without being a jerk; he actually has a lot of soul. 7/10.

Revolutionary Road: Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio really goddamn hate suburban life.
I got about 20-25 minutes into this horror before I gave up. Histrionic, obvious, and obnoxious, full of tell-instead-of-show, and just relentlessly loud. Unbearable. 3/10

(Quick cross-post)

Friday Random 10

Dirtbombs - Livin' for the City
Young Marble Giants - Eating Noddemix
Was (Not Was) - Tell Me That I'm Dreaming
Mekons - Chemical Wedding
Dead Moon - Time Has Come Today
Young Marble Giants - Wurlitzer Jukebox
Cracker - St. Cajetan
Tricky - Bacative
Siouxsie & the Banshees - Overground
Feelies - On the Roof

Bonus track:
Social Distortion - Cold Feelings

I always flashback to Tell Me That I'm Dreaming when I watch a State of the Union speech and the Speaker introduces the President.

So what are y'all listening to this morning?

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Lee's Lewisia (Lewisia leana) at Summit Lake, Trinity Alps Wilderness.