Nor, one imagines, is the local creek rife with oysters.

The last two days are a little blurry, in my effort to recall them. Thursday was pretty much what I had expected it would be, except we also read over "Scene in the Museum (1896)," which I've decided I like quite a lot. It whispers when one might expect it to howl, and that pleases me.

Yesterday, we went to a ridiculously early matinee of The Invasion (1:45 p.m.), all the way up at Hollywood 24, which meant winding our way through a white furnace of traffic, ozone, McMansions, and strip malls. Which would have been worth it, were The Invasion the artful sort of sf film I've been growing a little used to, something in the vein of The Fountain, Children of Men, or Sunshine. I have become extremely picky about which films I see, and when, and where, so that I only rarely pay full price to see a film, knowing how often I am disappointed. And The Invasion was a disappointment. As for a genuine review, I shall defer to Ty Burr's review in The Boston Globe, which I think correctly identifies what went so horribly amiss with this film. There are two films here, somehow twisted one into the other. There's the film that Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall, 2004) and David Kajganich set out to make (filmed in 2005), and there's the film that James McTeigue and the Wachowski Bros. were hired to make from the finished Hirschbiegel/Kajganich cut (which was originally to have been released in June 2006). In short, it is ultimately impossible to fairly judge this film, as we are presented with two incomplete visions: the remnants of the original (by all accounts a quiet, claustrophobic thriller) and the McTeigue/Wachowski film built atop it (standard action-movie fare, for the most part). The "twist" ending added in the rewrite is a mess, attempting to sidestep the film's central question: Would it really be so bad, this invasion, if it brought with it world peace, an end to prejudice, disease, etc.? Might the aliens be organisms more deserving of this planet than humans? I desperately wanted this to be a good film. I am a great admirer of both the 1956 original and the 1978 remake (especially the latter), and certainly it would have been interesting to see Jack Finney's novel adapted for a post-Soviet, post-9/11, information-saturated world. That film is hidden somewhere in the ruins of this one, and I hope someday it will be released to DVD.

Anwyay...

I say Saturday afternoon is a damn good time to buy books. So you might pick up a copy of the new mass-market paperback of Low Red Moon, or pre-order the forthcoming subpress edition of Tales of Pain and Wonder, or snag a copy of the trade paperback of Daughter of Hounds. Speaking of the latter, Daughter of Hounds is discussed at length in the new issue of S.T. Joshi's Dead Reckonings (Hippocampus Press). I love this bit: Each time I read Daughter of Hounds I marvel at the intricacies of its narrative structure; if it has any major flaw, it is that the plot is so complex that it demands an attentive reader in order to capture small twists whose echoes reverberate in unexpected ways.

Some very good Second Life last night, as the tale of Prof. Nareth E. Nishi grows ever more fantastical, grim, and convoluted. It folds and unfolds.

Today, I need to get the new Salammbô Desvernine story started, the story that will appear first in Clarkesworld Magazine and then as the final story of the Tales of Pain and Wonder arc. Which means I should be be wrapping this up....

50 Questions

I haven't done a meme in a while, so here's one snurched from derekcfpegritz (behind the cut, of course):

( 50 Dumb Questions )