Caitlín R. Kiernan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greygirlbeast) wrote2011-12-23 03:51 pm
greygirlbeast) wrote2011-12-23 03:51 pm
Entry tags:
"My own secret ceremonials..."
Please comment, kittens. I just spent almost three hours on this bloody entry.
"Deny your pettiest of foes the satisfaction of defeat, or even of recognition, by consigning them to oblivion." – Old Sith Proverb (even though I just now made it up). Then again, as Brown Bird reminds us: "We file down our fangs on the bones of our foes." It's a damned conundrum, it is.
This is going to be a long entry, I think. Because, firstly, there's yesterday, and then, secondly, there's Ridley Scott's forthcoming Prometheus.
Yesterday, we finally left the house about two p.m. (CaST), and headed south and east to Conanicut Island and West Cove (~41°28'46.27"N, 71°21'40.50"W), nestled in amongst the ruins of Fort Wetherill. Longtime readers will recall this is one of our favorite destinations. It seemed a fitting place to spend Yuletide. Speaking of tides, as the new moon is Saturday, and we had a storm on Wednesday night, the last high tide had been very high, indeed. All the way back to the treeline. Therefore, all manner of interesting things had fetched up on the shore. When we visit West Cove, we're always most interested in mermaids' tears (beach glass) and the bones of gulls, cormorants, and other birds (and mammals, but mammalian bones are rare). I try to ignore the profuse plastic litter, mostly left behind by the summer people. I try to imagine the shoreline pristine, but it's hard when you know:
Around 100 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year of which about 10 percent ends up in the sea. About 20 percent of this is from ships and platforms, the rest from land.
- or -
Since the 1950s, one billion tons of plastic have been discarded and may persist for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Anyway, by my admittedly casual estimation, the tide must have stranded hundreds of rock crabs (Cancer irroratus), along with all manner of other Mollusca and Crustacea, many of which I've never before seen at West Cove. There were the remains of numerous genera of crabs and lobsters (including Limulus, Homarus, Libinia, and the aforementioned Cancer), pelecypods (including Mytilus, Ensis, Aequipecten, Mercenaria, Spisula, Crassostrea, and an as yet unidentified cockle), and gastropods, mostly slipper shells and periwinkles. I found a few interesting bird bones, and we collected some nice bits of glass. The sun was brilliant off the water, until banks of low clouds rolled in towards sunset. It was warmish, in the fifties Fahrenheit, except in the shadows. When the sun slipped behind the clouds, the temperature dropped into the low forties within minutes. I sat and listened to bell buoys and the slap of the surf, trying to calm myself for many days to come. As soon as we'd arrived, we climbed a large granite promontory and tossed a single sprig of yew into the dark waters of the cove as an offering to Panthalassa. We saw three ravens and a very large murder of crows, but, oddly, only a few seabirds, a few gulls that swept by overhead. Despiute the fact that I took a pretty hard fall in the rocks (and have the bruises and aches to show for it), it was a good (indeed, a bow tie) day at the sea. We headed home about 4:56 p.m., and I dozed all the way back to Providence. Winding up our celebration of Cephalopodmas, we watched the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society's excellent adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu (2005) and Robert Gordon's It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955).
At least the first day of winter has come and gone, and now the days will grow longer.
The granite outcrop we climbed to drop the spring of yew (it's about fifteen feet high).
Looking down from the cliff at the sea.
Detail of the large crystals that compose much of the granite at West Cove.
Shuggoth! Well, actually a boulder covered in rockweed.
Did I mention the march of the shuggoths?
Spooky doing a rather odd dance as she searched the pebbles for interesting bits.
A vintage (1950s?) plastic Xmas ornament we found.
The toothed pharyngeal bone from a tautog (Tautoga onitis).
Looking out to the mouth of Narragansett Bay and the open Atlantic as the sun sets. Two boats on the horizon.
Moments before my fall. I'd just found a very nice crow feather. And yes, I'm dressed like a dork.
West Cove at sunset.
On the way back, we spotted Santa Claus prematurely breaking and entering.
All photographs Copyright © 2011 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac
---
Yesterday, I saw the first official "teaser" trailer for Ridley Scott's forthcoming Alien (1979) prequel, Prometheus, to be released in June 2012:
It must be understood that I've been waiting for this film for many years, even before Ridley Scott ever decided it would be made. Perhaps before he even considered it might ever exist. Few mythologies are more important to me than the Alien mythos (excepting those silly AvP tie-ins), so...well, it's gorgeous, this trailer, and the cast sounds brilliant, and I was pleased to hear that Giger was consulted and at least marginally involved with the production, and the news that Marc Streitenfeld has scored the film. That said, Scott's decision to shoot the film in 3D is abominable, and has left me deeply disappointed and a little sick about it all. Yes, he's following some of the processes used in Avatar, a spectacle that manages to be marvelous in 2D, and I can only fucking hope that the same will be true of Prometheus. It's not like I can boycott this film. But, like Scorcese's decision to do Hugo in 3D, I can only shake my head in disbelief and say that Ridley Scott knows better. Even watching the trailer, you can see those "coming at you," pandering-to-3D shots that so compromise good (and great) cinematography.
It is, at best, a wait-and-see situation. But it's one I await with regret and a heavy heart. When our greatest directors resort to gimmicks beneath them, what are lovers of film to do? Turn away from the future of cinema and be grateful for its glorious past? In this instance, and despite what Scott may be saying, the decision to go with 3D was almost certainly one based on heavy pressure from 20th Century Fox. We'll wait and we'll see.
Dreadful,
Aunt Beast
"Deny your pettiest of foes the satisfaction of defeat, or even of recognition, by consigning them to oblivion." – Old Sith Proverb (even though I just now made it up). Then again, as Brown Bird reminds us: "We file down our fangs on the bones of our foes." It's a damned conundrum, it is.
This is going to be a long entry, I think. Because, firstly, there's yesterday, and then, secondly, there's Ridley Scott's forthcoming Prometheus.
Yesterday, we finally left the house about two p.m. (CaST), and headed south and east to Conanicut Island and West Cove (~41°28'46.27"N, 71°21'40.50"W), nestled in amongst the ruins of Fort Wetherill. Longtime readers will recall this is one of our favorite destinations. It seemed a fitting place to spend Yuletide. Speaking of tides, as the new moon is Saturday, and we had a storm on Wednesday night, the last high tide had been very high, indeed. All the way back to the treeline. Therefore, all manner of interesting things had fetched up on the shore. When we visit West Cove, we're always most interested in mermaids' tears (beach glass) and the bones of gulls, cormorants, and other birds (and mammals, but mammalian bones are rare). I try to ignore the profuse plastic litter, mostly left behind by the summer people. I try to imagine the shoreline pristine, but it's hard when you know:
Around 100 million tonnes of plastic are produced each year of which about 10 percent ends up in the sea. About 20 percent of this is from ships and platforms, the rest from land.
- or -
Since the 1950s, one billion tons of plastic have been discarded and may persist for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Anyway, by my admittedly casual estimation, the tide must have stranded hundreds of rock crabs (Cancer irroratus), along with all manner of other Mollusca and Crustacea, many of which I've never before seen at West Cove. There were the remains of numerous genera of crabs and lobsters (including Limulus, Homarus, Libinia, and the aforementioned Cancer), pelecypods (including Mytilus, Ensis, Aequipecten, Mercenaria, Spisula, Crassostrea, and an as yet unidentified cockle), and gastropods, mostly slipper shells and periwinkles. I found a few interesting bird bones, and we collected some nice bits of glass. The sun was brilliant off the water, until banks of low clouds rolled in towards sunset. It was warmish, in the fifties Fahrenheit, except in the shadows. When the sun slipped behind the clouds, the temperature dropped into the low forties within minutes. I sat and listened to bell buoys and the slap of the surf, trying to calm myself for many days to come. As soon as we'd arrived, we climbed a large granite promontory and tossed a single sprig of yew into the dark waters of the cove as an offering to Panthalassa. We saw three ravens and a very large murder of crows, but, oddly, only a few seabirds, a few gulls that swept by overhead. Despiute the fact that I took a pretty hard fall in the rocks (and have the bruises and aches to show for it), it was a good (indeed, a bow tie) day at the sea. We headed home about 4:56 p.m., and I dozed all the way back to Providence. Winding up our celebration of Cephalopodmas, we watched the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society's excellent adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu (2005) and Robert Gordon's It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955).
At least the first day of winter has come and gone, and now the days will grow longer.
The granite outcrop we climbed to drop the spring of yew (it's about fifteen feet high).
Looking down from the cliff at the sea.
Detail of the large crystals that compose much of the granite at West Cove.
Shuggoth! Well, actually a boulder covered in rockweed.
Did I mention the march of the shuggoths?
Spooky doing a rather odd dance as she searched the pebbles for interesting bits.
A vintage (1950s?) plastic Xmas ornament we found.
The toothed pharyngeal bone from a tautog (Tautoga onitis).
Looking out to the mouth of Narragansett Bay and the open Atlantic as the sun sets. Two boats on the horizon.
Moments before my fall. I'd just found a very nice crow feather. And yes, I'm dressed like a dork.
West Cove at sunset.
On the way back, we spotted Santa Claus prematurely breaking and entering.
All photographs Copyright © 2011 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac
---
Yesterday, I saw the first official "teaser" trailer for Ridley Scott's forthcoming Alien (1979) prequel, Prometheus, to be released in June 2012:
It must be understood that I've been waiting for this film for many years, even before Ridley Scott ever decided it would be made. Perhaps before he even considered it might ever exist. Few mythologies are more important to me than the Alien mythos (excepting those silly AvP tie-ins), so...well, it's gorgeous, this trailer, and the cast sounds brilliant, and I was pleased to hear that Giger was consulted and at least marginally involved with the production, and the news that Marc Streitenfeld has scored the film. That said, Scott's decision to shoot the film in 3D is abominable, and has left me deeply disappointed and a little sick about it all. Yes, he's following some of the processes used in Avatar, a spectacle that manages to be marvelous in 2D, and I can only fucking hope that the same will be true of Prometheus. It's not like I can boycott this film. But, like Scorcese's decision to do Hugo in 3D, I can only shake my head in disbelief and say that Ridley Scott knows better. Even watching the trailer, you can see those "coming at you," pandering-to-3D shots that so compromise good (and great) cinematography.
It is, at best, a wait-and-see situation. But it's one I await with regret and a heavy heart. When our greatest directors resort to gimmicks beneath them, what are lovers of film to do? Turn away from the future of cinema and be grateful for its glorious past? In this instance, and despite what Scott may be saying, the decision to go with 3D was almost certainly one based on heavy pressure from 20th Century Fox. We'll wait and we'll see.
Dreadful,
Aunt Beast
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And though you may have been dressed like a dork, at least you were a warm(er) dork.
This is true.
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Could be good, could suck.
If the latter, my opinion of Scott will plummet.
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I have been watching a lot of the classic movies on TCM lately, between the costumes, makeup and lighting, not to mention the lack of special effects, it makes me appreciate movies that dont depend on high speed car chases, explosions, or SFX to entertain the audience.
I can adore both equally. Both sorts of films. But I cannot abide gimmickry that forces directors, art directors, and cinematographers to deny the most fundamental tenants of film-making.
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I would have thought that folks like Scorcese and Scott would know better.
Bingo.
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I am blind in one eye, and therefore cannot see 3D, as I do not have binocular vision. Which is required if one is to see anything in three dimensions.
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Still, _Hugo_ uses 3D in a way that's not just a gimmick, but a valuable addition to the film. (I posted a semi-essay about it on my LJ.) It's not an addition that'd work for _Avatar_ or _Prometheus_ or even the up-coming depthening of _Titanic_. It's actually unique to _Hugo_.
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Anti-pirating is irrelevant, as fewer and fewer people are bothering to spend more to see 3D (% of 3D ticket sales have plummeted to about 20% of box office take), and more and more people buy/rent/stream DVDs.
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It really is a pity that Prometheus will be in 3D. I may have only seen a couple movies in 3D so far (Resident Evil: Afterlife last year and Hugo just yesterday), but I've never been of the opinion that a 2D movie couldn't capture the same greatness that its 3D counterpart might hypothetically provide, and I feel that 3D movies would be just fine in 2D without losing anything important.
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The tautog bone looks really interesting. I had never heard of that type of fish before now.
Had it not, like all fish bones, threatened to stink us out of house and home, it would have been rescued from the beach. I took 5 or 6 photos, all macro, so we'd at least have decent representations of the thing.
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the wind can be very harsh.
The wind is a harsh mistress.
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I have yet to purchase any DVD or Blu-ray for the library collection that is exclusively 3D. I think the only 3D disc we have, actually, is Coraline, which offers both options anyway. Someone today who'd just bought a 3D HD set asked if we had any 3D films. I shook my head scornfully. Scornfully, I say!
I can see why some of the bigger directors like Scorsese and Scott would be curious to try 3D — it's a toy they want to play with. I've seen my share of 3D, and — not that you didn't know this anyway — you're not missing much. The post-processed ones are crap, and the actual shot-in-3D ones...well, not everyone is James Cameron.
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I may have mentioned this before, but a co-worker's son can only see out of one eye, and (like you, I'm sure) she has to go out of her way to find a theater playing a 3D movie in 2D.
Yep.
I have yet to purchase any DVD or Blu-ray for the library collection that is exclusively 3D.
Well, I bought two versions of Avatar, but both neither had a 3D option on the discs.
I can see why some of the bigger directors like Scorsese and Scott would be curious to try 3D — it's a toy they want to play with.
Hopefully, it will be broken and forgotten by next Xmas.
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How bow-tie is The Call of Cthulhu film? I love it very, very much. My favourite Lovecraft adaptation. I've seen that the HPLHS also made an audio version of Mountains, and I'm quite tempted.
I haven't heard much about Prometheus (and can't view the trailer on this thing). Somebody told me wooden starships were involved, but he may've been winding me up. The 3D news is dismaying; I see no point to it.
I attempted to introduce the concept of Bowtie to my friend last night. It'll be ages before I can wean off the A-word.
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"Mermaid's tears" is a beautiful name for sea-glass. I've not heard that before. Thanks for sharing your journey with us.
You're welcome.
How bow-tie is The Call of Cthulhu film? I love it very, very much. My favourite Lovecraft adaptation. I've seen that the HPLHS also made an audio version of Mountains, and I'm quite tempted.
Not "Mountains," but "Whisperer in the Darkness."
Somebody told me wooden starships were involved, but he may've been winding me up.
It's true that Scott opted to keep CGI to a minimum and do as much with miniature, in camera, as possible. For this he is to be lauded.
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That's just beautiful.
Thank you for the photographs.
I'm glad it was a good solstice.
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That's just beautiful.
The exquisite poetry of nature.
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Cause really, Lisbeth Salander, Magneto, Edward VIII and Heimdall all team up versus the Alien? Oh hell yeah.
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3D or not, that cast looks amazing. I'm hoping that Ridley Scott will give Ms. Rapace a role that's more hearty than what Guy Ritchie did in the new Sherlock Holmes movie.
Er...the Sherlock Holmes film rocks, as she does within it.
Cause really, Lisbeth Salander, Magneto, Edward VIII and Heimdall all team up versus the Alien? Oh hell yeah.
This is a nerd sentence (cough, cough).
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I didn't say I thought the movie was bad, or that she did a poor job, I just wanted more of her. Greed.
This is a nerd sentence...
Guilty as charged.
2 cents...more like 20 cents...
This in no way excuses the, for lack of a better word, exploitation of the medium that the studios are doing, with exactly what you described in having images gratuitously leap out at you. I don't know how Ridley Scott will emerge from this experience, as far as I know it's his first 3D work...I guess we'll find out if we ever start seeing ads for a Blade Runner rerelease--in 3D.
Re: 2 cents...more like 20 cents...
Ugh. Yeah, I heard a bit of an interview with Wenders on NPR on the way home from errand-running this afternoon. I was not pleased. I can see how it could work, but still find it unnecessary. Maybe my outlook would be different if 3D did not make me motion-sick and if Cait had binocular vision, but somehow I think not.
Re: 2 cents...more like 20 cents...
Re: 2 cents...more like 20 cents...
Wim Wenders has changed my mind about a thing or two in the past, and he did it again about 3D technology.
Hold on, going to weep and then vomit.
The world is lost.
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Well, that and "Those screechy noises sound familiar." Because the first few trailers for Alien used that very same sound...
When I was five or six, I saw one of the TV spots for Alien... it was just the egg, the letters of the title forming... and then the crack and the glow and I knew that no, I did not want to see this... the commercials for the action figure were no help either.
Then I saw the movie when I was twelve and it became one of my most favorite things ever. Out of the whole tetrology the first one's still my favorite (and yes, I have a soft spot for the fourth one, which no one but me seems to like).
I'm wondering whether they go as far as to name the ship after something out of Joseph Conrad...
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and yes, I have a soft spot for the fourth one, which no one but me seems to like
Same here. But I am a sucker for Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
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That being said, I was a little underwhelmed by the trailer, but there's time yet.
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Well, glad to hear your opinion on 3D.
But I still think the trailer kicks ass.
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Also - off topic. I don't know if you've been stalking announcements for VNV's US tour part deux, but it's posted. They're doing a show in New Haven, Connecticut. A bit of a hike for you, but sometimes we do what we must to feed the soul, no?
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Cameron promised he'd unveil the next generation of 3-D in "Avatar." I'm a notorious skeptic about this process, a needless distraction from the perfect realism of movies in 2-D. Cameron's iteration is the best I've seen -- and more importantly, one of the most carefully-employed. The film never uses 3-D simply because it has it, and doesn't promiscuously violate the fourth wall. He also seems quite aware of 3-D's weakness for dimming the picture, and even with a film set largely in interiors and a rain forest, there's sufficient light. I saw the film in 3-D on a good screen at the AMC River East and was impressed.
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And I'm finding that at least here in LA they're not using the IMAX theatres for 3D screenings but converting 3D to IMAX (which costs more than conventional 2D to attend but isn't quite as bad as high quality 3D). I don't mind the extra few bucks on the rare occasion I'm willing to pay to see a film in the theatre, so that may be part of the equation for the directors too.
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The Prometheus trailer "felt" a bit like that second story: polished and lofty with a mythological ambience. The recent Battlestar Galactica series had a bit of that flavor too, but not as bright.
Leif Jones was going to be the artist for the story. He was less excited about the second treatment than the first because one of the things he loved about the original movie was the straightforward sensibility of the technology. The people who built the Nostromo didn't spare much energy on beautification. Almost everything about the ship felt functional. Over time, I have come to see things the way Leif did, which is why I'm not as excited about this new movie (after seeing the trailer) as I'd hoped to be.
If you wanted, I imagine that you could work out a deal to write a story set in that "universe," particularly with the new movie coming out.