I’m glad to see that mcc posted today too. We were doing so well, and then we all sort of fell off the earth. Well, it’s that time of year, and I know that everyone’s been pretty insanely busy. I myself worked 12 hours on Thursday. I’m not saying that to brag… I’m lazy and readily admit it. I’m just saying, if *I’m* pulling that shit, you know there’s a lot going down. The others are undoubtedly under much more than I. Anyway, hopefully we’ll all get back on track.

For my part, I just got back from seeing The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. As usual, I don’t have a great deal to say, but I’ll offer my summary for any of you who value my judgement as pertains to film. I was a bit anxious about it, to be honest… the books are among my very favorites. I was given a boxed set of the whole series by my mother when I was pretty young (the loss of which I continue to regret deeply) and have enjoyed the stories many times since. So, as with any story in which you have a personal investment, it’s natural to worry if a film will capture it. On top of that, it was a Disney production, and that’s enough to jeopardize any movie project. As it turns out, though, I really quite liked it, and I don’t think that’s just because I had low expectations. There were a few missteps, like, I didn’t really feel all the voices fit quite right with the animals (Liam Neeson as Aslan, Rupert Everett as Fox, and the dude I don’t know who did Maugrim), and there were a few unnecessary silly jokes. Pretty much all the rest was quite good… they were very reasonably faithful to the book, Tilda Swinton was an inspired, nay, a *perfect* choice for Jadis and I found the kids quite charming, even when the acting wasn’t at it’s best. The CG was quite excellent, and what subtle imperfections I saw were more than made up for by the effort that clearly went into Aslan. Even my with jaded outlook as to the use of CG (thanks to George F’ing Lucas), I was really quite impressed. Ironically, it was ILM who did it, so maybe the problem with those Star Wars movies wasn’t the CG but the shitty dialog and uninspired acting, afterall. So, anyway, I can recommend for all but the most obsessive of the “You must follow the book exactly” crowd. Check it out.

The personal quest to which I referred is nothing as grandiose as bringing salvation to an enslaved world of magic, or even delivering a ring to a volcano. Mine was a simple task, but one which has nonetheless been a long time in progress. I had been searching for the perfect glass for drinking Scotch Whiskey. As much as I love consuming the stuff, I wanted to perfect the experience to the greatest possible extent. So I did my research. I found that many knowledgeable connoisseurs use cognac, sherry or brandy glasses (these being curved enough to contain the fumes and capture the nose), that the straight sided highballs are the result of that bastard concoction “scotch and soda”, and that the traditional quaich is generally regarded as truly inferior vessel. I added to this my own opinions, namely, Scotch Whiskey is a bold drink, and an intensely powerful spirit. Thus, despite the fact that it’s complexity is wine-like, stemware meant for milder fare simply feels wrong. Stemware is a maintenance hassle as well, being generally fragile and prone to degenerating rapidly into an incomplete set. That would leave the currently trendy stemless wine glasses, but these are still somewhat thin and fragile, not to mention overlarge for scotch. Perhaps it’s a holdover from my days of drinking out of improper tumblers and highballs, but I nonetheless want my glass of Scotch to have some heft. It must feel good and solid in my hand, not fragile and delicate. In the end then, the glass for which I have been searching is one which is heavy and somewhat thick of wall, smallish, say between 6 and 12 ounces, has no stem, and is yet curved sufficiently to offer a nose. This is not a common glass, and yet, finally, I have found it at, of all places, Bloomingdales, which g suggested checking out, almost on a whim. I think these are meant for juice or something, but they meet all the criteria, and didn’t cost any more than decent stemware. We have tested them now on multiple occasions and agree that the choice was well made. The only fault they have, if any, is that their size limits the surface area, but we think that’s possibly a feature, actually… Scotch doesn’t seem to benefit from oxygenation the way wine does, and the accumulated evaporated fumes seem plentiful enough. So, at last, the glass :

Saturday, December 17th, 2005 @ 2:45 am General, Movies
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