{"id":2634,"date":"2002-05-26T07:45:47","date_gmt":"2002-05-26T12:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=2634"},"modified":"2002-05-26T07:45:47","modified_gmt":"2002-05-26T12:45:47","slug":"sing_then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/26\/sing_then.html","title":{"rendered":"Sing, then!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve had O Brother, Where Art Thou?<\/i><\/a> sitting in the “Stack o’ Movies Borrowed from Jackie & Doyce Which We Really Ought to Watch Someday” stack for several weeks. Nowhere near the record set by Ever After<\/i>, but nothing to write home about.<\/p>\n

Well, while Margie was off playing D&D Friday, I decided it would be fun entertainment for my folks. I often subject them to my own idiosyncratic taste in movies when they visit (regarding Dogma, my Mom’s only comment was a benign but emphatic, “That was weird<\/i>.”) <\/p>\n

OBWAT was more of a success. The music, of course, was splendid. I’m a sucker for close harmony, of whatever genre, and this was a particularly fine genre, “oldie” music, blue-grassy, back-woodsy Gospel music. Lovely. The sound track is now on my wish list.<\/p>\n

The cinematography was quite pretty as well. The whole film feels hot and sticky, the Depression South is shown as rural and nearly deserted, and the near-sepiatone just seems to fit<\/i>. <\/p>\n

The characters are well-acted, and typically Coen-quirky. George Clooney plays the role of Ulysses well, for all that the character gets to do anything besides being a fast-talker. Things happen, people walk (competently) through the motions … and that’s the story.<\/p>\n

Of the story, then, I’m less sanguine. It’s a fine journey, surely, and the characters are entertaining if a bit one-dimensional. Watching the Coen Bros. shuffle through Homer is also entertaining (John Goodman as the Cyclops is excellent), if sometimes surreal. But ultimately, it struck me more as a group of beautifully shot, lovingly scored, nicely acted tableaus, pretty to look at, but not something that will stick to your mental ribs.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed watching the film. I’m glad I watched it. My folks were glad they watched it. But I don’t see watching it again any time soon. And I didn’t feel compelled to grab Margie as soon as she entered the door around 1 a.m., plop her down in front of the TV, and start it running once more. Back to the Testerman’s it’s gone, my having learned enough of the little catch phrases to be in the loop when Doyce or Rey or one of the others in the circle of friends quotes something from it.<\/p>\n

Rent it. Borrow it. Watch it. Then move on.<\/p>\n

One service provided to the modern generation, at the very least, is letting them know that there’s a fellow out there named Homer other than the one who resides in Springfield. At a minimum, the Coen Bros. deserve special commendation for that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve had O Brother, Where Art Thou? sitting in the “Stack o’ Movies Borrowed from Jackie & Doyce Which We Really Ought to Watch Someday” stack for several weeks. Nowhere…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":41905,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/01\/movie-review-the-magnificent-seven-1960.html","url_meta":{"origin":2634,"position":0},"title":"Movie Review: "The Magnificent Seven" (1960)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-May-14 10:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"When +Kay Hill\u00a0had this in tonight's stack of Father\/Daughter Movie Week offerings, I jumped at the opportunity. \u00a0(And, yes, I am slipping The Seven Samurai in there for next week.)\ufeff A \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 review of The Magnificent Seven (1960) Both a great Western and a great adaptation of the classic Seven\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8010,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/06\/30\/everything_you.html","url_meta":{"origin":2634,"position":1},"title":"Everything you need to know about writing for TV","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 30-Jun-05 7:09am","format":false,"excerpt":"A truly marvelous wiki on TV tropes and idioms, capturing every cliche and standard plot device you have ever rolled your eyes at. Also applicable to movies and genre fiction....","rel":"","context":"In "TV"","block_context":{"text":"TV","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-tv"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15409,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/26\/bt09-the-stack-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":2634,"position":2},"title":"BT09 – The Stack (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 26-Jul-09 4:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"The trade paperbacks I reviewed.","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/26\/bt09-the-stack-blogathon.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49558,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/12\/the-problems-with-action-movies.html","url_meta":{"origin":2634,"position":3},"title":"The Problems with Action Movies","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Feb-15 11:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There's an undertone of \"Well, aren't I clever?\" about this video, but by and large his observations on what makes for a successful (or, more importantly, unsuccessful) action film are pretty spot-on.(A lot of the same lessons would apply to writing, too. And, honestly, not just action films, but pretty\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6523,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/20\/the_bourne_iden.html","url_meta":{"origin":2634,"position":4},"title":"The Bourne Identity","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 20-Aug-04 9:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Many (many) years ago, I read Ludlum's novel The Bourne Identity. I enjoyed it, but not quite enough to read the sequels, or others of Ludlum's works. I didn't see...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17251,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/01\/movie-trailer-mania.html","url_meta":{"origin":2634,"position":5},"title":"Movie trailer mania!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 1-May-10 6:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Seeing two very different movies in the theater this weekend, I had a chance to see an array of trailers.\u00a0 First, for ones that were before How to Train Your Dragon: Prince of Persia - Looks like parkour is, appropriately, highly emphasized in this movie.\u00a0 Looks fun. Karate Kid -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Animation \/ Cartoons"","block_context":{"text":"Animation \/ Cartoons","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-cartoons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/movie-theaters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/movie-theaters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/movie-theaters.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/movie-theaters.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}