Help a Cap'n Out...

"Hey Cap'n, didn't you say that you would be writing about Inception yesterday? I can't find that entry."

I did say that, and there's no such entry to be found. The reason is twofold: 1) the Cap'n was busy most of Thursday with travel-related concerns (which should not interrupt the blogorium next week, hopefully), and 2) after a cursory glance at readings, theories, and dissections of Inception online, I decided that there was nothing to add that hasn't been covered ad nauseum to this point.

That's actually fine with me; when the Cap'n can enter the words "inception theories" and get nearly 6 million results, I think we can do without another take. I will say that I still think Mal is the weakest part of the film in part because it's an easy out when Nolan needs to create tension between Cobb and the rest of the team (if they exist) and that it falters the most when Ariadne enters Cobb's dream with the way too literal "elevator to deeper levels of the mind" memory sequence. I'd also like to add that people criticizing the film for not being "dreamlike" should refer themselves to the "con" aspect of the film, and the advice given to Ariadne that the mark shouldn't know they're dreaming.

And that's probably enough. It's been covered more eruditely and more scholarly elsewhere, so I'll leave it to those wiser and with more free time than the Cap'n.

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In other news, I've been trying to come up with something interesting to fill the oft-neglected "Critical Essays" tag. I've been reading other blogs, many from people I know or had classes with, and I can't decide whether some of the negative reactions I've been having are due to disagreeing with some of the assertions made, a reliance on "academic friendly" terminology, or just that I feel like my writing has been slipping since leaving school.

To put it another way, at least twice a day people from all around the world seem to find the blogorium based on doing Google or Blogspot searches related to the Coen Brothers (and specifically the series of essays from the final or the sequence analysis of No Country for Old Men). I think it's great that people find that useful, and I certainly hope that the .edu addresses are citing those essays. The difficulty is that I don't feel myself writing anything like that anymore, or even feeling compelled to write them.

This troubles me, since I haven't been especially happy with the last few reviews (Dinner for Schmucks or The Informant!), but at the same time can't quite find topics that are very exciting to devote some serious time to. I also don't want to bore people with hoity toity analysis or drop five dollar words because that's how one is taken "seriously," and yet that's exactly the field I'm still looking into joining in graduate school.

In short, there's a tricky balance in trying to be insightful and entertaining. I don't want to bore you because it bores me too, but anybody can go to the newspaper and find something like that Dinner for Schmucks review. Rather than challenging myself with non-traditional fare, the Cap'n has taken time out to watch TV shows that readers have been on him about for years (or new stuff like FX's excellent Louie).

I could have seen Cyrus shortly after moving here, but instead saw Predators again*. Earlier tonight, I could have watched any number of the Criterion Blu-Rays in house (which include, but are not limited to The Red Shoes, Close Up, Everlasting Memories, Black Narcissus, The Leopard, Mystery Train, and Red Desert), but instead put on Dirty Harry. Not that there's anything wrong with Dirty Harry, but I'm not exactly going to be turning you folks on to something new when that and Fistful of Dollars get a juxtaposition down the line.

As the Cap'n, I feel like I can be doing better. Right now it seems like I'm coasting, and I'm open to suggestions how to adjust that.




* I didn't review it again because the only thing I really felt like adding is that on second viewing I was free to follow Royce (Adrien Brody)'s strategy more carefully from beginning to end, which does actually make him a little more impressive than Arnold's Dutch.