Finally watched Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. My initial reaction was strongly negative: when the end credits rolled I felt aggressively disappointed. I expected nothing less than sheer genius, since Schnabel won or was nominated for every directorial award imaginable, but all I got was a difficult film to stomach and a few instances of semi-interesting camera work. (If he wanted to make an extraordinary film, he should have kept the audience inside Bauby's p.o.v. for the entire film; the fact that he moves to the third person p.o.v. automatically makes this film mediocre.) After watching the extra features I decided to reconsider my position just slightly. I like Schnabel and I like his other films, so I figured I should cut him some slack. I suppose the film was ok, but I wouldn't watch it again and I wouldn't recommend it.*
If you're into Philip K. Dick, here's the place for you.
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Check out this article on the 35 Greatest Works of Reverse Graffiti.
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FULCRUM #6 features previously unpublished and uncollected writing by Samuel Beckett and others, as well as articles by Marjorie Perloff and others, as well as poetry by Boris Vian (translated by Raymond Federman) and others.
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We went to Half Priced Books last week and I picked up:
