“Khaleesi, prophecy tells of a mighty dragon who will come in the niiiiiiiiight.”
I was leaning toward “Daenerys Trogaryen,” but I kind of prefer my friend’s title, “Daenerys, the Unburninated.”
This is an original, I’m proud to say. A loving tribute to both properties.
An early interpretation of a robot drone that’s fairly vital to the novel I’m working to finish now.
At Gawker, Tim Grierson and Will Leitch think it’s wrong to hate Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I’ve been pretty hard on Extremely Loud, and I’m not about to stop now. Nor am I going to go see it.
From the first time the preview set me bawling in the theater, I have hated this movie. It’s one thing to cast a bunch of Oscar bait actors in a heartwarming story of a child mourning his dead father – that’s manipulative enough. To make use of the familiar images of 9/11 – the towers falling, papers falling from the sky, the bulletin boards covered in posters for lost friends and family – not only in the film but in the advertising campaign is flat-out crass. Worse, it’s flat-out lazy writing.
From the Gawker review:
Of course, that brings us to the film’s most risible potential problem: It’s a movie about 9/11. A lot of Extremely Loud‘s loudest detractors don’t just hate the movie; they object to how 9/11 is portrayed, adopting almost a territorial position concerning what’s “appropriate” or not for a film of this kind. The argument seems to be that using footage of the smoldering, collapsing towers—not to mention a few overly artsy, oblique shots of people falling from the towers—is in poor taste for a movie that wants to turn that horrible day into a sappy, quirky, manipulative Oscar candidate.
It’s an argument that’s so subjective and emotionally charged—especially if you were someone who knew any of the 9/11 victims—that it’s hard to know how to respond. All I can say is that while I understand those objections, I don’t think Extremely Loud is (for most of its running time) trying to somehow “heal” the wounds of 9/11 or offer a feel-good solution to the still-lingering pain of that day. Granted, the movie’s closing stretch is needlessly gooey with its sentimental, tearful reconciliations, and I wish it were more ambiguous in its resolution, offering a guarded sense of optimism rather than the unalloyed happy ending it dishes out. But I can’t deny that I found the movie incredibly affecting both times I’ve seen it.
That doesn’t mean I can’t see the film’s clear flaws. There is unquestionably a lot of preciousness you have to swallow. But while it’s fair to accuse Extremely Loud of capitalizing on the communal anguish of 9/11 to make its story more “significant,” I’m not sure it’s fair to ignore the film’s genuine attempt at dramatizing the intensely personal process of filling the void within.
Here’s the thing: It’s not only a question of what’s in good taste or poor taste. The fact is, playing on familiar images of 9/11 is a cheap way of stirring a visceral emotional reaction from audience members. It’s a manipulative trick used by lazy filmmakers to create a connection they haven’t earned. It’s lazy. Continue reading
We had this librarian at school [no names - I don't want to hurt any feelings] who was so old she seemed mummified. I developed a theory that each summer break she kidnapped two students and cocooned herself in a corner to steal their life essence.
The above is one of several versions of her “true form,” which one might encounter entering the library during those summer months.
