A Bit of Fry and Laurie

I'm currently working my way through another free trial of Netflix.   Mostly I've been fooling around with the selection of stuff available to watch instantly.  The selection is still limited, but I've found a useful website for tracking the best stuff thats available.

Besides random episodes of Anthony Bourdain I've mostly been watching A Bit of Fry a Laurie, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie's sketch show from the late eighties/early nineties.  I've seen sketches here and there before, but watching the shows as they were originally broadcast really reinforces the (slightly) higher brow Monty Python tone.



I'm really enjoying it so far, though I feel like I'd probably like it more if I understood any of the cultural references being thrown around.  Still, its well worth checking out.

True Grit

The Coen Brothers are making a western.  I want this to be in theaters immediately.

I've said this before, but casting Jeff Bridges in a role originally played by John Wayne is absolutely genius.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Apparently this weekend was all about watching David Fincher projects, present and future.



The original title of the book this is based on is "Men who hate Women" and given the subject matter, its incredibly apt.  I'm not really familiar with Swedish cinema, but the tone of this felt a lot like the original Insomnia with some pulpy crime tropes thrown in.  Though this film superficially is a crime thriller, underneath the labyrinthian murder plot, are a series of strong critiques of big business and misogyny in Swedish culture.  I think its worth seeing, but given how explicitly it deals with violence (physical and otherwise) against women, it makes for some really difficult viewing.

The Social Network

Really well made.  I didn't like it much.



There might be an interesting movie to be made about Facebook someday.  Its certainly emblematic enough of social and societal change in response to technology that its worthy of some amount of attention.  But to put it plainly, tremendous direction, acting, writing, editing, and scoring, just aren't enough to get me to care about the personal and professional conflicts between a bunch of elitist billionaires.

The film is worth seeing for how well it is executed technically.  The direction is interesting, the acting is strong, and the score is suitably moody.  Really, if you can get over the face that the central conflict of the film is amongst a bunch of explicitly elitist Harvard students, than this might be the film of the year.  I couldn't, so the film fell flat for me.

Insomnia

My schedule is pretty rough at the moment with early mornings encroaching my usual late nights.  Coupling my inability to sleep in with the normal (for grad students) stress-induced insomnia has left me with a fair amount of free time at the beginning and end of the day.  Since I can only spend so long lying in bed thinking about life, the universe, and everything/ Star Wars/ various creative projects I don't have time to work on, I decided I'm going to use the time practically.

Right now I'm working my way through an computer science book.  Apparently computers will do tasks that I think are boring if I know how to ask them.  I really feel like someone should have told me this before.  Seriously though, turns out knowing a bit of programming really helps when analyzing fMRI data and designing psychology experiments. 

I'm also working through a refresher book on single variable calculus.  This one has much less practical importance to my day to day work, but I'm tired of looking at complex computational models of behavior and only barely comprehending the math involved.  Even if I get nothing out of this, doing math at 2am should help me get some sleep.

Of course, I also use a lot of this time to procrastinate and read comic books.  Last night, I got through two chapters of programming, one chapter of calculus, and six issues of Batman and Robin.