Want Some Good Advice?

And here are two more: avoid people who constantly disturb your peace of mind, and stop trying to fix people who don't want to be fixed.

The Odyssey: Fantasy and Humanity

Bart and I are back from seeing Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which I’m going to compare, oddly enough, to the great Godzilla Minus One. Both films take care to ground their outrageous fantasy elements in understandable, recognizable humanity — thereby making it all work.

Excellent performances and spectacle, with Odysseus facing a parade of hostile wonders. The design of the Cyclops, with his twisted nose and eye, is marvelously creepy. You find yourself feeling a little sympathy even for the Cyclops and Circe, as you glimpse the humanity beneath the monster.

It all builds up to a thundering final fight scene in the king’s palace on Ithaca, and a rumination on what cleverness can cost. It’s three hours absorbingly spent.

Some Lessons to Learn

Numbers one and five seem particularly apt for me.

Throw Yourself a Grappling Hook

Fix a Broken Day

An Encounter of the Fourth Kind

I always thought that Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind ended where it should have begun, with the first contact between human and alien civilizations. 

Well, this afternoon Bart and I went to see Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, which finally resolves that problem. 

It’s a terrific science-fiction suspense thriller with an underlying message of hope for humanity.

The Sound of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

I remember that when I was a teenage deejay at WCRA radio in Effingham, IL, I wrote to United Artists to ask if they would send me the James Bond soundtrack albums I didn’t have. I figured they wouldn’t, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

About a month later, a big, white package arrived at the radio station addressed to me. In the return address spot on the package, there was only a big yellow comic book word balloon that read, “Who will save the world?”

I couldn’t imagine what it was. I ripped it open and found the first four 007 soundtrack albums — Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball. I was, as you might imagine, giddy with delight.

I also recall that I was a little disappointed in the album for Thunderball, my favorite Bond movie, because it didn’t include some of the most exciting music from the second half of the film. Why? Because they hadn’t given composer John Barry enough time to complete the score before they had to press the album.

Film composers were often really under the gun to get the music finished.