Stamped Box

Hey! I got a package from France with the most stamps ever!

Just look at it! Such variety! I’m very impressed.

The contents are even better. It’s the Éric Rohmer bluray/DVD box set. The Intégrale. That sounds much classier than “complete edition box set”. I mean, if that’s what it means? The French are so classy.

I was completely unaware of Rohmer until last year (I think), when I happened upon a DVD of one of his films in a used DVD store somewhere. I liked his name, so I bought it. I think it was An Autumn Tale, and I was blown away by its subtle silences. It reminded me of a Nouvelle Vague film, only less showy. I was surprised to find out that that’s what it was, basically: He was part of that wave of filmmakers, and never stopped making films.

So I’ve been looking for his films the last few months, and I was overjoyed when I found this box set on the web. And the reviews alleged that there were English subtitles on them, but I’ve been burned by that before, because the French really hate pandering to foreigners by putting (optional) subtitles on their DVDs.

Each film in this beautiful box set is on bluray and DVD, and I’ve done spot checks on a few, and they all turn out to have English subtitles! Yay!

But only on the film itself. The supplementary material, which there is a lot of, is subtitle-free. Boo!

And there’s the nerdiest tech specs ever. “Encodage MPEG-4 AVC”. Mais oui.

I also got the Agnès Varda today which… isn’t as lavish.

Useful Consumer Review

When buying electronics, the range of products available is vastly superior in the US compared to any European country. Fortunately, power adapters are now almost all “universal”; that is, they accept 110V-230V. So the only problem is the physical interface.

I’ve been using these teensy adapters for a while, but the problem is…

.. that they’re extremely rickety. They neither have a solid grip on the Euro side, and the US side isn’t satisfactory, either, so it just feels… bad.

So I went looking for other variations, and I found these somewhere in Europe. They are totes unrickety, but they’re huge. For something that does nothing but accept one plug and plug into another plug (there’s no voltage adaptering), is silly. So the other day I wondered… surely something smaller has to exist? I mean, something that’s just flush with the Euro “Schuko” plug? I mean, it should fit in there? Why doesn’t it exist?

Behold! It does exist!

It’s not totally flush, which is weird, because the US plug is shallower than the Euro er hole, but still, not. But it’s almost there! And the grip on both ends is very satisfactory. Nothing rickety about these.

They’re called “OREI American USA To European Schuko Germany Plug Adapters CE Certified Heavy Duty” *phew* and they’re about $1 each.

And they’ve been working for several hours now, so they must be perfect.

You have to wonder what the people who made that huge adapter were thinking… “This will do”? No, it won’t.

Innovations in Balcony Furniture

It’s been a very pleasant summer here (I’m not even wearing a sweater now), so I’ve been spending a lot of time out on the balcony in the evening.

I’ve had this chair for yonks, but it has two problems: 1) it’s not that comfy, and 2) it’s too tall. The house I’m in is on a hill, and somehow it’s always windy here no matter what. Which is pleasant in one way, but having your head buffeted by winds all the time is wearying.

So I got a Royal Botania Beacher chair, because it looked like it was going to get my head below the level of the tarpaulin, and it was super-comfy in the store. Kinda like a rocking chair beach chair. And it’s heavy, so the winds won’t blow it off of the balcony.

So I assembled the blue sitting surface, and that… er… looks very low indeed.

I gave it a trial sit anyway, and I ALMOST DIED! TRAPPED! Getting out of the chair took me like five minutes. It’s the most dramatic thing that’s ever happened to me!

Perhaps I should have read the instructions first. Over and around, over and around…

There!

I’m a genius! And it is, indeed, very comfy. And very easy to get out of due to a pretty construction.

Now, back to the balcony…

Century 2018: Black Panther

Black Panther. Ryan Coogler. 2018.

This started off really well and I was like “wow! this is like a real movie or something!” but then soon got bogged down in really bad acting (like the challengers in the coronation scene (and where they should have had thousands of people watching the fight, not dozens CGId up that wall)).

Still, it’s not without its charms. It’s funny at times, and the 007 references are amusing. The action scenes are fun. But it should have had a bigger budget or something: Some of the effects look a bit pokey. And all the crowd scenes look so puny! There should be hundreds of extras pasted all over the place!

And it’s an hour too long, but then again, all super-hero movies are.

I am disappoint. I was all ready for this to be a great movie, but it’s a snoozefest.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

Century 2017: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson. 2017.

OK, I’ve seen the other new Star Wars films… I think… And I saw the original ones back in the 80s. And I saw the first of the prequels.

In short, I’m not really a Star Wars fan, but I though the previous one was pretty entertaining and the makeup film was even better.

But I’m having some problems trying to remember who all these characters are. We don’t really get any “as you know Bob, you’re the evil emperor of the Empire” stuff, which is great! But also bewildering.

So I’m reduced to a state of watching a bunch of people I can vaguely remember seeing having a lot of dramatic moments and wondering whether they mean anything.

There’s a lot of portentous stuff here, but the director goes for the laughs in basically any scene. It’s an approach I would guess really freaks out the most deranged Star Wars fans, but it does make for a pretty amusing film.

That said, it’s also a supremely stupid film, and when it’s this stupid, it makes scenes that would otherwise be fun tend towards the tedious. But imdb-ing the director’s career it all makes sense: He did all those risible Breaking Bad episodes that were hailed as the best thing ever in the history of anything. So the sheer stupidity of the film is understandable, but that it’s this amusing is a surprise.

This blog post is part of the Century series.