DaVinci & Truffaut [movie commentary]

So The DaVinci Code is out and had the second-highest worldwide opening ever. The reviews are mixed; but not as far as Ebert and Roeper are concerned. "2 Thumbs Up!" Having not read the book, or seen the movie, I'm not qualified to comment on either. As readers of this blog know, I like my seemingly-unrelated segues in my articles. So here goes!

Tonight I watched an old French movie, Jules and Jim. It's a classic that I've watched several times over the years. The DVD containing the movie also contained an interview of director Francois Truffaut. For those not in the know, he's a film legend. Modern-day greats like Scorsese and Spielberg were influenced by him.

In this interview, Truffaut discusses the original book by Henri-Pierre Roche. An art-lover, Roche spent his life travelling the world. He was the first to bring Picasso's art to America. When bedridden at age 73, he decided to write his first book, an autobiography set 50 years in his past. Roche never witnessed the much-celebrated movie, and eventual success of his book. Though Truffaut was saddened by the author's death, he was happy that the book became successful after the movie:

"...there's often something immoral when cinema has its way with a well-known book. Sometimes the film is good, but it's always exploiting the book's fame. Here I was able to do the opposite: With my film, I introduced people to what was really an unknown masterpiece."

The DaVinci Code movie, good or not, has successfully capitalized on the book's success. In Hollywood, precedent is everything. Just as in the 1990's we saw a flood of cinem-ized TV shows (Mission: Impossible still haunts the movie landscape), we are likely to see more movies based on popular books in the coming years.

Lost [TV Review]

May 10th, 2006

This episode of Lost was pretty good. It's the one where John and Eko find the second Dharma station. The monitoring station "The Pearl" of the hatch known as "The Swan." I gotta say, I'm a sucker for old technology. It looked like mid-'60's style televisions, but the Orientation video said "Copyright 1980." Even the videotape they used was old; a U-Matic tape, no less! And there was a late 1980's Apple ImageWriter II printer. (Wow, it's hard to believe that in 1989, most people still used dot matrix printers!) It turns out The Button, as I suspected, was just part of a human behavioral experiment.

Eko raised the issue of one's purpose. Heavy stuff! Almost suggesting that pushing The Button may be a good thing, though it actually serves no purpose. The duo will probably keep The Pearl a secret, allowing all to believe they have a grand purpose on the island. Essentially, they are helping their people 'keep the faith' in The Button. Do I sense some religious parallels?

Anyway, there was a new commercial for Hansorg, the website given was sublymonal.com. And the secret message is "Heir Apparent." Ooohhh! Big deal. Well, I suppose I'll find out what it means soon enough. Last week the commercial had a "paid by ABC" disclaimer, this week it was "paid by Sprite." Maybe Hansorg is a shadow organization paid for by Sprite. That would explain everything! Oh, wait, it explains nothing. Damn, another false lead. Just another way the producers of Lost are deflecting us off the trail of what Hansorg really is.

So as we approach the end of Season 2 of Lost, we have found a second hatch. Two seasons, two hatches. Hmmm. Perhaps by Season 7 we'll find out the terrible secret: A Seventh Hatch! This station will be called "The Seventh Station." Religious parallels abound!