The Secret Thread: Literature & Spiritual Life: The Secret Thread hooks another fish.....

Thursday, August 11, 2005

The Secret Thread hooks another fish.....

Greetings 'Secret' weavers! I'm pleased and honored to join The Secret Thread, created by the mighty "Duke Altum", a man born to blog on topics such as this if ever there was one. This is "Mutt Ploughman"'s maiden voyage in blogging, so bear with him. I'm the 'J.' referred to in the opening blog on this site, and add my thanks to my commentary here for Duke's dedication. He's a good man. He knows his books. I'm glad to join the discussion. I hope we will see more bloggers in the future but will be glad to kick it all over with Duke in all the interim spaces; we've been doing it forever as Duke alluded to. Since we're in the blogosphere here, I will cut to the chase and offer these opening words: I am an avid reader and a writer-in-training, trying to develop my skills in the literary craft. So this site has valuable potential for me as a place I can air out my views and hear yours. I am looking forward to kicking around literature, films, and music, and to plugging any writing I can get out there mercilessly. I know Duke's re-reading both Flannery O'Connor novels (to his credit) and I'm reading Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", on which I plan to blog soon. As we used to say in my military days, "Watch your lane, and fire when ready."

1 comment:

Duke Altum said...: That military reference is classic... works perfectly in this context. Welcome aboard to "the Mighty Mutt" (Dead Poets Society), a.k.a. Mutt "Piers" Ploughman, continuing on in the time-honored tradition of English literature! Glad to have you up and running on this thing... literature, music, film, you name it, we cover it... with (as already posted) a little theology, philosophy and current events thrown in as well, just to spice up the mulligan stew. (BTW, who put Old Pigweed in here...?); 10:03 AM

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Duke Altum's Recommended Films

Monsters (2010) – As many have already said, calling Monsters a movie about an alien occupation of Earth seems to do this fascinating, original film a disservice. Certainly the fact that huge, bioluminescent squid-like extraterrestrials are running amok through the jungles of Central America is an important (and entertaining) element of the plot, but anyone coming into this one looking for non-stop, Aliens-style action or special effects eye candy a la the concurrent alien invasion flick Skyline is going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, what you have with Monsters is an intriguing and meditative hybrid of road movie, post-apocalyptic thriller and surprisingly believable human drama. Director Gareth Edwards wrote, edited and created special effects for the film on his own, which gave him the freedom to make exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make - that is, a love story that just happens to feature alien life forms ominously howling and lurking in the background (this approach, by the way, gives the film its pervasive suspense and intensity, as you are as in the dark as the characters are about when the next encounter with a pissed-off, tentacled alien might occur). The many scenes of unscripted, natural banter between the lead actors as they trek across the "infected zone" and get to know one another help you, crucially, to identify with them enough to care by the final act - which provides an unexpected, subtle twist that gives the entire story added poignancy and irony. I am sure that a great many viewers of this unusual film will come out feeling somewhere between perplexed and downright cheated, and Edwards does provide so little backstory about the aliens and what they might be up to that one may well wonder why they were in the movie at all (and, justifiably, why the film was ever called "Monsters"). But I found that their mysterious, vaguely menacing presence gave the entire story a kind of haunted and other-wordly atmosphere that reminded me a bit of the best bits of James Cameron's The Abyss. I guess you could say that early encounters with new life forms - like those with potential lovers - can be both exhilarating and weirdly disconcerting at the same time.