Gutbrain Records

Wednesday, 13 February 2008

Andrew D'Angelo had his surgery and appears to be doing very well. Donations to help him pay bills and get him through the recovery period are still very much welcome.

One of the sites I look at every day is boingboing. Today boingboing has a link to this artist Lori Nix who creates miniature worlds and photographs them. She is amazing! If you check out her website, you can see a lot of her work, like this:

Yesterday I watched and enjoyed this movie Morituri, starring Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner. It's a WWII espionage drama, somewhat similar to John Frankenheimer's The Train. (They both anticipate Mission: Impossible in some ways.)

Brando plays a German expatriate living a pleasantly hedonistic life in India, oblivious to the war. British intelligence blackmails him into impersonating an SS officer and boarding a German ship to make sure it gets caught in an Allied ambush so they can seize its valuable cargo of rubber (needed for tires and other things).

Brando is the one for the job since his skills as an engineer will be needed to disarm the various bombs that have been planted throughout the ship so that, in the event of such an ambush, the precious materials are not taken by the enemy.

Yul Brynner is the captain. It's exciting to see these two very different actors working together. As usual, Brando's performance is one to be savored for all of its bits of business. However, I couldn't help thinking that he's out of proportion to the movie and the rest of the cast. Whenever he speaks, Morituri becomes the Marlon Brando Show. He's a lot of fun to watch — and impressive, too — but he overwhelms and steals every scene.

The photography is very good, with some very interesting and imaginative camera moves. Jerry Goldsmith's score is also great, with a haunting main theme written for zither, and some excellent cues written for the unusual combination of wood blocks, harpsichord and electric bass.