Nicholas Thurkettle

My cell phone’s screen is dying. I’ve had that phone for at least 3 1/2 years that I can recall, and I think I spent something like $50+contract extension on it at the time, so I’d say I’ve got my money’s worth from it.

So maybe it’s finally time to get one of those webby, touchy, smarty phones all the kids today are carrying around. It’s not that I ever go a truly unacceptable amount of time without this Internet needle in my vein, but there are times when I’m out and about and it could prove more expedient than carrying my laptop everywhere. I could also get on Facebook at work – although I don’t see that as a good idea from anyone’s perspective.

It’s not that I cannot afford it – I’ve got the money handy. It’s that upgrading in this way – finally admitting I’m going to be getting on-line with my phone, is going to mean paying for a data plan. That may only be $30/month, but that revises my monthly budget upwards just as I’ve been doing everything I can to do the opposite.

And there is that whole sense of being dragged further into this forever-plugged Matrix world in which we’re now living. I held out for quite awhile on even getting a cell phone. I realize I spend an unholy amount of time on the web at home and work, but I did hold a certain pride in at least not carrying the whole thing around in my pocket everywhere.

Guess I’m going to have to go camping more often. As phone/wireless coverage expands, I wonder if “No Signal” zones on the planet Earth will become more sought after.

(Many months old, but the pictures are new to you!)

Maybe I give the impression that there isn’t a nook left in downtown Chicago I haven’t explored, but this is thoroughly untrue. City be big, you may have heard. Usually only one or two of my days on these winter trips are spent exploring on my own. The weather dictates the pattern: walks punctuated by shelter. There’s a train station lobby halfway between the Shedd Aquarium and Michigan Avenue that, on this trip, proves vital more than once for taking the sting out of my cheeks.

It’s a mix of pursued goals and fortunate finds, and I never hesitate to stop for a meal. A good one of those is rarely too far away. And I really believe the city has a way of rewarding the wanderers. How else could you explain the random gift on a snowy night of a puppet show riding up to you on a bicycle?:

Somehow I always end up walking. If it’s freezing or blazing, wet or green or gray; if I’m in downtown Chicago, I want to see what’s a little further down every street. I want to take it at a speed where I can see the age of every brick.

The spouts at Buckingham Fountain

I think some statues wait for the dramatic weather. In peace and sunshine they must feel so out of place.

The goose survived another Christmas. He must love America, where we all eat the turkeys.

Outside the Aquarium. We’ll go inside in a future post.

A mural in the underbelly of Steppenwolf

The Harold Washington Library downtown – I had to cheat a LOT to make this shot anything close to visible this near sunset without a tripod.

I keep returning to this spot with my camera year after year – still don’t know that I’ve taken a truly awesome shot from here; but I’m getting better.

Just outside Union Station, right before my train to the suburbs

How funky are you feeling?

Got a letter posted by Andrew Sullivan today. About what? 24, of course. What the hell do I know about the British Parliament?

He did edit out my coining of the terms “jingo-sadist” and “terror slam”. Was proud of those.

Hate washing your hands 50 times a day? Hate it enough to have GIANT NEEDLES DRILLED INTO YOUR BONES?:

Scientific American: Bone Marrow Transplant Stops Mouse Version of OCD

I probably have a different perspective on this than most people. It represents some of the public fallout over Megan Fox’s – let’s call it, “involuntary departure” – from the upcoming third Transformers movie. As someone who has yet to find in her overmuch talent or star charisma, and has largely seen anything resembling acting to be all-but-irrelevant to the success or failure of a Transformers movie, I do not view this is a tragedy, or an injustice, or even likely to have much effect on the final product. To borrow from Rob Lowe’s mega-agent in Thank You For Smoking, to change from one provocatively-lit young body to another in this giant robot spectacle is “an easy fix. One line of dialogue.”

To sum up – what most people care about in this kerfuffle, I do not. But if you want to hear more…
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Originally posted 12/15/04

Ocean’s Twelve
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: George Nolfi, based on characters created by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell
Producer: Jerry Weintraub
Stars: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Vincent Cassel, Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle, Scott Caan, Casey Affleck, Elliot Gould, Carl Reiner, Shaobo Qin, Eddie Jemison

There is the heist movie where we root for our heroes to pull it off, then there is the one where we realize with dread that they won’t get away with it. Ocean’s Eleven, the 2001 remake of the 1960 Rat Pack vehicle about knocking over a Vegas casino, was the former, as is this sequel. Watching with faith that our heroes will somehow come out on top, our enjoyment lies in the discovery of details – details about how impossible the job is, and the details of how they overcome those impossibilities.

The details in the first effort from Clooney and the gang were impeccable – every member of the “Eleven” had a clear task to attend to, and the heist they pulled off was paced well and enjoyably ridiculous while keeping that single all-important stretching toe on the line of plausibility. Like good soul music, you could enjoy the style because the groove was locked in tight. But in Ocean’s Twelve, after going through the motions of reassembling the entire crew, the story labors heavily to keep track of them all, and eventually resorts to just throwing increasing numbers of them in jail to lessen confusion.

If it feels as if they’ve been grafted onto a story that cannot hold their weight, it’s because this is exactly what happened – George Nolfi’s script, originally titled Honor Among Thieves, was set up for John Woo to direct. These characters were dropped in after the financial failure of director Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris and Clooney’s directing debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (both underrated and worth a look) made this sequel what an agent would call “smart business”. At least they decided to have some fun in fulfilling this obligation, but unfortunately not all of that fun is passed along to the audience.
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Originally posted 12/4/04

The Polar Express
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Robert Zemeckis and William Broyles, Jr., based on the book written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg
Producers: Steve Starkey, Robert Zemeckis, Gary Goetzman, William Teitler
Featuring the physical and vocal talents of: Tom Hanks, Michael Jeter, Nona Gaye, Peter Scolari, Eddie Deezen, Daryl Sabara, Isabella Peregrina, Jimmy Bennett

Maybe it’s that the warm and inviting illustrative paintings of Chris Van Allsburg never should have moved, or talked. Or maybe it’s that the simple story, a wisp of a fable, was not the stuff to support a 100-minute movie. This problem also plagued Ron Howard’s bloated and horrifying adaptation of Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Or maybe it’s that the “performance capture” technology used to put human movement and spirit inside animated figures is still so new that its power to entrance is not yet readily within grasp.

Whatever the reason, and it may be parts of all the above, this feature adaptation of holiday classic The Polar Express, while imaginative and frequently arresting, is too inconsistent to be honored in my memory with the same fondness I hold for the book. It is usually my philosophy that adaptations of books must be treated as movies first, and criticized on their own terms, but the filmmakers have labored so mightily to bring what we love about the book to life, it is difficult to ignore where it falls short.
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Originally posted 11/17/04

Saw
Director: James Wan
Writer: Leigh Whannell
Producers: Mark Burg, Gregg Hoffman, Oren Koules
Stars: Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover, Monica Potter

Something I both love and hate to do, after watching a movie about a serial killer who devises fiendish, sadistic killings and plays head games with his pursuers, is to ask myself: How exactly did the killer want things to unfold? And, given what is possible within the limits of the killer’s ability to plan, did the movie play fair?

Much of the action of Saw, an imaginatively grisly but ultimately sloppy and disappointing thriller, revolves around two men (Dr. Gordon, played by Cary Elwes, and Adam, played by writer Leigh Whannell) chained at opposite ends of a room. There are a few key props meant to help them understand what’s going on and possibly, possibly, escape their circumstances alive. They frequently have to toss the props (photographs, a small key, the titular cutting implement) back and forth across the room. If once, just once, a prop had say, landed out of reach in the middle of the room as the result of a bad toss, what would the killer have done? Would he reveal himself in order to retrieve the prop so his puppets could carry on his elaborate little game? Or would he let his whole plan go down the tubes because one of his victims can’t throw?

It doesn’t matter. Saw, heavily influenced by the superior Se7en, is like a sampler platter of the ghastly, a rough assemblage of variably intense and bloody vignettes that sometimes work in the moment, but become more and more frustrating as time rolls on and we realize that no explanation can make this movie’s contrivances hold water.
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Originally published 11/17/04

The Incredibles
Director: Brad Bird
Writer: Brad Bird
Producer: John Walker
Featuring the voices of: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Elizabeth Peña, Spencer Fox, Sarah Vowell

Some movies move fast because they’re afraid that if they slow down, they’ll die. We sense their desperation, and that they have nothing to offer. Then there are movies like The Incredibles, which move fast because they are having too much fun to hang around, and burst with enthusiasm and joy in every frame.

Zippy, bright, and endlessly inventive, The Incredibles carries on the winning streak of the animation geniuses at Pixar. Though it doesn’t have the heartstring-tugging depth of their best work like Finding Nemo or Toy Story 2, this sort of like saying Rubber Soul isn’t the best Beatles’ album. Its mere existence places it head-and-shoulders above most of the competition.
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