the CCTV surveillance system in Waterloo station
“What kind of music do you like?”
“Um, I uh…”
“No, It’s fine. Tell me. What do you want to listen to?”
(softly) “I don’t know.”
“C’mon. It’s not that hard.”
(not so softly) “I don’t know.”
Long, awkward pause.
“What kind of person pays $20,000 for a ride to Paris?!”
Name that movie…
Hint #1 This conversation takes place in a red mini. And, this particular mini was made by the Brits, not the Germans.
Wow, Signor Anaconda correctly identified that it came from the movie, The Bourne Identity, but never took place in the book. And, he did it before I could even finish typing the post- I don’t think he even needed the hint. I wonder if he saw The Bourne Ultimatum, as I did this weekend.
It’s inescapable. The advertising is everywhere for this movie: on phone booths, in the subway, lighting up the tops of yellow cabs. Every once in a while, it becomes too much of an effort to resist advertising. Besides that, it’s hot, muggy, and August. New Yorkers traditionally seek diversion in air-conditioned movie theaters to overcome the suffocating heat and resulting short tempers.
*Potential spoiler warning.* Ok, now did anybody else besides me have a problem with a psychological thriller being turned into a conventional action-adventure movie? Was there a plot to this movie- how did I miss it? When does the DVD come out? I think they might have edited out all of the non-action scenes that could have made the story coherent. Why Tangiers- was that just so they could jump through windows of one apartment to another for a brilliant chase scene? Didn’t Joan Allen rock?! Where did all of the self-doubt and existential anguish go? Wasn’t the killing of the Guardian reporter and the dunking/water torture just a little too tied into current events ? How the hell did our CIA get control of the CCTV survelliance system in Waterloo station? MI-5, Scotland Yard, and the Metropolitan Police just handed it over to them? Artistic license of the screenplay, you say? Bullshit. I don’t like it. I didn’t like that line “I was told I would be saving American lives” either. Too facile.
Something happened in addition to the change of director from the first movie (Doug Liman) to the last two movies (Paul Greengrass). Supremacy and Ultimatum dispense with any questions of identity in an international setting. No one’s interested in what kind of music Bourne listens to… let’s just see how many cars we can wreck.
***
You all realize that New York doesn't have it's air-conditioning under control in the same way Houston does? A lot of buildings are old and don't have central a/c, including both my home and office. When faced with the stark choice of either investing $2500 in a split system that would adequately cool the office or suffering through the heat, the third option, favored by the French and Italians, starts to make sense: that of leaving the city altogether. Details are still being hashed out for an escape plan. I will fill you in next week.
***
In the meantime- no laughing at this- I have tickets to see The Rapture and Daft Punk on Thursday of this week. Also, I ran into an old friend on the streets of Brooklyn and he has invited me to see his and his wife's band Goddess at Monkeytown on the 23rd. It is being typed into the google calendar now.
Here's a video of "House of Jealous Lovers" from The Rapture. Love that Gang of Four guitar. Why resist? Why have useless standards for appreciating music? Especially when the subway station air is so stagnant. Gotta get myself into it.
Labels: bourne again
17 Comments:
the Bourne Identity, the movie, never happened in the book.
In my mind, probably one of the best movie/book combos. Too different from each other to really compare, it's almost as if Ludlum (novel) and Gilroy (screenplay) both started with the same premise yet each wrote a different story. And both excellent in their own right.
Sorry to interrupt again, but you all have see, 1. why if I go to prison, I want it to be in the Filipinnes and 2. another reason why dancing is so freaking cool. Check it out here.
Ha - that was quick. I would never have got this. I haven't read this series or watched it. But I've been meaning to put the first two movies in the netflix queue so thanks.
NAP has been as good for suggesting movies as music.
Wait, lemme guess... is it the Thriller take-off? I love that video.
am not sure i would recommend the last two movies, but definitely Bourne Identity. maybe the books were better. carlos?
in general, i'm a bit of a sucker for spy novels and the like. John le Carré especially.
carlos, you must find a way to get yourself locked up in the Philippines. i still haven't found that church behind p.s.1. will get there sometime.
The video was funny. After living and working with Filipinos, I have to say... that the production of that video doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
I read all of those Bourne books and must say I enjoyed it plenty, Ludlum in general, in fact. If that helps.
Though he's no Heinlein.
The books are completely different; only Identity has any kind of parallel with them. If I remember right, in the books, Bourne wasn't just trained to be a glorified hitman; he was supposed to be the world's most deadly assassin, to be used in a worldwide game of cat and mouse with the world's other most deadly assassin, Carlos the Jackal. The Jackal isn't in the films at all, which takes a lot of the menace out of the story. It's hard to be afraid of the CIA dudes, who are so dumb that they can't keep their #1 most wanted man from breaking into their own offices in the middle of the day. I was never really sure why Bourne was such a big threat to them, either.
Ultimatum was pretty exciting though.
Goofy though it is, that damn Rapture track will crawl right your ass and stay there indefinitely. It's that catchy. The swine.
What's wrong with the Rapture? I'd see them if I could.
I haven't seen any of the Bourne movies, but I keep meaning to catch up on them.
I loved the first movie as i did the first book. I also enoyed the second book quite a bit, but in the 2nd movie you could already start to see the results of the liberties they took on the first movie which
resulted in the screenplay writer having to add what seemed like
inconsequential scenes to maintain the psychologial coherence of the
story.
The 3rd book I also liked, but not as much as the first two, however i've been a Ludlum fan for a long long time, so take that into account.
I'm imagining by the 3rd movie they wouldve had to have done away with any psych aspect as there really is no where to take it.
I"m waiting for the DVD.
And yeah, I kind of missed Carlos the Jackal in the movies.
I was just reading a New Yorker review of the third movie. The reviewer said essentially the same thing as Carlos, that Ludlum and Gilroy are taking the premise to different directions. Also described the first movie as a "who am I?" the second as a moral question "what do I do?" and the third is "redemptive (How can I escape what I am?)."
Thought it was an interesting review. Here it is.
It's funny because I also recently noticed that Sasha Frere Jones of the New Yorker (who is a considerably good music writer) did a thing on Two Sevens Clash recently. I hadn't read that before I wrote my piece but it makes sense that these would align.
it's really not eine gute idee jetzt in New York sein. i gotta get outta here. das wetter is actually getting dangerous.
don't make fun of me, you houstonians. this particulate thing is not good. sometimes i come up from the subway, where i've been sweating slightly (sometimes profusely), already covered in a light layer of steel dust, only to be have the diesel engine of some bus or garbage collection truck spew more black grit on me. and chinatown is just rancid this time of year. there's some drainage problem that they haven't been able to solve for the past century.
Heidi - I grew up going to Chinatown. It's always like that. It's like I was saying about the subway communication system - in New York, the sorts of problems that are usually fixed within months if not years in other cities are perpetuated for generations.
It's friggin' hot and muggy in Chicago too. Ugh.
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