It finds light where there is no light, but with its incredibly shallow depth of field, focussing is a real challenge for a new user like myself. Here's a few keepers from our first walk around town together:
I picked the lens up in lower central Chelsea and headed to far upper Chelsea via 7th Ave.
As I've been getting involved in Big Crowded Holiday Activities this season, I decided I ought to at least look at the line to Santaland at Macy's. Didn't think I had it in me to actually go through, plus meeting Santa by myself would make me too nervous.
The Weasley twins!
Other people's children.
Truthfully, just about all of Macy's looks like the line to Santaland.
Outside people photograph the windows.
Photo of the night?
Down Broadway for a bit.
The post-hipster Muppets at the Ace Hotel Opening Ceremony. They really do dress well. I'm starting to think their clothing line is kind of fresh. See? The Fozzy or Gonzo hoodie?
Trying . . . so hard . . . to focus in the dark.
And back down to my part of town.
There was a great big fight on my street a few minutes later. A Jersey Shore-sized fight. It seemed every waiter from the restaurant below my apartment ran out to pound on the troublemaker. I'm not sure of the details of the skirmish.
Overall, I am interested in where this relationship is headed.
Hand delivered in from Denmark via courier in East Harlem, this creation by famed blogger/designer B. Watson-Jepsen is like nothing I've ever owned before. Nor wore.
Also, there was a small loaf of a holiday bread or cake topped with additional holiday bread or cake.
You had a hunch that when I said I was East Harlem it was because I was at La Casa. You were right! We had a little pre-Christmas Taco Amigos gathering there Monday night. You've seen plenty of pictures of tacos here before, so none of those today. But here's a picture of us talking about a book about Teddy Roosevelt. Like you've never seen that here before.
The other night I came home to discover a package from Jeff M., opened it: these were inside. Poach pods! Jeff must know how hard it is for me to poach an egg right. I've got serious poaching problems.
Tonight I gave them a trial run.
You get a pot, you get the water boiling, you turn it down, you place the pods in the water with the eggs aboard.
A few minutes later, this is what you've got!
Plopped them into some ramen, burst some yolks and got down. I guess they were more like softly baked eggs or contained weird fried eggs but they were a lot better than my usual disaster poached eggs. I predict a long training wheels like relationship between me and my poach pods.
So thank you Mulcock family for the First Present of Christmas!
If you're finding out from me that the Dark Knight Rises trailer trailer is now online you really don't spend enough time on the internet. Here is the trailer . . .
And here is my scene by scene analysis. I have no spoilery knowledge of the movie, this is all just guesses and analysis.
Scene 1: A boy nervously begins to sing the National Anthem at a football game. You never expected a football game in a Batman movie, I know. We see that the Gotham City Football team is called the Rogues and that they're going to smash the Monuments . . . the Metropolis Monuments, perhaps?
Scene 2: Bane emerges from underground, the trailer makes you want to think this is at the football game. I've seen Bane in action in the Dark Knight Rises prologue and can tell you he is not nervous here.
Scene 3: Close up of a covered meal in a fancy hall with covered furniture. A limping man with a cane walks towards this. The limping man must be Bruce Wayne. Is he starting out limpy in the movie or does he get limpy? This is a major question.
Scene 4: Alfred, choked up?, talking to Bruce about his responsibility to protect him. Bruce looks a little worn out.
Scene 5: Manhattan is Gotham now. We had a good run, Chicago.
Scene 6: A party. At the rebuilt Wayne Manor? We learn that the mayor is going to dump Commissioner Gordon and that we're in a time of peace. Bruce with a Cane watches (or appears to watch) from a balcony above. Posters of Harvey Dent . . . can't tell if this is the same scene from the beginning of the prologue, that one seemed to be set in daytime. Maybe this is the Harvey Dent funeral afterparty?
Scene 7: Bruce with a Cane strolls into a party. For rich folk. Catwoman talks to him about Occupy Wallstreet. Cut to . . .
Scene 8: Police in a hall duck, they're scared! Something falls.
Scene 9: Bane walks down a hall, he is not scared. He loves his furry coat.
Scene 10: Catwoman puts on a necklace. I've rewound the tape a few times, this could be the same necklace and dress she's wearing while dancing with Bruce. Same pearl earrings. Her voiceover says "Bat-ten down the hatches."
Scene 11: Gordon with gun and flashlight, an explosion goes off behind him. Some cops take a fall. We know from the first teaser that Gordon winds up in a hospital where he asks Batman to come back. This could be how he wound up there. So there's some sort of trap laid for the Gotham police, or the Gotham police get in too deep, and they need Batman to come back and save the city?
Scene 12: Interior of a fancy home, belongings are being tossed dow the stairs. A rich person tries to hide under his furniture, he gets grabbed. The 99% got a lot more riled up in Gotham.
Scene 13: Now Catwoman whispers into Bruce's ear. Yeah, that is the same necklace and dress.
Scene 14: Soldiers lead chanting prisoners out of a giant blown open metal door. They are chanting the Bane chant. Bane is watching them from the foreground.
Scene 15: A Metropolis Monument football player holds up his hand. His last name is Ravenstahl?
Scene 16: Bane approaches the end of a tunnel at the football stadium.
Scene 17: Bruce passes through a gate at what looks like an MC Escher prison. He has a beard. We think of when he was living in Tibet (or wherever) in the first movie. He asks some dude "What does that mean?" the dude says "Rise." Is the dude Alfred? The Fire Rises.
Scene 18: Back at the football stadium, Bane sets off explosions beneath the field. A Rogue runs and runs. Touchdown! Does it count? Is this explosion supposed to be amazing? I kind of don't think it's totally amazing.
Scene 19: Bane says to Bruce Wayne, who looks all beat up and is lying down, "When Gotham is ashes you have my permission to die." Does he know Wayne is Batman? Wayne does not have his prison beard here. Can't tell what he's wearing, either.
Scene 17: Marion Cotillard (IMDB says she plays "Miranda Tate") lowers her masquerade mask, this is the same party Catwoman was at. Bruce seems to enjoy her company more than he enjoyed Catwoman's. Probably Cotillard is rich too and isn't bumming Bruce out with talk of revolution.
Scene 18: A man in a suit and a hood drops down a rope outside a building. Surely this must be Bruce Wayne? Was the limping and the cane just a ruse? Can't tell if he's wearing the same suit as he's got on at the costume party.
Scene 19: Catwoman in a hat walking down a concourse, past bathrooms . . . for a second I thought this was at the football stadium, but people have luggage. It is NOT a football stadium.
Scene 20: Batman raises a gun weapon. First shot of Batman in the trailer. This shot was in the prologue, too.
Scene 21: A big truck rolls by a camouflage Tumbler (you know, the same vehicle as the Batmobile) as an explosion goes off and the Tumbler flips. Light snow falls.
Scene 22: Ninjas(?) repel down into a wide well.
Scene 23: Bane stand proud of himself.
Scene 24: Joseph Gordon Leavit, (playing "John Blake", a cop?) goes through a door, he's looking all around, he's a man on the job.
Scene 25: Fighting on the steps of a government building in light snow (so same scene or time that that tumbler gets blown up), cops fight normal looking people, Bane approaches Batman. It's odd, and exciting, to see Batman out in broad daylight.
Scene 26: Cops in a hall, like those earlier scenes where they got blown up.
Scene 27: The fighting on the steps, a Tumbler with a cannon fires at the steps. I don't see Batman or Bane anywhere on the steps.
Scene 28: Batman and Bane fighting on the steps, Batman doesn't land any punches, Bane swings for Batman's kidneys.
Scene 29: Now one dude dives down into that well that all those ninjas went down in the earlier scene. His rope comes from down in the well and is secured near the top of the well. Like ropes are the chief mode of entry for the well.
Scene 30: Now all these hooded dudes enter that Escher prison from earlier on ropes. So those were the guys from the well? Is that how you get into this prison, via wells?
Scene 31: Camo Tumbler being followed by black Lobster Jet. That's Batman, right?
What an odd scene to end the trailer with.
This is what I think: If we start poking around to find out more about the plot of this movie everything will be ruined for us. Don't poke around! Don't get spoiled!
Saturday night I saw that movie called The Artist that people really love. It's a black and white silent film about black and white silent films. It was pretty good, definitely charming, in different circumstances I may have really liked it, problem was . . .
. . . I had seen Mission: Impossible 4 that morning and could not stop thinking about it. "Terrific" is kind of a cheeseball word but I can't think of another thing to call this movie. Mission: Impossible 4 is just terrific, definitely the best action movie of the year. Probably the best action movie of the last couple of years. It was thrilling (one unexpected twist to an action sequence had me hop up in my seat, slap something [or someone] and holler out in surprise) and it made just enough sense. I believe the majority of the credit goes to Brad Bird who has successfully transitioned from directing excellent animated films (The Iron Giant, the Incredibles) to excellent action movies. Seriously, you absolutely gotta see this movie and, if you can, see it in real IMAX. That's how I saw it and it was so big and cool. From now on I only want to see movies in IMAX or on my iPod, nothing in between.
BUT I almost couldn't think about Mission Impossible Four while I was watching because before it they played the first 7 minutes of the next Batman movie and that put me in a fit. What they showed us introduced the movie's main villain, Bane, and in some ways his introduction was surprisingly similar to the Joker's (and in other ways completely not anything like it at all, of course) but the scene establishes very well that this villain is bad news. The scene was full of menace and also full of kind of weird stuff that I guess I'm just going to have to wonder about until the movie comes out. But it seems certain that the Nolan crew is not wresting on its Dark Knight laurels and that this is going to be a tremendous film. As awesome as the Avengers will probably be, it seems a sure thing that the Dark Knight Rises will easily own 2012.
I've discovered that there's a bootleg of prologue is on YouTube, that's no way to watch it, but it's a good way to rewatch it. Still creeps me out. This Bane is bad news.
I was going to stay in last night but then I said to myself "What do you have against fun?" and met up with amigos at the ice rink at the Standard Hotel for a bit. Besides, Aubrey was in town and she had organized this party to get friends together, what kind of Grinch would shun that? Of course, when I got there I found out Aubrey was at another party. Kids!
It might not be the biggest rink, but it is hip and rather charming. And look! There's Trish!
Jen and Whitney.
Gabe told me he almost didn't get on the ice because he didn't feel like paying $10 (or whatever) but then said to himself "Man, Gabe, don't be such a cheapskate." Not kidding! That was his joke!
And now there's Trish talkin with my roommate Derrin.
Hotel.
Where skates come from.
Rink from the other side.
Assembling for apres skate crepes.
Kristin, Anne Marie and a wind-swept crepe.
See that woman who is a blur? She's about have a magnificent spill and slide across the ice like she was stealing third. All smiles the whole time, though.
I don't visit the Meat Packing District often, but when I do, I am impressed by their Christmas windows.
