Reddit mentions of Seagalogy (Updated and Expanded Edition): A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal

Usually I love Linklater's work, but unfortunately I found WAKING LIFE only fitfully tolerable. I guess if I had come upon it earlier in life the philosophical points it makes would have seemed more profound, but honestly I feel like most people who've watched enough movies to see WAKING LIFE probably have already considered almost every point raised in the movie. And without any narrative to hold your interest, the mostly obvious, sometimes both shallow and pretentious chatter starts to grate on the nerves. But the biggest disappointment is the visual style! The rotoscoping techniques used here look great, but it seems like Linklater hardly even attempts to use his newly completely fluid medium to really create some abstract possibilities. Mostly he just animates over a talking head of someone saying something not that interesting. If you're going to make it animated, you might as well take more advantage of the medium -- really allow some stylistic flights of fancy which you couldn't pull off as a live-action movie. Otherwise, what's the point? To his credit, he does occasionally work up the nerve to get a little creative with the visuals, at which point the film sometimes works a few decent stoner psychadellic charms. But mostly the whole thing is just too shallow and too conservative on the weird to really hold up.

Bonus: "Outlaw Critic" and Seagalogy author Vern's savage critique.

Currently reading: Seagalology: The Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal by Vern. Hilarious but also really interesting.

Finished reading last night: Sword in the Storm, a swords-and-sorcery novel by David Gemmell. I'm on a bit of a nostalgia trip at the moment, so I'm rereading some of the novels I read as a kid, including this one.

About to start reading: Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon. It's a comic novel inspired by the survey of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Edit: since I see you like SF, have you read Stealing Light by Gary Gibson? Near future, cyberpunky affair featuring a kick-ass female protagonist.