Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor), 2004

I finally got my grubby hands on this film, and loved it! I am still very confused by the poor choices for the names of the movie in relation to the books; this movie is the first half of the book called "The Night Watch", as I mentioned earlier.

Having read the story before-hand really helped me understand where the movie was going and how it fit into the larger picture. As another commentor mentioned, it is really strange how the Light and Dark forces were using clumsy medieval weapons during the intro first battle. And I wonder how this movie would be viewed by someone with absolutely zero prior exposure to the story.

Anyway, I love the cinematics! As I was dearly missing from the other DVD, I got a big kick out of the sublte (and not so subtle) use of the subtitles - that is just ingenious. As with the first time I watched the movie on the big screen, I was immersed into the movie and quickly forgot that it was all in Russian.

And what immersed me? The special affects are excellent - the attention to detail (ie, when Vampires issue a Call and the Anton's capillary system stand out in rythym with the heart beat), the quick cuts, the fast-mo slow-mo sequences, the lighting... Timur Bekmambetov just did an excellent job suspending the audience's belief (or disbelief if you will) in the Gloom, and the abilities of the Others.

The books have a lot more PvP, if you will, action scenes where a Light One fights a Dark One. There is not much of that in the movie at all (even in the Day Watch movie). We see the medieval battle scene repeated a few times with all its bloody gore - after the first time, I just did not care for it in and of itself. But where are the special abilities?!?!

We see Anton's Seer ability in affect, and we see Gesar and Zebulon pull some punches from time to time, but I still want more.

Love it.

The Chosen, by Chaim Potok

It has been about 20 years since I first read this book (am I dating myself or what? =) It was suggested as a prelude to "My Name is Asher Lev" which I just started today.

So, anyway, Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders. I love the look inside the Jewish culture; I have taken a class in Hebrew so I have the tiniest of ideas what the culture is like; I was the only non-Jew, but I believe they were not that religious - heck, at the time I was growing a full beard and earlocks for no good reason so I looked more jewish. =) Anyway... the sheer pressure that these kids were under is just amazing. All the time spent studying, the heavy expectations, the strict ritualts, all these things together are just so different than my own upbringing, my own experiences and observations.

I appreciated how the author helped me slip into Reuven's shoes, but at the time I felt it quite distracting to be reading at such an intellectually advanced level for a 15-year old. Is the author trying to project that these kids actually perceive and think along such mature and wisened lines, or is that merely a by-product of the author's style? I enjoyed the flow of the story, the onrush of the baseball game and the near cataclysmic accident, the waxing and waning of excitement, of the relationship between the two boys. The father's almost come across as devious chess-masters using their kids to manuever around a playing board.

So while I had an extremely hard time believing the story and stepping into that universe, I did find myself rooting for Reuven and perhaps a stirring of pity mixed with awe. Perhaps some children do go through such stringent practices.