“You enjoyed Lost in Austen, didn’t you?”

“Sure. I also enjoy Austen in Lost.”

In Renaissance (2006) there’s a Big Sinister Corporation whose advertising tagline is “Health, Beauty, Longevity.” Oo, scary! I don’t think we’re ever told what Avalon sells (vitamins? cosmetics? medical treatment?) but it doesn’t matter. The noirish visual style suffices to notify us that there are no white hats.

Some years back Avalon’s top scientist Jonas Muller, who had been studying progeria, dropped out to run a charity clinic. Now another promising scientist, Ilona Tasuiev, has vanished.

Eventually we learn that Muller dropped out because he found the secret of immortality; to let Avalon bring it to market would be a Really Bad Thing. Muller has kidnapped Tasuiev because she found the same secret and does not share his fear of it.

I kept expecting someone to reveal that the Muller Protocol involves sacrificing children, but no: immortality is bad because “without death, life has no meaning,” a truth which the writers hold to be self-evident. So in the end Karas, the detective assigned to find Tasuiev, shoots her in the back to save humanity’s soul; and tells her sister that she needed to disappear for her own safety, but don’t worry, she’ll be fine.

Oddly enough the movie does suggest a better reason to think immortality isn’t all good. Muller’s progeria subjects included his own brother, who apparently is now immortal but mentally damaged – though he doesn’t get enough attention to make this clear.

The movie is animated in (mostly) one-bit monochrome. This gimmick is occasionally used very well, as when Tasuiev finds herself in a surreal arboretum; but the show is long enough to use up its novelty. I found myself wondering whether the characters see their world as we do.

. . . In recent years I’ve read a fair amount of fiction (e.g. by Greg Egan) in which the abolition of senescence is treated as an unremarkable feature of the background. Is there anything like that in visual media?

Someone considered this passage, in “The Night of the Legion of Death” (an episode of The Wild Wild West), worth quoting on IMDb:

You’re not the Governor. Your one of the down faith, commandor present, your value silver voice! Your a howl chain faint fraud Brubaker! I am the Governor, I made you, I put you in office, I create your faint legion, I writing speech for you, tell you what to said, what to think, what to reach for, who to reward or execute your greek mass! It’s I speak proof and don’t ever forget that.

Ya gotta wonder about the person who transcribed this: did they think it made sense, or find it an admirable piece of nonsense?

Well, I hope I improved it some:

You’re not the Governor. You’re a wonderfully endowed face, a commanding presence, a bell-like silver voice. You’re a hollow tin-plated fraud, Brubaker! I am the Governor. I made you. I put you into office. I created your Black Legion. I write your speeches for you, tell you what to say, what to think, what to reach for, who to reward, who to execute. You’re a Greek mask that I speak through. Don’t ever forget that.

Netflix’s subgenre “Dramas Based on Classic Literature” includes Driving Miss Daisy, an adaptation of a play first staged in 1987.

A list of recommendations for me shows some surprising and even dubious inferences:

• Life in the Undergrowth — Because you enjoyed:
  • The Straight Story
  • Throne of Blood
  • Fawlty Towers: The Complete Set
• Homestarrunner: Everything Else: Vol. 2 — Because you enjoyed:
  • Ballad of a Soldier
• Stevie Ray Vaughn: Live at the El Mocambo — Because you enjoyed:
  • The Outlaw Josey Wales
• Sandwiches That You Will Like — Because you enjoyed:
  • Sandbaggers: Collection 2

I’ve now watched three seasons of Lost, and am wondering a bit why Jack didn’t say to Ben, “Five minutes? I was a captive audience for two weeks; you could have told me then why ‘the good guys’ have been making war on us from day one. And now you want sympathy because some of your goons got hurt in yet another armed raid? I don’t owe you another breath.”

My hearing is just poor enough that I usually turn the subtitles on when I play a DVD; I could mostly do without the help, but it’s good to have when someone mumbles. It’s often clear that whoever made the subtitles did not have access to the script. A phrase in a foreign language almost always shows up as “[speaking foreign language]” (or, if we’re lucky, “[Speaking Italian]”).

So it’s a pleasant surprise that the subtitles of Schindler’s List are in English, German, Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew — though the Polish diacritics are missing, and the transliterations of Hebrew and Yiddish appear to be nonstandard.

After watching a murder mystery involving a medium, I dreamt that Maurice Minnifield wanted to hire a medium for one of his promotional schemes.

At least it wasn’t vampires this time.