Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Happy Independence Day!

We've been having a nice, relaxing Fourth of July weekend. Cyn blogs about the Blanton Museum here; and seeing Superman Returns here.

I was somewhat disappointed in the Blanton. The building seems to lack a grand entrance and the entry atrium seemed stark and unfinished, rather like bare plasterboard.

The collection does has some interesting pieces (the America/Americas exhibit is quite good and the Prints and Drawings Collection is extensive).

I did fnd it a little odd that the cards next to the "modern" art went to great lengths explaining why the pieces were important and worth hanging in the museum ("The black and white video of the man screaming evokes the essential hopelessness of..." [paraphrase]), whereas the older stuff didn't. (There were a lot of Madonnas with Child and it might have been helpful if there had been more on what distinguished one from another - technique, style, era, etc.). Also, I'm a little puzzled about why they displayed so many plaster reproductions of famous sculpture that are in the collections of other museums.

We saw Superman Returns at the Alamo Drafthouse (the best place in Austin to see a movie). I was favorably impressed -- I thought it was very good. I'd been expecting it to be horrible, especially since I'd heard it was supposed to be a "sequel" of sorts to the Christopher Reeve movies (even the "good" ones weren't very). It was definitely better than those, but I'm ready to see, for example, Brainiac or any villain other than Lex Luthor.

Tonight, we're doing a traditional good old-fashioned Fourth of July: Chicago-style hot dogs with corn on the cob, followed by fireworks at Zilker Park.

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