The silver screen edition is a fun approximation of a 1970s theater-going experience, but if you like your home video without gate weave and reel change markers, despecialized is still the way to go. Especially since someone finally redid the color to fix the green shift. Plus, the DE comes with a LOT more audio…

This is only a short? The way it's being promoted had me thinking it was a series.

Here's hoping for Boston or New York so that I'll actually have a prayer of going to the thing without having to wait for a more legitimately important reason to travel.

I think we have different definitions of "favorite", or "enjoyment", or both. I find the experience of navigating the dissonant emotions the book evokes to be intellectually rewarding enough for it to be in my top tier.

When they have these DVD contests, is there an unstated option to opt for the Blu-rays if you win? A stack of movies in standard definition doesn't seem like much of a prize in 2015, but the term "Blu-ray" is seldom if ever used in these contest descriptions.

I've never heard of this 80s version. Was Jagger supposed to play Rex? He would've been perfect.

And who ever said one can't be disgusted by Humbert and still count Lolita as a favorite? Its artistic merit COMES FROM the tension between its aesthetic beauty and its abhorrent content. I don't consider Lolita my favorite book but I do think Nabokov is my favorite writer, and this opinion just seems unfairly…

So when did John Shade actually first show up? Pale Fire was the second Nabokov novel I read (right after Lolita), so I wasn't too familiar with the timeline at the time. Now that I've read more and come across references to the character that predate PF by years, I'm really curious about when Shade was invented.

Wait, is this a John Shade thing? I only came across that tidbit two days ago in the afterword to The Enchanter and the similarity between the names sailed right over my head. Could it be that Dmitri's just as fond of trolling as his old man?

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight could work.

RE: the earlier Russian novels, I believe there was a film adaptation of Laughter in the Dark in the late 60s, but they changed the title and I don't remember to what.

Wes should do Pnin.

If you're from some place where "good" means "bad", then yes. "Good" thing.

According to his son Dmitri, Nabokov only landed on the name Lolita Haze fairly late in the game. In most of the drafts she's called Juanita Dark.

I like the Kubrick version fine for its stylishness, but I've never had any desire to see the other one. The book is just so staggeringly great in ways that I don't think any adaptation could ever really do justice. Attempting to make a faithful screen version feels like missing the point.

Television:
- Finished Wolf Hall, which I thought was just spectacular. I need more. Luckily, it looks like a second season is in the works.
- Discovered that every single episode of The Simpsons is free on Xfinity right now, so I've watched ten or twelve of those from the mid-90s glory days. I have no idea how long…

Oh, I got Crystal Skull. I just didn't like it.

That title is some next level trolling. I'd been anxiously anticipating the return of the Peacock family ever since I first saw the episode names months ago.

Actually, the vinyl record wasn't introduced until 1948. Prior to that records were pressed on shellac, which was much more brittle and thus shattered very easily.

I burn a disc every now and then for the car, because I hate messing with my phone for music behind the wheel. I can't remember the last time I bought an album on CD though.