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June 30, 2001 — 5 PM

Remember This Movie?

I saw Memento awhile back, so (appropriately enough) I don’t remember all of it. To the rescue comes film critic Andy Klein, who has thoughtfully and completely dissected the film, in an attempt to determine just what the heck happened in the story — and how filmmaker Chris Nolan went about making all of it happen.

If you haven’t seen the film, don’t click on the link! In fact, even if you have, you might want to see it again first and form your own opinions before allowing Klein to reveal everything.

My father is a film critic for the Vancouver Sun, and I often used to think he had the best job. But a few film studies courses and filmmaking roommates later, I’ve come to the conclusion I wouldn’t like it at all. Maintaining a critical eye during something as captivating as a movie is hard. I like being absorbed into the celluloid, and being a critic doesn’t afford you that freedom.

Illustration of tyopgraphical I’ve realized this problem in my own peculiar fashion, of course. Lately when I read, I can’t help noticing minute typographical details, like the usage of the ‘fi’ ligature. If you look closely at most books, newspapers and magazines, you will notice that every instance of those two characters, as well as ‘fl,’ is printed as a single combined character. Otherwise the upper part of the f (only lower-case) collides ungracefully with the dot of the i and the high stroke of the l.

Chances are, unless you work with type, you never noticed, and you never even knew the word ‘ligature’ existed — but that’s sort of the point. You’re not supposed to notice because the use of ligatures makes letters flow better. Only I can’t help noticing it all the time now. And it’s annoying. My cinematically-inclined friends watch films and notice camera angles and editing. I get to watch films as fluffy entertainment, but I’m stuck noticing the way letters jut up against each other. Sheesh.

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Previously: Recent Web Design Projects

Subsequently: Canada Day

June 2001
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