The New Pornographers & Okkervil River at 9:30 4/14

Being a huge fan of the New Pornographers, and it having been almost six months since I last saw them, I figured it was about time for them to come through. Luckily, they agreed, decided to have Okkervil River open for them, and bring Neko along (but not Dan, who's touring with Destroyer). Unfortunately for me, and those of us who bought the tickets early, before there was a Tuesday show, Neko got sick and missed Monday night's set. But it was only a slight difficulty, as Kathryn Calder (still hot, and apparently some gay guy agrees with me? and he also does an interview with Carl that touches on some interesting questions) was more than capable of not making me miss Neko. I was disappointed, since I'm seeing Destroyer next week, I didn't need to see Dan again, but Neko missing one night, and it happened to be this one, was the suck.

This is going to continue to be sort of all over the place. I left my phone in the car with my coat (the coat was on purpose, the phone not), so you miss out on my attempt to do a setlist. Basically, the doors were at 7, and there was no small opener (which is amazing, because Okkervil River is not an opener, although I've had that issue before (plus gratuitous slap at Hillary Clinton!)), which meant that Okkervil River was on at 8. I also had the exact same issue as at that show, as my shoes were ridiculously uncomfortable for standing up for three hours. And yet, I never learn, and wore the same uncomfortable shoes as over two years ago (admittedly, they're the same brand and model, but not the exact same shoes), but again, it didn't matter.

I didn't know that Okkervil River was also missing some people, although I did catch that it was Charles from the Wrens on guitar. I have heard all their albums, and I certainly loved their last two, but I can't say I was a fan who would be able to do a setlist. So, sorry, but they did play A Stone, Black, Our Life Is Not a Movie but Maybe, Unless It's Kicks, and No Key No Plan. All of which rocked to the appropriate level. And the drummer was sort like Animal, in that he drummed well but waved his hair around like crazy and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. When the band seems to be enjoying themselves, it helps a lot.

The New Pornos came out, and rocked a lot. The audience didn't entirely agree, but screw them. The setlist wasn't all that different from last time, and I will never be happier about alcoholism than when I'm singing along to The Slow Descent into it. But basically a not very surprising setlist, even if they did pull out Jessica Numbers during the second encore, and introduced it as their most prog song ever. Although they opened their first encore with ELO's Don't Bring Me Down, proving, once and for all, that I know all the words to songs I didn't think I'd heard in years, before they started to play it. Good for me? but I definitely saw that video at some point so... I guess I listened to it in the last month? I certainly have an immense amount of useless information up in my brain. There were a couple of Dan songs, sung by Carl and Kurt, who were able to approximate Dan, but they were slightly off. Maybe not drunk enough?

During a quiet part, and I think because Neko wasn't there, someone in the crowd screamed out, "I love you Synthesizer Girl!" (Whoops, thanks, V.) Which led to Carl going off on a riff about how Blaine was Synthesizer Boy, and that they all had grappling hooks and thus were all superheroes. It was one of the few bits of banter I remembered, but he did discuss Neko not being there, and it being his birthday (which, according to Wiki, made it his 40th birthday). This lead to a predictable terrible version of Happy Birthday (is there a song out there designed to be sung more often that is as terrible as Happy Birthday? I don't think so), which Carl referred to as being a round. He wasn't too far off.

In a random bit of trivia, according to Wiki, Todd Fancey, goofy dancer and all, portrayed the voice of Hunter in Dinner Party, the most awkward (and therefore awesome) episode of The Office ever.

Apparently the douchebag of the show (not that I actually saw her) was Angela Valdez of the City Paper. Yes, she of the front page Late Night Shots article that ruined any feeling of schadenfreude over them ever for me. And I'm not the only one. Seriously, the WCP is worthless in general, but Valdez in particular. As stated earlier, Okkervil River, Will Sheff's emover aside, was awesome, and their last two albums basically put any reservations I had about the band aside. And there is no way that someone actually enjoying the set and saying "Fuck Yeah" or singing along can possibly be worse than the "I'm too cool for people who are enjoying the concert" air that she clearly had. In all my years of concert going experience, I have actively heckled one band, the openers for Yo La Tengo (I'm pretty sure it was the 9/18/00 show at the Cradle, if someone wants to confirm that I hated those openers rather than some other band). Then I realized that the lead singer's girlfriend was standing in front of me, and I realized it was a total dick move, and I haven't heckled since, no matter how much I might think they suck. Like the Walkmen last week, I didn't enjoy them, but I showed my displeasure by snarky comments, barely heard by the people I was standing next to and not screaming or clapping. But I wouldn't actively leave due to the band sucking, unless I had actually gone to see Superchunk opening for the Get-Up Kids, and then I probably would have sat through that as well. Leaving due to being exhausted after a long day of work is different. But I still want to apologize to John Vanderslice and The Clientele, two bands I like, for being tired. Plus, I sort of was at Vanderslice to see Portastatic, rather than him.

Spoon at Sonar 4/11

Alternate title: I only get my rocks off while I'm seeing Spoon

So MBG, V, SH, and I made the long trek to Baltimore to see Spoon. We had pretty good Korean beforehand, because Spoon wasn't scheduled to go on until 11:15. Which is ridiculous. Anyway, I forced MBG to listen to classical music while I attempted to relax and hope that I would be fine at the concert after being exhausted. I was, and we got there after White Rabbit, but right as The Walkmen were starting. We all struggled to come up with the most appropriate way to describe them: Tucker Carlson with Bob Dylan's voice fronting the Strokes but sucking was my personal choice. They really weren't good. And the sound sucked, and we started to badmouth Sonar about it. The main issue with Sonar is that it isn't nearly as good as the 9:30, as it's on one level, with big pillars and poor ventilation (so frakkin' hot), so they have to set up large video screens so that half the audience can see the stage. It's pretty ridiculous. Not nearly as awesome as where we saw The Pipettes, the bar area to the right of the entrance. Anyway, we originally were not happy with the venue, and I was actually hoping that The Walkmen would cut their set short so that I could just relax and not have people around for a while. They really weren't bad, it's just that they were aggressively mediocre and the frontman's voice was crap. Sort of like my singing, for those who have heard it. After they finished, the venue started to play awesome early 60s songs, like Needle in a Haystack by the Velvelettes, Keep Your Hands off My Baby by Little Eva, and the like, which is guaranteed to get me in a good mood. Then Spoon came out at 11:05, ten minutes early. Also making me happy. But I had no idea what was about to come.

Back in 2003, the last time I saw Spoon live, I had been hoping to see them play Stay, Don't Go ever since I first heard it (in fact, I wasn't particularly impressed with Kill the Moonlight when I first heard it, except for that song, but by the third listen I had changed my mind), and here's what I had to say about that show way back then: "Spoon setlist: All the Pretty Girls Go to the City, Small Stakes, Metal School, Lines in the Suit, Utilitarian, The Minor Tough, Take the Fifth, Something to Look Forward To, Paper Tiger, Someone Something (with everyone doing the handclaps), Everything Hits at Once, Back to the Life, Chips and Dip, The Way We Get By, Me and the Bean, Car Radio, Take a Walk, Vittorio E., and then the encore of Fitted Shirt, Anything You Want, No You're Not, and Jonathon Fisk. Sometime in there, Britt said it was the best show they'd done this tour. And it was a damn good show. Nothing from Telephono, and only one thing from their EPs (the great Chips and Dip), but it was reasonably well spread out between their three most recent albums. I was enjoying the sitting for the show, and it was well played." So I've seen them play a lot of stuff from their two earliest albums, and I certainly don't need to see them play those again, but man, Series of Sneaks is a great album. Anyway, back to Friday night's show.

They came out and started right in on Chicago at Night, not the way I would have started the show, although it was just a warmup for what was to be one of the best pure rock shows I've seen in a long time. Just totally on, no blather between songs, songs were played with horns even when they didn't originally have them to add to the sound, and they even played Stay, Don't Go, although it was sadly lacking in beatboxing. I didn't recognize the Paul Simon cover, although I knew it was a cover (listed as such in my setlist on my phone), and they played Nefarious, from Telephono. The end of their main set... well, basically after Back to the Night was totally awesome, but bringing out the horns for Cherry Bomb, Valentine, and Underdog was just perfect. I knew they had to play Underdog in the main set, because it was pretty clear that many people were just waiting for that (and I'm not saying at all that I wasn't one of them), so the last song was pretty expected by me. The first encore had no horns, but I did hear someone scream out Anything You Want about five seconds before they started to play, so clearly one person was happy. SH and V headed to the back after the first encore, and I think MBG was about to join them before I noticed the lights hadn't come on, the music hadn't started up again, I wanted to see if they had anything else up their sleeves, and Britt hadn't even thanked us for being there. They came out again, pretty quickly this time, and brought the horn section. I said to MBG that they didn't have any more songs with horn parts in them. Then they made me insanely happy by starting in on the riff to Rocks Off. I think I had known they cover it, but it wasn't near the front of my mind. The first track (and probably best-known song, although that may be Tumbling Dice) from Exile on Main Street had me even more excited than the previous songs, it was a pretty damn good way to end it, and I was completely blown away. Interestingly, they've also done The Smiths' Panic, which probably would have made me about as happy.

Full setlist (90 minutes including the encore breaks):
Chicago at Night
Rhthm & Soul
Stay, Don't Go
Jonathan Fisk
The Delicate Place
Nefarious
The Ghost of You Lingers
Peace Like a River (Paul Simon)
Don't You Evah
Don't Make Me a Target
Someone Something
Back to the Night
I Summon You
I Turn My Camera On
Finer Feelings
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine
The Underdog
-------
Anything You Want
The Beast & Dragon, Adored
Small Stakes
-------
Rocks Off (Rolling Stones)

I sang along to every song, bounced, and just was very happy throughout. According to their setlist seen here, they just whipped out whatever from the long list on the right for the encores. So, short of Lafitte Don't Fail Me Now, they did a great job with the encores. These are also the only pics I can find of the show.

Here's a video of You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb, and I definitely agree that the show was loud as hell. And, thanks to the awesomeness that is the internets, I'm downloading an audio recording of this show. You know you want it. Stupid Comcast and their blocking of bittorrent traffic is making this go ridiculously slow.

Tattoed Life & Fiend without a Face

Tattoed Life is a Seijun Suzuki yakuza film. It's also, notoriously, the first film to get him a warning from Nikkatsu, the studio that fired him after the brilliant Branded To Kill, and the film starts out completely normal at the beginning of the Showa period with two brothers involved in a yakuza murder and then going on the run. They end up at a construction camp and try to stow away to Manchuria but fail. So they end up falling for the wife and daughter of the construction organization head. The only strange thing throughout the first hour is the policeman's bright red shoes. Then, when the older brother goes to fight his yakuza enemies, it goes all arty. A shot from below a glass floor of fighting, lots of bright blue and yellow doors, fancy lighting, and just in general, think of the House of Blue Leaves sequence of Kill Bill, Vol. 1 with less blood, and a less hot vengeance seeker. There is no doubt in my mind that Tarantino saw this film before making that one.

Fiend without a Face is one of the first films to include gory effects. And, in comparison with today's films, or even older films like Romero's Dead trilogy or the Evil Dead trilogy, they pale in comparison. But compared to The Blob, for example, it's outstanding. Certainly the film is basically crazy professor performs crazy experiments which with the help of a nuclear reactor involved in long distance radar experiments disembodied brains and spinal cords move around by themselves and eat brains. You know, that age old story. Of course, the acting is nothing special, and the film only lasts 75 minutes, so it's over quickly, but it's worth it for the final scene, of the brains attacking our heroes in a scene that's basically just like Night of the Living Dead save it's brains not zombies. If you ever wanted to see brains attacking people, this is the movie for you. Also, note that this is a Criterion Collection DVD.

It's weird that both films were nothing particularly special until the final act. Both of which were very special.

Bright Lights, Big City

Bright Lights, Big City is a novella by Jay McInerney, the first of the "cocaine culture" novels, about yuppies involved with the drug culture, trying to find their way in society. I was initially very disconcerted by the book being written in the second person (I can't think of another book like that), but eventually I got over that and started to enjoy it, and I actually liked it, and the main character, more than Bret Easton Ellis's works. Of course, he's a dick, completely self-absorbed, self-destructive, but I just felt like he was so close to figuring out what he needed to do to turn his life around, and the writing style was hilarious. Full of clever bits of philosophical references, a ferret, a bald chick, and sarcasm, I enjoyed it immensely.

I then moved the movie to the top of my queue, and I have to say that Michael J. Fox wasn't at all what I pictured for the unnamed narrator (cleverly named Jamie Conway in the movie), nor Phoebe Cates as Amanda, the model, but Swoozie Kurtz was just what I pictured, and Kiefer Sutherland was also just right. Then again, apparently, Tom Cruise was up for the role, but he would have been even worse. The movie fits in most of the main plot points (even the coma baby in a freaky scene), but cuts them slightly short, and plays the ferret for slapstick more than the novel. Plus, an early David Hyde Pierce performance, as a bartender. But the music was mainly terrible 80s crap (except for True Faith), and the DVD was fullscreen. What the hell?

There Will Be Blood

There Will Be Blood should be retitled "There Will Be Oscar for Daniel Day-Lewis". And then left it at that. One of the all-time great performances. Ok, now that that's out of the way, can we get on to how depressing that movie is? As much as I loved it, it was pretty unrelenting miserableness for 2.5 hours. And that ending just made it all the worse.

Here is the thing though. No Country for Old Men deserved the Oscar. And you will never get me to agree with you if you say that There Will Be Blood was a better film. They may be 1-2 over the last few years (and certainly, only the Departed ranks up there in American films during that time), but No Country for Old Men was nearly perfect. This suffers from no female characters, and really, only two characters are developed at all, Daniel and Eli. I wish that more films had women who weren't just there to be plot points or flash some tit, because it's depressing to think of the gender imbalance in Hollywood films. And man, just look at this post, from XKCD (one of the best webcomics ever), about the gender imbalance among the highest grossing films. Admittedly, I am not the typical moviegoer, but the trend is clear: Hollywood is chauvinistic, and there are too few strong women in movies. I also wouldn't mind seeing a River Tam kicking ass film.

Anyway, I felt the film just was all about greed and a very evil person, but without any leavening that No Country for Old Men had.

I do, however, want to drink a milkshake (drink it all up). Which is why, last night, in the middle of the ending scene, I had a strong desire to run downstairs and eat my mint chocolate cookie ice cream, purchased just for this occasion. Which lead me to staring at my fridge magnets and last night's post.

Anyway, next on my plate: a post comparing No Country for Old Men and New York Minute, again two stories of evilness and greed. I expect that No Country for Old Men will be in for a much tougher battle this time.

Listen to the colour of your dreams

It's time for the latest edition of Caseus Velox's magnetic fridge poetry. This is thanks to the fact that I still buy music, and I got a great set of magnetic poetry with the newest Destroyer album (because Merge Records is awesome and always give great stuff with every order, and there's a Merge Records magnetic piece included). Some great words in there, although the lack of prepositions is a serious limit to my writing skills (read putting magnets in random order until it makes sense). Anyway, here's a lot of those good words in a poem I'm going to entitle "Messed up on a Tangent That Was Wrong".

shivers, it pirouettes high around
flowing breeze of alabaster flowers.
the horizon sipping flame at sunrise,
torched sky, rivers in my favorite eyes.
ashen leaves, diamond foam, blind love.
thread cut, beware first night's dreams,
sadness, ecstasy form disgusting hands
wringing terrible applause from amateurs.

I actually wrote this in the middle of watching There Will Be Blood and eating Mint Chocolate Cookie. Apparently, a good evening.

I probably won't write any more poetry unless someone actually complements me on it, or I get more prepositions, articles, and other small words. And the "u" was intentional, as it's a lyric from one of my favorite songs ever, "Tomorrow Never Knows".

Jens Lekman at Black Cat 4/2

I unfortunately wasn't into Jens Lekman enough last October to go to the show. Somehow. Because it was back in February of 2006 that I first heard Jens (thanks iTunes!), the still my favorite Lekman song, I Saw Her in the Anti-War Demonstration. Somehow that didn't correlate into love for the Swede until November of last year. A few months after I first heard Night Falls over Kortedala. I have no clue why.

Anyway, when I had the chance this time, I said I was going and made it, going with MBG, Vermonstrous, Meatball Surgery, Banana Flux, and Tweaks. Gotta say I pretty much agree with her about the show. I missed the openers, and don't entirely mind. Jens himself was outstanding. I'm actually listening to a set from February in Copenhagen that has a pretty similar setlist, and it's reminding me of how fun it was. Plus, it's a hell of a lot better than listening to Billy Packer talk about how much smarter he is than Einstein and how that player just made the stupidest play ever and probably should not have been in the game at that time. Man, I hate him. Anyway, I really wish I wasn't tired as hell and I had waited around to see him play the third encore somewhere outside (probably, that's what I'm guessing from this interview). Because he was very enjoyable.

Pictures are available here at Brightest Young Things, the blog that makes me feel dirty every time I link to it, but they do seem to have someone at pretty much every show I go to. You can always check out Youtube as well, getting you things like A Little Lost from the show, with Jens on the Kalimba, and the second best thing at the show, A Postcard to Nina (not from the same show, but still the extended and hilarious expansion). But the best thing was The Opposite of Hallelujah. Just an outstanding song, fun and bouncy, and then when he breaks into Gimme Just a Little More Time, it was pretty much amazing. It happens at the 2:58 mark of this clip and gives the song a completely unneeded, but still awesome, kick.

And this begins the string of pretty much one show a week until the end of May. Or so, sometimes it's a couple in one weekend, or maybe a week and half between concerts.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Mommie Dearest, The Color Purple, Portrait of Hell, & Woman Is the Future of Man

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is a Japanese film about a widow who has to find a way to live and support various members of her family. I found it interesting as a look at the life of a hostess in the post-war years, with the men willing to pay ridiculous amounts for companionship. Somehow it's not as disturbing as The Great Happiness Space, but that could just be that I'm a guy. I'd never seen another film by Mikio Naruse or starring Hideko Takamine, but they both do a great job. You really feel the heartbreak of this woman struggling to make ends meet in a terrible

Mommie Dearest has the famous line about coat hangers, stars Faye Dunaway and Diana Scarwid, and is utter trash. At least it doesn't have Bette Davis, so it's far less annoying than What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, but it's just mean-spirited. Maybe I just didn't care for the mother or the daughter. Wait, that's not an or. Or a maybe.

The Color Purple was a terrible decision. Spielberg, a Jew from Cincinnati, directing a film that's quintessentially black. As a Jew from Cincinnati, I think it's very clear that picking Spielberg to direct it was a terrible idea. I have no idea what it was like to be a black person in the south in the 30s. And that shot going in to the mailbox was just too much. The constant incest, the beatings, and Whoopi didn't help either. So melodramatic that I'm not at all surprised it didn't win any Oscars. Just goes back to remind me that Titanic did. Which was, and always will be, a travesty.

Portrait of Hell looks like it was filmed entirely on soundstages. And thus has the same sort of feel of all films shot on soundstages: very few shots from below and everything has just this too clean feel. But those same limitations add to the feeling of claustrophobia of people stuck in a foreign land. Also, it continues the mini-theme of parents being overprotective of their daughters. No incestual themes in this one though. Lots of great color, ghosts, and impressiveness. And twistedness. Hubris and greed always seem to get punished pretty darn severely in these type of films. It certainly fits the actual tragic structure very well. It's based on a novel by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, who also wrote the stories Rashomon was based on. I like him, and I should buy Jay Rubin's translations of 18 of his stories. Even though I have seven of them already. Jay Rubin is that good. Ooh, and it has an introduction by Haruki Murakami. Hmmm, what else can I buy that would put it over the $25 Amazon limit? 30 Rock Season 1, it is.

Woman Is the Future of Man had almost illegible subtitles. Not as bad as Green Snake (which I still haven't seen), but I had to strain to see them. Tiny little white subtitles are not good. Portrait of Hell had multicolor subtitles (my preference) and were completely legible. And the movie itself was little better. 88 minutes of Koreans having sex with each other, one rape, a couple of blowjobs, a couple of attempted pickups of the same waitress, and a lot of just worthless people. I didn't like it at all. It felt like a pretentious sex comedy without the comedy. And you gotta think that the boorish director probably reflects the director himself. He seems to have a lot of people working in film in his movies. I might try one other of his films, but it's not a very auspicious introduction to Hong Sang-soo.

Peter & the Wolf, The Aura, & Running with Scissors

Peter & the Wolf is the Oscar winning stop-animated modern day short of the Prokofiev work. I like the little twists they added to the story, with the bird's balloon and the bullies. Made it seem much more interesting. And the animation is really impressive, although not up to the standards of Wallace and Gromit. Still, definitely watchable, and at only 30 minutes long, you should be able to find time to watch it yourself. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a great way to introduce yourself to one of the most famous pieces of music.

The Aura was the last film by Fabián Bielinsky, writer-director of the twisty Nine Queens. I think I thought it was about a guy who got migraines getting involved in a heist, but it was about an epileptic taxidermist with a photographic memory getting involved in a heist. It wasn't nearly as good as Nine Queens, and it never quite felt right to me.

Running with Scissors was depressing. Are there people out there who are that messed up? And how old was Gwyneth Paltrow's character supposed to be? It has a great cast, but it just made me uncomfortable throughout. I think that I just can't relate to it at all.

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Street Mobster, Fast Food Nation, Tideland, The Bridesmaid, Ratatouille, & Rock Monster

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny probably would have worked better had I been high. At least they came out immediately and started with a THC rather than a THX intro. I like the idea of them so much more than the execution. Amy Poehler was very funny though.

Street Mobster was directed by Kinji Fukasaku, who also did a bunch of yakuza films and Battle Royale. And it stars Bunta Sagawara, who also was the star in the Yakuza Papers films, along with The Great Yokai War. The plot is trashy, and it fits very well with the general theme of most of the best yakuza films: they don't fit in anywhere, are a relic of an older time, and they all seem to have no problem beating and raping women (always strange to see the crazy things they'd do to make sure the nudity wasn't too much for the censors, which was compounded by the many scenes in baths and lots of raping). The films are pretty darn stylish, though.

Fast Food Nation is clearly a good idea, but the story that's wrapped around it is both frustrating and a little too easy. I do want to read the book though.

Tideland starts with an introduction by Terry Gilliam saying the film is very divisive. Some would love it and some would hate it. I come down solidly on the hating it side. It's long, disturbing, and just confusingly bad.

The Bridesmaid stars Laura Smet, who looks like a younger version of Annette Benning. And is very attractive. Somehow I haven't seen any Claude Chabrol films, although there are many of them, and he's working in the mystery genre, one I generally enjoy. As for this, it's about a guy who falls for the bridesmaid at a wedding, and she decides that they need to prove their love for each other, by doing four things: plant a tree, write a poem, sleep with someone of the same sex, and kill a stranger. I think you can tell why it turns into a mystery: what kind of trees are they planting? I liked it a lot.

Ratatouille looked outstanding, was funny, and Brad Bird needs to keep working. He's the best non-Miyazaki animation director out there, and this one didn't change my belief at all. And I want Colette. Hot, French, chef, purple hair, yes please. Pixar's animation quality keeps getting better and better, and the films have gotten better filmically as well. I haven't seen Cars, and I don't plan on doing so anytime soon. But from Toy Story through Monsters Inc. to The Incredibles and Ratatouille, they've just been getting closer and closer to being worthwhile to recommend to those who refuse to watch any animated films. I don't know why you would ignore a film just because it's animated. There are very few things that will make me ignore a film. Tyler Perry is one, as is Dane Cook.

Rock Monster is terrible. io9 said that it was better than most Sci-Fi original films. Tweaks and I both read the same post, and so we watched it Sunday. If that was pretty decent, I no longer regret missing any of the other films. Actually, the best thing this film did (although it didn't do it soon enough) was follow the well-known movie trope to kill the black guy (who was majoring in string theory just so they could do a g-string theory joke... sigh...). He was the worst actor in the entire film. Even worse than the extra in the bar scene who was clearly waiting to react to the sword. I wish they had been able to get a guy I didn't want to die for that part. But this one had Jon Polito as a drunk former Soviet (I think, I never really figured out where it was actually set) officer, the female friend was annoying at first but quickly came around, about when the guns were starting to be handed out, David Figlioli is one of those guys from so many TV shows, Chad Collins wasn't terrible, and Natalie Denise Sperl was hot. All in all, a terrifically terrible film. I was either laughing at or... well, I pretty much didn't laugh at any of the jokes. And I kept getting Rock Lobster stuck in my head. Damn you, Sci Fi. Only two weeks until Battlestar Galactica Season 4 though.

Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.

So on multiple occasions in the last month, I've been asked to write more poetry. To a certain extent, I wish I had more inspiration for poetry, but I generally need something. However, Friday, on the way home from work, I had some inspiration. Unfortunately for both me and you, it started thus:

I wish my dick was in some children,
Older kids are soon forgotten,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Pedophile.

Yep, that's what got stuck in my head. Damn rapist van, getting me thinking about how sick pedophiles are (speaking of which, it's kids, scat, animals, and blood, all very eww). So, rather than subject both you and me to more of that poem that was going absolutely nowhere (except probably pissing off a bunch of crazy southerners and those who have some semblance of taste), I give you: Caseus Velox's magnetic fridge poetry!

The first one is the second one I ever wrote (the first one was never written down), entitled "On a Fridge". I wrote it hanging out in my friend from Nebraska's dorm room, while everyone else was discussing sex with freshmen (male) and kissing very inexperienced men. I wasn't able to contribute as I'd both never kissed a man, nor had sex with a freshman (male).

if she will stay here
almost as loud as a whisper
blow every mind
crave spiritual research in light
surely I was late into position
respectful of our intense experience
entering into some major emotional valley
need close talk while pretending
one better always release
get the vacation from anonymous control
take a deep thick lick of sleep
have a fantasy in our brain
or fail through no breath

As you can tell, or at least you should, I was influenced by the conversation. I actually really liked it, and it's certainly got some interesting imagery.

Next is the poem that's currently on my fridge, from the fifth year reunion magnetic poetry collection I was sent. I chose to throw away the ones that were just the name of the school, but I didn't use "quad", "gala", "chapel", or "tours". This one's called, "Wooden Spoons Are Fine For Some":

I will again laugh in springtime
remember chance party experience
have gardens fireworks on us love
that the happy fun memories celebrate
lifetime learning engage good times
for next spring when friends meet
hug and reconnect with champagne

Lifetime learning was one magnet. This is quite terrible, but those were some terrible magnetic poetry pieces.

Letters from Iwo Jima, Mephisto, Stranger than Fiction, The Prestige, Stardust, Hard Candy, & The Matrix: Reloaded

Letters from Iwo Jima made me think about how much I have changed from being a young boy who read everything he could about war, spend many hours playing with guns, and watching everything he could about war. I can't imagine anyone watching this film and thinking that war was remotely something that's acceptable. I can't watch films like this and feel good for a while. It was considerably better than Flags of Our Fathers.

Mephisto is about an actor who was a communist in early 30s Germany, and then is willing to do anything to keep acting. Klaus Maria Brandauer is the main, and almost only, unless you want to see Karin Boyd naked (not a bad thing, by any means), reason to see the film. He's mesmerizing. It's too long, but he is worth watching. One of the great performances make a movie worth watching singlehandedly.

Stranger than Fiction was extremely disappointing. A magic watch? Will Ferrell is no... Adam Sandler. Punch-Drunk Love had a lot more talent behind it, but man, Will is not very good. Although Maggie Gyllenhaal is certainly good, and Tony Hale doesn't get enough work. The almost constant math references just got annoying, and Crick just makes me think of Waterland, which was unfortunate. I liked that movie.

The Prestige has David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. Unfortunately, that's the high point. That's not to say it wasn't fitfully enjoyable, but it felt like it was twisty just to be twisty. And I don't like that very much.

Stardust was very long, but ultimately, enjoyable. Even with De Niro as a gay sky pirate. Michelle Pfeiffer was deliciously evil, Claire Danes was not bad (as much as I loved My So-Called Life, she's not a particularly strong actress), and the risque humor was fairly enjoyable. I really need to read more Neil Gaiman.

Hard Candy made me feel dirty. And that was just the Sandra Oh scene. Man, I hate her so much. Arli$$ cannot be condemned enough. Ellen Page is disturbing, and Patrick Wilson is suitably creepy. I think it's just one of those films I will never feel the need to see ever again.

When I told someone I was watching The Matrix: Reloaded, I was told, "I hope you have scathing things to say when you are done." Well, I'm done, and this is what I have to say: As ridiculously stupid as the plot and philosophy of The Matrix was (and dear frikkin' lord, it was stupid), this takes all the stupidness of it and multiplies it by the number of Agent Smith's in the Burly brawl. If it weren't for the car chase, there would be utterly nothing to recommend the film to anyone other than people who thought that the "brain in a jar" philosophical experiment was the most brilliant theory of the universe ever come up with. And Keanu Reeves... well, what can you say about him, he's the worst actor ever to star in so many films. He is just painful. And that "rave" scene? Who the hell thought that was a good idea? I really have to see Revolutions just because I can't imagine that film could be any worse than this one. I need to see it with my own eyes.

For Your Consideration, The Great Yokai War, Mon Oncle, The River, Fuck, and Miss Austen Regrets

For Your Consideration was a supreme disappointment. After the complete awesomeness of Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, not to mention Spinal Tap, For Your Consideration could never live up to that standard. The problem was that it wasn't funny at all. And the satire was hardly biting enough to call it a satire. But it really just comes down to it not being funny. What is funny is my entire review of A Mighty Wind from back in 2003: "I saw A Mighty Wind this evening. Very funny. Best part: Lars. Swedes speaking Yiddish is always funny." That is just as true now as it was then.

The Great Yokai War is Takashi Miike, he of the utterly disgusting everything, making a kids film. It still has it's share of disturbing things, but it's also a basic story of a kid in a bad family situation finding a purpose in a mysterious spirit world. So it's actually a kids film. Clearly Miike's films have allowed him to have a larger budget, even if the CGI was occasionally bad, although this film does quite well with the cartoon-ish feel. Plus, the Sunekosuri (or hamster thing) was ridiculously cute and I want one. I wouldn't be me if I didn't mention how hot pointy-eared Mai Takahashi as Kawahime was, let alone how evil Chiaki Kuriyama (Gogo Yubari and the evil girl in Battle Royal) was. I knew it was going to be a kids film, and I really wanted to see it, due to it's larger budget. I wasn't disappointed.

Mon Oncle was apparently the second film in the M. Hulot series. I did not know that. It was quite funny, and almost a silent film. Some of the set pieces worked considerably better than others, like the wetting of the shopkeeper's clothes works far better than the sister and brother-in-law being stuck in the garage, which relies upon the maid in the 50s being afraid of electricity and yet working in a fully mechanized house. Although it's a slight satire and funny, I have no idea why it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, when there were better films released that year. Although it appears that many did not release in the US that year, like Elevator to the Gallows, Ivan the Terrible: Part II, and The Hidden Fortress. 1958 just apparently sucked for releasing foreign films in the US.

The River was Ming-Liang Tsai's second film to hit it big on the film festival circuit (weirdly, I saw the first one, Vive L'Amour, the sequel to his first film, the day before I started this blog). It's a little disturbing, about a man who acts in a movie scene by floating in a polluted river and then suffers mysterious neck pain. I find it interesting that in this film it's almost always raining when his later films, The Skywalk Is Gone and The Wayward Cloud (which I haven't seen), are set during water shortages. He seems pretty obsessed with water, even if it comes out of his actors.

Fuck is worth watching for Billy Connolly's stories alone. And his voice. He's one of the funniest people alive, and he's a highlight of the film. The rest is an amalgamation of silliness, ridiculous interviews with conservatives (and a non-ridiculous Sam Donaldson) studiously avoiding saying the word fuck, and Ron Jeremy, Tera Patrick, and Evan Seinfeld (listed as singer of Biohazard and husband of Tera Patrick, but not as a porn star himself). Pretty enjoyable, and the FPM (fucks per minute) was higher than I was expecting, although the Fuck Counter was counting the fucks on screen along with all the ones said. Which was disappointing. You may have noticed that I've used fuck more times in this post than in all my other posts combined. In fact, I only used fuck once in a post that wasn't just quoting a title or a line from a movie: this complaint about the Raise the Red Lantern DVD. Apparently, I decided not to censor myself over that, but I generally do otherwise. Because poor quality DVDs are a blight on society.

Miss Austen Regrets is probably better than Becoming Jane, but I still get this feeling that it's still a tarted up version of her life. I could always just ask my Janeite friend, but I prefer to just assume. I liked Olivia Williams, but Imogen Poots (heh) and her face bothered me immensely. I didn't realize there was a big gap in the Complete Jane Austen, as it's still a couple weeks before the next new one. So rewatching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice is my next goal.

Also, 400th post. Yayz.

Flowers of Shanghai, Vengeance Is Mine, & Late Autumn

Flowers of Shanghai is based on an Eileen Chang story, who also wrote the story that Lust, Caution is based on, about brothels in China in the early 20th century. It stars (the good) Tony Leung and Carina Lau, along with Michelle Reis (from both City of Lost Souls and the extremely excellent Fallen Angels, and who proves, again, just how hot miscegenation can be) and weirdly, besides Reis (from Macao), you have a mainlander, a Taiwanese, and a Japanese woman playing the main prostitutes in the film. It's directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou, who also did Café Lumière, Millenium Mambo, and Three Times, turns in another very good film, full of long takes, gorgeously red cinematography, and stunningly beautiful shots.

Vengeance Is Mine is a Shohei Imamura film, director of many films I like a lot, about a thief who just starts to kill for no real reason and then goes on the lamn in 1963-1964 Japan. And it covers his completely messed up family life. Really, really messed up. Ick. But it was a twisted film, with some surprising violence, fine acting, jumping around in time, and a sense of hopelessness that clearly reflects the Japan of the late 70s.

Late Autumn is another Ozu film, again starring Setsuko Hara, and is a remake of Late Spring, with Setsuko playing the mother rather than the daughter in this one. It's basically the same as the other Ozu, quite good, but not different enough for me to really place above or below the others. Even if this one is in color.

Company, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, & Justice League: The New Frontier

Company was a filmed performance of the revival of the Steven Sondheim musical starring Raul Esparza, who's been in a couple Pushing Daisies episodes (and makes me want them to burst into song even more on that show). It's about a 35 year old single guy in New York and 10 of his friends, all couples, and how he tries to come to terms with his life. It's full of the typical lyrically and musically complex Sondheim songs, although this is far less about plot than most of the others. It's very much a series of scenes that illuminate character rather than plot. It's an interesting way to go about it, even if it isn't as good as Into the Woods or Sunday in the Park with George (two Sondheim musical posts and two gratuitous swipes at Andrew Lloyd Sewer... three posts and three gratuitous swipes), but maybe I'll need to watch it in a few years when I'm a lonely 35 year old.

The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is a gay man's view of fashion. And since it's in mid-70s Germany, it's hideous. And boring. And I hated it. Don't know why I keep thinking that Fassbinder will be not annoying. I just don't like long gay films. Sorry all for even writing this. I should have known better.

Justice League: The New Frontier made me scoff too much. But since I'm reading The Right Stuff, the talk of test pilots and the pyramid and driving crazily in the middle of the desert just made me think of that. The cast was impressive, even if some were not particularly good (I hated Sisto as Batman, and I don't like this Batman very much, although the slight suggestion that he's having sex with Robin made me happy), but the main thing was just how much I had picked up from reading comics in the last year. I still haven't read any of the big superhero comics, but I've read things like The Watchmen and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, so I had some familiarity with the basic history of comics. But the bonus features on the disc more than made up for the short running time of the movie, a history of the Justice League over the various ages of comics. The movie itself had some good ideas, but was pretty hokey. What you'd expect in a big budget direct to video animated superhero movie.

Zoo, So Goes the Nation, & Jesus Camp

Zoo is a semi-documentary, in that it's based on interviews with participants, but is almost entirely reenactments of what happened. And what happened was horse sex. Horses having sex with men. And one disturbing reference to a pony blowing a larger horse. What the hell bestiality proponents? That's just completely messed up. I let a lot of crazy stuff go when it comes to sex, but there are just some things that I will never, ever be ok with: animals, children, and scat. Doesn't mean I'm into all the rest, but man, those three just are so damn icky. This didn't feel at all like a documentary, as the reenactments and ridiculous lighting just felt like affectations.

So Goes the Nation is the surest way to get me extremely pissed off. Damnit, USA, why did you have to screw up so much? And why didn't Kerry fight back at all instead of being a worthless candidate? We could have had a President Edwards. I would have loved that. The movie itself wasn't particularly enlightening, even as it was strange to see places I've been and some people I knew from volunteering for the Kerry campaign back then. Maybe in a few years I wouldn't be so pissed about it all, but that's not really likely. As disappointing as the 2000 election was, that the country decided to go even further down the path of mindless fear in 2004 is the biggest disappointment in my political experience. That it happened in Ohio, and that I was volunteering there before moving to the District just made me realize I could and would have been one of those crying in Ohio rather than where I was, crying in NYC.

Jesus Camp is scary. Why must we torture our children by forcing them to believe anything? I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher and he had that drunken lout Christopher Hitchens (who I saw once) on and were discussing just how often people changed religions from what they were raised. Watching these kids raised to be crazy Christians made me wish that they would grow into a healthy skepticism before they turn 18 and can vote. Because otherwise, some states are screwed.

Images, A Wedding, Exiled, Rocket Science, & Mansfield Park

Images & A Wedding are two more Altman films. And are the last two I plan on watching for quite some time. I need to rewatch The Player just to remind me that he is a great talent. Because these two were just messes, although Images had some interesting ideas, A Wedding was just a typically messy version of a film done by many others, this one a wedding that goes crazy, with some extremely flippant jokes about the death of characters. They didn't bother me much, or at least they wouldn't have if they hadn't just reminded me of all the other messy Altman films I've watched over the past couple weeks. So I just wanted to say that I added a bunch of Altman films at once, and then put a foreign film in between (they were all Japanese except for the next film). And I didn't like any of the Altman films. Such a disappointment.

Exiled is Johnny To, being extremely stylish, with Anthony Wong and Simon Yam being their normal awesome selves, about a group of friends who grew up in a triad together, two of which were sent to kill one of them, and the other two were sent to protect him. And then they go off on some adventures, being awesome and stylish all over Macao. I'm not sure about a bit in the final scene, but the rest of it was very enjoyable. To is basically the best action director working today. Can't do a lot of other things, like make a sensible plot, but the action scenes are wow.

Rocket Science is all about high school debate. It features a boy with a stutter who is picked to be a member of the debate team by a girl (who MBG was all about as "hot debate girl" (and is 22, although still a little disturbing for me)), and then does terribly, trying many different ways to overcome the stutter. And it features a hilarious Steve Park as the Korean judge who sleeps with the mother of the main character. Just quite awesome. I didn't like it nearly as much as MBG, but it was an enjoyable way to spend the time.

Mansfield Park is the next Austen adaptation from Masterpiece, being the last 90 minute one, again trashing a perfectly good novel, although it isn't as bad as Persuasion or as good as Northanger Abbey, at least some of this is a result of there being no good Northanger Abbey before, and a very good Persuasion. The BBC miniseries from the 80s is apparently good, but the earlier movie (about which I wrote when I saw it in 2004: "Mansfield Park was an interesting Jane Austen adaptation. Very clever, lots of great lines, and there were some nice touches I didn't expect from the movie. Like sex, and some very anti-slavery drawings. A surprise that I liked it? Hell no. I'm the Jane Austen fan in my generation. And Frances O'Connor wasn't too unattractive to look at.") wasn't entirely an adaptation of the book. Although this was an adaptation, I didn't care for Billie Piper as Fanny Price or basically anyone, except for Blake Ritson as Edmund Bertram. Well, I actually didn't even like him, as he was a little emo for the time period. My Austen-ite friend describes this version as a "just slap and a tickle in fancy Regency dress". Basically sums up the movie far better than I have. Anyway, there's only one more new Austen adaptation, Sense and Sensibility, but I have the Austen biography and rewatching Pride and Prejudice (because damnit, I love that so much) and Emma (with Beckinsale being far better than Gwynneth ever could) before that.

Kill!, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, & Hyperculture

Kill! is based on the same novel as Sanjuro (about which I wrote "Sanjuro was good, but not as good as Yojimbo. It was funnier, but a little too preachy. Still, a mediocre Kurosawa film is better than the best of most other directors. The ending blood was completely out of character for the movie, but it was ok." when I saw it back in 2003), and was directed by Kihachi Okamoto, who also did Sword of Doom. This was pretty funny, but not nearly as good as Sanjuro. Mainly due to the two leads not being Mifune and Nakadai, the two best actors of their generation in Japan.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (no, I didn't rewatch the movie, I read the novel) is a book by Dai Sijie, who was sent to be reeducated, and ended up going to France to write this novel in French, which was then translated into English. So this was doubly translated, although once by the author himself. The story was still heartbreaking, although the added bit about the Three Gorges Dam wasn't from the book, but it probably needed a little extra due to the lack of that much movie in the relatively short book. It certainly could have worked, but it needed an ending. It could have ended like the book, but that's not going to bring the kind of closure that most movie goers expect.

I also wrote up the Hyperculture exhibit at the Kennedy Center, so if, for some reason, you read this blog, but not that blog, this is my time to tell you to read that one. It has robots, koi, polka-dots, and me almost falling asleep in public.

And, for those who care, apparently the Edison Chen sex scandal may be over, just like the writer's strike! Boo-yay!

Yakuza Graveyard, Samurai Rebellion, A Perfect Couple, O.C & Stiggs, Northanger Abbey, & No Country for Old Men

Yakuza Graveyard is actually not the film I thought it was. I got it confused with Graveyard of Honor, a different Yakuza film directed by Kinji Fukasaku, and remade relatively recently by Takashi Miike. This one actually felt like a slightly restrained Miike film, full of yakuza and half-breeds who don't fit in, although this one only had female characters who are basically gangsters, druggies or whores. Or all three! Miike tends to have slightly more developed female characters. Only slightly, and they really depend on the film. Meiko Kaji, she of The Yakuza Papers (an earlier Fukasaku series of films about the problems with both the yakuza and related police corruption), the Lady Snowblood films, and the Female Prisoner Scorpion films, is the main female, but she really doesn't get that much to do. I vastly preferred The Yakuza Papers, which had a far greater sense of history and scale, although this one dealt interestingly with the economic reality of mid-70s Japan and police involvement in the Yakuza. So, while it was interesting, it didn't grab me as much as I would have wanted.

Samurai Rebellion was directed by Masaki Kobayashi, director of Kwaidan and Harakiri, and all around anti-Samurai man. This one is again about the corruption of the Samurai culture, like Harakiri, except that this is more about moral corruption, as the mistress of a Lord who has had his son is forced to marry the son of a great swordsman. When the lord needs to marry her to make the son the official heir due to the death of his other son, she's kidnapped and the son and the father must decide whether to fight or allow the woman the son loves to be taken from him. Of course, the main point is that Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai have a swordfight. Which makes the film, no matter what else is in it, it's worth it for that scene. That the rest of the movie is quite excellent is just a bonus.

A Perfect Couple is another late 70s Altman film after Quintet, although it's considerably better. Altman really doesn't do romantic comedy well, and this one is quite fluffy, with long musical interludes of a terrible (and I mean terrible) soft rock band breaking up a weird story of an older antique dealer who falls for a backup singer for the aforementioned band through a computer dating service. It's also very strange to see Dennis Franz in a very early role as Paul Dooley's brother and Henry Gibson (so much a one of those guys guys that I actually had to look him up because I couldn't remember what his name was). Ebert's review is actually fairly accurate (except for his saying the music wasn't terrible), as it was just all over the place, which works in some Altman films, but not this one, as pretty much any scene with the band was painfully bad.

O.C. & Stiggs has an interview with Altman saying that of all his movies, this one was watched most often (or nearly the most, I can't quite remember) at his place when he had friends over. He said that he wasn't sure whether people were more likely to laugh at or with the film. Considering the film isn't very funny, it's far more likely to be that they were laughing at it. It's a horrible mess, an unfunny "teen comedy" with bizarre Vietnam analogies and a ridiculous plot that doesn't make sense even after it's explained.

Northanger Abbey is, in my opinion, the new best version of Northanger Abbey, altough, based on the previous version I saw, that wouldn't be very hard. This one, though, was quite good and captured the ridiculous humor of the novel, even if it suffers from the same trimming of the other new Austen adaptations. Northanger Abbey is, by far, the funniest Austen work, mocking the horrible clichés of gothic novels with the humor that only shows flashes in most of her works, but here is almost constant. Felicity James is an outstanding Catherine Morland, and JJ Fields as Henry Tilney is the most perfect Austen hero. Well, Darcy is still the best, but Tilney is quite good, because of lines like "Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again." I like Andrew Davies's decision to use Jane Austen's voice to help fill in the vast parts of the novel that needed to be cut for the 90 minute running time. As much as I love Pride and Prejudice, I have to say that Northanger Abbey was the most enjoyable Austen to read.

No Country for Old Men is the best film I've seen so far that came out last year. It also moves into number 3 on my list of best Coen brothers films, behind Miller's Crossing and The Big Lebowski, and just ahead of Barton Fink. Javier Bardem, as Anton Chigurh, is the most evil person in a Coen brothers film, and possibly the most evil person in a film. Just irredeemably evil, and watching the slightly normal people react to him is a lot of the humor, although Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald (who knew she could play a Texan?), Tommy Lee Jones, and Garret Dillahunt were all outstanding. Josh Brolin was ok, but his character just doesn't have the same punch that just about every other character in the film has. It really is just a darkly hilarious film, gorgeous in a dirty sort of way, and a depressing view of society. And, of course, they shot the dogs.

Quintet, Persuasion, & Never Let Me Go

Quintet is a 1979 Altman film, after his early 70s successes and before his late career resurgence. And thus, the fact that it's about a dystopian future where the human race is suffering through a new ice age and play a game of divided loyalties called Quintet, and you have a recipe for failure. And that's just what I got. Confusing as hell, I basically gave up midway through and stopped paying nearly as much attention to it as I could have. Not should have, because the movie didn't deserve it.

Persuasion is the first movie of the new Jane Austen adaptations shown on Masterpiece (apparently, the Theatre part of the title was just too much?). And while I liked Anthony Stewart Head as Sir Walter Elliot, most of the rest of the cast was not good. And cutting down a novel to a sub-90 minute movie just meant that actual characterization was sacrificed. And, as is usual for Austen, there was an extremely good version done in the mid-90s by the BBC. Probably my favorite two-hour version of an Austen novel. This one has a very weak Captain Wentworth, and some very un-Austen-y things, like running through Bath without a hat on. No one does that. Well, no one did that back in the early 1800s.

Never Let Me Go is Kazuo Ishiguro's most recent book, after the supremely excellent Remains of the Day, and the less good When We Were Orphans. I remember reading about it when it came out and thinking that it was sort of an Alice in Wonderland in a weird dystopian future with organ harvesting or something. I think that's slightly misleading, as it seems to be a weird science fiction-y present where cloning started soon after World War II, and there's a whole generation of children who were cloned entirely to provide organs for others. It's a pretty sad book, like Ishiguro's others. So much of what I watch, read, and come into contact with just leads to sadness. I really blame my intelligence for this. If I were stupider, things like Dan Brown novels and Jerry Bruckheimer movies wouldn't make me sick, they'd make me wonder just how they were able to put that much into a novel or movie. Instead, I'm stuck knowing they're crap and then looking for deeper things, and that way leads to depression. Which I've been getting significantly better at avoiding in the past couple years, but there are still things that just are extremely upsetting to me.

Children of Men, Casanova, & Infernal Affairs II & III

Children of Men is a little religious-y for my tastes, but it's also an outstanding film. Clive Owen is very strong in the lead, but the real star is Alfonso Cuarón's direction. The three long takes, during the first car chase/battle, the birth, and the final assault on the apartment complex are quite amazing. So much so that I was a little disappointed to read that the two battle scenes were not done without cuts.

Casanova begins my little very recent scandal minifest. Completely unintentional. I had no idea that Heath Ledger was going to die when Casanova hit the top of my queue. It's fluff. Utter, utter fluff, but it's got a cast of great actors. Well, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt, and Lena Olin. And man is Lena Olin gorgeous. She's 50 in this film, and holy crap, she is hot. Sienna Miller is attractive, and Heath Ledger is very passable, but the move depends on Irons, Platt, and Olin. I watched it on Blu-Ray on my new 42" 1080p LCD. It looked very pretty.

Infernal Affairs II & III are the second and third films in my recent scandal minifest. For those of you who haven't heard, apparently, Edison Chen is a little bit of a dick. And now, I've seen his. And more of Cecilia Cheung than I ever would have expected. I mean, except in my wildest dreams. Ever since I first saw her in King of Comedy, the quite excellent One Nite in Mongkok, and the only watchable for her Lost in Time, I have wondered what she looked like naked... well, I wonder no longer, as a few days ago, photos leaked to the net that Edison Chen took of him having sex or just naked pictures with Cecilia Cheung (who is clearly at least a little drunk), Bobo Chan, and Gillian Chung. Apparently, he sent his computer and phone in to get serviced and the pics were taken and then uploaded. There is also a video and photos of Maggie Q and maybe some other actresses, but those haven't leaked, as far as I know. Yep, you can go find the pics online if you want to see it. Of course, this is enormous in Hong Kong, as they're fairly famous, but of course, this isn't big news in the US yet. I, unlike a lot of people out there, do not blame the women at all. It's clearly Edison's fault, for being an idiot. You should know that you never, ever, ever send a computer with naked pictures off to get serviced. Seriously, just a dick move there. And ruining these women's career's is enough for me to hate you forever. So you better hope that it doesn't happen, Edison, because I will make sure you never work again. Anyway, Infernal Affairs II & III have Edison Chen as the young Andy Lau. So that's my rough link to that scandal. Infernal Affairs II is the prequel, and III is the sequel, both of which have parts that were included in The Departed. II is far weaker, and III is actually pretty good. I just really didn't like what they did in II, as I knew what was going to happen and Chen and Shawn Yue were not nearly as good as Andy Lau and Tony Leung. If you are interested, watch Infernal Affairs I & III. Skip two.

Actually, the entire post was more about making a post that will get hits forever, because I've mentioned hot Asians, naked, and Heath Ledger. Google hits, here this post comes!

Bubble, Heading South, Cloverfield, Triad Election, Voices of a Distant Star, She and Her Cat, The Descent, Mouchette, & Life on Mars? series finale

Bubble is Steven Soderbergh messing around with HD on an extremely low budget. Which is really obvious from the film, with completely inexperienced and bad actors in it. It's filmed in Belpre and Parkersburg, West Virginia. There was a brief period of time where I considered applying for a job at the Bureau of the Public Debt in Parkersburg, and then I was told never to work there unless you are married and have a family. Because Parkersburg is horribly boring. West Virginia in general is a state I prefer to avoid, but I had to drive through a lot, and so I became familiar with the interstates. And while the scenery was occasionally very nice, it's certainly no better than Virginia, or rural Ohio, or Pennsylvania, all states I have far fewer problems with. But apparently, Parkersburg does have black people, so that's a bonus I wasn't expecting. Anyway, bad acting, a boring story, and the only good thing is that it was only 73 minutes long. Even at that length, I was bored.

Heading South is set in Haiti in 1978, at a resort for older white women who have sex with younger black men. It was probably a movie my parents liked more than me, and looking, yep, they did. I guess that Charlotte Rampling was good, but I just didn't care about the characters. I didn't see myself in any of them at all.

Cloverfield probably was a better idea than execution. The plot holes were big enough to drive an enormous monster destroying New York through, let alone that I didn't want any of the characters to live. So I guess the film was ok from that aspect, but the shaky cam just made me horribly sick. But yeah, its immense opening weekend was at least partially due to me. Sorry everyone.

Triad Election is the sequel to the quite good Election, set two years later, and just as effectively mocking the Triads, although I think this one is better. Not much more to add than that, because I recommend it.

Voices of a Distant Star is a 25 minute anime film done in seven months almost entirely by one guy, Makoto Shinkai (who currently works for an eroge company making opening films). Based on the talent he shows here, maybe I should check those out. You know, for research purposes. No, really, he's pretty talented, and the short is the heartbreaking story of two junior high school friends/more who are separated by the need for the girl to go into space and fight aliens in a giant mecha suit and they keep in touch by sms which takes longer and longer to get back to earth due to the traveling through space thing. So sad, and so freaky to think that we will eventually start having to worry about how long it takes for messages to travel, even as the delay on satellite feeds now drives me crazy. If anyone wants to know why I will never leave this planet unless I have to, that's why. Because I need my messages to arrive immediately.

She and Her Cat is a short five minute piece also done almost entirely by Makoto Shinkai and included on the same DVD. It's about a cat falling in love with his owner and well done.

The Descent is a slickly done caving horror film. And through the beginning of it, all I could think was that that was a bad idea from a safety standpoint. Yes, I'm a caving nerd. I had problems telling a few of them apart, especially after they got all dirty. But it's very effective, and Neil Marshall shows that Dog Soldiers wasn't a fluke, and that he knows horror well enough to not just fall into the tired old tropes all the time.

Mouchette is another Robert Bresson film about people who don't fit within society, this one about a 14 year old girl who is the daughter of a dying mother and a drunken bootlegger. Unfortunately, I felt like Bresson just put all the things in the film without ever really trying to show any empathy for the characters. Lots of bad things happen, and there doesn't seem to be any real point to it all.

I also, this weekend, watched Infernal Affairs, The Departed, and The Wizard again. One of these three is not like the other. And the first two were just as good as the first time I saw them. The Wizard was another of my childhood memories ruined. Did make me want to play Super Mario Brothers 3 again. I want to praise Life on Mars? as an excellent show. And fear for the David E. Kelley written remake that may appear on TV when the writers' strike is over. The only thing that could have made it better was if BBC America didn't have to edit the shows to fit in commercials.

Waitress, Fighter, The Firemen's Ball, & Red Angel

So I moved the weekend of the 5th, and thus I've been very slowly putting things away, working very hard, and being social. That being social has severely limited my ability to actually watch movies. And thus, from Friday the 4th to January 14th, I only watched four movies. And three of them were over the last two days of that. Pretty much for eight days, I watched no movies. Probably the longest stretch in... man, maybe in my memory. Although that would include rewatching movies which I used to do often. But I didn't watch any movies at all for eight days. And I only felt bad when I saw the three Netflix movies next to my TV, because I was thinking, Netflix is finally not losing money on me. I'll get them back for that though. Unfortunately, I don't feel like writing a lot about the films. I generally liked all of them, although none were quite as good as I was hoping.

Waitress is a minor little film, although enjoyable. And not just because of my enormous man crush on Nathan Fillion. Keri Russell wasn't annoying, and Andy Griffith was funny. It's a shame that Adrienne Shelly was murdered, because she clearly has some talent. And man, the food porn... (Homer gurgling noise)...

Fighter is the first in a little Czech filmfest. Well, this one isn't Czech, it's an American documentary about two Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia going back to Europe to go see a lot of the places that are connected to their war time experiences. Their actual experiences are fairly similar to many other documentaries and stories, but what makes it interesting is the interplay between the two survivors, who are pretty different, having many personality conflicts.

The Firemen's Ball is Milos Forman's last film in Czechoslovakia before he came to the US, and this was a short comedic film about a dinner and lottery going horribly wrong. The petty corruption, thievery, and infighting are clearly metaphorical for the Communist party. Pretty much everywhere, the party becomes corrupt. Although really any bureaucratic group of sufficient power will eventually become corrupt. Anyway, it's not as good as Loves of a Blonde, and certainly not as good as his American films.

Red Angel is depressing as hell. It's about a Japanese nurse who gets sent to China during the Sino-Japanese War. She gets raped, tries to do the right thing, and then feels guilty over the death of many of those she's close to. It's really horribly sad. Almost unwatchably a downer. I felt pretty crappy watching it, because I was rooting for the Japanese soldiers to live, when I knew that these were the same people who were responsibly for countless atrocities at the time the movie was set. So it would be a twinge of guilt at my feelings, until that character died. And then I felt another twinge after realizing how I felt.

Love Liza, Factotum, The Double Life of Veronique, Music & Lyrics, & 3:10 to Yuma

Love Liza has a good performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman. Wait a second. It has a performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman. Therefore it has a good performance from him. As for the rest of the movie, I didn't entirely care for it, being not a fan of huffing fumes or radio controlled planes. The raw emotional film made me feel uncomfortable throughout most of it. So I can appreciate it, but I didn't like it nearly as much as I should have.

Factotum actually fits well with Love Liza. I just couldn't understand why Chinaski just couldn't try to conform a little. I know that's the point, but man, he needed a kick in the ass. Maybe I enjoy society a little too much to read and/or enjoy Bukowski. Good performances, in the service of another largely pointless film. Largely, as Marisa Tomei (she of the undeserved Oscar for My Cousin Vinny (still a film I utterly love and watched again this weekend)) is topless, as is Lili Taylor.

The Double Life of Veronique is a typical Krzysztof Kieslowski film about moral choices and coincidences, this one about two women, one named Veronique in Paris, and the other Weronika in Warsaw. Of course, they're deeply linked, and a strong performance from Irene Jacob ties the film together extremely well. And as typical for Kieslowski, I loved it. In this particular case, the Weinsteins asked to add in a couple extra scenes, included on the Criterion DVD (Have I mentioned how much I love them? Because I do), which are really unnecessary, unless you can't connect the clear trend of the film until the original end. If you can't figure out how the next couple of minutes would go without the scenes, you haven't paid any attention.

Music & Lyrics is a trifle, but Hugh Grant is eminently watchable. And how can you ever complain about Aasif Mandvi? Of course, it wasn't much of a plot, but the music (a lot by Adam Schlesinger, who makes pop music for movies that is far better than it has any right to be) and the likable cast made me not regret it at all. If you don't actually want to spend the 96 minutes to watch the entire film, you owe it to yourself to watch the video for PoP! Goes My Heart. Especially if you love utterly absurd 80s videos, of which this is a completely perfect parody.

3:10 to Yuma is the 1957 film that James Mangold just remade. The central performances from Glenn Ford (as the almost psychotic Ben Wade) and Van Heflin (as the honest but poor Dan Evans) are what elevates this film to more than its basic plot. And it's absolutely horrendous theme song. I didn't like the ending very much, although I'm not sure how else it could have ended in the days of the Hays Code. And I loved the sex scene. The horrible repression that led to that scene is why this country has this idea of the 50s as a clean time. Damnit, the bartender had sex with the leader of the gang after just a brief time. That's not a more innocent time than now. It's the same as it ever was.

Rock Band post

I normally would have posted this post about my experiences with Rock Band here, but I figured that considering it was asked for there, I would post it there. I am not sure if anyone doesn't read that and does read this, but anyway, go read that post. And realize it may be one of the nerdiest things I've written ever. In like a week.

Also, in other PS3 news: Everyday Shooter is awesome, as is Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. Assassin's Creed is quite fun for a while, but some of those informer missions are just annoying as hell. I am waiting (im)patiently for Little Big Planet. And for more good Rock Band DLC. And Gran Turismo 5 and for the Final Fantasy XIII games, all soon to come in 2009ish. If I'm lucky.

This Is England, Eastern Promises, Army of Shadows, An Unreasonable Man, & Flags of Our Fathers

This Is England is a movie about Neo-Nazis in England in 1983. Directed by Shane Meadows, who also directed Once upon a Time in the Midlands, which some people seemed to enjoy far more than me. This one is far better, a bitter tale of growing up when you don't fit in, and trying to find a place. It's full of great performances from people I hadn't heard of, and a truly menacing performance in the Russell Crowe role (see Romper Stomper) from Stephen Graham. And I would have gone after Smell just like Shaun did. Well, probably not as forwardly, as I tend to be far shyer than he was.

Eastern Promises features the longest nude fight scene I've seen outside of porn. So if you ever want to see Viggo Mortensen's naked, tattooed, and bloody self sticking pointy objects into two thugs, see Eastern Promises. Naomi Watts is once again absolutely perfect, and Vincent Cassell and Armin Mueller-Stahl made a threatening pair of Russian mafioso. Cronenberg made another great film, once again proving that he's one of the best directors currently working. He builds tension well, and films violence more effectively than anyone else making "major" Hollywood films. I do wish, very much, that he had accepted the chance to direct Return of the Jedi. Imagine the Ewoks replaced with Brundleflies. That would be completely awesome. If only.

Army of Shadows is number five in my list of nearly or perfect Jean-Pierre Melville films. A.k.a., I've seen five Melville films. This one is about the day to day work and fears of the French Resistance. It has Jean-Pierre Cassel, father of Vincent, for a nice little link. It's long, episodic, and depressing as hell. Who thought that a movie made by two survivors of the French Resistance would be ultra-realistic? And yet, there it is, probably the best film ever about the French Resistance.

An Unreasonable Man just makes me want to punch Ralph Nader in the head. Repeatedly. And his asswipe apologists. And I could have, had I lived in my current place back in the 1970s, because it's just a couple blocks from the Public Citizen headquarters. Man, I have more respect for Nader the activist (i.e. pre-1990) than Nader the egomaniac (post-1990). He singlehandedly cost this country everything that has gone wrong since 2000. Which is a hell of a lot. A President Gore... goddamnit. It just gets me more pissed off than almost anything else you could possibly do. For someone to do so much good in this world, and then piss it all away because he's such a friggin' egomaniac is painful.

Flags of Our Fathers has a great cast, including Chris "Frank Sobotka" Bauer, Neal McDonough, Robert Patrick, Melanie Lynskey, Jon Polito, Barry "Human Animal" Pepper, Ryan Phillippe, Jamie Bell, and Jesse Bradford. All of whom I love at least one thing that they did, or, in the case of Jon Polito, almost everything he has ever done. It's very well-made, but it really needs to be a little less facile. Oh, wait, it's written by Paul Haggis, that hack. I need to see Letters from Iwo Jima. It's definitely doing something different for an American war film. I don't think I've seen a war film that approaches actual fighting from the Japanese side. Films that take place during the war, yes. I need to watch my damn Janus films because I own Fires on the Plain. I seem to say this pretty often.

Like Water for Chocolate, Bender's Big Score, All the King's Men, Christmas in July, Naked, & The Up Series

Like Water for Chocolate is a movie that was given to my parents back on VHS (one of the very, very few they ever were given, since they never purchased them, and, as far as I know, they've never purchased a DVD either), but I never watched. I have remedied that. Magical realism is a soft spot of mine, and lots of food preparation just made it even more interesting to me. The copious nudity didn't hurt either. I just didn't connect with the film as much as the parts suggested I should.

Bender's Big Score is a Futurama movie. If you don't think that the show was consistently the best animated TV show ever, then you're plain wrong. It took the best of the Simpsons, and added insanely geeky references (just watch the half hour long math lecture included on the DVD for the proof), and extremely effective pop culture satire, and just made extreme hilarity a constant feature. I utterly loved it. Of course I wanted more, and the next three films will have to do, but why the hell did Family Guy, that unfunny piece of crap (one of my favorite gags was the Family Guy calendar advertising 12 jokes a year), come back, while Futurama was so royally screwed throughout almost its entirely too short broadcast time? I also wasn't expecting nearly the amount of nudity I got from the movie. And I wasn't the one who brought up the fact that Amy Wong is cute. All this comes down to is how much you can ignore the blase decapitations and just enjoy Zoidberg, Farnsworth, Nibbler, and Bender doing their thing for 80 minutes, with cameos from just about everyone cool from the show. And Hanuka Zombie. Voiced by Mark Hamill.

All the King's Men is another version of one of the greatest American novels, by Robert Penn Warren. The 1949 movie version was excellent, with Broderick Crawford a mesmerizing Willie Stark. Sean Penn and James Gandolfini, among almost every other major actor in this film, can't even keep their accents the same throughout each scene. It's long, it's unnecessary, but I've seen it now. On a scratched Blu-ray disc. If you absolutely cannot read the book, see the earlier version. Avoid this one like the plague. I object to movies that aim for greatness and fail miserably far more than movies that aspire to be entertaining and only fitfully succeed.

Christmas in July is Preston Sturges's follow-up to The Great McGinty, and to be followed by a string of comedies over the next four years unsurpassed by a writer-director (The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Hail the Conquering Hero). Unfortunately for me, it was more like The Great McGinty, in that it has moments of brilliance, but ultimately falls a little flat. Partially due to Ellen Drew's poor performance, but also due to a slightly unbelievable plot (a guy enters a coffee slogan contest, and his coworkers convince him he's won, goes out to spend his winnings, marry his sweetheart, and everything has to end happily). Sturges's trademarks are there, with slapstick, ridiculous names, and William Demarest, but the brief movie (only 67 minutes long) never feels like it has time to set.

Naked, on the other hand, is 130 minutes of pain. Not at the quality of the movie, but it's the raw emotion from David Thewlis's performance that makes this uncomfortable film with two pretty anti-women male characters worth seeing. The fairly constant violence against women made me feel icky, and I had to have the subtitles on, due to a low volume sound mix and Scottish accents (Ewan "Spud" Bremner!). I may not have entirely enjoyed the film, but I can heartily recommend it for anyone who wants to see David Thewlis wandering around, abusing women (mostly psychologically), getting beaten up, having philosophical conversations with random people, and generally being an observer of other people's messed up lives.

The Up Series starts out strong, as Seven Up!'s kids say extremely funny (and occasionally classist and racist) things, although Seven Plus Seven is fairly weak, with a bunch of fourteen year olds not the best communicators out there. But the later ones become meditations on fame, relationships, and just how hard it can be to live in world of the late 20th century (and early 21st in 49 Up). I wish that the one kid who ended up working at the BBC had been willing to talk. And it was extremely frustrating to watch Neil spiral into homelessness and mental illness, although he was able to recover. But having no foreknowledge of how they will grow up, have their hopes realized and demolished over the period of 42 years made it heartrending. Seeing marriages dissolve made me feel overly voyeuristic. It's basically actual reality TV, with as little preening for the TV as you never see on reality TV in this country. I can't wait for 56 Up in another five years. I need to know that they're going to be ok. Watching them all over the last couple weeks has suggested that this wasn't a good idea, as there's a fair bit of repetition, with many older clips used to occasionally take the piss out of them, other times showing how they had done just what they expected.

Last Orders

Back on October 31, 2002, I wrote this on my thankfully long gone blog: "We watched Last Orders tonight. That and Gosford Park basically had every single famous English actor currently working. This one had Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, Bob Hoskins, David Hemmings, Ray Winstone, and Helen Mirren (also in Gosford Park, and Caligula, which I haven't seen, because I haven't found it in a video store in the uncut version). It was weird to see David Hemmings as a large man with huge eyebrows, one week after seeing him as the young, dashing Thomas in Blow-Up. I'd say it was weird to see Tom Courtenay again, but I'd only seen two movies he was in: Doctor Zhivago (which was so long I can't remember his character) and Leonard Part 6, of which I thankfully can't remember any. Bob Hoskins, Michael Caine, and Ray Winstone all made movies more recently, and the only major problem I had with Helen Mirren was that she didn't look 70 (the age of her character). That's obviously a backhanded compliment, because she looked her age, which was 55 or 56 when it was made. She was good, just I think it was weird that she had a 50 year old daughter in the film, because it didn't seem physically possible. The movie was excellent, and it makes me want to read Graham Swift's novel. I loved Waterland very much when I read it in 12th grade, and it made me want to go see the fens of England. Here's a hint: think of the flattest land you've ever seen, and then picture it ten times flatter, and you'd get some idea of the fens. There was also a terrible traffic jam when my mom and bro and I were there. We did stop off and see Ely (pronounced EE-lee) Cathedral, which stuck out like a sore thumb. Cambridge is also near there, but there was literally no hills, no nothing for miles around. I have a picture of myself on the side of the road, and I gave it to my English teacher to show her what the fens were like, and she put it up on the wall in the classroom. I doubt it's still up there, but that area was totally flat. Back to the movie: the skipping back and forth in time would be Tarantinoesque if it hadn't been done before, or if it weren't how Swift writes. Another little problem with the film was that they were speaking in heavy working class accents, which made it hard to understand, so we turned on the subtitles. Score another point for DVDs." On December 19th, 2007, I have finally finished reading the book (I only started a little while ago). Not as good a book as Waterland (although a better movie), but I didn't identify with the 70 year olds nearly as much as I did with the young people in love. Each chapter in the book, from single sentence length to multiple pages, is told in first person, with many skips in time, sometimes confusing the timeline initially, but it all fits together in a satisfying way. I also have seen Caligula since then.

Joyeux Noël, High Spirits, & Pootie Tang

Joyeux Noël is a weepy melodrama about the Christmas truce between the Germans and the Scottish and French troops in 1914 on the Western Front. It's effective, but clearly there are extensive liberties taken with history. An anti-war film, all I could think about the entire time was about the best way to break through the lines in 1914. How do you get past the best defensive weapon of the time before there's really any corresponding advancement in offensive weaponry? Clearly the current tactics were not working, and it's amazing that they tried the same things over and over again. Working with smaller forces attacking weaker points would have worked, and did, finally, by the end of the war. You would have thought that mass assaults that decimated the forces would have made them realize that wouldn't work. And that's basically everything I was thinking about for most of the movie. Especially anytime that Diane Kruger wasn't on screen. When she was, it was maybe 90% of what I was thinking.

High Spirits is a Neil Jordan film, who directed the supremely awesome Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, and The Butcher Boy, along with the quite good The Company of Wolves, The Good Thief, Breakfast on Pluto, Michael Collins, and Interview with the Vampire. Basically, I like Neil Jordan, so when I was told that there was an 80s comedy with Peter O'Toole, Steve Guttenberg, Jennifer Tilly, Peter Gallagher, Beverly D'Angelo, Daryl Hannah, and Liam Neeson, I had to watch this. And it's just as bad as you'd expect a movie with Steve Guttenberg and a ghostly Daryl Hannah (doing her best Lucky Charms, which brings me to the review on Netflix that includes this: (save for Darryl Hannah as an Irishwoman--doesn't work, but they even purposefully have her lapse out at certain lines for comic effect, which shows they can make fun of themselves), which is so blatantly stupid that it's ridiculous). There are so many things that just don't work in this film that I was amazed that anyone thought it was a good idea. That it was funny in its terribleness is amazing. Just avoid this film unless you are with a lot of people who are very much into watching crap. I do very much want to see Neil Jordan's original cut of the film, especially considering the psychosexual aspects of The Company of Wolves, which this film clearly should have had more of. Also, the special effects were terrible 80s rear projection, models, and some stop motion. And there was the Duke University reference (more info about Duke's importance in Parapsychology here), which always reminds me of Carrie (the novel makes a couple references to Duke University scientists) and the opening of Ghostbusters, with the Zener cards. Of course, Duke no longer has it, but it's still in Durham. Ugh...

Pootie Tang is hilarious. In a good way. Also, what a cast: Bob Costas, Robert Vaughn, Chris Rock, J.B. Smoove, Wanda Sykes, Dave Attell, Laura Kightlinger, J.D. Williams, Jennifer Coolidge, Andy Richter, Kristen Bell (in her first credited performance! and just as hot as she is now), David Cross, Jon Glaser, Rick Shapiro, and Todd Barry. And a gorilla mauling. Plus it's full of good messages for the kids: don't eat sugary cereals, don't drink whiskey, don't smoke, respect women, and watch out for a man with a belt.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies, Pusher, & A Scanner Darkly

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days actually has far less torture than I was expecting: none. Well, there's some keeping up all night, shining a light in their eyes, but considering waterboarding is A-OK (Hi, Mitt and Rudy), that's nothing. It's not clear whether there was any torture of others, although some sounds would tend to suggest that there was some. Certainly none of Sophie herself. The film just basically tosses the viewer in the middle of the war, well after she and her brother and friends have decided to pass out anti-Hitler propaganda leaflets. I would have been interested to see why a seemingly normal Hitler Youth girl decided to be all, Hitler bad, peace good, but that's only obliquely referenced in a couple of lines about the horrors of the Eastern front. I understand that most Germans would know the history of the White Rose, but I would have enjoyed a little more motivation. The final trial scene amazed me, in that these people were allowed to have a trial at all, let alone be so obviously anti-Hitler. Would we really have a trial of terrorists in this country allowing them to speak in public now? Makes me wish we had a little more openness. Yeah, I just Godwined the argument. I lose.

loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies is about the reunion tour in 2004. I think I was getting it confused with The Pixies, which is fine, because MBG has a copy of that. I guess this was interesting, but it was pretty short, and the Pixies in 2004 were nowhere near as good as the Pixies in their heyday. Kim and Frank's voices are far weaker now, although I'm still excited for the new Breeders album next year. Because there are far too few of them, caused by Kim's heavy substance abuse, a constant part of the film. That and Lovering's drug use. And Frank Black not wearing enough clothes.

Pusher is a crappy Danish drug film. Low budget, with some bad acting and it's full of the worst worn out drug movie tropes. And is Danish, therefore it got some positive words (as the first of a trilogy, the latter two of which are no longer in my Netflix queue) on a blog I read, because had it not been in a foreign language it would have been just another crappy drug film. Of which there are too many.

A Scanner Darkly has a soundtrack by Radiohead, and based purely upon that, is an infinitely better film than Pusher. The rotoscoping animation seemed unneeded in most scenes, but when it was used well (to make sure that Winona Ryder's character was topless when she'd never have done so otherwise), it added quite a bit. And it looks fantastic. Anything that Linklater does is worth watching, as he has made two of the most romantic films of all time in Before Sunrise/Sunset. Although I will probably never see The Newton Boys just because I don't want my idea of him ruined. A Scanner Darkly has the three best druggies ever on film (well, ok, in real life as well, but we're missing Naked Bongo Boy) playing drug-addled people. So they do a good job.

Quick little note about my effect on the internet.

A few days ago, I was talking with some friends about the reason I stopped reading Ain't It Cool News, and it comes back to being called an "elitist" and being told to "fuck off" by Harry Knowles in a review he posted. Back in 2003, I saw a sneak preview of Old School, which I didn't particularly care for, but basically said that even though I liked other frat pack comedies of the time, I felt that this one wasn't up to snuff, and felt forced. I wish I had that email easily available, but it's hidden on an old hard drive, and I don't feel like plugging in my old computer for that. Anyway, I felt that I had a reason to write in, because the reviews had been pretty positive on the site, and I had a differing opinion. So I send in the email, and wait a couple of days before I start wondering what's up. The next day, this was posted, and I got my answer. Harry Knowles thinks I'm an elitist. And I think he's an apologist for crap because it has boobies in it.

Jigoku & Imprint

Jigoku and Imprint are two Japanese looks at Buddhist hell. Jigoku is one of the most disturbing looks at hell filmed in Japan I've ever seen, with gore galore in the story of a theology student who flees a deadly car accident and is tormented by guilt. And then people start dying and he has a friend who follows him around and knows his darkest secrets. And then the last forty-ish minutes are him wandering around a stylistically fascinating version of hell, looking far more impressive than the obvious low-budget film should have. Imprint, on the other hand, felt sort of like Miike just trying to be more disturbing than his earlier films. His problem was that he cast Billy Drago as the white man. Billy Drago can't act. In fact, Billy Drago is, without a doubt, the worst single actor I have ever seen in a Miike film. And that includes the porn stars who've been in his other films. Which is a shame, because otherwise I might have cared far more for his horrible fate. But really, his fate is because he's a stupid idiot. The fate of Komomo is the far worse part, being left as a prostitute, and then tortured in a brutal scene that I just couldn't watch. Which, considering that I've been able to watch other Miike movies without much problem (although the sounds in Audition when the man's feet are sawed off are what I will always think of when I hear the word audition), the pins and shibari were truly horrific. That she was in hell, as was the other prostitute (played by Youki Kudoh, who I have a soft spot for due to Mystery Train), is made obvious through the repeated flashbacks. But the incest, abortion, rape, murder, torture are Miike trademarks.