Caseus Archivelox: Insomnia & Last Orders

2002-10-31 - 11:23 p.m.
I just realized that I had forgotten to mention what I did Sunday night to require the taping of Alias. I watched the remake of Insomnia. Now, it's too easy to say that the remake is weaker than the original, but it really was. The acting wasn't noticeably better, and the script left a lot less to the imagination. One of the strong points of the original film was that it was difficult to tell why and whether Dormer (or whatever his name was in the original) killed his partner. And the fact that it all occurs during the bright daytime makes the dark aspects work better. The remake explains too much and the lack of darkness isn't as important. Chris Nolan is an obviously talented director (see Memento), but, in this case, he is working from a lackluster script and he gets bogged down trying to do too much with his cast. And Pacino was coasting. He plays the tired cop too well. That's not to say it wasn't a good movie, but it definitely doesn't compare favorably with the original Norwegian film.

What reminded me of that was that 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.

The stuff about Last Orders was already posted here, but I figured I'd just repost everything.

Caseus Archivelox: The Piano Teacher, Blow-Up, The Magnificent Ambersons, Happy Together, Fallen Angels, Kissing Jessica Stein, & Tape

2002-10-27 - 10:11 p.m.
I then went off to Griffith to watch The Piano Teacher. What the f--- is it with the French and pretentiousness films about sex? Baise Moi, Romance, Fat Girl, and The Piano Teacher. I've only seen Romance and The Piano Teacher, and neither were worth my time. Although now I can say that I've seen an Italian porn star's penis. That's not really something that I am proud of though. I just don't see the point in a movie about a sado-masochistic pianist who lives with her mother. And it didn't have an ending that made much sense. I don't see why the French make pretentious sex movies. And then they get praise or notoriety because of said stuff. I guess we Americans aren't completely immune, as we make a hell of a lot of porn each year and percentages say that some has to be pretentious. Hell, some softcore porn I've seen would fit into that category. As in, it tries to have some deep meaning, but it's really just an excuse to see silicone on screen. But at least most wasn't being raised to some lofty height and being suggested that it said something deep about the human condition. The movie was about Schubert and S&M, nothing more.

I went with Blow-Up and The Magnificent Ambersons. Both excellent movies. Blow-Up would've been better had Antonioni used the Velvet Underground as originally planned, because all I could think of when I saw the Yardbirds was how much cooler it would have been with the VU. Mime tennis is also bizarre. Magnificent Ambersons had my new reply when someone asks me what I want to do with my life: a yachtsman. That sounds like a fun job. Neither movie was particularly happy (I choose to ignore the ending added without Welles's blessing).

I checked the online catalog and went with two Wong Kar-Wai films: Happy Together and Fallen Angels. I started with Happy Together, and it's a very gay movie. Lots of shots of the two main characters in tighty whiteys. It is full of wonderfully Wong Kar-Wai touches: fast-mo, slo-mo, freeze frames in the middle of shots, changing grains, going from black and white to color (much better than in the early version of 13 Days I saw), handheld shots, shakycam, very good use of music, lots of overexposure and very bright shots. I was just thinking that the major problem I had with The Piano Teacher was the masochism. I'm not a masochist, at least not a physical one, and I don't like pain, so I just felt incredibly uncomfortable, and I didn't like when she couldn't suppress her gag reflex. I do, however, seem to pick women who are likely to cause me pain. That's not really relevant to anything though. It was just a great movie. Wong Kar-Wai really knows what he's doing, and Chris Doyle is a perfect complement to his skills. I just checked and he also cinematographer for Liberty Heights (a beautiful movie) and for the as-yet unreleased The Quiet American. I really want to see that.

After that, I watched Fallen Angels, originally to be the 3rd part of Chungking Express. The DVD video quality was much worse than for Happy Together, with lots of obvious grain. The gunfights are staged to be as outlandishly over-the-top as John Woo's, but the plot is much more affecting. And the scene where He falls in love with Charlie is one very cool scene. And it hurts all the more afterwards. I mean, it was such a sad and beautiful movie. So if you're wondering what makes me cry: Fallen Angels. That is just a great movie.

I then went to see Kissing Jessica Stein at Griffith. I guess it was good but my friends and I all saw parts of our families on screen, but we also saw almost every plot twist telegraphed. One reason is that we've seen too many movies, but more likely it's that the movie (with the exception of the lesbian angle and the occasionally unnecessary jump cuts and other weird editing and handheld camera choices) was a fairly run of the mill romantic comedy: two neurotic New Yorkers meet, have some immediate attraction, and then have a series of humorous misunderstandings leading to eventual relationship difficulties and an eventual happy ending for all concerned. The only reason this got so much press (mostly good) was that the two stars wrote it and instead of a male and female lead, it was two women, showing that lesbian chic (postmodernly referenced in the movie by the two boorish men before finally driving Jessica into Helena's arms showing beyond a reasonable doubt (as in beyond the clichéd bad date montage) that men are pigs and that's why many women are driven to lesbianism) is still popular. I'll check and see whether I've put my lesbian vs. gay theory here, but I haven't, so here's the short version: anal sex=dirty, oral sex=clean. Thus, gay men are dirty and lesbians are clean. That and the whole having sex with two women at once thing, but if it doesn't concern the man as a threat to his masculinity and male dominance to have a woman probably pleasuring the other woman more than he can, than they are either supremely gifted or supremely deluded. Anyway, that's part of my rant about gays and lesbians. Also, what was with the hardcore rap song when Jessica and Helena were going at it? That attempt to be edgy worked as well as the bickering gay couple (BGC). Although for different reasons: rap didn't fit the film at all, and the BGC is so clichéd that it has its own sitcom.

I saw he had Tape and wanted to see that more, so we watched the little DV film Linklater did while waiting on the long postproduction for Waking Life. Ethan Hawke was excellent, Robert Sean Leonard (whom I saw on Broadway with Billy Crudup in Arcadia, one of the best performances of a play I've ever seen) was also good, while Uma Thurman was the weak link, if mainly for the fact that her character is strangely distant. There were also a lot of shots of the soles of their shoes. It's not a good idea to drink, smoke pot, and snort cocaine, because it really messes with your judgment. And the DV looked very impressive, with only some problems tracking quick movements betraying the DV rather than film.

Caseus Archivelox: The Lion in Winter

2002-09-30 - 10:07 p.m.
I also watched The Lion in Winter this evening. It has so many, many, many good lines. And such a treat to watch it in letterboxed format. Sweet.

Henry II, King of England: The day those stout hearts band together is the day that pigs get wings.
Eleanor of Aquitaine: There'll be pork in the treetops come morning.

Prince John: Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!
Prince Richard: Let's strike a flint and see.

Let's see Akiva "I hate to disappoint you but my rubber lips are immune to your charms" Goldsman write lines like that.

Caseus Archivelox: Pride and Prejudice

2002-09-29 - 10:51 p.m.
I watched Pride and Prejudice (Editor's note: 1940 version) this afternoon, and was surprised with how much I liked it, especially considering how much I generally despise movies that try to condense books into two hour long movies. However, this was great, although not as good as the 90s miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth (quite simply one of my favorite actors currently working), it was very good, not the least because of the acting of one of the greatest actors of all time, Laurence Olivier. Weird bit of trivia about the movie: screenplay partially by Aldous Huxley. And one line in the movie references the battle of Waterloo, which didn't take place until two years after the book was written. That is, not one, but two weird.

Caseus Archivelox: Anatomy & Maybe Baby

2002-09-21 - 11:44 p.m.
I also watched Anatomy this morning, and have I told anyone that Franka Potente is my favorite German actress since Marlene Dietrich? Well, she is. The movie was really disturbing, because of the large amount of partially dissected bodies on display. Then again, it was a sort of by-the-book slasher film. Still, it was a good by-the-book slasher film, so I recommend it to anyone who likes reading, slasher films, or anatomy.

This evening, we watched Maybe Baby. And I have to say that I fully disagree with what most people on the IMDB say, as it was a very funny movie about a completely inappropriate topic. Not a movie about an inappropriate topic. Rowan Atkinson was hilarious, but when he started to brandish the gynecological instruments, all I could think of was Jeremy Irons doing the same thing in Dead Ringers. Which is sooooo not what you want to think of in a comedy. But it was funny, and I recommend it to anyone who can handle a British comedy about a couple who can't conceive a baby.

Caseus Archivelox: About Adam

2002-09-20 - 10:44 p.m.
I watched About Adam tonight. Kate Hudson wasn't too good. Frances O'Connor was the girl I would have gone for. Stu Townsend not only can't spell Townshend, he picked Kate Hudson over Frances O'Connor. Which is bad. Who wouldn't go after some grad student who's writing a dissertation that probably has very little interest? The movie itself wasn't too bad, nothing too good, but enjoyable, I guess. Movie Addition was About Adam = Belle Epoque + Pulp Fiction, set in The Snapper's Dublin. Which proves that a movie can be much less than the sum of its parts. There was a somewhat short riff on Victorianism and Vampirism, something I touched on somewhat in my Lesbian Vampire paper. I appreciated that.

Cashback, The Last Winter, Winter Soldier, No End in Sight, Night and Fog, Tokyo-Ga, & Paper Dolls

Cashback is the extended feature length version of the short I saw a couple years ago. Now, I don't normally see the short film that longer films are based on first, but I have to say that the film works quite well as an extended version of the short, with added bits not detracting all that much. I thought some of them worked quite well, but really, it's just your typical boy loses girl, boy can't sleep, boy stops time, boy gets job at a supermarket on the night shift, boy falls for checkout girl, boy loses a soccer game 26-0, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy stops time, boy gets girl with creepy stalkery art exhibit, boy stops time with girl. You know, old school romance. But I still liked it. Of course, some of the more explicit shots of female genitalia are darkened in the feature length version, but if you want to see vaginas, the short is also on the DVD, but more importantly, there's this little thing called the internet. Which, as far as I can tell, is for porn.

The Last Winter moves toward the documentary theme that the rest of the movies I've seen in the last couple weeks fit in. It's not a documentary, but it's an environmental horror film, starring Ron Perlman. There are other people in the movie, but who really cares? Global warming has been thawing out permafrost releasing something that starts driving people crazy. Problem is that it takes forever to actually go anywhere. It's just not a particularly effective thriller or anything. Ron Perlman can't save it.

Winter Soldier just makes me more and more annoyed about Vietnam. Seriously, people, if we didn't have Vietnam, this country would be even more messed up, but that doesn't excuse, I don't know, cutting women open for no reason, skinning people, shooting people for no reason, and more atrocities. John Kerry was right, Republicans were wrong, blah blah blah. Look, Americans aren't perfect, hell, for many years, we've been horribly wrong on a lot of things, so stop acting like we're better than everyone else (except maybe at Football). Vietnam was a mess, but we learned valuable lessons that some people in the Bush administration didn't bother to remember when it came to Iraq.

No End in Sight, is of course, one of the best examples of how we didn't learn anything. Not listening to reasonable people, allowing for decisions to be made without any experience on the ground, supporting corrupt people... hmmm, sounds just like Vietnam, eh? It's frustrating to watch people be completely oblivious (or plain lying) about their decisions and how they have led to the current mess in Iraq (and Afghanistan, for that matter). It's even more frustrating to have been right about it ahead of time. As a civilian, I certainly was right about going into Iraq being a terrible thing (you're lucky I'm only reposting my movie reviews from my last blog, because I was full of great vengeance and furious anger throughout most of 2002 and 2003 and 2004 about Bush), but it must feel even worse to have been a member of the administration and not been able to tell your superiors that they're fraking stupid without them just ignoring you.

Night and Fog is a 30-minute-long look at Auschwitz (and other concentration camps) during the war and in 1955. As it's only 30 minutes long, it glosses over things, makes generalizations and the like, but it does have extremely powerful footage and narration about the actual structure of the death camps, and who was responsible. I had no idea it was that short (even after looking at the Netflix envelope), and was extremely confused when it just seemed to end. The lack of in-depth... anything, really, means that it would work perfectly for classroom viewing, but there have to be better ways to cover the Holocaust. Although the enormous amount of documentaries and movies may put the lie to that.

Tokyo-Ga is Wim Wenders (doing his best Werner Herzog impression (and they do sound exactly the same)) going to Tokyo to try to figure out what made Yasujiro Ozu tick but mainly just pointing out how odd Japan was in the 80s. Driving ranges, pachinko parlors, and Japanese people with feathered hair mix with Chishu Ryu talking about his experience with Ozu, Wenders filming kids playing baseball in a cemetary, and, in the strangest scene, a rockabily dance off on the streets. There's also bits where he meets Chris Marker (of La Jetee and Sans Soleil fame) and visits a wax food factory (which was wild). But ultimately, as with most Herzog documentaries, this is less about the ostensible subjects of the film and more about Wenders. I can't recommend it to anyone who isn't a fan of Wenders, Ozu, AND Japan in the 80s, so that really limits people's interest in this film.

Paper Dolls is about a group of people I never knew existed: transsexual Filipino(a?)s who came to Israel to fill jobs that Palestinians used to do before the Intifada caused Israel to close the borders. And they're as mistreated as guest workers in any other country are: if there are any problems or the patient that they're working as nurses dies, they get deported. It's sick. These transsexuals also spend time dancing and lip synching (horribly) in clubs, and part of the plot is that they're trying to put together a show. It would make a much more Hollywood movie if they were great and took the world by storm, but they kinda sucked. And this caused some problems for them, because it just made some of them depressed.

Caseus Archivelox: CQ

2002-09-15 - 5:26 p.m.
I watched CQ this morning, and I really liked it. Made me want to see Danger: Diabolik. However, since I had seen Barbarella, I was fine on the references to that. Jason Schwartzmann was hilarious, Élodie Bouchez was hot, Angela Lindvall was perfectly cast, and the movie-within-the-movie hit the right notes. And it had Billy f---in Zane. I've expressed my admiration for him before, but he was perfect in this. Billy Zane is the ultimate in self-mocking movie stars. I can't remember the last serious movie I saw him in. I guess it would be Titanic, but he was so over-the-top evil that I consider that another comedic role. Titanic sucked. Jeremy Davies wasn't too bad, but his original last name is Boring. He should have kept it. It would add a whole new level to the reviews of his movies: "Twister boring, not Boring". All in all, a fun light film, with a bunch of neat in-jokes. I do recommend watching Barbarella first though. As it makes Codename: Dragonfly more funny than it would be otherwise. Also a good selection of lesser known French New-Wave films would also probably help. Then the other film becomes more funny.

Caseus Archivelox: 24 Hour Party People & Romance

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Caseus Archivelox: Lady in the Lake

2002-09-08 - 11:28 p.m.
Then I watched Lady in the Lake. The first movie done almost entirely in first person. Sort of good, but mainly good dialogue, but the first person thing was sort of crappy. It's neat to see though, because it makes me not want to do that if I ever make a movie. Too disconcerting, and the mirror tricks and "hidden" cuts were sort of disconcerting. From the comment on the front of the IMDB page on the movie: "The lessons I learned from this movie were 1) Only men can handle guns. 2) Having four thumbs is bad. 3) Never, ever tell anyone the time. 4) If you try hard enough, you can drink whiskey through your eyes." Good to know that someone else has a good sense of humor. Montgomery also does a fairly bad Bogart impression throughout the movie, but that's sort of to be expected since it was made so close to The Big Sleep.

Caseus Archivelox: The Blue Dahlia

2002-09-03 - 9:03 p.m.
I taped The Blue Dahlia this afternoon, and I have to say that while I generally prefer darker hair, I'm certainly willing to make an exception for someone who looks like Veronica Lake. Or Grace Kelly. The Blue Dahlia is a Raymond Chandler penned film. So you know it's a twisty story. Too bad it's under the Hays Code. I want my twisty with a touch of trash. However, the dialogue is top-notch.
Alan Ladd: You oughta have more sense than to take chances with strangers like this.
Veronica Lake: It's funny, but practically all the people I know were strangers when I met them.
Really, the ability to write good hard-boiled dialogue and snappy witticisms has gone way downhill since the 40s.

The Bank Job, Never Forever, The Savages, Joy Division, Honeydripper, & The Fall of Fujimori

The Bank Job basically exists for one scene and one scene only: near the end, Jason Statham kicks ass. Sure, the parts before it are a pretty good based on a true story heist film. It's really not clear how much of it is remotely true, and my suspicion is that vast majorities are not remotely true. It's a slick film from a lot of people who have been in the industry for years, plus, huge amounts of gratuitous nudity. Yay?

Never Forever is a film about an American housewife who is married to a bigshot Korean lawyer, but they can't have kids, so she starts having sex with a Korean immigrant so they can have a kid. Of course, they fall in love and complications ensue. Also, Koreans+religion=crazy religious. Weirdly, abortion is portrayed as an acceptable alternative for the baby. Vera Farmiga is weirdly attractive and is topless in many scenes. Other than that, there's really very little to recommend the film to anyone. It's not a bad film, but it wasn't really worth my time. Should've just looked for the naked video clips online and watched Hiroshima Mon Amour. Which is the top of the five movies tagged with Asian Man White Woman Relationship on IMDB. I've seen three of the other four, but there have to be other movies that need this tag.

The Savages is a depressing film about a teacher and his writer sister whose father is suffering from dementia. Acting is good from everyone and really it's just a little too depressing to enjoy at all.

Joy Division is the documentary counterpart of Control. As such, I really knew so much of what was going to happen, recognized video, and few things were remotely new. Still, it's good to finally get the versions of the stories from the people who lived them. I don't think that I need to explain how much I love Joy Division. I'm happy that I don't have to wallow for another 90 minutes in depression for a little while though.

Honeydripper is John Sayles's latest film. Somehow he's gone two years without releasing a new film. Of course, Silver City wasn't all that good. This one wasn't all that good either, although the soundtrack was full of blues and early rock 'n' roll. It's disappointing to think of how he's such a great director, and to see him just make a not worth much film is worse than if it hadn't been a Sayles film.

The Fall of Fujimori is about the former president of Peru, an agrarian engineer son of Japanese immigrants who ended up serving as president for about ten years until he stepped down due to being horribly corrupt. Well, his family disagrees, but he did some good, taking down the Shining Path. He comes across as a guy who is completely disconnected from the reality of what he has done, using a loophole in Japanese law to hide there until after the release of the documentary. Of course, he's since been arrested in Chile and extradited to Peru where he's serving maybe 40ish years? He's had at least four trials, so I think that's right. He's also had to deal with running against his ex-wife in the 1995 presidential election, and his daughter is currently in congress, with his ex-wife a former member of congress (after she lost her title of First Lady (given by Fujimori to his daughter)). Seriously, just a weird story.

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, Rebels of the Neon God, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, & Homicide

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten is a great documentary about him. Starting with his early life, through the 101'ers, the Clash, on to the Mescaleros. Amazing soundtrack (beyond the Clash, there's the Ramones, MC5, Bob Dylan, and more, and I will never tire of hearing Johnny Appleseed), fascinating interviews with famous people (and... Flea... who blames the Clash for creating Red Hot Chili Peppers), and bits of history I never knew (he was dating the drummer from the Slits?), making for a really interesting film, the interviews filmed in front of a campfire, leading to beautifully shot scenes of people talking about how amazing Joe Strummer is. Which, really, if you've ever heard his music, you'd already know.

Rebels of the Neon God and I Don't Want to Sleep Alone are both Ming-liang Tsai films in two different stages in his career. Rebels is his first film, rougher than his much later I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, but honestly, the roughness made me actually enjoy the film much more. Too much of his later films are static shots where nothing much happens. IDWTSA was way too slow, full of shots of people washing dudes who are unable to wash themselves. Rebels, felt fresh, the story of two men rivals for a woman, with a good song played pretty often. It may not be as accomplished a film, but I certainly enjoyed it on a non-intellectual level more than most of his other films.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is probably Cassavetes trying to be somewhat conventional. He fails miserably. It's an odd film, far more concerned with scenes of Ben Gazzara being an awesome strip club owner. Seriously, the film is worth watching if only for the ridiculousness that is the strip club. The rest of it, the gangsters, the gambling, his "black lover", all combine to be a character study of a desperate man driven to extremes, with extra violence. I didn't see the cut version, just watching the original one, but Criterion has both versions in one set.

Homicide is another Criterion DVD, recently released. It's Mamet's third directorial effort, filled with his favorite people, Joe Mantegna, William H. Macy, Ricky Jay, J.J. Johnston, Jack Wallace, and Rebecca Pidgeon (in her first appearance in a Mamet film), along with Ving Rhames in a small role. Mantegna is an assimilated Jewish cop, in the midst of trying to capture a dangerous drug dealer and murderer, stumbles into a murder of an old Jewish woman who used to run guns in Israel during the War of Independence. He gets dragged into a secret Jewish underground which distracts from his job as a cop. As it's a David Mamet film, it's twisty and awesome. Really, everything he touches is either amazing or far better than it should be. This one suffers a bit (just a tiny bit) from me not knowing what the point of the Jewish underground was with Mantegna. But why complain when you have Mamet speak and Ricky Jay speaking Hebrew? Worth waiting for the Criterion DVD. Definitely see this film.

Star Wars and Census Geekery

Assume [sic] all over this post.

Ms. Albright: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/weird/Jedi-Claims-Discrimination-at-Grocery-Store-60020902.html
Ms. Albright: I love our ridiculous world.
me: i believe jedi is an accepted religion in england (Editor's note: There are no accepted religions in England, but it does have a census code.)
Ms. Albright: apparently, the 4th largest. (Editor's note: This is worth it for this press release alone.)
me: more reasonable than catholicism
me: well... neither of them supports pre-marital sex (jedi's don't support any sex, but that isn't something that jedi's would probably acknowledge)
Ms. Albright: no sex? That's terrible.
me: you didn't see the prequels... which is a good thing, but apparently jedi shouldn't form romantic attachments, which is a serious issue since the force is supposedly passed down genetically
me: this all presupposes that the prequels are canon, which I argue is not true
Ms. Albright: Seems pretty ridiculous.
me: describes the prequels perfectly

A few more things

Glee is an odd show. I'm enjoying the trashy high school melodrama bits, but the singing is so earnest that I cringe whenever they start. There's added pain due to the songs... I never needed to hear most of them ever again.

Community is promising, and I have high hopes that it fits in well with The Office and 30 Rock on Thursday nights.

True Blood looks like it's going to a darker place next year (plus, no more Eggs!) with Jessica. Which probably means more Hoyt. Yay!

Also, this is something I should have linked to in my Breakin' review: I am not sorry if you are going to end up singing "My name is Jean-Claude Van Damme. I will dance for you" for the rest of time.

Obsessed, Son of Rambow, Reign of Fire, & TV stuff

Obsessed is a horrendously badtacular movie. Redeeming value? Absolutely none. Cliches abound, bad acting is featured prominently in everyone (even Idris Elba isn't immune), the dialogue is predictable, the final fight scene is telegraphed (wait, what's more obvious than telegraphing... diagrammed) in the first scene. There's one interesting thing in it, Ali Larter roofies Idris, but this never comes up again, even though it would make total sense if she used this to try to prover her insane story. But that would have actually been a good plan, and clearly would have been out of place in this cinematic abortion.

Son of Rambow is about a couple of young kids who try to remake Rambo. There's a weird French exchange student. There's random Brethren action. Jessica Hynes shows up as the main character's mom. It's kinda sweet, but it's not all that good.

Reign of Fire is pretty trashy. It doesn't actually make any sense. Christian Bale is ok, but Matthew McConaughey's beard is terrifying. I like dragons. I don't like this.

The last two podcasts I listened to, This American Life and The Moth, actually have tie-ins to new pop culture events: TAL replayed their story which inspired The Informant! which I really need to see. The Moth played a story from Jonathan Ames, who created Bored To Death which just started on HBO after Curb Your Enthusiasm (which is still funny, but it always takes a bit to get into a new season), and was an odd combination of pot humor and film noir, and just odd enough to keep me interested. Plus, it ended with Halfway Home playing, so good taste.

Batman: Gotham Knight, The Machine Girl, & Rampo Noir

Batman: Gotham Knight is basically a series of short stories about Batman done in an anime style. The first one, Have I Got a Story for You, is a fine story, messing with the Batman mythos, but the animation style is just a very small step above Aeon Flux, distracting me and bugging me until it was over. Crossfire was creepy, and extremely effective. Much better visually, but still not very clear when it comes to plot. This trend is positive, and I liked the rest of them. They're not all particularly good, but they're an interesting twist. I think I'm going to stick with the Paul Dini series when it comes to my animated Batman. I like that this exists.

Rampo Noir is a series of four short films based on stories by Edogawa Rampo, who wrote the stories that Horrors of Malformed Men. These... are pretty much trash. The first one is complete trash, the second less so, the third less so, and the fourth less, but still, why the hell did I sit through the first one? The first story is all silent and has naked wrestling. Completely ridiculous. The second has naked bondage and melty wax sex. Ugh. The third one is about a woman who amputates her husbands arms and legs, puts them in jars, and then has sex with him. Ostensibly this is to keep him out of having to fight in a war. The entire thing somehow was stretched out to 134 minutes. Man, did I regret watching this.

The Machine Girl is a movie with special effects by the guy who did them on Tokyo Gore Police, Suicide Club, Noriko's Dinner Table, and Exte: Hair Extensions. That gives you an idea of how crazy this film is. It's just about halfway between the absolute insanity that is Tokyo Gore Police and Noriko's Dinner Table. Lots of spurting blood, cartoony villains (the main bad guy's wife is comically evil), a tempura arm, drill bra, decapitations, blood soup, a chainsaw foot, many gratuitous panty shots, and the titular Machine Girl who has an arm cut off and replaced with a machine gun. There's a sequel. I need to see it. Along with their new film, RoboGeisha.

Caseus Archivelox: Monster's Ball

2002-08-26 - 9:07 p.m.
I saw a movie that wasn't particularly good tonight. In fact, you might say that it sucked monster's balls. Well, I certainly would. Long, boring, with no characters I cared for. And the sex scene was typical overcutting, out-of or soft-focus crap. If you want an impressive sex scene, watch Bound, the Wachowski brothers' first directorial effort, with an incredible one-shot scene. Anyone can have too much cutting, it takes talent to do an impressive single take. But Billy Bob still sucks, Puff Daddy (oh no, he's going to come and find me and kill me because I used Puff Daddy) can act like I can hammer a six-inch spike through a board with my penis. Not right now, and it's not looking like it's going to happen anytime soon.

Caseus Archivelox: The Road Home

2002-08-11 - 12:00 a.m.
This evening I watched The Road Home directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Zhang Ziyi. Absolutely stunning. And the movie wasn't half bad either. Not a 10 because of having a very thinly stretched plot. At under 90 minutes it shouldn't feel like over two hours, but it did. There was very little action, and there are only so many times I can see Zhang Ziyi run through fields in pig tails. I can't believe I just typed that sentence. I mean, Zhang Ziyi. Pigtails. What the hell was I thinking? Oh well... Maybe it's just bitterness that I've never been the reason for anyone to almost kill themselves trying to see me because I've been taken away for some "political" reason. Maybe.

Caseus Archivelox: The Business of Strangers

2002-08-08 - 10:15 p.m.
I watched The Business of Strangers. Sort of like In the Company of Men after estrogen therapy. I figured out the "plot twists" right after they were set up. Not that they were that hard to figure out. Maybe if I hadn't seen In the Company of Men. One thing that I don't like is showing "porn" in movies that are not porn. It means that it just looks funny (because no porn movie just shows thrusting with no nudity) and is more aural than visual (which is funnier without the visual at all). I fully support the right of people to show more, but I think half-assed porn is silly. Unless it's like Log Jammin' in The Big Lebowski, where they just showed the pre-nudity part of the scene. And then had one of the funniest lines of the movie. "You can imagine where it goes from here." "He fixes the cable?" I need to see that movie again. Damn, that is probably the funniest Coen Brothers movie. I almost ordered a White Russian at the last bar I went to, but I realized I probably wouldn't like it much.

Caseus Archivelox: Signs

2002-08-04 - 11:14 p.m.
I saw (the) Signs. I can't say that I liked The Sixth Sense much, but that may be overhyping. Signs was interesting though. I love alien films, and this was an intelligent alien film. Not perfect, as part of the point of the movie was faith vs. coincidence, and I don't like movies like that much, but I liked the aliens. A little reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead, but with a little more cinematic flair, while NOTLD gets by purely on being perfect in every way. Anyone who has seen both will understand why I link the two, although people who hadn't seen NOTLD would probably need to just realize that people sitting around in a farmhouse waiting for things outside to get them while they watch things on TV happens in both movies.

Another thing is that watching it, I keep wishing that River Phoenix didn't die. He left us with the non-talented, hair-lipped Phoenix. Who I don't like. And he didn't look comfortable swinging that bat. Nor did he look like he could hit a ball 507 feet. And there were other problems with the movie (most of which were with the ending, which I don't want to spoil for anyone), but it was well done, and built tension well, which is why I liked it.

Editor's note: I have since seen Signs again, and it's really not very good.

Patton Oswalt: My Weakness Is Strong, John & Yoko's Year of Peace, & The Beatles: Rock Band

Patton Oswalt: My Weakness Is Strong is funny. Of course it is. It's Patton Oswalt. The censorship from Comedy Central was distracting, and the commercial breaks disrupted the rhythm. Still full of hilarious things.

John & Yoko's Year of Peace is a fairly brief look at John Lennon and Yoko Ono doing crazy things trying to bring peace to the world. Good for them. The movie itself never really gets too in depth, and thus is only of interest for those who need to know lots but little important about John Lennon trying to get some peace.

The Beatles: Rock Band is fun. As an enormous Beatles fan for many years. Most of my earliest memories of sitting and listening to music (LPs!) include things like my dad's folk music, various kids albums (including a certain Sesame Street album with Let It Be on it), and Rubber Soul and Revolver (the American versions because that's what my dad had). My first... well, I probably bought all the Beatles albums before I bought any other CDs, but certainly my first two were Beatles albums. I enjoy playing Rock Band. Therefore, this game was designed for me. Especially because most of the songs are easier than Rock Band itself, so I don't feel as incompetent playing it. It has 45 songs, and only one sucks (I Don't Want You, stupid 7 minute long boring-ass song). So it's 44 songs of awesome. I am looking forward to rebuying even more Beatles music. Because I didn't already do this once. Damnit. At least I could rip my CDs to mp3s so I wouldn't have to rebuy the music then (even if that were possible, which it still isn't). The unheard studio chatter is interesting, the dreamscapes are trippy, and I have more appreciation for some of the less famous Beatles tracks. Not I Want You, because that one still sucks.

The Deal, Persepolis, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, & Redbelt

The Deal is a fascinating look at the rise of New Labor through the pre-Prime Ministerial careers of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Michael Sheen and David Morrissey are outstanding and well worth watching the movie. Maybe not as good of a movie as The Queen, but it was pretty darn good anyway. And for someone who prefers movies about politicians rather than royalty, I gotta say, I know The Queen is a better film, but I would vastly rather rewatch this.

Persepolis is basically the comic in moving picture form. And not like Watchmen, which didn't get the heart of the book, this is true to the comic and is thus as worthwhile. I didn't mention this last year, for some reason, but I did read the comic. It's quite good, an interesting look at the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war from the point of view of a young-ish girl.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a depressing movie about an abortion, but, in this case at least, the abortion itself isn't dangerous. It's the conditions around it, put in place by Nicolae Ceausescu's banning of abortion. All this does is cause pain for the women involved and lead to more crime. Making abortion illegal in order to combat falling birth rates is ridiculous.

Redbelt is a little twisty thriller from David Mamet, but even with an amazing cast (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alice Braga, Emily Mortimer, Ricky Jay, Tim Allen, David Paymer, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, Jennifer Grey, and basically a cameo from Ed O'Neill), it isn't nearly as good as most Mamet. Well, I'm a huge fan, but I don't think the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is all that good of a basis, compared to his normal crime milieu. Just a little disappointing. I think my problem may have been that it was not nearly as twisty as I like my Mamet (although The Winslow Boy wasn't particularly twisty, and I enjoyed that). And that it ended in a huge fight scene... ugh.

Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee, Noriko's Dinner Table, Heroes of the East

Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee is a nowhere near a good movie. Fitfully funny, more of a commentary on racism in Hollywood than Bruce Lee's death and the finishing of Game of Death. And brief and not really worth watching.

Noriko's Dinner Table is a semi-sequel, prequel, and concurrent to Suicide Club. Like that, it was not really that good. Unlike Sion Sono's later Exte, it wasn't ridiculous enough to enjoy. Their were clearly satirical aspects of the film that went over my head, but the movie just went on too long and I really didn't get the whole brainwashing parts of it. If anything, the film makes me like Suicide Club less. Grafting some sort of explanation on the film doesn't help it. Removing the mystery just makes it a mess of a film. Just like this.

Heroes of the East is a cross-cultural meeting of martial arts, but as it's made in Hong Kong, of course the Chinese beat the Japanese. And the man teaches the woman a lesson about listening to the husband and being meek. There's also the normal awkward and sophomoric humor and ridiculous fights, typical of Shaw Brothers films.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2, & The Taming of the Shrew

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One and Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2 are basically William Greaves messing with everyone involved in the film. The first one is filmed entirely in 1968, and features a couple breaking up, and the film crew filming them being filmed and everyone getting testy and confused with everything that's going on. Take 2.5 is about half put together from footage left over from 1968, and the other half in 2004ish. Basically, it's a big mindfreak of a film. It's honestly hard to figure out what the hell is remotely real and what is just Greaves messing with you. It reminds me a lot of F for Fake, although neither is as good, mainly because Welles is one of the masters of cinema. There's a lot of split-screening, watching things from multiple cameras, and multiple people play the same characters. The second one is even more about the artifice of filmmaking than the first, but the first works better. Steve Buscemi usually makes everything better, but in this case, the actual film parts (the scenes that are ostensibly being filmed) are much weaker.

The Taming of the Shrew is/was (depending on when you read this) being performed for free at the Sidney Harman hall in Chinatown. It's a modern-set version, but the problem is that it's an inherently retrograde version of women's role in marriage. I enjoyed the play anyway. Back when I lived in Cincinnati and was watching around six plays a year or more, my favorite game before the performance was to read the cast biographies and see how long it took to get to someone who had been in Law and Order. This time it took four actors. Three if you include the SVU or CI spinoffs. Being so close to Baltimore, though, we got three actors from the Wire (one even gets a bio page on the official Wire website!). Even with that talent, the play belonged to Ian Merrill Peakes (Petruchio) and Louis Butelli (Grumio). Butelli channeled the wacky Brad Pitt perfectly, and really knows how to wield a flower bouquet. Peakes was hilarious, able to make his lying ass abusive husband charming, but even more impressively look good in a wedding dress. Ms. Albright and I had arrived way early, since we had no idea how the whole get a free ticket worked if you had a voucher for a ticket. It turns out we were the first there and so they were kind enough to ask us where we wanted to sit. After first being offered the front row (something I'm loathe to take after my unfortunate closeup at Metamorphoses, let alone having to look up for the entire show), I said I'd prefer something like the fifth or sixth row. We were given the end of the fifth row, and I was actually kinda annoyed because we could have gotten a seat in the middle. The end seats were perfectly fine, though, and I got a little bit of audience participation there. During the first wedding (Act 3, scene 2), Petruchio and Grumio show up late, and in this version, in a wedding gown, matching Katharina's (less train, though). They dance down the aisles towards the front, and, since aisle five has lots of leg room, Petruchio moved right in front of me and continued to dance and flashed me. I was shocked and scandalized and I couldn't stop laughing. The first three acts are really not all that bad from a misogyny standpoint, but man, the taming itself and the final speech are pretty offensive. Even with that, Shakespeare, especially free, is extremely enjoyable.

Boarding Gate, I Live in Fear: Record of a Living Being, & The Ballad of Narayama

Boarding Gate is dreck. Asia Argento cannot act at all. Michael Madsen isn't all that good either. Kelly Lin is fine, but Kim Gordon is not at all an actor either. Just a miserable film. Olivier Assayas has done some good stuff (Clean, Demonlover (the greatest corporate espionage and hentai porn movie ever), Irma Vep, and convincing Maggie Cheung to marry him), but this one wasn't worth watching at all.

I Live in Fear: Record of a Living Being is a mid-50s Kurosawa movie about an old man who is trying to move his entirely family to Brazil to escape nuclear fallout. It's occasionally played for laughs, but it's also a depressing movie about how much some in Japan were affected by the bomb. Considering Kurosawa's later Rhapsody in August, he is one of those affected and horrified.

The Ballad of Narayama is Shohei Imamura's epic film of sex and a horrible way to treat old people. Let's just say that if there were actual Obama Death Panels proposed to replace what they do to old people here, it would get a lot of support. At least they'd have a chance. One thing I want to say: I never need to see another person slamming their own head into rocks in order to break teeth. Eesh. And the extremely weird sex stuff really freaked me out. As such, the movie is well-made, but I just couldn't get past how rough a time everyone had. Again, eesh.

The Nine Lives of Marion Barry, Control, & The Brave One

The Nine Lives of Marion Barry just makes me miss when our politicians weren't all crooks or sleazebags. Wait, that time didn't exist. Barry used to be a force to improve the lives of blacks in DC. Then he got power and ended up corrupt. This is the normal trend for politicians. He's an embarrassment to all those who don't think that working to break the white power structure in DC makes up for years of corruption, drug use, and various other lying things. The documentary is a little shallow, but it humanizes Barry. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, though.

Control is about Joy Division. And Joy Division is awesome (I really need them to put some songs in Rock Band, specifically Transmission). Arty, fascinating, and well worth the time you put in. Better than the Joy Division segment of 24 Hour Party People. Great non-Joy Division soundtrack as well, and the Joy Division songs were actually performed by the cast. The Killers doing Shadowplay, though, was entirely unnecessary.

The Brave One is Hollywood slick. Sure, it accurately presents that rape and assault are extremely hard to return to normal afterwards. The movie, however, succumbs to Hollywood at the end. It's just too slick to be recommended. It's not all that bad, just eh, and from Neil Jordan, that's a disappointment.

The Last Hayride & random TV notes

The Last Hayride is a book about Edwin Edwards's 1983 campaign for governor in Louisiana. He had first been elected in 1971, re-elected in 75, and since he couldn't run in 79, he basically set everything up for his successor, a technocrat Republican named Dave Treen, to fail so he could win. Edwards was a liar, a womanizer (he is the origin of "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."), and it's not entirely clear that he was all that good of a governor. However, he made for a fascinating book. John Maginnis does a fairly good job being in the right place at the right time, although towards the end of the campaign, he starts to complain about being there. But his history of Louisiana and the politics explain a good deal that I didn't really know about why they have the strange electoral structure they do (Edwards put it in place to try to kill off the Republican Party there, but, in effect, revitalized it). Quite an interesting book.

The Middleman DVD is great. Epitaph One, the unaired Dollhouse episode, really makes me wonder where the hell the show is going. Seriously, that is a terrifying future. Torchwood: Children of Earth also kinda leaves me wondering where the hell the show is going to go after that. The Doctor Who specials (the Christmas one and the Easter one) were really good. Hung is kind of a mess, but I haven't yet gotten too pissed at it (and it's one of those shows that kinda can't show the penis and I can't complain about the inequality of the nudity since the penis is all things to all women). True Blood is either more enjoyable this season, or my expectations are so low, that I've been enjoying it. Hard Knocks: The Cincinnati Bengals is pretty good, although I hate Mike Brown even more after watching it, and I like Chad Ochocinco more. Shaq Vs. really is about 25 minutes of filler, 20 minutes of commercials, and 15 minutes of Shaq being extremely personable. Should be enjoyable for the next few episodes. Nova Science Now is the most enjoyable and fascinating science show ever made. Neil deGrasse Tyson really needs to be on TV more often.

I'm Not There, Nanking, Breakin', & Fat Man and Little Boy

I'm Not There was a mess. Good ideas, lots of talent (Todd Haynes needs to make more movies), and I am a big Dylan fan, but the artifice just kept dragging me out of being involved in the movie. And Richard Gere's section was just a mess. Cate Blanchett was great though, and it's hard to hate too much on it, but I just should've rewatched No Direction Home.

Nanking is a depressing film about the Japanese raping and pillaging their way through what was a huge city in China in 1937. Hundreds of thousands were murdered (including some decapitations), tens of thousands of women raped, and children were bayonetted for no real reason. Seriously, fuck all those people who claim that Nanking didn't happen or that it was exaggerated. They're just as insane as Holocaust revisionists. Denying that massacres happened when there's photographic and firsthand evidence is just insane. Japanese nationalists are some of the worst, denying so many things that there's so much evidence for. The movie's use of famous actors was slightly distracting at first, but I quickly became more and more involved and fascinated by the story. If you aren't a Japanese fascist, you'll find this movie horrifying and a must watch.

Breakin' is terrible. The acting, directing, writing, and everything about it is bad. It also, frequently, suffers from the worst thing that a movie can do: quick cutting, hiding the actual talent of those on display. Also, why use a broom on a wire? Everything else is kinda possible. Joe Piscopo? Maybe you should get a suit that remotely fits you. Ugh. Here's the thing about this movie: big plot points are dependent upon being able to tell who won a dance-off, but I couldn't tell who was winning at any point, and the only way I knew the second one was over was because I was trying to pay attention to Ice-T rap talking in the background, narrating the fight. The movie is a horrible mess, about what you'd expect of a movie produced by the writer-director of The Apple. Still, I have to watch Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. It's on the DVR!

Fat Man and Little Boy has a great cast and tells an interesting story. Roland Joffe is one of those names I'm familiar with and respect the guy, but honestly, looking at his IMDB listing, I see: an uncredited turn on Super Mario Brothers, The Scarlet Letter, an episode of Undressed(?!?), the disappointing Vatel (which I saw less than a month before I restarted blogging), the unseen by me (but well-reviewed) The Mission, and the excellent The Killing Fields. So I get this feeling that I have a positive impression of him based entirely upon how good The Killing Fields is, and conveniently forget about how execrable The Scarlet Letter was. I liked it, but it kinda dragged on a little long.

Woman in the Dunes, Flash Point, Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, & Lost in Beijing

Woman in the Dunes is a metaphorical tale of a teacher who is tricked into living in a house surrounded by sand dunes. It's bizarre and touching, erotic and terrifying, and extremely well-made. Held up to my expectations.

Flash Point is ridiculous. Action scenes... man, I barely remember anything about it. I barely remembered anything about right after I saw it. I remember some of the fight scenes, the one in the driving range, the surprisingly brutal stabbing in the parking garage, and the pretty superb (although completely unbelievable) final fight scene. But the plot? Utterly nonsensical. Not helping: I couldn't tell the bad guys apart.

Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is not a porno film. It's a Shaw Brothers kung fu film, that just happens to have an evil lesbian who runs a brothel, kidnaps a young innocent girl, has many men rape her, and that woman then comes back and starts killing everyone involved, usually with sex. So, um, the fact that there's actually very little nudity, and most of it is played for laughs isn't going to make me seem any less dirty for adding this to my queue is it? I mean, it's not horrible, by any stretch of the imagination, and the English title just makes it seem much dirtier than it is. It's a fairly standard revenge film, but with kung fu. How can that not be watchable, at least?

Lost in Beijing is a look at how capitalism has destroyed the well-meaning Chinese working man. Basically, money corrupts people. Of course. Somehow, this movie got banned and the producers were banned from filmmaking for two years. Seriously, it's about the problems of capitalism. Reminded me of Blind Shaft, as there was also nudity here. No one in this movie comes out looking all that good. Tony Leung Ka Fei (the not as good Tony Leung) is suitably despicable as the owner of a massage parlor and rapist who starts all this corrupt stuff in motion. I, personally, though, hate the younger husband even more. Tony Leung was always a scumbag, but the husband was worse. The movie itself was very good, and does everything that I think the writers and directors wanted.

Blast of Silence, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Easy Living, & Wallander

Blast of Silence is a short little film noir, made in the early 60s, and released by Criterion. As a fan of film noir, and reading the mostly positive reviews back when Criterion released it, I wanted to know how it would be. The writer-director-star moved in the same circles as Peter Falk, and he was going to star in this had he not gotten a paying role. I kinda wish it had been made with Falk. The acting in this is amateurish and could have used a stronger central performance to bring a little bit of range to the film. It's a good plot, and certainly could have been better with a little more. Also, the narration was overbearing. Still, I kinda liked it.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead has talent in it and behind the camera (and Marisa Tomei naked), but it's just a depressing film and I never really liked it. I think I'm less willing to give any credit to films that have good people involved and disappoint than films that I never have any hopes for. Just an overall eh film.

Easy Living is an early Preston Sturges screwball comedy script, about a young office worker who gets hit by an expensive fur when a rich banker tosses it off a building. A series of comedic scenes follow, leading to silly scenes of mistaken identity and the like. It's pretty funny, but not up to Sturges's directorial efforts.

Wallander is based on a series of Swedish mystery novels, set in Ystad, southeast of Malmo. There have been a series of Swedish movies based on the books, but this was a new series of adaptations by the BBC with Kenneth Branagh as Wallander, the drunk detective. He is, as you would expect, excellent, and the movies just made me feel like I was watching Insomnia (but without the actual insomnia). I am really looking forward to see if they would make another series of it, but it all depends on whether Branagh can do Thor and still work on other stuff.

Los Campesinos! at 9:30 Club 8/5

I hadn't seen them before, and in fact, was introduced to them at around the same time I was introduced to the Wombats (who, I must admit, I still kinda prefer) by MBG and they were Quite Good and worth listening to. But I heard they were playing, and Ms. Albright bought me a ticket after her ticket was purchased by her friend). So I was going, and it was an early show on a weekday (YAY!). We skipped the openers, who may or may not have been good (one of the guitarists from The Farmers! was wearing a shirt from Girls. Anyway, we did the "hipster" thing and showed up about ten minutes before the main show started, but MBG just kept driving by parking spots, so we got in there about two minutes before Los Campesinos! went on.

We were pretty far back, which was nice, because they were very loud. Quite good, although their new couple of songs kinda dragged the middle of the set a little. And they didn't play Don't Tell Me To Do the Math(s), possibly my favorite of their songs. Still, when they started the big buildup and then broke into the one two punch of Box Elder (quite an excellent version of it, maybe even bettering Pavement's original) and You! Me! Dancing! (the song that competes with Math(s) for best Los Campesinos! track), the set finished out very well with a few more strong songs. As I'm not familiar with most of their stuff I can't say what else was played, but Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks, This Is How You Spell "HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes & Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics", My Year in Lists, and The International Tweexcore Underground were all very awesome. Gareth and one of the guitarists ended up in the crowd during the last couple songs and the encore, and just seemed to love playing. Stage banter was alternately hilarious and completely indecipherable (I enjoyed their joke about what an honor it was to open for Asher Roth). Basically, a great show.

But it's now time for the return of Douchebag(s) of the Concert! The four (or more, I never turned around to see all of them at once) people behind us. They wouldn't stop talking, sang out of tune and out of time to songs including starting singing well before the actual singing started multiple times, sang instrument parts like "beep beep beep", spilled a beer right behind us so my feet were sticking to the ground for most of the set, knocked into all of us multiple times, gave me a nasty look when I was saving a space for Ms. Albright and her friend and they tried to move into that space and I stopped them, made me write a run-on clause, and, most unforgivably, seemed genuinely excited when Gareth started making fun of the US for giving the world shit like Asher Roth and they thought that Asher Roth was going to come out and play his song or that Los Campesinos! would cover I Love College. So you win, Douchebags.

After the set, which went about 75 minutes long with a one song encore, we left and walked back to the car, and noticed a line. A long line. A line around the block. For Asher Roth. I am sorry for all those people at the 9:30 Club who had to deal with that crowd. In case, I'm not being clear enough, Asher Roth is a terrible, terrible person. And his fans are all bad people as well. The one good thing that he has ever done, from what I can tell, is for Los Campesinos! to be an early concert so I could be home by 10:20.

Run for Cover at Black Cat 8/1

Since none of these bands will ever play again in the forms that they did on this night, it's kinda hard to write a lot about their musicianship or anything like that. So just quick comments on the bands I saw.

The Cherry Bombs (The Runaways/Joan Jett/Lita Ford) had the best line in the night: after playing Cherry Bomb, the one Runaways song that anyone knows, "Lita Ford" said they were only going to play their hits, and then no one else in the band seemed to know what to play next so they had to pass it off to "Joan Jett" to play some of her songs. Fairly accurate representation, but nothing all too special.

Bad Medicine (Bon Jovi) was awesome. Extremely tight set, played the hits, and their Bon Jovi was outstanding. I was able to sing along to every single word of the set. Ms. Albright was disturbed (and possibly disgusted) by my ability to sing along. If I actually liked Bon Jovi, it might have been the set of the night, but the crowd was very into it.

Blonde on Blonde (Blondie) had a "Blondie" who couldn't sing the songs. Sorry. You almost were able to do Call Me, but nope.

Guided by Vices (Guided by Voices) was accurate to the actual band, but were just a drunken mess. Played some of the best GBV songs of the mid-period, but didn't play Kicker of Elves, for which I am (probably inordinately) naming them the worst band I saw, by far.

The Fly Bys (Top Gun) kinda broke the mold as it was more of a skit rather than music. And the music was shite. I hate Top Gun. It is a terrible film and the music is terrible. So screw you guys for getting Take My Breath Away in my head from now until I get something better in my head. Also, your "skits" weren't funny. And you took too long. But you get points for costuming.

Five Imaginary Boys (The Cure) went on too long. It was almost 1 am, and both Ms. Albright and I were exhausted. Also, Lovesong is just eh. You went on too long. And you brought nothing to the songs. Your lead singer did look slightly like Robert Smith, but that was it. Had it not been the Cure, you might have met Guided by Vices at the bottom.

And then finally, the band I went to see (although I knew someone in Bon Jovi as well): Geezer (Weezer as done by old people). My roommate was the lead singer (so I'm biased again). Look, maybe I just love Weezer more than the other bands, but they really were the best. Great costumes, the old people talking in place of the talky bits of Undone were funny, El Scorcho is a fun song to sing (too bad the music isn't all that fun, otherwise I'd do it Rock Band all the time), The Good Life was a perfect choice, and Surf-Wax America was a great set-ender.

Legend of the Black Scorpion, Zebraman, & Nightmare Detective

Nightmare Detective just reminded me of better films about people going into other people's dreams to solve crimes. Wait... honestly, there aren't any good live-action films about that (Paprika is the only one of which I can think). This doesn't break that trend. It should be an acceptable film, but it was filmed far too darkly and it just gets utterly ridiculous well before the end.

Zebraman is a goofy Miike film, ostensibly about a father who is obsessed with an old TV show, and he starts dressing up as the main character and save the world. And it's a family film. So the wife having an affair, the daughter having lots of sex, the son gets bullied at the school where he substitute teaches. Of course. It's utterly ridiculous that it's somehow viewed as a family film, but then again, most of the rest of the world isn't as prudish as we are.

Legend of the Black Scorpion is an adaptation of Hamlet. And pretty much all I could think was that it was pretty, but as an adaptation, it's a boring mess. Overlong and nowhere near as good as most adaptations (of either Hamlet, or from other East Asian Shakespeare adaptations, like Throne of Blood and Ran). Not all that much to say. Reviews were positive, from what I remember, but I need to stop just watching anything with Zhang Ziyi in it.

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, Kiltro, & Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With not only has a grammatically incorrect title, it isn't very funny, and is basically bad. I like Jeff Garlin, but I didn't enjoy watching it at all.

Kiltro is a trashy Chilean action film. Problem is the movie doesn't spend all that much time being an action film. And there's a midget. But mainly, it's full of too quick cuts, bad CGI blood spurts, and poorly choreographed fight scenes. I have to stop adding films just because someone on the internet says it's a cool action film. Barghle.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story feels like it was just ticking off the biographies of musicians and then trying to have the characters be naive and explaining everything. This leads to "humor". The only thing I found funny was the recurring joke with Tim Meadows and drugs. Other "jokes" ranged from unfunny to extremely stupid. But it just wasn't worth watching.

Charlie Wilson's War, Teeth, & National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Charlie Wilson's War depresses me, because it's basically making me root for the mujaheddin. Maybe if they hadn't frickin' pulled out the troops in 2002 and 2003 for Iraq, we wouldn't still have be there. Damnit. Of course, they did note the dangers of the war and the being unwilling to help build it back up afterward. Which, amazingly, we seem to like "fucking up the end game" as Charlie Wilson said. Mike Nichols and Aaron Sorkin do a fine job with the film. Really, it's a frustrating film, but for nothing except my political issues with it.

Teeth is utterly ridiculous. Basically, it's extremely unsubtle, but it's a film about explicit vagina dentata. You don't really see too many films that are explicit in it. There are quite a few severed penii. Well, three. And there's just so much I can take. But I gotta love any film that punishes people for having pre-marital sex for bad reasons. Raping, having sex for money, and being creepy are all more than enough reasons to cut off penii. The dog being named Mother, though, that may have been the crowning touch to the ridiculousness. Of course, the movie is not something that you can watch without cringing horribly, either for the newly depenistrated men or for Dawn's shocked reactions to having just cut off a penis (or fingers). The first couple times.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets is goofy. I enjoyed the first one quite a bit. This one is more ridiculous, and even less based in reality. But Nic Cage, Ed Harris, et al. were lots of fun. Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoyed it.

Mansfield Park, The Barchester Chronicles, & The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear

Mansfield Park is the 1983 BBC miniseries version. As such, it luxuriates in the time period, and in an extended running time. And it has a bunch of actors who are extremely recognizable if you've seen enough British miniseries made around the same time. I didn't really like Sylvestra Le Touzel's performance of Fanny Price, and as a whole, I am not really that big a fan of Mansfield Park, but it is the most accurate version of it (plus it doesn't have frickin' Billie Piper in it or basically messing with everything in it like the 1999 version, which I really liked anyway). So, um, see it if you really want to see the most faithful version of Mansfield Park?

The Barchester Chronicles has an amazingly good cast: Donald Pleasence, Nigel Hawthorne, Alan Rickman, Phyllida Law, Geraldine McEwan, and Clive Swift, among many others, all give great performances. Alan Rickman, in particular, is perfect as the extremely slimy Rev. Obadiah Slope. Anything where he gets to be remotely slimy is extremely worth watching, and this has him at his slimiest. Really, he is pitch perfect. I've never read Anthony Trollope, but I don't feel like I ever will now. Even with the long running time, and far too easy of an ending, it's definitely worth it, especially if you don't mind the BBC video filming, which, along with the aforementioned Mansfield Park, suffers greatly from blurring whenever there's a camera move outside.

The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear is a 2004 documentary that's all about how the neocons and al Qaeda basically use the same tactics to get what they want. This, unfortunately for its arguments, makes the claim that al Qaeda was a made up organization that was created in 2001 by the US Government to prosecute terrorists under organized crime laws. This is insane. And pisses me off. Otherwise, it's an ok version of events important to current international relations, but it's also three hours long, and spaced over three DVDs. What the hell? It could have very easily fit on one DVD. Why on three? I don't know. Basically, it was frustrating because it could have been so much better.

The Cat Returns, Summer Palace, & Come Drink with Me

The Cat Returns is the second to last of the full length Studio Ghibli films that I haven't seen yet (My Neighbors the Yamadas is the last). As such, it was the one that I actually took out of my Netflix queue at least once, and didn't re-add for quite some time, due to my belief that it wasn't going to be all that good, not being directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and a sequel to the excellent Whisper of the Heart. Why I took it out? I didn't want to ruin my feelings for Whipser, maybe? Anyway, it was pretty good, but not nearly as strong as the better ones, as this wasn't as meaningful as the best, or as beautiful as them either. If you like cats, that helps. The voice cast for the English version (including Anne Hathaway, Cary Elwes, Kristen Bell, Andy Richter, Peter Boyle, Elliott Gould, Tim Curry, Rene Auberjonois, and Kristine "Joyce Summers" Southerland) were alternately too distracting ("Hey that's Andy Richter!" or "Who is that... Oh, it's Elliott Gould") and pretty on target. Basically, it's not a must-watch by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still good.

Summer Palace is a film that got the director banned from making films in China for five years. He also directed Purple Butterfly and Suzhou River, both of which are about the same quality as this one, although this one has many more nude scenes. Surprisingly, it wasn't the nudity that bothered the Chinese censors, it was the use of brief bits of Tiananmen Square footage, and probably the use of characters involved in the protest as heroes. And we can't have that. Back to the movie. Once the characters left the university, the movie strated to drag slightly and become less interesting. It could also have been the length of the film. I liked it, but could have stood some cutting near the end.

Come Drink with Me is King Hu's last film from Hong Kong, before he moved to Taiwan. It's about a brother who is kidnapped by bandits, so his sister (who is maybe disguised as a man for the first part? It's hard to tell) has to fight the bandits, with the help of a drunk. It's a seminal first wuxia film, clearly important to the genre, with some good fight scenes and impressive indoor sets. Of course, it strains credulity many times, but pretty much is notable for the use of a female protagonist (Cheng Pei-pei) who kicks ass (although her needing to be rescued by a drunk multiple times is less awesome). So good for that mostly feminist character.

The Darjeeling Limited, Hotel Chevalier, & Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The Darjeeling Limited & Hotel Chevalier should be taken together, although there really is no big point to Hotel Chevalier besides being an excuse for a naked Natalie Portman (not that there's anything wrong with that) and getting Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) stuck in my head whenever I think about this movie. But it's an effective enough mood piece, and completely unnecessary to the plot. Speaking of unnecessary, the main movie, The Darjeeling Limited, frustrates me to no end. Wes Anderson is a very talented guy, but maybe he really does need someone to rein him in with reasonable plots and remotely likable characters, of which there are fewer and fewer in his movies. And with the fewer likable characters, they become much harder with which to identify, and I like the movies less. It's basically been a downhill slide from Rushmore. It's frustrating because he's a talented guy, but he is just too busy distancing himself from reality. Maybe The Fantastic Mr. Fox will be better.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth movie in the series, and the second directed by David Yates (he of the awesome State of Play and the less awesome but still good The Girl in the Café). As a Harry Potter film, it was pretty good, up with The Prisoner of Azkaban as the best, and far, far better than the Chris Columbus abortions. Oh, man, maybe I should use a different word... Anyway, I really didn't like the ending they chose, as it really lessened the emotional impact, but I bet they move some of it to the next film. And I knew that jump scare was coming, and it still got me. Kudos to you, David Yates, for one of the best ever jump scares. The movie focused a lot on the relationships, which was nice, but it could have stood to have a little more plot with the actual Half-Blood Prince, as the reveal itself just felt extremely perfunctory.

Caseus Archivelox: Shiri & Donnie Darko

2002-07-30 - 10:52 p.m.
Ultra violent, somewhat convoluted plot, only two particularly bad subtitles, neither of which I can recall at this time. And of course, they stop the bomb with .05 seconds left. Sure. It's so easy to time it that way. Also, the movie was very easy to figure out where it was going and all. The convoluted plot was only somewhat explained, because I couldn't figure out how it was going to cause a war. Anyway, you don't watch the movie for the plot. It had surprisingly poor action choreography, and it was frequently difficult to figure out what was going on in the myriad shoot-outs. Too much American John Woo, not enough Hong Kong John Woo. And not enough two fisted gunplay, and way too much reloading. I want my gunfights fast, furious, and full barreled furious fast firing. Yes...

That's not to say I didn't like the movie, but it just wasn't as good as the hype. And believe me, the movie was overhyped. Not as much as Titanic which sucked behind its lots of money, Shiri was just eh.

2002-07-31 - 10:53 p.m.
You know what else is creepy? Donnie Darko. And you know what else? It was really good. Really good. A little too creepy to get a 10, but a 9 from me. Thought provoking, and it had one of my favorite songs in it, used perfectly. Love Will Tear Us Apart needs to get more respect for the awesomeness that it has.

The movie itself was just lots of stuff in it. I can't even figure some of it out right now, because my mind is still spinning. Good soundtrack, and I've always been a big fan of people going around in bunny costumes, but this may be too weird for that to continue. Weird similarities between the movie and The Day When People Flew Planes into Buildings. Why is it that I can't even look at dates in September without thinking, "That was two days before the 11th." Even though it was 1996 or something like that. Argh.

Jena Malone (the g-i-r-l-fren, as Jonathan Richman would speak-sing) was good in it, as was Gyllenhaal, but Malone gets more props because she was on the best cop show of all time: Homicide. Wow that was such a good show. Puts most of what is on TV now to shame. And would not be out of place on HBO Sunday Nights. Which is saying a lot, because that's where the good shows are now, not Friday nights on NBC where no one watches it, even if it is better than everything else on NBC except for Seinfeld. Damn you NBC, damn you all to hell.

Caseus Archivelox: Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Killer's Kiss, The Pirates of Penzance, & Jurassic Park III

2002-07-06 - 12:51 a.m.
Movies just were better in the 40s. Or maybe they're just better because they aren't the crap of today, or other remakes (EDIT: it's because I hadn't seen enough terrible movies of the time). Here Comes Mr. Jordan was a really good movie, and it had enough surprises to make it much better than I was expecting. That crappy remake with Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait (not to be confused with the excellent Gene Tierney movie of '43, also called Heaven Can Wait)) can't hold a candle to it, and I haven't seen Down to Earth (with Chris Rock (not to be confused with Here Comes Mr. Jordan's sequel (which I haven't seen) also called Down to Earth, with Rita Heyworth)).

Claude Rains is one of the best actors of all time, and I don't think I've seen a movie with him in it that I didn't really like (except for The Wolfman, which I already said was really disappointing, as it stuck to the '30s horror framework too much, without adding anything except for the voyeurism). But Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Notorious, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Invisible Man, The Adventures of Robin Hood (the excellent version with Rains, Olivia De Havilland, and of course, Errol Flynn): all excellent movies.

"Flynn's offscreen life was, incredibly, even more colorful than his movies. An unabashed hedonist and insatiable womanizer, he was notorious for his nonstop drinking, wenching, and general highspirited bacchanalia. In 1942, at the height of his popularity, he was charged with (but later acquitted of) statutory rape." He is also the reason for the line "In Like Flynn", referenced in the sequel (not as good as the original, but still funny) to my favorite spy spoof of all time (Our Man Flint), In Like Flint.

2002-07-08 - 10:59 p.m.
I watched Killer's Kiss and The Pirates of Penzance. Killer's Kiss was Kubrick's second feature film, and at only 67 minutes long, that's debatable. However, it was really good. Nothing compared to his later movies, but an enjoyable film noir anyway. The Pirates of Penzance was one of those movies that I had been seeing in the library for a while and I thought I should watch. It was a v. v. silly musical, but that's to be expected from a Gilbert & Sullivan musical. I'm still more familiar with most of H.M.S. Pinafore, even though I just saw The Pirates of Penzance, and only know of H.M.S. Pinafore from The Simpsons. That's still how I'm most familiar with G&S. Even though my grandparents love them. I did like the songs where they had to sing very quickly. Because they all got very red faced. I think that I really need to stop referencing everything to the Simpsons, because the only song I recognized from TPOP was the Major General song (I am the very model of the modern major general) which Barney sang when doing acrobatics when Homer and Barney were trying to go into space (Woohoo! Default! The two sweetest words in the English language!). Anyway, that's weird. The movie had Kevin Kline, who was very good, and Linda Ronstadt, and when I saw her, all I could think of was her singing the Plow King jingle in Spanish. It also had Angela Lansbury. I once said, when asked by one of my friends what my ideal woman was like, "Angela Lansbury". Immediately. This wasn't something where I tried to find some old woman and it took me a while. This was immediate. I think it's more for her role in Bedknobs and Broomsticks than for Murder She Wrote. Or maybe for The Manchurian Candidate, but that one not as much as she's an evil Communist mother. I don't think she was ever on the Simpsons. Again, too much Simpsons. Although that's impossible, unless it's from the last few seasons. Then it's quite likely to be too much. I think that The Simpsons early references in two of the best episodes (Deep Space Homer and Cape Feare) to Gilbert and Sullivan are somewhat weird, but they do show why I love the show: they're actually referencing more obscure things than I do. Which is good.

2002-07-09 - 11:03 p.m.
I also watched Jurassic Park III. The movie just had no reason to exist. It wasn't bad, but it was boring.

Caseus Archivelox: Vanilla Sky & Tortilla Soup

2002-06-26 - 3:09 p.m.
So the two movies my dad rented from Saturday night. Just by looking at them you wouldn't expect them to be related, but they are in an unfortunate way: both are completely unnecessary remakes of good foreign movies. Vanilla Sky was by far the better movie, because while it did dumb down and add unneeded bells and whistles to a good plot, it was still well directed and acted (by everyone besides Penelope Cruz who continues to be absolutely terrible in English-language films, no, I'm not forgetting Blow, she was easily the worst thing in that movie, and don't get me started on Woman on Top or All the Pretty Horses for her bad acting). Penelope can act in Spanish films, but eesh, she was very bad in this. And it's not that she didn't know what she was talking about, it was a very similar plot to Abre Los Ojos which she had done much better in. But I liked Vanilla Sky.

Tortilla Soup on the other hand. Ok, let me try to recreate what the moviemakers were thinking when they decided to make the movie: Two very white men are sitting in the office of one. They are giggling constantly, have problems making coherent sentences [ed. note: I've made them slightly more sensible, because they really were giggling too much, and it would have taken longer had I included every "Oh wait... wait..." and breaking down in laughing, and their long digressive rant about how hot Velma was and that Shaggy was banging all the women on all the 70s TV Shows, and that he once walked in on a threesome of Ginger, Farrah Fawcett, and The Fonz... but I digress, and you don't care]. One is saying, "Ang Lee is really hot now. Look at Crouching Tiger, and I'm sure The Hulk will be big. But his earlier Hong Kong films are too inaccessible to American audiences. They're stupid. Let's remake one." Another says: "We haven't made a good Latino movie in years. That's a growing audience, and all the pot I've been smoking is giving me some serious munchies, so let's remake Eat Drink Man Woman as a Latino movie." The first: "That's the best idea I've heard since I was passed the script for Big Momma's House." The second: "But we need all the Mexican actors and actresses we can find for the movie." The first: "I don't know any." The second: "What about Hector Elizondo? I'm sure we can find lots of them. And they'll all be incredibly talented, and we can have another Oscar caliber film like Eat Drink Man Woman." Then they both took more hits from the prodigious bong lit with the scripts of people like John Sayles and Charlie Kaufman and started to giggle. 6 months later this piece of recycled claptrap was released and caused me to waste 100 minutes of my life. Every plot twist was obvious from the beginning, I only cared about the youngest daughter (because she looked fairly good) and the eldest daughter because it was Elizabeth Peña who was in one of my favorite movies (and has incredible relevance to my love of serious movies, not to mention my love of dark hair) Lone Star. I loved that movie when I saw it when I was 16 (which is one reason why I can forgive Matthew McConaughey for almost any number of bad films he's been in, although if Reign of Fire sucks because of him, any goodwill will be completely gone). I liked movies before then, but it was more as one of the uneducated masses like movies rather than the more cultured lover of non-s---ty movies I am now. Tortilla Soup was terrible. My dad who normally reads the New York Times reviews to figure out what movies to see listened to some friends (he declined to mention who they where when I asked) who said it was a great movie. Reading the review (which has lines like "There hasn't been this much forced wackiness since what some consider the golden days of sitcoms, and poor [Raquel] Welch doesn't have the acting skills to make her anything other than an embarrassment. She's important in an unforeseen way: she makes you focus on the other performers in any given scene. Martin and his grown children are missing something, besides a script. Even if you haven't seen "Eat Drink Man Woman," "Tortilla Soup" is still as predictable as a fast-food restaurant" in it) would not make me want to see the movie. The only good thing about it is the food preparation scenes. But there is too much crappiness between the food scenes to make it worthwhile. If you want good looking food, go for Like Water for Chocolate, Tampopo, Big Night, or the aforementioned Eat Drink Man Woman. Those are great movies with mouthwatering food. Tortilla Soup wasn't.

The Campaign of the Century & The Blind Side

The Campaign of the Century is all about the 1934 California Governor's election, which is both a turning point for political campaigns (in that this was the first campaign run by full-time political consultants rather than the candidate and this was the first campaign to make large use of televisual advertising (in this case, short trailers before movies)) and for California. Before then, Hollywood wasn't all that involved in political campaigns, but after this campaign where liberal and progressive Hollywood stars were moved to actually be more vocal in the political views, and was the last big hurrah of the political views of the studios being dominated by the studio heads. They were actually garnishing wages and blacklisting people for not supporting Merriam against Sinclair. As enjoyable as the dirty tricks stuff was, I really loved the sections about what was going on during the same time, like the capture of Bruno Hauptmann, killing of Pretty Boy Floyd, William Randolph Hearst visiting Hitler, and many, many more. Really just a fascinating book.

The Blind Side is a fascinating look at the importance of the left tackle in professional (and increasingly college) football. And an interesting inside view of the recruiting and creation of one of the best left tackle prospects in the last decade, Michael Oher. I really enjoyed the book, as Michael Lewis is a great author, who knows just what to include and to exclude, never writing too much when he's putting his stories together. The NCAA regulator interviews were what really made me find this fascinating, though. To me, it seemed like a clear case of where the NCAA should have declared him ineligible to go to Ole Miss based on the rules, but it's also one of those cases that is so ridiculous that it could have ever possibly been a violation that it just pisses me off. Then again, I had just read about what they had done for the kid, and the NCAA didn't have the book. Also, Lawrence Taylor is a beast, I lost a lot of respect for Paul Brown not hiring Bill Walsh when he could have in 1976, and I kinda liked Jonathan Ogden a little more. And I'm terrified about how good of an LT Oher's going to be for the Ravens.

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes & Man on Wire

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes is a documentary about Prairie Home Companion, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the fictionalized movie. Of course, that was designed to be extremely enjoyable, as opposed to an accurate representation of the radio show and the people involved. This one also doesn't have Kevin Kline as Guy Noir. So it works as a documentary but it isn't as good as actually watching a fictionalized version or listening to a show.

Man on Wire took me a while to figure out that the scenes of the young people on wires were not reenactments, and that they had actually filmed themselves so much talking about their plans and practicing. There are times in my life where I wish I had some point when I was 8 or so and had had an epiphany about what I had to do in my life. Would have made my life go in a slightly more direct fashion. It's a story that really is one of a kind, as wirewalking between the two towers will never be done again, and was only done for one day. Fascinating story though.

The Cell & Speed Racer

The Cell looks interesting, but JLo and Vince Vaughn are terrible actors. And so it's basically a somewhat interesting film, but anytime that they're not in someone's mind, it's a terrible at best manhunt film. And man, terrible is an accurate description of the film.

Speed Racer is all bright and shiny colors. It's basically a live action cartoon. Which it does very, very well. It's too bad that the film itself is not all that good. But it looks very pretty. And the cast is surprisingly good, although I wonder just how many of these people had actually seen the second or third Matrix films. Because after the second one, there was no way that they were actually anything other than visually interesting people who are incapable of putting anything on film that means much of anything.

Burn After Reading & My Blueberry Nights

Burn After Reading is a Coen brothers film in the ridiculous comedy vein of their recent "failures" Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, but it is both funnier and more substantial than both. It's a paranoid film for a paranoid age. I enjoyed basically all of the characters, especially J.K. Simmons as the CIA manager. And I felt so bad for Richard Jenkins. Such a good guy, and such an ignominious ending for him. It really felt like they were just having an immense amount of fun with this film, from the opening scene with Frances McDormand to the ending zoom out from the CIA mirror image of the first shot. And George Clooney's character is hilarious, with his sleaziness and ability to save money.

My Blueberry Nights would have been so much better had Norah Jones not been the star. She can't act all that well. So the thing that gets me is that it's quite possible that I had no idea how any of the stars of his Hong Kong films can act, and the difference in my view of this film is based entirely upon my knowledge of the language. Because it looks just like a Wong Kar-Wai film, from the slow-motion to the camera tricks to the soundtrack. I really hate the fact that I have this feeling after basically all the really good foreign directors move to the US. Because it makes me second guess their abilities. But man, even usually reliable actors like Frankie Faison, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, and Natalie Portman are terrible. It seems like it's just horrible miscasting, but man, that's just painful. Only Jude Law is somewhat acceptable, but that's small comfort in this film.

Margot at the Wedding & Rachel Getting Married

Margot at the Wedding is Noah Baumbach clearly having had a very bad experience with a wedding. I'm not all that sure that it's a remotely good film, but it was interesting. Jack Black is only acceptable in small doses, as otherwise he is overbearing. Acceptable in some cases, but here, he's so low key that he's not really doing all that much. And I just didn't like or care for any of the characters in it.

Rachel Getting Married is such a hipster wedding that it was painful. Hindu themed with belly dancers, two hipsters playing the wedding march and an interracial wedding? Yep, hipster. Anne Hathaway was very good, and she didn't even show her nipples this time, unlike when she was very good in Brokeback Mountain. But pretty much, I just wanted it to be a little less indie. It was so, so indie. And the wedding itself should have ended way sooner than it did. But hey, that dude from TV on the Radio isn't that bad of an actor. Hurray! And the dishwasher scene was funny. Although, seriously, I feel like I have to apologize for not hating this film. At least it isn't mumblecore.

I Shot Jesse James & The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

I Shot Jesse James is actually Samuel Fuller's first film. As such, it's of interest mainly as a curio, because it's certainly not a good film, and the clear change to the facts of his life (made even more explicit by watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford almost immediately after) made me appreciate it less. However, it's interesting to see how much of Fuller's style was already existent in his first film. The longer titled one is a pretty film and the acting was much better, but the earlier film still has a bit of charm, partially because it was so much shorter and focused. I bet the book was pretty good though. I like that Brad Pitt is willing to do films like this. Because I like Brad Pitt.

Poor But Sexy at Fort Reno 7/13

I had to look up the first two bands' names (Laura Zax and mittenfields, although I think Laura Zax was going by Laura Zax and the Alternative Rock Band at the show?). I wasn't all that impressed, and based on some of the overheard comments from other people, they also didn't really care for them. mittenfields was a good idea (I like people dressed up in a tiger suit and panda pajamas and I like indie rock), but the lead singer's screams were annoying. Laura Zax was just kinda quiet indie-rock type stuff. Just eh. EDIT: See comments below.

Poor But Sexy, however, I'm totally biased for. I am friends with the lead singer (who is also the brother of one of my roommates) and the guitarist is from one of the best bands I've ever seen live, The Dismemberment Plan. So I'm not an unbiased observer. And I'd heard and enjoyed their EP before. But they were a pretty fun show, with a lot of ridiculous lyrics and awesome stage presence. Basically, I highly recommend you go see them live. The crowd, too, seemed to enjoy it, with huge groups of highschoolers dancing up front. I chose to rock out while being nearly immobile near the back on a blanket, but it was just a good night for it, once the sun went down and you could see the stars above while listening to a dancy show that was kinda a mix of Prince and Steely Dan and Michael McDonald-y Yacht Rock. Or something, MBG and I were trying to decide on this. I say Prince mainly, but David needs to wear more purple, high heels, and do splits to get it just right. But he has the confidence and sense of humor just right, dedicating The Only Good Thing to the dogs in the audience.

Anyway, I also wanted to congratulate DC for having Fort Reno, a great place to spend an evening listening to a concert twice a week. As long as the bands aren't all that bad. But you can get fancy food at Whole Foods (how much do they have to love seeing a whole bunch of young people with disposable income coming in and spending $8 on salad bar fixings before the show?), then hang out and look at babies, dogs (there was a Great Dane there that had to weigh more than me), and hipster douchebags, gawk at Ian MacKaye (I laughed with him at a funny situation!) and other famous for DC music people (I got introduced to Joe Easley last night!). Yeah, um, I didn't geek out to them, but I did to others.