Crushing Krisis

Category Archives: flicks

(not my) Best Pictures

Friday, February 5, 2010

I love and hate media awards ceremonies like The Grammys and the Emmys.

What are they measuring, really? Whatever is “Best”? Best how? Most commercial? Strongest technically? Most likable?

Voters of the various academies aren’t any more interested in thinking hard about the merits of “Best” than the guy that sat next to you on the bus. They nominate and vote for what they like, and they like what they know.

Does that occasionally highlight the best work in a year or coincide with the zeitgeist? Sure. But one look at the Golden Globes and the Grammys tells us that’s not necessarily the case.

The Oscars are the one set of awards that can still excite me. The one that at least nominates the most worthwhile performances and works, even if some genre fare slips through.

However, equal to that excitement, the Academy Awards also introduce skepticism to my film diet. I love a great many event movies, serious movies, and indie movies, but I have a contentious history with Best Picture nominees. It’s a good year if I like 2/5 of them.

Maybe it’s because I already pre-judge movies pretty harshly – before they get heaped with incongruous praise. If I haven’t seen a movie before it gains steam as an Oscar front-runner I become commensurately more skeptical that it’s actually any good. I enjoy being proven wrong (The Queen, Juno), but more often my prophecy is fulfilled and I’m either ambivalent (Michael Clayton) or I hate the movie (The Wrestler).

In this year’s field of ten (of which I’ve only seen the pair of sci-fi flicks) that movie is The Hurt Locker. It may be great; I haven’t seen it. However, my sneaking suspicion is that it will be a tedious movie about THE REAL WAR (TM).

I guess I’ll see. Eventually.

(Seeing only the sci-fi flicks in cinemas is characteristic, as I hardly ever pay theatre prices to watch talking heads. I can safely say neither were best.)

(Okay, maybe Avatar, but not the heavy-handed, lazy bullshit of District 9. )

What should win? I’ll tell you next year, when I’ve seen most of them.

What might win? If Avatar doesn’t neatly sweep it will be splitting heavily with Hurt Locker, leaving an outside shot for one of the smaller films which isn’t too similar (i.e., District 9 and Up are both splintering Avatar votes just on genre/style).

What am I rooting for? I already know I universally despise Coen Brothers movies, and I could care less about Push, so of the remaining films I suppose I’m pulling for Tarantino, even though I suspect I won’t like his movie very much. I suspect I’ll like An Education the best of them all.

For what it’s worth, this was my take on 2008:
- Benjamin Button, my favorite director and lead actors, but it was shitty, pointless, and overlong.
- Frost/Nixon, a decent documentary that was really a movie.
- Milk, stunning, beautiful.
- The Reader, still avoiding, sounds soul-crushing.
- Winner, Slumdog Millionaire, a middling crowd-pleaser.

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Daily Demo: Falling Slowly (Live @ Rehearsal)

Monday, December 14, 2009

A few weeks ago Gina and I convened to brush up on our originals for the impending annual Shubin Theatre Holiday Revue, and in the process caught one of our newer covers on virtual tape.

The song is “Falling Slowly,” the Academy Award winning tune from Once.

Gina saw Once early in its theatrical run – before I had even heard of it. The next day she came to rehearsal and said, “I have to play you this song.” She proceeded to unfurl a beautiful, played-by-ear version of “Falling Slowly.” She narrated her way through: “Here the woman starts singing a higher harmony part.” “And, you see, in the chorus he goes up for falsetto -the lines cross.”

I was enamored with the song immediately, though less so when I heard the warbling official version from the soundtrack. I filed it in the back of my head as something to try as Arcati Crisis at a later date.

That later date came this summer, as we were casting about for some new covers to learn. “What about,” I queried with caution, “playing ‘Falling Slowly’?”

Gina was all over the opportunity, with the caveat that this was to be my chance to sing a song without playing guitar. Which sounds like a nice vacation, but it is actually TERRIFYING – partially because the song is tricky and I sing better harmony while I am playing guitar, but also because I’m simply not used to singing without an instrument (aside from karaoke, which is a different beast).

This live @ rehearsal demo of the song finds us at a late stage of the rehearsal process – we’ve worked out the road-map and harmonies, but we’re still fine-tuning the blend between our voices. We’ll debut our performance of it this Saturday at the Shubin Theatre.

Falling Slowly (Live @ Rehearsal): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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This Is It

Thursday, November 5, 2009

I don’t think I had the right idea about Michael Jackson’s This Is It.

I thought it would be a performance blended with documentary – much like Madonna’s fantastic I’m Going To Tell You A Secret. Really it was neither – none of the songs in the film quite made it to being fully realized production numbers, and aside from brief thoughts from the dancers and band there was precious little behind-the-scenes or direct-to-camera interaction.

I still loved it.

It’s not an easy thing to articulate why. Michael is front and center throughout, leading his entourage through the all-hits set of his impending stadium concert. However, he isn’t in full performance mode. He is dressed down (which is still pretty impressive), frequently just “marking” his vocals (gently singing the top or end of each phrase), and working through his choreography (always amazing; in several instances we’re shown the day-to-day differences in split screen).

All of those were reasons I loved it. As you watch, you realize that any behind-the-scenes iteration of documenting Michael’s “real life” would be no more real than one of his music videos. Michael was real when he was engaged in his creative process, and here we get an unprecedented, unadulterated view of that.

The most breathtaking moments of the film are times when a performance begins or ends with no warning – as when Michael working the background vocals of “Human Nature” gives way to a glorious acappella verse of the song, or when he directs his tiny blonde guitarist Orianthi to shred harder and higher on “Beat It.” The line between personal Michael and performance Michael is eroded.

The film is documented by a jarring array of cameras, some high def with perfect angles on the stage, some grainy and far-away – like watching the show on YouTube. For the first few songs I caught myself wondering, They put out a movie of this?. But as This Is It continues I appreciated that it tells the story any way it can.

Since songs were synced to specific tempo tracks (likely from samples or in-ear for the drummer), the filmmakers could piece together the most compelling vocal take across the fiercest band performance, and combine it with video from multiple run-throughs – differentiated by the variety of Michael’s costuming (notably a blinged out Popeye t-shirt, a silver suit jacket with bright red pants, and a peaked-shoulder tuxedo coat that makes him look like Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas).

Unexpectedly, the film finds its greatest success when it incorporates the stunningly crisp background videos shot for the concert. They lend depth and context to the piecemeal performances. A silly take on Thriller falls flat mid-film, but the typically mediocre “Earth Song” is powerful and moving when combined with horrific images of a burnt-out planet.

The best production in the film is undoubtedly “The Way You Make Me Feel,” beginning with Michael adjusting the keyboards by singing the part note-for-note to his band, and giving way to a stunning digital backdrop of the dance-troupe lazing across a multi-story scaffold, silhouetted by the rising sun. Michael delivers one of his most un-marked performances, and you are transported.

Yes, there are familiar eccentricities on display. Jackson is flummoxed when his in-ear monitors are too loud on his first run through a Jackson 5 medley, seemingly nearing a breakdown before the director explains that the volume can simply be turned down. He gives music direction in a peculiar blend of vocal percussion and descriptions of texture, which often seem to leave the vocal director and band-leader puzzled, promising they’ll figure it out later.

All the big hits are covered, with few exceptions – no “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” (or anything else from Off the Wall), no “Will You Be There” or “Remember the Time,” and a curious lack of verses on his theme-song “Man in the Mirror.” Otherwise, it’s everything you would expect – the only surprise is the Jackson 5 medley ending on the relatively obscure (for younger fans, anyway) “Shake Your Body Down to the Ground.”

Perhaps the most genuine moment in the film comes when Michael goes all out on the end of “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” with phenom backing vocalist Judith Hill, whose voice is so eerily similar to MJ’s that she is surely doubling him on many of his songs. As she perfectly riffs through the song’s coda the performer in Michael can’t help but follow, egged on by a rapt cadre of dancers in the audience. After finishing out the intense duet, Michael gently admonishes, “You can’t do that to me. I have to save my throat. [To Judith] You’re fine, you’re wonderful. I have to save my throat.”

He smiles, and maybe finishes with “God bless you,” the punctuation on every piece of direction he provides. Every time you hear it you know he means it. This Is It shows Michael Jackson at home the only place he lived his entire life – on stage – and it makes evident not only his prodigious talents but also his depthless gratitude for the people who made it possible – both his crew and his fans alike.

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Primer, Primest

Monday, September 28, 2009

I love Primer. Primer Poster A

You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s an obscure, indie, sci-fi movie that’s 77 minutes long with a single special effect, shot on film for under $10,000.

It’s also the 2004 Sundance Grand Jury prize winner, critcally acclaimed, and maybe the best story about time travel ever conceived.

I found out about it in 2005 from Rabi on the day we first set up the DVD player in our house. I bought it that night and watched it three times consecutively.

It’s that kind of movie. I’ve watched it twenty or thirty times since then, almost always two or more times consecutively. It’s one of my favorite films of all time. I want everyone I know to see it, so I can debate it endlessly with them.

(If you have Netflix you can watch it right now, online, for free.)

The problem is, it’s challenging and obscure. For almost half its running time it seems to be about a needlessly-detailed, grown-up, science fair project. The final seven minutes introduce information that alters the rest of the film. By the time you realize its true intrigue, it’s over.

It’s a harder sell than any Nolan film – even though Memento and The Prestige each sketch a close iteration of its plot. Nolan gives the answers and lets you figure out the question. Primer gives you the concepts and let’s you figure out the question.

The answer is not given.

In interviews, writer / actor / director / composer Shane Carruth would say only what the movie was not. He also provided a forum on the movie’s website, where a steadily-increasing number of fans could debate the finer points of the film’s chronology.

(You could also check Wikipedia, but the answer given there is wrong. Maybe. Keep reading.)

Four years went by. Shane closed the forum to new registrants due to a flood of spam and porn. The debate kept churning. And then, something interesting happened: someone solved Primer.

Maybe.

In July 2008 a user posted to the forum that he had solved the Primer puzzle after many dozens of rewatches, and that he was writing a book about it – A Primer Universe. He claimed that he was receiving thousands of requests for the book (never mind that the forum – Primer ground zero – has only 1094 registered users). He claimed that he sent it to Shane and co-star David Sullivan, who both confirmed his theory in its entirety.

Eventually, he posted the book to a blog, leading to other forum users swearing fealty to his theory.

Primer Poster B I read the book. It only makes sense if you have the movie committed to memory. And if you do, it is mind-altering. Game-changing. It completely re-writes the movie, making significant some details that seemed routine and expository. It increases the perceived depth of Shane’s careful plotting exponentially.

If it is real.

This will be the single, most-detailed response to A Primer Universe registered on Google – and I haven’t given any details at all! All other references are mostly on social bookmarking services,a and could have easily been placed by the author. There are no reviews. There is no third party confirmation that Shane or David have read it. There is no evidence of a physical copy ever existing, though he was selling them for some time. The Primer forum users affirming it could be a series of accounts maintained by the author for this exact purpose.

The book itself is a riddle. It could be a fraud. It could even be written and maintained by Shane himself, frustrated that his fans never quite figured out his enigma.

Just like the movie, the riddle of the book is: what is the most prime? It is better to be primer, more prime than the competition.

It’s best to be primest – most prime.

And, when it comes to A Primer Universe it’s as hard to discern its primacy as it is to unravel the cinematic riddle it describes.

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9 Reasons I Didn’t Like District 9

Sunday, August 16, 2009

I disliked District 9 from the start, but it took until about an hour in for me to reach the “I really might leave this theater” stage.

Mild spoilers, but not as many as the Rolling Stone review.

1. It’s a personal take on sci-fi, except we’re made to dislike the extremely unsympathetic protagonist very early on. A mid-flick attempt to humanize him (pun) didn’t work for me, as he only seemed repentant as a result of his torturous conditions and quickly reverted to being an ass whenever possible.

We’re left with only a vaguely personal connection to a shallowly defined alien sidekick and a well-executed CG tiny alien tot. (The best scene in the movie is when we first visit their home, and find the pair of them to be defiantly intelligent. Well-scripted and -played.)

2. The transition from documentary to omniscient perspective was clumsy – only made worse by continuing use of documentary devices, eventually leading to a transition back to documentary.

3. The documentary portion is too caught up in it’s tasteless racist (speciesist?) humor, and not interested in enough in its characters. Yes, we get it, subhuman treatment of non-humans is a lot like subhuman treatment of people that are different than us. Were you that afraid the theme wouldn’t play to the back row?

(That said, I did love the abortion joke. Most big summer flicks would never go there.)

4. The movie is gross just to be gross. Gore and splatter is one thing, but did we really need the constant vomiting, dripping, severing, and devouring of unsightly food? Again, gimmick in lieu of plot.

5. The major plot maguffin is a complete deus ex machina, which would maybe be forgivable if it wasn’t for all of the antogonists being completely fucking obsessed with the effects of said maguffin.

6. There isn’t a single good bit of dialog in the entire movie, which leaves the audience to be dragged along for the (yes, frequently compelling) ride rather than strongly engaged and eager to follow. They say “fucking” more than I say “awesome.”

7. Aliens are shown to be viciously strong, except where it doesn’t suit the continually contrived story.

8. The action set pieces just didn’t sizzle – lots of noise and wonderful effects, but the confrontations themselves were one-dimensional.

9. The exploding people trick was just done by Watchmen, though I think it was executed better here. Still, shock value was lost.

I’m in the minority to the tune of 80/20 per the TomatoMeter; the review I agree with most completely is Vancouver Voice:

It’s a bore. Blomkamp offers up an ugly world, poorly photographed. There is more debris, more smudged faces, more gore effects packed into this film than are conceivable in the worlds of, say, Ulli Lommel and Lloyd Kaufman. Worse, nothing happens in this film that the viewer can’t anticipate after the first 15 minutes. It’s mockumentary style is rendered inconsistently since there are scenes shot in mock style but to which the implied filmmakers couldn’t have had access. And, like most so-called science fiction these days, it is really a war story in scientific drag. … [T]he narrative eventually devolves into one of those long CGI fight scenes that at least a portion of the viewing public is finding repetitious and uncreative. The film is also achingly obvious in its political message.

Biggest plus? Constant subtitling, of both aliens and hard-to-understand humans. I’ve been watching movies with subtitles for over ten years; I’d watch every movie and tv show that way if I could.

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not-so-prompt prompts

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

In my Google Reader I have a tag called “PROMPT” that I affix to posts that made me think or feel something that I might like to share on CK.

I’ve discovered that prompts are best served fresh – ideally I should be writing a post about that intangible thought or feeling within a day or two of having it.

There are presently prompts on my list from as long ago as September. That is scary. It is sitting in the way of me being prompted to tell you about new thoughts or feelings. I need to flush out all my prior prompts so I can post about prompts promptly when they prompt me.

Let me see if I can string some together in a way that makes sense to us both.

Spezify is a visual search engine, but that doesn’t mean what you probably think it means. Spezify searches the web for text, photos, and social media mentions of your search term, and arrays the results in a collage on your screen. It’s a great way to catch a quick snapshot of a person, place, musical artist, or brand. See what it has to ~~say~~ show and tell about crushing krisis or Philadelphia. Link via Fresh Arrival.

The imitable Maggie of Mighty Girl posted about her husband’s project, Typekit. Typekit seems to still be in a closed alpha, but the gist of it is that it allows you to dynamically embed text in any font onto any webpage, regardless of if you (or the end user) has that font. You can follow the development on the Typekit blog.

In my humble opinion, Mighty Girl continues to be one of the definitive personal blogs on the internet.

Geekadelphia (an excellent blog) recently posted a mammoth interview with J. C. Hutchins. Hutchins parlayed the net-success of his podcasted 7th Son trilogy into a publishing deal and subsequent tangible book. Said book – Personal Effects: Dark Art – comes complete with an intricately crafted alternate-reality game component that expands the narrative far past the boundaries of the book. Probably the next piece of fiction I will read, and setting the bar high for the next evolution of the novel.

(PS: M. Hutchins dropped by to comment less than twenty minutes after this was posted. Nice to see his publishing deal hasn’t changed his net savvy :)

Matthew Sheret (who I found via Warren Ellis) is a writer and photographer with an intriguing list of projects. I am fascinated by his recent post This is a Souvenir, in which he details writing songs for an imaginary band, and how he’d like to take it a step further and have an imaginary record label.

I love that sort of thing – a simulacrum of the footprint left by actual media, but in the absence of said media.

(Speaking of Ellis, I enjoyed his dissection of what it means to be a “digital magazine,” and how that ought to be different from a bells and whistles flash interface with whosits and whatsists. His point (and mine)? You can change the method of delivery, but “magazine” should still mean “magazine.” But, can “newspaper” still mean “newspaper”? Compare to a recent Conversation Agent post about what happens when your local paper goes entirely online.)

Lane is a remarkable photographer I have been a fan of for a long time. Today she posted an unreal photo of a rainbow seen over the New Mexico desert. Recently she volunteered with Review Sante Fe, a local photography exhibition. She posted a sampling of RSF photographers, and their work was uniformly amazing.

Now that Lane is back in the US I need to buy a print from her.

I saw what was perhaps my first double rainbow ever a few Saturdays ago on the way to E’s show at The Saint in Asbury Park. It was so close it seemed like we could drive right to the end of it.

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Grudge Match

Monday, May 18, 2009

My friend Rob Baniewicz (of killer improv comedy duo Meg & Rob) shared an article from the Onion A/V Club Q&A titled “Lifetime Grudges.”

The article caught my interest because it’s about lifelong, subjective, sometimes irrational grudges that people develop against artists. Many of the Onion’s regular contributors shared their personal grudge matches, from Sofia Coppola to U2.

Surely you’ve done it. A movie star whose weird mouth-shape you just can’t get past? A musician whose utterly terrible new album forces you to lose faith? The reason doesn’t matter so much. just that they’ve jumped your personal shark permanently, never to return to your good graces.

A few spring to my mind immediately. Alanis Morissette – by her fourth US record she had entirely quit writing catchy, interesting music, so I gave up. Chuck Palahniuk – wrote too many overly-convenient, repetitive books for me to care that he might eventually get better. Jason Mraz – I found his songwriting schtick underhwhelming from the first second I heard him.

The grudge article is an interesting counterpoint to something else that has been on my mind lately: permanent “must-buy” policies. Lifetime subscriptions, let’s call them.

Surely you have these too – an unflinching desire to consume everything by a specific artist. I’ll buy any song by Garbage, watch any movie by David Fincher, and love any print by Mucha, no questions asked. It’s a form of brand-loyalty – these artists appeal to some aspect of your personal aesthetic, and you’ll support them forever for it.

Who is your #1 Grudge, and why? What about your most major undying, devoted subscription? Could the grudge ever (re)earn your trust? Could the subscription ever fall from the pedestal?

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Almost watching the Watchmen

Monday, February 23, 2009

Despite my lengthy jag as a comics fan I was a latecomer to Watchmen. I was certainly aware of it, and the archetypes that it played out, and I had paged through it a few times in book stores or on friends’ shelves. It took me until seeing the magnificent trailer on The Dark Knight to get truly and viscerally interested in the film.

For a while I insisted I would stay completely spoiler free so as to best enjoy the movie version, but we all know my will is weak when it comes to these things. I bought my own copy of the graphic novel at Newbury Comics during my birthday weekend with Erika, and devoured it promptly (it had been long sold-out within the city limits of Philadelphia, at that point).

I concede the masterwork that is the novel, but remain pretty skeptical that the film will pull a Matrix-level March shocker out of the bag – good action films simply don’t come out in March, unless they’re going to be huge sleepers that play through Memorial Day.

All that said, here’s two ends of the spectrum:

(1) Harry @ Ain’t It Cool goes typically apeshit over a clip of Nite Owl and Silk Spectre breaking into a prison – just about the only present-tense action sequence in the entire book. The problem is the clip sucks – the slow-mo is completely overblown, and the score is awful. Watch:

Movie Trailers – Movies Blog

(2) On the other hand, IGN sneaks a overwhelmingly positive Australian review of the flick past the ~~supposed~~ misdirected US press embargo (usually not a good sign, especially for genre flicks).

While other purported reviews are cobbled together based on inferences from the trailer and knowledge of the book, this one seems to be the real deal – more detail about the performances behind Rorschach and Nite Owl, and even acknowledging that Dr. Manhattan’s penis got enlarged for the screen (an overly astute observation – he’s only truly full-frontal a handful of times in the book).

(I wonder if they’ve also kept in the awkward Ménage à trois from Chapter III; that would definitely be ooky on screen.)

Less specifically, Wil Wheaton heartily endorsed it in a spoiler-free review, stating:

Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is as close to a perfect film adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen as we were ever going to see, and when his super-ultimate-here’s-everything cut comes out in the fall, I think it will be perfect. But what I saw yesterday is truly remarkable: a big studio movie adaptation of one of the most — if not the most — important graphic novels of my lifetime that not only didn’t fuck it up, but brought it to life brilliantly.

And, furthermore, so did my fucking television-as-literature idol Jacob Clifton in his FaceBook status of moments ago:

Jacob Clifton liked the movie even more than the comic, yet again. By a lot.

(Stalking? What? Me? I have no idea what you’re talking about.)

So, will it suck, or not? I’m trying to avoid my typical habit of passing judgment before I make it to the theatre next week with Wes and Gina, but I have my doubts that Zach Snyder has the nuance to get past the construction of comic book panel dioramas with no emotions inside. I’ll be quite cheery to be proven wrong.

[Ed. Note: I wound up absolutely loving it in the theatre, though I found the extended Director's Cut unnecessary.]

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weekend braindump

Monday, February 16, 2009

My biggest weakness – bigger than any weakness in character, or for spending money, or really even for wasting time – is that I’ll always stop to read something.

It’s such a subtle flaw. We’ve been over how as a child I felt compelled to read cereal boxes as I ate breakfast, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s my voracious reading – how on vacation as a child my mother would pack an entire suitcase of books, because you never wanted to encounter a me with nothing to read.

In adulthood it manifests a little differently. I’ve lost patience for fictional universes, so slow to unwind before me. Now the communications major has taken over. I’ll read Rolling Stone while tying my shoes, and even carry my laptop into the bathroom if I haven’t quite finished reading an article.

Okay, maybe that was over sharing.

Where once I was limited by my physical ability to store words, now I’m only limited by bandwidth and time.

The awful side of my habit is getting caught up in junk words. Trolling through FaceBook status updates. Reading comments from the misanthrope TalkBackers on Ain’t It Cool News. Are these altering my life in a positive way? Am I better person for consuming them?

All that said, here are the more substantial words that have kept me occupied over the weekend.

First, there is Battlestar Galactica. There are a scant six episodes left of this genre-shattering drama, and the press has belatedly gone into overdrive to promote the show (you know, just in case people have time to watch four seasons worth of backstory so they can catch the last six episodes live).

If you are amongst that demographic you probably shouldn’t even be reading these articles, as they are spoilers-galore if you aren’t all caught up through this past Friday’s doozy of an ep. I’ll try not to put spoils into the links, but if you aren’t up to Season 4.5 please don’t click through anything.

Jenna Busch has a fantastic interview with the alluring and well-spoken Kate Vernon, who has always been spectacular on BSG. Battlestar.tv goes on at great length with Grace Park, who reveals lots of interesting production details – including what its like to act as Sharon and Boomer within minutes of each other.

A thoughtful in-canon letter to the editor about Why Tom Zarek Was Right during the course of recent events on the show (I happen to agree). a brief one with Katee Sackoff, who reveals that she was battling thyroid cancer at the end of the series, adding to the emotional weight of her performance.

OS news has a lengthy chat with Nikki Clyne, who played Cally. I love how all of the BSG actors are more than just actors – Nikki is working on some kind of social networking site? They’re all such renaissance people. For example, scroll towards the bottom of composer Bear McCreary’s interview with some of the actors to read a hilarious tale of how Michael Trucco (Anders) helps launch a historical ship with Michael Hogan (Tigh). Also in that interview, the stunning (in beauty and as an actor) Rekha Sharma dishes that she spent weeks hanging out together in L.A. with Kate Vernon – I can’t decide if that’s better as an intellectual fantasy or an erotic one. ?

Okay, I also read some interesting things not about a fictional universe.

Lincoln’s Laws of War challenges you to recall your AP History as it outlines how the rights that Team Bush so ably dissected were first put in place by Obama’s presidential idol.

A compelling (if a little too detached) piece of longform from VF writer Vicky Ward on the serpentine tale of Esther Reed, a girl who ran away from one troubled life into another in a quest to find some suitable outlet for her secret genius.

A surprisingly personal (at least, to me) take on Michelle Obama, from Vogue, of all places. I love this woman so much. It is surely my goal to meet her at some point in my life.

Nate Silver – of my preferred election website, 538 – uses similar predictive modeling to guess the outcomes of Oscar.

The Academy’s PR team is making a lot of noise about how intimate and different their ceremony will be this year, but I don’t know if they can capitalize on the success of the Grammys because movies are experiential in a completely different way than music is. On the Grammys people tune in to hear songs. On the Oscars people tune in to see stars. Unless Titanic is nominated they could take or leave the movies. Their only hope might be holding the Supporting Actor trophy until later in the program than usual, since it’s the only major award their voters deigned to offer to Dark Knight.

I won’t be watching because – lack of live teevee aside – I only watch award shows with Erika. That said, I do love Hugh Jackman.

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best [...] ever

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

[British Belgian restaurant]
We found an amazing Belgian restaurant where I had truly phenomenal mussels. The couple beside us told us they come from outside the city just to have dinner there, and then go home.

[American bragging rights]
Every conversation we’ve had so far in London includes, “What do you think about Obama?” to which we reply in chorus, “We love him!” We have a pretty set script we’re working from at this point. In France it was more polite questioning, but here people have been probing a bit more.

[away-from-home mattress streak]
The wedding hotel mattresses were absolutely heavenly. Like, even the night before with all the nervous energy and whatnot I slept like a rock. I would have tied one to the roof of our car if I could have. Then in Paris we had the sort of ultra-firm Ikea futon mattress that we have at home. And now we’re on a comfortably soft, well-appointed deluxe queen. Seriously, this is highly improbable success.

[water served below room temperature]
Finally, water with ice. I mean, Paris was definitely the best place ever, but I can only drink so much room temperature water in any given week.

[honeymoon timing]
France’s public transit workers and teachers went on strike about an hour ago. We were about four Metro stops from anything of interest; we would have been stranded if we had stayed an extra day.

[drunken plans to write a musical of a movie we watched on our first date seven years ago]
We got sortof drunk over dinner on Beglian beer and, much to the delight of our neighboring couple, debated at length how we would go about writing and staging a musical of The Princess Bride. We got as far as breaking out the songs and their titles and arguing over appropriate voice parts. We’re very into the idea at the moment, but let’s see what happens when we sober up in the morning.

Anything you’d like to add?

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La Matrice

Friday, January 23, 2009

On our first night Cèline showed us the DVD player and indicated a modest pile of movies. We managed to get out to a brief dinner, but when we returned we were out of steam and decided to watch a bit of Matrix, en Francais. We were asleep before they broke Neo out.

Our day of sleeping in terminated in a long walk, and when we got back we settled in for some more Matrix. We nodded off just before Neo watched the kid bend the spoon.

Last night after Louvre and our homemade dinner I didn’t even make it to Matrix – I fell asleep watching BBC news.

Tonight, after the Jeu de Paume we walked to (and up) Eiffel, and then took the Metro to Latin Quarter, where we went around and around, before finally Metroing back to the flat. We are watching the Matrix before going to bed.

I don’t know if we’re ever going to watch this movie in English again.

Also filed in Honeymoon, sleep, thoughts, walking | | Comments (0)

Sunday, November 23, 2008

That didn’t turn out quite how I meant it to.

I didn’t even mention the Swamps of Sadness and how Artax dying is the saddest thing ever and how I’m wrapped up in my desk chair reliving all of these old emotions and that at first it was so hard to understand why I was writing the things I wrote but now I’ve been reading for so many days in a row that they make just as much sense as the present day and that I’m afraid that if I keep at it for much longer I will be nineteen again with all of the desperation and uncertainty that came with the territory.

Well, maybe it’s better off the way it is. More coherent, anyhow.

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“In the beginning, it is always dark.”

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Have you ever watched The NeverEnding Story? You know how the book seems to bleed into Sebastian’s life, with him running afoul of frightening taxidermy during an encounter with G’mork.

Today my life is something like that.

Ever since I I first transferred from Blogger to WordPress in the midst of the first NaBloPoMo (a feat I still can’t believe I engineered), I’ve also been moving backwards though the almost 3000 posts that came before, categorizing them into tidy chunks that tell the stories of my life.

I’m determined to at least categorize back into the year 2000 by the end of the month, and in my surge of personal excavation I’ve become firmly entrenched in the “Behind the Music” portion of my life – recording a seminal album while going through a horrific breakup and a nearly deadly illness. Flirting with potential entanglements Oh, and drinking a lot.

That old, unhappy, unsure me seems so alien in the present day. To catch all of the themes in those old posts I’ve had to do more than read them – I’ve had to put myself in their place. How else to remember that I hatched my plot to break up with Selina as an allegory of why I shouldn’t pull an all-nighter?

In the process of getting into character I feel like those old posts have been slowly transforming my present day life. I Trio “Will It Ever Come,” telling the story of how it was written, and then find myself re-reading the post about recording it in the studio. Yesterday I re-read one lamenting that it was hard to tell if you have a fever when you’re under a spotlight, and last night I replayed the experience at our benefit show – half sick and half in-the-moment.

This evening I have a tickle in my chest that’s scarily reminiscent of the beginnings of my legendary bout of bronchitis and pneumonia that I’m about to be rereading.

The coincidence is starting to become frightening, if only because I’ve now crossed the threshold into the worst month of my life – the torturous rehearsal process for Good Woman of Setzuan, nearly failing classes, the depths of my relationship, deaths in the family.

If this was really The NeverEnding Story I would be able to reach back into the plot to shake me out of the stupor. I remember being five and jumping up and down on the bed in my father’s hotel room, screaming unintelligibly along with Bastian as he inserted himself into Fantasia, first interrupting Atreyu’s conversation with Morla, and later by naming the princess “Moon Child.”

Or, maybe I already have – without knowing it – and the only reason that younger me broke free of his darkness was because I am sitting here, happy and healthy, willing him to get on with his life.

Also filed in Year 9, betterment, health, memories, thoughts | | Comments (2)

Spike Jonze knows Where the Wild Things Are

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Ain’t It Cool News posted a monstrous, wide-ranging interview with director Spike Jonze, mostly focusing on his unusually organic approach to filming the Maurice Sendak classic Where the Wild Things Are.

If you’ve kept up with the gossip on this flick you know it was originally scheduled for release this holiday season, but its debut is now slated for next year. Was there any truth to the story floated that early test footage was flat and lifeless? The interview says “maybe,” but qualifies that by divulging intriguing details about the process of editing the performance of their child star and creating individual personalities for each of the Wild Things.

Jonze is a master craftsman, and each of the stories that unravel during the interview are fascinating – from his holistic approach to special effects to taking turns with Katherine Keener standing-in as an 8-year-old boy, and his idea to promote the film by having kids talk about their feelings (rather than hawking toys at Burger King).

Fantastic long-form journalism.

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Pink Envelopes, Cheerful Weeks, Dark Knights

Saturday, July 19, 2008

I’ve been really dodging my blogging lately. Which, per usual, is indicative of life being actually full-to-the-brim of interestingness that I am simply not diligent enough to record.

Some vignettes:

I received a pink envelope in the mail yesterday, with no return address. Definitely raised some fiancee eyebrows until I opened it and realized it was from the bridal boutique where I just bought the dresses for my groomsladies.

Note to boutique: when dealing with the groom, do not send receipts to him in unmarked pink envelopes. It does not bode well for the eventual wedding.

For the last two weeks we have been slightly less yuppy / slightly more domestic with the addition to our household of Elise’s brother.

Despite my compilation of an exhaustive list of cool things to see and do in Philly, we haven’t done all that much of interest. Yet, I’ve been having a cheerful, excellent time – not just in hanging out with him but in life in general … waking up early, going to bed satisfied with my day.

I half attribute it to having a sibling around to take an interest in, and half to the novelty of having someone who I totally relate to that is not a girl.

(His best quote so far, I think, was “Dave & Busters? That’s like Chucky Cheese with beer, right?)

The downside, if there is one, is that my scant project-oriented time is bisected further than it usually is just with Elise-hanging, which has left less attention for blogging, songwriting, piano-playing, et cetera.

That, and that I finally am starting to understand what it is to have a sibling relationship with someone younger than me (as to opposed to with Lindsay or Erika), and I’m going to be really sad when he’s done with Philly for the summer, because this is definitely a one-time-only thing – next summer he’ll be looking at colleges and then he’ll be out in the world on his own and we won’t be the fun vacation from real life anymore, because real life will finally be interesting.

So, maybe I’ve learned to be a little more sympathetic towards my mother from the experience?

Last night I saw the Dark Knight with a ridiculous majority of my favorite people, the majority of whom are voracious movie consumers and critics. We left the theatre in dumbstruck silence. I’m hard-pressed to name another movie that literally left me speechless until I exited the theatre complex … maybe Seven?

I did a lot of tearing up along the way, mostly at Heath’s unbidden perfection, but really just because it was an amazing ensemble piece and sometimes great acting clicking together like a well-made watch makes me emotional.

Best Political Quote…. Ever?

Thursday, June 12, 2008

[The current Republican Party is] a dead, rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of Weekend at Bernie’s, handcuffed to a corpse.

Attribution? Improbably, longtime GOPer Larry Hunter, as quoted by The New Republic. Via Salon.

I literally rolled around on the floor in convulsions of laughter the first time I saw Weekend At Bernie’s, but the morbid schtick didn’t hold up as well to repeat views as, say, Clue.

In a related incident, I garnered a Bernie’s reference this weekend during my decisive win of a limbo tournament, made all the more impressive by the fact that I was competing against at least two people less than five feet tall.

Also, IIRC, my unbeaten streak in seriously competitive limbo extends back to at least 1999.

Ontologically related to the above: the movie poster for Oliver Stone’s impending W is so great that I may have to hang it in my home office:

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After these messages…

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Today I woke up early so I could go to work early so I could get stuff done early so I could go to a press check and, ultimately, leave early.

After said early departure I engaged in a four-mile marathon walk past and through every hip men’s clothing shop in the entirety of center city Philadelphia, in search of my Lyndzapalooza outfit.

This is a time-honored tradition stretching back to 2003, when I wore my brand new orange sneakers to the first event and got them hopelessly dingy climbing up and down from our stage AKA neighbor’s elevated backyard.

Anywho, the trek, it was long. Every store is selling the same ugly men’s clothing right now, except for Diesel, which is selling fucking uglier men’s clothing. What I really wanted was a Flash t-shirt … well, no, what I really wanted was a Cheetara shirt and a Wonder Woman shirt, but in the midst of writing like 20k unique words over the past month I forgot to order them, which initiated this whole sad hunt. Eventually I found what could be my new favorite piece of clothing (only, mine is green).

Late in the game I dragged my ass the length of South Street, now quite sweating underneath my favorite suit, and increasingly parched. I bypassed mucho de Starbucks to hit one of my few favorite indie coffee shops, Java Company, on 4th and South.

As I ordered my iced soy chai latte (one of my few truly yuppie vices) I overhead a conversation:

“Rip Torn?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he was in Clue

And, now, make sure you are picturing this correctly. I am at my most corporate, in my best suit, and also sweating to death and in running shoes trailing shopping bags, and I whip my head around and say the following:

“Um, are you talking about Clue, the movie? Because Rip Torn is not in Clue. Clue starred Martin Mull as Colonel Mustard, Christopher Lloyd as Professor Plum, Michael McKean as Mr. Green, Leslie Ann Warren as Ms. Scarlet, Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White, Eileen Brennan as Ms. Peacock, Colleen Camp as Yvette, and Lee Ving as Mr. Body.”

(Actually, it took me one or two tries to get it all out in a string, because I was getting the McKean’s name tangled, and also because I kept getting distracted by 20 ounces of iced chai latte sitting in front of me, but that was the gist of it.)

Absolutely dumbfounded at my sudden outburst, one of the men from the original conversation replied.

“And Tim Curry.”

“Yes,” I acknowledged, exasperated that he even felt the need to point this out, “and featuring Tim Curry, also as Mr. Body.”

At this point the entire coffee shop, and some children outside, are all staring at me.

“It’s my favorite movie.”

The men stared back at me, their dumbfounded faces slowly melting into a wash of pity and revulsion in reaction to my savant-like obsession with the film.

“Um, yeah. Funny how it’s a movie, but it’s a board game.”

“Yeah, my brother loved that board game. We watched it, like, a dozen times.”

“I’m going to go in the back and look it up on IMDB. I think Rip Torn was in it.”

“Yeah, I think he was.”

I turned, finally, to retrieve my drink, and received a conspiratorial wink from my barista.

“I love that movie. I thought it was so funny when I was a kid, and now when I see it I catch all these different jokes.”

Sensing she was on my side I chose not to delve into a treatise on the obliquely scatological and intensely political humor of the film.

“Yeah, it’s actually pretty subversive.”

Now completely dehydrated and about to crumble into a dusty mix of my constituent non-H20 molecules, I paid for my drink and left.

And that is why it is after 1 a.m. and my heart is beating about as fast as a hamster’s.

Also filed in Philly, Year 8, lyndzapalooza, stories, walking | | Comments (2)

Ladies of Oscar

Monday, March 3, 2008

These actually happened to be the top two movies on our queue prior to the Oscars, and we got one on each side of the ceremony.

Best Supporting Actress Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton – One of my favorite actors, but she barely notches enough screen time for her billing, let alone for an award. And that doesn’t even take into account her lackluster performance. Her accent slips in multiple places, she has no good dialog save for her big scene with Clooney, and there she barely holds her own.

(Meanwhile, Clooney chose not to get into character whatsoever, leaving the whole affair with the air of a double-feature episode of Law and Order. The in medias res fails utterly because nothing interesting happens between the tease and the fulfillment.)

Best Actress Marion Cotillard in La Vie En Rose – One of the most notable performances I’ve seen this decade, and certainly in line with the strength of Helen Mirren’s win last year for The Queen. I know it’s easy to be impressive when you’re aping a real live person, but Cotillard goes beyond tricks of impersonation we’ve seen in other recent biopics to portray the actual heart of her character – without doing any of the singing.

(That she maintains that heart through an utterly bewildering series of narrative shifts in an overall average film is even more impressive. It would have been embarrassing if she didn’t win.)

That all said, they gave two of my favorite acceptance speeches of all time. I’ll let you decide which film we saw prior and which we saw post.

My report on Oscar’s best men coming never, because I don’t have a hair on my body that wants to watch either of those movies, even if I like one out of their three directors.

(ps, In case you need to fine tune to understand our taste, the next movie we received was Ratatouille, which is surely one of the most disappointing movies I’ve ever seen, especially after watching The Incredibles two or three times in the last week.)

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Razor’s Dull Edge

Monday, November 12, 2007

E and I just got in from a sneak-preview of the new feature-length Battlestar Galactica episode, Razor, which doesn’t air for another two weeks.

We didn’t have to sign any confidentiality whatsits, so I suppose I’m free to divulge whatever plot points I see fit.

However, it’s hardly worth it – there’s nothing shocking or titillating present for any well-read BSG fan. The sole delights are Michelle Forbes portraying Admiral Caine’s descent into her ends justifying any means necessary, and an impressive turn from the slight Stephanie Jacobsen in the lead role – as newly introduced Kendra Shaw.

Past the leading ladies Razor is a empty husk of less-than-gripping retconned plot. The twin stories it portrays are both extraneous – the Pegasus history just as grim as you imagined it, and the Battlestar present (actually, occurring just after The Captain’s Hand) is an inexplicably unmentioned adventure in vintage Cylons, hybrid models, and nuclear warheads. The acting in the Pegasus half is up to BSG par, but the present is plagued by limp, frequently stilted performances the two Adamas, with Kara Thrace escaping with a few good scenes (especially with Kendra).

Also, keep an eye out for a too-long, horrifically lazy young-Adama flashback that would have been so much more effective as a patented, heavy on the gravitas Edward James Olmos speech intercut with a few illustrative frames. Nevermind how they plan to explain why he’s never mentioned it before or since.

Without a single true shock to its credit, Razor is drab filler that supposedly presages the major revelations of Season 4. I can’t say that it has inspired any additional fervor from this fervent fan. If anything, it just emphasizes why BSG’s lease on life is drawing to a close.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, critique, teevee | | Comments (4)

Small Details That Make Me Cry Every Time

Saturday, February 10, 2007

1. When Fleur tends to Bill at the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

2. Anya’s last scene in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

3. When Jessica Lange overturns the hospital cart near the end of Big Fish.

4. Madonna’s end-of-tour prayer in I’m Going to Tell You a Secret.

5. When Eowyn defeats the Witch King in Return of the King.

Surely you have noticed that all five moments involve strong or outspoken female characters. The interesting question is, how many of those moment make me cry because they are sad/touching, as opposed to the ones that make me cry because I am a feminist?

At first blush it would seem to be 4 to 1, but not all is what meets the eye.

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The Descent

Thursday, November 9, 2006

I used to delight in being mean.

The focus of my anger didn’t really matter – a bag boy at the supermarket, a friend in conversation, a bus driver – as long as I vented my spleen at just the right moment. It was infamous and much-lamentedtrait of mine for many years; even Gina would roll her eyes when she saw that i was headed for a blowout.

Over the past few years my capacity for nastiness has been on a steady decline. Even when I summon up a decent fit of rage I usually swallow it, or at least soften the blow. And, not just for the benefit of my friends.

Over the summer I went to see The Descent, and in the fairly packed theatre I sat next to a friendly, cow-eyed middle-aged woman and her companion. She seemed like a decent enough neighbor, though during the previews she occasionally talked back to the screen. But, so do I.

As the movie progressed the talking-back morphed into a non-stop commentary track punctuated with pleas to her companion, like “I don’t know why you brought me to see this,” and “oh my god, you can’t leave me alone to go to the bathroom, I can’t take it. I just can’t take it.” I threw a few sideways glances her way, but she was oblivious in rapt, babbling horror.

Finally, during the first truly grisly scene in the movie her babbling transformed into incoherent gibbering screams, either at the characters on screen or just for her own benefit. Either way, she was significantly louder than the theatre’s surround sound, and I was not missing part of the movie just to get an usher.

Calm and collected, i turned to face the incoherent beast.

“Could you be quieter than the fucking characters in the movie?”

I immediately regreted venting at this creature of an obviously lower personal fortitude than my own. She turned to face me with her horrified, watery cow-eyes, mouth working open and closed like a guppy. She had no verbal reaction, just the “blurp, blurp, blurp” of her jowls working.

Over time my peers have developed an immunity to my scathing remarks, but clearly I had destroyed this creature’s will to live. I had to do something to bring her back from the brink.

“I’m sorry, you’re just really loud.”

She kept guppying at me, accompanying the guppying with her watery wide-eyed stare. I tried to go back to watching the (excellent) movie, but her stare kept nudging me in the side of the head.

I had become more horrifically transfixing than the golum-monsters on screen. I had ruined her movie experience with my meanness. She just wanted to go out to the movies and yammer like a mental patient because she has no coping mechanism to deal with horror but would be the oldest kid in the theatre for The Ant Bully. Who was I to impose society’s artificial standards about being quiet at the movies on her
As the on-screen violence continued I calmly, sweetly, turned back to my (still-staring) neighbor. One of my professors was a fan of a communications theory where other people would agree with you more strongly if you aligned your bodily reactions (like rates of breathing and blinking) with theirs. It was time for a field test.

I carefully matched her cow-stare and her guppy-breathing until I felt that we had reached a state of true simpatico. Gulping down some air and willing my eyes into giant, mooning saucers, I whispered, “I know, it’s really scary.”

Borderline cow-woman bit her lip and nodded at me. I bit my own lip and nodded along. I had established a connection. Slowly, still maintaining eye contact, still in-character as a cow/guppy with borderline personality disorder, I turned back towards the screen.

As if by magic, or a complex system of gears and pulleys, she also turned back towards the screen. I completed my turn in slow motion, finally breaking eye contact when it felt as if my pupil was going to slide back into my head.

She didn’t make another noise or even remotely glance at me for the remainder of the movie, or afterwards when we filed out. Yet, it was a pyrrhic victory, because I felt the need to temper a successful flare-up at a stranger who was screaming incoherently at a movie screen with an apology. You know, so her feelings wouldn’t be too hurt.

Old-school me would have pressed my attack until she ran sobbing from the theatre.

Of course, I wouldn’t have accumulated any good karma that way.

I like to think that present-day me strives to at least break even on karma, which means i only get to be unapolgetically nasty to someone who really deserves it. And, much to my chagrin, talkers at the movies, along with litterers and people who smoke next to you at the bus stop, are just innocent bystanders minding their own lives.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, Year 7, stories | | Comments (3)

The Prestige

Saturday, October 21, 2006

To the magic of the The Prestige i merely say “eh.” It was thouroughly enjoyable to watch, and i’ll definitely see it again, but it ultimately was not very satisfying. At least, not in the way i wanted it to be.

Unlike Nolan’s Momento, which by its nature was mostly unfigureoutable the first time through, Prestige lays it all on the line at various early points and spends the rest of the movie just telling an engaging story while waiting for you to catch up. The ending might some tricky to some, but for those who caught up five minutes previous (or fifty (or a hundred) as the case might have been (or was)) the ending is an ultimate anti-climax – all confirmation, and no surprise.

I can think of three ways that the film could have gone that extra-interesting step; i’ll tuck each behind javascript so as not to spoil anything: 1, 2, 3

Go to this movie for the riveting story of intense jealousy and rivalry. Go for the tale of how no revenge is revenge enough. Go for outstanding performances by Caine, Jackman, and Bale, Scarlett doing what she can with a hobbled role, and marvellous turns from Serkis and Bowie.

If you go for the Nolan riddle wrapped in an enigma you’ll leave feeling as if you had been told a knock-knock joke.

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The Descent Offers Awesome Thrills (maybe makes you think)

Saturday, August 12, 2006

The Descent is half a languorously-paced introduction and half a compilation of sheer, unadulterated thrill, proving that that horror is in the eye of the beholder as it terrorizes its heroes with the twin threats of nature and something slightly more unnatural. As to which is more horrific, it’s entirely up to you.

(This review is detailed, but spoiler-free!)

The plot is relatively bare, but sketches more personality onto each of our six protagonists than typical genre fare. We don’t learn too much about who is claustrophobic, but we learn a bit about each woman – alternatingly fearless and tentative, experienced and unsure. First-introduced pair of Sarah and the strong-willed Juno are the most fully-realized – both cut from the same adventuresome cloth, but then sewn up in different ways. Their background and ensuing conflicts are the most developed, but the remaining quartet of women are well-enough defined in a few quickly paced bouts of perhaps too-easily-missable dialog.

Stacking the deck with a seemingly cliched extreme thrill-seeker (Holly) and a tentative young med student (Sam) is a blessing in disguise, as each has failings just as distinct as their strengths. The remaining pair – Sarah’s sensible best friend Beth and Sam’s sure older-sister Rebecca – are sketchier archetypes, but come packed with some of the most tangible emotion as the film progresses.

The six women are pulled together by Juno’s resolution that an adventurous distraction could set things straight between her and Sarah, who experienced a terrible and unfortunate tragedy a year before – just minutes after completing the last group adventure. Juno’s choice of challenge is spelunking in a cave that’s slightly more challenging than she lets on. In fact, the cave is terrifying – it’s rocky mass often takes up the majority the screen while a single character scratches and claws her way through a thin crevasse.

As if the spelunking wasn’t hard enough, the adventure is complicated by Juno and Holly’s over-aggressive nature, a single badly chosen path, and the creatures.

The creatures are half Gollum, half X-Files Fluke Man, and all creepy. Their creepiness is not only established by their look, but also their movement and methods of attack, which means that even in relatively bright conditions they still come off as completely terrifying. They are wisely reserved by Writer/Director Neil Marshall, for half the film, only vaguely hinted and once-glimpsed before they finally introduce themselves to the group of adventurers.

Several factors work strongly in Descent’s favor, not the least of which being that it presents two eminently defeatable horrors: caves which can be surmounting with careful skill, and creatures which can be outsmarted or outfought given the right amount of pluck and timing. Each woman has the chance to do both, with mixed success. In light of this, the tension comes increasingly from personalities while the scares are shifted mostly the creatures (leaving you unprepared for a few final parting shots from the cave itself).

If you have a firm will and a strong stomach you might not avert your eyes from the screen due to the (intense) gore, but the film keeps you wincing with a gruesome bone break and a few terrifically jarring falls. On the human side of things, Juno and Sarah have separate interactions with Beth that left me in full-on tears, while Rebecca’s early feat of athleticism left me gasping for breath after holding it for so long.

Each woman holds their own against the creatures at least a little, with Sam’s quick non-combative reactions almost as satisfying as Natalie Mendoza’s starmaking ass-kickery as Juno. However, it is Shauna MacDonald as Sarah who truly steals the show, combining a little of each woman’s strengths along with a few shocking decisions and one classic Alien-by-way-of-Carrie sequence that could be the film’s trademark.

Ultimately the movie sends the message that thrillers are better off served straight-up thrilling, without the tired cliches that so often define them. The lack of speculation on the creatures’ origins keeps the suspension of disbelief refreshingly afloat. The lack of extended exposition lets the viewer experience everything for themselves. And, the all-female cast collectively reacts just as people under duress should react, making their sex hardly an issue (except for removing the tired angle of romance, and making the “virgin/slut” distinction negligible).

The flick could almost be cast with a blind eye to gender. Yet, it would be a lie to say that the lack of men has no impact – the movie is hardly feminist in conception, but it says some things about women and friendship along the way.

The finale was truncated in the US because the worldwide version was deemed too grim for American audiences. The US version is shocking, though it will leave you uneasy and possibly confused, while the original UK ending turns the film into more of a psychological mindbender than it might have otherwise seemed. It’s hard to say which is superior, but either way this is a movie that absolutely must be experienced on the big screen while you have the chance. A DVD screening won’t pack the same punch, unless you plan to screen in a particularly dank basement with killer surround.

The Descent may fail un-creepable critics, jaded horror junkies, especially well-versed rock-climbers, and creature-obsessees, all of whom will find some chinks to complain over. Anyone who can appreciate the agile-but-sparse character development who enjoys a good, stomach-churning scare would never turn The Descent down.

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a stronger faster fiercer me

Sunday, July 16, 2006

I would just like to point out, tipsy as i am in the wake of viewing Dead Man’s Chest, that i am still quite possibly the worldwide master of amateur Ani DiFranco transcribers.

Was i comfortable resting on my laurels of years gone by, having accurately transcribed the better half of Little Plastic Castle prior to release? Or, relying on my collaborative transcription of the good bits reveling/Reckoning to tide me through more fallow years? No, my friends. Because, as i have just reminded myself (and also the world, via this post), i am still able to choose an Ani DiFranco song to play on one day, and am able to play that very song the very next day.

I scoff at pre-printed tunings and stabbed-at tabs in standard – they’re meaningless. I learned the lazy way to play guitar from the best rabid feminist with glue-on nails in the business; i can suss out the easiest tuning out of any grouping as soon as i figure out the open strings.

Meanwhile, Depp and Co. scored a big 3 Drinks, 3.5 Stars from me after tonight’s viewing. I fairly actively despised their debut flick, but after a tumultuously awful start this go wound up thrilling fun, just as all summer movies should be. Superman will need much luck (and maybe an extra drink?) to best them in tomorrow’s viewing.

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Sleeping in Theaters, on Trains

Friday, September 23, 2005

We just saw The Corpse Bride. You know a movie was earth-shatteringly dull when the only thing Elise and I can find the discuss on the way out was the lighting. Inexplicably, it has a 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Spoiler-free Serenity review. We’ll be seeing it next Friday with Erika and Anthony next Friday.

I wish i could walk into one store that isn’t playing the new Kanye West album, but for that to happen i might have to discover the secret of time travel. I mean, i love Jon Brion as much as… well, probably more than the majority of people buying the Kanye West disc, but it’s not nearly as good as, say, the Tracy Bonham album.

Cute-but-obvious article on how Random Playlists aren’t Random (but are). Also: Virtual plague breaks out in World of Warcraft, and cannot be contained. Seems cool from a distance, but I’m sure I’d be annoyed if all of my heroes started dropping like flies. Hell, the Vahlizok disease was annoying enough. Meanwhile, a fascinating article on one of the first online communities: LucasFilm’s Habitat. It’s dry at points – for the funny anecdotes skip down to “Running the World.”

After two months, i still don’t have a functional ATM card. WTG, Citizens Bank. Must decide if i want to have drinks in NYC tonight but haul-ass to the train, OR leisurely hang out tonight but wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow for same train.

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