wicked

we have had something wicked this way comes (1983) FOREVER. we tried to watch it last night, but both couldn't stay awake, even though it was eleven. the movie's also slow, so it wasn't all our fault.

i love those ray bradbury stories. i think a lot of the magic and insight in the books comes from and narrator and the movie didn't have a narrator. in some ways, this is good movie making because narrators are often a sign of lazy story telling (my brother told me that) but it also meant that the movie lacked insight and some of the magic.

the plot is hard to describe, especially since i fell asleep, but it's the story of two boys, one light and one dark, and this evil carnavel that somes to town. The movie made me realize that i'm more like the light boy (will hallowy) who is careful and nervous. i think that the two boys are two sides of one person, so i'm sure i have some jim nightshade in me. you really should read the books the illustrated man and dandillion wine and skip the movie. or maybe watch the movie to get you intersested in the books

anything clive owen

The Boys Are Back is a sad, hunting movie about a father who's wife dies of cancer leaving him with a five-year-old. the father is a sports writer in Australia and wasn't home a lot, so he really doesn't know what to do. he decides there are few rules and the house becomes a total mess. his teenage son from his previous marriage come to Australia from england and the three of them build a kind of life.

the movie's interesting because nothing goes spectacularly wrong. liz and i kept bracing for the big, BIG disaster, but it never came. plenty of stuff goes wrong, but it's in a real life way, not in a movie way. which was nice. i think that life is about small battles and small mistakes, and this movie illustrates them beautifully.

and, Australia looks just great. and there are wild kangaroos, which i love.

porn on the big screen

so, i sent you the description of the autobiography of a flea and from that i thought it would have sex in it, but not serious fucking and close ups of the act. and, this adorable kid gave an intro and he mentioned X rated, but not adult film or porn. but, it totally had those things and plenty of it. i've never watched a porn in such a public setting. i don't know why people would do that. i was turned on, but couldn't do anything about it.

so, the plot is a a flea narrating his adventures on a girl. this girl starts with sex with someone her age, gets caught by a priest who decides the mother mary wants her to make up for her sins by having sex with him and two fellow fathers. one of the fathers is john holmes, who i've heard of but never seen. he does have a big dick, but is a horrible actor. then, the priest tells her uncle, who needs to have sex with her, but by now she likes it. she's walking through a field and gets attacked kind of by a father/son rape/masturbation team. then, she and priest trick this father to have sex with his daughter, then she has sex with him to make him feel better, then he has sex with his daughter knowingly and then he dies from excitement after watching four people do it.

andrea pointed out that it just kept going further. like, what could be worst then being raped by your uncle? oh, getting raped by a father/son team? what could be worst then having sex unknowingly with your daughter? having sex with her knowingly.

but, it was really funny. it had some awesome lines and costumes and like i said, john fucking holmes, king of seventies porn. if all the graphic, boring penis in vaginis had been cut out, it would have been better in that setting.

oh, and the three priest were hot with soft, curly hair and skinny, muscular bodies, which was nice because they were naked a lot.

fucked up is best

we got X-Men Origins: Wolverine because it has tim riggins in it and i saw it before i had watched friday night lights and had the proper love for him.

x-men and batman are my favorite superhero movies and i love them. this one isn't the best, but wolverine is a foxy in his boot-cut jeans and little ass, and that's enough to carry the movie for me.

Taylor Kitch plays Gambit, who is one of my favorite x-men. when i saw the movie the first time, i felt like gambit wasn't hot enough, but, of course, now i feel better about him. liz noticed that taylor kitch's checks got rosy in the movie and if FNL, which means that it must be a taylor kitch thing, not a character thing, which is totally cute.

advice from france

Sometimes i have a hard time motivating myself to watch a movie with subtitles. i thought that a funny movie would be easier and it was. I Do: How to Get Married and Stay Single is a cute, french movie starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is really something special. It's about a 43 year-old guy who has five (maybe four) sisters and a strong mother, and they decide he has to get married because they are sick of taking care of his laundry and shopping for him and stuff. The start setting him up, but he doesn't want to get married and they won't stop.

so, he hires his best friend's kid sister to be his girlfriend, get his family to love her and then she won't show up on the wedding day and he can be heartbroken and off the hook. but, it doesn't work out that way.

it was funny because it was believable, not jokey funny.

the two things i really like is that charlotte's character Emma is adopting a baby because she really wants one and she can't seem to get pregnant.

and, he has this big blow out with his family about how he doesn't want them in his shit and how he loves emma (who they hate at this point) and he doesn't need their approval. and then he yells that it doesn't mean he doesn't love them and want them in his life. that was so great. it was nice that he could say it out loud and that he didn't see not having his family in his life as the answer. it made him a strong character.

german killers

I got The Baader Meinhof Complex because of the cover art. and, sometimes i like to watch german movies to test my german. it was pretty good, but started skipping a little over half way through and it wasn't good enough for me to watch the end. does that mean it was bad?

mostly what i learned is that sometimes radicals are just mean assholes. some of them have good ideas and really want to change the world, but the most radical are often just bad guys who found a noble cause to latch on to. sometimes i think radicals are always selfish because they are trying to force their ideas of right on everyone else. that's pretty cocky.

double feature saturday day

addams family values: what's with really great comedies ending with really awful songs playing over the credits? whoop there it is? remember that one? the addams family values should have something much better. i guess i know i can at least depend on wes anderson to end a movie with a great song. although i also guess i'm just mad because whoop there it is came on much louder than the movie and made me jump off the couch when i didn't want to move that fast. anyway, i love the woody allen-esque friend kid at camp who wednesday kisses and then he shows up later looking like gomez. the real star of the show is joan cusack as debbie, the black widow, who consistently fails at killing uncle fester for his moneybags. at the end, she gives a great villain speech about barbies, murder, self-pity and desire, and then the new addams baby saves everyone from the semi-circle of electric chairs that debbie had them all in. plus wednesday's speech at the thanksgiving paegent at summer camp is something worth revisiting. oh, and carol kane as the granny is great too.

the little girl who lives down the lane: lately kid jodie foster keeps popping up. i saw alice doesn't live here anymore awhile ago, i can't remember if i blogged it but it was a good story about an immature woman and her relationship with shitheads and her son and how she tries after her shithead hubby dies to become a singer in bars after being a housewife for years and years in the 70s. kid jodie foster plays the best friend of the woman's son. she's the picture of androgynous as a 12 y.o.
in TLGWLDTL, she plays a 13 year old girl living in small town, racist 70s maine with her poet dad. except everyone is suspicious b/c they've never seen the poet dad and they're all concerned about this girl all by herself. some people are nosy, martin sheen plays a creepy kidtoucher type who's the son of the shitty rich lady who runs the town, and some people are nice, like the italian cop and his teenage magician nephew. there's murder, and precocious kidness (kid jodie foster learns hebrew from a record, loves chopin and emily dickinson, etc), and early love, and some agatha christie throwbacks. i think the kjf's character name is Rynn. her wardrobe is understated but makes me jealous, like a 13 y.o. kid walking around in a moroccan robe calmly offering tea to the people that barge in to her house looking for her father? she plays everything pretty cool. so, i highly recommend this one.

this morning i watched nightmare before xmas. ever since i've been thinking about the tim burton exhibit at moma, i've been thinking about tim burton.

i rented addams family values because i'm in a bad mood today and it worked in making me feel better until i accidentally broiled a loaf of banana bread like a total master of nothing. i asked coworkers at the videostore what movies pull them out of bummed/pissed and they said: lethal weapons, gilmore girls, silence of the lambs. i only asked two people i guess. anyway, what do you say?

disney v disney

you know how building a netflix cue can really get you going? why aren't we Netflix friends, by the way? I thought about it and I think it would take no mystery out of this blog.

so now my cue -- have i really been typing cue? oh, queue. my queue (such a good scrabble word) is all disney. i wanted to start out with something lesser known. as it turns out, this was a bad choice. the brave little toaster is not a good movie. how can you screw with the idea of a bunch of talking appliances? i dunno. so the story is that all these appliances live in a summer cabin and love the little boy who summers there. they call him master in the creepiest way and the electric blanket is always crying about it. after a for sale sign gets staked into the lawn and the angry air conditioner explodes in a fit of anger, the grumpy vacuum, the snappy radio, the wonky lamp and the optimistic toaster set off for the city in search of their master. the dialogue is terrible and it never makes any sense. why do these inanimate objects love this boy so much and why do they call him master? especially since master and his family could give a crap about these appliances? obviously these appliances are totally codependent and, what's worse, are not at all funny.

however, disney has done some amazing things that continue to amaze me. the sword in the stone is pure magic. the whole fish/bird/squirrel sequences where the boy learns life lessons about love, danger, friendship and other stuff are so fun to watch. and the battle between the wizards merlin and mim-- also great. the thing is this movie has a really sad ending. the boy, arthur, becomes king arthur, king of england etc, when he pulls the sword out of the stone but then he's stuck in this room alone, with a big heavy crown and he tries to leave a few times but the exits are blocked by fans screaming his name. and then merlin shows up in bermuda shorts and from the future and makes a joke about television commercials and it's over. highly recommended for a revisit.

welcome to baltimore

When I visited Baltimore a year or so ago, I wish I had called you and asked where exactly you lived so I could've walked by your old Baltimore house. That would've been nice.

Like Twin Peaks before, my house is now watching the wire. I hate the second season, I just don't like the characters. I don't like the harbor stuff and the union stuff doesn't interest me as much as the cool drug kings or the disgusting politicians or the frustrated teachers or the frustrated journalists. But I'm slogging thru because the cops are all still awesome. The guy Lester who makes doll furniture, he might be the sexiest character. Tweed and miniatures? Hot hot hot.

This season they have to solve the murder of 14 girls who were transported illegally into the US in a big metal container like cargo and no one got them out in time so they suffocated. Sex trade, human trafficking, maybe this case just terrifies me more and when I get to thinking about how fragile and not valued life is, isn't that scary?

In my dreams, I think about how when we finish the wire my housemates and i could take a field trip to Baltimore but awake I remember how it was shocking. And quirky. Love the quirk. Like, did the teenager on the bus call me "hon" because I was obviously a tourist? Shocking and quirky in so many ways. I wish people made shows like that about every city but I guess the wire is a microcosm type thing.

The Wire is such a good show. It's funny how those HBO shows seem quaint now, but I think the wire holds up. I love a good case.

all the single men

so, a week or two ago, i went to see a single man on the last $5 tuesday i'll be attending for awhile. from now on, my tuesday nights are for libraries. anyway, i love love loved a single man. not too often the first sequence of a film makes me sob and then the sob won't go away but keeps coming back in little spurts. i love movies that make me cry. colin firth is awesome, you love him, and gee whiz with good reason. julianne moore, also great and messy and old and not as beautiful as usual. and the whole thing was tasteful fashion that looked great thru my tears. sometimes i get jealous of same-sex relationships because i wonder if those couples get closer but then i remember that we all die alone.

great six-pack

liz and i went to see million dollar quartet the other night and jerry lee lewis was liz's favorite, so we got great ball of fire. i remember going to the video store when i was a kid and there was a big cardboard cut out of jerry lee and when you pressed a button, it would play great balls of fire. it was pretty sweet.

mostly the movie is about the love/creepyness between jerry lee lewis and his 13-year-old cousin bride, played by winona rider. it was alright, although dennis quaid was over thirty and he was only supposed to be about 22. jerry lee lewis was such a spaz, i feel like anyone could have played him because he was over acting all the time anyway.

best line, winona's crying in the kitchen and it's a mess, "i'm not a wife, i'm only 13!"

she makes a great point.

gotta love him

so, i guess i'm pretty in love with robert downey jr right now so i got hugh pool from netflix. it's a movie made by his father and it's not that good. it's dated and clearly made by someone who really loved drugs in the seventies. like, it's the nineties and the seventies. what could be worse?

i guess i could talk about the plot a little. it's about hugh, a hot girl pool cleaner and her one big day with her fuck up parents and crazy clients. but, dr. mcdreamy's in it as a guy with steven hawkin disease and i just really love him. he's such a fox and seeing him ten years younger never hurt anyone. so, don't see it, i guess, although it had a kind of nice, drug, nonsense feeling.

mean is the point

i also loved sherlock holmes. i just loved it so much. first off, i love guy richie. i've loved him since i went to a sneak peak of lock stock and two smoking barrels and he talked. and, he did a great job with this one. it was action and funny and the mystery was pretty good. it doesn't hurt that the two stars are totally hot and just play off each other.

done with it

so, i guess i was on a george clooney kick when i picked out my netflix because i got michael clayton and confessions of a dangerous mind. confessions of a dangerous mind came out when i worked at the video store and i never watched it. but, it was good. i like the idea of someone still alive claiming to have a secret life and no one knows if it's true. how can you believe in the bible if you can't even confirm things that happened in the seventies, right?

michael clayton just reminded me that i'm done with corporate thrillers. i feel like it peaked with the firm. i felt like duplicity was funny, but would have been better if it wasn't about evil corporations. but, in michael clayton, i did totally call that the crazy voice was tom wilkinson. i'm just that good.

comedy for girls

Watch them all; they're really short and amazing. I think she's the greatest. How do you feel about it?

L'Imaginarium du Docteur Parnassus

So, I saw the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus last night. Do you love Terry Gilliam? I think I do. I don't even know how many of his movies I've seen. There always seems to be some mess about whatever movie, some illness or death or some just ridiculousness that throws cog upon cog in the machine. If a book comes out about his movies after this one, I'd like to read it. Anyway, this time it was the death of Heath Ledger. There's the thing about how he died before filming finished so Gilliam decided to have three other actors play his parts. The three other actors play him in the weird dream world, so story-wise it works out. I love Christopher Plummer, he plays the doctor, and his daughter and his young side-kick are all really wonderful. I guess the plot isn't all that cohesive. I wasn't totally won over by Tom Waits as the Devil. But I did love the movie. The cheesy special effects and the amazing collapsible stage that is also the doctor and crew's home and vehicle is magical. The whole thing is messy and magical and charming. Gross London, silly flashbacks and flimsy existential stuff. Just wonderful. Like Wes Anderson, Terry Gilliam is really good at creating a world and a mood that I guess encases the film in a membrane of mood. Yuck? But, anyway, definitely see it, it's great.

i'm afraid of virginia woolf

I guess the thing was that Liz Taylor and Richard Burton had a really crazy gin-soaked hollywood marriage or something. But so they made this movie together called Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's based on a play by Edward Albee. And it's about a married couple (LT & RB) on a college campus who bray and yell and mess with each other psychologically and also mess with a young academic couple. Liz Taylor has her eye on the young professor while she's always giving her husband shit. Liz Taylor is middle-aged and pudged a little with curly grey hair and I think she's so beautiful like that. There's some just wonderfully biting dialogue. The movie can be frustrating if you're not in the mood for people talking and yelling in circles. But! If you are, it's really, really great. It'a also, I should say, really sad and really weird and really depressing. All things I equate with great, usually

movie new year

liz and i watched mike judge's extract today. i kept seeing previews for it and was sold. it was alright. i didn't know jason bateman could have such a bad hair cut. i didn't really learn any thing new from the movie, but it was good for a couple hours.

it did have this guy who was in sunshine cleaners. i kind of love that guy. he got his ball blown off in this movie.