the good side of rape

i was really excited about brief interviews with hideous men. it's written and directed by jim from the office and i love movies written and directed by one person.

I should probably rewatch it because i wasn't paying number one attention, but i did really like it. i liked that it's jumped around like crazy. i like movies that don't assume i'm stupid and need everything explained in a logical manner. i also like movies that don't explain everything.

josh charles (my long-time dead poet society love) says there is something that he has to tell these girls he dates, but i don't think we ever hear what it is. i think the point is more that he does this to so many girls and that he made all these girls move and get rid of their cats before he tells them.

one of the big themes (?) in the movie is rape. this guy writes a paper about how a raped girl could be empowered by that because now she knows that the worse can happen and she can survive it. at least that's what i think his point was. i kind of love that. i've never been raped, but i sometimes really believe that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger and that people don't know how strong they are until they are faced with something difficult. but, maybe that's not true. maybe difficult things are impossible for most people to get over and they would be better off if they never had to face that situation.

and, there are a lot of guys in this movie and almost all of them are my favorites from somewhere.

sci-fi in horror disguise

so, after moon, i'm trying out more sci-fi. my housemate went to the videostore friday night and came home with a film from the sci-fi section that has a total horror cover:

how horror is that? a bandaged face? cmon! and while it did seem like horror at first, it quickly turned into a clever time travel movie that seemed easy to predict but was always two steps ahead of you. i recommend it cos you're alright with mysteries and i wonder if you could figure it out. the smoke and mirrors are really great in this one. it's spanish with english subtitles. spanish wives always seem so cute. the main character dude has to go back in time a bunch and each time you realize the reason for something you may have been wondering about but that's a supersimple dash of a description. it also looks nice.
oh, the english title is: timecrimes.

you can count on me

mark ruffalo, rory culkin and laura linney. what a team. it all made me want to watch the station agent. strep throat means sappy indie movies, i spose. that's just fine with me. i'm pretty happy to be on a movie kick. i went to the videostore twice yesterday-- twice!

so, i hope you've seen you can count on me. everyone should see it but especially people with siblings. here we have mark ruffalo as the loser brother showing up to visit his single mom barely keeping it together sister. she lives in their dead parents' house with her depressive 8y.o. son. she sleeps with her boss, won't marry her friend and talks to the priest a lot. i think the priest is the guy who wrote and/or directed the movie. he's really great. mark ruffalo is sweet and toxic and obnoxious. the kid is precocious and apathetic and adorable. laura linney is neurotic and desperate and loving. the end makes me cry every time. it's one of those scenes where the title is the answer to a question that one character asks another, but neither character says the answer/title out loud cos it's so heavy for them and then you're saying to yourself, the answer is "you can count on me."

waterworks.

those aren't weapons, those are his hands.

whoever made johnny depp knew what they were doing. in edward scissorhands, i know he's goodlooking still, but in edward scissorhands, he's like beautiful, so pretty. and i forgot what a great actor he is sometimes. i think i really like johnny depp. that was hard to take about big fish- his absence. winona ryder, on the other hand, had a bratty shitty liar of a character to play and since i'm emotional today i didn't warm up to her at all. the good news is that diane weist from all those comedies and woody allen movies plays the avon lady mom that takes edward to her suburban house after discovering him in the dead inventor's abandoned mansion. she's so sweet and patient, and her husband is adorably oblivious but also very sweet. good people. their kids, which wr is one, are just kids i guess but they're not as good as their parents. maybe it's an age thing. i guess that makes sense.

anyway, it's a beautiful movie. there's the charming homogenous 60s neighborhood, some john waters type wardrobe, candy colors, and this town even has its own talk show. remember how he does the hedges to look like families and dinosaurs? and then he becomes a hairdresser and gives everyone funny asymetrical cuts? and then everything goes wrong, all the women in the neighborhood stop good gossiping and start bad gossiping and suddenly everyone hates edward, they storm his mansion like a crazy mob and so winona ryder fakes his death for him so he can be left alone?

i think edward scissorhands is supposed to make you hate middle-aged women and teenage girls. all it did was make me love johnny depp and ice sculptures.

the afternoon movie watching time

so, we talked a bit through big fish this afternoon. i agree that it's only ok. my memory of it was really positive but in reality it is thin and yeah, alright. maybe it's not as committed as his earlier movies. i'm not sure what happened. maybe lack of committmenet is a major world problem. what does that even mean?
i wanted red and siamese twins and silly stories and that's what i got. also the girl who plays edith piaf is billy crudup's wife and roy from the office is ewan mcgregor's enemy. jessica lange is so pretty. she smiles a lot and is very kind and happy in this movie. albert finney is an excellent storyteller and crudup is a good cynic and the end where crudup spins his own tall tale for his father about his father's death is so tearjerking, it jerked the tears right onto my eyes and all down my face. it hurt to cry too much so i reminded myself that i could store this memory for when i needed a good cry and not when it would make my throat and ear feel more like enemies of mine. so, the movie was limp but ending was strong.

before that, earlier, i watched a documentary called the sheild around the k or something about k records. it was mostly a documentary about the founder calvin johnson, his band beat happening and the 80s in olympia. it was cool to learn that a group of people became friends because of community radio. i like beat happening so it was nice to see lots of live footage of them too. but overall it wasn't very informative about the record label itself and it wasn't very compelling. for instance, i turned it off with only ten minutes to go and i feel no need to go back to it. calvin johnson has such a great deep voice. i love it.

Long Live Alan Alda

while waiting for my housemate to get back from the videostore with movies, possibly the new star trek, and i couldn't go cos i called out sick tonight, i'm watched the 3rd episode of the 2nd season of M*A*S*H. it's called "radar's report." so you know how it's a bunch of doctors and nurses in a mobile hospital unit on the frontline in Korea, during the war. radar is the assistant to the head of it all, so he has to type up reports and so in this episode him typing/voicingover the report is like the greek chorus. i always watch this one. i love it. there's a chinese p.o.w. who freaks out and knifes some people and they have to convince him to accept treatment with no common language. he also chops the bra strap of corporal clinger (from toledo!) who dresses like a lady in hopes of getting discharged on insanity. diane arbus's husband plays the psychiatrist on the show, and i like him and his character a lot, so it's always fun when he shows up, which he does this time to evaluate the crossdressing toledoen (?). hawkeye pierce, aka alan alda, is really schmaltzy and funny and always after the nurses. his best friend trapper is a bit more serious. oh no, i forgot how trapper loses a patient and gets really sad about it. the kid got sicker b/c the p.o.w. outburst botched the surgery that would've fixed the kid, and trapper gets so pissed. hawkeye falls in love with a nurse enough to propose but she's against marriage, it's pretty adorable. he says stuff like: "i'd love you in war, and peace, and moby dick-- any of the classics!"
i watch this show on dvd with the laugh track turned off, which makes a big difference, cos it's actually kind of a sad, dramatic, anti-war show, but with some slapstick and marx bros jokes thrown in, so anyway, i think on regular tv it might not be as good, but i love M*A*S*H. any season, any episode. and it's on all the time, right? do you ever watch it?

la-la-lost

are you all caught up? it's funny that we never talk about lost at all. maybe this blog isn't the right forum. but i loved last nite's episode. when i know you've seen it, i'll tell you what i loved about it.

check this out:
every epic beatdown of ben linus

big shit hitting big fans

i finally watched big fan just now. you were appalled that was in my queue right? i have to say, i'm not sure you'd like it. i dunno how much i really liked the characters but i get the feeling they were supposed to be unlikable. and i also felt like the director was doing to staten island what vincent gallo did to buffalo in buffalo 66: taking the cheap shots. catholic, italian, fake boobs, uggs, statues of saints everywhere, overbearing mothers, losers, football. staten island and buffalo have a lot in common, and i'm not trying to be a jerk to either place, it's all in that list right there. anyway, big fan is totally sad. i can't laugh at a dude who lives with his mom, jerks off under nfl sheets, is in his late 30s, and seems sad. he does have an awesome best friend who really likes him and who tries to explain to him that root beer is "earth's natural beverage" cos it's brown and cos of the word "root." his mom and his brother and his sister suck, but he sucks too. everyone sucks, even the football player he worships who then also beats him up so bad he's in the hospital for 5 days. and he refuses to press charges cos he loves the team. that's why i think you might not like it. this guy just has no self respect or whatever. but there are funny moments and it looks nice and i did enjoy it but i already knew what happened ahead of time so i wasn't going to get frustrated with the big fan being an idiot. i promised myself i wouldn't, and i kept that promise. oh, michael rappoport is in it, and i really like him. i also love patton oswalt. i wish he read audio books. he's great. i do love that the character calls into a radio sports show and plans out what he's going to say.

cranky runnings

yesterday i flopped on the couch and watched silent runnings, which i had started a few days before. after watching moon i wanted more alone in space stuff. i still think about moon and i think if any movie met the criteria for owning, moon is it for me. i could watch it over and over, maybe even enough to hate it years later like i did with magnolia.

but so: silent runnings. it's the future, earth is all forest-less and so there are these projects floating in space, spaceships, I guess, that have biodomes attached to them, to preserve forest life or something, possibly in case earth ever becomes inhabitable again for such things. i say i guess because i was drifting in and out of both the room and consciousness. bruce dern and a bunch of other dudes work on the spaceship, but bruce dern is the one crazy for the dome forest. he goes bonkers for fruit he grows himself, and has at least one diatribe about how the other dudes eat colorless, growerless, tasteless things and he thinks that's dumb! again with the shit hitting the outerspace fan: the homebase on earth gets all, toss the forestdomes into space and return to earth, spaceship! but bruce dern gets all, no way! and he does some shitty shit to the other dudes until it's just him and three drones, which he renames Huey, Louie and Dewey. The drones can do things like plant trees, perform surgery and make ice cream (i didn't see them make ice cream, but you just know they can). So, most of the movie is bruce dern loving the space forest and playing cards with or saying stupid supposed-to-be-funny-but-aren't one liners to the drones. pretty bad. maybe one of those good-bad things, i dunno. i'm not sorry i watched it but i'm not sure i needed to, you know? it was one of those things. plus joan baez does the whole soundtrack and although i don't hate her i don't really love her and especially not over space images. maybe it's like juxtaposition, man, but it made my headache worse.

public hotties

how did michael mann turn a movie about sexy gangsters into a forgettable snoozefest? that's how i feel about mystery men too. the cast is there, the concept is great but the movie doesn't deliver. public enemies didn't get very good reviews. so i was ready for it.

but, i did love johnny depp in the understated rule of gangster badass with a heart of gold. and i'd fuck christian bale in front of aaron, so it's always good to see him.

mostly, i didn't learn anything except that guys wore taller hats than i though, i didn't laugh and then it was over.

suddenly our lack of a spoiler policy makes me nervous (delete this post if you wanna see moon w/o knowing the story)

phew, i mean it.how do you feel about it? i don't really care if you tell me the story. and i guess that's the whole point of the blog? please advise on this matter so that we know we're on the same page.

so, on to moon. you get cleanedup nicelooking sam rockwell, bloody nose sam rockwell, space suit sam rockwell, sick pale sam rockwell and long johns sam rockwell. sometimes a combo of these. so, he's working on the moon, it's future and we get all our energy from the moon. and he's the dude harvesting it. his 3 year contract is almost up when another one of him shows up and shit starts to hit the outerspace fan. there's a computer played by kevin spacey. er, voiced. def heavily referencing 2001, which i don't think i've ever seen not on acid. def sam rockwell is amazing playing two of himself. the interior of the moon station is great and it's great how his clothes are always really dirty and how the computer has an emoticon face that changes. the computer really likes the sam rockwells and wants to help them in their plight against the big corp that runs the moon energy harvest station. it has one of those sleeper endings where you don't expect the movie to end but it's a nice 1-2 punch kind of thing. sleepier than a punch. maybe like, 1-2 nap.

i really liked it.

why is selfish funny?

liz's friend michael really loved this show summer heights high and then aram and sabrina loved it, so i got it. it's an Australian show that's on HBO here. it's a high school and the three main characters are a drama teacher, a 13-year-old, troubled islander and a posh girl from private school who is there as an exchange student. and, they're all played by the same guy. it's office style, mochumentory, which i don't love.

so, the three characters are total assholes. which i also think is like the office, although with the office it's only michael who's the asshole. i don't know if i think that's funny. maybe i just have to be in the mood. i watched a few episodes yesterday and didn't love it, but i've been thinking about it, so that says something. i'll have to watch the rest of it.

party up

have i recommended party down yet? it's a really funny sitcom. it's also on instant on netflix. i wonder, if you gave it a chance, would you like it?

it's about a catering team of aspiring hollywooders, one of whom is jane lynch and the leader of all is a guy from the state, the hottest one, i think, if i remember correctly, and every episode is a different setting because they cater different events. i love it. i just told leigh to watch it and she loves it too. you and liz might love it too if you don't already love it or hate it or feel nothing about it.

stealing from the rich, wearing homemade pads

Robin Hood is the next Disney movie I watched. What can I say about it except that I love it? I remembered best from childhood the church mice who save up forever to give one coin to the church for the poor. Everyone's so poor in Robin Hood and it rains a lot when they show how poor everyone is. There was some talk about how can King Richard be Maid Marion's uncle if he's a lion and she's a fox? And also how Disney characters are all the same. Robin Hood is the fox from the Fox and the Hound, Little John is Baloo (?) from the Jungle Book, the baby rabbit is Thumper. Cheap, Walt. Real cheap.

I made some wads of terrycloth into homemade pads and I love them. When it comes time for adult diapers, you won't hear any complaints from me. I'm sitting comfortable.

love at first sight, hate at first sight

The Passion of Joan of Arc is great. It's black and white, silent, with a score written for it if you want, which I did because it's not like silent movies were ever shown without music plus I question my ability to pay attention to a movie without music, and it mostly consists of close-ups of the Joan's face. Her eyes are usually looking upward and leaking tears. One thing that always bothers me about Salem witch trial stuff is that no one ever bothered to transcribe the trials. Just another shitty thing about the Puritans. Anyway, the great thing about this is that the Catholic Church did transcribe Joan of Arc's trial and so the dialogue from this film is the same. How great is that? I think it's so great. So, you know, French teen girl, visions of saints that say Hey teen girl, go save the King! and she does but she has to dress up like a boy, etc. The Passion is just her trial and execution, none of her leading anybody in battle. She's still dressed like a boy, and there's a lot of focus on dressing like a boy or dressing like a girl. Man, the Catholic Church wanted her to dress like a girl so much! And she wouldn't. The voices were like, no dice, not until the King is totally saved. I don't know the whole story, but I guess the French threw her under the bus anyway. There's some nice allegory/juxtaposition of the area where she's gonna get burned at the stake being filled with circus performers and then slowly getting filled with execution spectators. It's really short, and it's on instant. I liked that there were a few monks that stood up for her even though it didn't save her in the end and that also she waffled a bit. It wasn't as cut and dry, I guess, as I had thought. I bet nothing is.

And then, the hate at first sight. I thought, hey, that movie The Messenger with Milla Jovovich whatever, who I really like, is in it and plays Joan of Arc and I wanted to see her really kill it, er kick butt, er what have you, but I got distracted because right from the get-go they have her getting visions of *jesus* as a little girl and not the saints, I'm not a total accuracy-stickler, although I do prefer the saints to the jesus, so maybe that was it. It was good to get mad at a movie, though, and take it out on not watching it. Then I did some tai chi and ate some fried eggs. It's fried eggs now, on a cast iron pan, the little one that people always cook bacon in so that it's already all oiled up. Yum.

bars with tvs

liz and i went to a cute bar yesterday for this music thing her friend organizes. there were two bands and they were great, but so was watching never been kissed with subtitles. i cried in the bar, how embarrassing.

St. Not Funny

netflix really let me down the garden path with St. Trinian's (2007) which was supposed to be a comedy about a fucked up girls private school in england, but was really boring and totally not funny once.

not even rupert everett as a lady with really ugly fake teeth could save it.

make it last forever

on friday night, my new friends andrea and nick had people over to watch never released on dvd nothing lasts forever (1984). It's a silly comedy with small performances by bill murray and dan aykroyd. This rich kid comes to back to new york to beccome an artist, only new york is under the fascist control of port authority. eventually the moon and capitalism becomes involved.

the movie was pretty good but mostly it was nice to get out. although one girl there drank maybe more than everyone else and won't stop talking. i'm such a crank, no wonder i don't have friends.

in of doors

Liz and i watched in the loop yesterday, which liz called in of doors today. it's a political comedy. i had not heard of it, but i'm always looking for funny comedies and this one good a lot of stars on netflix.

it's funny. i laughed out loud sometimes. it's about British and American politicians and their staff. it's sort of documentary style and the best part is that some of the people swear and insult in really amazing ways and with great Scottish accents. i wish i could remember some of them. really good stuff.