I'm a bit early, and obviously, towards the end of the year, I'll have opportunity to amend. But I wanted to get this in while the gettin' was still good:
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - every generation has "that film," and Sunshine is one of those, a movie which blows open the bounds of what movies can do and what they can mean to the people who see them. An elaborately constructed, fiendishly mischievous, and frequently unnervingly heart-accurate tale of the utter existential chasm of love. No, it never works out. So?
2. There Will Be Blood - whatever else every other movie has been, There Will Be Blood is not. It is something I almost never see: distinct. It is a work of art entirely of itself, of its own meanings and ideals, and powerfully and profoundly so for the people of this decade (and that one). Paul Thomas Anderson didn't exactly suck before this movie; yet he is speaking with an entirely new and ferocious voice here.
3. The Lord of the Rings - cast aside any griping about overexcited fanboys and a legacy of sweaty cosplay; these would be among the most influential films ever made even if they weren't also kickass pieces of cinema. The fruition of digital technology in moviemaking, the apprehension of fantasy as a foundational genre of modern storytelling, the elevation of the pulp to the dramatically mythic, the culture within a culture created by the DVDs' worm's eye view of every second of their creation, even the you-pick-the-flavour alternate versions... All wrote the book on how filmed entertainment would work in the 21st century. Oh, and the movies are kickass.
4. Brokeback Mountain - somewhat dismissed (or at least underestimated) upon its titter-inducing release, the gay cowboy movie still sets the standard for finely observed American drama for a decade that turned out to be surprisingly chock-full of such offerings (especially in the last few years). Is it the 70s again? Now given unexpected colour by Heath Ledger's death, the final five minutes of this film are among the most mournful ever lensed.
5. Lake of Fire - the most important film ever made on any topic of the complexity of abortion, Lake of Fire suffers the ignominy of having been almost completely ignored. You might be able to find it at a video store near you, but otherwise the discussion has been virtually nil. Under the circumstances, I hope I am not being too much of a paranoiac by suggesting willing (or unwitting) conspiracy: America simply isn't ready to have its hateful, patriarchal heart carved out like this. Should be required viewing for every human.
Special jury prize: The Prestige, the best fucking movie that is not on this list.
The 50 best films of the decade are still TBD, but that'll get ya started.
Today I am trying something new at work: walking slower. (I think this falls under slow down, so literally it almost seems like cheating.) The last few weeks (heck, few months) of hyperactivity around here have lead to a lot of charging-about. Well, no more! Now, when I go to pee, I am going to walk in a measured, relaxed pace, concurrent with my devil-may-care attitude and undone top button. (Unless I really have to pee.)
This weekend did a rather tremendous job of recharing my batteries, mostly thanks to Sarafina and I's "stumble upon" approach to planning our days. Lack of structure: it's worth it! Especially when it's sunny and warm and wandering around is just "nice."
On Saturday night I saw an 8mm highlight reel of Star Wars, edited by someone who had probably never seen the film, and it was amazing. Here's how I described it to Jason:
"It starts just after Ben's death, when the gang is blasting their
way off the Death Star. They get off the station and then it cuts to
Ben telling Luke about his father, and handing over the lightsaber.
Then it cuts BACK to the Death Star, just when the gang is ARRIVING at
the hangar bay (before Ben gets killed). Then they watch Ben get killed
AGAIN, and blast their way out AGAIN. And then - you guessed it - the
reel cuts back to Ben's hut, for Ben and Luke to argue about whether or
not to go to Mos Eisley. Then back to the Death Star. It's like a Moebius loop where escape from the Death Star is impossible. I think I had that nightmare once."
On the weekend I also saw Phantom of the Paradise, which is where George Lucas stole the idea for Darth Vader. No really.
I am 8 or 10 years old. A movie is on TV. In it, a man is hanging from the ceiling of a cathedral by his fingertips. The wire beneath the plaster surface of the cathedral ceiling is cutting into his skin. The ceiling, or his fingers, give way and the man falls to the stone floor far below.
OK Edgar Wright: I am calling you out. We need to get to the bottom of this thing, you and me, because my girlfriend pointed out that if Scott Pilgrim is successful and sequels are warranted, you are gonna keep coming back to my goddamned city and throwing everyone in the place into an unalterable tizzy. And that is unacceptable. I live here. I do my best to make a living in these stressful economic times. And I can deal with the fact that half the people I know are falling over their own feet for a chance to meet you, and I can even deal with the fact that you're making Scott Pilgrim in the first place. But on my days off, I go to my local comic book shop and must now listen to the staff wax philosophic about how much they would like YOU to pop by. So since clearly and officially, this town officially ain't big enough for the both of us, and since I obviously have no means to support myself anywhere else, it's time to meet behind the gym at 3:30 and see what's what. You know what gym, so don't play coy.
Today's wardrobe choices were inspired by: 70s cop. Matty Price was right (he's rarely not), I really shoulda watched Life on Mars while I had the chance. I guess it'll come out on Blu-Ray eventually.
Tell them how it went, Steve. OK, let's do it! Well, on the whole I would say that the last 2 weeks went exceptionally well given their complexity. I think I could have done a bit better at the tail end of this one in terms of really bringing it all to a meaningful close. But a lot of good teamwork got done at the j-o-b; I literally have 12 pages of notes and items to take forward, but action item #1 is getting my work/life back into balance now that the rough period is on its way to done. 7.5 hour days - it is possible. Bill Gates told me so.
It also occurred to me this week that I tend to be self-deprecating and embarrassed when I'm asked what I do and have to answer that I build online training for [insert and rotate company name here]. I presume that's not the optimal state, especially given that on a theoretical level at least, I am quite stimulated by what I do. It's just so far-afield of where most of my contemporaries landed; I feel like I'm Life on Mars, fuck the TV show. Mars is a ring of towers just east of the Scarborough Town Centre, a canopic ecosystem of jealousies and betrayals and lines in the sand. And yet occasionally, I actually get to tell a room full of people that our next project is gonna be named after the Egyptian frog goddess of fertility and resurrection, and explain why. It's not without appeal.
Last night was pizza and Eternal Sunshine and couch-bed; today was supposed to be spent getting my life in order. Instead, through the miracles of scope creep, Little Detour and I mostly just spent the day wandering about, enjoying the burgeoning springtime. So in other words, best day ever.
Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes...
Sorry for the geekgasm, but there ain't no way around it, this thing gives me chills.
I would love it if that music were actually Giacchino's, but sources say it is not. Still if the flavour of the actual flick is anything like that, I can finally see why anyone and everyone who's seen the thing went hogslop-crazy all over themselves.
This morning I saw an ambulance with “emergency” written on the hood in the usual mirror-writing, except that the writing was also upside-down, because apparently in whoever painted it’s version of the world, Objects In Mirror Are More Inverted Than They Appear. What a fucking terrifying vision of hell that would be, if every time you looked in the rear-view the road was flipped skyward, but everything in front of you was normal? I’m nauseous just thinking about it.
Are you like me: do you just not care a whit any more about Watchmen, at all? I don’t see how anything that might be on that screen on Friday would be worth this quantity of noise. They offered me some of the character posters at the Snail last week, free, and I turned them down. If there was a way I could download the experience of seeing the flick into my brain without actually having to take the time and trouble to go to the theatre and do it, I would. Stupid event movies. Stupid everything-that-isn’t-Terminator-fucking-Four right now.
Today is the first day in about a month that there are actual half-hour cracks in my meeting schedule. Who knows what I will do with this new, strange freedom?
It is also the first day upon which, in a variety of matters and in no way related to the actual temperature outside, I can feel the springtime coming, with all of the things that come with it. And baby, you ain’t kiddin’.
Gore Verbinski, having successfully turned a ride into the BEST MOVIE EVER, is now going to try to turn a boardgame into another (best?) MOVIE (ever?). Except this time it's Clue and holy crap, does the world not need another Clue: The Movie, because the first one was (of course) perfect.
Meanwhile, that Green Lantern movie that I thought was entirely theoretical at this point has a release date, and it ain't far away. The usual mix of "hey cool they're making a Green Lantern movie" / "oh they're gonna fuck this up so bad" applies. And by the way (same article), in case you hadn't heard, Christopher Nolan's science fiction film Inception is going to be EPIC.
Finally, Hot Toys announced Joker #3, and thank goodness, it sucks so bad. All the collectors who got their jubblies in a froth over the Nurse Joker idea are gonna have to go back to home-stitching their kid sisters' Barbie outfits.
Megatron, motherfucker! He's back and this time he's a tank! A TANK! Boy I wish I could transform. I could be anything.
I'll tell ya, I am a developing a sickly parasitical relationship with the suckness that is the Transformers movie franchise. I think it was when I was watching the Blu-Ray a couple of weeks ago and thought to myself, 'you know, the design of the new Megatron isn't that bad,' that I realized I had a problem.
Let me take a minute (once again) to wax Michael Giacchino's car. Any man who trots out John Williams' Lost World theme for the Oscar telecast deserves a bit of praise. I downloaded the 3 Lost season scores, and though I always liked the music on the show, I don't think I had a clear understanding of how freakishly well-laid-out it is until the "John saviour" theme got brought out rather subtly in one track at the tail end of season 1. This Giacchino dude really did map the whole thing out, huh? By the time you're into the mid-third season the thematic relationships are nothing short of mind-boggling (and oh so listenable). He must be one of six people in the world who actually knows what the frick the end of the story is. New Best Composer Ever?
"He walks among us, but he is not one of us." - Jack Shephard's tattoo
"An Eagle Cleaves the Emptiness" - Matthew Fox's tattoo
(...BUT WHICH IS THE REAL TATTOO...??)
I think about Lost, and (unrelatedly) life, a lot these days.
I now have what can accurately be described as a ridiculous quantity of rum. 2 more bottles last night, one of which has naked dancing girls on it (that one's from my mother). I have so much rum, if things ever got silly at my apartment, we could have a rum fight. And still have rum left over for sippin'. Mmm rum fight.
The rum will help: I'm not gonna lie to ya, it's been challenging. I had a shite week, and a shite weekend because of it, and I gloomed around a lot of the time and lay catatonic for most of the rest of the time, and started to feel better for about an hour yesterday and now am right back into weary disaffectation and a general lack of good mood. These times are hard; not insurmountably so, but they wear on you. I could do with a win, or at least a sunny hot vacation.
I guess I make that mistake every year: thinking I don't need a few days to get the fuck out of here and do something which is as meaningless as my day-to-day, but in an entirely different way. Righteous meaninglessness.
Speaking of righteous meaninglessness, OH MY GOD THE BORINGEST OSCARS EVER. The whole thing looked like a descent into utter crapitude till Anne Hathaway was brought onto the stage, and then it suggested the possibility of a good show for a few minutes, and then it died a thousand deaths again as they trotted out the "here's how we make a movie" approach to awards order. Add the Slumdog march to glory and it's actually as uninvolving a year as there's been in my memory. We did our usual live-podcasting thing and ended up with a 30-minute show when all the segments were combined, which is a bit longer than usual, but surely we were only so loquacious to combat the encroaching torpor. (And also because we are utterly in love with the sound of our own voices, and with each other, and with cinema itself.) Listen to the Mamo here.
I'm going to leave you with some collected pull quotes from the last 24 hours, along with a few tips to make living alone less awful.
"Do you call your boobs your 'killer whales?'" - Adam to Caitlin
"You know what I like? I like how, over time, Adam and I have switched personalities." - Me, not related to prior quote
"DON'T fall in love with me." - Steve Martin to Tina Fey
"Whoa! Her eyes are pretend!" - Sasha, watching commercials again for the first time in a year
"Right now Jack Nicholson is applying a thimblefull of bleach to Keira Knightley's asshole." - the answer to why neither were at the Oscar show
Transitioning... transitioning... while the domain nameservers are switching over I have no email, and through strange coincidence my phone is not taking incoming calls either. Unexpectedly hermited, I am enjoying some peace and quiet. I wonder if the blog will even work in this new, strange server. Well I guess we'll find out momentarily.
Now don't get creeped out, but: I have large windows looking north on a series of apartment buildings, and so rather naturally I gaze out over the vista while, say, talking on the phone and/or ruminating upon things. Now I noticed, just randomly, that on Valentine's Day, one of the individuals in an apartment opposite mine was watching pornography on his very, very, very large television. The television faces the window, and is very, very, very large, and as such (from my vantage point) it essentially is the window, for all intents and purposes. And that window is porn. It was so on Valentine's Day, and now inevitably every time I gaze out on my vista, my eyes are drawn back there to see what's the what now, and it's porn. Lots, and lots, and lots of porn. It's amazing to me that with only the naked (heh) human eye, one can discern porn indisputably from over 1000 feet away. I wonder, had I a much larger television and more than a passing interest in porn, if I would also have my television face the window so that I would be beaming my porn out into the cosmos like my apartment-facing neighbour. I'm not so sure. I've never quite removed myself from the 12-year-old boy gut-feel that porn is something to be secreted, hoarded, and absolutely never admitted to in any tangible sense. Porn is for dark corners, not 60-inch plasmas.
That newfangled HDTV Simpsons opening credits, though, that sure as fuck is for 60-inch plasmas. It was very exciting right up till I realized that this is, demonstrably, the moment that The Simpsons has inextricably jumped the shark. They must now demonstrably be within seconds of being cancelled. Like that year of The X Files with Anabeth Gish and the T-1000. Sweet, merciful cancellation. Can you believe The Simpsons went twenty years? And only about three of them sucked?
Hey - if you saw Medicine for Melancholy at the festival (or elsewhere) (and if you didn't/haven't, you really should), check out the interview with Barry Jenkins on this week's installment of The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell. (The Soderbergh one from a few weeks back, too, is fairly kickass.) Additionally, there's a new Mamo that doesn't seem to be syndicating correctly, so check that out too.
This week was long and complex and performance-reviewy, and I am tired and have yet to get into my whiskey as was promised to me by me, about six hours ago. I'm sure we have much to discuss, like why Dollhouse sucked so bad, but we will have to talk about it later.
ITEM!: Domain nameserver migration still pending. All may be lost but I just can'ts not be bloggin' no mo'.
ITEM!: On Sunday, I watched Kill Bill, and every time I do that, I come away wanting to do it again the very next day.
ITEM!: On Monday, I stayed in the best hotel that has ever been. I would show you the pictures, were I not nude in all of them.
ITEM!: Did anyone hear that Kim Manners died? That's sad, man. He was a class act, and his work on X-Files did, of course, set the stage for pretty much everything kickass about Lost.
After the longest-held deep breath in Hollywood history, Chris Nolan has announced his next flick, Inception, which one can only hope is as stellar as his previous inter-Batman effort, The Prestige. I wonder if he'll ever get around to that Prisoner remake, while he's at it. Christian Bale all da-da da-da da-da in the background? Can we hope?
No way they ever made a toy of anything this awesome.
Devastator and Christian Bale are my 2 favourite things this week, and if they ever found a way to combine the two into a Voltron-like mega-transforming Christian Baleastator, there is no toy large or expensive enough for how awesome that would be, even if the on-board microchip made the transforming sound and quipped "WHAT DON'T YOU F***ING UNDERSTAND???" in equal measure.
I betcha Christian Bale transforms, anyway.
Perused via email:
"...Though [the Christian Bale rant and its dance remix] have no ostensible link to the quality of Terminator Salvation, they have convinced me that Christian Bale Tears Shit Up Like A Motherfucker, and I will see any movie he makes." - Me to Carl
"Also, the Transformers proved they were far and away superior once they had the Constructicons -- the 5 construction site vehicles who combine to form DEVASTATOR! As far as blatant rip-offs go, they pretty much nailed it right there!" - Chris to us
"When Devastator showed up in the new Transformers trailer I nearly shit my pants" - Me to Chris
On Friday I freaked out, and have many thoughts about that.
On Saturday I finished the rough cut of Guy in the Sky, at 6 minutes and 40 seconds (sans credits), and have 2 spots I would like to tighten, and 2 parts I would like to rework, and one missing (pivotal) shot I will send to Industrial Light and Magic cuz there sure as fuck ain't any way to make a plane fly straight and true at 17 storeys up.
On Sunday I engaged in various acts of thuggery for Boss Eliopoulos, which included (but were not limited to) dragging a guy down a hallway, throwing him into a chair, manhandling my machine gun, and lying dead on a sub-zero concrete floor for several hundreds of hours.
In a surprising number of ways, all three of these things are significantly related. Many, many photos to come. But in the meantime...
Laserdisc is eulogized here. Funnily enough, I read that line in the last paragraph as "I'll always associate you with evenings of passionate love-making," and my brain didn't even flag it; of course laserdisc and great sex were related. I have no idea how: I was ten. But then, I didn't understand the sex in A View to a Kill, either. I just knew that it was important. When I was a fledgling(er) cinephile, I heard rumour of things like the Blade Runner director's cut or the three-disk Frighteners special edition; I had no means to ever see or encounter them, but I knew they were important, too. Porting all that shit to a DVD seems cheaper somehow. Laserdiscs are buried in the collective unconscious.
For Christmas I got Acme Novelty Library #19 from my mom; that is an utterly outstanding piece of art. The entirety of it can be read in a single day, and yet it wrecked me six or seven times. I want to read it all over again right now, and maybe make a movie of it, and maybe read it to my kids. Big, sad, and scary. How do people do that? Fuck, he marveled.
I owe about four emails back, though in the wake of last week's computer failure I am even more solidly committed to letting email go, altogether. People keep pinging me on BlackBerry messenger; I'm more certain than ever that there are more than enough ways to become instantly in contact with me, thank you, and the world needs no more. Solitude, clear-mindedness, the ability to think for eight seconds. These are the commodities now, though we're selling everything else instead.
Winter, man: it works its ass off to getcha. Something as simple as forgetting my security pass came close to unseating my entire day. Mindfulness, though; concentration; and don't let the door catch you on the way out.
THEY MOVED LOST OFF CTV AND IT'S ON SOMETHING CALLED CTV A AND WHAT THE FUCK IS CTV A AND NOW I CAN'T WATCH IT ANY MORE AND I HAVE TO DOWNLOAD IT AND WAIT TILL IT'S DONE AND EVERYBODY'S GONNA HAVE SEEN IT BEFORE ME AND WHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Boy the best day ever turned into the worst day ever in a hurry, huh?
Well anyways. I was sick today. I lay in couch-bed and watched movies. I watched Madadayo, Man with a Movie Camera, and Une Vieille Maitresse. All foreign films. This forced me to keep my eyes open and not get lazy. And I was quite pleased to enjoy Maitresse just as much as I did at TIFF last year, for sometimes your festival experience can fool you. It really is quite good. I'd recommend it to anyone (who would enjoy startling sex scenes and an enormous amount of drawing-room conversation en français).
I read Dark Avengers #1 today, and I'll say this for Bendis (in addition to all the other Bendis-suck I regularly perform): man knows how to write the first issue of a new Avengers book. Every single time he has to do a "let's put together the team" issue (which, by my count, he has now down forty-six zillion times), he not only gets the pomp and circumstance all juicy and nice, but he somehow manages to trick the shit on its way out. Like how all but two of the people on page 4-5 of that issue aren't who you think they are. That's dark.
(I assume this means, btw, that Mighty Avengers is kaput. I mean I know Dan Slott's writing it now, but based on the New Avengers vs. Dark Avengers fold-out poster that my comic book guy put in the bag for me, it doesn't sound like the M.A.'s gonna be terribly relevant in the coming months.)
Anyone who spoils anything from tonight's episode of Lost, before I get to watch it, will be shot. On the spot. Actually, I'll probably just stop answering the phone and checking Facebook or engaging with the world in any way until I know what the funk went down. (It was rather adorable, today, watching over half the Facebook statuses become Lost-related before the end of the day.)
Superman IS Todd Ingram, and other casting news. Honestly since Zack & Miri, it's become clear to me that I'll pretty much sign up to see Brandon Routh do anything. Not because I'm necessarily onboard with him being a good actor, just because I seem to find him oddly mesmerizing. Unfortunately, the casting news for Pilgrim also puts a nail in the fact that Sarafina will not be playing Kim Pine (and will therefore not get to slap her sticks together and shout WE ARE SEX BOB-OMB!!) in the film. But that's okay, she's more my Ramona V. Flowers anyway.
I am sick today, and would like to go home. I tried to "feed a cold" by eating everything on all four buffet tables at the Mandarin last night, but it didn't work. Nonetheless I wouldn't trade these midwinter Mandarin trips for anything. They're having a dumpling festival right now! A festival! For dumplings! In the middle of winter when it's nasty out and the subway almost takes you right back home without even going outside! I got home, collapsed on the couch-bed, and fell asleep to the sounds of Superman and typing.
Take your ease, people of the earth. George W. Bush is no longer President of the United States. At least not in any significant way. (Which differs from the past 8 years... how?) Obamabia (I spelled that wrong but I kinda like it like this) reaches its zenitharack tomorrow, and then who knows what happens. At what point in the week do you reckon they take Barack in the back and tell him about the proof of the existence of extraterrestrials? Do they wait till Thursday, then take him on a tour of all the downed spacecraft and alien corpses? Or do they just show him Crystal Skull on the weekend, and when he looks over at them quizically, they nod and say "yeah"?
Weird that at some point in the last year, and in spite of its suckitude, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull became the definitive treatise in my mind on the American relationship with extraterrestrials. Huh.
EDGAR WRIGHT IS MAKING SCOTT PILGRIM IN TORONTO STARTING REALLY SOON! I know we knew that already, but with day-and-date pix of the director standing in our current blizzardscape, it became scarily present in my mind. I pretty much don't agree with any of the casting, at all. (Mary Elizabeth Winstead? What? The?) Though i can certainly see a Culkin as gay, slat-eyelidded roommate Wallace. The last few weeks, though, have made me realize that if they ever get off their ass and make a Runaways movie, I'll probably have to just leave the country.
So after 2 weeks of near-nonstop computer troubles, I arrived at work today (sick, sad, tired) and found that THE GODDAMN THING WOULDN'T EVEN TURN ON. I'm on a loaner right now while they re-install Windows. The loaner has all the functional capacity of a brick of soft cheese. I can read and reply to emails, maybe. If I try real hard.
I think the next time I am sick, sad and tired, I am gonna read the damn tea leaves and stay on my damn couch. Damn it.
Walk like a dog for all crossings. Walk like a dog for all crossings.
I've said this before and I'll say it again, the only real problem I have with winter is the quantity and weight of the armour. I just walked from my place to Bay and Dundas and back, and I am frickin' wiped and my back hurts. Hey: while we're on the subject of stuff I've said before, the retail industry can/must self-destruct within the next decade. I can't remember the last time I went to a chain store to buy something, and actually found it on the shelves; nor can I remember the last time I walked into a chain store and didn't find them blowing out merchandise at bargain-basement prices to clear room that they can no longer afford to clog. The methodology of stocking and then selling items in a large-scale environment just doesn't make sense in the new economic landscape. (Nor does ordering everything online, unfortunately, due to environmental impacts.) I guess that means the real answer is: stop buying shit altogether. Which the econopocalypse will, of course, shortly make viable. Woot for our team!
The good news is, the rest of the world might be falling apart, but I can now command 80% predictability accuracy on the scramble crossing at Dundas Square.
I went to see The Fly last night, not the Jeff Goldblum one, the Vincent Price one, although Vincent Price is barely in it and certainly doesn't get turned into a giant fly which would be awesome. ([Vincent Price voice] I'mmmmm a giiiiiiiiiant flyyyyyyyyy!!![/Vincent Price voice]) Not to take anything away from the Jeff Goldblum one, but if they ever wanted to make another remake of that flick, they should try to adapt the original story - because it's crazy. The thing starts with a berserk Montrealer getting his wife to squash the parts of his body that have turned into fly, and then proceeds to observe Vincent Price wheedling the backstory out of the wife for about 20 minutes, at which point the entire picture goes into flashback for an hour where we learn the terrible tale of how the man knew that his telepods did whacky shit like reversing the writing on his "Made in Japan" dinner plates, but thought he'd give human teleportation a go anyway and turned into a table-thumping rum-sucking freak. (Now that, my friends, is a run-on sentence.) But I guess in 1958 (Back When We Weren't Jaded) if you were going to see a movie called The Fly, you really would wait through an entire movie for five minutes of a dude running around with a fly-head at the end of the picture. That was thrilling enough, and you left satisfied, because you a) believed the illusion, and b) had never seen anything so freaky in your damn life. If, on the other hand, a 1958 audience had to put up with Jeff Goldblum puke-aciding on Stathis Borens' foreleg, I think they'd all have six-month hairy conniptions and retire to bed without supper.
My lady love has been ill for the past few days so I have spent much of my time hanging out on her couch-bed watching Ugly Betty, or UgBet for short. We watched about half of the second season, enough time for me to go through the entire cycle of starting to wish I were gay and pretty, actually wishing I were gay and pretty, and then no longer really wanting to be gay or pretty but being happy just being me. As a series, UgBet is perfect for days like this, because it is attractive and undemanding and fun. (Like me!) But lord goodness gracious, I can't waits till Lost, and may order the shinybluthirdseason on teh intrawebs, just to be sated.
Round about when Harvey's got the gun to Gary Oldman's kid's head, it's time to go home.
It's hardly fashionable to admit this, but some little part of me went bare-ass nuts when I read the Kate and Leo quotes from the stupid godawful Golden Globes last night. This is because I am, as you already know, a 12-year-old girl. Clearly I need to get out to see Revolutionary Road, for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that for its being a Sam Mendes flick, I would have seen it anyway.
(All right, admittedly, the prospect of a new movie completely annihilating the 90s' premier romantic couple does have its own level of malicious glee.)
And when I see it, I will have to review it. I was reading my TIFF 2006 film reviews the other day and I realized that, after a 2-year absence, it's time for me to start reviewing the films I see again. Who knows how long this will last, but in the meantime I've written up Speed Racer and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (though the latter is more of a neurotic rant) and will proceed forward from here.
And speaking of write-ups, Chris is interviewed at rather extraordinary length in Toro Magazine, about my favourite of his flicks, Tera/Tori. It's nice to know Chris can articulate the subtleties of his work with such dexterity in one breath, and then preach the gospel of Leroy Jenkins to me, Daniel, Brenda and Demetre in the next. It's like using the whole brain. Now that he has outlived 2008, is Chris this decade's Renaissance Man?
Last night I had a dream that I went back to 3QF, and found out that half my DVD collection was still there, along with Chris and Human Rights Lawyer, who were a) living there together in connubial bliss and b) surprisingly athletic. (This dream could not possibly be related to current anxieties about career, life planning, or the end of the world). The fact that I can remember this dream seems to demonstrate that I did in fact sleep, which does not tally with my recollection, but there ya go. I do recall shoving my now-22-minute Guy in the Sky assembly cut into a kind of rough order before retiring to the bedroom in a spectacularly bad mood, and after that there was a lot of tossing and turning and accidental punching of Zam. Which is fair, given her behaviour lately.
I watched Rhapsody in August the other day, which I rather enjoyed, and puts me within a single movie of getting to the end of Akira Kurosawa's rather significant body of work. (I do then have to do some back-catchup thanks to that Eclipse set of the postwar years that Criterion released recently.) I also redirected some Christmas Chapters money towards The Sinestro Corps War, which is shiny and absorbing and much more enjoyable than The Silmarillion which, Beren and Luthien aside, just ain't any fun any more. I also, after a treat of a date with my ladyfriend the other day, finally found that goddamned Joker, so I can stop prattling about that. I still wouldn't mind finding myself a pair of the socks, though.
Today, I am trying to ride out what has been a spectacularly frazzling work-week with a modicum of grace, before fading into the weekend. I may walk home.
Last night I made what might be the sandwich of the decade. On freshly baked Ace bread, I put two strips of skewered steak, one of which had been wrapped in bacon; I added some sharp cheddar cheese and then doused it in the Dinosaur Barbecue's Wango Tango habanero hot sauce. Salt and pepper and wrapped it up. Ooh - my knees are shaking.
Speaking of "of the decade," it occurred to me that in about 360 days we're gonna get to do a best films of the decade list. For some reason I had it in my head that it was gonna be next year, but no, this is the year. We're in the last year of the goddamned decade. When did that happen? The decade never even got a catchy name!
I am feeling much better than yesterday.
Let me tell ya something: for a guy who didn't read Green Lantern a year ago, I am enjoying the living shit fucking piss crack out of Green Lantern right now, what with the Blue Lanterns and all. I've read #36 three times already. Boy, for a whacked out space doodad comic book about weirdness, it's sorta thoughtful, isn't it? Hope and will and fear and rage and all that. And all in colours.
I am also so unbelievably satisfied with Indiana Jones: The Soundtracks Collection. I think it has everything I want, except for (inexplicably) the track in Skull from the arrival at the area 51 gates to the reveal of Indiana Jones, which is missing for no reason I can think of and is probably my actual favourite piece of music from that film. But otherwise, this is a long, long, long awaited pleasure, particularly all the missing stuff from Temple of Doom which I have wanted in my collection for, literally, three quarters of my lifetime. Boy. I didn't expect this to make me this happy.
Still owing much backstory of the preceding several days and its realizations, I am meanwhile sinking comfortably into my new status as a cranky old man.
"... and I passed out and hit my head on the toilet paper dispenser." - Matty Price "Jeez, did you have a vision of a cottony-soft flux capacitor?" - Me
Just about to roll the year-end Mamo, so I guess there's no harm in finally publishing this:
What a weird, bad, troubling year it was for movies. Nominally, I assign a top ten list to the films I've seen in a given year - but some years just don't get there. In my head I call these "A.I. years" - because 2001 was the best recent example, a year where the overall offerings were so poor (or at least, the ones that I saw were so poor) that I ended up, not with a top ten or even a top five, but in that case with a top four - a "hopeful" top five list where I left an empty seat at the table for a guest to arrive later. (I ended up filling that fifth slot with A.I., not because the movie is good, but because Chris and I spent the better part of the next 2 years having occasional, enthusiastic discussions about just what in the hell we were supposed to make of that movie. It affected the moviegoing landscape profoundly for the year, which was more than I could say for most of the rest of the flicks out of 2001.)
This year came out about the same. For a year where I saw a handful of films that I pretty much loved as much as any others I've ever seen, 2008 was a film year without a middle class - a few greats, a number of goods, and an almost overwhelming slew of "mehs." You can tell you're in a year like this by examining the reviews of your three favourite critics: I guarantee they will not agree. Two of the critics I greatly admire put Benjamin Button on their Top Ten list; the third thinks the film is profoundly misguided and unsettling. Perhaps this is par for the course, but it felt like the waters were more troubled than usual in 2008; subjectivity ruled. Picking and choosing from among the informed masses was pointless. I returned to the basic set of tools: find out what a film's about (but not too much), who made it and who's in it, and go with your gut. The result, though, was a pretty wobbly year.
As a result, 2008 has a top five instead of a top ten, and even that just barely. I was tempted to leave an "empty seat" again, given that there are a number of films I haven't seen yet which might otherwise have proved list-worthy. Among those are Valkyrie, Man on Wire, Doubt, Rachel Getting Married, Milk and of course Revolutionary Road. In the meantime, though, the films of the year are...
Sure, it's become unseasonably fashionable to skewer The Dark Knight since its release; American culture (and ours by inevitable association) is nothing if not bipolar in its twin barrels of a) insistence upon enormous achievement, and b) resentment of same. Now, six months later, even some of the same people who were singing in the rafters about the newfound strength of the comic book movie in July, are down in the church basement fucking alter-boys a billion dollars later. Everybody hates a winner. But a winner it was, glossy and canny, and between The Dark Knight and Let the Right One In, 2008 continued one of this decade's key filmic movements - the LOTR-inaugurated march towards fully exploiting and expurgating the mythic strengths of archetypal stories. Fantasy is a genre in glorious bloom, unlike almost any other genre in movies right now. For a comic book movie and a Swedish vampire movie, these two films were, also, among the most cunning excisions of American political, moral, and sexual mores that have graced our screens this year. Not bad for "pop."
WALL-E, of course, is pop beyond pop; it is not a film of subtlety in its razing of American consumerism, but doesn't need to be, because it is furthermore such a lovingly enraptured tale of two individuals just plain needing each other - a strength in Let the Right One In, as well - that it's difficult not to be utterly beguiled. Love seemed to return to the movie screens this year after a long absence - real love, love where each partner completes the other and thereby opens the boundaries of the possible, not the grim (and dramatically facile) tragedy of love-of-the-doomed. 2008 held a number of refreshing returns to stories that say that great love does not need to end in poisoning, sinking ships, or Alzheimer's.
Ché gains the list almost by virtue of sheer mass; in essaying a guerrilla movie about guerrilla war (using guerrilla cameras, no less), Soderbergh generates enough electricity in 5 hours of running time to more than overwhelm any 2-hour entry on the list. The distinct halves of Ché, though, are also sharp, entertaining, and thoughtful, refreshing the memory of the landscape of possibilities of a filmmaker, a camera, and a sense of artistic fun. This was true of It Might Get Loud as well, to a surprisingly strong degree; for such a humdrum premise (2 hours on the cultural importance of the electric guitar?) it's stunning how much this film makes you want to run outdoors with a camera(/the artistic tool of your choice) in your hand and just make something beautiful.
Honourable Mentions
In spite of the overall weakness of the formal list, this was the year of Honourable Mentions. The Honourable Mention slot, for me, goes to the film that was quite usefully distinct in the overall viewing, but "missed it by this much" because there's something about it that just doesn't seem inherently list-worthy. Normally, I pick one. This year, I picked four:
Citron and Flame, the movie Valkyrie wishes it could be
Ce'st pas moi, je le jure, another meaty and grim essay of troubled boyhood that would make a fine real-world companion piece to Let the Right One In
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, one of those rare films which was actually originally included in my top five but slowly dropped as the days since I saw the film passed. Its strengths do not linger, and its weaknesses gain scale after the fact.
And for whatever reason, I am quite after-the-fact obsessed with Sauna, a movie which everyone (and me) didn't think very much of at the Toronto Film Festival, but which has sort of kicked around the back of my head since then. It would probably earn the "A.I. slot," if one were available. Flawed, disturbing, fearless.
I would also heartily suggest that while Cloverfield might not belong on this list, it belongs on some list, somewhere, because from a purely technical perspective, it is one of the great achievements of the year. Would have loved it if they'd come up with some miraculous solution to the clichés, but it's still film school in a can for anyone who wants to deconstruct the Bourne run-and-gun filmic style. Additionally, obviously, it is a master class in film marketing, and unlikely to be challenged in that regard for years. (Incidentally: if you watch the film with the presumption that at the instant of the attack, Hud goes completely insane and can no longer rationally assess "reality," the movie works significantly better.)
Worst film of the year
There was no clear winner this year for worst film, either, probably because I just didn't end up going to anything that really made me want to skullfuck my eyes out at the Van Helsing level of awfulness. Even Martyrs - certainly the worst filmgoing experience I had this year - is too disreputably vile to be counted against real movies; it is not so much "bad" as "horrid," and as useful to me as rotten salad.
Instead, I am going to name Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in this slot, which is unfair and whiny; it is not a terrible film nor even a terrible disappointment, but certainly ended up being the most negative relationship I had with a movie this year. For such an underwhelming and ultimately unimportant film, Indy 4 sure irritates the fuck out of me, and my empathy for the Phantom Menace haters grew tenfold this year. It's foolish to think that your "childhood" is some sovereign territory that lives for your agency only, but it's also horrible when you willingly allow some piece of it to be despoiled by fallen men. We should all be stronger.
Best technology of the year
Nonsensical made-uppy category, but shinybludisks made a major impact in my film enjoyment this year. It took a while, but I am apparently turning into the sort of loser who would rather be home with his home theatre than out at the Scotiamount with the assholes. (Well, the Scotiamount sucks regardless.)
Other and miscellany
Best original score: The Dark Knight
Best performance: Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler
Best sequence of a boat hitting another boat: At the Edge of the World
Better on Blu than at the movies: Encounters at the End of the World
Best Blu-Ray overall: The Dark Knight (picture), WALL-E (features & extras), Lost: The Complete Fourth Season (watchability), Juno (huggability)
Most overrated film of any length: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
You'll never see it, but you really should: Medicine for Melancholy
In case you were worried that between Iron Man and Dark Knight, comic book movies were just getting too awesome this year, The Spirit is here. She's a good mother.
Holy. Moly.
I spent the entirety of the day - I mean, literally blocked off the calendar, sat away from the computer and ignored email, went through (and created) pages and pages of notes - planning. Planning for every single rock and eddy that's coming my way at work in the next 12 months. Creating strategy, building business cases, allocating resources, boiling down major objectives into teensy tiny tactics. Y'know what (unsurprisingly)? One day didn't sack it. So I'm gonna have to do more of it, as things continue to gliss down over the course of the holidays. But I got a substantial amount done today, enough so that I actually feel less than completely worthless. (I mean... wait... what? Good. I feel good.) Boy, sometimes you come around the turn on those double negatives and you're flying out of control through a guardrail and into a lake. And the lake is meat.
Now all I have to do is book the sixteen different holiday social events, and I'm made out of stars.
Anyone who wants to know what Bea Arthur looks like now can go over here, because the grand old lady has finally been inducted into the TV Hall of Fame, emphasis on grand old lady. Those hands. Wowahs. Anyways, I guess now I will literally never get to see Bea Arthur in person and I will spend the rest of my days kicking myself for not going to see her one-woman show back in '04. I am a mighty, mighty fool.
Those pics of Angela Lansbury (same page) made me remember to tell you that I am no longer calling my band Jessica Fletcher. It will now be called Queen's Royal Starship.
Quite enjoyed screening The Silent Partner last night, not just because I will get behind any film that features Toronto's old bright-yellow police cruisers, and not just because it continued to reinforce my ongoing assertion that Christopher Plummer could kick Christopher Walken's ass and walk away smiling. You can see why Curtis Hanson is hanging on to a piece of that flick with an intend to remake: it's a slick job, and if that Inside Man movie could make money, a remake of this thing could pull it in hand over fist if the right cast was put together. The screening was fortified with a designer cocktail called Plumber's Crack, which came with a single gossamer strand of Elliot Gould's blood, a lovely image which turned sour when Plummer hacked off the vixen's head with the side of a broken fish tank. I really, really, really have a problem with broken glass. This has become regularly plain to me since the shattered wine glass incident at 3QF a few years back. I was reflecting a few weeks ago that I'm not one of those people with a primal fear that can turn me completely willy-noodle, but it's becoming less and less true. I don't like snakes, but man, I really don't like broken glass. Ugh. I get nauseous just thinking about it, so why am I writing about it? Tell ya what, though, I'm gonna have a honey dilly of scene about it in a flick someday.
I also now think every movie should have a scene where two characters have a toast "To Success!"
I've been putting some time this morning into the archaeology of the movie nights at 3QF, being that I am now designing the 2009 slate. I think statements like "Nightmare on Elm Street 3 is the primal scene of my entire horror psychology" are the reason I do them. But I feel like I'm missing some of the events in my notes, so if you remember any that I don't, please send them in.
Alien-free Alien 5 under Ridley/Ripley stewardship, one imagines to be inevitably titled simply Ripley? Colour me intrigued.
(No honestly: not only am I one of only six people who finds something of merit in each and every Alien movie, even Resurrection, but I do certainly feel there is much, much more landscape to that universe, featuring Ripley at any age, than we have seen so far. If anything, what cuts down 3 and 4 is their unwillingness to do what 2 did, and abandon 1's structure to really chart new territory in the existing mythos. They have their veins of that, the third film far more than the fourth, but the dogmatic necessity of sticking to the original paradigm keeps them pretty tethered.)
Christmas shopping always puts me in such a spectacularly foul mood. The way retail stores are laid out is the finest standing argument for why everything must eventually go online. But I digress.
Saw Jack Layton pronounce the word "parliament," live and in person! So I'm stroking that off the bucket list.
I'm making a list and checking it twice, and on the list is terror. The constraints of good teamship prevent me from waxing too philosophical about the last two days, but I will say that if the responsible leaders of my organization were in the market to create a substantial quantity of pre-holiday fear, they achieved mightily. Bravo! Beyond that, their other achievements remain murky to me.
In the meantime, Nonreligiousholidaymas shopping. The list is surprisingly short this year, partially because I got some of the key items out of the way in November, and partially because I no longer spend time with any of my friends. Plus, I don't know if you heard, but the economy is in a downturn. And the Space Robot prorogued the shit out of Parliament - couldn't have prorogued it more in a hundred years of trying. I'm going to Nathan Phillips Square this afternoon to hear Jack Layton pronounce the word "parliament" in person. (I suggest you join me.)
Last night Daniel and I went to see Ballast, which made me think there's a very obvious and interesting idea for Demetre's villains/twins movie which I might try to put to paper. Ballast was also a rare moviegoing experience where I went in with literally no awareness of the content of the film, at all. And it also felt like the first movie I've seen in about four months, although I know that's not true. I have got to get out more. At some point in the next 4 weeks I should really see:
Australia!
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
Slum Dog Millionaire
to say nothing of all the movies coming out soon that I should also see. And I will confess a naughty craving to double-feature Twilight and Punisher: War Zone.
THE WORLD DOES NOT NEED A REMAKE OF ROMANCING THE STONE, YOU HOLLYWOOD FAT CATS! I DON'T CARE HOW LARGE AND LUMPY MICHAEL DOUGLAS AND KATHLEEN TURNER HAVE BECOME, IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE ANYTHING STONE-RELATED YOU ARE DAMN WELL MAKING A THIRD SEQUEL AND INTRODUCING THEIR WILY ADVENTURING SON-AND-DAUGHTER COMBO CHET AND LOUISA, AND LETTING THE WHOLE FAMILY GET INTO SOME SORT OF GEM-RELATED DIFFICULTY IN THE COUNTRY WHERE JACK AND JOAN MET AND FELL IN LOVE: COLOMBIA! do i have to do everything around here
Words/phrases I did not know existed until recently:
Returns