Encyclopedia Obscura
No, this is not an H.P. Lovecraft fanfic clearinghouse, it’s the website of Norwegian aficionado of obscure and misbegotten old Nintendo games, cartoons and movies. He’s a very funny writer (see his review of Korean martial-arts film Robo Vampire especially) and has unearthed some delightful Nintendo ephemera, including Kabuki Quantum Fighter, which I think I actually played in the late 80s.
X-Entertainment
A very, very similar but somewhat more encyclopedic website (oh, irony!), X-Entertainment covers the bizarre toys that we young males played with in the 80s. So many of them seemed so natural, yet most of them bore the indelible marks of total weirdness, or at least were made and marketed by Japanese people. The site restored to my memory such priceless jewels as Army Antz, Monster in my Pocket, and He-Man’s deadly enemy/grotesque freak of nature Modulok. Again, the writers are surprisingly good and many of the articles caused me to snort loudly during a particularly boring episode of House.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Come Mr. Taliban
CHEERS to Harry Belafonte for being articulate and intelligent and letting our corrupt, misguided administration have it. Not that others have not said it before, but apparently the American people simply aren't listening.
JEERS to Wolf Blitzer for acting like a jerk-off in this interview with Harry Belafonte that I'm watching now.
JEERS to Wolf Blitzer for acting like a jerk-off in this interview with Harry Belafonte that I'm watching now.
Vampire Movie Review Roundup
Underworld Evolution
If you didn’t find Underworld unnecessarily confusing enough, you’ll love the sequel. In it we get to meet Marcus, an unpleasant vampire elder who has wings for some reason and flies around impaling people with his wing-bones for basically the whole movie; he’s trying to rescue his brother William, who is a giant, crazy white werewolf who looks unfortunately like a giant, crazy sheepskin rug. Back in the dark ages, it seems, Bill Nighy and his team of totally apeshit crazy vampire knights imprisoned William because his werewolf antics were becoming an embarrassment to the family (exactly like Ted Kennedy). As per vampire LARP regulations, they had to lock the werewolf away in his gothy casket with a ridiculous amulet (the same ridiculous amulet from the first movie). This leads to a lot of amulet-investigating, interrupted very frequently by extremely violent battles.
Perhaps fortunately the movie allows this plot relatively little screen time, wisely choosing to stick with awkward, bitey vampire sex, trucks driving into things, and Kate Beckinsale leaping off tall ledges and landing in her ridiculous Hot Topic boots. Watch it for a surprisingly pornographic sex scene with Beckinsale and Felicity alum/insane blue monster Scott Speedman, followed by a delightful plot twist in which Beckinsale and Speedman search the vilest, most dilapidated highway maintenance garage in Romania for a vehicle and manage to come up with a dusty but serviceable 2005 Land Rover. Also, some vampire who drives around on a giant black boat and is not explained until about forty minutes in.
Blade Trinity
Classic vampire movie review action! This is now on Starz On-Demand, which as many of you may know is my Harvard and my Yale. Basically, this is the sad story of a quirky, interesting vampire movie starring Parker Posey (I know, right?) and Ryan Reynolds which is trapped inside a colossally stupid vampire movie starring Wesley Snipes (Jessica Biel is also in it, but she is neither funny nor stupid). Also, Ryan Reynolds looks exactly like Matt Goldberg, if Matt Goldberg decided to put his capoeira skills to use fighting the thirsty dead. Ryan Reynolds dispenses so many wisecracks that the balance of funny-to-embarrassing comes out in his favor, and Parker Posey is exactly what I would imagine a completely drunk and crazy vampire to be like. She also sprints off-screen every time Wesley Snipes shows up, which seems wise.
Frank Rich Editorial
I don’t care what you say about Frank Rich, this editorial on truthiness (I’m linking to a blog that apparently copied it from the NYT website, it seems accurate) is pretty much rad/chilling.
If you didn’t find Underworld unnecessarily confusing enough, you’ll love the sequel. In it we get to meet Marcus, an unpleasant vampire elder who has wings for some reason and flies around impaling people with his wing-bones for basically the whole movie; he’s trying to rescue his brother William, who is a giant, crazy white werewolf who looks unfortunately like a giant, crazy sheepskin rug. Back in the dark ages, it seems, Bill Nighy and his team of totally apeshit crazy vampire knights imprisoned William because his werewolf antics were becoming an embarrassment to the family (exactly like Ted Kennedy). As per vampire LARP regulations, they had to lock the werewolf away in his gothy casket with a ridiculous amulet (the same ridiculous amulet from the first movie). This leads to a lot of amulet-investigating, interrupted very frequently by extremely violent battles.
Perhaps fortunately the movie allows this plot relatively little screen time, wisely choosing to stick with awkward, bitey vampire sex, trucks driving into things, and Kate Beckinsale leaping off tall ledges and landing in her ridiculous Hot Topic boots. Watch it for a surprisingly pornographic sex scene with Beckinsale and Felicity alum/insane blue monster Scott Speedman, followed by a delightful plot twist in which Beckinsale and Speedman search the vilest, most dilapidated highway maintenance garage in Romania for a vehicle and manage to come up with a dusty but serviceable 2005 Land Rover. Also, some vampire who drives around on a giant black boat and is not explained until about forty minutes in.
Blade Trinity
Classic vampire movie review action! This is now on Starz On-Demand, which as many of you may know is my Harvard and my Yale. Basically, this is the sad story of a quirky, interesting vampire movie starring Parker Posey (I know, right?) and Ryan Reynolds which is trapped inside a colossally stupid vampire movie starring Wesley Snipes (Jessica Biel is also in it, but she is neither funny nor stupid). Also, Ryan Reynolds looks exactly like Matt Goldberg, if Matt Goldberg decided to put his capoeira skills to use fighting the thirsty dead. Ryan Reynolds dispenses so many wisecracks that the balance of funny-to-embarrassing comes out in his favor, and Parker Posey is exactly what I would imagine a completely drunk and crazy vampire to be like. She also sprints off-screen every time Wesley Snipes shows up, which seems wise.
Frank Rich Editorial
I don’t care what you say about Frank Rich, this editorial on truthiness (I’m linking to a blog that apparently copied it from the NYT website, it seems accurate) is pretty much rad/chilling.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Porkchopolis Now, ACTUAL Redux
In the first piece of goods news since evil Democrats made Sammy Alito's poor wife cry, www.magicbutter.com is now FREE. For those of you who have not attended college or at least have not spent hours in darkened rooms drinking gin and Surge in front of your computer, Magic Butter emerged from Bullseyeart.com and features once-popular cartoons like Miss Muffy and Rat Chicken and never-popular cartoons like Internet the Animated Series and Porkchops. For a while they offered these Flash shorts on a subscription basis, but now they are free. Go watch 'em and order some of their Basquiat-esque clothing.
News for Nerds
Roar (1997)
I stumbled across this on the Sci-Fi channel; it’s another one of these bad fantasy shows that SciFi has resurrected after their deserved first-season cancellations. Heath Ledger, surprisingly, stars as a polite and friendly Irish warchief circa 400AD. His older sidekick sports a handlebar moustache and looks more like a leather-daddy than Pictish warrior – they are all named things like Colm and Liam and I’ll be damned if I remember which one is which. It seems basically like a silly Xena knock-off, but is certainly an interesting piece of TV ephemera.
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 – Avatar Tuners
Avatar Tuners is, of course, the secret bonus unnecessary subtitle for this most recent Megami Tensei outing. I played SMT:DDS1 but not all the way through; I found it kind of boring and monotonous, and also monstrously difficult, although in a rare twist I actually liked the story. About a fifth of the way through I returned it to Gamestop, which involved a shouting argument with a Russian immigrant and the manager which left me shaking with rage SO BAD that I had to move to England and marry into a wealthy family and kill a troubled actress before I even wanted to TALK about it.
Anyway, we’re talking about the sequel here. Every review I read said that the first game was not as good but you needed to play it in order to have the faintest idea what’s going on in this version. This is true if you are kind of slow or if you suffer from the vapors or aphasia. I chose just to enjoy the new plot as an in medias res beginning – it’s not too hard to pick up on, since it’s kind of a blend of the Matrix and most Megami Tensei games (although not as willfully dumb as the matrix). As usual for the series the world has ended, people have made deals with the devil, and your character is part demon, part waifish Japanese wisp. It doesn’t look to be as philosophically interesting as the opposed reasons in SMT: Nocturne (you got to pick between Struggle, Solitude, and Silence, so in retrospect they weren’t that interesting either). The fact that this tissue-thin story is winning my praise really says something about the general quality of RPG plots, but it is not something that hasn't been said frequently and inarticulately before.
The camera controls are a little stiff and there’s no way to shut off the clamorous, idiotic music, but they’ve brushed up the graphics, combat and character development systems and it looks like it’s going to be a whale of a game. The balancing also seems better. The game is wickedly hard for about the first five battles, but after that it settles – most battle require some thought and there’s definitely a possibility that ANY encounter could leave you dead, but that’s a nice change of pace from the ponderous or very easy systems of a lot of other PS2 games (Dragon Quest VIII and any final fantasy, for instance). Also, the battles generally resolve in less than a minute, which sounds like it would cause seizures, but is actually just perfect.
I stumbled across this on the Sci-Fi channel; it’s another one of these bad fantasy shows that SciFi has resurrected after their deserved first-season cancellations. Heath Ledger, surprisingly, stars as a polite and friendly Irish warchief circa 400AD. His older sidekick sports a handlebar moustache and looks more like a leather-daddy than Pictish warrior – they are all named things like Colm and Liam and I’ll be damned if I remember which one is which. It seems basically like a silly Xena knock-off, but is certainly an interesting piece of TV ephemera.
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 – Avatar Tuners
Avatar Tuners is, of course, the secret bonus unnecessary subtitle for this most recent Megami Tensei outing. I played SMT:DDS1 but not all the way through; I found it kind of boring and monotonous, and also monstrously difficult, although in a rare twist I actually liked the story. About a fifth of the way through I returned it to Gamestop, which involved a shouting argument with a Russian immigrant and the manager which left me shaking with rage SO BAD that I had to move to England and marry into a wealthy family and kill a troubled actress before I even wanted to TALK about it.
Anyway, we’re talking about the sequel here. Every review I read said that the first game was not as good but you needed to play it in order to have the faintest idea what’s going on in this version. This is true if you are kind of slow or if you suffer from the vapors or aphasia. I chose just to enjoy the new plot as an in medias res beginning – it’s not too hard to pick up on, since it’s kind of a blend of the Matrix and most Megami Tensei games (although not as willfully dumb as the matrix). As usual for the series the world has ended, people have made deals with the devil, and your character is part demon, part waifish Japanese wisp. It doesn’t look to be as philosophically interesting as the opposed reasons in SMT: Nocturne (you got to pick between Struggle, Solitude, and Silence, so in retrospect they weren’t that interesting either). The fact that this tissue-thin story is winning my praise really says something about the general quality of RPG plots, but it is not something that hasn't been said frequently and inarticulately before.
The camera controls are a little stiff and there’s no way to shut off the clamorous, idiotic music, but they’ve brushed up the graphics, combat and character development systems and it looks like it’s going to be a whale of a game. The balancing also seems better. The game is wickedly hard for about the first five battles, but after that it settles – most battle require some thought and there’s definitely a possibility that ANY encounter could leave you dead, but that’s a nice change of pace from the ponderous or very easy systems of a lot of other PS2 games (Dragon Quest VIII and any final fantasy, for instance). Also, the battles generally resolve in less than a minute, which sounds like it would cause seizures, but is actually just perfect.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
A delightful New Yorker article on Battlestar Galactica, my new favorite show, which I praised in my blog literally WEEKs ago. It seems odd that girl reporter Nancy Franklin chooses to spend fully a third of the article talking about what Science Fiction is like as a genre (only to admit that the new Battlestar doesn't fit), but her descriptions of Starbuck and Doctor Baltar are absolutely dead-on, and perhaps her magazine legitimacy will convince those reluctant to watch a show about a giant spaceship and its problems with sexy robots. Also, NB, available on iPod video, for those of us who like to enjoy the series in a postage-stamp sized format.
Friday, January 13, 2006
"Let's escape on my barge!"
Kinds of Funny
Will Arnett and Amy Poehler both made it into New York magazine’s New Yorkers of the Year list – in the interview Arnett introduced the phrase “L.A. funny”, a phrase that he and Poehler use to mean just barely funny enough to be considered funny (as opposed to “New York funny,” actually funny). Learn it and use it, people!
Casanova
Let me see, Casanova. This movie was one of two things:
Will Arnett and Amy Poehler both made it into New York magazine’s New Yorkers of the Year list – in the interview Arnett introduced the phrase “L.A. funny”, a phrase that he and Poehler use to mean just barely funny enough to be considered funny (as opposed to “New York funny,” actually funny). Learn it and use it, people!
Casanova
Let me see, Casanova. This movie was one of two things:
- The Japanese made an irresponsibly allusive Playstation game about the life of Casanova, which then got picked up and made into a movie for some reason.
- Heath Ledger and his friends went on an unusually well-financed LARP set in 18th century Venice.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Dem HOV Fetus Exclusion Blues
Another fine zinger from Rafil Bonerston-Smith - just try breaking this news to Rosasharn, unless she is too busy symbolically suckling vagrants. GROSS-OUT!
Monday, January 09, 2006
Always Bet on Black
Matchpoint
This is a swell movie and was also a swell movie years ago when it was Crimes and Misdemeanors. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is perfect as lucky Irish jerk Chris: his fleshy, saturnine face, tumbling speech and penetrating glare bubble up through his plucky tennis-pro persona and reveal the murderous voluptuary beneath. It’s hard to believe that he also played Gimli the perverted dwarf in Lord of the Rings. Emily Mortimer is delightful as his clueless GFF Chloe Hewett, Matthew Goode is note-perfect as her brother Tom Hewett, whose job is to be thin and jolly and handsome and have a wonderful time. Scarlett Johansson plays Nola Rice, who starts out on a delightfully subtle, vulnerable note before mega-morphing into a shrieking harpy, but she is always very good at acting and such. E. Hastings pointed out that Rice looks like she’s about to burst into tears whenever she’s discussing her acting non-career, although in real life Scarlett Johansson is a famous actress! Talk about movie magic! The movie’s central question, whether it is better to be lucky or good, is interesting although of course you don’t really get to choose that kind of thing; it also suffers a little from trademark Woody Allen intellectualism (i.e. Chris ostentatiously reads Dostoyevsky early on so we know he has depth). The direction and cinematography are invisibly assured and perfect (and reminds me why filmmakers rely on the small vocabulary of traditional pans, pushes, etc.), and the soundtrack is an amazing selection of famous, scratchy opera performances. All in all, this movie made me think it would be very nice to be an immensely wealthy person in England, and also that it is not nice to do murders. Recommended viewing for people who are trying to decide between these two options!
This is a swell movie and was also a swell movie years ago when it was Crimes and Misdemeanors. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is perfect as lucky Irish jerk Chris: his fleshy, saturnine face, tumbling speech and penetrating glare bubble up through his plucky tennis-pro persona and reveal the murderous voluptuary beneath. It’s hard to believe that he also played Gimli the perverted dwarf in Lord of the Rings. Emily Mortimer is delightful as his clueless GFF Chloe Hewett, Matthew Goode is note-perfect as her brother Tom Hewett, whose job is to be thin and jolly and handsome and have a wonderful time. Scarlett Johansson plays Nola Rice, who starts out on a delightfully subtle, vulnerable note before mega-morphing into a shrieking harpy, but she is always very good at acting and such. E. Hastings pointed out that Rice looks like she’s about to burst into tears whenever she’s discussing her acting non-career, although in real life Scarlett Johansson is a famous actress! Talk about movie magic! The movie’s central question, whether it is better to be lucky or good, is interesting although of course you don’t really get to choose that kind of thing; it also suffers a little from trademark Woody Allen intellectualism (i.e. Chris ostentatiously reads Dostoyevsky early on so we know he has depth). The direction and cinematography are invisibly assured and perfect (and reminds me why filmmakers rely on the small vocabulary of traditional pans, pushes, etc.), and the soundtrack is an amazing selection of famous, scratchy opera performances. All in all, this movie made me think it would be very nice to be an immensely wealthy person in England, and also that it is not nice to do murders. Recommended viewing for people who are trying to decide between these two options!
Saturday, January 07, 2006
He's a Hungry Fighter
Maybe the Best White Ninja Comic Ever.
Also, I'm upgrading my review of Battlestar Galactica from "pretty good" to "one of the best series I have ever seen." I would seriously rank it alongside Rome and maybe even Six Feet Under. It's ambiguous, intense, and makes me almost hysterical over the characters, who are now uniformly delightful (even Dr. Baltar and poor Number Six). I have rarely been as simultaneously happy and worried as I was this week when Commander Adama told Starbuck to shoot vile ol' Admiral Cain directly in the head. Superb television watchery. Even if you don't like sicence fiction, it's worth a shot, since it's very little about robots and lasers and much more about politics and people and dissapointment.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
A One-Way Ticket to Palookaville
"I'll canary up, see - I'll finger the mooks who took the mazuma, but I don't wanna see the inside of the Big House, and if any of youse flatfoots try to put the flimflam on me, I'll ring your chimes, fella!"
Some More Reviews
D.E.B.S.
I only caught the last half of this movie, on Stars, the Channel Where Movies Go to Die. I can’t believe that I haven’t already seen it and fixed it in the firmament of cinematic classics, and I also can’t believe that anyone actually made it. The premise is somewhere between Mean Girls and one of the less-loathsome Austin Powers movies – the eponymous D.E.B.S. are superspies-in-training at some kind of Department of Homeland Security superspy academy, which requires them to wear Catholic schoolgirl uniforms and wield enormous guns. Also, they are all attractive young women. Lest you think this movie offers too little to the randy male voyeur, the main plot tension turns out to be a lesbian romance between Amy, one of the D.E.B.S., and not-terribly-villainous supervillain Lucy Diamonds (played by the luminously beautiful Jordana Brewster). Some inspired montages and confidently snappy dialogue lift this from ethereally insubstantial fluff to delightful, enduring fluff.
Battlestar Galactica
I am talking here about the new, Sci-Fi channel remake (on DVD, as well, since I don’t really want to sit through half an hour of commercials for e-harmony.com). This is delightful middlebrow sci-fi at its absolute best, and the writers display a remarkably light, original touch. It’s more Larry Niven than Star Wars (although there are some messianic, mystical touches). The crew of the Galactica has to confront problems like water shortages and political maneuverings as often as they must fight the dastardly Cylons, and standard Star Trek deus ex machina weirdness is largely absent (no aliens or strange nebulae at all so far, in fact). The cast is large, capable and attractive (especially Starbuck, who is the kind of woman I find appealing but who invariably turns out to be gay), with Edward James Olmos standing out as Commander Adama. Unfortunately, the writers have blended in some extremely annoying elements: Ellen Tigh, the XO’s boozy wife (who would have worked much better as a solely comic note) and Doctor Baltar’s odious relationship with Cylon/neurotic figment Number Six. Baltar shows a frustratingly stymied gift for comic acting and I only hope that as the series progresses we will see more of him and less of Number Six, who is very pretty but also basically one-note, and it’s not a very interesting note at that. The pacing drags a little at times and they may be maintaining a few more plots than necessary (it certainly doesn’t compare to the blissful pacing and assurance of the multiple plots on Buffy). The Blade Runner-esque ongoing guessing game about who is or isn’t a Cylon is getting a little tedious, but all in all, it’s enjoyable to an almost obscene degree. Bully!
Dragon Quest VIII
A slime draws near! This game is very good, appallingly slow-moving, bright, thinly-plotted, and has few load times. The voiceovers are atypically good, and the game boasts a full orchestral soundtrack performed by the Tokyo symphony orchestra or something; I found, to my delight, that I could turn it off. When I want to listen to monstrously vulgar and pointless orchestral music, I will get some Mahler out of the public library. By around level 30 the battle system has become extremely tiring, yet I find myself yearning to keep playing. The highlight, for me, has been the taxing boss-battles, which actually force the player to make some tough decisions instead of sleepwalking through (kind of like every single battle in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, which is probably the best RPG ev-ar). There is also a current of peculiarly Japanese misogyny throughout (the one female playable character gets a bunny outfit as one of her best armors, and one of her unique powers is Sex Appeal). I found it embarrassing. The box proudly notes that it contains a playable demo of Final Fantasy XII. It was an unplayable mess, as far as I could tell, and although the opening movie was technically impressive, we REALLY don’t want another fucking story about Air Pirates and political tensions between two dumb kingdoms and giant robots and a female healer messiah figure, PLEASE.
I only caught the last half of this movie, on Stars, the Channel Where Movies Go to Die. I can’t believe that I haven’t already seen it and fixed it in the firmament of cinematic classics, and I also can’t believe that anyone actually made it. The premise is somewhere between Mean Girls and one of the less-loathsome Austin Powers movies – the eponymous D.E.B.S. are superspies-in-training at some kind of Department of Homeland Security superspy academy, which requires them to wear Catholic schoolgirl uniforms and wield enormous guns. Also, they are all attractive young women. Lest you think this movie offers too little to the randy male voyeur, the main plot tension turns out to be a lesbian romance between Amy, one of the D.E.B.S., and not-terribly-villainous supervillain Lucy Diamonds (played by the luminously beautiful Jordana Brewster). Some inspired montages and confidently snappy dialogue lift this from ethereally insubstantial fluff to delightful, enduring fluff.
Battlestar Galactica
I am talking here about the new, Sci-Fi channel remake (on DVD, as well, since I don’t really want to sit through half an hour of commercials for e-harmony.com). This is delightful middlebrow sci-fi at its absolute best, and the writers display a remarkably light, original touch. It’s more Larry Niven than Star Wars (although there are some messianic, mystical touches). The crew of the Galactica has to confront problems like water shortages and political maneuverings as often as they must fight the dastardly Cylons, and standard Star Trek deus ex machina weirdness is largely absent (no aliens or strange nebulae at all so far, in fact). The cast is large, capable and attractive (especially Starbuck, who is the kind of woman I find appealing but who invariably turns out to be gay), with Edward James Olmos standing out as Commander Adama. Unfortunately, the writers have blended in some extremely annoying elements: Ellen Tigh, the XO’s boozy wife (who would have worked much better as a solely comic note) and Doctor Baltar’s odious relationship with Cylon/neurotic figment Number Six. Baltar shows a frustratingly stymied gift for comic acting and I only hope that as the series progresses we will see more of him and less of Number Six, who is very pretty but also basically one-note, and it’s not a very interesting note at that. The pacing drags a little at times and they may be maintaining a few more plots than necessary (it certainly doesn’t compare to the blissful pacing and assurance of the multiple plots on Buffy). The Blade Runner-esque ongoing guessing game about who is or isn’t a Cylon is getting a little tedious, but all in all, it’s enjoyable to an almost obscene degree. Bully!
Dragon Quest VIII
A slime draws near! This game is very good, appallingly slow-moving, bright, thinly-plotted, and has few load times. The voiceovers are atypically good, and the game boasts a full orchestral soundtrack performed by the Tokyo symphony orchestra or something; I found, to my delight, that I could turn it off. When I want to listen to monstrously vulgar and pointless orchestral music, I will get some Mahler out of the public library. By around level 30 the battle system has become extremely tiring, yet I find myself yearning to keep playing. The highlight, for me, has been the taxing boss-battles, which actually force the player to make some tough decisions instead of sleepwalking through (kind of like every single battle in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, which is probably the best RPG ev-ar). There is also a current of peculiarly Japanese misogyny throughout (the one female playable character gets a bunny outfit as one of her best armors, and one of her unique powers is Sex Appeal). I found it embarrassing. The box proudly notes that it contains a playable demo of Final Fantasy XII. It was an unplayable mess, as far as I could tell, and although the opening movie was technically impressive, we REALLY don’t want another fucking story about Air Pirates and political tensions between two dumb kingdoms and giant robots and a female healer messiah figure, PLEASE.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
The Great Transit Strike of '05
The snow is snowing, the wind is blowing, and now the transit workers are striking. So it looks like YT will remain in CT until the picket lines pack up and the strike restores the dignity of labor. I spent a few minutes this morning thinking about the situation and I suppose I support the MTA workers – if they can squeeze a very nice raise and benefits package out of the city of New York, maybe they will inspire other unions across the country to demand better treatment for their members, which will in turn encourage more workers to join unions, which could make an impact on American poverty, the healthcare system, illegal immigrant labor, getting more Democrats elected, etc. Perhaps this is hopelessly naïve. I know that Kurt Vonnegut and all of his Eugene Debs loving protagonists would be proud. I guess I’ll just wait for the Fox News report (“Union communists rape Christmas”) so I can make up my mind from the unbiased, bare facts.
Now, some reviews!
SYRIANA
A pretty, pretty, pretty good movie. In it, a great number of fine actors romp around and grow moustaches and generally confuse the hell out of the audience for most of the movie. Amanda Peet is notable for being the only girl and reprising her role from Saving Silverman (Jack Black doesn’t make it) as Matt Affleck’s wife. Jeffrey Wright, of Angels in America fame, plays a lawyer who has one of the above moustaches and does not really care all that much about the truth, justice, etc., preferring fine cufflinks and talking very fast and quietly. George Clooney is supposed to be fat but isn’t. The guy who plays Prince Nasir looks a little like a much more handsome version of actual Prince, and basically swans around being handsome and progressive and wearing wonderful white suits. I can’t reveal any plot details except that the oil industry ends up looking like a bit of a bad egg. Go see it if you want to understand why America is cutting the throat of the Middle East, Europe, America, and the Middle East.
AEON FLUX
Also pretty good, not as good as Syriana. Charlize Theron looks and sounds a lot like Aeon from the cartoons, which is impressive, also she is like a goddam battleship and is nine feet tall. All their futuristic clothing is amazing (the costumers wisely decided not to go with Aeon’s trademark bondage gear), as are the sets which look like they were designed by a coke-addled Zaha Hadid. Lots of delightful touches from the cartoon make it in (not enough, and mostly towards the less-bizarre end of the spectrum), and Trevor Goodchild is engaging and has great hair, though he’s not blonde in this version. Unfortunately, Goodchild engages a little too well; he’s for sure a good guy, whereas in the cartoon he was pretty morally ambiguous (or, actually, just a megalomaniacal villain) which make his relationship with Aeon more complex and interesting. I know that it’s irresponsibly dorky to keep comparing the movie and the cartoon - the movie is quite entertaining and visually sumptuous on its own, but it’s definitely worth seeing both versions.
Now, some reviews!
SYRIANA
A pretty, pretty, pretty good movie. In it, a great number of fine actors romp around and grow moustaches and generally confuse the hell out of the audience for most of the movie. Amanda Peet is notable for being the only girl and reprising her role from Saving Silverman (Jack Black doesn’t make it) as Matt Affleck’s wife. Jeffrey Wright, of Angels in America fame, plays a lawyer who has one of the above moustaches and does not really care all that much about the truth, justice, etc., preferring fine cufflinks and talking very fast and quietly. George Clooney is supposed to be fat but isn’t. The guy who plays Prince Nasir looks a little like a much more handsome version of actual Prince, and basically swans around being handsome and progressive and wearing wonderful white suits. I can’t reveal any plot details except that the oil industry ends up looking like a bit of a bad egg. Go see it if you want to understand why America is cutting the throat of the Middle East, Europe, America, and the Middle East.
AEON FLUX
Also pretty good, not as good as Syriana. Charlize Theron looks and sounds a lot like Aeon from the cartoons, which is impressive, also she is like a goddam battleship and is nine feet tall. All their futuristic clothing is amazing (the costumers wisely decided not to go with Aeon’s trademark bondage gear), as are the sets which look like they were designed by a coke-addled Zaha Hadid. Lots of delightful touches from the cartoon make it in (not enough, and mostly towards the less-bizarre end of the spectrum), and Trevor Goodchild is engaging and has great hair, though he’s not blonde in this version. Unfortunately, Goodchild engages a little too well; he’s for sure a good guy, whereas in the cartoon he was pretty morally ambiguous (or, actually, just a megalomaniacal villain) which make his relationship with Aeon more complex and interesting. I know that it’s irresponsibly dorky to keep comparing the movie and the cartoon - the movie is quite entertaining and visually sumptuous on its own, but it’s definitely worth seeing both versions.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Some Reviews
Mike Kelly, “Day is Done”
At the Gagosian Gallery
Well, ol’ Mike Kelly’s arts are pretty big here. I imagine that a lot of people will compare “Day is Done” to a haunted house, and they’re right, it’s kind of like a haunted house. Kelly takes photographs from yearbooks from the 80s, blows them up, then re-stages them with his friends. He is also obsessed with goths, so many of the pictures are of 80s vampires and assorted morbidities. The pictures encircle a frenzied mixed media installation which involves some pretty hilarious video pieces (mopey 80s vampire working at what looks like a real estate agent's office, pasty-faced ghoul stumbling through a bush) and amusing works of sculpture, many based on poorly-designed high school stage sets. It got to be sensory overload about a third of the way through (also, the gallery does not boast a bathroom), but it’s probably worth a trip some time real soon, before it closes. Bring your own grease pencil so you can circle the differences between the pictures!
Issue Project Room, on the lovely Gowanus
I went to an experimental fiction reading here. All the pieces were pretty good, but the space was especially interesting. Issue Project Room is a converted silo, staffed by extremely rude hipsters, on the Gowanus canal. It features an enormous wrought-iron gate before which guests are invited to stand for an hour or so while the hipsters ignore them (S. Grant and I happened to arrive at the same time as one of the readers, who was LIVID and had been waiting for a long time in very cold weather – the hipster who unlocked the gate barely apologized, so you can imagine how they treat the normal guests). It also features a robust $10 cover charge and a delightfully unprofessional, under stocked bar that offers beer (wait, actually no beer) and wine for the same low prices found at Le Cirque. The reading space is upstairs in the silo next door - readers are allowed to use an interior staircase, the public is invited to go outside. The actual space is quite lovely, a huge round room with what looks like a nice a/v setup and a fine upright piano, and the rest of the building looks like it would be an amazing place to live and write, say, postfeminist fiction in which the heroine is named “Cervix.” Hear me, O Internet, and strike down the hubris of these hipsters! Let them realize that their rad hangout would be more rad if they knew how to act!
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
More like Harry Potter and the New Russian. For me and E. Hastings, Victor Krum absolutely made this movie (actually, I thought it was the most skillful and least boring of the movies – although the rumors you hear that it is impenetrable to those who haven’t read the book are extremely true). Try watching the movie and imagining that whenever he is not onscreen, Krum is in a disco wearing a transparent vinyl shirt, hijacking cigarette trucks, beating people to death with tire irons, drinking tea while holding sugar in his mouth, playing dominoes with a guy who is wearing one of those shirts that lacw at the collar, etc. His touching gift to Hermione as he returns to Durmstrang for the summer? An eightball and a $100 bill.
At the Gagosian Gallery
Well, ol’ Mike Kelly’s arts are pretty big here. I imagine that a lot of people will compare “Day is Done” to a haunted house, and they’re right, it’s kind of like a haunted house. Kelly takes photographs from yearbooks from the 80s, blows them up, then re-stages them with his friends. He is also obsessed with goths, so many of the pictures are of 80s vampires and assorted morbidities. The pictures encircle a frenzied mixed media installation which involves some pretty hilarious video pieces (mopey 80s vampire working at what looks like a real estate agent's office, pasty-faced ghoul stumbling through a bush) and amusing works of sculpture, many based on poorly-designed high school stage sets. It got to be sensory overload about a third of the way through (also, the gallery does not boast a bathroom), but it’s probably worth a trip some time real soon, before it closes. Bring your own grease pencil so you can circle the differences between the pictures!
Issue Project Room, on the lovely Gowanus
I went to an experimental fiction reading here. All the pieces were pretty good, but the space was especially interesting. Issue Project Room is a converted silo, staffed by extremely rude hipsters, on the Gowanus canal. It features an enormous wrought-iron gate before which guests are invited to stand for an hour or so while the hipsters ignore them (S. Grant and I happened to arrive at the same time as one of the readers, who was LIVID and had been waiting for a long time in very cold weather – the hipster who unlocked the gate barely apologized, so you can imagine how they treat the normal guests). It also features a robust $10 cover charge and a delightfully unprofessional, under stocked bar that offers beer (wait, actually no beer) and wine for the same low prices found at Le Cirque. The reading space is upstairs in the silo next door - readers are allowed to use an interior staircase, the public is invited to go outside. The actual space is quite lovely, a huge round room with what looks like a nice a/v setup and a fine upright piano, and the rest of the building looks like it would be an amazing place to live and write, say, postfeminist fiction in which the heroine is named “Cervix.” Hear me, O Internet, and strike down the hubris of these hipsters! Let them realize that their rad hangout would be more rad if they knew how to act!
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
More like Harry Potter and the New Russian. For me and E. Hastings, Victor Krum absolutely made this movie (actually, I thought it was the most skillful and least boring of the movies – although the rumors you hear that it is impenetrable to those who haven’t read the book are extremely true). Try watching the movie and imagining that whenever he is not onscreen, Krum is in a disco wearing a transparent vinyl shirt, hijacking cigarette trucks, beating people to death with tire irons, drinking tea while holding sugar in his mouth, playing dominoes with a guy who is wearing one of those shirts that lacw at the collar, etc. His touching gift to Hermione as he returns to Durmstrang for the summer? An eightball and a $100 bill.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Return to the Pumpkin Truck
Courtesy of the inimitable Andrew Porter:
A News Story About Creed
In all fairness it is not actually about Creed, my favorite band, since Creed broke up, but it is about the violent antics of soulful frontman Scott Stapp. It is easier for a fully-laden pumkin truck to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wrathful man to get into heaven, SCOTT.
A News Story About Creed
In all fairness it is not actually about Creed, my favorite band, since Creed broke up, but it is about the violent antics of soulful frontman Scott Stapp. It is easier for a fully-laden pumkin truck to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wrathful man to get into heaven, SCOTT.
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