Three Movies I Saw

Man, I gots to get better at writing down my thoughts about films quicker. I saw Avatar on Monday and Synecdoche New York on... Saturday(?) and Ninja Assassin on Thursday.

Let's start with Ninja Assassin first. It is a very bloody movie. Which is kind of a good thing, I guess. But most of the gore looks super fake. It was all added in later by computers. That's like cheating or something. The story is not at all complex but is more complicated than it needed to be. The acting was. Yup.

Some of the shots were quite nice, there was some neat-o ninja action; ninjas emerging from shadows (overused in this movie but still cool), ninjas flitting in and out of view, a fuck tonne of throwing stars, a somewhat confusingly shot fight on a busy speedway. But there was also some blandly staged action.

It was a very hit or miss film. More misses than hits, but the hits were super bloody.

I have no idea what to say about Synecdoche New York. Mainly because I have no idea what it was about. No, that's not true, I just wanted to write it. The film is about a lot of things. A lot of important things.

All of Charlie Kaufman's films have been about important things. They have all been very interesting explorations of ideas. This film is as well, but disappears up its own ass. Which is kind of the point. It is about (but not just about) the importance and triviality of creative endeavors.

There are some great bits of dialogue, some cringe inducing exchanges, some wonderful bits of angst and anguish and despair and a few bits of hope sprinkled in as well. Just for flavour.

There was a lot going on.

There was also a lot going on in Avatar. Visually, of course. The story is simple and simply told. And some people are saying this is a bad thing. These people should watch the Star Wars prequels and the movies based on toys of the last few years. Simple stories simply told are so much better than needlessly complex stories poorly told or stupid stories incompetently told.

Cameron is what Lucas has been falsely accused of: a spinner of myths. There are heroes and there are villains. Daring deeds are done. It has worked as a story since words worked as words. Not everything need to be innovative, especially when the visuals are.

Cameron the writer knew what Cameron the director wanted to do and the story plays to that. The emphasis is less on the hero's journey than on where this journey takes place. This film is about Pandora. And good god is Pandora worth all the attention. There is a specificity here that is startling. The thought given to the world, its inhabitants and the interrelationship between the two boggles my mind.

And the Na'avi. Perfect. One day, maybe, we will get computer generated people that are indistinguishable from real ones (ignoring why we would ever want such a thing). But we ain't there yet. But humanoid blue cat alien thingees? The time is now. The elongated limbs, the over sized eyes, the expressiveness of the ears and tails, this all adds up to make the aliens seem real. Everything has to be slightly overdone to seem natural. You could take stills from just about any scene involving the Na'avi and they would all look ridiculous, but in motion they are pitch perfect.

I really liked this film. I liked it more than I thought I would, and I knew that I was going to like it. Cameron, for all of his technical prowess, has never forgotten how to structure a film. Something Lucas and Spielberg seem to have forgotten.

I could go on, but let's just bring it on home.

Ninja Assassin is as forgettable as it is bloody.

Synecdoche New York is a film to think on.

Avatar is a film to drink in.

More Bleeps and Bloops

God damnit, I truncated my last post fairly severely. I didn't mention any of the music introduced to me via Rock Band.

Which is pretty impressive when you stop to think about it. Rock Band is a game where you play along with music you know and love. New stuff? You're too busy worrying about hitting all the notes to notice the song that the notes make. Maybe it's just me. But there are definitely songs that stood out even during the first play through.

Hell, let's go back to Guitar Hero 2.



It's weird seeing it in a different video game context.

Even Rats is the song that made me a Rock Band fan. Harmonix just threw in music they liked. As a bonus. To share with their fans music that they themselves were fans of. They seem to be music fans first video game developers a close second. Which is why Rock Band, in my humble opinion is the better band rhythm game.

And Rock Band is how I found out about



That was the only song I loved off of that album, unfortunately.

And Rock Band 2 introduced me to a bunch of songs I had never heard before but now love but if I had to pick only one (and according to the rules in my head that I just made up, I do) it would have to be



Still weirds me out that it's a dude singing that song. But these songs are why I am really hoping Harmonix puts out a new game. They've been great with releasing downloadable songs every damn week, but who is gonna take a chance on something they've never heard of? It needs to be Trojan horsed in with all sorts of other music people know and love. And that can only be done on a disc.



I just love that unfaithful line.

And I love CBC radio 3. It has introduced me to so many amazing songs and artists (I still haven't found a good non-Canada centric indie podcast though). But the artist that I can't get enough of at the moment is



I love that whole album (and I like that youtube video, those look exactly like pictures I would take). So, so much. And that came out in 2007. I'm two years out of hip. But I don't think I'll think of Welcome to the Night Sky as unhip. Lovely voices, lyrics that feel good in the mouth, that whole quiet loud quiet thing. This album was made for me to love it. And I do.

Beeps and Boops

What is it about music? Why do we like it, man? Why does it compel us? How can some person singing about something that has nothing to do with the listener affect the mood of the listener? It is crazy magic. It is emotional alchemy.

And I am a soft touch. So, so soft. My heart is on my sleeve. Plus it is oversized. I've got a lot of heart, is what I'm saying, and it is a very sensitive heart. Music, the right music, punches me right in my big soft heart.

Everything and everyone is putting of best of the year and best of the decade lists. I have not listened to enough music to make such a list, but there is a list I can make. Music of the last decade that punches my heart and. In a good way.

I don't mean that they make me sob. That they make me sad. That they make me feel bad. No. But they make me feel. My brain becomes aware of my eyes and my breathing and my heart rate, because they've all been affected by this music I'm listening to. Music, man, crazy.

Right. The List.

My Emotional Hits of the Naughts:

I'm going to start with the song that inspired this whole thing. I heard this on the R3-30, and then re-listened to it a good half dozen time before I could continue the countdown And this is from an album from 2008, how the hell did I miss this.?



It's a lovely little song, but the part where it's just the dude and his guitar that really gets me. That's the part that made me notice the song and then listen to it a zilion times. And the zillion times made me notice all the other bits of loveliness in there. Lots going on in that song. I want to go into detail, but I don't want to sound like a wanker.

And I could wank all over any of theses songs.

But taking inspiration from the dude and a guitar let us listen to...



How does that work? Just a dude and some kinda noise maker singing gibberish (she brings me seeds from olive trees?) and it dampens my eyes. The crowd singing along really helps, I reckon.

Speaking of singing along: one of, if not my favourite concert going experiences was seeing Arcade Fire (this was pre Neon Bible, just to give a time frame). And screaming along with the rest of the crowd to all the songs. So primal. A lot of their music gets me, but the one that works the best on me is



Just imagine yelling along with that. Good for the soul. Maybe I should have used Wake Up instead. The acoustic version, the one from the Where the Wild Things Are trailer? Hell, that trailer makes my vision blur every damn time.

But back to just a dude and a guitar.

I looked and I looked but I could not find a linkable version of Greg Macpherson's The Company Store. But I highly recommend you listen to it. It's about something that happened a long time ago to people you don't know, but it is such an angry song you just want to punch someone by the end of it. Again, anger at something long since gone provoked by nothing more than a voice and a guitar.

And you don't even need to understand the voice.



That is just hooky as shit. Just strings and skins. The vocals are just something for the audience to scream as their bodys jump up and down.

Good God did I do a lot of jumping up and down for this band.



I doubt I will ever see any band live more than I saw K 106. They played every Tuesday at a club about 20 minutes away from my job. My friend Ben would travel substantially further to see them. They are so awesome live. I cannot divorce their music from their shows, their music takes me back to being in their club and that makes my brain so happy. And maybe a little sad.

Another great Japan gig experience was seeing Matsuzaki Nao



That is not the song I was looking for, but that is just an awesome video. The song that sold me on her was Ki No Uta (roughly translated: tree song). The first time I saw her perform it, she was with a band and it was all drums and bass, with her voice just as strong and loud. The second time I saw her she performed the song solo and it was beautiful in a completely different way.

I wonder if I would think less of this Japanese stuff if I had a better understanding of the language.



I can't understand half of what they sing in this song either, and it still gets me. The best version of this song that I've heard (and I went through a phase where I listened to them all).



The best/worst thing about Hawksley Workman is that he so damn prolific.



Why the hell did they get rid of the word shit? Dude is Australian. More than half of Aussie kids' first word is shit.

I'm sure there are tonnes more but my brain has been a little fuzzy for a while now (you may have noticed) so I'll just finish off with something nice and happy. And Canadian.

Transitionless.

So it has been a few days since I bitched about how I wanted to write more, but that is okay. Cuz I've been mad busy. Didn't manage to get the whole house cleaned, but I put a pretty good dent in it. And I've been cooking! And the stuff I cooked ended up tasting good! Tomato pasta sauce from scratch! Bread! Shepherd's Pie! Yum!

And I've been, slowly but surely, converting my Japan vids. There have been all kinds of issues there. Some days just don't want to convert. It's odd.

Also odd is how do I handle this transition. How do I go from random housekeeping crap to actual writing about actual things. I have stuff I want to write about, but should I tack it on to this or just start a new entry.

New entry it is.

A Little Bit Louder and a Little Bit Worse

Stop putting shit off.

That was my New Year's resolution.

Got off to a decent start, too. Cleaned our room all to hell, moved everything, dusted, vacuumed, threw out shit that just seems to build up. Blogged. About movies. The post prior to this.

But then I started putting shit off. I have a mental and physical block. As soon as I start making any sort of change in my life, I sabotage myself. I am aware of this and this awareness does nothing except making me even more pissed off at my lack of progress.

I've been meaning to write this for a couple couple (which is to say almost a few) days, but kept putting it off. And this is nothing, this is pointless, this is just typing to keep typing. Still, I put it off.

Enough of that. I read, I play video games, I watch movies, I want to write more. So I am going to write more.

But... Here is a quick peak into my brain. It never shuts up. I replay conversations in my head; rewording things, obsessing over mistakes and things I could have phrased better. I imagine future conversations. Between me and people I know, between me and people I don't know. Between two people I don't know or two people I do. Or more than two. Just conversations constantly going on in my grey mush.

In addition to all that, I blog. In my head. I work over things, constantly editing. And when I finally have it phrased just so, someone somewhere in my head takes a break from their conversation to complement me. And then the phrase phrased just so disappears. Poof. So real word blogging is frustrating because it never matches that now forgotten bon motte of the brain. I've brain reblogged this post for a couple couple days(which is to say nearly a few) now and this is nothing like what I had imagined. And there was some good stuff in those brain blogs, let me tell you, the people in my head told me so.

I'll never be able to type fast enough to keep up with the babble in my brain.

But god fucking damnit, this it the stupid year in which I try.

But I reckon I will stop this post now. This is the post wherein I bitch, you see, the next one has an actual topic. I guess I could have mentioned that this was a bitchy post up front, but you're smart (and so ATTRACTIVE!) so I'm sure you figure it out (and man you smell nice).

Happy Happy and Merry Merry

Rang in the New Year in the preferred fashion. In a warm basement with good friend, food and drink. And crappy movies.

Well... one crappy movie, one comfort movie and one...

Crank 2 is a hard movie to describe/explain. But an easy one for me to enjoy. Just whacked out craziness all over the god damn place. Full of unlikeable people doing unlikeable things to each other for near inexplicable reasons. Maybe the easiest way to explain the movie is to spoil it. Consider that your spoiler warning.

The movie ends with our hero on fire and flipping off the audience. And it is awesome. And awful. This movie inspires awe.

BeerFest is the comfort movie that we ended off the evening with. I imagine our gracious host put it on as background sound and fury, just something to stare at as sleep took us over. An easygoing, familiar comedy. I didn't fall asleep. Because I kept noticing things that were different from the version of the movie I had watched years ago. Jokes and subplots that were missing. Nothing major, but still I noticed their absence.

I noticed the many, many differences between the Twilight book and the movie. The movie is a lot less subtle and nuanced. Which is saying something if you've ever encountered the book. Just full of odd acting and poor directorial choices and laughable action. Enjoyable in an ironic way.

Also enjoyable: drinking beer out of shot glasses. Not doing retarded amounts of beer shots. That is lame. Just drinking beer out of very small glasses. It reminded me of Japan. And the beer you were drinking never really had a chance to warm up.