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.

Movies, I Watched Movies, I Watched Lots and Lots of Movies

Friday was a day filled with many movies. Three movies, to be exact. All three were enjoyable, but only one was good.

District 9 is good. It is very good. I need to see it again before I call it great. Because it was not quite the film I expected. I'm not sure what I expected, but...

Whatever. This film offers up so much. It is several films in one. It's a mockumentary, an action film, a sci fi flick, a buddy pick, a horror film, and on and on and on. And it does all of this stuff well. Mayhap I or you may have wanted more of one than the film provided, but that is more our problem than the film's.

Plus there's a fair bit of black comedy and social commentary. This film does so much, it is really quite impressive. As are the effects. This whole film is handheld, with a loose, rough look and feel. And the effects are seamless. Blows GI Joe out of the water.

As does the acting. The lead is just great, he is asked to do a lot and he does it all. And does it well. Compare how he starts off the film, to how he ends up. That's a hell of an ark. Hell, that's several arks. And he is not always likable, he doesn't always do the right thing.

I want to write more, I want to talk about all kinds of little details, but I won't. Because I know there will be no end of opportunities to do so. This is a film that people will talk about. Not just for the effects or what no, but for the strange places the story goes to, the ideas underneath it all.

The idea underneath The Wicker Man, is creepy. I can see it working as a great suspense film. I hear tell the original is just such a beast. But the Nic Cage remake is not. Not at all. It is funny though.

The last half the film is just crazy silly. The problem is that you have to get through the first half of the film. Which is remarkable only in how poorly it sets the mood. It tries for dread but only ends up with odd. There all sorts of choices made here that I do not understand. Shot choices, editing choices, script choices. Then Nic cage spends the night in a flooded crypt.

When he emerges, he puts on his crazy pants. And the film goes from odd to nutty.

I enjoyed the film, but not the way intended. I want to see the original, because I'm sure it will creep me out.

Like I mentioned above, there were a lot of questionable choices made in the making of The Wicker Man. But I do not question that the people involved made said choices for no reason. There was a plan, a purpose. It was just horribly misguided. I don't think the makers ofStreet Fighter: The Legend of Chun Lihad any sort of plan. The whole thing is just inept.

Laughable. There is nothing good about this film. Which is the only thing that is good about the film. The sets look like sets. The slums look like a nice outdoor market. The teeming mass of humanity that I'm sure they were aiming for look like a small crowd of extras. The actors look like kids playing dress up.

The whole thing comes across like a bad pilot for a crappy television series.

Just did a quick search over at IMDB. District 9 had the smallest budget by far. Just goes to show that passion and talent and attention to detail sometimes actually pay off.

GI Joe is Better Than Transformers ROTF

I always want to call it Transformers ROFL. Except that film elicited no laughter from me. Which is the main reason why I prefer GI Joe. Itall a matter of tone.

Transformers is way too far up its own ass. Michael Bay has never not made a B movie. Except he doesn't know how to make a B movie. He makes silly genre films without the silliness.

This is how he approaches Transformers (please read the following in deadly serious monotone). This is the most important story about alien robots that transform into vehicles ever. Sometimes they don't even transform into vehicles, but people or ball bearings, and this is also very important. Sam's mother ate some pot brownies, this is seriously funny. These are the most important sweaty boobs running in slow motion in front of explosions in the history of forever.

And he works so hard at being so serious. Everything is sweaty and turned up to 11. And it just puts me off. It's like that scene in Total Recall when Arnold Schwarzenegger shoots that guy in the head because he sweats.

Stephen Sommers, however, may well be incapable of making anything but B movies. And I think he is totally fine with that. And so am I. He has made one truly awful film, Van Helsing, but he also made Deep Rising which just tickles me every time I see it.

Stephen knows what he is working with and works with it. Crazy concept, I know.

GI Joe eh? We'll need cool vehicles and guns and lasers that go pew pew and big battles and chases and swords. And hot chicks. And maybe I can have a scene where one of the hot chicks runs on a treadmill. Yeah, that would be cool. And Snake Eyes and Storm shadow have to fight lots, we can even have flashbacks to them fighting when they were kids, yeah that would be cool. And we'll give some of the Joes super suits so they can do even cooler stuff than usual.

It's just a light and fluffy concoction. And you don't really mind when some of the parts don't add up because it's just a light and fluffy concoction.

The chicks are hot, things blow up and it never ever stops moving forward. That Wayans brother isn't even all that annoying in this. That takes some skill.

The one area where Transformers trumps Joe is in the visuals. Transformers looks much better. A lot of the effects work in Joe looks rushed and somewhat sloppy. Bay's films have always looked shiny and artificial, so the giant robots fit right in.

Two Movies in One Day

On Tuesday this past week I saw two movies. Because Tuesday is cheap movie day. I saw Transformers 2 in the morning and Funny People at night.

Obviously, these are two very different movies. The biggest difference being that one is actually good.

The fight scenes in this new Transformers are so much better than the first film. It is still not all that easy to tell who is who, but what they are doing to each other is easy to follow and just plain cool looking. These robots know kung fu.

But I don't know how much Michael Bay had to do with these scenes. It doesn't seem like his style. Not enough cuts, the camera is pulled back.

I have a theory about Michael Bay: he is not a very confident director. That explains the quick cuts. Hey look, this is cool, and so is this, and this is too, HEY LOOK OVER HERE AT THIS COOL THING, it goes BOOOOOOOOM. He is not sure what the audience might like, so he shows us everything all the time. No pace, no mood, just BOOM.

Everything boom, everything shiny or sweaty, everything either too fast or slowed down. And when there is something dramatic going on, put that camera low and circle it around whatever it is that is supposed to be dramatic.

And don't get me started on his comedy. Michael Bay has no clue when it comes to comedy, which is sad because he crammed this flick full of his shitty humour. It drips flop sweat. Going back to the confidence theory, he has no faith in the jokes so he has the actors say the lines louder and faster.

And he just shift in and out of comedy. He shifts in and out of everything. Character come and go as the script dictates. Notice that I did not say plot. People show up for no reason, people do stuff counter-intuitive to the plot, or their character or both.

Here is where I spoil the end of the film. There is a big scene between Sam and his parents where he tells his dad that he has to let go. He has to run away and let Sam do what he has to do. Which would be a call back to a scene earlier in the movie, except the earlier scene was played for laugh and it was about the mother having trouble letting go. So the parents flee. They run away. They let Sam go. Sam says the same thing to his hot girlfriend but she sez "nuh-uh" and he sez "okay" and then they run together in slow motion.

Then Sam dies. And his parents are right fucking there for some reason.

Then Sam comes back to life and then some Transformer sacrifices his life to give Optimus Prime a power-up. Optimus Prime kills the bad guys and then just shrugs off the power-up/fallen comrade without a second thought.

To recap: fight scenes good, everything else is absolute shit. And I don't even want to get started on the ghetto-bots.

Funny People is the good film, in case you were wondering. In this film funny people do funny things. And these same funny people are sometimes mean people or selfish people and they do selfish things or mean things.

Which is a nice change from most films. Like Apatow's previous films, this is a messy film. There are plot threads that fall by the wayside, others that go around and around in circles.

It's nice, but also sometimes frustrating. A "Why did they do this, instead of that?" kind of thing. For me, personally, I wanted more behind the scenes stuff. The craft of comedy. It's in there, but I wanted more. Could have done with less of the third act romance. Or have it better integrated into the rest of the film. Having it be it's own distinct chunk, and that chunk being the end of the film was not the best move.

But the funny stuff? Funny. The polar opposite of Transformers. Funny stuff is said off offhandedly, just floated out there into the conversation. Loved that.

Still, there was a good half hour of fat that could be trimmed from the running time. It could be worse, though, Transformers 2 could lose about 2 hours, easy.

Just one more thing. People who defend Transformers 2 with the old "What did you expect, it's based on a bunch of toys?" are stupid. Indiana Jones was based on Saturday morning serials. It doesn't matter that the Transformers films are basically commercials for the toys. All films are commercials: for themselves, for their DVDs, for the awards season. Just put some care into your work, some thought, some fucking craft. Don't hide behind bullshit excuses.

Let Us Talk About Movies

By that I mean I will blog about movies I have recently seen and then imagine your responses and then ignore them.

First movie: Lesbian Vampire Killers.



The first half of this movie is a couple tics better than good, the second half a couple tics less.

The prologue is nicely done, sets up the lore in a quick and humorous manner. The introduction of the two leads is also nicely done. The tone of the film is set within these first few minutes. It is an odd mix: cartoonish yet full of British stoicism. Stoicism isn't quite the right word but I am lazy.

The film does a good job of setting the scene, and putting all pieces in place.

Then it doesn't quite know what to do with them.

The same few jokes are repeated. A bit too much clunky exposition falls out of mouths not talented enough to make it sound good.

And there are not enough bare tits. And an odd lack of blood.

But there are a couple good gore gags.

It all leads up to an ending. Notice the lack of adjective. That was intentional.

Here is where I sum up the film in a quick and pithy manner: If you loved Shaun of the Dead, you'll like Lesbian Vampire Killers.

I can not sum up You Don't Mess With the Zohan in a quick and pithy manner. Save to say that it does for comedies what The Spirit did for comic book movies. Within the first few minutes of the flick, Adam Sandler's Zohan willfully catches both a hacky sack and a cooked fish betwixt his butt cheeks.



That trailer gives you a taste of what to expect. But it doesn't prepare you for how over the top it gets. You laugh because you can't believe that they put such stupid stuff in a major motion picture, not because said stupid stuff is funny. I don't want to give examples because I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but that doesn't matter because I cannot in good faith recommend this movie to anyone I know and like.

Two of my friends saw this in the theatre and spent most of the movie's running time with their heads in their hands. I can understand why. But I am and always have been fascinated by gloriously wrong-headed, single-minded disasterpieces.

The last film to discuss is the latest Harry Potter film.

This is a gorgeous film. Just lovely to take in. And the visual storytelling is markedly improved from the previous Potter installment. It looks great, it sounds great, it flows great, everyone gives great performances, there are great character-based beats.

Then it all ends poorly. The ending is just not done well. Some fairly major things happen and they are not given the attention they deserve.

This is not a short film but it never felt it. But the last ten/fifteen minutes feel super rushed and it lets the rest of the film down.

Up

Pixar cannot make a bad film. Cars is their worst film. By far. And it is still a good flick. And they know it. So they keep pushing themselves.

Can we make a kitchen full of vermin adorable? Yes we can.

Can we make a trash compactor adorable? Yes we can.

Can we make an old curmudgeon adorable? Yes we can.

Can we make the audience cry within the first fifteen minutes? Yes we can.

This film doesn't just tug your heart strings, it plays a lovely tune.

It is gorgeous. It is funny. It is sad. It is exciting. it is light. It is dark.

It is a Pixar film.

And that is all you ever need know.

Drag Me To Hell

Spiderman 3 showed what happens when a film gets away from Sam Raimi. He throws his bag of tricks at it and sees what sticks.

Drag Me To Hell shows what happens when a Sam Raimi gets his way. He throws his bag of tricks at it. And it all sticks.

This is a glorious film. It opens with a cute kid being flung to his death and then dragged to hell. This is a very lean film. And very mean. If a you see a gun in the first act, you can be damn sure it will be used.

There are no guns in this film.

There is no blood in this film.

Sam Raimi is well aware that there are many other fluids that can come out of a human body, or that can splatter all over a human body.

And Sam Raimi is well aware of the importance of sound. Some of the most disgusting stuff is nothing but sound effects. Yes: disgusting. I don't care what this film is rated there is stuff in here that could upset a stomach or two. Sam knows what to show, what not to show, and when to show or not show it.

This is film is exactly what its title promises. And then some. I jumped, I laughed, I often times did both at the same time.

Crank and Rambo

Wow. These movies are crazy.

Crank starts off crazy and just keeps on being crazy. Nothing gets in the way of its craziness. Not the budget, nothing. This is a cheap looking film. But a good looking film. You can tell just how fake some of the shots are, but the shots are cool so you understand why they wanted them in. Cheesy effects or no.

It has a crazy internal logic. A comic book/ video game logic. It just appeals to me.

Rambo does not start off crazy. It starts off with footage of real life atrocities. It turned my stomach. I don't like real life violence. Well... real life bullet and war related violence. Real life Mixed Martial Arts based violence is fine by me.

And gratuitous movie violence? Love the hell out of it. Which means I was squealing with glee for the last half an hour of Rambo. I had read about the violence in this movie. It did not prepare me. Nothing prepares you for a hat floating above red goo. Or a truck full o' folks just kinda disappearing in a cloud of bullets and gore.

Yeah.

Good times.

Terminator Salvation

I didn't realize that there was no colon in the title. I thought it was Terminator: Salvation. The lack of a colon makes it make less sense.

Which is telling. Not that the movie makes no sense, but that it is thoughtless and pointless.

The first fifteen minutes are a great indication of what is about to follow.

It starts with a horribly written, poorly acted scene. We are introduced to a new character in the Terminator mythos, Marcus Wright. He, more so than John Connor, is the lead of this movie. And he has never been mentioned in any of the previous three films. Hmmmmm...

After that crap, we see a bunch of text on the screen, explaining the Terminator story. Judgment Day and all that. Just a big ole wall o' text. That is lazy writing and direction.

After that we are treated to a great action scene. There is a great tracking shot, following John Connor into a helicopter, flying the helicopter and crashing the helicopter. Best part of the movie, in my opinion. And it is right near the start. All kinds of ominous portents in this review.

Cut to John Connor on a plane. He jumps out of a plane. Cut to John Connor on a sub as Michael Ironside explains his character to us.

Yup.

That is how the movie goes. Jumps from place to place, plot point to plot point, with no care given at all. All the film's attention is on the action scenes. And the action scenes are all well done. The whole film looks and sounds great.

But with no one to care about, what the hell is the point?

There is no point to this film. This story does not advance the 'Terminator' story at all. This film adds nothing to the cannon.

At least T3 ended with a bang. it killed off the world. Which is not how you expect a Summer Blockbuster to end. Sure, it kind of made the first two Terminator movies basically pointless, and it was not a good movie overall, but there is something in that film I can point to and appreciate. Other than the special effects, which are expected at this point.

What I'm saying is this is the worst Terminator film yet. There is no real reason to see it other than the action sequences. There are no characters to care about. Other than the kid who plays Kyle Reese, there are no remarkable performances. The music is forgettable. There is a scene where the whole god damn movie is explained to us. Stopping the movie dead in its tracks. So many nits to pick.

Move along folks. Nothing to see here.

Star Trek

I will be watching The Spirit again to try and dissect where and how badly it went wrong. I will also be re watching Star Trek. Because it is a really well put together film.

It starts with a bang. It is a great opening. Right off the bat, it demonstrates just how different this Trek is from past versions. Space is not sterile blackness. Light explodes across the screen whenever possible. The battles are not the slow, submarines in space affairs of before. The lasers are not solid beams. There is a lot more motion.

And George Kirk dies. That changes the character of James T a fair bit. It changes his motivations, but not his core. But the death of George Kirk also shows how this Trek is a lot closer to the classic Trek than some of the later series. Shatner was cast as Kirk for a reason. As was all the original cast. And there is a reason they are all so easy to imitate/mock.

They are larger than life, they are operatic. They had to be. Most of the original series was shot from a distance. So the cast set their standards to that. They were playing to the cheap seats. When the camera got in close, though, they didn't pull back.

The camera in this movie is almost always close, in on the faces. In on the action. The framing of the action and the actors is operatic, so the actors can be a little less so.

But they are all fantastic. Each actor inhabits their characters, without falling into straight mimicry.

There are some nits that can be picked.

The first for me is the introduction of kid Kirk. I understand that they were trying to show how the lack of his birth father had made him rebellious and angry. But the scene to me just made me think he was a douche. An ungrateful little shit. The bar scene a few scenes later was all does a much better job of setting up his character.

I understand that they wanted the symmetry there: young Kirk - young Spock - adult Spock - adult Kirk. But the kid Kirk is easily the weakest scene in the whole damn film, so I woulda chucked it. But that's me.

I also didn't like the chase scene on the ice planet. It seemed to Phantom Menace-y. Remember that scene with the fish? Yeah. Lame then, still lame now. Like a piece of screenwriting software flagged that section of the film for not having enough action. Superfluous.

And the villain of the piece didn't have all that much to do. I mean he did a lot. A lot. He changed the whole god damn Universe. But he seemed less a foil for the crew of the Enterprise and more like a plot point.

But this film was not about the villain, it was about the crew of the Enterprise. Who they are, how they fit together. And on that point, Star Trek more than succeeded.

More Spirit

I don't know how to approach this. I almost want to re-watch the movie to help me remember how bad the movie was.

But I won't. Not yet. But I will.

I have always maintained that you can learn a lot more from failure than success.

The Spirit

Wow.

Huh.

It is hard to put in to words what I think of The Spirit. Mainly because I have no idea what I think of The Spirit. I mean, I know that it is in no way a good film. It is poorly put together. In many ways.

But everything wrong also seems to work. At least, for me. I know that the writing is horrendous, but I dug the hell out of it. Same with the acting and the editing and so on and so forth.

It is amazing how singular this vision is. I no way do I believe that this is Will Eisner's vision. This is all Frank Miller. This is all tits and hatred of eggs and strange weirdness.

I am so glad that Frank Miller got to make this. It was his first film, and he was coming off the cachet of Sin City and 300 and he was given free reign to do whatever the hell he wanted. And he did.

Anyone else, I'd imagine, would have listened to some sort of voice of reason. I'm not really sure that Miller has any reasonable voices in his head.

The purity of the WTF-ness of this movie is...

I think I need to stop now and try to organize my thoughts.

Joel Plaskett

Dude put on a hell of a show. Not a huge rock spectacle, but rock-y, acoustic-y, indie-y goodness. with two encores. And he also played the opening set. Dude played for near three hours, near as I can tell. I can tell you that I missed most of the first set. Tickets said doors opened at 8. So we grabbed a cab at around 8:30.

Cuz that's how it works, right?

Nope. Joel Plaskett was on the stage doing his thing before 8:30. Colour us surprised.

Also surprising, no Emergency with him. But his dad was there. That was cool.

His dad looks old, but not. And Joel doesn't look old at all, considering he's been doing this since forever. I saw him when he was a part of The Super Friendz, way back when I was in University. Dude still looks and acts young. And skinny. And scrawny. A very Ichabod-ian body has he.

And he was mingling amongst the crowd between his sets, he passed right past me a few times.

And he was always talking. Between songs, during songs. Built quite a rapport with the audience. They were clearly digging was he was doing and he, in turn, dug their digging. As did I. I loved the vibe, everybody was in high spirits, and that is not code. It was just a purely positive experience.

And Mark was there, and it is always nice to catch up with that guy.

More

Lewis Black was funny. And got funnier the angrier he got. He is angry about a lot of things. Including his failing memory. He spent a lot of time umming and uhhing and then saying fuck really loud. I felt a little bad for the guy. But he has an iphone and I don't so fuck'im.

Also, I forgot to put my ring back on after my exercises yesterday and I felt all weird and out of sorts and off balance the rest of the day.

Lewis Black is a Really Angry Man

I listened to him rant and rave for over an hour and a half. It was very entertaining.

Age had not mellowed that man.

The lady sitting next to me laughed a lot. She had an odd laugh. High pitched and surprised and pleased, like each time she laughed she was discovering anew how nice it was to laugh.

And she also blew her nose a lot. Loudly. And it did not sound like she was getting anything done, they didn't sound snotty, they were just loud.

Yeah.

Movies and such

Been a while, let's get right to it.

I have a bunch of half finished posts about the various movies I have seen in the past while. This post should hopefully bring all that into the fold. And then some.

Why? Why now?

Because of Where the Wild Things Are. The trailer for that movie has just been released and holy good god does it hit me in all the right places. I already love Spike Jonze. I already love Dave Eggers. I was already pumped to see this movie. Then they add Arcade Fire into the mix? Fuck me. SOLD! I'll be there day one. And probably days two and three. It looks amazing, the Wild Things look just as they should, it's all just so... wonderful. It filled me with wonder. And happiness and sadness and the strange tingly feeling in my heart and gut.

Let's go from hypothetical greatness to proven goodness.

Coraline is my favourite Henry Selick movie. Nightmare Before Christmas has too much god damn singing. And I don't remember the reasons, but I was underwhelmed by James and the Giant Peach. But Coraline is just right. Great characters, great world(s), inventive action. Hardly any god damn singing. And it's in 3-D. My right eye is slightly lazy so 3-D rarely works for me. It worked far more often than I expected in this movie. And Even if it didn't work at all, I still would gladly pay extra for the Experience because the picture was SHARP and CLEAN and the COLOURS POPPED. The best picture quality I've seen since I've been back to Canada.

But the 3-D was cool. I liked the subtle use, adding depth to the picture without calling attention to said depth. I also liked when it did call attention to itself, like the lengthening tunnel. Loved that bit.

Loved Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married. Not that her character was lovable. But Hathaway never tried to soften her, to make her lovable. Everyone stayed true to the characters they were playing. It made for some uncomfortable scenes. Balanced out by all the joyous scenes of the wedding and its preparation.

Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler did much the same thing. The Ram did what the Ram did, thoughtless of the effects on those around him. I doubt there's many actors out there that could play broken down quite as well as Rourke.

And I don't know another director that would have filmed it the way Darren Aronofsky did. Randy's massive frame taking up most of the frame, just barreling through life. Unloading shit in a warehouse shot the same as a wrestling match.

A couple random Wrestler thoughts: any time a meat slicer appears onscreen, I start getting all tense. Who was topless more: Mickey Rourke or Marisa Tomei?

Now I've plum forgotten about any other films I have seen. Not nearly as many bad ones as I would like. Working on cheap movie nights sucks. I missed that new Street Fighter movie, haven't seen Taken or Push, nor any new Nic Cage movie. I miss my cheese.

Machine Gore Police Girl... Tokyo

Saw a couple of films lately. Including The Wrestler. But I'll blog about that one later.

I'm blogging about Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police. They are both super bloody flicks from Japan. Shot on the cheap.

Machine Girl is about a schoolgirl whose brother is murdered and has her hand chopped off by a family of Yakuza Ninjas. Said hand had been covered in tempura and deep fried earlier.

Tokyo Gore Police is about a Tokyo Police Woman (in the future, the police force have been privatized) whose father was killed in front of her and is now killing Engineers. Not people who build bridges, mind, but crazy killers who have some sort of key shaped tumor within them that lets them replace lost limbs with weapons.

Both contain some fairly inventive violence and countless geysers of blood. And I am glad that I watched them both, but Machine wipes the floor with Gore.

It is a question of approach. An approach best reflected in their leads. Machine Girl's girl is cute and energetic. Gore's police woman barley has one facial expression. And it is not an appealing expression.

The problem with these films is that I want to talk about the best gags. The bits of violence that elicits laughs. The insane quirks of the scripts. But I don't want to ruin the films.

I'll give one example from each. As a little taste of each movie. In Machine Girl, the Machine Girl attaches a machine gun to her arm stump and shoots a guy in the face so much that his face falls to bits, leaving his skull and a geyser of blood. In Tokyo Gore Police, there is a girl with an eyeball in her mouth, a girl with stitches where her nipples should be and a girl with her eyes on stalks and a shell on her back doing a sexy dance.

So yeah: go rent Machine Girl. The violence is more enjoyable, the girl is cuter, and there are more panty shots.

I'm classy.

Modern Horror

Kinda sucks.

In America.

But other places seem to be doing okay.

I say this because I saw The Unborn and Let The Right One In recently.

The Unborn is not good. The trailer was good. Made me want to see the movie. But stuff that looked freaky and scary in the trailer looked pretty damn fake in the actual movie. And the story was nowhere near good. And I don't think anyone involved knew how to end the movie. The answer is obvious: it never should have started.

But the lead actress displayed some epic camel toe. So there is that.

I'm not exactly sure if Let the Right One In is a horror film. It has horrific elements in it. One of the leads is a vampire after all. But it is mainly a story about a boy and a girl not quite old enough to fall in love.

It's very cute, but not in an obvious, Disney sort of way. The film hits all the notes you would expect it to but you don't always expect it to hit them.

The gore is almost always unexpected even though you know it is coming.

It is just a really well put together film. With great performances. And memorable scenes. Like the one of the most violent feel good ending I have seen in a while.

Really?

My iPod doesn't always like to play in the car. Such was the case today.

Which is me trying to explain why I was listening to local Regina radio today. And not the community station, neither. I was listening to the Zed. Z99.

*shudder*

I was lucky enough to catch the tail end of the Saskatchewan Top 20.

I weep for my past, present and future.

How the fuck does Nickelback stay at the top of any list for 8 weeks in a row? They are so unremarkable, you can't even remark about how remarkably unremarkable they are.

And Saskatchewan loves the fuck out of them.

Steve Martin

I saw a trailer for Pink Panther 2 in front of Yes Man. (Yes Man? An average comedy. Funny bits. Sappy bits. Zooey Desanchel is frickin adorable and awesome.)

I love Steve Martin. My sense of humour owes so much to him. My dad watched Martin, Monty Python, the Pink Panther movies and SNL with me when I was very young.

Thanks dad.

Seriously.

But manoman do his latest movies make me sad.

Especially since I just finished his book about his stand up days. Born Standing Up is a great read for Steve Martin fans. I can't say how it would play to non fans. But it is well written, funny and informative. It captures the spirit of a few different decades and how they affected Steve and his approach to his material.

And it details how it was a combination of luck, hard work and interesting connections that got him to the top of the heap.

It stops when his stand up career does, so it mentions not at all his sad, sad later days. I think that would be just as interesting.

But way more depressing.

Mini Me

And now I update you on the subject about which you have all been wondering about. I lost 0.8 kilos over the holiday season.

I don't know how the fuck I manged that either.

Yay me.

Role Models

Let us talk a bit about Role Models. It is a film I saw about a month ago. I haven't seen a film in a theatre for a month. That sucks. I am earning money, and that is nice, but I miss my weekly movie fix.

But Role Models was a good movie, all that aside. It played to the strengths of all its leads. Paul Rudd is basically what all males my age want to be. I know I sure as hell wouldn't mind being him. He is funny and handsome and can play mean or wry or sweet or whatever the hell. But he is especially good at being a sarcastic bastard.

Stifler has his best Stifler role since Stifler.

The little black kid is cute and foul mouthed, which is my favourite kind of kid. I found him a bit annoying at first, but he grew on me. I bonded with him over our shared love of boobies.

And McLovin showed that he he was more than just McLovin. He is the anti-McLovin in this one.

And even though the film laughs at LARPing, it also gives it a fair bit of respect.

It made me want to hit my friends with foam swords. More than usual.

Laughs were had, lessons were learned, I can't figure out how to end this thing.

Merry New Year's Mass

Now that it is the new year, and the first Monday of aforementioned year (the new one), I figured I should give this blogging stuff another shot.

By the time I actually become a regular blogger, the blogosphere will be old and abandoned. Much like I will be.

I already feel old. My back started hurting on Christmas day, and it hasn't gone away yet. It is better than it was, but still not all that great. So I haven't been doing my daily out workings.

I am afraid of my weight.

It was a delicious season of yumminess.

So that is that.

How Fat Am I Going To Get?

I busted out the Wii Fit this morning for the first time in a month. Mainly to see how much I weighed. Because I figure I should weigh myself before the big holiday season and then after the big holiday season and see how much weight I gain.

I reckon I will gain a lot.

Which sucks because I am already about as fat as I have ever been. I am 88 kilos. I think my heaviest ever was 90 or so.

Two Enjoyments Separated By a Disappointment

Saw the new Punisher on Friday.

I had read Ebert's review . And Pajiba's.

They were not wrong.

The Dark Knight was a hard PG-13. This movie probably hid behind that movie as much as possible. It gets away with all kinds of stuff. This is a very violent flick. Especially the sound. The sound guys must have had a field day on this one.

I want to talk about it more, but I don't want to ruin any of the 'gags' in the film.

There are some bad actors, there is a lot of bad dialogue, there is a lot of blood. A lot of blood. This is not a good film. But it made the entire audience laugh in shock. That has to count for something.

After the film, we ordered some poutine ribs.

There is a pizza place in town that offers poutine dry ribs.

What do you think that would be? I thought it would be dry ribs covered in gravy and cheese curds. Sounds delicious.

That is not what this pace does. Their idea of poutine ribs is ribs covered in sauce of your choice (barbeque, Thai, honey garlic, ranch, and so on) and then covered in pizza cheese. Pizza cheese is good on pizza, but pretty crap for poutine. It forms a hard shell of formerly melted cheese, making it hard to get to the non gravy covered ribs underneath.

We were all very disappointed.

And the first little bit of Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a bit disappointing, not as funny as we had hoped. But then it got funnier and stayed funny.

Lights in the Sky

Saskatchewan sure does have a lot of sky. It is oftentimes awesome. Our friend David stopped in Regina on his tour across Canada. The sky put on a couple great displays. But the sky last Monday was super duper awesome. It was like the Red Sea, both because it looked like the clouds were parted and because the clouds were red. Parted red clouds. It was cool as hell. It was nice to look at as Cory and I drove to Saskatoon.

Cory and I were driving to Saskatoon to see Nine Inch Nails' Lights in the Sky tour.

I have seen NIN in concert once before. I enjoyed the music, but the stage show was a little lacklustre.

That was not the case this time. Their show is great to look at. But I'll get to that.

First: as Cory and I ate dinner, I'm pretty sure I saw Amy's mother. She was sitting at the booth behind us. I didn't say hello to her because she was talking to her friend. I never know what to do in those situations.

Pretty sure I saw Carey Ceselski (sp?) at the concert. Didn't go up to say hello, because I wasn't totally sure it was him. We were about to maybe say hello to him when two older, drunken nurses tried to pick us up. That was awkwardly awesome.

Less awesome was The Bug, the opening act. The Bug is a dude in a heavy coat and a hoodie who fiddles nobs as a larger black lady, all the way from London, rapped. Here is what she rapped about: how 'ardcoah she is. "Me is outa me muva fukkin 'ead!" Repeat that ad nauseum whilst feedback screeched and squelched.

Woo.

But NIN was awesome! There were three huge screens above the stage. One behind the band, one midway through the stage, and one near the front of the stage. They would lower and raise throughout the set. There was all kinds of cool stuff going on on them. A lot of visualizers that reflected the music that was being played. In real time. And there were small cameras around the stage that could be thrown up on to the screen.

Everything, the sounds and the visuals were all distorted all to hell. In a good way.

This concert really made me understand what industrial music is about. It is all there in the name. It is industrial. It treats music as an object: a thing to be assembled and disassembled and reassembled.

It was kind of mind blowing.

Thanks Cory.

While I'm Bitching...

The iMac's wireless mouse can go fuck itself. It is a piece of crap. Always losing its connection or telling me the battery is dead or some such shit. Plus the scroll nub doesn't work half the time.

Horrible, horrible fuckin' mouse.

Conundrum of Solace

Casino Royale was a great reinvention of the Bond character and a great re invigoration of the Bond franchise. It was also a really good film. With a half hour boring film tacked on the end. Then another five minutes of cool.

I can understand why they structured the film the way they did, especially after seeing the new film, but that doesn't change the fact that the pacing in Casino Royale was bad.

The pacing in this new film is much better. It just kind of never stops. It starts right after the end of the last film (OMG! First true Bond sequel EVARZ!). It starts with a car chase. And Bond spends the rest of the film either chasing someone or being chased. Bond is a blond, bruised shark. Always moving forward. Unstoppable.

Which is not to say that there is no character development. This is all about Bond, about his obsessions, his weaknesses. Which is why I didn't use (the overused) Quantum of Soul-less. This is all about his damn soul.


Which is what makes this the least formulaic Bond film ever. I'm refering to the Bond formula, not formula in general. This film follows the Bourne formula nearly perfectly. But there is a nod or two two Bond conventions. There are Bond girls. Both with horrible fashion sense.

There are no gadgets. This Bond doesn't need 'em. He'll beat the fuck out of you with whatever comes to hand.

This film is almost all action.

Shame that the action is so hard to follow.

I'm not saying it is incomprehensible. You can tell who everyone is. You can usually tell what they are doing. But the outcome is almost always a surprise.

"Why did that car drive off the cliff?!?" "Why did that boat flip over and over into the air?!?" "Is that man bleeding profusely from the neck?!?" "Why is that man bleeding profusely from the neck?!?" "Why is everything exploding?!?"

This is a good film put together poorly.

Movies and the Watching Thereof

Tried to see Role Models this week. Was sold out. Only playing on one screen. Was sold out nearly an hour before the movie was to start.

Never trying to watch a new movie at that theatre ever again. It is always crowded and smelly and full of fuckwads.

So I can't talk about Role Models but I can talk about that Kevin Smith movie some more and Run Fatboy Run. Because they share some similarities.

Both are about losers trying to do something with their lives (which seems to be a recurring theme with both Pegg and Smith, and most of what I write).

I've lost most of my thoughts.

That happens a lot.

Fuck.

The porno one is way more potty mouthed.

The Fatboy one does a real good job of stacking the odds against the protagonist. Maybe too good a job. Pegg seems like a weak jerk. If this was my first exposure to him, I don't think I would be nearly as big a fan of his. They have to introduce an evil plot by the anaogonist pretty late in the game to try and level the playing field. The last act feels a bit forced.

Same with that there porno one. The conflict between the two leads seems to come out of nowhere.

They both have weak third acts. Is what I am trying to say.

This didn't come out near as good as I thoughted it would.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

This movie is not as good as Clerks 2. But Clerks 2 is my most favouritest Kevin Smith movie of all time. Forever.

And not it ain't got enough tits.

Fuck me

Damnit!

Published that one a bit too quick.

I wanted to work at least one more thing into that last post.

Another thing about McCain. About his speech last night. About the crowd. About how McCain felt about the crowd. When they booed Obama. The things they yelled out while he was talking. The huge cheers for Sarah Palin. I think the dude was getting pissed off.

Not to say that he doesn't like Sarah Palin. I think he does. I don't know if she was his first VP choice but whatever. Cheering louder for the non-VP then for the non-President? In his home state? That is like a slap in the fucking face.

Chanting USA? What the fuck is that? Is Obama not from the USA?

McCain hates that shit as much as we do.

I would love for him to write a book about this campaign. A tell-all, nuke the bridges kind of deal.

America: Fuck Yeah!

I'm sure this post's title has already been used, and used by better folk than me. But that makes it no less true.

I have no idea how to write this all down, so this is going to be a bit disjointed.

I consider myself to be a cautious optimist. I always try to look on the bright side of life. And I hoped that Obama would be the next President of the United States of America. But I didn't think he would win. All the polls, all the studies, all of it, everything that predicted an Obama victory would be proven wrong.

I've traveled abroad. Not to all that many places, but a few. Started traveling the month after the towers fell. And I have seen the turning of the tide. The way the world felt towards the U.S. after the attack, and how it changed over the years. How America changed over the years. The embarrassed smiles of backpacking Americans. The anger they felt.

My friend from work has parents that live in the states. I've known him for over a decade now. He has always wanted to move down to the states. That's been his dream. At least that was his dream before I left for Japan. That changed. He recently drove down to visit his parents. He came back afraid.




I'm playing Obama's acceptance speech right now. Fuck that man can speak. It is amazing. I will watch presidential addresses again. Not to see the language that I love mangled and misused, but to see it elevated.

Fuck that man can speak.

Also well spoken last night: John McCain. His concession speech was the best speech he's given in quite some time. And I say that as a huge fan of the guy. But...

I think the speech he gave last night was his best, because I think it is the first speech he's actually believed in in a long time. I think that running this campaign nearly ruined McCain. The compromises and the contortions and the changes of his beliefs. It was painful to see. I feel sorry for the guy. He loves his country, he would make a great President. If his party would let him.

But I don't think he is done yet.


Now here is where I piss some people off.

My mother woke me up on September 11th with these words, "You've woken up to a worse world". I watched the television. I saw the buildings fall. In my mind I had a reply to my mother. The world is no worse now. Buildings have been blowing up every day for who knows how long. It's just that these buildings fell down in America.

I know, I'm a dick. I'm working on it.

But the world did worsen. Somehow the Bush White House squandered all the emotion surrounding that defining event (along with untold trillions of dollars, and basic human rights).

I didn't feel despair the day the towers fell, I already knew the world was a pretty shitty place (remember: I'm a cautious optimist).

But today...

Today I feel hopeful.

Teen Movies

In the last couple o weeks, I have seen Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Sex Drive, and The Wackness.

I'll talk about the other two in a bit, but I'll start off by saying that Sex Drive was funnier than I expected. It is not some near classic like Superbad, but it is vulgar and funny and immature. It is a teen sex comedy, and as a teen sex comedy it is a teen sex comedy. It does what it is supposed to do. And I liked it. And Seth Green was in it. And Cyclops.

So it was a good movie. But The Wackness and Nick and Norah's... were more than just good. Maybe because they were movies about more than just raunchy comedy. They were (and are, I guess) movies about young love, music and New York.

I don't know if New York can ever live up to all the movies I've seen about it. But especially these most recent films. The Wackness and Infinite Playlist love New York. Two different New Yorks, true, but both are full of love.

The Wackness is a period piece. It takes place in 1994. New York was undergoing some massive changes, so the movie told me. The new mayor was cracking down on all of New York's seedy glory, and a new wave of hip hop was starting to bubble up. The crime crack down doesn't really play that big a role, but plays a huge role at the same time. Our lead doesn't get busted for dealing (spoiler?) but every scene of him dealing has an added edge because there is a chance that he might.

Our lead is a troubled youth. His home life ain't so crash hot, he doesn't really have any friends, he don't got much but his pot and his music. He's seeing a shrink. A shrink that has plenty of his own problems. They bond over pot, over music, and over the urge to get laid.

This is a nice looking film, washed out loveliness. And the soundtrack was stellar. That was around the last time I was actually in to the hip hop scene, so it ws filled with music I had forgotten I loved.

I didn't like The Wackness as much as N&NIP, but that opinion might change by tomorrow. They are two side of a coin. New York is beautiful (and seamy) and filled with great music (Indie or hip hop) and full of people falling in (and out) of love. And having their hearts broken.

And both films have mix tapes/CDs playing a big part in how their lead characters connect. I miss that. I miss agonizing how to best distill my essence, my mood, my me into 12 or so songs. It was an ephemeral art that I fear is already lost. We all carry all our music on us now. And I know I spend more time skipping past songs than actually listening.

How do I give my music to you? A playlist? It doesn't seem the same.

It's not the same.

kiss kiss bang bang

Is awesome. Seriously. It is full of great dialogue said by great actors. And it looks great. And there are boobs! And violence!

I must own this film! And memorize it.

I think the buddy action flick may well be my favourite genre of film.

That may just be my post-viewing glow.

Another Week Another Movie

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is a scruffily charming movie. There's nothing new in the film, but it is all just so dang likable. The music, the actors,... No that's basically it. The direction could have been sharper, as could the picture. But yeah I liked watching their like turn into maybe love. Just cute.

to be fair

I also didn't like The Big Lebowski when I first saw it. Or Pulp Fiction. Maybe I have bad first taste in movies.

Burn After Reading

I have not seen all of the Coen Brothers' movies. But I have seen a fair few of them. Liked a couple of them. Loved even more of them. Raising Arizona may well be my favourite comedy of all time.

But some of their films take a few viewings to sink in. I hope Burn After Reading is one of them. Because, having just seen it, I don't even know if I like it. This is the first time were I could see what critics of the brothers were saying. It seemed to be a collection of annoying people doing annoying things for stupid reasons. Some of the people died ugly deaths. And then it was over.

I have to see it again, but I'm not working forward to it.

More Movies

Rearranged the basement over the last few days. I like how it turned out. It's like a tunnel of couches in front of our big new tv.

Movies look good on our big new tv. It's like our own little home theatre. Kinda.

We watched a couple ridiculous movies in our home cinema; the new Die Hard and Snakes on a Plane. Actually, I believe Carla coined a new word to describe them: retardulous.

Which is the whole point of Snakes on a Plane and kind of regrettable in Die Hard 4.0 (as it was known in Japan)

Yeah, coulda seen the flick in a theatre in Japan but decided against it. It just didn't look like a Die Hard movie to me. Plus I was not all that sold on the director. He made an action film about the battle between vampires and werewolves and made it one of the dullest pieces of crap imaginable. That takes a special skill to screw a movie like that up.

Die Hard 4.0 was not a dull film. But in its sweaty efforts to not be dull, it just gets too god damn unbelievable. I know that action movies have to keep upping the stakes, but there have to be a line somewhere. Die Hard didn't just cross the line, it roared over the line in a semi on fire.

I liked the retardulous action, I ignored all the stupid cyber-talkery, and I enjoyed John McLane. There were a couple nice character beats in this film, which I was not expecting. And all the supporting characters were just ducky. Except for the main villain. He didn't get a good speech. He didn't kill anyone in cool or exciting ways and his backstory seemed off. I get his motivation, I understand his goals, but I don't understand his blood thirstiness. His motives don't match his means. To me. And while I enjoyed the action and enjoyed the characters, I'm not sure they needed to be in the same film.

And I don't know if Sam Jackson needed to be in Snakes on a Plane. It would have been just as retardulous without him. And he brings this baggage with him, this baddass baggage. It is hard to look all that badass when punching a small reptile. This film is not about the acting, it is all about the action. And nearly all the action is snakes biting unnamed characters. Which they do. The effects are not good. And that is why it is good.

This is not a good looking movie. There is one good shot in the film, one of the opening ones, a sweeping helicopter vista shot zooms in to follow an extreme dude on his extreme bike. I thought maybe this would be an interesting looking film. I was wrong. The rest looked like a direct to video effort. Which was fine.

I wanted laughable writing, average effects, amusing gore, snakes biting naughty parts and Mr. Jackson yelling and swearing.

Mission Accomplished.

Double Will

Meant to see Burn After Reading last night but was too full of shrimp to do so.

Instead we rolled into bed and watched Blades of Glory. Figure they're about the same - comedy wise.

It was better than I expected, but I was expecting sub-Taledega Nights level comedy. It was better than that. But still just an average Will Ferrel type comedy show.

But Stranger than Fiction was an above average Will Ferrel type movie. I expected to enjoy it and I did. And then I drank beer and ate wings and ribs.

also

Last night we went out to Red Lobster for their Endless Shrimp dealy. Now that I am not young, these all you can eat things don't make as much sense. I miss being able to eat stupid amounts of food. Maybe I should take up some kind of physical activity to increase my hunger.

After not eating very much shrimp at all I finished off the meal with a biscuit soaked in garlic butter. It was a soggy disgusting mess. Probably took three years off my life. But it may have been worth it. My bowel evacuations have been nearly light speed. They dart out like thieves in the night. Sneaky butt thieves.

multi-grain

I don't want to harp on this, but when you are having trouble sleeping sleep is a bout all you think about. The falling asleep and staying asleep are smaller problems, but it is the waking up that is the main issue. Every day waking up is like swimming through mud to land on a beach of sludge. It is just unpleasant and not a good way to start the day.

blerg flurm

This lack of sleep sucks so much. I woke up this morning, took my lovely wife out for a birthday breakfast then fell asleep for a few hours. Now I am up and am pretty sure that either the air or my body has increased in density. Moving is laborious and exhausting. I feel like I need a nap. But I fear how crap i might feel after the next nap.

The worst part is that our new bed is so comfy. I can't imagine how it is causing my current sleepless sorrows.

Ironical Funniness

The day after I blog about how I want to blog every day is a day where I don't blog. That seems to happen to me a lot.

But I have a feasible reason this particular time.

I was out at the cabin. The cabin is pretty much off the grid. It doesn't even have a phone.

But I am blogging now. Yay me.

I am blogging because I said I was gonna and also cuz I can't sleep. I've been having this problem ever since we got the new bed. Since before then even.

But before it was because the bed sucked. Our bed now is awesome yet still I don't sleep. Somewhat worrisome.

Almost as worrisome as my typing.

Regularity? Feh!

I'm gonna try to post something to one of my blogs every day before I g to bed. There always seems to be a few minutes left at the end of the day that would be filled nicely by blogging.

It'll be good practice. I gotta get into the habit of writing more. And I have to get used to writing with this fucked up finger of mine. It never goes where I want it to. Stupid fucking finger.

It angers me.

So what is new with me? Well thanks for not asking.

The Dark Knight did not disappoint. Which is pretty amazing considering how beloved the film already is. I can't really disagree with any of praise heaped upon it. Just a damn fine film. And Heath Ledger was indeed amazing.

Step Brothers and Pineapple Express were both funny. And uneven. And they made me long for a comedy with an actual script.

Hamlet 2 made me wish for a comedy with a better script. (I liked it, just to be clear)

Tropic Thunder made me laugh in just the way I wanted to. I don't know if it will hold up to repeat viewings, but that first viewing was a blast.

I think those are all the movies I have seen as of late. In the theatres. Watched some stuff at home as well. Checking out the commentary tracks on Spaced. Kevin Smith is still fat and filthy. And I really liked Juno. I love quirky dialogue. Love it. With love.

I think that is all for now. Until the next now: later!

All Wet

We didn't end up seeing any of the last day of the Folk Fest. There was lightning and rain and such. Stouter folk than we braved the elements, but we went out for dinner instead. I regret nothing.

I'm still trying to figure out what it was about Hellboy 2 that bothered me so much. Maybe bothered isn't the right word. Nothing in the film engaged me. No, there was also stuff in there that outright annoyed me as well. Young Hellboy for instance. Actually every single character in the movie annoyed me. That's kind of a big problem. I think del Toro was so busy focussing on the big themes of the movie that he forgot all the little things. i was too busy focussing on all the little things to care about the big things.

More Festevaluation

Day two was a much more subdued affair. very mellow. so low key i don't think imma gonna capitalize anymore. the great lake swimmers were very nice, full of wistful, lovely songs n such. as were most of the other acts of the night. the standout f the evening was Suzanne Vega. She gets capitalized, cuz she deserves it damnit! Such a great voice, full of cute and sweet and sad all at the same time, and she writes songs that serve her voice well.

There one big problem with this evenings line up was the host. I forget her name and am glad of it. Who the fuck can render the do do doo do do do doo do part of Tom's Diner unrecognizable? I thought it impossible. Bitchtard proved me wrong. Any time she approached the mic, I started feeling all punchy.

Folk Fest

The39th Annual Regina Folk Festival is going on right now. in years past, we had just bummed around outside, listening to the music for free. Cuz I was a young punk kid. But now I feel motivated to spend money to support stuff I like. And I liked every single artist onstage last night. The Weakerthans, Final Fantasy, Broken Social Scene, plus some lovely local bands like Library Voices and Polymath. And the crowd was great. Not too rowdy, not too pushy, but not too small either. It was just right.

Bits of Blog

So I went to the Exhibition this past weekend. As always, I went mainly for the food. But this time I did not partake of any of the old favourites. No Mr. Souvlaki, no little donuts, no corndogs, no brats covered in onions and peppers. Nope. Too much new stuff. New stuff like deep fried Coke. It tasted like deep fried Coke. And the deep fried Oreos tasted like deep fried Oreos. Those names are pretty self explanatory.

Hot Beef Sundae and Taco in a Bag need some explaining. The delicious Hot Beef Sundae consists of two buttery scoops of buttery mashed potatoes covered in melt in your mouth barbequed beef smothered and covered in barbeque sauce, said sauce sprinkled with grated cheese and topped with a cherry tomato. So good. Delicious as all hell. Only sligtly less delicious was the Taco in a Bag.

Take a bag of Doritos, crush it all up and then cut open the side of the bag. Throw some ground beef, some salsa, some sour cream and some shredded lettuce into the bag. Do all that and you have yourself a Taco in a Bag.

The food at the Ex was fantastic, as was the entertainment. And I'm not talking about the dog show, although that was nice.

I'm talking about Weird Al.

Go ahead and laugh, but that spastic bastard puts on a hell of a show. Multimedia as all get out. Video clips and skits in between the songs. The videos served two purposes: they were funny and they gave Al and his band time to change costumes. There were a lot of costume changes.

The guy played for two hours and then came back for another half hour encore. I was impressed.

I was not as impressed with Hellboy 2. I cannot believe that people are saying it is better than the original. The effects are better, the creatures are amazing, the action is great, but it all added up to less than the sum of its parts. The creatures were cool looking for the sake of being cool looking. Or maybe it was to show how vibrant the other world (the world mankind is greedily destroying) is. But it didn't seem all that vibrant. It seemed ugly. The whole movie seemed ugly. It was a nice looking ugly, but still ugly. And Hellboy seemed less likeable. Everyone did. Blurg.

Movies

It is just like me to start blogging to bitch. I bitched about my broken finger. But what really made me want to blog, before my still twisted finger, was Wall E. But I didn't. I couldn't. I can't. I can bitch. That is easy. But to properly praise such a glorious film? My ironic slacker vocabulary is not equipped to deal with that. All I can say is that it is a truly lovely film. The film is suffused with love and the longing that goes hand in hand with it.

I was going to say that I haven't really seen a disappointing film yet this year, but then I remembered the latest Indy. But for everything wrong in Indy, there was something right in Get Smart. Get Smart was so much more enjoyable than that Crystal Skull flick. The funny parts were actually funny. The action looked real. And the funny and the action were mixed together nicely. It was a good time. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

I feel like I should write more about all these films, but that would just be me wasting words. New Indy - why? Get Smart - surprisingly good. Wall E - God Damn Wonderful.

My finger

So I broke my finger round about a week ago.  Almost exactly a week ago.  Spooky.  The middle finger on my right hand.  One bone in that finger in a couple places.  It looked gross.  Still does.  I don't think the doctor who fixed my finger actually fixed it.  So I got my family doctor to look at it, to make sure that everything was A OK.

He said everything was A OK.  But he didn't look at my finger.  He X-rayed my finger (said the lady who took my finger X-ray, "That doesn't look right.") and looked at the X-ray.  He said the X-ray looked good.  That may be.  But my finger looks like shit.  Feels like shit too.  Not that it hurts, oh no.  But when I lay my fingers flat on a table, my middle finger feels WAY off.  Only half of the pad, half of my fingertip comes in contact with the table.

I don't care if my X-ray looks good.  I do care if my finger will work right at the end of all this.  And I don't think it will.  I'm kinda pissed off right now.

Uni Qlo

Yeah, there are scads of things I am going to miss about Japan.

But not scat. Won't miss that.

I will miss the commercials. Most are crazy, some are cute and then there is my new favourite commercial.

It is for Uni Qlo.

It starts with a topless lady walking into a room. The lady's shapely back is to the camera as she strides across the modern looking room (all white and bright). She picks a piece of clothing off of a chair in the middle of the room and steps into it. She fixes the straps on her shoulders and then turns around. It is a camisole type of thing, with the bra built in.

The commercial ends with the lady bouncing down the street, all happy like.



I spend all this time trying to describe the stupid commercial when i realize that I could just show it to you. You're welcome. And...

Yeah.  I miss the crap out of Japan sometimes.

Groverfield

That would have been awesome! A giant muppet tearing shit up in New York? Sign me up!

Cloverfield was not as cool as that. It was still enjoyable. It was indeed a cross between Godzilla and The Blair Witch Project. I didn't really have a problem with the Godzilla side of the equation. The monster was freaky looking and did a fair bit of damage. And seeing it from a civilian's perspective really did add to the impact. If I had cared more about the civilians, that would have been nice. None of them were horrible, but I only found one engaging. And the way she went out was awesome. I know they were going for realism, for believable dialog. But believable is not a synonym for boring.

And if they were going for a realistic/natural feel, the film makers should not have made the plot points so obvious.

I had no problem with the shaky camera work, but I had a problem with the editing. So they are running from the monster: fine. The camera is shaky: fine. Hud(the cameraman with the stupid name) somehow stops recording and then starts recording whilst running? No. Fuck that. Maybe he accidentally did it, but it just struck me as obvious editing.

And the sound. If you are going to get out of the boat, get out all the way. Shit or get off the pot. The mic should have been cutting out during the firefights. There is no way that the mic would have picked up a message playing on a cell phone held up to someone's ear, aforementioned someone standing in the middle of an electronics store that is being looted. And so on.

And (and) I can deal with the fact that the protagonists keep crossing paths with the monster, that is fine. But their final encounter with the Monster just rubbed me wrong? They didn't notice it was standing behind them? Can it be really quiet when it wants to? Is it a ninja?

But that final monster encounter led to my favourite shot of the whole movie, the shot that made the whole concept worth it. The auto focus couldn't figure out what to focus on. Loved that bit.

Didn't love the movie. But I liked it.

Hells Yeah

Just the other day I posted about how Wii Fit didn't think I would loose any weight. Well, I just now broke through my revised target weight. Wii Fit seemed quite surprised. Suck it, Wii Fit, suck it down!

It Figures

Every time I try to motivate myself to blog here more often, it always has the opposite effect.
Plus, I was supposed to be talking about my Wii Fit-ing and I kinda slacked off on that for a bit. But not no more. I've been averaging about 5 days a week, and that is pretty good. For me. And I've been loosing weight. Wii Fit told me there was no way I was going to be able to loose the amount of weight I wanted in the amount of time I wanted. So I changed my goals slightly. I changed it to 2 kilos in two months. I've been working away at that goal for 2 weeks now and I have half a kilo to go.

In your face Wii Fit!

It Ain't Gonna Happen

I can feel the negativity, man. I can feel me trying to bring myself down. It ain't gonna happen. I'm not going to let that happen.

So lazy

Too lazy eve to capitalize that lazy up there in the title.

So when you weigh yourself in Wii Fit, you give yourself a stamp for that day. But only if you weigh yourself. If all you do is workout, but don't weigh yourself, you get no stamp. If you were to look at my stamps you would think that I am even lazier than I actually am.

I am so lazy. I've had Wii Fit since January but I've only played it for like 12 hours. I've had Smash Brothers for three weeks and I've put in triple the time on it.

After the ten hour mark my little time keeper buddy changed colour. He is now bronzed.

Too lazy for witty segues or any sort of closing remarks.

Lazy Bones

I didn't Wii Fit at all this week, but I'll be damned if I slack off on the posting as well.

Maybe I Wii fitted once. I haven't weighed myself since last time, of that I am sure.

The main reason for all of this is the new Smash Brothers game. It just got released. And I am HOOKED.

I'll try harder this week, I swear!

Wii Fit/Me Fat

I'm once again trying to be more regular in me posts to this here corner of the blogosphere. Yeah, I hate that word too. I figure one way to make sure I update at least once a week is if I have something to report on on a weekly basis. Say, for example, I was trying to loose weight. Which I am. But I'm not so crazy as to join a gym or anything nutty like that. Heavens no. Instead, I am trying to Wii Fit every day for at least 30 minutes a day. I haven't been so great at the daily thing, but I haven't been all that bad either.

Making yoga and exercise into a videogame seems to work for me. Not that I've lost all that much weight.

I started this grand experiment on the seventh of this month. At that time I weighed about 84.4 kilos and had a BMI of 24.6. (I don't know what that means either). Today I weigh 83.1 kilos and have a BMI of 24.3. considering a person's weight can vary by a kilo a day, that isn't all that promising. But I do feel better. The stretching every day might be helping my back. And I seem to have more energy. But I'm more cranky.

Yay! What a great first Wii Fit post. hopefully I won't just post my weight and such each week. I hope I'll ramble on about other things since I'm typing anyways. That's the theory. We'll see how she goes.

I Don't Want To Be That Guy

Was out drinking with Carla and David and Fernanda last night. Over there at Captain Kangaroo's. The table next to us was filled with older white dudes. And by older I mean they could very well be the same age as me. But they were fatter and wrinklier. And all their efforts at talking with the girls at the bar met with failure.

I don't wanna be that guy.

Love Hotel

Here is a guided tour of our awesome love hotel room in Tokyo.

Grindhoused

For one whole week, one whole movie theatre devoted one whole screen to showing the 'American' version of Grindhouse. I was all over that like mutated rednecks on a stripper's leg.

I'm glad I saw it in the way the directors intended and I'm also looking forward to seeing them separately. Oh hells yeah, I'm seeing them again.

I'm also glad I saw them when I did and with whom I did. A bunch of geeky gaijins and some squeamish Japanese ladies. The fellas all laughed and hooted and hollered at all the same spots and the girls really squirmed. I felt bad for them. especially since I was the one who suggested the movie in the first place. But that didn't stop me from bursting into applause at the end of Death Proof.

And I wasn't the only one. I've never seen or even heard about a Japanese audience applauding and cheering at the end of a movie. So that was cool.

Know what else was cool? Everything.

Yeah, this was totally my kind of movie.

Although there don't seem to be any strippers who actually get naked in Rodriguez's universe. Small quibble.

The only other quibble I have is that the 'ladies' from the first half of Death Proof are way less engaging than those from the second half. Seriously. I found them kind of annoying. In no way deserving of what fate befell them, but maybe not worthy of all that screen time.

That's it. Thems is all the nits I have to pick.

It sucks that it didn't do so shit hot at the cinemas, but I hope they don't abandon this idea. In fact, since Grindhouse was inspired by the 70's, why not make a direct to video spiritual sequel inspired by the direct to video shlock that started popping up in the 80's?

I want to talk more about the films, I want to gush like that guy's black tongue, but it would just be a bunch of exclamation marks and OMGs. I dug it, and people who think that they might dig it will most probably dig it and I would never in a million years let my mom watch it.

Grindhouse

is finally coming here. But not as Grindhouse. It's being released as two films. Nearly a month apart from each other. Death Proof first.

I'm happy that I actually get to see it but sad that it won't be in the original format.

Also, Japanese people do the above a lot. They start typing out a sentence in their subject line and then just continue the sentence in the body of the email or txt message. It takes some getting used to.

The Only Way This Vacation Could Get Off To A Worse Start is if it Starred Chevy Chase

So I woke up this morning not to the alarm clock, but to Carla telling me to shut off the alarm clock. Poor girl, I didn't hear it at all. Next I awoke to the sound of the garbage truck. It was too late for me to get or garbage out in time. Next I awoke to an unpleasant feeling in my bowels. I dashed into the bathroom and spent the next ten minutes making sure no more hot chocolate soup was going to fly out my anus.

Welcome to my summer holidays.

Woot.

Some Kind of Pun Relating to the Movie and Its Relative Merits

Transformers was a pretty movie. All of Michael Bay's movies have looked nice (I assume. I haven't watched most of them. The trailers looked pretty. And retarded), but in this one, the cameras stayed still and the edits were spaced out so that you could actually appreciate the prettiness. Still no continuity once the action started, but I think that's just the way Mike likes it. That's just about it for the nice things I'm gonna mention.

There's an old saying, "An action movie is only as good as it's villain." That's not totally true, but it's a lot closer to right than to wrong. And that is one of the many reasons why Transformers is not very good.

Shut up, internet, it just isn't.

Megatron spends the bulk of the movie in a block of ice and then rips an ebonics speaking moron robot in half and then gets killed by an actor whose name translates into 'the beef'. That ain't much of a villain. Oh yeah, he also screams about hating all of humankind. Spooky stuff, eh kids?

His heroic opposition is Optimus Prime. Prime's actions play out thusly: he crashes into our planet, gets a rad flamey paint job, says a bunch of phony hollow bullshit, cuts the head off a dump truck (that part was kind of cool), gets the shit beat out of him, tries to sacrifice himself honorably and fails. Woot.

Not all the robots were handled so poorly. The opening with the helicopter was pretty sweet. Stuff blew up real good, there was a sense of menace. But it shows just how poorly Megatron is introduced.

Bumblebee, despite being involved in all the lame comedy, was pretty alright as well.

Notice how I singled out the two characters who spoke the least? Don't think that's an accident.

Nothing that comes out of anyone's mouths is any good. Anything that comes out of the humans' mouth is retarded and anything that comes out of the robots' mouth is inane.

Megatron hates humanity for no real reason other than he's the bad guy, and I can accept that. Bad guys are just born bad sometimes. But Optimus Prime loves humanity. He's been on earth for like three days and he's willing to sacrifice his Spark for us. Why? If he learned all there was to learn about humanity via the internet, as he stated, he would have nuked the planet from orbit.

I should have said pwned. Optimus would have pwned the planet from orbit.

There were other robots in the movie but I don't really know why. There was that medic who couldn't fix anything, the Autobot who got torn in half, the dump truck who got his head cut off, the jet and the police car.

Man. Starscream was pretty awesome in the cartoons. He was devious, always plotting to overthrow Megatron. I can't even recall if they had a scene together.

I saw the movie two days ago and I can't remember it. And that's not really a bad thing.

Anything to do with the internet was head breaking. I could hear Carla's eyes rolling.

The action was cool, if a little hard to follow sometimes. The Beef is charismatic. Navel McTits reminded me of Jennifer Connelly, and that ain't ever a bad thing. Plus it had Optimus' voice! I was so happy to hear that voice come out of that blue and red robot. Then I heard the words he was saying. And despaired.

I know that this is a summer movie based on an old cartoon that was nothing more than a commercial for toys, but they really could've done a better job.

That Rat Movie

As I mentioned before, I found it much easier to identify with a talking rat than with a talking car. But there were moments in the film that broke that connection between me and the rat. As soon as there were multiple rats on the screen, I would get freaked out. Masses of rats are gross, they make me shudder. I don't know if Brad Bird did that on purpose or not.

Pixar

Cars was the first Pixar flick I didn't catch in the theatre. It just never grabbed me. I read and heard the reviews, it'"s Pixars weakest effort, but still miles beyond most of the competition." Having finally seen Cars, I would only agree with the first part of that sentiment. I found cars to be dull, not all that funny, and un-engaging in just about every way. It looked fricking fantastic, but that's about it. Unless the car transforms somehow into an ass-kicking robot, I can't really care too much about it.

Transformers still isn't out here yet, not that I expect it to be good.

But yeah, Cars weren't so good.


Ratatouille (the spell check suggested Catatonia), however, is so very good. Fantastic, really. Gorgeous, funny, everything you expect a Pixar film to be. Brad Bird is just... I have to see every film he directs in the theatre. He's earned it.

And the trailer for Pixar's next film Wall E (or whatever) looks darn good too. That quick little snippet of film affected me more than the whole of Cars.

Spamalot

I joined Facebook a few days ago. The amount of spam my phone gets has gone through the fucking roof. Coincidence? Fuck that noise.

Drinking is Fundamental

Crikey, I must've been well in my cups went I posted that last post there.

There is a danger to drinking. And that danger is this: you might blog while drunk. And during your drunken blog, you might fuck up when blogging about what you've been drinking. And I really did Underage Hooker With A Bag of Coke a grave dis-service. I said it contained raspberry liqueur. That was a God damn die. You see, Kishen tries to bring the name of each shot he creates to life. The Southern Comfort is for the dirty. The Malibu is for the underage and the prostitute. That leaves us with the bag of coke. Raspberry liqueur may be a lot of things (it isn't), but it sure as shit ain't no bag of coke. No, this shot calls for Red Bear.

Red Bear is like Red Bull but full of alcohol. What a great frickin idea.

There, now I can sleep better at night, knowing that I've done right by Underage Hooker With A Bag of Coke.

By the way, you don't drink a shot of UHWABOC, you don't slam it, you kill it.

Drinking is Fun

Kishen is going home for his wedding in two days, so we went to Balas to see him before he took off. At some point it was decided that we should be drinking shots. So I got us some prairie fires. That was a good start. Then we started making up our own shots.

Spittoon Juice was way tastier then we were expecting. Southern Comfort, Peach liqueur, and Baileys. It mixed good in the mouth. But it weren't so good as the next shot.

Underage Hooker With A Bag of Coke.

A Wee Bit of Backstory: I was talking to a dude who knows a girl who's married to this other dude who is an RCMP officer, and so on. Anyhoo, I said to this guy your friend ain't ever getting fired, he could kill an underage hooker with a bag of cocaine.

Kishen thought that would be a good shot. So this is what he came up with:
Southern Comfort, Rasperry liqueur and Malibu Rum with a squeeze of lemon. Went down real smooth. Not much goes down easier.

I've been drinking.

What Good's a Mirror Without a Face?

So it has been over a year since last I wrote here. That, y'all, is just whack. But I'm a year older now. A year is a long time. I'm much more introspective and... deep... and stuff.

Salty Rations

There is this show on Japanese TV that I catch from time to time. A man is locked in a room with a video game and he has to play it until he beats it. And these ain't new games. These are old, obscure games. From back when they made games hard. I always get caught up in it. After about 10 seconds you can grasp the play mechanics and the goal of the game. So you know what he needs to do. And you cringe along with him when he screws up. You cheer him on when he looks discouraged. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it is totally an awesome show. Every once in a while someone will come in to berate him if he's not doing to well.

Also, there are a couple channels that show a lot of straight to video cheese. I'm loving it. Recently, there have been a lot of giant spider movies. Good times.

I've also seen the 'sequel' to Ong Bak, Tom Yum Goong. It's more ambitious, and more of the director's flaws are obvious but that doesn't matter. Tony Jaa is fucking amazing. He fucked up most of the stunt doubles from Thailand, so he travels to Australia to fuck up their Ozzie asses. And he does. A lot. But not just with knees and elbows like last time. Nope, he's expanded his repetoire. He's become quite adept at breaking and dislocating bones. It is gloriously painful to watch. He is a crazy whirlygig of pain! I loves it. I have no idea what the hell happened in the non fighting parts of the movie, but who the hell cares. He fucks people up!