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I’ve been watching movies and television, which should really come as no surprise to anyone.

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

First, I watched Pee-Wee Herman’s Big Adventure for the first time, which was exciting. Not so much the movie, but watching it with Snorth. See, this is Snorth’s most favoristest movie ever, she has seen it approximately eighty times. So naturally I invited her over to Cricket’s house to watch it in his movie theater. One might find her hysterical giggling and, “Oooh, oooh, best line ever coming up!” and, “This scene scared the crap out of me my whole childhood” annoying, but I found her enthusiasm infectious. I think I enjoyed it more than if I had watched it alone or worse, with Cricket, who is a fun-sponge and has a God-given talent to suck the excitement out of the room merely by walking into it*. As a gift to Snorth I made two animated gifs from the film. One, Large Marge’s epic facial moment (thank you, Tim Burton):

And two, the expression Pee-Wee makes when he is forced to carry snakes out of a burning pet store:

The second thing I’ve been watching is Battlestar Galactica (the new one from 2005, not the older one from the late 70s). I normally don’t care for science fiction, but this isn’t really a show about science fiction. It’s more a show about struggling to survive all alone while something you barely understand tries to annihilate you, which makes it an inherently interesting premise. I have a couple of thoughts about the show.

1. If everyone is wearing the same uniform, maybe you should not hire four handsome strong-jawed chestnut-haired men to play four different roles. I keep getting them confused. If you know the show, it’s Chief  Tyrol, Helo, Hot Dog and sometimes Apollo if the camera is zippin’ around enough. What, are there no Aryan Nazi-looking guys in the future? No Anthony Michael Hall-lookin’ folks? That is unfortunate.

2. Does anyone else find the theme song unbearable? I think it reminds me of that damn Sarah McLachlan song they use in all the ASPCA commercials, and I have been trained Pavlov’s-dog-style to hear that “Angel” song and immediately get sad about all the doggies and kitties with their woeful eyes. Gotta say I love all the drumming and didgeridoo-ing in the background of the battle scenes, very tension-filled and exciting.

3. It’s hard to take the mechanical-looking Cylons seriously when they have Knight Rider woosh-woosh red lights on their faces. I always hear Kit saying “Michael” over and over when I see them. That being said, their fingers that just pop out all blade-like are super-rad and I want them. If I was a Cylon who looked like a human (spoiler but not really because that is the premise of the show and is revealed in the first episode) I would insist on keeping the long stabby magic metal fingers.

4. Lieutenant Starbuck is BAD-ASS. That is all I have to say about that.

5. I say “fracking this” and “fracking that” all the time now. It really is brilliant, substituting “frack” for the other f-word. It sounds similar enough that gets the point across beautifully and no one at the FCC can nail you for cursing because technically, you’re not. Between me saying “frack” from Battlestar Galactica and “gorram” from Firefly, I am getting too nerdy for words.

Everyone says that it gets really crappy halfway through Season Three, so I’m bracing myself for that. However, I’m presently in the middle of Season Two and everything’s great, so I prefer to not think about the lameness to come.

 

*You will know it has happened by the “shluuuurrrrrp” sound, followed everyone putting their heads down on the table and falling asleep.

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., The Telly | No Comments »

Advertising is totally heading in the right direction.

Friday, November 11th, 2011

I work in advertising, so I really should be on board with the tactics and manipulations of a product’s perception that my agency (and all the other agencies) do. However, when I see advertising, I want to know the product you’re selling, what it does, and how much it costs. That’s it. I don’t want to have this ephemeral mist of words and images trying to create a mood. I hate car commercials where a deep-voiced man talks about performance while they show a corner of a vehicle like a tail light, and the the speedometer and then the Cadillac logo and that’s it. That tells me absolutely nothing about the car. I think a great many people are agreeing with me and so there is a backlash against woo-woo artsy commercials and more sensible, straight-forward advertising. This week I was thrilled to see this banner ad:

And then I read about this commercial for the movie The Immortals. From what I understand, this is a real commercial and not a fan dub. If this is true, then that’s perfect. I was on the fence about this, but I’m going to see this film now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kGCCJQGj94&

Posted in Advertising, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., Random Art Bloggery | 1 Comment »

Museums. (Musea? Museii? Whatever.)

Monday, July 11th, 2011

This past weekend I went to two museums. One was the Museum of Sex and the other was The Metropolitan Museum of Art, specifically to see the Alexander McQueen “Savage Beauty” exhibit. First, the Museum of Sex. It was okay. I’m going to make an analogy: Often places that specialize in sexual material are skeezy, like a middle-aged man with scruffy gray five-o’clock shadow and a dirty trenchcoat that doesn’t cover his knobby knees rubbing his hands together and chuckling softly to himself. That kind of gross. The Museum of Sex, however, more resembled a New York lady with oddly-shaped glasses who goes to gallery openings and gives lectures on women discovering their sexual selves in front of a giant painting of rockets. It was a lovely museum, although quite small. There were three exhibitions: Sex in Cartoons (lots of R. Crumb and Tom of Finland), Sex in Film (lots of…sex in film), and The Sexual Lives of Animals. Cricket and I saw an exhibit in London called Sexual Nature which was all about the sex lives of animals, so we thought that this would be the same. We were wrong. The one in London was all tongue-in-cheek, charming and naughty. This one was more ANIMALS BE DOING DURTY THANGS. There were life-size paper-mache sculptures of the animals doing the no-no acts, but in the interest of good taste I only took pictures of the placards near the art. There was this one:

This one:

And my personal favorite:

I’m surprised Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum haven’t outlawed Mallard ducks. If I were them, I would.

By the way, the funniest thing I saw there was a security guard who was clearly hired from some big agency and was profoundly displeased about working at MoSex (as the kids call it) with a black and shiny gold tie that read “I LOVE JESUS” over and over and over. It was his tiny little protest. Cricket and I were like, oooh honey, you need to find another line of work.

In somewhat keeping with the sensual theme, I went with Neenernator to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Alexander McQueen exhibition. Alexander McQueen was a brilliant fashion designer who recently died, and this was a big retrospective of his work. I was vaguely familiar with this clothing and accessories, but now I think he might be my favorite designer. He was extremely concerned with taking the normal lines of the body and reshaping it – making different parts look longer or shorter or thinner or fatter, putting things in the incorrect place. Artists like Lady Gaga and Bjork really liked his work. McQueen stated that some of his influences were Tim Burton, The Brothers Grimm and Edgar Allen Poe. You’ll notice there’s a lot of references to death in his work, as well as S&M. At best, his clothes were uncomfortable to wear, and at worst they were probably a bit painful. I’m going to show you some of the more impacting pieces.

At the end of most fashion shows, they finish with the wedding dress. I love the fact that McQueen used antlers in one of his. I was told by my mother that under no circumstances was I allowed to ever get married with antlers on. She never lets me do anything.

One of the things McQueen was most well-known for was the lobster shoe. It is a ballet-shoe with a crazy-tall heel and the front bit protrudes out, making it look like a lobster claw.

Here’s a tattoo someone got of the lobster shoe. Hardcore, dude, hardcore.

My favorite dress that changed the perceived silhouette of the body was a dress I called the Christina Hendricks dress, because, well, it puts padding where one would have it if one was Christina Hendricks. Here two pictures of Christina Hendricks:

And here’s the Christina Hendricks dress:

My favorite dress was the horse dress. It’s molded to look like a nude woman on top, and then the bottom flares out and has horsehair hanging below. What makes this dress so great is the bottom flounces like the ponytail of the snottiest cheerleader in your high school.

And if you watch this video from 2:59 to 3:09, you can see the skirt-flouncing in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5gY5DXrb48&

My second-favorite item was the jacket made from the skin of a Thompson’s Gazelle with gazelle horns coming out of the shoulders. You don’t need to wear makeup or earrings or anything with that, the horns do all the work for you.

There were also some stellar accessories on display. Like the face disc:

And the metal jaw:

And let’s not forget the external metal skeleton corset or the feathered ear things:

But, not surprisingly, I was drawn, once again, to wearing dead things as ornament. Specifically McQueen’s dead bird phase. At one point I turned to Neenernator and said, “IMMA GO KILL A DUCK.”

So, today I went on the internet and looked up dead birds I could purchase. It turns out that whole dead bird skins are kind of expensive. I wanted to buy this Grey Peacock Pheasant skin, but it was $300.

And since I have less than no idea what I’m doing, I decided to go with some starling skins that are a mere $7.00 each.

We’ll see what I make of this. I have been inspired. I may very well go and see the exhibit again. I recommend you see it too. It closes August 7th.

Posted in Activitays, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., My Art/Design/Business, Nature, New York, Teh Intarwebz | 1 Comment »

Torchwood and Winter’s Bone.

Monday, June 20th, 2011

How is it that there is nothing good on TV, like, ever anymore? House is tragically sinking into the mire like a baby mammoth in a tar pit; Castle, while starring the charming Nathan Fillion (browncoats forever!), has some of the hokiest writing this side of the galaxy; Law and Order SVU has totally jumped the shark and is completely cringe-worthy and un-watchable, and I am just not diggin’ Modern Family – everyone is a bit whiny. If it wasn’t for Tosh.0, Mad Men, Community, 30 Rock and Nurse Jackie I would have nothing to watch. So I have now turned to Netflix for all my TV needs. Did you know they have TV shows in their entirety on there? Very exciting. I decided to watch a show called Torchwood. I read on a blog that I like that Torchwood is a snazzy show, and indeed, the first two seasons were pretty good. It’s a spin-off of Dr. Who (which I totally need to get to watchin’) and it reminds me of The X Files, if The X Files were set in Cardiff, Wales. Here’s some interesting info on Torchwood: It’s a UK show, so the rules are different. And we here in the U.S. have a lot to learn. For example, everybody’s pretty bisexual. Seriously. It’s a cast of about five people, and all of them have made out with each other and everyone else in Cardiff. And no one cares. I would like to believe that homosexual behavior is regarded as normal there, that no one looks at it funny and the show is reflecting their society. That would be terrific. Also, sometimes people use the F word and the S word. They don’t bandy it about willy-nilly, but occasionally one pops up in a heated scene. And no one bursts into flame. You hear me, FCC? The earth continues to rotate. Stop being so freakin’ Puritanical.

Next I intend to watch Battlestar Galactica (also based on a recommendation). If anyone has any other TV shows, preferably on the instant queue of Netflix, for me to watch, I would love to hear it.

I saw the Oscar-nominated film Winter’s Bone last week. I used to try to see all the Oscar films that are nominated for Best Picture the week before the Oscars took place so I would be able to make intelligent choices as I yell at the television, but I don’t now for two reasons: one, there are ten of them now, and that’s too much film-watching for me, and two, apparently one of the qualifications for being a Best Picture nominee is being a soul-crushingly, depressingly sad film. Like chug-a-fifth-of-gin-to-forget depressing. So I space them out over a large period of time to soften the pain. Winter’s Bone was anywhere near as sad as, say, The Reader or Slumdog Millionaire, but it sure wasn’t happy. It’s about life in the Meth Belt. (Remember the Bread Belt? We now have a Meth Belt. Progress!) Quick plot summary: poor white teen girl supporting her whole family goes looking for her missing father all over the Ozarks, meeting many grim-faced white people along the way. There are no leaves on the trees. There are no plants in the ground. There are no pleasantries exchanged. No one smiles, ever. It’s a chipper film. That being said, I liked it. I was interested the whole time. It’s so incredibly foreign to me, the way they live and co-exist, it was like watching a foreign film in English. I recommend it, but don’t watch it waiting for explosions or nothing. It’s a quiet film.

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Ghostbusters.

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

I saw the Ghostbusters movie for the first time last night. Sadly, it was terrible. Like, really, really awful. I think the problem was that I saw it when I was too old. If I had been thirteen or so I would have probably been okay with its many tragic flaws (which I will go into momentarily). This is the same problem I had with Star Wars. My first time seeing Star Wars was when it was in the theaters in 1997. I was 20 years old. I didn’t like the first one, I slept through most of the second one, and I didn’t bother to see the third. I won’t go into why I didn’t care for the Star Wars trilogy *cough* atrociousdialog *cough* but I think Ghostbusters is the same situation. Okay, my thoughts on Ghostbusters, both positive and negative thoughts.

1. THE MOST WOODEN DELIVERY OF LINES EVER DELIVERED, EVER. I know Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd can act, I’ve seen them do it. Not in this film, though. I’ve seen pornos with better acting than this.

2. So. Much. Smoking. I won’t lie, I loved it. I had a big ole nostalgic moment to films where you could smoke and drink and not worry about, “The children, oh God, who will think of the children!!!!” I don’t smoke, but if your characters are down-and-out social outcasts, bring on the ciggies.

3. I want the Ghostbusters car/ambulance/hearse/whatever. Also, I want to live in an abandoned fire station in New York. Someone needs to get on that.

4. What the hell is with the dogs and the gatekeeper and the keymaster and that stupid David Bowie deity? It’s confusing and dumb and no ancient religion would be so sloppy.

5. The apocalypse being brought about by Mr. Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is kinda rad.

6. Exactly what was the point of the fourth man coming in in the middle of the movie and joining the band? He doesn’t add anything. He doesn’t bring anything that hasn’t already been broughtened. Was it to appeal to a broader audience? I don’t understand the point of his character. If anyone can help me with this, I’d appreciate it.

6. Oh. stop-motion animation, how I both love and hate you. Sigh. Could you not have gotten Jim Henson to make you some terrifying puppets instead of those choppy-movement puppets a la Clash of the Titans? I bet if you’d given him a ring he would’ve helped you out.

I’ve been told repeatedly that I have to see the Indiana Jones trilogy, and I don’t think I ever will. Every time I see a recent classic I’m disappointed. I’ve seen the scene with the golden idol and the bag of sand, I’ve seen the sword vs. gun scene, I’ve seen the rolling rock-ball scene, and I’ve seen the Nazis going from solids to liquids. I think I’m good.

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers. | 1 Comment »

Art.

Friday, March 18th, 2011

Last weekend I saw the move Exit Through The Gift Shop and I feel a need to talk about it. First of all, it’s an excellent documentary. It got great reviews and is well-worth watching, and it’s streaming right now on Netflix, so go see it. That being said, I was infuriated by the last third or so of it. Here’s the basic plot summary (don’t read this next paragraph if you want the film to be a surprise):

There are street artists. No one has ever documented their actions. There is a crazy French vintage-clothing-store-owner named Thierry (Terry) living in Los Angeles who is obsessed with videotaping everything. His cousin is Space Invader, a well-known street artist. Thierry films his actions and is introduced to other street artists, including Shepherd Fairey. Shepherd introduces Thierry to Bansky, the most famous street artist ever. Other stuff happens. In order to edit Thierry’s heaps of footage of both Banksy and other street artists into a film without Thierry being involved, Bansky tells Thierry to make some art and have a small show, basically to get him out of Bansky’s hair. Here’s where I start to fill with rage. Thierry, who has no artistic training or skill or experience, rents a gigantic building in L.A. and hires a massive staff to make his “art”. He is clearly crazy, his artwork is utter pointless crap, but he understands hype, so he hypes the hell out of his show. When his show opens, tons of people show up, people who are desperate to be “cool”, Thierry sells all his crap art and rakes in a million dollars. Jessica bursts into flames. The end.

Here’s the deal, people. Artists aren’t the people who come up with the ideas, okay? We all come up with ideas, all the time. Good ones, dumb ones, weird ones, etc. “What if blah blah was a blah blah blah?” The artists are the people who pluck ideas, theirs or others, out of the ether and make them into something we can see and touch and feel. They are inspired by something and the make something in the hopes that you will feel the same way they do about that thing. I’ll give you an example from my own life. I worked with a guy named Jd at BBDO, and he mentioned to me that every time he went to a new job, shortly after he started everyone else was fired, a whole new staff was hired and everything started anew. Apparently this seemed to happen every time he switched jobs. It was a joke with him and his friends that he was like Kali, the Hindu God of Destruction and Rebirth. I thought that was a funny idea, so I made a ink drawing of him as Kali.

I did not have the idea. I heard it, I liked it, I executed it. Who’s the artist in this situation, Jd or me? So when you (and when I say “you”, I mean you, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst) hire a big ole staff and you wander in and say, “Wouldn’t it be cool to cover a skull with diamonds?” or “I think a giant sculpture of a balloon animal would be neat,” and then you leave the building while your staff actually makes the thing and you touch nothing, but then you go and take credit for all the work, that doesn’t make you an artist. That makes you a hype machine. Your staff is the artist. And I hate you.

By the way, I love the skull covered with diamonds and the giant balloon dog. That’s not the point.

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London, Part 6.

Friday, February 25th, 2011

More museums! Can’t get enough! But first, a couple of random photos.

Pret A Manger (or Pret, as it’s often referred to) is from England, and I found this window cling very pleasing for two reasons. One, I like alliteration, and two, I happen to know (don’t ask me how or why) that the tool used to stir porridge, the one you see in the bowl there, is called a spurtle.

I mentioned earlier when I was talking about the play Warhorse how creepy I thought it was to have war stories for children. Apparently Warhorse wasn’t enough, oh no! Let’s have a whole freakin’ exhibition of traumatic tales for tots! Nightmares for everyone!

Did everyone read the book The Witches by Roald Dahl? If it’s been a while, let me refresh some points for you. The witches don’t blend into normal society. They have long claws, so they have to wear gloves. They are bald, so they have to wear wigs. They have blue spit, which makes their teeth have a bluish tinge. And finally, they have no toes and their feet end in blunt stumps, making wearing modern pointy shoes extremely painful for them. I used to love that book and read it over and over, and to this day everytime I see super-pointy shoes, I think about how uncomfortable those must be for witches to wear. Imagine my glee when I saw these shoes in a shop in Greenwich, in the land that the book The Witches takes place in.

This proves it! The story is true! Witch shoes!

This is a poster from the subway for a drug exhibition. I didn’t go, but I loved the words chosen for the poster.

Now, the V&A Museum. The Victoria and Albert Museum of Art and Design is my most favorite museum in the whole wide world. If I lived in London, I would be there once a month. You simply can’t see everything, even after many visits. It’s a beautiful building in itself:

Which still has shrapnel scars all over from the bombings of WWII.

And inside is rooms and rooms and rooms of every kind of design you can imagine – architecture, garments, jewelry, housewares, armor, etc. Check it out.

You want a room full of Greek stuff? You got it.

How about Early Christian? Not a problem.

Medieval, perhaps? We have a room for that.

How about a long hallway completely filled with every kind of ironwork? Okeedoke.

Seriously, it’s intense. Here’s a picture of a giant super-snazzy Baroque wall of a house. You can’t appreciate it in the picture, But the red parts of the wall is transparent red glass over mirror shards, giving it that extra tackiness. Sparkly!

I decided to focus on the Japanese items on this visit (last time I focused on the art glass section). It was really dark in the Japanese wing, but I still tried to get some decent shots.

The Japanese traditional clothing did not have pockets, so the Japanese originally used little hanging boxes called inro, like little wooden purses. The toggle bead holding the cords of the inro together was called a netsuke. The inro and the netsuke were often exquisitely carved small sculptures made from ivory or hardwoods, accented by metals.

Often natural elements are used in the pieces, like wee beasties or plants. Here is a tiny curled-up rat netsuke.

And here is a snail on a leaf netsuke.

But my favorite, without a doubt, was this one.

A badger wrapped in a lotus leaf?! With a little rain hat? How effin’ cute is that? I totally squee-ed.

Interestingly enough, the thing that blew my mind the most in the museum wasn’t anything I expected. I was walking up to the fourth floor when I passed this enormous wall drawing. It had to be 10 feet by 14 feet. It was huge.

It was an isometric drawing of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Here’s the deal, though: Every single detail is in there. Drawn with pen. Probably a pen with a nib that you have to dunk in an inkwell. It might be one of the most humbling things I’ve ever seen. Since it’s so tall, I could only take pictures of the lower half, but you get the idea.

Woooooow. Here’s the info card next to the drawing.

I might have stood in front of that drawing for fifteen minutes. If you go to the V&A, make sure you check this out. It’s at the top of the stairs to the fourth floor as you enter the architectural section.

(And here’s a nice photo Cricket took of the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul’s Cathedral in the background.)

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., Random Art Bloggery, Stuff, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

My review of Black Sheep.

Friday, August 6th, 2010

A friend of mine recommended that I see Black Sheep – not the one with Chris Farley and David Spade, the other one – which is a movie about genetically modified sheep in New Zealand who develop a taste for human flesh. If it sounds deranged to you, you’re absolutely right. It is batpoop looney tunes. I don’t care for horror films, but I made an exception for Black Sheep because all the puppets and costumes were made by Weta, which is the studio that made all the Lord of the Rings sets and costumes. Here’s the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gEDUDmZkyc

See? I wasn’t lying. I actually live-blogged it to my friend Börkke, who had seen it recently. I figured rather than reviewing it, I would just copy and paste my comments about it here. I thoroughly ruin the ending, so if you want to see Black Sheep and would like the ending to remain a mystery (and oh, it’s magical, I tell ya), don’t read any further.

19 minutes in

I’m up to the evil baby sheep that was in the jar biting the sheep on the snoot.  And now…oh dear, she’s standing in front of the car.

I am concerned.

Oh look, little fluffy bunny. A really scared little fluffy bunny.
Earless Guy is talking to little fluffy bunny. AHHHHHHHH! Not okay. Dead bunny.

25 minutes in

EVIL SHEEP IN THE HOUSE!!!!

BAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAH!!!

OH NO! SHEEP IN THE YARD!!!
Wait, they’re just regular sheep.

30 minutes in

Sheep fart. Tee hee.

37 minutes in

OH NO!! SHEEP RUNNING OVER THE HILL!!!

Also, Farmer Boy’s foot is a hoof. This does not bode well for our cast of characters.

44 minutes in

Well, I hope you’re happy. The sheep are grazing on human corpses.
Aaaaaand there’s an oozy hand wound. Delightful.

100 minutes in

Everything’s gone to hell. The sheep are killin’ errbody up in here. Entrails are being munched. Limbs are being ripped off. A dude is reading the bible (it isn’t helping). There’s a were-sheep is in the kitchen and he sounds like Chewbacca. This is all so very weird and bad, and even more weird.

One hour, 13 minutes in

What the frick is going on? I hate this movie. I now also hate farmers and sheep. This movie is seventy-five types of wrong.

1:21 in

Ahaha! He blew up the sheep using their farts!

Awww, now he’s a farmer and he’s not neurotic no more. How lovely. Please don’t make me watch this again.

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers. | 1 Comment »

My favorite movies.

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

I would like to tell you about my three favorite movies. I was recently re-acquainted with one because Netflix was streaming it. I had forgotten how much I loved that film. So, without further ado, my three favorite movies are The Shawshank Redemption, Men In Black and Antonia’s Line. You probably know the first two, bein’ big Hollywood-type movies and all. I became familiar with Antonia’s Line while watching the 1996 Oscars. That really famous tearjerker The Postman was nominated for Best Foreign Film. I loved it and I thought it was going to win for sure. And then this other film, this unknown Dutch film, comes in and wins the award, and I was all like, “Wait… what?” Flash forward about a month. I’m in Massachusetts with my mother for a long weekend. We had a evening with nothing planned, so we decided to go to the indie/foreign movie theater, where Antonia’s Line was playing. I saw it, and I then agreed that it was the Best Foreign Film of the Year, definitely the best film I saw that year. It’s a Dutch film that takes place in a rural farming village, and it tracks the life of a woman named Antonia and her family over about fifty years. You get to know the other villagers and their idiosyncrasies, as well as Antonia and the people that swirl in and out of her storied life, kind of like a maypole dance. I was in high school when I saw it, and unlike most American films of that time (and this time as well, who are we kidding) there was no puritanical undertones of any kind. This movie starts right after WWII, and people do things that are frowned upon still now (getting pregnant out of wedlock, homosexuality, etc.) and the most of the characters in the film are okay with this. This blew my mind. I was so accustomed to Hollywood’s standard punishment of the sinners in all their films. This was like a revelation. The other great thing about Antonia’s Line is that I would say about six characters don’t talk. They just don’t have any lines, or just one line. But they are integral to the story line and they really stir up emotions in you. As long as it is streaming on Netflix, I recommend you watch it. And you might want to watch The Shawshank Redemption and Men In Black again too, while you’re at it.

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I’m watchin’ movies. Epic sweeping movies. And not-so-epic or sweeping movies.

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

I saw Mongol, the epic film about Genghis Khan. I heard about it, people told me it was excellent, and it was streaming on Netflix, so I watched it. And while I don’t think I need to see it more than once, I’m glad I took the time to watch it. It takes place in Mongolia in the 1100s, when various nomadic tribes occupied the land. It’s a slow and temperate film, tracking the life of this boy who has a target on him at all times. There’s a lot of fur, a lot of animal hides.  Also, much trekking around in the some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen with no one else around for miles. Super-mega-isolated. The tribes are fractured and are constantly getting into little wars with each other, killing and raping and burning each other’s yurts and whatnot. Genghis Khan’s final goal is to unite all these tribes, which is where the film ends. (If you read the history books, he achieved his goal.) One of the things I found funny about this film was that a great portion of Mongol was characters meaningfully staring off into the distance, at each other, etc. When they did talk, it was short terse sentences. And a great deal of trekking across unforgiving terrain. Then there’s be a brief action sequence and it would be a chilly version of 300, with the slow-motion, the blood splattering in a circular pattern, clearly done post-production, squelchy fleshy noises, etc. It was like two different films meshed together. But check it out, if only for the scenic expanses of Mongolia and the cool music.

I also saw Clash of the Titans, and it SUCKED.  It sucked HARD. I was so very sad. I was looking forward to this film since I heard it was coming out, because the original Clash of the Titans was flawed. Specifically, the stop-motion animation was choppy, and Harry Hamlin’s acting was wooden. Like the Trojan Horse, it was. But I loved all the British actors rockin’ it on Mount Olympus, playing with the humans like they were chess pieces. And the story was clear and understandable. This new version, yeah, the animation was better, but the story was gone. You hear me? Gone. If I had to describe it to someone, I would say, “A bunch of stuff happened in no particular order.” On Facebook I called it as a baklava of disappointment – you peel away one layer of philo dough, and more sadness is underneath. And pistachios and honey, but mainly sadness. And never mind the completely non-existent plot thread, what the freakin’ hell was Liam Neeson wearing? It was mylar and silvery with big shoulder pads and sequins, and he had copious amounts of eyeliner and mascara. He looked like Gary Glitter. I couldn’t take him seriously for three seconds. By the time he said, “Release the Kraken!” I didn’t even care anymore. I was biding time until I could leave and go home and drink away the pain of this atrocity. Transformers was better. I know them’s fighting words, since most people think Transformers is a crime against humanity, but it was better. I hoping Iron Man 2 and Kick Ass will redeem my summer and save me from the cinematic abyss I just fell into.

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers. | 1 Comment »

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