friday night and the kids are alright

yee haw. it's the weekend. i'm going to see hairspray tomorrow night at hershey, and i've heard good things. and, got to play movie catch up. just finished watching This Film is Not Yet Rated, a documentary about the film ratings system. Oddly enough, this little gem got me all fired up to see Hairspray because one of the main interviewees in the film is John Waters. The movie focuses entirely on the very fuzzy, arbitrary line drawn by the MPAA in what amount of sex (almost exclusively sex and not violence) leads to the NC-17 rating instead of an R. In The Cooler, the board blamed it on a brief shot of pubic hair; in jersey girl(yeah, that movie got hit with an NC-17 initially; who knew?) it was liv tyler telling ben affleck that she masturbates regularly.
The movie came complete with side by side shots of almost identical sex scenes from two different movies, with the only real difference being who was having the sex - gay sex gets an nc-17 and straight sex gets the R.
And no movie (or article, or blurb) about movie ratings would be complete without the obligatory matt stone interview talking about Team America's puppet sex, and how they had to cut the golden shower from the puppet sex to get an R. It's a bunch of goddamned facsists, if you ask me. of course, no one did, so i'll shut up now.

9 days too many

...and I couldn't bear to let it get to 10. The more i think about it, the more i hate that last post. But, in the interest of what little artistic credibility i might have, i can't take it down. I am glad to make something new, though.

First, props to thera the second person to ever comment. :)

Second, against the recomendation of friends I just finished watching moonraker. The roommate's sleeping on the couch, so i figured i'd come talk about it. We all know bond movies aren't supposed to be high art (although casino royale comes damn close). I think we can also all agree (certain company excluded for lack of cred on the subject) that roger moore was the worst bond ever. For a series based on crazy over-the-top action and effects, this takes the cake. It opens with someone trying to kill bond on a small commuter plane by shooting out the controls and then jumping from the plane with the only parachute. Bond then leaps out of the plane, sans-parachute, and chases the first guy through the air. Later, in Venice, his gondola turns into a parade float and drives through the city square. And the pigeon needs to be seen to be believed. I was offerred a dollar to not see this movie, and i'm glad i turned it down. As nice as a shiny dollar would be, the movie was well worth it.

also watched a nice little william macy movie this week called Panic. For a movie about a father/son (donald sutherland and macy) assassin duo, it had surprisingly little action. I was fully prepared to find out i'd unknowingly rented another Mamet movie, but turns out it was first timer Henry Bromell. Unfortunately, he hasn't made anything too noteworthy since, so maybe it was a one shot deal.

Most of my other recent watching has been recent jet li movies - unleashed and fearless, and coming soon iron monkey and the protector. elephantine story lines aside, there's something incredibily spiritual in realizing just what the human body can do. you always hear about the tibetan monk who hasn't eaten in 5 years because he's so in tune with his body, but you don't really believe it. deep down, you're thinking "i know he has a snickers bar under his pillow at night". but then you watch a movie like unleashed, and it's lke "what the shit just happened?" sure, there's some special effects, and of course it's all choreographed to within an inch of it's life (literally), but still, it inspires you to realize just what people are capable of.

Finally, i need to prove a point. My roommate has been making sport of me lately for my pronouncement a few weeks back that Denny Crane knows he's on a tv show. She demanded to know where I had read this. Well, she should be reading this, so there it is. I read it on wikipedia. the point i was trying to make to her was that denny crane, more often than any other character i've seen on a scripted drama or comedy (clearly, jon stewart on the daily show doesn't count) breaks the so-called fourth wall. He expresses an awareness that he's on a television show. Of course, other shows (especially long-running series like the Simpsons comes to mind) occasionally comment on the apparent episodic nature of their lives, but i've never before heard a character, over a long period of time, reference things like the need to do something spectacular for sweeps or turn to the camera and say "cue the music" just before the opening credits role. so there... click on the link and you'll see i'm not crazy. even wikipedia agrees with me.

p.s. no, i did not write the wikipedia entry myself. check the log.

top 5 part 2

i know i promised it to you, my solitary loyal reader, and here it is... my top five favorite ladies in hollywood. this list is predicated primarily on my sense of how hot each lady is, and i apologize if that offends anyone. I don't see it as objectifying, because i think my sense of someone's hotness comes from more than just skin deep - it's the sense they evoke in me when i see them, and the fire they start in my soul, not just on the surface. So again, in alphabetical order...

ok, so, in the interest of full disclosure i'm not going to edit that first bit. I typed it out, all full of piss and vinegar to get going, and then realized i only have two that i'd put in a top list.

Keira Knightley - This is a girl who glows. I'm only slightly embarassed to admit that i own, and have repeatedly watched, Love Actually, solely because she's in it. The whole bit with the best friend who videotapes his buddy's wedding but then won't give them the tape because he realizes it's all closeups of her face... i get it. i watch her in movies from king arthur to domino harvey and i can believe that people would ruin lives to be with this woman.

Natalie Portman - Perhaps it's saying something that the first person on my list, in her first real break-out role, played the body-guard / body-double to the second person on the list (that was Phantom Menace, for those keeping track). From Garden State, which I've talked about before, to Closer - the closest a movie has ever brought me to actual tears was Natalie crying in that one - to V for Vendetta, when they shaved her head and just stripped her down to her bare, raw-edged soul. There's an honesty to her that warms the cockles of my heart. Maybe even below that, in the sub-cockle area.

I walked away from writing this for a good hour, thinking who else can i really put on this list, and these are the only two. Sure, there are others, but the rest just feel like a physical beauty. There's nothing wrong with that, but this isn't about objectifying. It's about Women That Move Me, and in film these are the only two. Jennifer Aniston, Jacinda Barrett and Rachel Bilson (both most recently seen in Last Kiss), Alyson Hannigan (a.k.a. Buffy's Lesbian Friend), Sarah Chalke (a.k.a. the second Becky on Roseanne and more recently Dr. Reid on Scrubs), Katherine Heigl (of Roswell, and late of The Ringer and Grey's Anatomy). Oh, and speaking of grey's anatomy, Sara Ramirez. I could not come up with the right word for her, until i read a review describing her as "dirty hot" and thought that was perfect. In my estimation, these are all 'a-list' hotties, who manage to reach a crescendo of combining their femininity and talent, while the first two manage to transcend this into a whole new realm.

And now this is just getting objectifying and needs to stop, so i will.

p.s. I think the last sentence in the paragraph listing all the names is one of the silliest pieces of bullshit i've ever written, and freely acknowledge this; however, i like it.

top 5?

So I just finished my third netflick of the week, The Last Kiss. I'm feeling a little unsure about this, only because I was expecting more of a Garden State type of quirky rom-com, and what i got was a substantially darker slice of life story. It has a very poor rating on netflix, and i think that's because it's really not what people were expecting. It's definitely a little different from what you're used to, but in more of a The Break-Up way than a Garden State way.

Anyway, it got me thinking... for someone who watches as many movies as I do, it's about time for me to come up with a top 5 favorite movies. I want to differentiate this from a 'best movie' list. These are the movies that I keep going back to, because i just love watching them.
In alphabetical (i.e. most generic possible) order, here they are...

Clerks - This is the movie that really made me start watching movies. It spoke to me then, making me laugh uproariously at the truths it presented, and it still speaks to me today. The harbinger of the 90's indie revolution, at least in my own little world. This is a movie that I've watched probably 50 times so far, and quoted enough to equal another 50 viewings. It speaks to the disaffected 20-something in me even more now that i'm actually a disaffected 20-something than it did when i first saw it 10 years ago.

Eurotrip - I own over 150 dvd cases. I say cases in the interest of accuracy, because once you count two-disc special editions and 3, 4, or 7 disc tv shows, the number of actual dvd's skyrockets. But out of all those dvd's, Eurotrip is the one i put on more than absolutely any other. It's hysterical, requires absolutely no work to watch, and makes me laugh everytime i watch it. Even a pseudo-classic like Mallrats doesn't hold up as well.

Garden State - Another disaffected 20-something movie. Scrubs is one of my top 5 favorite tv shows (which will be addressed at a later date), and natalie portman makes me want to weep for knowing such beauty is in this world. Put zach braff's scrubs-honed bittersweet sensibility together with natalie, and i can watch the result all day long.

Lord of the Rings - I'm taking peter jackson's 12 hour magnum opus as a single film, because the whole majestic story only comes together with the whole package. The Two Towers is downright awful without the bookends of Fellowship and Return, much as the middle third of just about any movie is pointless and completely incomprehensible without the start and finish, but put it together and you have one of the most enjoyable, immersible accomplishments in the history of cinema. And for someone who loves stories as much as i do, the story of peter jackson fighting to make the movies the way he knew they needed to be made is enough to get any geek's juices flowing.

Pulp Fiction - I gotta say, this was a toss-up with Usual Suspects. I had to give it to pulp fiction just for the insight it gave me into watching other movies. Usual Suspects may have the coolest ending in the history of, well, history, but i have to give it to the movie that both lasts more than two viewings and gives us this choice exchange:
Jules: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa... stop right there. Eatin' a bitch out, and givin' a bitch a foot massage ain't even the same fuckin' thing.
Vincent: It's not. It's the same ballpark.
Jules: Ain't no fuckin' ballpark neither. Now look, maybe your method of massage differs from mine, but, you know, touchin' his wife's feet, and stickin' your tongue in her Holiest of Holies, ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport. Look, foot massages don't mean shit.
Vincent: Have you ever given a foot massage?
Jules: [scoffs] Don't be tellin' me about foot massages. I'm the foot fuckin' master.
Vincent: Given a lot of 'em?
Jules: Shit yeah. I got my technique down and everything, I don't be ticklin' or nothin'.
Vincent: Would you give a guy a foot massage?
[Jules gives Vincent a long look, realizing he's been set up]
Jules: Fuck you.
Vincent: You give them a lot?
Jules: Fuck you.
Vincent: You know, I'm getting kinda tired. I could use a foot massage myself.
Jules: Man, you best back off, I'm gittin' a little pissed here.

So there it is. My favorite five movies. i'm thinking of some more lists - favorite five tv shows ever, favorite currents, music, i dunno... i'll make a regular list sensation out of this. Hopefully i'll even attract a comment or two.

on ownership

I go back to work today after a very relaxing 5 day weekend for the new year, and because i get up waaaaay too early sometimes, i just spent a few minutes with my dvd collection. This wasn't a spur of the moment decision, so much as a need to make room on the tv shelf for the ninth season of the simpsons. I had to make a tough decision to move the british mob films - layer cake, lock stock and two smoking barrels, snatch, and the new version of the italian job (i know, it's not a british gangster film, but it's set in europe and, genre-wise, is a lot closer to the others than anything else i have) to a new spot. This got me thinking, as it always does, about how much i love my dvds. i have something like 150 dvds, and i enjoy that. I could burn copies of the discs i get from netflix, but then i wouldn't have the cases to put on the shelf. It's like a weird geek self-expression thing. How i arrange them, what goes where, says something about it. If you've ever seen high fidelity, you'll know what i'm talking about. and if you haven't, i can let you borrow it. i know exactly where it is on my shelf, with the other rom-coms that i could justify as masculine enough to go on the same shelf as the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

greetings and salutations to 2007

I think i rang in the new year in reasonably celebratory fashion, but can't say for sure. i woke up in a bed i didn't remember getting into, and i still don't know what's in my ear.

a very succesful start to the year all around. My parents just adopted Martha. She is a newfoundland, currently about 9 weeks old and weighing in at around 20 pounds. she's solid black, except for white patches in between the pads of her feet. We like her quite a bit, and look forward to many happy years with a dog that will eventually be as big as me.

i've also, in amongst my recovery from sunday night, managed to soldier through the entire ninth season of the Simpsons. There's lots of debate about when the show really started downhill - after the seventh or eighth season. I won't say the ninth season is as classic as the eighth, but it's still pretty damned good. better than most of the crap on tv today, anyway. and there i go, sounding all old again... 'back in my day...' and 'everything today sucks' yada yada... and come on.. anything that gives us ralph crying out "tastes... like... burning..." can't be all bad, right?

so... a belated welcome and goodbye to compuglobalhypermeganet, and welcome to our new 2007-model benevolent robot overlords. i, for one, welcome you in this new era of peace.

oh, and in case anyone's interested... a link for my own interest. for all the atrocities he may have been responsible for, he went with his head held high, and i gotta have some respect for that.