On salience

One of my favorite phrases is "salient point." I was very excited this evening when i saw something that prompted a quick post, and after looking up "salience" on dictionary.com realized that was a good title (and more importantly, proper wording) for me.

The salient point is this: watching Jon Stewart tonight, he asked one of his reporters how to become a "loyal bushie." The reporter responded, "Well Jon, there are two ways: the first is to emerge from Barbara Bush's vagina; obviously, this is the road less traveled."

In my humble estimation, a joke that can meld Robert Frost with a vision of Barbara Bush, feet in stirrups and squeezing out a baby, is a salient point for any occasion.

On high horses

For reasons i don't completely understand, I've contrived some sort of bizarre faux pop-culture high horse where I can sit and make snobby pronouncements on the so-called peons down below. I will bellow about how wonderful Veronica Mars and Arrested Development are, and how they're just too good for ordinary people, and this leads to their inevitable demise, reinforcing my own feelings of superiority that i got it and this somehow makes me better than all of them.

I understand that this is a ludicrous mind-set, but it keeps me occupied. And I think i usually do a good job of keeping this to myself, or at least confining my bellows on particular topics to people who in some way agree with me, or might possibly respect the position i'm taking. I think this because there are still certain people who speak to me cordially on a regular basis, and I believe that if I made as much noise on certain topics as i really want to, i would lead an even lonelier life than I already do.

Oddly enough, this little introspection was brought on by a slightly-uninterupted marathon of Saw and Saw II over the weekend. I say slightly uninterupted because my third netflic was Open Season, which both a complete waste of a movie and the reason i slept soundly saturday night.

I've always looked down on movies like the Saw series, thinking they were somehow beneath me. I'm not sure what prompted me to actually, you know, give them a chance, but I did, and I was impressed. They're thought provoking, twisty, gruesome without being gratuitous, and generally a lot more fun than I had anticipated. Also, there's something grotesquely pleasing about watching the Dread Pirate Roberts amputate his own foot.

Beware the ides of March!

A quick look back reminded me that I've already raved about Black Snake Moan, so I won't belabor the point beyond saying, again, that everyone needs to see this.
I've also already mentioned Demented, so I'll leave that alone too.
Which still leaves quite the extensive list. I'll start easy - Charmed, Season 5. I do not care for this show. Everytime a new disc shows up in my queue, i feel unnaturally compelled to watch it, if only because i've already put so much time into getting to this point. They occasionally have interesting stories, but it's all over-wrought, over-acted, over-analyzed chick crap. Rose McGowan's cute and all, but that only takes you so far. Fortunately, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just finished disc 1 of season 6 last night, so i'm only 15 hours from the end. Hooray! (update - immediately after writing the preceding, I double checked on imdb. This show made it through 8 freaking seasons. That's 17 more 3 hour discs I have to get through before I can put this disturbing saga behind me. Grrr!)
But while on the subject, I also caught Embrace of a Vampire. It's little-more than an excuse to mix vampires with Alyssa Milano, in a very Cinemax-at-2-in-the-morning sort of movie. I wasn't expecting anything from it, and i got exactly that.

The Prestige is one that may have gotten itself overlooked last year. It came out right after the Illusionist, another good flick with Ed Norton and Jessica Biel, and on paper looked very similar - the story of a late 19th century magician. The Prestige, starring both Wolverine and Batman, was great stuff too. It's not often that I'm completely surprised by an ending that's put in front of you from the beginning, but like the magicians it was about, it did an excellent job of dangling the answer right in front of you - shouting it at you, sometimes - while deftly getting you to look the other way.

Arlington Road is a little bit older - I knew going in that it was a homegrown terrorist movie predating 9/11, and i just confirmed the date, 1999. It's informed by the likes of tim mcveigh and the unabomber, instead of the islamic radicals we've gotten so used to. It will change the way you view the world. Well, it will unless you're already a paranoid conspiracy freak. All I wish is that I had known going in that it wasn't going to adhere to conventional story-telling. I'm glad i didn't know what was going to happen, I just wish i had known how completely unexpectedly it all ends.

coming soon!
School for Scoundrels, Arlington Road, the Prestige, Secret Things, Flushed Away, and Stranger than Fiction.

(edit - 3/20/07 - I actually wrote this on March 15. I'm not sure why i didn't post it then, but enjoy. or something.)

Returns and Sublimeness

(Side note: I actually had to check for the form of "sublime" that i wanted to use. Subliminal wasn't right and sublimation just sounded wrong. Thanks to dictionary.com for help.)

I think i'll need to break this into a couple posts to get it all out, because it's been a busy couple of weeks. My mom returned from China with only a small hitch that left them in Chicago overnight. Baby Wren is doing very well, with lots of pictures for all to ooh and ahh over. Of course, now she has some kind of Chinese bronchitis that's kept her in bed for three days and counting. Fortunately, the doc didn't think it was anything too fancy, and she's starting to do better.

Martha was thrilled to see her, and i'll have to get some pics up of just how big and happy that puppy has gotten. She has to be over 55 pounds by now, which is frightening since she's only 4 1/2 months old.

My mom's return also led to my return to Lemoyne. How i missed it. It was good to be back in my own bed, with my own little 10 pound cat who can go pee whenever she wants without disturbing me.

Went bowling Friday night with the gang from work, and apparently we had enough of a blast to make it a regular thing. We've also learned that bowling shoes can be had for under $50, and custom-drilled balls are about the same, so i might become a real bowling geek - complete with luggage and everything.

The real excitement, though, was Saturday night. I took the roommate's sister back to school in DC, and she was kindly enough to accompany me to a Flogging Molly concert in the parking lot of RFK stadium. That was a sublime experience. I've been listening to, and thoroughly enjoying, their CD's for maybe 6 months now, and have come to realize that the only reason to listen to the CD's is so you can sing along at the shows. The energy, the skill, 50,000 people screaming for the accordion. I've never had an experience like that before. Normally, for me, concerts have always been a let down, and i'm disappointed when they don't sound like the album. Maybe because they suck, maybe because the album was overproduced, i don't know. But this... this was something else entirely. For this group, the album exists only for people to learn the words and decide they like it. Then, you go to a show and realize, that's what this is all about. Of course, the beer didn't hurt either.

Next time, another fabled and long awaited movie roundup. Look for such hits as School for Scoundrels, Black Snake Moan , Arlington Road, Embrace of the Vampire, Charmed - Season 5, Cecil B Demented, the Prestige, Secret Things, Flushed Away, and Stranger than Fiction. Some of those may be repeats, but never fear - i'll check first.

new respect, and the re-visitation of old paradigms.

It's been a very long week. Puppy remains a completely exhausting joy to be around, although i'm genuinely afraid she's going to injure herself pulling on her collar. I've also had a chance to catch up on some netflix. Imagine my surprise when a movie that's been in my queue with a "long wait" for two months, and is still in my queue on a long wait, is available now for my mom. So I finally got my hands on the Protector, and I have to say, Tony Jaa is the successor to both Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Together. Yeah, he's that good. Aside from astonishing you with the possibilities of the human body, it's not a very good movie - as one review put it, "The touching story of a boy and his elephant." I think his character was supposed to be retarded, maybe like Rain Man - you know how dustin hoffman got for Wopner? Well, picture that, only focused on getting his elephant, and kicking lots and lots of ass to get there.

Also watched Cecil B. Demented, which was enjoyable. Maggie Gyllenhal is always enjoyable, and the sequel to Forrest Gump needs to be made. Complete with Kevin Nealan. I'm telling you, it's gold just waiting to be mined. We need to get on this.

Finally, I need to revisit an old post. A few weeks ago, I decided to finally list out my top 5 favorite movies. Now, I need to bump that up to six. And the excellent part is, following the alphabetical order used before, this one comes right at the top.

I saw Black Snake Moan last night, a.k.a. The touching story of a retired bluesman and the half-naked nympho white girl he keeps chained to his radiator. I'll need to see it again to be sure, but i'm going to go out on a limb and say that, for right now, that is my all time favorite movie. It was fantastic. Sam Jackson was as good as he's ever been, Christina Ricci was amazing, and (i can't believe i'm actually writing this next bit) it left me excited to see Justin Timberlake's next movie. Yeah, that good. I think that boy's going somewhere.

now the dog needs to tinkle, so i'm off to the tundra.