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wMonday, January 03, 2005 |
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Ramblings at Work on a Thursday before the Holidays (12/23/04)
*spoilers* involved. do not read if you hate spoilers as i do. until you've seen Life Aquatic, House of Flying Daggers, Kinsey, Finding Neverland, Closer, or the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. and don't get me started on remakes! unless you know of a good one. then post a comment below because ubershauna and i were trying to think of a remake that might be even better than the original and i couldn't think of one! not one. i heard that the manchurian candidate might have been okay, but the original was just fine. why do we (who is we anyway? americans? money-grubbing scum in the film industry? the sad masses who can't watch a black n white movie without getting bored?!) why do *we* feel the need to remake a perfectly good original movie??? oh, okay, yeah, was i gonna post something? well here it is:
oh not yet, and i'm not gonna edit or spell-check or add html for the links so you can just cut & paste cuz i'm lazy and hopefully we'll get outta here early but i'm starting to doubt it more & more. and yes, there are a ton of movie references here, but you're just gonna have to deal with it for today!
okay, begin now:
it's subtle, it's deadpan, it's funny-sad
it's dry
you have to appreciate willem dafoe being funny and admire anjelica huston onscreen without words to convey what she's thinking
Bill Murray shakes his groove thing, it's sort of on mute, wes anderson appreciates the intelligence of his audience and doesn't feel the need to spell out everything as the big blockbusters do for the masses.
i could cry right now just thinking about it.
re: Life Aquatic
i think i'm getting soft. this has *got* to change. maybe it's just the holidays...i'll harden up again this new year.
Closer looks dumb. natalie portman is soo not convincing in this 'adult' role, in just the previews alone. is she like half of jude law's age?? i mean, c'mon. gimme a break. and the movie looks so spelled out for you. just break up already and be together. i never understood movies like this.
i'm listening to the Cars right now. i had no idea i liked this: Don't Cha Stop song. i don't think i've even ever heard it before, but i love the Cars so i suck for not knowing them better. my brother-in-law is copying all his music onto his computer so he's getting rid of all his cd's after he copies them. and I get them. yea! especially yea cuz it's a lot of great classics that i never bought, well, because, there's always such great new music to buy. i haven't bought music in forever though, so who am i kidding.
"The heightened emotions are restrained and therefore more affecting; and the sentimentality is all the more sweet because Anderson doesn’t indulge in it."
see...this is how a movie should be. not so obvious & pathetic like Closer. natalie portman is sooo not convincing as a stripper/prostitute/whatever she's supposed to be. kind of like julia roberts in pretty woman. yeah, julia, i really buy that you're a prostitute. whatEver people, shit.
"He’s an outright son-of-a-bitch, selfish, pigheaded, opportunistic, frequently drunk and stoned, and somehow loveable despite himself."
"...balancing the sweet, the sour, the absurd, and the genuine."
added bonus: i LOVE david bowie and the music was all him. and portuguese acoustic covers of him, which were wonderful as well. i wanted to sing out loud in the theater, i couldn't help smiling, bowie moves me. i tried to sing a bowie song at common interest (karaoke bar) but i ended up sounding more like william shatner instead of david bowie. but not even a good shatner. but then again, i was with friends, and i didn't really care. nor do i care what the people of the common interest think of me. let's see, i know i have it online.
It Ain't Easy
see if you can recognize this song in the movie (bowie didn't write this song, but this is his version. love it)
okay, I can't find rock n roll suicide. i can't remember how i wrote the link. blargh. well that's the song i was singing and reaching out GIMME YOUR HANDS!!! on stage at common interest. well, i was trying to sing it like that. i just looked like a bad commercial, whatever that means. man, i LOVE that song.
"time takes a cigarette. puts in your mouth." too bad i can't remember the link.
the guy who directed monster's ball directed finding neverland. what a wide range across the spectrum that is!
i kinda wanna see finding neverland. 1 - because it looks good. 2 - because I absolutely adore johnny depp.
(i've never seen monster's ball; i just know that is has a rather graphic sex scene, well, i know this because my roommate L said he saw this movie with his mother and couldn't believe how long & awkward that scene was. ha!)
omigoodness, i love this song: Don’t Cha Stop
and I want to see kinsey. me & my pal ruth were gonna try go see it, but she & her husband (slight) are livin it up in new york right now, partying with her sister & our good ol' friend rogelio. man, what a great guy roger is. and what a great couple they are. i love them, i really do. i got them something! which surprised me cuz i don't buy gifts. but it made me think of them when i saw it & i thought that it would look good in their house and i'm so cheap i don't think i ever bought them a wedding present. cuz i suck like that. yeah.
when I make a lot of money, i'm gonna make up for all the non-shopping times i had to miss out on. well, i didn't have to miss out on. i could stay at home and not spend 40+ bucks in the bar every night, but hey, then i wouldn't be me, right?
so i'm gonna start this other wish list. not a wish for me, but if i had money, this is what i would have bought for you this christmas season. starting with my friend antneon, i would have bought you this personal library kit for cinephiles to thank you for last january when i was blue and you let me borrow a dozen of your dvd's. of course i never finished dekalog, but then of course we never expected me to.
i wrote this thing at work; i drew this little sketch of this dude during a meeting (don't tell, i wasn't paying attention) and then the storyline just flowed out from the sketch. he was talking, and he was sort of a jerk. he didn't mean to be, didn't want to be, it just sort of happened. you know like when you don't ever move away from your hometown and people won't let you break the mold of who you've become, or who you were ten years ago. yeah, it's sort of like that. yeah. sort of autobiographical, if I had turned out to be a guy, who was tall, and well-hung, of course. but then, not really autobiographical at all.
yeah, i'm not working today, don't tell. we're closed tomorrow, and we're all just sort of sitting here waiting for 'them' to tell us we can go home now. i'm off all next week, so stayed tuned for a daily update! how exciting. i'm gonna stay at home in bed on my laptop and watch bad TV for a week! just like the good ol' days...
i do need to get my car checked & oil changed, get my eyes checked & new contacts, go to the dentist, meet a few people for lunch that I've fallen out of touch with, paint a room in my mom's rental house, get my computer & desk & bike & entertainment center from my old house. damn! all i wanted to do was stay in bed on the computer and watch bad TV. ya think i could have done all that stuff when i was unemployed for six months. yeah i could have...
could have should have would have
i'm going to TinStar on my way home from here (man, i really hope we get out early). i have a coupon for a free taco. i wrote something at TinStar the other week, i'll see if i can find. i want to do a review page. or i want to do a review tv show (cable access is fine) where i just sit there and criticize or compliment whatever i'm watching/doing/thinking in my own way. yeah, i wonder if anybody would watch it. drinking would be required while watching my show. and prerequisite is that i'm hungover. i'm so much funnier when i'm hungover and i don't give a damn. like now for instance. i crack myself up.
i bought new socks at target, and i'm trying to match what i wear with them in a funny sort of way each morning. i can't explain, cuz i'm not really serious, but i crack myself up. today i'm tiger stripe girl. not that it's not a tiger print, more like this. aha!
no...this is what i really meant:
zebra stripe girl! fruit stripe! wow, i miss that gum!
anyway, i show people in the front office that i bought new socks, i holler, as i lift up my pant leg: "Look! I match!" but nobody really seems to care.
i just figured out today that farewell doesn't really mean good-bye. it means more like live long & prosper. you know Fare Well. like i asked my friend the other day, "how did you fare?" (well i typed it on aim, i don't talk like that but i sometimes write odd words & phrases) and then today someone typed "fare thee well." and then it clicked: that farewell means fare well. i mean c'mon, i really take some words for granted and i don't analyze phrases whatnot. i should really take a latin course or something, and figure out etymology once & for all.
etymology : the history of a linguistic form (as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language
how fun! and how well put! (i had to look up the word to make sure i was using the correct one)
oh where was i, yeah, i want to see kinsey. looks good. and good topic, too.
The writer/director also did gods and monsters, which now looking at it, i don't think i've ever seen. but i get it mixed up with heavenly creatures for some strange reason. no, wait, maybe it's angels & insects that i get confused. aw, forget it all.
Ebert even liked Kinsey. i do love Ebert. did i say that already? well, i meant to.
"When Kinsey's first study of human sexual behavior was published in 1947, it was more or less universally agreed that masturbation would make you go blind or insane..."
but then again, Ebert did help write Beyond the Valley of the Dolls so you know he's got to be at least a little bit out there, which is what i respect & probably relate to.
Ha! House of Flying Daggers isn't coming out until jan 14th and i get to see it jan 4th. i rule. i actually get a +1 to this so if you wanna go (and you're terribly nice to me this week. no gifts though, please) i'll think about it. no really just let me know. i do have to ask one person first though.
Director Zhang Yimou on shooting the final fight scene in the snow.
In Film Threat, Phil Hall just raves about how good House of Flying Daggers is.
i'm not gonna read it though, i've read too much already. i think that anything you read about a movie is a spoiler. and i freak people out sometimes about it. i mean, i HATE when people tell me anything about a movie. i won't say whether Life Aquatic was good or bad (except i did a little bit in this post cuz i'm hungover and i don't care & it's been playing for a couple of weeks now, and you would have seen it already if you had wanted to or if you like wes anderson films at all). but go see it and then we'll talk about it. else, admit that you're never ever gonna see it and then i'll talk about it. but i'm not gonna be blamed for getting your hopes up for a movie and then you not like it. and i won't tell you the ending and spoil it for you. that's half the fun of watching a movie. sometimes, though, when you've read the book first, the fun part is watching how the movie unfolds and how the book translates onto the big screen (or how the scriptwriter interpreted it, or who was involved in writing it, or who the director chose to play the characters, etc etc).
like i didn't even want to know that johnny depp was playing the charlie & the chocolate factory guy (i can't think of his name right now). i mean, what a surprise that would have been had i just seen it on the big screen and found out. but i guess i couldn't avoid the ads forever. i do try to avoid as many tv ads as possible...they blare those commercials so LOUD.
it's a weird oxymoron, i hate trailers and i love trailers. I HATE the trailers that give away the entire plot, i mean the ENTIRE plot. give me a break! 've seen this done before, and it just absolutely kills me, what's the point of that!?! you don't have to go see the movie if you know everything about it. (except in the book-to-film case, or based on a true story, okay there are exceptions, get off my back!) but the best trailer, just glimpses at scenes, few words, less dialogue, maybe some of the soundtrack/score to intrigue, dark and mysterious, like a want-ad...and you just want to find out more! you must know! how does it end?! what happens next?! give me one word and let me roll that taste around in my mouth for a long time, until i just have to find out more, how does the sentence end. but start with just one word to chew on.
Feel.
posted by
zenbetty at 2:18 PM
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