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you can’t take the sky from me
Sep. 2nd, 2005 12:03 pmIt’s been a week, a week of stuff, low of key. Watched Jacob’s Ladder with Darla, truly it’s one of the better supernatural thriller movies ever made. Everything is spot-on and not overdone – the acting, dialogue, performances – Tim Robbins is great as always. And Danny Aiello, he’s awesome, I’ve always loved him, something about him is so reassuring and comforting. When things are going to hell you want Danny Aiello around to tell you everything’s going to be alright. Whether you’re a demon-haunted Vietnam vet, or a socially inept master assassin, or Madonna, Danny Aiello is that strength that helps you back up on your feet. Everyone should have a Danny Aiello.
Jacob’s Ladder also wins Best Use Of Movie Sample In A Techno-Industrial Song.
Wednesday Darla and I saw The World at the Kendall and I fucked up her popcorn by dumping half the canister of white cheddar topping on it. I’m a real idiot sometimes, I simply cannot be trusted at the condiment bar. The movie was pretty good, it’s another new art-house Chinese film, all languid camerawork and introspective character exploration. I heard someone’s finally made a film of a Haruki Murakami story, but after seeing 2046 and The World I don’t think I can take another meandering meditation on people and relationships. My god, people, can we get back to the Kung Fu? But anyway, The World is set in Beijing, in this amusement park that recreates the civilization’s monuments – Eiffel Tower, Pyramids, Big Ben, Taj Mahal, New York City – at 1/3rd scale or smaller. With a big Vegas style song-and-dance show. The characters are all employees at the park, and seeing these Chinese dressed in the garb of all these other nations, taking the monorail between India and Egypt and Italy it’s all a bit disorienting (heh) in a really lovely way, it’s kind of the central schtick of the whole movie but it’s never overt, it doesn’t draw attention away from the stories. The music is really great, lots of sad guitar that’s also a bit ominous. There’s some French people listed in the credits and it makes me realize the plot is rather French in two main ways: (1) people are attracted to each other despite plainly psychotic behavior, and (2) they pursue infidelity with a casual attitude that’s a bizarre and sketchily dishonest contradiction to the deep and abiding love they were professing in the scene immediately before. Neither of which I mind in the least, they make these stories interesting; but I didn’t get a sense of how and why these people are attracted to each other in the first place. I dunno, it’s like the emotional volume has been dialed down. I suspect that if I actually understood Chinese I’d judge these people as bad actors, but since I don’t I can’t tell. That’s a theory I’ve had for a while, of one of the reasons we think foreign movies are so great: it’s because they have this advantage that since we don’t understand the language we can’t pick up on the verbal shades, graduations of tone and accent that make up really good acting, so we just assume that the characters are emoting as well as our imaginations can depict. It’s like how reading a book you make up the image in your mind and it’s far better than what can actually be represented on the screen. It’s not fair to compare that book with the movie, and likewise it’s not fair to compare a subtitled movie to a film in which we understand the language. Like, think of an actor who’s performances are terribly flat, if you imagine them speaking French in a Krystof Kyslowski film or Chinese in a Wong Kar Wai film, they’re no longer so dull and limp, they’re subtle and nuanced. Well ok that’s what a wannabe film wank-snob like me would say, anyhow. I think there should be a worldwide ban on film critics using the words “subtle” and “nuanced” - the next idiot who tries to sound all hip art-house by calling a movie “subtle” and “nuanced” gets his cock slammed in one of those striped clapper-things they use to mark the beginning of a shot. And movie posters that scream the word “RIVETING”, god I hate that, it’s such the most overused adjective in advert print. From now on you should not be allowed to describe something as “riveting” unless it involves actually punching bolts into metal plating.
Hung out with Couplingchaos last night watching the last episode of Firefly. Girl’s had a stressful week but squeeze the stress away, squeeze it!
Going stargazing tonight, with Darla and whoever else shows up (my place 8:30pm!). I want to see the Milky Way. Way out there in the dark, this place Subatomicsatan scoped out years ago when a bunch of us went hunting for shooting stars. If we ask nicely maybe we can get Darla to tell us where all this stuff came from, and what’s the difference between a Black Hole and a Quasar cuz she’s tried to describe it to me but I still can’t keep it straight. She needs to draw me a picture or use some kind of visual aid. Like meat. Ok this meatball is your quasar, and these two strips of bacon are your plasma jets out of the longitudinal axes….
My god, it’s full of meat!
Jacob’s Ladder also wins Best Use Of Movie Sample In A Techno-Industrial Song.
Wednesday Darla and I saw The World at the Kendall and I fucked up her popcorn by dumping half the canister of white cheddar topping on it. I’m a real idiot sometimes, I simply cannot be trusted at the condiment bar. The movie was pretty good, it’s another new art-house Chinese film, all languid camerawork and introspective character exploration. I heard someone’s finally made a film of a Haruki Murakami story, but after seeing 2046 and The World I don’t think I can take another meandering meditation on people and relationships. My god, people, can we get back to the Kung Fu? But anyway, The World is set in Beijing, in this amusement park that recreates the civilization’s monuments – Eiffel Tower, Pyramids, Big Ben, Taj Mahal, New York City – at 1/3rd scale or smaller. With a big Vegas style song-and-dance show. The characters are all employees at the park, and seeing these Chinese dressed in the garb of all these other nations, taking the monorail between India and Egypt and Italy it’s all a bit disorienting (heh) in a really lovely way, it’s kind of the central schtick of the whole movie but it’s never overt, it doesn’t draw attention away from the stories. The music is really great, lots of sad guitar that’s also a bit ominous. There’s some French people listed in the credits and it makes me realize the plot is rather French in two main ways: (1) people are attracted to each other despite plainly psychotic behavior, and (2) they pursue infidelity with a casual attitude that’s a bizarre and sketchily dishonest contradiction to the deep and abiding love they were professing in the scene immediately before. Neither of which I mind in the least, they make these stories interesting; but I didn’t get a sense of how and why these people are attracted to each other in the first place. I dunno, it’s like the emotional volume has been dialed down. I suspect that if I actually understood Chinese I’d judge these people as bad actors, but since I don’t I can’t tell. That’s a theory I’ve had for a while, of one of the reasons we think foreign movies are so great: it’s because they have this advantage that since we don’t understand the language we can’t pick up on the verbal shades, graduations of tone and accent that make up really good acting, so we just assume that the characters are emoting as well as our imaginations can depict. It’s like how reading a book you make up the image in your mind and it’s far better than what can actually be represented on the screen. It’s not fair to compare that book with the movie, and likewise it’s not fair to compare a subtitled movie to a film in which we understand the language. Like, think of an actor who’s performances are terribly flat, if you imagine them speaking French in a Krystof Kyslowski film or Chinese in a Wong Kar Wai film, they’re no longer so dull and limp, they’re subtle and nuanced. Well ok that’s what a wannabe film wank-snob like me would say, anyhow. I think there should be a worldwide ban on film critics using the words “subtle” and “nuanced” - the next idiot who tries to sound all hip art-house by calling a movie “subtle” and “nuanced” gets his cock slammed in one of those striped clapper-things they use to mark the beginning of a shot. And movie posters that scream the word “RIVETING”, god I hate that, it’s such the most overused adjective in advert print. From now on you should not be allowed to describe something as “riveting” unless it involves actually punching bolts into metal plating.
Hung out with Couplingchaos last night watching the last episode of Firefly. Girl’s had a stressful week but squeeze the stress away, squeeze it!
Going stargazing tonight, with Darla and whoever else shows up (my place 8:30pm!). I want to see the Milky Way. Way out there in the dark, this place Subatomicsatan scoped out years ago when a bunch of us went hunting for shooting stars. If we ask nicely maybe we can get Darla to tell us where all this stuff came from, and what’s the difference between a Black Hole and a Quasar cuz she’s tried to describe it to me but I still can’t keep it straight. She needs to draw me a picture or use some kind of visual aid. Like meat. Ok this meatball is your quasar, and these two strips of bacon are your plasma jets out of the longitudinal axes….
My god, it’s full of meat!
