I did it. I didn't think that I was gonna do it. I had convinced myself that I had exactly Zero chance of getting my hands on one. I saw the lines outside Circuit City and Best Buy on Thursday as rabid enthusiasts stood in pouring rain for the privilege of dropping $650 on a Playstation 3. I, on the other hand, was interested in the less-than-half-the-price Nintendo Wii, which was set to go on sale on Sunday. I knew, however, that I had neither the time nor inclination to stand hours outside a storefront in the hope of buying a game console. Was the Wii launch going to be a similar zoo? Did I have any chance of getting one? I hoped to find something online, but Amazon's promise of pre-orders never materialized. Sunday came and went and I was resigned that I was out of luck. Still, Morgan suggested that I should stop by Nintendo's store before work on Monday and see if there were any left.
That's right, folks... my WIFE wanted me to get a gaming console. She is not a gaming enthusiast. In fact, I'd go so far as to say she is gaming enthusiast Kryptonite. Still, there was something about the Wii that caught her eye. Maybe it was the promise of an intuitive interface. Maybe it was a desperate attempt to find a game that we could play together. Maybe she recognized that shortened days and cooler temperatures meant a VERY long winter for two New Yorkers who would not be able to afford to go out on the town and escape the bell jar that is the New York City apartment dwelling.
Maybe it's best that I not ask too many questions.
So, I schlepped my ass out of bed, and 50 minutes later, found myself on line and indoors with a cup of coffee and donut in my hands. A dozen people stood in front of me in line including a pair of execs who barely knew what they were standing in line for except that their kids wanted one. Behind me was a late 20-something who told me he worked at Best Buy and wanted to get a Wii for his girlfriend, but they'd already sold out. Over his shoulder, I could see a couple of guys, shadowboxing in front of a plasma t.v. with Wiimotes in their hands. A couple cameramen videotaped their antics and interviewed marketing execs.
Ten minutes later, I was standing outside the NBC Studios (one door down from the Wii store) as screaming fans shook cardboard messages for the Today Show cameras. In my hand, I held a shopping bag with a Wii, a copy of the newest Zelda game, and a couple of extra joysticks. I had just enjoyed, perhaps, the most-positive shopping experience I've ever had. Seriously.
A good day in the City... how odd.
My wife and I busted out the system while our 2 cats sniffed and spread out on the packaging. I undertook the dubious task of hooking the Wii. The space behind my "Entertainment Center" is a gnarly mass of cables that took me a good 10 minutes to navigate. Plugging in a piece of electronics is always a challenge in a pre-War-built apartment. It looks like the father's electrical outlets in A Christmas Story and is about as stable. Still, we were up and running relatively quickly. The Wii had no problem finding my Internet router and after a couple download updates, it was ready to roll.
The first half hour was spent just getting used to the new controllers. The Wiimotes are comfortable in the hand and fun to use. Morgan and I took turns making "Mii" characters- little avatar characters you can save in your Wiimote, share with others and appear in games like the included game, Wii Sports. Morgan isn't terribly comfortable with joystick gaming and it took her a little while to get comfortable with the interface, but soon she was creaming me at the bowling and golf challenges. The game tracks your stats and there are fitness test games that allow you to track your improvements over time. A couple of the games were inexplicably awkward to play. Boxing quickly degenerated into a flailing mess as few of our movements seemed to be accurately reflected in the game. Golf was also difficult to control. I couldn't get an accurate gauge of swing strength. Bowling, tennis and baseball were all a blast, particularly the baseball game. I can't wait to have a real baseball game simulation on this sucker.
We were exhausted from all the swinging and throwing so we didn't try Zelda out except for the first few minutes of the introduction. Frankly, what had excited me about the Wii was the multi-player potential and although I did want to play Zelda, I wanted to save it for the winter months when it becomes too cold to go outside and I can't afford to get out of the house.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
LANDMARK MOVIES
O.K. I will bite for the biggest WOW films that made me sit up and take notice of the finer points of actual film making. To give credit where credit is due, before I took notice of the more amazing films out there, my film discrimination started with realizing all movies were not good. That may be a whole different blog, but the first movie I realized was bad was…. “Johnny Be Good” it was a vehicle for Anthony Michael Hall, and also featured Robert Downy Jr. Even at that young age I thought “This is not funny, this is horrible.” Since then I feel ripped off all the time and still believe Lucas personally owes me money for that second Star Wars trilogy, but there is nothing like the first time.
But, on to the blog, the five films that really changed my perceptions of film and sometimes of life and you should go out and rent them right now. Do it for your country to it for yourself, you deserve it, you work hard and life is too short for bad films.
#1
Evil Dead II
BACKGROUND: Come back with me my friend. Come back to the late eighties, to a place in the mid-west, Nebraska to be specific. At this time in this place there was a video store called Applause Video. A store at the cutting edge of technology, not only did Applause carry VHS but they also rented the shockingly advanced BETA tapes. But this video world only had room for ONE format of tape and Beta was not it. Everyone on earth owned a VHS machine, everyone that is except my Dad. A smart consumer, my father did his research and found the technologically of the more advanced Beta machine to be the smart buy, a little reluctance to admit defeat, he owns said machine to this day, but I digress. Like a Rumsfeld after a landslide Democrat election, the Beta was doomed. Applause Video had a fire/obsolescence sale, all Beta tapes, only two dollars each. I bought about fifteen Beta tapes, throwing in Evil Dead and Evil Dead II as an afterthought, what the heck they were only two bucks a pop.
A few weeks later, my friend Ian was over and we watched the first Evil Dead movie. Average, pretty gory, but nothing special. Then we put in Evil Dead II.
THE MOVIE: While in film school, frequently, as we WERE in film school, the question of favorite, film, director, scene, ECT…. would come up. “Hal Hartley” one pretentious art student would say, “Hartley, he’s O.K. but Kieslowski with his Color trilogy is amazing” another film snob would pipe up. “The Evil Dead II is the best movie EVER” I would state with pure conviction. You see, I was ‘keeping’ in it real’. Hartley and Kieslowski are fantastic and I could write a whole entry on both of them but Evil Dead II was the first time I noticed the creative ways a person could use a camera, and I don’t mean in a porn way either.
The first Evil Dead is about a bunch of teen age kids who go to a cabin in the woods and awaken evil spirits who posses the living. Evil Dead II takes up where the last film left off: Ash, the only survivor from the first film basically re-lives the first film with a slightly bigger budget and a lot more ambition.
Watching Evil Dead for the first time was shockingly fun. I had no idea what I was in for. The character of Ash acts like one might in a horror movie. His first instinct is to get the hell out of there, that was cool; no one EVER acts like they SHOULD in horror movies. The evil spirits will not let him leave and chases his car. Once he hit the tree and got thrown threw the windshield, I thought he was done for, but Ash got up and started running, he runs into an unbeleveably, big on the inside, cabin. His hand gets infected with evil and he ends up cutting it off with a chainsaw while yelling “who’s laughing now!” That was my; “you had me at hello” moment. Or it might have been the fact he uses duct tape to bandage the hand. Really, it is the creative use of camera that got me started loving this film. The “monster”, for ninety percent of the film is POV shot of the monster, this same ‘monster’ shot was used later when Raimi worked with the Cohen Brothers on their crime masterpiece Blood Simple. There is a tight close-up shot that shoots out to the tops of the trees vie crane shot. This is not a deep film, there is NO subtext. What it is, is a wink, nudge, hugely creative, fun film. The first Evil Dead was very gory with a little humor, Evil Dead III or Army of Darkness has no gore and a ton of humor, but me and my friend Goldie Locks both agree Evil Dead II is just right.
THE RESULT: I went to film school
#2
Razor’s Edge
BACKGROUND: Had to be around 1990, my sister was dating a guy who read a bunch of philosophy books, he was quiet, intense, and all punk rock. He really liked this movie so I ended up watching it because in his quietness I always believed he was thinking something deep. Turns out he just didn’t know how to talk to people, go figure, but he turned me onto this film.
THE MOVIE: This version of the Razor’s Edge is a re-make of a 1950’s movie, which is an adaptation of a book, all by the same name. The film is about a man who is living in high society Britain, he enters into service in WWI, and has a life changing experience. When he comes back to his rich life style he puts off the high paying job to go figure out life. He works in a coal mine and eventually goes to India to speak with monks. When he comes back he tries to reconcile his new found spiritual beliefs with those of the very materialistic life he left.
This film was Bill Murray’s first venture into ‘serious’ film territory. Razor’s Edge bombed at the box office, putting off for years another attempt by Murray to try a role like this. The mind reels to think of what might have been if the movie had done well, Lost in Translation, and Broken Flowers would have to wait a scant ten years or so. I think his next movie after Razor’s Edge was Ghostbusters II.
Fun Fact: Duran Duran’s Wild Boys was on the soundtrack of this film. Mercifully it was only in the credit, still…… what the hell?!? Because I know when I think “1920’s melodrama about a man weighing the questions of existence, and enlightenment”, I think- Duran Duran.
THE RESULT: Aside from a very few attempts to shoehorn some Bill Murray ‘humor’ into a drama, this is a great film. I respect it just for taking a stab at something deeper than a wading pool, but not so deep as to loose the audience. This was the first film I saw that made me realize there was more to movie life than 16 candles and Die Hard. “Ahhhh Refreshing”
#3
MANHATTAN
BACKGROUND: Somewhere around 1992-93 I started getting into Woody Allen movies and since my co-blogger Brian, took Annie Hall, I get stuck with the ugly step-sister, Manhattan. This is actually a big movie for my friend Rocky, I remember seeing Manhattan and then going over to Rocky’s trailer at the trailer park (we weren’t making all that much money back in the day) and saying “let’s watch this” I remember Rocky being really impressed with Manhattan and going on and on about it, he of course, was right.
THE MOVIE: Woody Allen made ten years of slapstick, funny, but let’s be honest not THAT funny films, then the huge light-year leap forward with Annie Hall. Yes it is a fantastic film but I contend that Manhattan is an equally far jump forward. There is more emphasis on the drama, and that beautiful black and white photography. The lies people tell each other and the lies they tell themselves are all shown here and with great wit. It’s just like real relationships except I have never been that funny when someone is breaking up with me, well, I might have looked funny to other people but trust me it’s not the same thing.
THE RESULT: I gush about Woody Allen films all the time, except, you know, the last 13 films he made. But he had a great run for about 20 years there. So, go watch Manhattan already.
#4
RAVENOUS
BACKGROUND: It had to be about 1998, I went to a movie, and it was this one.
THE MOVIE: Guy Pearce plays a civil war solider that is sort of dishonored and sent to a remote camp with a bunch of screw ups in the mountains in new California. Robert Carlyle plays an army office who leads a small wagon train that winds up becoming a second Donner Party; Carlyle is the only survivor and wanders into camp. It turns out he ate all the other people and wants to keep eating people because it is his road to eternal youth and great strength.
Have you ever seen some strange, weird animal that everyone but YOU thought was strange. Something like a squid, or pug dog, or hairless cat, well, maybe not a hairless cat those things can’t be loved, it’s a scientific fact. Anyway, Ravenous is my ugly mutt that no one loves. ; <> Ravenous had problems from the start. In production they switched directors, then there was a flood that swept away half of the set, and all that wasn’t half as bad as the marketing. Ravenous had the largest drop of audience from opening week to second week of any movie EVER. I think since then that honor has been given to The Real Cancun. I think Ravenous does not deserve this, as a matter of fact I think Ravenous is a great film. Extremely well acted, with subtext about the consumption, greed and sense of entitlement that has grown in this country from the start. Alas, it was not the ‘right kind’ of gross out for the horror audience, and way too much raw carnage for the art house crowd.
THE RESULT: I’m a bitter bitter man who snarls at people whom happen to disagree with me. Art house crowd you are on notice, Ravenous is better than Life is Beautiful and has more to say about the human condition. You horror clone babies should watch something more challenging than Hostel, or the latest gorography flick, watch something good for once, and leave my puppy alone. Sniff…. Sniff….
#5
Network
BACKGROUND: 1991 or so, at my friend Rocky’s apartment with his nutty room mates and they were watching this film. I loved that place that we affectionately referred to as ‘The Palace’, it was not like a cozy warm place to hang out at. In fact it was the opposite of that, sort of strange and a little tense all the time, it was great. Anyhoo, they would watch a movie rarely and when they did it was not the typical movie for our age group.
THE MOVIE: A network anchor man gets fed up and starts to say what he feels. Famous for the line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”. Network is a satire of the media and the drive for ratings at any cost, released in 1976, at the time it probably seems a bit overblown, now it seems par for course. Super watchability.
THE RESULT: This was the first film I saw that was ‘old’ and was still sharp. A bunch of old actors I had never heard of: Peter Finch, William Holden, Robert Duvall, and an old people story about the media and I loved it. I had no idea, at the time that a movie that had not come out last week could still be good. Apparently if you have a great script, and good acting it doesn’t matter how old your film is, who knew?
But, on to the blog, the five films that really changed my perceptions of film and sometimes of life and you should go out and rent them right now. Do it for your country to it for yourself, you deserve it, you work hard and life is too short for bad films.
#1
Evil Dead II
BACKGROUND: Come back with me my friend. Come back to the late eighties, to a place in the mid-west, Nebraska to be specific. At this time in this place there was a video store called Applause Video. A store at the cutting edge of technology, not only did Applause carry VHS but they also rented the shockingly advanced BETA tapes. But this video world only had room for ONE format of tape and Beta was not it. Everyone on earth owned a VHS machine, everyone that is except my Dad. A smart consumer, my father did his research and found the technologically of the more advanced Beta machine to be the smart buy, a little reluctance to admit defeat, he owns said machine to this day, but I digress. Like a Rumsfeld after a landslide Democrat election, the Beta was doomed. Applause Video had a fire/obsolescence sale, all Beta tapes, only two dollars each. I bought about fifteen Beta tapes, throwing in Evil Dead and Evil Dead II as an afterthought, what the heck they were only two bucks a pop.
A few weeks later, my friend Ian was over and we watched the first Evil Dead movie. Average, pretty gory, but nothing special. Then we put in Evil Dead II.
THE MOVIE: While in film school, frequently, as we WERE in film school, the question of favorite, film, director, scene, ECT…. would come up. “Hal Hartley” one pretentious art student would say, “Hartley, he’s O.K. but Kieslowski with his Color trilogy is amazing” another film snob would pipe up. “The Evil Dead II is the best movie EVER” I would state with pure conviction. You see, I was ‘keeping’ in it real’. Hartley and Kieslowski are fantastic and I could write a whole entry on both of them but Evil Dead II was the first time I noticed the creative ways a person could use a camera, and I don’t mean in a porn way either.
The first Evil Dead is about a bunch of teen age kids who go to a cabin in the woods and awaken evil spirits who posses the living. Evil Dead II takes up where the last film left off: Ash, the only survivor from the first film basically re-lives the first film with a slightly bigger budget and a lot more ambition.
Watching Evil Dead for the first time was shockingly fun. I had no idea what I was in for. The character of Ash acts like one might in a horror movie. His first instinct is to get the hell out of there, that was cool; no one EVER acts like they SHOULD in horror movies. The evil spirits will not let him leave and chases his car. Once he hit the tree and got thrown threw the windshield, I thought he was done for, but Ash got up and started running, he runs into an unbeleveably, big on the inside, cabin. His hand gets infected with evil and he ends up cutting it off with a chainsaw while yelling “who’s laughing now!” That was my; “you had me at hello” moment. Or it might have been the fact he uses duct tape to bandage the hand. Really, it is the creative use of camera that got me started loving this film. The “monster”, for ninety percent of the film is POV shot of the monster, this same ‘monster’ shot was used later when Raimi worked with the Cohen Brothers on their crime masterpiece Blood Simple. There is a tight close-up shot that shoots out to the tops of the trees vie crane shot. This is not a deep film, there is NO subtext. What it is, is a wink, nudge, hugely creative, fun film. The first Evil Dead was very gory with a little humor, Evil Dead III or Army of Darkness has no gore and a ton of humor, but me and my friend Goldie Locks both agree Evil Dead II is just right.
THE RESULT: I went to film school
#2
Razor’s Edge
BACKGROUND: Had to be around 1990, my sister was dating a guy who read a bunch of philosophy books, he was quiet, intense, and all punk rock. He really liked this movie so I ended up watching it because in his quietness I always believed he was thinking something deep. Turns out he just didn’t know how to talk to people, go figure, but he turned me onto this film.
THE MOVIE: This version of the Razor’s Edge is a re-make of a 1950’s movie, which is an adaptation of a book, all by the same name. The film is about a man who is living in high society Britain, he enters into service in WWI, and has a life changing experience. When he comes back to his rich life style he puts off the high paying job to go figure out life. He works in a coal mine and eventually goes to India to speak with monks. When he comes back he tries to reconcile his new found spiritual beliefs with those of the very materialistic life he left.
This film was Bill Murray’s first venture into ‘serious’ film territory. Razor’s Edge bombed at the box office, putting off for years another attempt by Murray to try a role like this. The mind reels to think of what might have been if the movie had done well, Lost in Translation, and Broken Flowers would have to wait a scant ten years or so. I think his next movie after Razor’s Edge was Ghostbusters II.
Fun Fact: Duran Duran’s Wild Boys was on the soundtrack of this film. Mercifully it was only in the credit, still…… what the hell?!? Because I know when I think “1920’s melodrama about a man weighing the questions of existence, and enlightenment”, I think- Duran Duran.
THE RESULT: Aside from a very few attempts to shoehorn some Bill Murray ‘humor’ into a drama, this is a great film. I respect it just for taking a stab at something deeper than a wading pool, but not so deep as to loose the audience. This was the first film I saw that made me realize there was more to movie life than 16 candles and Die Hard. “Ahhhh Refreshing”
#3
MANHATTAN
BACKGROUND: Somewhere around 1992-93 I started getting into Woody Allen movies and since my co-blogger Brian, took Annie Hall, I get stuck with the ugly step-sister, Manhattan. This is actually a big movie for my friend Rocky, I remember seeing Manhattan and then going over to Rocky’s trailer at the trailer park (we weren’t making all that much money back in the day) and saying “let’s watch this” I remember Rocky being really impressed with Manhattan and going on and on about it, he of course, was right.
THE MOVIE: Woody Allen made ten years of slapstick, funny, but let’s be honest not THAT funny films, then the huge light-year leap forward with Annie Hall. Yes it is a fantastic film but I contend that Manhattan is an equally far jump forward. There is more emphasis on the drama, and that beautiful black and white photography. The lies people tell each other and the lies they tell themselves are all shown here and with great wit. It’s just like real relationships except I have never been that funny when someone is breaking up with me, well, I might have looked funny to other people but trust me it’s not the same thing.
THE RESULT: I gush about Woody Allen films all the time, except, you know, the last 13 films he made. But he had a great run for about 20 years there. So, go watch Manhattan already.
#4
RAVENOUS
BACKGROUND: It had to be about 1998, I went to a movie, and it was this one.
THE MOVIE: Guy Pearce plays a civil war solider that is sort of dishonored and sent to a remote camp with a bunch of screw ups in the mountains in new California. Robert Carlyle plays an army office who leads a small wagon train that winds up becoming a second Donner Party; Carlyle is the only survivor and wanders into camp. It turns out he ate all the other people and wants to keep eating people because it is his road to eternal youth and great strength.
Have you ever seen some strange, weird animal that everyone but YOU thought was strange. Something like a squid, or pug dog, or hairless cat, well, maybe not a hairless cat those things can’t be loved, it’s a scientific fact. Anyway, Ravenous is my ugly mutt that no one loves. ; <> Ravenous had problems from the start. In production they switched directors, then there was a flood that swept away half of the set, and all that wasn’t half as bad as the marketing. Ravenous had the largest drop of audience from opening week to second week of any movie EVER. I think since then that honor has been given to The Real Cancun. I think Ravenous does not deserve this, as a matter of fact I think Ravenous is a great film. Extremely well acted, with subtext about the consumption, greed and sense of entitlement that has grown in this country from the start. Alas, it was not the ‘right kind’ of gross out for the horror audience, and way too much raw carnage for the art house crowd.
THE RESULT: I’m a bitter bitter man who snarls at people whom happen to disagree with me. Art house crowd you are on notice, Ravenous is better than Life is Beautiful and has more to say about the human condition. You horror clone babies should watch something more challenging than Hostel, or the latest gorography flick, watch something good for once, and leave my puppy alone. Sniff…. Sniff….
#5
Network
BACKGROUND: 1991 or so, at my friend Rocky’s apartment with his nutty room mates and they were watching this film. I loved that place that we affectionately referred to as ‘The Palace’, it was not like a cozy warm place to hang out at. In fact it was the opposite of that, sort of strange and a little tense all the time, it was great. Anyhoo, they would watch a movie rarely and when they did it was not the typical movie for our age group.
THE MOVIE: A network anchor man gets fed up and starts to say what he feels. Famous for the line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”. Network is a satire of the media and the drive for ratings at any cost, released in 1976, at the time it probably seems a bit overblown, now it seems par for course. Super watchability.
THE RESULT: This was the first film I saw that was ‘old’ and was still sharp. A bunch of old actors I had never heard of: Peter Finch, William Holden, Robert Duvall, and an old people story about the media and I loved it. I had no idea, at the time that a movie that had not come out last week could still be good. Apparently if you have a great script, and good acting it doesn’t matter how old your film is, who knew?
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Movies That Fucked Me Up- The Top 5... no, 6! (arrgh)
In order to stretch our blogging muscles and get a few entries under our belt, I'm gonna try another Top 5 List. I know this runs the danger of making us a High Fidelity knock-off, but I laugh in the face of cliché. Besides, nobody's reading us so it's not like we're pissing everybody off- that's for later.
Today, I want to lay out the movies that Fucked Me Up. I'm not talking about gross-out flicks or movies that sport The Usual Suspects-style plot twists. I'm talking about movies that seized my Expectations, nailed them against the wall and slapped them around. That's right. These movies knocked me out of the Tree of the Mainstream and showed me there was more to movies than bullwhip-wielding archeologists, aliens in the suburbs, or romantic comedies where pretty women mate with men too witty to survive Real Life.
NOTE: I kinda fucked up and wrote descriptions for six movies instead of five and now I can't bear to part with any of them. So, you're stuck with a bonus film... lucky you.
#6... no, 5 (ack!)
Desperate Living
Background: No matter how many movies a person watches, he'll never see them all. I read a profile on Quentin Tarantino and the gazillion movies that he's watched at the rate of something like 3 or 4 a day. It's no frigging wonder that his movies are references-of-references-of-references nowadays. His daily exposure to Real Life has got to be about 15 minutes, tops. I gave up trying to be the Film Know-It-All. It's too damn exhausting. I haven't watched more than a couple Fellini films. I never "completed" Scorsese by tracking down a copy of Boxcar Bertha. I still haven't seen Pandora's Box. So, there. Deal with it.
Until a couple years ago, I hadn't watched a single John Waters film except Pink Flamingos-- the perfunctory, shock-film that every first-year, film student has to watch the second he moves away from his parents. A friend of mine gasped in horror when I confessed this dirty little secret and immediately lent me every DVD of John Waters that he owned.
The Movie: The John Waters film that rocked the hardest was Desperate Living. Made five years after the infamous Pink Flamingos, this movie feels almost relaxed in its offensiveness. This is, perhaps, the most quotable movie on the planet. Where else could one possibly hope to find such memorable lines as "Go home to your mother! Doesn't she ever want you? Tell her this isn't some communist daycare center! Tell your mother I hate her! Tell your mother I hate you!" The opening credits are over the serving of a cooked rat on a dinner platter. One character cuts of his/her penis with a pair of scissors. As for the Queen Charlotta... well, I don't want to spoil it for you.
What it Did: Desperate Living blew me away because of how comfortable and casual John Waters' ensemble cast pull it all off. Fuck Sid & Nancy. This movie IS Punk- absolute freedom. This movie looks like the most fun a filmmaker could hope to have with no budget (a.k.a. every film I've ever made). It felt like I was peeking in on this degenerate ensemble of misfit filmmakers having the time of their lives... and I longed to be a part of it.
#5
Nashville
Background: This film came in the end of my film school years. About this time, my fellow students and I were scampering along the streets of Iowa City with a Bolex in one hand and a Nagra recorder in the other. We were blowing wads of cash on film processing and learning the fundamentals of filmmaking. We learned how it's standard practice to start a scene with an establishing shot, then shot/reverse shot setups and a medium shot for transitions. As for sound editing, the One Thing you didn't want was overlapping dialogue- you can't get consistent volume levels, it limits your editing options, etc.
The Movie: Robert Altman throws 13 main characters into the city of Nashville. Characters talk over one another. Long, establishing shots are held through entire scenes. An audience often has to decide which conversation to listen to, then filter it from the one or two other conversations going on at the same time. The story had characters wandering from one meeting/party/encounter to another with no, clear, establishing incident or rising tension. Only the drama of Barbara Jean's nervous breakdown tried to carry an escalating plot.
What it Did: Showed me that I'd wasted a ridiculous amount of money on film school. Here's your film school, right here-- 1) Story dictates style, 2)Look at the world around you 3)Now, go make a movie - $20,000, please. I've watched this movie a dozen times and gotten something different out of it Every Time.
#4
Annie Hall
Background: Any movie nominated for an Academy Award should be automatically disqualified from this list, but fuck it. Before Annie Hall, I had seen Bananas, Sleepers, and Take the Money and Run so this might explain why I was completely confused when the the pratfall guy in glasses suddenly started talking like an adult.
The Movie: Best-written movie. ever. It's staggering to believe that the man who wrote this was the same person who befouled celluloid with The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Annie Hall is a staggering series of narrative rule-breaking. Alvie Singer (Woody Allen) steps in and out of the narrative. He talks to other characters (in and out of the context of the scene) . He speaks directly to the camera. He effortlessly switches from present tense to past, then back again. He takes characters on tours of his character's memories. He's all over the fucking place and even falls into animation for one scene. This is the Unteachable Script. It violates just about every rule of screenwriting and Sensible Filmmaking.
What it Did: There are great novels and plays out there and better overall films, but there is no equal from a writing standpoint. If one's passion is strong enough, all the rules can go fuck themselves. This is a singular effort of vision. I don't care if he married his step-daughter and tanked his career in the late 90s-- this is a Great movie.
#3
Trainspotting
Background: I was living in Los Angeles at the time and I was dreaming of being the next Hal Ashby/Orson Welles/Kurosawa (I was young). This was a couple years after Pulp Fiction when Hollywood was in the midst of an embarrassing attempt to replicate the coolness of Pulp Fiction (Tarantino included), but what they were producing was pap next to this.
The Movie: It's slickly-made, has a perfect-- and APPROPRIATE-- soundtrack, and the best opening sequence in cinema. Ewan McGregor could do nothing but shitty films the rest of his career (Star Wars what?) and I would still admire the fuck out of him. Irvine Welsh's novel is brilliant, but I don't know what crazy fuck thought that it could be made into a movie-- thick, Scottish accents, drug abuse, AIDS, underage sex, and a baby death. And the movie still manages to end with something resembling a happy ending. Are you fucking kidding me? Robert Carlyle's turn as Begbie is as good as it gets.
What it Did: Made me realize that I was in the wrong fucking country for making movies. It tore through innumerable clichés of drug abuse by showing druggies as people, why they do heroin and why the fuck they would keep doing it. It put four fantastic actors and a great novel on my radar and showed me that even the most insufferable characters are likable if you've got the right actor and a personal-enough story. I could sit down and watch this movie Any Time/Any Day. It's hardwired to my film sensibility, now.
#2
Liquid Sky
Background: I watched this movie at the Bijou Theater- the University of Iowa's tiny, movie theater and the polar-opposite environment of this movie. I went because I liked the name of the title but stayed for an absolute head-fuck, particularly for a film student who was living in the heart of the American Midwest.
The Movie: There's nothing like a transsexual, NYC, early-80's, science fiction film directed by a Russian filmmaker to fire the imagination. Liquid Sky is one of those typical, underground movies that wallows in it's terrible plot and odd characters but works because there's something real, pushing beneath the surface and making it come together. It also has the best lesbian rape scene ever.
What it did: It floored me to realize that there was this amazing, dark, heroin-based, music culture in New York City that I'd heard nothing about and a it took a movie like this to show it to me. The acting is terrible, the special effects are laughable, but it got made. The sucker got made. It was also sported the angriest, most-nihilistic characters I'd ever seen. Unlike John Waters' menagerie of Cult, I found that I DIDN'T want to join this group of bitter folks, but I loved to watch.
#1
Requiem for a Dream
Background: I had just moved to New York City and was eager to see a film that took place near my new home. I remember thinking, "Oh, cool! It takes place in Coney Island- that's at the end of my subway line here in Brooklyn! It's from that guy who did Pi and has that hottie from Labyrinth! This should be fun!"
The Movie: If Lou Reed wrote a crystal meth version of "Heroin", set it to the musical cacophony of Oasis's "Champagne Supernova" then convinced Iggy Pop to perform it, then that would be a musical equivalent to this movie. It is brutal, unrelenting, and incredibly-written. Jennifer Connelly pulled a performance that's on par with McGregor's in Trainspotting. When she goes to see Big Tim (Keith David) and he gives her the line "I know it's purty baby, but I didn't take it out for air", you can feel the bottom drop out. Ellen Burstyn is the engine that drives this baby, though, and she pushes it hard and right off the cliff.
What it Did: This is a Breen-era, cautionary tale with no brakes and no censorship. It's a tale with virtually no hope from the beginning, then it gets worse, and I couldn't stop watching it. I still pull it out just to watch some of the phenomenal scenes. I was one of the first to buy it on DVD, but I've never been able to watch it a second time in one sitting. Not since Schindler's List have I seen a movie that I enjoyed more yet never wanted to see again.
Today, I want to lay out the movies that Fucked Me Up. I'm not talking about gross-out flicks or movies that sport The Usual Suspects-style plot twists. I'm talking about movies that seized my Expectations, nailed them against the wall and slapped them around. That's right. These movies knocked me out of the Tree of the Mainstream and showed me there was more to movies than bullwhip-wielding archeologists, aliens in the suburbs, or romantic comedies where pretty women mate with men too witty to survive Real Life.
NOTE: I kinda fucked up and wrote descriptions for six movies instead of five and now I can't bear to part with any of them. So, you're stuck with a bonus film... lucky you.
#6... no, 5 (ack!)
Desperate Living
Background: No matter how many movies a person watches, he'll never see them all. I read a profile on Quentin Tarantino and the gazillion movies that he's watched at the rate of something like 3 or 4 a day. It's no frigging wonder that his movies are references-of-references-of-references nowadays. His daily exposure to Real Life has got to be about 15 minutes, tops. I gave up trying to be the Film Know-It-All. It's too damn exhausting. I haven't watched more than a couple Fellini films. I never "completed" Scorsese by tracking down a copy of Boxcar Bertha. I still haven't seen Pandora's Box. So, there. Deal with it.Until a couple years ago, I hadn't watched a single John Waters film except Pink Flamingos-- the perfunctory, shock-film that every first-year, film student has to watch the second he moves away from his parents. A friend of mine gasped in horror when I confessed this dirty little secret and immediately lent me every DVD of John Waters that he owned.
The Movie: The John Waters film that rocked the hardest was Desperate Living. Made five years after the infamous Pink Flamingos, this movie feels almost relaxed in its offensiveness. This is, perhaps, the most quotable movie on the planet. Where else could one possibly hope to find such memorable lines as "Go home to your mother! Doesn't she ever want you? Tell her this isn't some communist daycare center! Tell your mother I hate her! Tell your mother I hate you!" The opening credits are over the serving of a cooked rat on a dinner platter. One character cuts of his/her penis with a pair of scissors. As for the Queen Charlotta... well, I don't want to spoil it for you.
What it Did: Desperate Living blew me away because of how comfortable and casual John Waters' ensemble cast pull it all off. Fuck Sid & Nancy. This movie IS Punk- absolute freedom. This movie looks like the most fun a filmmaker could hope to have with no budget (a.k.a. every film I've ever made). It felt like I was peeking in on this degenerate ensemble of misfit filmmakers having the time of their lives... and I longed to be a part of it.#5
Nashville
Background: This film came in the end of my film school years. About this time, my fellow students and I were scampering along the streets of Iowa City with a Bolex in one hand and a Nagra recorder in the other. We were blowing wads of cash on film processing and learning the fundamentals of filmmaking. We learned how it's standard practice to start a scene with an establishing shot, then shot/reverse shot setups and a medium shot for transitions. As for sound editing, the One Thing you didn't want was overlapping dialogue- you can't get consistent volume levels, it limits your editing options, etc.
The Movie: Robert Altman throws 13 main characters into the city of Nashville. Characters talk over one another. Long, establishing shots are held through entire scenes. An audience often has to decide which conversation to listen to, then filter it from the one or two other conversations going on at the same time. The story had characters wandering from one meeting/party/encounter to another with no, clear, establishing incident or rising tension. Only the drama of Barbara Jean's nervous breakdown tried to carry an escalating plot.
What it Did: Showed me that I'd wasted a ridiculous amount of money on film school. Here's your film school, right here-- 1) Story dictates style, 2)Look at the world around you 3)Now, go make a movie - $20,000, please. I've watched this movie a dozen times and gotten something different out of it Every Time.#4
Annie Hall
Background: Any movie nominated for an Academy Award should be automatically disqualified from this list, but fuck it. Before Annie Hall, I had seen Bananas, Sleepers, and Take the Money and Run so this might explain why I was completely confused when the the pratfall guy in glasses suddenly started talking like an adult.
The Movie: Best-written movie. ever. It's staggering to believe that the man who wrote this was the same person who befouled celluloid with The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Annie Hall is a staggering series of narrative rule-breaking. Alvie Singer (Woody Allen) steps in and out of the narrative. He talks to other characters (in and out of the context of the scene) . He speaks directly to the camera. He effortlessly switches from present tense to past, then back again. He takes characters on tours of his character's memories. He's all over the fucking place and even falls into animation for one scene. This is the Unteachable Script. It violates just about every rule of screenwriting and Sensible Filmmaking.
What it Did: There are great novels and plays out there and better overall films, but there is no equal from a writing standpoint. If one's passion is strong enough, all the rules can go fuck themselves. This is a singular effort of vision. I don't care if he married his step-daughter and tanked his career in the late 90s-- this is a Great movie.#3
Trainspotting
Background: I was living in Los Angeles at the time and I was dreaming of being the next Hal Ashby/Orson Welles/Kurosawa (I was young). This was a couple years after Pulp Fiction when Hollywood was in the midst of an embarrassing attempt to replicate the coolness of Pulp Fiction (Tarantino included), but what they were producing was pap next to this.
The Movie: It's slickly-made, has a perfect-- and APPROPRIATE-- soundtrack, and the best opening sequence in cinema. Ewan McGregor could do nothing but shitty films the rest of his career (Star Wars what?) and I would still admire the fuck out of him. Irvine Welsh's novel is brilliant, but I don't know what crazy fuck thought that it could be made into a movie-- thick, Scottish accents, drug abuse, AIDS, underage sex, and a baby death. And the movie still manages to end with something resembling a happy ending. Are you fucking kidding me? Robert Carlyle's turn as Begbie is as good as it gets.
What it Did: Made me realize that I was in the wrong fucking country for making movies. It tore through innumerable clichés of drug abuse by showing druggies as people, why they do heroin and why the fuck they would keep doing it. It put four fantastic actors and a great novel on my radar and showed me that even the most insufferable characters are likable if you've got the right actor and a personal-enough story. I could sit down and watch this movie Any Time/Any Day. It's hardwired to my film sensibility, now.
Liquid Sky
Background: I watched this movie at the Bijou Theater- the University of Iowa's tiny, movie theater and the polar-opposite environment of this movie. I went because I liked the name of the title but stayed for an absolute head-fuck, particularly for a film student who was living in the heart of the American Midwest.
The Movie: There's nothing like a transsexual, NYC, early-80's, science fiction film directed by a Russian filmmaker to fire the imagination. Liquid Sky is one of those typical, underground movies that wallows in it's terrible plot and odd characters but works because there's something real, pushing beneath the surface and making it come together. It also has the best lesbian rape scene ever.
What it did: It floored me to realize that there was this amazing, dark, heroin-based, music culture in New York City that I'd heard nothing about and a it took a movie like this to show it to me. The acting is terrible, the special effects are laughable, but it got made. The sucker got made. It was also sported the angriest, most-nihilistic characters I'd ever seen. Unlike John Waters' menagerie of Cult, I found that I DIDN'T want to join this group of bitter folks, but I loved to watch.#1
Requiem for a Dream
Background: I had just moved to New York City and was eager to see a film that took place near my new home. I remember thinking, "Oh, cool! It takes place in Coney Island- that's at the end of my subway line here in Brooklyn! It's from that guy who did Pi and has that hottie from Labyrinth! This should be fun!"
The Movie: If Lou Reed wrote a crystal meth version of "Heroin", set it to the musical cacophony of Oasis's "Champagne Supernova" then convinced Iggy Pop to perform it, then that would be a musical equivalent to this movie. It is brutal, unrelenting, and incredibly-written. Jennifer Connelly pulled a performance that's on par with McGregor's in Trainspotting. When she goes to see Big Tim (Keith David) and he gives her the line "I know it's purty baby, but I didn't take it out for air", you can feel the bottom drop out. Ellen Burstyn is the engine that drives this baby, though, and she pushes it hard and right off the cliff.
What it Did: This is a Breen-era, cautionary tale with no brakes and no censorship. It's a tale with virtually no hope from the beginning, then it gets worse, and I couldn't stop watching it. I still pull it out just to watch some of the phenomenal scenes. I was one of the first to buy it on DVD, but I've never been able to watch it a second time in one sitting. Not since Schindler's List have I seen a movie that I enjoyed more yet never wanted to see again.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
4 Relationship Hurting Games and 1 Savior
My Co-blogger has gone through his past of game playing and it plays out very much like my own. I am amazed to see the name Zork after all of these years. My God, did we really play an all text game!
I think Brian has tapped into a topic that is little covered in the news. How many of us have relationships that are strained just because we only want to get to the next level? I am up to the challenge to name such games.
Relationship and Games for better or worse: For Better:1 For Worse:4
#4
GIANTS
This is a fun arcade style game where you play some sort of outer space humanoid cat in a space suit with a British accent. It is creative with good game play and very funny. Actually I never got in much trouble over this one. It is timed out pretty well and the obsessive factor is only medium. But, Brian had five and even with this one I only have four so I had to fill out my list a little and it's a great game so pick it up. Plus I only got in trouble for playing it like once or twice, and that was really because of some other stupid thing I did.
#3
ANY FIRST PERSON SHOOTER
"No One Lives Forever", Return To Castle Wolfenstien", "Quake Arena","the new DOOM", Metal Of Honor", "Call Of Duty", "Red Faction". I could go on but then I start to have a real sense of self realization about the time I have wasted playing these things and I start to feel a little sick.
Be it space alien, Nazi scum, or shambling zombie, and SOMETIMES Shambling Nazi zombie scum, (someday they will finally have a Nazi space zombie, and the world will be complete) I love to shoot them all with a big gun. I have wasted more time feeling like I'm saving the world than actually doing anything at all . My wife may say "Craig it's a beautiful day why don't we go outside and read while we sit in the hammock." to which I respond "Honey, as we speak there are Nazis trying to bring the dead back to life, France has already fallen under their iron fist. It is my responsibility, neh my DUTY to kill Nazi scum today, Hammock be damned!" She shrugs, with a slight rolling of the eyes, and gos outside.
What she does not understand is that I am a man of variety when it comes to these games, a Renaissance man if you will. Sometime I come home and I need to kill aliens with the plasma canon, or maybe it's time to stay back from your enemy and go the way of the sniper, and every now and then but not often you just have to see how far you can get with that stupid knife they defaulted you with at the start of the game (not very far, in case you were wondering). One of the big problems with these games is not only am I not doing anything but I'm not learning anything either. Brian may have amassed a huge amount of useless statistics but he is also a wiz with computers in general. i.e. he got this blog going, he build a computer, or more to the point he put the covers of the games he played on his list next to their number. Just getting into this blog and making this post was a huge challenge for me, akin to a dog licking peanut butter off the roof of its mouth. Sure, the dog can do it, but it takes a LONG time, it's frustrating and it looks funny. Well, I made my titles red so there. Other than that I won WWII and saved the universe a bunch, but not really.
#2
BALDUR'S GATE
O.K. so I can be cheap. see, thrifty. I don't really keep up with the current games. It is my only real discipline, by now owning a game I will not play that game. But, if I can buy a game that has been out for years it's really cheap, but then of course I play it and that is where the problem is.
Baldur's Gate is a dungeon's and Dragons adventure game. Form a party kill monsters go on quests. I get caught up in checking out the game world. So many things to get your group, so many places to go and I'll just check out one more thing. Once the wife has told me she is going to bed I know I have about thirty minutes of good faith game play left. As in, if I am in bed half an hour, after she has told me she is going to bed everything is fine. If I push it to one hour, it's still O.K. but there is a distinct chill in the air. So, when I started playing Baldur's Gate and my wife told me she was hitting the sack. I said "I'll be down in a bit." Five hours later I learned that five hours is not "a bit". I can play first person shooters for a while now and then put them down. The same thing can not be said for Baldur's Gate. Damn you Baldur's Gate I shake my tiny fist of rage in your general direction.
#1
GRAND THEFT AUTO III
This time sucking, relationship hurting game was made by a pack of divorce lawyers and marriage counselors who needed to drum up some biz. How dare they make a game so cool. And the wife does not understand. I played this game so much at a friends house one night that when I drove home I started to think "I bet those light poles will snap right off if I hit them with the car, hmmmm". I spent a whole hour flipping my car off the top of a parking garage just to see how far I could get, then taking different cars, trucks, buses up and jumping them off the edge too. I have abandon the mission of the game altogether and spent hours just going on a kill crazy rampage. Yelling over to my wife "Hey, check this out I'm going to shoot this guys leg off", and they say there is no more romance left in the world. Yes, I have to say GTAIII is my number one. They are all great games so please, if you want to stop enjoying real relationships with real people and blow off the many wonders and mysteries of this amazing world we live in, go and buy any of these and start your path to eye strain bliss.
#1
TIGER WOODS GOLF
My brother-in-law has this game on his system. I'm not sure what sister it is. PlayStation or something. This is the best game in the world. I don't even care about golf, but is is pure fun squeezed into a game. It is fun to play alone, but here is why it is in the "for better" category, it is a blast to play with other people too. Four people can play at a time. My wife loves to play it, THAT is how fun it is. a game with four takes about an hour and half, so bring on the cheese dip, get that case of beer, lets play golf. This game is a god send to people who like to game but are tired of trying to get their equal opposites into their game. Game on.
I think Brian has tapped into a topic that is little covered in the news. How many of us have relationships that are strained just because we only want to get to the next level? I am up to the challenge to name such games.
Relationship and Games for better or worse: For Better:1 For Worse:4
#4
GIANTS
This is a fun arcade style game where you play some sort of outer space humanoid cat in a space suit with a British accent. It is creative with good game play and very funny. Actually I never got in much trouble over this one. It is timed out pretty well and the obsessive factor is only medium. But, Brian had five and even with this one I only have four so I had to fill out my list a little and it's a great game so pick it up. Plus I only got in trouble for playing it like once or twice, and that was really because of some other stupid thing I did.
#3
ANY FIRST PERSON SHOOTER
"No One Lives Forever", Return To Castle Wolfenstien", "Quake Arena","the new DOOM", Metal Of Honor", "Call Of Duty", "Red Faction". I could go on but then I start to have a real sense of self realization about the time I have wasted playing these things and I start to feel a little sick.
Be it space alien, Nazi scum, or shambling zombie, and SOMETIMES Shambling Nazi zombie scum, (someday they will finally have a Nazi space zombie, and the world will be complete) I love to shoot them all with a big gun. I have wasted more time feeling like I'm saving the world than actually doing anything at all . My wife may say "Craig it's a beautiful day why don't we go outside and read while we sit in the hammock." to which I respond "Honey, as we speak there are Nazis trying to bring the dead back to life, France has already fallen under their iron fist. It is my responsibility, neh my DUTY to kill Nazi scum today, Hammock be damned!" She shrugs, with a slight rolling of the eyes, and gos outside.
What she does not understand is that I am a man of variety when it comes to these games, a Renaissance man if you will. Sometime I come home and I need to kill aliens with the plasma canon, or maybe it's time to stay back from your enemy and go the way of the sniper, and every now and then but not often you just have to see how far you can get with that stupid knife they defaulted you with at the start of the game (not very far, in case you were wondering). One of the big problems with these games is not only am I not doing anything but I'm not learning anything either. Brian may have amassed a huge amount of useless statistics but he is also a wiz with computers in general. i.e. he got this blog going, he build a computer, or more to the point he put the covers of the games he played on his list next to their number. Just getting into this blog and making this post was a huge challenge for me, akin to a dog licking peanut butter off the roof of its mouth. Sure, the dog can do it, but it takes a LONG time, it's frustrating and it looks funny. Well, I made my titles red so there. Other than that I won WWII and saved the universe a bunch, but not really.
#2
BALDUR'S GATE
O.K. so I can be cheap. see, thrifty. I don't really keep up with the current games. It is my only real discipline, by now owning a game I will not play that game. But, if I can buy a game that has been out for years it's really cheap, but then of course I play it and that is where the problem is.
Baldur's Gate is a dungeon's and Dragons adventure game. Form a party kill monsters go on quests. I get caught up in checking out the game world. So many things to get your group, so many places to go and I'll just check out one more thing. Once the wife has told me she is going to bed I know I have about thirty minutes of good faith game play left. As in, if I am in bed half an hour, after she has told me she is going to bed everything is fine. If I push it to one hour, it's still O.K. but there is a distinct chill in the air. So, when I started playing Baldur's Gate and my wife told me she was hitting the sack. I said "I'll be down in a bit." Five hours later I learned that five hours is not "a bit". I can play first person shooters for a while now and then put them down. The same thing can not be said for Baldur's Gate. Damn you Baldur's Gate I shake my tiny fist of rage in your general direction.
#1
GRAND THEFT AUTO III
This time sucking, relationship hurting game was made by a pack of divorce lawyers and marriage counselors who needed to drum up some biz. How dare they make a game so cool. And the wife does not understand. I played this game so much at a friends house one night that when I drove home I started to think "I bet those light poles will snap right off if I hit them with the car, hmmmm". I spent a whole hour flipping my car off the top of a parking garage just to see how far I could get, then taking different cars, trucks, buses up and jumping them off the edge too. I have abandon the mission of the game altogether and spent hours just going on a kill crazy rampage. Yelling over to my wife "Hey, check this out I'm going to shoot this guys leg off", and they say there is no more romance left in the world. Yes, I have to say GTAIII is my number one. They are all great games so please, if you want to stop enjoying real relationships with real people and blow off the many wonders and mysteries of this amazing world we live in, go and buy any of these and start your path to eye strain bliss.
#1
TIGER WOODS GOLF
My brother-in-law has this game on his system. I'm not sure what sister it is. PlayStation or something. This is the best game in the world. I don't even care about golf, but is is pure fun squeezed into a game. It is fun to play alone, but here is why it is in the "for better" category, it is a blast to play with other people too. Four people can play at a time. My wife loves to play it, THAT is how fun it is. a game with four takes about an hour and half, so bring on the cheese dip, get that case of beer, lets play golf. This game is a god send to people who like to game but are tired of trying to get their equal opposites into their game. Game on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
