January 2010
53 posts
The 20 Greatest Extended Takes in Movie History
Courtesy of GeekWeek.
One of my faves is from Children of Men (spoiler alert, don’t watch if you have yet to watch this brilliant film).
Hollywood celeb sighting
Anna Paquin and her True Blood boyfriend.
Meh.
iPad
INITIAL THOUGHTS
- Not a particularly cool name.
- NO CAMERA?!?!? The $149 iPod Nano has a widescreen video camera. The iPhone has a camera. My mom’s clamshell Sprint phone has a camera. WTF?
- I understand the iPhone OS is the coolest thing since sliced bread, but that sure does look like a lot of unused space up there.
- 3G data on AT&T’s network? Their coverage for...
Small world
Fun little story…. last night after the awards, we went over to a local sports bar to watch the end of the thrilling Vikes/Saints game. There weren’t many people there, but one person who was hanging with us we had met at the festival. He was there with It’s Just A Game, the winning short documentary about violence in youth sports.
His name is Uwe von Schamann. He was the...
It's crap!
Kevs pointed me to this clever ad for The Pump NYC.
Other people's eyes
So, just landed in DFW, and for the first time in my life, I took a cab from there to my parents’ house (hey, I’m an adult, and they both work).
Anyhow… riding through my childhood neighborhood in a cab made me think of something: have you ever tried to look at your childhood town/’hood through someone else’s eyes? I mean, these streets are so familiar to me,...
27,000ft Post
And so here is my first blog post from a plane.
3 tags
Movie Review
THE PROPOSAL
The first of the two films that made 2009 “The Year Of Sandra Bullock”. Sandra’s still pretty cute and all, and of course Ryan Reynolds is Canada’s Greatest Gift®, but you can guess the entire film from the trailer. We’ve seen it before, we know it’s coming. Maybe that’s why movies like this are made: for people who want no surprises,...
“did the poor obamanator lose some power due to this???? sweeeeeeeet….so...”
– This was a comment I just saw on someone’s Facebook status regarding Scott Brown winning in Mass. I get that the polarization of the political rhetoric has been high for years, but regardless of whether you think it costs too much, or it’s a states’ rights issue, or...
3 tags
Movie Review
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS
This feels like the result of the new animation “machine”: clever, contemporary, silly and busy enough for the kids, with some funny timing and jokes for the adults. Of that particular genre, it’s an okay film. It gets REALLY absurd by the end, but on its own, it’s okay.
The disappointing part is that the book it’s based on is...
Sooooo cooool.....
Check this site, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. It has a microphone down below the Antarctic ice, and is streaming it live on the web. It’s fascinating to listen to, partly because holy shit, you’re listening to live audio from underneath the Antarctic ice, but also because… just wow. A lot of what you’re hearing are the sounds of the...
New York on film
Just watched the 2-hour premiere of 24. Aside from the usual heavy-handedness of the start of every 24 season (the writers always feel the need to plant every eventual subplot’s seed in the first 2 hours. Sooooo much exposition), I can tell what’s really gonna annoy me this season (assuming it remains on the DVR list at all).
I was actually thrilled when I heard that Season 8 of the...
Well shit....
Cowboys: straight-up outplayed by the Vikes’ defensive line and the hands of Sidney Rice.
Movie Review
STATE OF PLAY
A perfect Saturday afternoon political thriller. Absolutely of its genre: twists, intrigue, corruption, danger, sex, current affairs relevance (private security (i.e. Blackwater), the “selling” of the news). Tony Gilroy (who was one of three credited writers on the script) sure does seem to have his hands on every complex political thriller in Hollywood right now. ...
Agreed
My latest happy song. Try to listen to it without...
3 tags
Movie Review
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS
This is one of those Terry Gilliam films that is so fantastical, so over-the-top with visual wonderment…. as to lose its grounding almost completely. While there are some great moments and performances (including a hilarious Andrew Garfield), and the visuals are wonder-full, Gilliam doesn’t seem to share the “rules” of his world...
Dear AT&T
Don’t worry about absolute shit coverage in Union Square. No one goes there anyway.
3 tags
Movie Review
BIG FAN
Watch the trailer, and that’s the movie. That’s it. This is one of those indie films that just has no pulse. They’re filming “what happens”, and done. There’s no real arc or complexity to the story. There’s a progression of events, but the events are simple and unengaging (frustrating, even, at times). Oswalt is fine in the role, but...
Not mon dieu
Religious ass-clown Pat Robertson has already blamed this horrible earthquake on the fact that the Haitians made a pact with the devil to be free from French rule.
Given his past statements about Katrina and the like, Robertson’s God sure is a petty, insecure, vindictive, immature, ego-maniacal 6-year old little shit.
(Full disclosure: I’m a straight-up atheist)
3 tags
Movie Review
IN THE LOOP
What a fantastic, dense, rich, hilarious, brilliant script. And the irreverent, ironic style of British comedy fits so well with the selling of the Iraq war. This film captures the spin, cynicism, power plays, egos, and hypocrisy of Washington and Downing Street in the selling of the war with such a fine hand, it’s just a joy to watch (and at times sobering when you think...
Prop 8 and such.....
When you step back and think that pretty much the government’s main involvement in the marriage between two people is to bind them in a legal contract, doesn’t it become even more dubious and unconstitutional to allow these people over here to enter into said contract, but not these people over here? There’s a sacred “contract”, too, in some marriages, but the...
3 tags
Movie Review
TAKING WOODSTOCK
Ang Lee fascinates me. He seems to be trying to make every type of movie possible. Costume drama (Sense & Sensibility), bleak drama (The Ice Storm), Western (Ride With The Devil), fighting flick (Crouching Tiger…), superhero movie (Hulk), gay cowboy movie (Brokeback Mountain), and soon, modern literary adaptation (the fantastic book “Life of Pi”). ...
3 tags
Movie Review
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE
There’s something so wonderful (and I mean that in the true, wonder-inducing way) about Hayao Miyazaki’s films. His attention to detail is fantastic, especially for the time-intensive medium of hand-drawn animation. The slow turn of a head, the settling of a sack of potatoes, the absent-minded straightening of an apron. It’s small stuff that...
Walk it
Can someone please tell me why we’re letting the MTA get away with the following shenanigans?
At the 59th Street Station on the 4/5/6 line, the announcement always says, “…. Transfer is also available to the F-train by walking to the 63rd Street Station and using your Metrocard.” Well no shit. Transfer is available to the 1-train by walking the length of Central Park...
Whew.
C’mon Cowboys. Please.
3 tags
Movie Review
WORLD’S GREATEST DAD
This bizarre dark comedy from writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait stars Robin Williams as a failed writer with a douchebag for a young son. I enjoyed it, despite the fact that it doesn’t feel like it knows what it is. Strike that, it knows what it is, and runs with it, jumping around within many subtle genres: dark comedy (a la Election), perverted sex comedy,...
Steeeaaaaak
I just made my best steak yet (I’m not a cook, for those of you who don’t know me)…
Marinated the one-inch thick New York cut for 5 hours in worcestershire, tobasco, whiskey, and a little Italian dressing. Salt, pepper and garlic. Baked it with TONZ of butter.
So. Good.
3 tags
Movie Review
IT MIGHT GET LOUD
There’s a voyeuristic fun that comes with watching this documentary. Jack White, Jimmy Page, and The Edge get together to talk about the electric guitar. While the film is billed as a sort of history of the instrument, it tells that history through each artist’s inspirations. Page’s youth as a guitarist-for-hire, the effects of the simple chords (and...
PS3 Owners.....
Most. Kickass. Game. Ever.
Resolved.....
Here’s what I plan to do in 2010. These are in no particular order.
- Finish my latest feature script, currently in its 4th draft.
- Finish my full length play, 1st draft written last Feb. Get it produced (at least workshopped) here in NYC.
- Make at least two short films, full-up (as in not the smaller scale Tall & Skinny stuff we’ve been doing).
- Produce my first feature...
More Movies
So, last year’s Movie of the Day “experiment”, as I said, was a fun success. And while I’m going to continue to watch tons of movies - several per week - and review them briefly here, I’m not going to be doing a straight-up movie-per-day. Hopefully that news doesn’t devastate you.
I have some New Year’s Resolutions (which I’ll share with you here...
