Bleeding Fiction

I went and saw Kevin Smith's new movie Jersey Girl last night. It was a pretty big departure from his earlier movies, which has a lot of people grumbling. Big fuckin' deal.

First, straight up, this movie is a romantic comedy. Not social commentary or satire, not 80's-style teen hijinks film. Romantic comedy. It's different in a lot of ways from most other romantic comedies, but at the core that's what the movie is. If you don't like those, you won't like Jersey Girl. If you do, then you probably will. I loved it.

I loved Liv Tyler because... well, because I love Liv Tyler. She's cute as all hell. Not hot or gorgeous or stunning or elegant, though at times she may be any of those things. She's just cute. And she wrinkles her nose when she smiles.

I loved Ben Affleck because the fact of the matter is that the dude's just charming. He's not an action star, so screw Reindeer Games. Screw Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears and Daredevil. He's not the most normal guy on the planet, so screw his screwed up relationship with Jennifer Lopez. Put the guy in front of a camera with some solid dialogue and some people to smile at and it's gold.

I loved the little girl, 'cause kids're just cute.

I loved Kevin Smith, who is able to write dialogue that is at the same time both exactly the way people talk and nothing at all like the way people talk.

Don't get me wrong. Jersey Girl wasn't perfect and it wasn't high art. It was an entertaining romantic comedy with a different approach which made it, in my opinion, a cut above the average. But that's pretty much exactly what I was expecting it to be, so yay.

I went to see Kill Bill, vol. 2 last night. It was as good as the first and, in deference to some persons who haven't seen it yet and have asked my silence, that's all I'm going to say.

Before the movie were some trailers. Two of them were for Troy and King Arthur, both of which I'm sold on, even if I really can't picture Brad Pitt as Achilles.

More important than those two trailers was the trailer for Hero. Made in 2002, Hero's the most elaborate, biggest budget movie ever made in China. I first saw it a year ago, on an import DVD I borrowed from a friend at work, and went out to get my own bootlegged copy from some website or another. I'm not normally a bootleg fan, but Hero was that good. In a lot of ways it's helped to inspire what I'm doing with the Earth and Heaven series, though I expect the influences won't really show in Fire and Jade. I'm very excited that I'll be able to see Hero on the big screen.

As exciting as the trailers were, though, I had a strange encounter when I was buying my ticket. I approached the ticket counter and asked for a ticket to see Kill Bill.

"Can I see your ID please?" the guy behind the counter said.

"What?" I wasn't sure I'd heard him right; I couldn't have heard him right.

"Can I see your ID please?"

"You're kidding, right?" I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the little wallet where I keep my driver's licence and rail pass. As I opened it to get my licence, a bit of metal flashed; my tiny PBA badge.

The said said, "oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see the badge. Enjoy the movie, sir."

Then he handed me my ticket.

I don't believe this guy thought the PBA thing was an actual police badge. I believe even less that I got carded to see a movie.

Blog: Slightly wonked due to a hacker. Bastard. Host is cool, providing on-site visits and discussions of poetry. Also, she fixed the blog. Mostly. Last update along these lines lost to the digital ether. Good riddance, I say.

Vitaly: Got married recently. Yay! Nice wedding, very traditional, right down to the break-dancing-Brad-Pitt-look-alike rabbi.

Kiki: Now engaged. About damn time. She and Raphael have only been dating for eight and a half years.

Erin McKeown: Free show at South Street Seaport past Thursday. Excellent music, as always. Open air = poor acoustics but great breeze. Too much sitting, not enough dancing.

Visitations: Something Positive went pro; creator-dude Randy got mad donations and quit his job to do the comic. That's cool. Also, Bekah started a livejournal. Its bilingualness astounds me. Go be astounded too.

Lena: What I said I'd write: Everything she says about why she and I should not be together makes perfect sense. But my life bleeds fiction and makes no sense, so there. Plus, I love fairy tales and happily-ever-afters.

Mother: In hospital for non-serious, non-diabetes problems. Yeesh.

Borges: My current reading. Witty and self-deprecating. Major images are mirrors, labyrinths and knife-fights. Very cool.

Saved: A movie. Pokes fun at very religious types. Funny as hell. Go see it. I want to see it again. And own it on DVD.

Work: Increasingly less busy. Or decreasingly busy. Whichever. Yay.

School: Registration papers to arrive... soon?

Writing: It's June. Leave me the fuck alone.

Back to a regular schedule presently.

I went out last night, with Ogre, Erik and Nick, to see Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. This movie was made by the same man who made Dude, Where's My Car?, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone when I say that it was a tremendously stupid drug trip of a road trip comedy. When "Dude" came out, I thought it was going to be tremendously stupid. I went to see it only because Ogre forced me to. It turned out to be very funny and, in some ways, very similar to a movie I love from more than a decade earlier, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. So, when Harold and Kumar came out, I was expecting something really good. I wasn't disappointed.

Harold and Kumar, as you can infer from the title and as the trailers will tell you, spend the movie in search of White Castle. Now, among the list of things that should not surprise people about this movie is that pot is one of the key factors in the search. I can really only think of three things that will make someone truly crave White Castle, and pot is first on the list (the second is alcohol, the third I'll deal with in a minute). Suffice to say, then, that this movie is also a drug-trip movie. On the list of such things, I think it falls short of Friday but rates above Half Baked. Really funny, though, with such lines as "In hand-to-hand combat, either one of us could take a coyote."

We left the movie and, of course, Ogre said "you know, I could really go for some White Castle right now" (this movie being the third thing that will make someone crave White Castle). Nick said, "hell's yeah." So off the four of us went, at half past midnight, to find the only White Castle we know in northern New Jersey. Getting there wasn't close to the adventure we had just seen on screen. But when we arrived the place was near packed. In a place that could hold about fifty people there were already thirty at tables and online. We listened in on conversations as we stood on line and realized, with a sort of grim fascination, that almost every other person there had just come from seeing Harold and Kumar. Moments later this fact was confirmed by a young guy who called for a show of hands on exactly that question. Nearly everyone in the crowd raised their hand or gave him the nod.

We went home after that, but sometimes, wow, White Castle really is what you crave.

I went to see Alien vs. Predator last night. This should not come as a big surprise. My interest in both franchises is intense, but subdued, like acidy blood that boils just below the chitinous surface of a hard organic carapace. This is to say that while my investment in these movies is consistent, it's not overwhelming; it's not like I'm out there buying a full-size cast of the predator helmet or have Giger's Alien poster hanging on my wall or anything. Hell, I don't even own any of the Alien vs. Predator comic books. But all the same I do debate the finer points of the Alien reproductive system with friends and I won't pass up an opportunity to see one of the movies, should it present itself. It was, therefore, a foregone conclusion that I would see this movie on its opening night.

I didn't expect AVP to be good per se. Let's be honest here: both franchises are effectively B-movies with A budgets and some good art design. Not exactly high cinema. I was expecting nothing more than Aliens and Predators duking it out in an extraterrestial grudge-match, with a bunch of humans caught in the middle who die horrible chest-bursting deaths at various points. In this I was not disappointed. The Predators had stealth technology and wrist-blades and shoulder-mounted pulse rifles with three-dot laser targeting. The aliens had acidy spit and face-huggers and mouths-within-mouths. Both creatures made the noises appropriate to their kind. The movie was cloaked in the trapings of its origins and that cloak was cool. But it was only a cloak. The beauty was no more than skin-deep.

Alien and Predator, even at their most action-oriented, are slow movies. They build tension up through quiet moments, slow movements and dripping sweat only to explode in a sudden flurry of activity and shouting that leaves someone dead and someone else crying. AVP didn't really have that. It leaned much more towards straight action.

Likewise, Alien and Predator each have a mythos associated with them and it's largely one of inference. Aliens breed by infecting other life-forms and spread and spread and spread if left unchecked. Predators are bad-mother-fucking hunters who collect trophys and go after the biggest, most dangerous game they can find. These are things that you understand by watching the movies. No one tells you these things. You witness it first-hand. You pick it up as you watch. In the best traditions of storytelling, you are shown and not told. AVP wastes time in exposition, including a pre-historic flash-back. The movie flat-out tells us things that, even if we had never seen the movies it's based on (and let's face facts: if we're going to see AVP, we have), we would have figured out ourselves.

Last, the human pressence, the human agency, in the last twenty minutes of the movie could've been cut down a little and the movie only would have been better for it.

Had I made the movie I'd have added another half hour, to bring it up to a full two hours, and all of that would've been time with our favorite two extraterrestial species in the foreground. Sometimes they would've been fighting, sometimes they would've been watching the humans from creepy vantage points. But they always would've been there. I would've also cut the exposition.

To sum up: a fun and worthwhile movie to see, and one which fulfilled the promise of its title, but one which didn't quite go far enough towards matching the style and spirit that made its forebears great.

The Delightful Jeni Garber and I went to see The Incredibles last night. It would be cliche of me to say that the movie was incredible. I'll say it anyway: it was incredible. It's Pixar, so of course you know it's visually superb, and the acting was pretty top-notch, too. Jason Lee is cool, but manages to avoid stealing the scene. Craig T. Nelson is perfect. Really, though, I think the best voice acting came from Sarah Vowell, who played Violet (the daughter). According to the Internet Movie Database she hasn't done anything except show up on Conan once, about a year ago. A quick google, though, turns up that she's a best-selling author and social observer and a regular contributor to This American Life. That's all pretty cool. Totally steals the show, though; she captures the insecure teenage girl thing perfectly.

The story, by the way, was nothing to sneeze at, either. It's exactly the sort of story that superheroes can tell. That they often should tell. Because, in the end, it wasn't a superhero story. It was a people story. It's a story about people who can and want to do more than their place in life will let them. It's a story about the conflict this drive can cause with their family. It's a story about how to be an exceptional person in a mostly unexceptional world.

It's also the third movie in the past six months that I walked out of with the immediate desire to either see again or own on DVD. That's totally cool. I really love a good movie. Maybe I'll go see Incredibles again tomorrow...

Also today I saw Shall We Dance. You know the Richard Gere/Jennifer Lopez/Susan Sarandon thing? Yeah, that. Only I saw the Japanese version, which came first. And which, I'm told, was better. (Having never seen the American version, I can't say for sure.)

I liked it. It was cute, romantic (but not really a romance) and funny.

It reminded me, too, of a conversation I had with Marc years and years ago, when we were still at Syracuse. We were in Kimmel, late at night, and the whole "dance" thing came up. For those not in the know: I don't dance. At all. Ever. Marc? Marc dances all the time, and he dances very, very well. He's damn good at it. Marc and I also tend to lead similar lives. To the point where Marc unconsciously started to adopt my mannerisms. It was creepy; a little too S/W/F for me.

Anyway, Marc and I were in Kimmel, talking about dance, and he said to me "I've never figured out why you don't dance. I mean, I can't really see you as the type who would, but you strike me as the type of guy who'd know how and who'd be really, really good, but would never actually dance. Except maybe once, just to impress a girl or something."

I was thinking about that today as I was watching the movie. I was thinking "huh, maybe I should learn how to dance." But I don't want to put all that time and effort in just because Marc's idea sounded pretty cool and a lot like me. I mean, I may be the type, but I'm also lazy.

Right. Back from my vacation-ish thing. Not much point in re-capping what I did, since I saw a good portion of you while I was in that there New York Metropolitan Area.

Also, I didn't do much that was unique. Fun, sure. But not unique. It was the usual round of restaurants and bars, staying out drinking and eating and talking to all hours of the night. I got to see almost everyone I expected to and even a few folks who popped up out of nowhere and took me by surprise. Good stuff.

Some highlights of the trip:

House of Flying Daggers: Cool, but not as cool as Hero. It was more of a "standard fare" of wuxia movie than something with a huge amount of style. Also, some of the plot twists, while leading to a cool climax, were a little hard to stomach of believe.

Phantom of the Opera: I hate seeing movies with my parents, because they do things like talk through them. Phantom was visually spectacular, the girl who played Christine was beyond belief and Minnie Driver Rocked. I was disappointed in much of the characterization of the Phantom himself and at the deletion of a few of Raoul's lines. Overall, very worthwhile but I preferred the version I've seen on stage so many times.

Gifts: I would really rather my parents didn't get me gifts anymore, but if they're going to, they could've done worse than they did this year. They got me an iPod! A 40G iPod! Woo hoo! Also, they got me the first two volumes of the collected Peanuts, which may actually be cooler than the iPod. I love Peanuts and the first two volumes, filled with things I've never seen before, strips that are so different but still so identifiably Peanuts, are just beyond belief.

Surface Area: My parents don't really believe in flat surfaces. If they see something flat, they feel an inexplicable need to make it bumpy. As a result, their furniture is draped over with small statues, piled decorative boxes, plants and wicker. This makes it very hard for people like me to do things like put our wallets, keys, etc. down anywhere when we go to sleep at night.

Furniture: I bought a desk while I was away, through a mail-order catalog. Also, a bookshelf, through Ikea.com. These things should be here shortly. Yay!

Writing: I didn't write as much as I planned to. I didn't fall far flat, though. I wrote one short story, outlined a second, wrote a half-dozen Fables and took copious notes for two comic proposals (the only thing keeping me from writing the proposals themselves being that I've no clue what one looks like or is supposed to go in to one and couldn't find said information with the resources I had to hand).

And that's the most of it. I had a good trip, overall, and was happy to see everyone, but I'm also happy to be back. I missed having my own space, I missed defining my own schedule to do simple things (like, say, shower) and I missed the atmosphere of (as a few folks insisted on calling it) the Pacific Northwest.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled life.

I just watched the last twenty minutes or so of Not Another Teen Movie on Cartoon Network. First time I'd ever seen part of it, though I'd seen the commercials a while ago, knew the premise and had wanted to see it. Molly Ringwald shows up at the end as a flight attendant. Now, I knew Molly Ringwald had a cameo; Ogre told me a while back. But that knowledge didn't quite prepare me for the experience of actually seeing her on the screen, commenting, basically, on the transparency and unreality of the genre.

I am, for those not in the know, a total whore for 80's high-school movies.

I've seen three movies on DVD in the past three days. Ok, technically four. Five in five, really. But I really wanted to write "trifecta." So Neener.

First up was Saved, which I've mentioned in the past. It's a movie that makes fun of people that take their religion much too seriously. There's no part of that description that doesn't appeal to me, and the movie's good, too. On top of that, it's got a song from one of my favorite little bands, Bishop Allen, in it. So it's all around good.

Next came Samurai Fiction or, as it's Japanese title would have it, SF: Episode One. My theory is that it's called Samurai Fiction in the States because of the Pulp Fiction connection. Not that the movie's anything like Pulp Fiction, but whatever. It's a samurai movie, done all in black and white, but with two key oddities about it. First, the entire soundtrack is done on electric guitar. And included a brief riff of dueling banjos. Second, it had an anime-esque sense of melodrama (nose-bleeds and all) rather than a samurai movie sense of understatement. Very fun, very worth seeing.

Third was Van Helsing. Upon peril of your mortal soul, do not see this movie. Ok, really? It was nice to look at. Mostly. But everything else about the movie was bad. I found that it was much better if I pretended that the main character had a whip instead of a crossbow, that his name was Simon Belmont rather than Van Helsing and if the movie had been called Castlevania rather than the same.

Ghost in the Shell: Innocence was the fourth movie and it was both cool and a fair departure from the first movie. Whereas the first one was action cyberpunk, this was much more noir-styled cyberpunk. So, a very different tone, but also very good. Animation was excellent, pacing was deliberate. The only problem with it was that most of the dialogue in the last half of the movie was quotations from various sources that they never named. That was lame.

Finally, I watched About Schmidt. I've seen this one before. It's pretty interesting, but I think it'll really appeal to me most when I get older. Which is, I guess, what it was designed to do. I've got a theory that About Schmidt is the equivalent of the last chapted of Superman: Secret Identity. In this set up, Garden State is akin to the second chapter. I'm still trying to work out what movies the first and third chapters would be. Anyone with experience in all these things have any ideas?

Tonight the Delightful Jeni Garber and I went out and we saw Million Dollar Baby, of which many people have said many good things. I won't try to expand on their words or counter their opinions. The movie was good. A little predictable, I think, but that's fine; it was a story about people, not a story about a story, if that makes sense.

Strange thing happened midway through the movie, though. I saw someone I knew up on the screen. I saw Riki Lindhome, who worked with the rest of The Swamp and me on Syracuse Live. I knew she was acting; Eric told me a while back that he saw her as a walk-on in an episode of Buffy. I didn't know she was in Million Dollar Baby, though, nor did I know that she had some lines in it and such. Riki played the sister of the main character, appearing in two scenes.

It was pretty cool to see her in the movie, although slightly odd. I mean, my main memory of this girl is when we put her in front of a camera and had her say she had herpes and wanted to have sex with her boyfriend but not warn him (real highbrow humor, we were). Thinking about that didn't exactly help me feel the emotional tension and poigniancy of the scenes she was in.

Movie's totally worth seeing, and doubly so for those of you I know who know her. Spread the word.

Although what I really wanted to do last night was find some batting cages and work out my frustration in a violent (though harmless) manner, I happily settled for going to see Constantine with Lukas and some friends of his, instead. Easy to please that way, me.

So... the movie. It wasn't Hellblazer, the comic on which the movie was based, that's for sure. This is mostly from Keanu Reeves just not being a good John Constantine. When I first learned that Keanunu was going to play Constantine I thought it was a little odd. I, like many other fans, wanted to see Sting in the role. Because Sting is the visual basis for the character and is, like the character, British. But I read in an interview with the director that they were trying to portray a younger Constantine and Sting would be too old. Ok, I thought, no big deal. They're going for a younger Constantine in the movie, the young punk he used to be, I can see Kahnunu doing that.

Only... Well, they didn't go for a younger Constantine. They were trying to show a tired, world-weary character. I like the idea of that, but Kahnoonoo just isn't old enough and just isn't a good enough actor to pull it off, and no matter how much black makeup they blend under his eyes to make him look that way, it just didn't fly.

Beyond that, the movie was pretty good. The supporting cast were cool, especially the angel Gabriel (played by Tilda Swinton) and the Devil (played by Peter Stormare). They were awesome. The set design was neat and sort of retro-spooky; worn, dusty wood and lots of greens. I wasn't a huge fan of the brief scenes set in Hell - they were a little too green-screened for me - but the rest of the cg was neat. There are bits of the plot that didn't make a lot of sense in retrospect, but I didn't notice them while I was actually watching the movie, so whatever.

I think I would rather have seen a movie that stuck truer to the comic, at least vis-a-vis the character of John Constantine, but it was worth seeing anyway. Which came as a little bit of a surprise to me.

There's a certain type of movie, or a certain type of story that I most often see in movies, that uses misunderstanding, obscurity, happenstance and misdirection to yield hilarious results. It's the "Comedy of Errors" type of story. I like the genre, probably in part because I'm pretty rotten at thinking of stories that work like that - my brain doesn't naturally put things together that way. it's not the drop-dead funniest, but my favorite example of a movie like this is probably Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Last night I found another example of the type and thought it was really good: Be Cool. It's a little less accidental and a little more manipulative than most, and a little less absurdist and a little more clever, but it's really good. And how could it not have been? I mean, look at that cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Cedric the Entertainer, Vince Vaughn, Harvey Keitel, Christina Milian, Andre 3000, Robert Pastorelli and the Rock, with cameo appearances by Danny Devito, James Woods, Steven Tyler and (of course) Seth Green.

I mention The Rock up there because, aside from the fact that he was one of the stars, he proved in this movie that he can act. He proved that he can act like a clueless gay Samoan, but he proved that he can act nonetheless.

So, it was a lot of fun. It was worth the price of admission and, while I'm not jumping up and down to pay that price a second time, I'll certainly see Be Cool again at some point. Maybe I'll buy the DVD.

I was a little preoccupied to mention it yesterday, but Friday saw me going out and seeing Sin City with Lukas. It was stylin'.

Now, I've never read the comic, so I can't speak for the movie's faithfulness or lack thereof, but I can say that there were shots in that movie that looked like comic panels, so I'll assume the rumor I heard - which is that they jused used the comic as the storyboard for the movie - is true. It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Violent, too. The worst of the violence is stylized; painted red in a grey world, thrown over-the-top with cinematography to turn it unrealistic. It's not visceral; we, the audience, have no sense that it might really be happening. But it's not slapstick, either. It doesn't make you want to laugh. It's violence painted as art.

Lukas had told me, before going into this, that in reading the comic he found most of the characters irredeemable; potentially likeable, but all ultimately villains. I don't think that's true for the movie. The protagonists in Sin City kill, and they kill a lot. But there's never a sense, for me at any rate, that they're not doing what's right. These are harsh and brutal men, who don't feel bad about the death they cause. But they're killing to avenge the innocent, to protect the thelpless, to save their friends. These are brutal men, but they're not anti-heroes. They're definitely the good guys.

Sin City is film noir, not just because of it's in black and white, but because it aspires to the same harsh, bitter world that Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett saw, the same world that Humphrey Bogart stalked through. It's colored (pardon the word) more by a modern sense of violence, but like the classic film noir it exists in shades of grey so that it can cast both the black and the white in starker relief.

When I left the movie on Friday, I said that I'd like to rent it on video when he comes out. By now, I think I'd like to see it again next weekend.

The Delightful Jeni Garber and I hung out tonight for dinner and a movie. I want to talk about each of them in turn:

Dinner

We had pizza. But not just any pizza. We had Extreme Pizza pizza.

How was it? At the risk of being cliche, it was extremely not bad. For horribly processed, artificial chain-restaurant pizza. God I miss pizza. Someone in New York: Mail me a pizza! Qucikly, dammit!

Boy was it extreme. There were surfers and snowboarders and skateboarders all over the fucking place. Or at least pictures of them on the walls. Extreme. Sweet Zombie Jesus! It's fucking PIZZA! There is no way to make it extreme and no purpose to be served by so doing!

Movie

We watched Ocean's Twelve. We'd both liked Ocean's Eleven, so why not the sequel, right?

Wrong.

As far as I'm concerned, there's exactly one clever part in this movie, and it's only mildly clever at best. It's about fifteen or twenty minutes in and all of the characters are standing around wondering why, collectively, they're called "Ocean's Eleven." It lasts for about thirty seconds.

Also, it was cool to suddenly see Eddie Izzard. He wasn't cool in the movie, it was just cool to suddenly see him. The excitement faded quickly.

The rest of the movie's overly intricate, impossible to follow, under-characterized, poorly planned...

The Delightful Jeni Garber has a less flattering opinion of the movie than I do.

And it's such a pity. Because the first one was so clever. It fell into such perfect place. It worked out so well. It was cool! I really, really wanted the sequel to be as good.

It wasn't.

Not even close.

Bekah hit me with this one, though I'm pretty sure she only did it 'cause I teased her so much about making me an afterthought.

I like this particular quiz because it uses the word "film" a lot and that's a word with a lot of baggage. Nevertheless, it's a short questionairre, so I'll try to keep from being cheeky.

1. The last film I bought:

It's been quite a few months, so my memory isn't at 100%, but I think it was Saved!. That reminds me, though, that I really need to get around to buying The Incredibles sometime soon...

2. The last film I watched:

Unleashed. It was pretty fun, both on its own merits and also because I really never, ever expected to see a mix of Snatch and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in the theater.

3. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:

Limiting this to just five is hard. Anyway, in no particular order:

The Last Unicorn (Also: The Last Unicorn. So cool!)

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Mallrats

Swingers

4. Finally, tag five people to do this meme (let's hope they don't skim this one!):

Marc

The Bard

Jon

Gus

Brian

Captain Caveman

"O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy."

Given... well, everything... it was only a matter of time until we got to see a Highlander Anime. You can find the trailer here on left of page.

Really. It's better to burn out than to fade away, you know...

I saw Batman Begins tonight. This movie was not made from celuloid but rather from 100% pure awesome. There is, in fact, very little that could have been done to make this movie any more awesome than it was and still have it retain its essential Batmanness. They could have, for example, shown two and a half hours of The State and simply called it Batman Begins and while that might have been more awesome than this movie, it wouldn't have been very Batman.

And every role and I mean every single role was perfectly cast. Perfectly. Also, I have become convinced that Gary Oldman is neither an actor nor even necessarily a human being, but rather some sort of mythic creature, a strange and creepy trickster figure, capable of taking on any form.

It's just so awesome. Go and see it. Then come back to discuss.

Today was the orientation day for new students. I was going to go over and meet the new kids, share my year of attained wisdom and give them dire forebodings for their future. I re-checked the schedule of events no fewer than three times in the past two days. I still showed up a half hour after I was supposed to, entirely missing the orientation. I felt pretty dumb.

Later I went out with Lukas and his mysterious and semi-fictional Bellvue friends to see Corpse Bride. It was a little short (86 minutes, I think?) and the songs were a little weak (not up to Nightmare Before Christmas quality, oh no), but the movie was very cool, regardless. It had all of Tim Burton's classic creepiness, though it felt somehow more optimistic to me than a lot of Burton's other films. You should totally see it, whoever you are.

Also, you must listen to the wisdom of Ralph Wiggum. Or, if you're feeling like more of a total fucking badass today, you can listen to Samuel L. Jackson, instead.

Finally, if anyone can tell me how to download images that show up on flickr.com, I'd appreciate it. I want to get some of Yuki's stuff onto my hard drive for my screen-saver crawl, but it's proving difficult.

I went out tonight and saw Serenity. I know I haven't gushed about it on the blog, but I'm a pretty big fan of Firefly, or at least as big a fan as I get for things that aren't the Three Kingdoms or Adventure! or have been part of my life since childhood. It's good. Really good. As I said coming out of the theater, "this movie is twelve, seventeen, no! A hundred and ten different kinds of awesome!"

That's a lot of different kinds of awesome.

It was funny, hard-edged, touching and visually keen. It has bits that make you think they're doing something familiar, some trope you've seen a dozen times in movies or tv, but they twist it and surprise you. In other words, it really was like the show, Firefly, brought to the big screen.

I was a bit concerned, before seeing the movie, that it was going to go in one of two bad directions. The first would be in treading over too much familiar ground; in essence making it a rehash of one or two episodes of Firefly with a more cinematic and final ending tacked onto the end. The second would be in not covering enough of the old ground and leaving people who hadn't seen Firefly floating out in space and wondering who these people were.

I feel that there were several elements in common with the way Firefly worked, a few of the standard plot tropes, but the story itself was different enough that it didn't feel done before. I think, too, that they did a good job of introducing us to all the little character bits that were essential to the relationships; that the relationships may have mattered more to me, as a viewer of Firefly who already had more than ten hours of familiarity with these characters, but that non-Firefly fans would understand them, as well.

The only problem is that I don't know for certain; no one I went to the movie with hadn't already seen and enjoyed Firefly.

Not that the movie was all sweetness and light. I'm not, for example, as huge a fan of "kung fu uber-River" as everyone else in the theater seemed to be. I'll also mention that there was something I disliked about the movie, something that honestly came very close to ruining it for me, a specific ten seconds or so. However, I won't mention what it was here, because it's a spoiler and I don't want to give away spoilers. I remain too conscious of my long-ago FFVII snaffu for that.

Let me say, though, that it's the sort of thing that will really only bother me and one or two other people - the vast majority of people reading this probably won't care. I mention it solely for posterity.

So, in summary: excellent movie, for both fans of Firefly and those who've never seen it before (I think - if you haven't seen Firefly and do see Serenity I am especially curious to hear your opinion), with but one moment that made the movie very, very hard for me personally to take.

I'm going to see it again with Lukas on Monday.

I've let a few things fall by the wayside in the past few weeks, vis a vis blogging, at least. Let me see if I can sum it up quickly:

Dar Williams: I skipped the Dar show on Wednesday. Some of you will now undoubtedly be wondering if I'm feeling alright, and I assure you that I am. It's just that I had a test in Japanese on Thursday and decided that getting my master's degree was more important than seeing Dar. This one time, at least. Plus, by staying home, I got to talk on the phone with Sarah Who Is Awesome. The conversation, as you might expect, was awesome.

November: Speaking of awesome things, my invitation to Aaron and Jen's wedding came in the mail this week. Plus their wedding's just before Thanksgiving, which means I get to be home for that, too.

Smallville: Same problem with Aquaman here as in Super Friends: they had to invent a water-based problem for him to have a reason to be around. Also, sufer style was never cool. Not even in the 80's, when people thought it was. Also also, while I'm not a huge fan of Tom Welling's pecs, it probably wasn't the smartest move on the producers' part to film the episode where he goes topless after he'd stopped working out.

Kamikaze Girls: A Japanese biker girl head-butting a Japanese Loli is a universally funny image. When it shows up repeatedly in a movie that's cute, funny, bizarre and, at turns, heart-warming, you're pretty much set. See this if you can.

Arkham Asylum: One of the classic Batman stories, re-released in a normal-sized trade, includes a copy of the script. It has one of the best lines from Batman ever. The rogues have Batman trapped and at their mercy. They're debating what to do with him. "We should take his mask off and get a look at his face," says one. "Don't be obvious," says the Joker as he looks at Batman's grim mask. "That is his face."

Mirrormask: Lukas accurately quotes me as saying that "I have never seen a movie that so fully reflected the tastes of its director." Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean and the Jim Henson's company were locked in a room. This is the movie they made. It's of the "unhappy girl gets sucked into wonderous yet crappy other world" genre. Some reviewers regard this as a bad thing. They are stupid, for this movie is excellent.

I think that pretty much covers the highlights. I need to get better about keeping a schedule, I think. But, then, that's usually the case these days. Pardon, I'm off to give being productive a whirl. Or possibly to watch the Princess Bride. I haven't decided.

I just saw Mirrormask for the second time. It continues to be cool as hell, though occasionally colored too sepia-tone for my eyes to be happy with.

There are a few scenes that have some wonderful drawings (pronounced "drawerings") by Dave McKean plastered over a wall - beautifully covering floor to ceiling. The drawings are quickly torn from the wall and crumbled up, some even burnt, by one of the main characters. It occurred to me that this is a great pity, if it's not a bit of camera trickery, that is, because the drawings are, as I said, wonderful and beautiful, and in fact so plentiful that if someone were to, say, sell them on e-bay or some such I could concievably buy one. And it'd be cool to own an original bit of Dave McKean scribbled ink work.

The theater in which I just saw Mirrormask is also the theater in which I saw Kamikaze Girls (do check out that site - it's exhaustive!). Sadly, while the theater's still showing the first, the later was but a limited, one-week run, which means I'll have to wait to see it again until it comes out on video. This makes me sad.

So I saw the new Zorro movie about a week ago. The last Zorro movie had sword fights and derring-do. Those who know me should know that I like to swash a few buckles every now and then, so you should understand the appeal the movie held for me. One could argue that, in many ways, that was a movie made with someone of my sensibilities in mind.

The sequel, well, it wasn't bad per se, but I was no longer the movie's target demographic. There were swords in this movie, oh yes, but no one was actually ever slashed or stabbed with them. While I'm not an expert on fencing, I'm pretty sure that's missing the... well, the point of swords. Also, this movie had a child. While I clearly find children at turns cute, adorable and endearing, I'm not such a huge fan of them interrupting my swashbuckling romps, particularly when they outsmart Zorro, the character who the movie is named for.

It's not that I'm criticizing the movie; it's just that it wasn't really for me. It was for young boys and the parents of those boys. Unfortunately, I don't really think it's going to appeal to either of those groups, either. Oh well. Both sides still have the Princess Bride, and who needs anything more?

(What, did you expect me to talk about something else today?)

My plans for the evening fell through on me sort of at the last minute, so I found myself unattached and without anything to do. There's a different quality to an evening like that; even if having nothing to do is a regular occurance, when it comes out of the blue you have found time.

I took my found time and had a small John Cusack Marathon. I began with Better Off Dead, moved on to Grosse Pointe Blanc, then High Fidelity and I ended with Say Anything.

I can't remember exactly how long it's been since I'd last watched Say Anything. More than a decade, at least. Long enough that the only thing I remembered was the scene with the boombox. I'd forgotten everything important about the movie. Not that the boombox scene isn't great, isn't powerful, but...

There's a scene in the middle of the movie and Lloyd's shaking, shivering. Diane wraps their blanket around him and asks if he's cold. He says no, so she asks why he's shaking. Lloyd says, "I don't know. I think I'm happy."

Yeah.

I like this movie. I like that it's about two people who are just, right from the beginning, stupid for each other. The girl doesn't spend the movie trying to win the guy over, the guy doesn't compete with some other guy for the girl's affections, they don't suddenly realize, at the end, that they're in love; they're crazy for each other from the start. The movie follows from there.

I'm not really sure how I could've forgotten about Say Anything; just in watching it tonight, it may well be my favorite (non-Better Off Dead, obviously) John Cusack movie. I just wish it didn't end with that stupid "ding."

I was tired yesterday, but for some reason couldn't fall asleep until 4am. So, despite the alarm, I didn't wake up until 1pm today. I didn't miss anything other than being productive, but that's annoying enough. Plus now my sleep schedule's all messed up, which is why I'm doing a blog post at half-past two in the morning.

I saw The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe last night. I remembered the basic set up from when I saw the BBC version in the school library as a kid. I think I read the book around then, too. I also think I didn't read the book around then, so who knows. Either way, the movie was good. Wonderful cinematography and the kids were all good actors, as was Liam Neeson (duh) who voiced Aslan. The special effects were mostly great. The movements and looks on the animals were top notch, but the monsters (and the White Witch) seemed slightly unreal. I'm guessing this was intentional, given that the folks doing the sfx were the same folks as did for Lord of the Rings.

Tonight I went out to hear my local friend Joe's a capella group do their holiday concert. They were delightful and funny, though their show was, I'd say, 15 minutes too short. Also, they could've used another singer in the bass, if only for issues of volume.

Also, I've finished the John Hodgman book. There were many, many times reading the second half of the book where I laughed loudly. I highly recommend it.

Last night I went out to see Bloodrayne with but the smallest fraction of my usual Friday night movie crew. Wow. It was... Well, "wretched" doesn't even begin to cover it. There were a few parts that were (unintentionally) funny, but for the most part it wasn't even worth laughing at. It wasn't quite the worst movie I've ever seen, but it was as bad as anything that I wouldn't also expect to show up on MST3K.

I am not joking when I warn you against seeing this movie. The good company aside, I really wish that I hadn't seen it myself. The part I regret most of all is that I paid money to see it - that, on some level, I've contributed to its potential non-total failure and that Uwe Boll might get to make more movies. That simply must not be allowed to happen!

I'm listening to Hawthorne Heights' album, The Silence in Black and White, right now. It's pretty good stuff; post-punk with melody. Even though they're less pop-y, they remind me a bit of Good Charlotte, which is sort of odd.

Anyway, I'm listening as I read and the chorus for one of the songs sinks into my head: I know I'm outside your window with my radio. "That's a 'Say Anything' reference," I think to myself. "There's nothing else it can be."

So, I hop to the liner notes and, sure enough, there it is: commentary from the band's frontman, who wrote the song. "I included this in the lyrics, because my favorite movie of all time is Say Anything by Cameron Crowe. My girlfriend and I... watch this all the time. I was pretty much letting her know that no matter what happens, I am not afraid to stand next to an old Malibu holding an old boom box. (If that's what it takes.)"

Awesome!

Adding to the list of "movies that will never be shown in-flight," Samuel L. Jackson will star this summer in "Snakes On A Plane." If you haven't heard about this piece of genius yet, you clearly don't spend as much time on the internet as I do. I couldn't do the full range of madness associated with this justice, so just punch the title into your favorite search engine and see what comes up.

I don't know about you (for broad and non-specific values of "you"), but I must see this movie. It's going to be sublime. Today, I saw the trailer. Two things to to note:

1. The opening dialogue is edited; cut a bit, if you will. What Samuel L. Jackson really must have said is "I've had it with these mother-fuckin' snakes."

2. Samuel L. Jackson shoots a snake. In the face!

Saw V for Vendetta last night. Good stuff. Very pretty to look at, mostly for the sets and the colors; "crisp" is the only way I can think to say it. The cast did a good job, too. Agent Elrond was just rich as V and Natalie Portman didn't let her spotty accent get in the way of properly emoting. I was also a big fan of Stephen Rea (as Finch, the cop) and Stephen Fry as Gordon Deitrich.

One of my favorite bits was the way they used archival footage to represent the history of the world that had led them to their British totalitarianism. In a movie that's supposed to be a realistic representation of possible future facism, it was an interesting touch to ground it in the present like that. Or, you know, the footage was just cheaper than filming new stuff.

If you've read the comic the movie's based on, though, you should expect that a bunch of stuff got changed. I mean, stylistically it's spot on. The story was simplified and the details were greatly changed but the structure was, overall, the same. However, rather than being presented mostly from the points of view of a legion of vile government men and their wives, we're narrowed down a bit more onto just Finch and shifted a bit more onto V and Evey. I don't think that's anything to complain about - the diffuse perspectives would be awkward, I think, given the time a film has in which to present its subject. Probably the one thing that I really missed didn't actually occur to me as absent until a good three or four hours after the movie was done - none of the Vicious Cabaret song showed up in the movie.

So, that's V. Go and check it out.

Sort of slacked off on talking about stuff, haven't I? Sorry 'bout that. Let's see, what's been going on...

I saw a show at Neumos on Thursday, which I realized I'd been to before, with The Delightful Jeni Garber. The first opening act was Smoosh, who are two 12 year old girls. I'm not joking. I missed their set, though, because I got lost. Second opening act was Viva Voce. Indie band with a rock sensibility; they use kazzoos and love the whammy bar.

Mates of State, my reason for going to the show, closed the night. Last time I saw them live was four years ago; they were good then, but they've gotten a lot better. It's weird to watch them, though. Most bands look at the audience every so often; not so, here. A husband/wife pair (on drums and keyboards, respectively), they spend pretty much their entire time on stage making eyes at each other. It's sweet, but sort of disgusting at the same time.

Speaking of relationships, my folks are apparently trying to set me up with someone. The idea is even sillier when you know that the girl lives in Jersey. It's like a double shot of parental manipulation; move back to Jersey and get set up. Christ. I think I'll just stay in Seattle; I won't stand for this shit.

In unrelated news, I saw Silent Hill on Friday. Highlights included Sean Bean surviving the movie and the main character wearing sturdy boots instead of shitty high heeled shoes. I wasn't so happy with the ending, though that may be more a reflection of my opinions on horror movies than on this movie in particular. Cool and well done, though, overall, but not as scary as I thought it'd be. Maybe a good thing, since I'm sort of a pansy when it comes to horror.

I think that about covers it. I'll check back in with something entertaining soon.

On the old blog, the outdated one, the blog that is, let's call it passe, I mentioned Snakes On A Plane. It's a movie, opens on Friday, stars Samuel L. Jackson. If you don't know about this movie, you don't spend enough time on the intarweb.

Anyway, here's Jackson's appearance on the Daily Show, to talk about this movie. The man's enthusiasm, his pure love for what he's done? It's infectious.

It's hard to talk about the wonder of a thing that meets your every expectation. It's harder still when youre expectations were all for awesomeness. Snakes On a Plane hits every bit - every ridiculous stereotype, every dumb cliche. This isn't art house cinema here. It's a B-movie that's become sublime. I don't think I've ever clapped, just out and out applauded, so much in watching a movie.

I won't tell you any more about. I don't need to; you already know. It's like this: It's the 1980's. Someone gives you a camera, Samuel L. Jackson, an airplane full of colorful characters and a bunch of snakes. What would you put in the movie you would make? How would you kill the characters? What would Sam say? How do you stop the snakes?

You've written this movie already in your mind; you've seen it a thousand times in your dreams or your laughing talks with friends. Only now, someone's taken it out of your head and put it up on screen. Complete with power guitar. It's worth a thousand times the price of admission.

Paul Bettany would be perfect for the role of Elric.

Almost as perfect as Patrick Fugit would be for the role of Scott Pilgrim.

(or: So When Is R. Talsorian Re-Releasing Castle Falkenstein?)

Stardust opened yesterday. You've probably seen the commercials; they feature Michelle Pfieffer and Robert deNiro, even though neither one of them actually stars in the movie. The movie's based on the (profoundly awesome) "fairy-tale for adults" novel written by Neil Gaiman, and you all know I'm a big fan of Mr. Neil Gaiman. Also, the director said he was going for a "Princess Bride meets Pirates of the Caribbean" vibe in making the thing.

I had some high expectations for this movie, going in, is what I'm tryin