January 2009
22 posts
Plug Tunin'
Plug 1: A Six Pack on Movie Jesuses.
Plug 2: Reviews of Ciao and Inkheart.
“I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in East Africa with a...”
– Sir David Attenborough, on what he tells people who ask him why he doesn’t credit god with nature in this interview about how creationists tell him he’s going to hell. Sir David Attenborough is the man.
“I know you’ve been down lately, my friend, but rest assured things can...”
– Friend and film critic extraordinaire Sean Burns, over e-mail.
The Arbors’ demented 1969 cover of...
“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Exhibition presents an opportunity to engage...”
– Um…what science?
“Rebellious. Passionate. Gifted. Beautiful. Béatrice Dalle could be a mix of some...”
– The IMDb bio for Béatrice Dalle. The trivia section is just as jaw-dropping. I think I’m going to become an amateur Dalle biographer; if there’s more like this it’s possible she may become my new Werner Herzog. (Hat tip: Chris Stults’ Facebook page.)
I'm not submitting this to Gawker Stalker
While killing time in a Village bookstore tonight I spotted Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and child. Maggie sat down on the floor with her kid and read her a couple stories. It was really amazingly adorable, from what I could see though mostly just hear. (They both have lovely voices in person. Of course.) Warmed the heart, all that shit.
Plug Tunin'
Plug 1: Six Pack on art house dog movies. Featuring footage of the 5 year old RDJ!
Plug 2: Reviews of Outlander and Wendy and Lucy.
My Top Ten '08: Revised!
It may be set in stone, but I’ve decided to alter last year’s top ten after some new key viewings, as well as some deep, deep thinking. 2008 now went something like this:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher)
Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)
The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan) (my contrarian pick! yeah, fuck you, lemmings!)
Young @ Heart (Cynical Consdescending Brit)
...
“I know lying is wrong, but if the Elephant Man came in now in a blouse with some...”
– Alan Partridge, offering some sound advice on the positive aspects of lying.
“Eager to watch it before assembling my 10-best list in December (Manohla’s...”
– Dana Stevens on Silent Light, over at the just-ended Slate Movie Club. I was about to say that one can procure the movie — my number three for last year — from the UK by a pretty kickass Tartan R2 disc…but I now see it’s out of print and going for upwards of $50, probably...
Plug Tunin'
Plug 1 (of 1): Six Pack on working class sports movies, for The Wrassler.
Fun fact: This issue of PW is the first one to not include a new article by me since the year 2000. Seriously! (The above is an online exclusive.)
More Great Movies Not Available on Region-1 DVD,...
Continuing from where we left off, here’s another batch. Again, this list could go on ad inf.
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967, Jean-Luc Godard) Weekend is available on a (shitty, unconverted-from-PAL) DVD from New Yorker, while KOCH Lorber was kind enough to release La Chinoise last year. Godard’s powerhouse ‘67 trilogy would be complete if someone would bother with the best thing he...
The good things that happened in '08
Obama
The reunited My Bloody Valentine left me with (happily) temporary hearing loss
Several friends got married, got engaged, had kids or conceived kids
That’s it! I’m happy the Phils won, but I just can’t get too worked up over sports so it didn’t make the cut. Note that only one (1) of these happened directly to me. And it involved the loss of a sense.
Now, if I...
Plug Tunin' (tardy)
I’m so not ready to go back to doing work, even “work” like this. In the meantime:
Plug 1: Burnsy and I did a tête-à-tête on the year’s cinema and, hoo boy, is it depressing. Or so says my roommate. This is what happens when you have two sad, heartbroken gentlemen muse on a particularly sad, heartbroken year. (Aside: my name’s on the cover of the paper! Whee!)
...