Ours don’t wear gowns, though. Probably because they are not pansies. I mean, can you imagine, the Archangel Michael, the protector of Kiev, in a gown? Me neither. That dude wears a short skirt, like Maximus.
Archive for the ‘Dork-Out’ Category
A Gaiman/Sedaris video post in which I horribly embarrass myself for the sake of two people I adore
February 9, 2010Vladimir, this is for you. I hope both you & Neil Gaiman can forgive me for the bad reading style.
Lal, this is for you. I hope you’re happy, and may David Sedaris have mercy on my soul.
Monday music: “the horror, the horror”
January 25, 2010
“Well, Jim, I’ve got some bad news…”
**
“Not to shit on anyone’s riff here, but let me just see if I grasp this concept, ok? You’re suggesting that we take some fucking parking shuttles, and reinforce them with some aluminum siding, and then just head on over to the gun store and watch our good friend Andy play some cowboy movie jump-on-the-covered-wagon bullshit. Then, we’re gonna drive across a ruined city, through a welcome committee of a few hundred thousand dead cannibals, all so that we can sail off into the sunset on this fucking asshole’s boat?”
***
“I’m in love with a zombie, can’t keep his hands off me. I think he’s looking at me, but he’s looking right through me. You think you’re so cool, boy. Blood rushing through my veins now. Do you want me for body? Do you want me for my brain?”
Zombie – Natalia Kills
Fuel – Metallica
Run Out – Memory Tapes
Hard Times – Patrick Wolf
Starlings – Elbow
Moonshake – Can
Shh – Frou Frou
This is Hardcore – Pulp
Let Your Soul Guide Your Heart – Rodney Hunter featuring Diana Lueger
Let’s Escape Together – Beat Crusaders
Yes. I KNOW there are crucial differences between the Infected and Zombies. If you have prepared an irritated lecture for me, save it for another day.
Late-night Lord of the Rings homage
January 8, 2010
Is suitably dramatic.
“Many are the strange chances of the world.”
In honour of the scheduled Blu-ray release of LotR
December 18, 2009(Yeah, I know it’s not the Extended Edition yet, and that they’re milking this for all its worth, but human beings need to take happiness where they can get it)
I present you with epicness:
Pretty boys together, just as they should be. Always.
I’ll never forget the winter I saw FotR seven times. I was a virgin back then, ya’ll. My hair was long and unfashionable. There was a little blue eye on a chain that hung off my rear-view mirror. I liked that winter, because I had complete certainty that my life was great. I have the same certainty this time around as well, regardless of any bullshit, I just can’t trudge to the theater through the snow to see Gandalf light up Dwarrowdelf while the heart in my chest fizzes like an Alka-Seltzer.
You and me, G, and Aragorn, and Legolas, we’re all older. I think we love each other more because of the fact.
My friends do cool things: link round-up
December 17, 2009Michael Forster Rothbart, who’s really cool and whom I interviewed earlier this year, has a new site dedicated to his photography, After Chernobyl. It’s interactive.
A couple of people I adore have just created an equally adorable — and convenient — app: Pushme.to. Even as a stubborn, pedantic, even illogically hysterical anti-iPhoner, I can recognize the benefits of this app. For one thing, it allows me to conveniently harass my friends while I’m online.
I love Matthew Sheret, because he produces the kind of music writing I live to publish. Here’s Matt on The Nightmare Before Christmas curated by My Bloody Valentine.
And for a good literary dork-out, look no further than my friend Heidi Steimel, who edited Music in Middle-earth. OK, so the book is in German. I own the collected works of Goethe in German (thanks to a certain Exmouthian), can’t read much except for the stuff I already went over in high school and college and such, but hey, whatever. German is a beautiful language. English is a Germanic language. Never forget, bitches.
My own best movies of the 00′s
December 6, 2009In honour of Mark’s “10 best movies of the fearsome decade.”
Just keep in mind that I was not that great of a moviegoer this decade before you start pelting me with rotten food items. For what it’s worth, I tried to be somewhat objective, and did not include merely a clutch of my favourite movies. Well, somewhat. Hold the grapefruit and go with the tomatoes. Tomatoes are softer.
10. The 40 Year Old Virgin
… Is the sort of movie you have to put on when a part of you wants to end it all in a tiresomely melodramatic fashion (bottle of champagne, tall building, no pre-”sugar tits” Mel Gibson to save your stupid ass). Paul Rudd alone is a celebration of existence.
9. 28 Days Later
Sing this to the tune of “Tubthumping”: Oh, Danny Boyle, Danny Boyle, Danny Boyle. I know that “Slumdog Millionaire” won a bunch of Oscars, but still, this is the best Danny Boyle film of all time. OF ALL TIME. The images of a fantastically devastated London can never quite be erased from memory. Plus, Cillian Murphy gets naked. Plus, it’s brilliant, and horrifyingly believable.
8. A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles)
“Whaaaat,” you’re saying. “You’re picking this Jean-Pierre Jeunet movie over Amelie?” Yes, yes, I am. Amelie was beautiful, but Engagement is more beautiful. Amelie was profound, but Engagement is more profound. Amelie was darling, but Engagement is practically mythical. I think it was must have been really hard for Jeunet to have people really get this movie in a post-Amelie world. But now that the dust has settled, I come back to it and see how fucking epic it is all the more clearly.
"May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out"
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
This is the best film in the Peter Jackson trilogy. I am damn proud to say that I saw it 7 times in the theater – I don’t care if you give me a wedgie and stuff me back into my locker for admitting as much.
Legolas rocks the blond wig, Viggo Mortensen is pitch-perfect as Strider, Ian McKellen very nearly kicks Christopher Lee’s ass, Sean Bean and Liv Tyler give the best performances of their respective careers (do NOT whine to me about how they expanded Arwen’s character and blah blah blah antiquated notions of femininity blah blah) and and nobody has yet gotten tired of Frodo’s adorable deer-eyes. And the soundtrack is only the best soundtrack of all time.
Sure, there’s no Helm’s Deep or anything, but the fighting is not the point. FotR goes deeper than that. It is a great illustration of the long defeat that Tolkien explored in his work, completely understandable plot changes be damned.
Le pacte, baby
6. The Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le pacte des loups)
This movie is the most beautiful mess of all beautiful messes ever created by humanity. My friend, movie critic Larry Toppman, wrote that Brotherhood is “as much at home in caves or bordellos as it is a starchy drawing room,” and he was correct. It’s magical and violent, and both an elegant hat-tip to movies like “Jaws” and, at the same time, its own beast. Brotherhood celebrates the love of the preposterous. It reminds us that every once in a while, you have to be a goddamn libertine and just go with it.
5. Lost In Translation
I guess nobody really needed any more reasons to love Bill Murray, or Scarlett Johansson, or Sofia Coppola when this movie came out. But the alchemy in this one was so excellent, and so precise, that you had to bow before its glory anyway. In many ways, its an alienating movie about alienation (most of my Japanese friends hated it, and I don’t blame them), but then it cracks open your heart, and that’s what makes all the difference. That moment when Johansson’s character is observing a wedding ceremony still gives me goosebumps.
4. Monsoon Wedding
Mira Nair’s best film, I think. It’s Bollywood mixed with Jane Austen, except it’s not some sort of cutesy remake or rip-off. It’s its own thing. And it’s gorgeous and hopeful.
Still from "Russian Ark"
3. Russian Ark (Russkiy Kovcheg)
The entirety of this film is composed of one long, uninterrupted shot, and that alone should win director Alexander Sokurov respect and admiration for decades to come. But “Russian Ark” is more than a gimmick. It’s a haunting and tender rumination on centuries of Russian history, and its final moments had me blubbering like a little bitch. Sokurov has an uncanny ability to resurrect ghosts, and, to paraphrase Craig Raine, to make them see, to make them hear, to make them here.
2. The Return (Vozvrashenie)
Andrei Zvyagintsev channeled Jesus and Sophocles to work his strange hoodoo in a rural, stripped-down, dream-like Russia. “The Return” is one of the smartest movies I’ve ever seen, and it also manages to be one of the most sincere movies that I’ve ever seen. It’s mystical and frightening, and speaks to you about faith in way that, I think, makes people profoundly uncomfortable in this day and age. But it’s so much more than an arty provocation. Zvyagintsev may be an heir to Tarkovsky, but he is also his own person. And what he does is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
It’s my belief that the best films are the ones that tell the best stories. This movie tells several great stories, and does it in a way that resembles poetry. Fuck it – it is poetry. And that makes it the greatest film of the decade. For me. In the year 2000, the contest was pretty much over already. Life is funny that way.
Monday music: Lo and behold. And “Glee.” And Weird Al love.
December 1, 2009I’m tired, but in that good way – the fatigue of someone reclining with a beer on a deck after many long and fruitful hours of being busy and important. Looks like I’ve finally been able to express why I love Dolores Haze so much, for one thing. Check out The Second Pass in general, while you’re at it. Many happy hours of reading, even if you don’t have the time (and who does? And does it matter? No. The heroes of The Master and Margarita protested about Dostoevsky being immortal for a reason – not just because they were trying to screw with the poor lady who minded the sign-in sheet at Griboyedov’s. Books matter).
Anyway:
Love Comes to Me – Bonnie “Prince” Billy
Nascente – Céu
Waiting – the Devlins
Learning to Fly – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
What Do I Get – the Buzzcocks
Pretend – Shelby Lynne
Don’t Ask for the Water – Ryan Adams
Don’t Say No – Patrick Wolf
Over and Over – Hot Chip
Meet Me in the Garden – Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele
On a completely unrelated note, here is my favourite quote from “Glee”:
“I guess I just don’t have a gag-reflex!”
“One day, when you’re older, that will turn out to be a gift.”
Bwahaha.
And I know that I’ve promoted the following video a number of times, and you know what? I don’t care. It never gets old. It NEVER gets old:
Instead of a homemade Star Trek uniform, I just have dorky books. Still. You got my number, Al.
One would think that it is not scientifically possible for Patrick Stewart to be even more amazing
November 29, 2009And, you know, the thing about Patrick Stewart, what makes him so infinitely watchable, is the fact that whenever a character of his has a supremely difficult moment, you know that it’s coming from a real place inside of him, and yet it is also very dignified. And I don’t mean “dignified” as in “uptight.” I mean that Patrick Stewart has freaking dignity, man. A single half-smile from Stewart is more profound than an entire lifetime of shenanigans from most of Hollywood. And there are reasons for that, reasons that have to do with his talent, and reasons that, I realize now, must have so much to do with what he lived through. Patrick Stewart, I salute you.
…
And because things are getting intense around here, here’s a LOLPicard (I guess technically it’s a LOLPatrickStewart, since he’s not really in character here, but no need to get pedantic, really):
He most likely could, dudes. He most likely could.
Cormac McCarthy’s “faux-arty machismo”? Say what?
November 26, 2009
Iker Casillas begs to differ.
So Stephanie Zacharek used her review of the film adaptation of The Road to bash the original source material. There’s no accounting for taste, but does Cormac McCarthy really have a “he-man streak”? And even if he does… why is that bad?
I rarely agree with Zacherek’s reviews, though I think she gets unfairly lambasted all of the time, and really don’t appreciate the meanness in the comments directed to her (Salon’s commenters, of which I frequently am one, have a bad reputation for a reason). I just don’t understand the criticism being leveled at McCarthy here, I guess. I still get chills just thinking about his description of the Man who contemplates whether or not anything is living in the sea – giant squid, perhaps. I mean, think about it, a post-apocalyptic wasteland in which a man dreams of squid in the cold, dark sea. I don’t even… That’s terrifying. And brilliant.
And the details of “The Road” — which must be particularly wrenching for people who have children, given that nearly every page stokes a common parental fear — repeatedly ask the same question: Are you man enough to take it?
You know, as a woman who read the book and enjoyed it – although perhaps the word “enjoyed” is wrong here, perhaps “admired” works better – I really didn’t get the sense that McCarthy was asking me if I was “man enough.” He was just telling a story in a hard (no pun intended), unflinching style. I didn’t think there was anything gendered about the way he was treating his readers or his subject matter. Sure, it’s a tale of a man and his son, and the mother is gone and not by accident, so there’s that aspect of it. But the man and his son didn’t make me feel as though I was an outsider at He-Man Thunderdome. If anything, I spent a long time thinking about my brother afterward, wondering if I’d be able to take care of him like that if shit should hit the fan. That’s because the writing is so personal; I think it clearly comes from a place wherein McCarthy himself was contemplating various scenarios, and wondering if he could take it.
[The director of "The Road", John Hillcoat] also knows that sometimes it’s not just healthy to recoil — it’s essential.
Well now. First of all, you can’t deny that these are two different mediums we’re talking about here. Because of the way we interact with the written word, and because of the way that the written word interacts with us, there are images we can conjure up in books that don’t translate well when it comes to film. The gruesome image of an infant roasting on a spit is the one that Zacharek has particular issues with, and she praises Hillcoat for not dwelling on it in the film. I think that’s a little like praising Stanley Kubrick for not attempting to re-enact Nabokov’s image of “a sultan, his face expressing great agony (belied, as it were, by his molding caress), helping a callypygean slave child to climb a column of onyx.” Hells to the yeah! Who cares about Oscars, let’s start giving out Common Sense Awards!
I also think that there is quite a bit of “recoiling” going on in The Road, it’s just done in this very graceful, penetrating (bwahaha – OK, fine, I’m intending all of these puns) manner. Like many of the writers I admire, McCarthy writes beautifully about absolutely horrifying things. That’s not so much a recoil as it is an act of transcendence. And if you can’t avoid stepping in blood or shit, you might as well transcend it – is what I always say.
Anyway, all of this is very depressing. Let’s end this post on a happy note, by objectifying Viggo Mortensen for a second:
He may not have made a particularly excellent King, but he was still the best Strider a dork could hope for. Haters to the left.
