Tuesday, November 30, 2010

hobo with a shotgun...

has me intrigued. of course, had they called it "rutger with a shotgun" i would have been immediately captivated. i'm a sucker for rutger.

here's the trailer:

Friday, November 26, 2010

you might say i'm listening to wings too much

... but i'm not sure that i'd care. i am fascinated by what's happening in this video though -- is paul travelling through time? through magic tea? magic telephones? magic glow-in-the dark suitcase? is that one dude jack the ripper? :P

Thursday, November 25, 2010

two movies with tumbleweeds i wanna see

i'm not sure if this is a resurgence of interest in the western genre, or just fluke but the remake of true grit is coming this christmas, and i can't wait. i loved the portis book when i read it, and i think jeff bridges will make an excellent rooster. and matt damon as leboeuf! yes! i have high hopes for this one -- let's hope it's not one of the coen brothers' movie i hate, like intolerable cruelty. boy, was that a stinker. and this is a movie that could go either way. there is already a classic looming behind it, and nobody who has ever seen it can forget john wayne. and yet, this trailer feels a lot more like the book i read.



the other film called cowboys and aliens is coming in july of next year. let's see if favreau can keep up his winning streak.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

and then there's this: sweet shot

i used to demand they play this at the trasheteria when i was in university. it was perhaps the peak of my dancing frenzy: i generally went out to shake my moneymaker four nights a week back then, so you can imagine why they took my requests seriously. well, there was that, and the fact i was helping one of their bouncers (i called him thor), and one of my oldest friends, aaron, run an after-hours boozecan when the bars closed, where people could continue to drink. and dance.

i can still remember walking, in one of my little dancing dresses, with aaron down george street, through the eye of a hurricane and actually feeling i could shout it down. the adrenaline and the rum, and rage were coursing through my veins, and for a moment i thought i could challenge nature and win. and then sometime soon after, the same path that we took, that the hurricane took, was razed by the bouncer, spray-painting a path to my door, eventually banging at it, and nearly shaking the house down. it trembled when thor called. and then finally a small but brave man talked to him quietly, and made him go away. i think about that little man often though i have not seen him for years. he was a hurricane-whisperer.

right. sorry. was lost in a memory. time to dance now.

just le right mot - vicissitude

so i was sitting and thinking about "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" tonight, how a reprieve is a happy thing even if it isn't the best thing or even a thing we truly desire. and i wanted just one word that conveyed that sense, rather than the phrase from the bard. and then i remembered a great one, one that makes a lovely sound:

vicissitude

now, ultimately we can find the root of this word in latin, the word vicis, meaning change, and mostly it tends to be employed to communicate the moment fate casts a dark glance in our direction, or seemingly hurls imprecations and obstacles in our path.

most commonly, we speak of the vicissitudes of daily life as potentially negative things. but vicissitude does not need to connote a sense that all our vigour trembles at the end of a point, or lash, or stone. it can bluntly remind us that life is happenstance; that change is upon us even as we cry it off, and once in a while we hear rather than feel the dart, like an angry bee move past our cheek with a wind. that might not save us any misery, but at least it alerts us to change, and reminds us to check ourselves, and perhaps choose another way, perhaps even a more visceral way.

post script: i realize i have read hamlet far too many times. :)

Saturday, November 20, 2010

the warriors: i will watch it a thousand times more

i know people who won't re-read a book, or watch a film, or t.v. show more than once because once they've seen it, they "know" it, and they get bored if they try to watch things again. i am not even remotely like this, and can revisit things i really like over and over, because even though i'm aware of what's going to happen, i so enjoy the anticipation of what will happen next, that it doesn't matter that it isn't new to me. it just matters that it kicks ass.

almost the epitome of that experience for me, the warriors is a ninety-minute movie. i'm sure i've mentioned elsewhere that sol yurick's novel, on which it was loosely based was itself loosely based on xenophon's anabasis, in that the characters are like the soldiers, journeying home. it's a quest movie: the boppers travel in an attempt to find somewhere that they can be safe. it's fast, with little (and stilted) dialogue, a lot of running, and some fighting, and a tiny, little bit of social commentary. but then they get home to coney island, and then there's this:



pins and needles, my friends. pins and needles.

i can't see myself ever getting tired of this movie. as long as i don't have to watch the director's cut, that is. :)

Friday, November 19, 2010

i love monsters. and post-it notes. combine the two? magic!

this artist was featured on comics alliance today, and i am crazy about his post-it note monster scenes. Check 'em all out (embiggened!) here: http://johnkenn.blogspot.com/ but here's a few favourites to give you a taste...






Monday, November 15, 2010

Morcheeba - Col - Who Can You Trust? (1996)

one of my all-time favourites. i'd watch a movie of this song. :)

Sunday, November 14, 2010

foggy, foggy night

the city was blanketed in fog the other night, and as i said to kerry, it smelled like what i think the yorkshire moors might smell like. it was beautiful and earthy, something rich in the decaying ripeness, that vestige of life. there was a remnant of that spark of life in autumn leaves, carried into our nostrils and our pores through the fog.