Don't get me wrong, I like Quentin Tarrantino, or rather I like his movies. Quentin himself comes off bit daft and more than a little manic. But hey, loved Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Kill Bill Vol. 1. Vol 2 was okay, as was Jackie Brown. Grindhouse, not so much. As for True Romance, that was Tony Scott's fault.
Spoiler Alert: I'm going to be talking about Inglorious Basterds.
Who am I kidding, nobody reads this blog.
Saw the film tonight. Overall, not bad. A little talky, and not in a "Royale with Cheese" kind of talky. More like C-Span-at-3:00-in-the-morning kind of talky. Editing was a little under the top, and as expected the gratuitous violence over the top. But that's not a complaint, I knew what the score was going into the theater. One does not go to a Russ Meyer movie and complain about the abundance of female bosoms, just as one does not go to a QT movie and complain about the generous application of squibs and karo syprup with red dye #5.
One interesting point of note, I noticed an homage to one of the most brilliant WWII movies ever, Kelly's Heroes. They lifted the soundtrack from the penultimate scene in KH and spliced it into one of the scenes in IB. Didn't catch the credits to see if Quentin put in an acknowledgment to Clint Eastwood, my kids (K and A, the little ones stayed home for this one) were dragging me out the theater.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Happy face
I just got off the phone with my wife. We were talking about her mom, who just moved to a nursing home in Evanston from the hospital in Joliet, and will now be going to a new nursing home in Rockford that is on the same network as another nursing home in McHenry that we want to get her in so she'll be closer to us.
While I'm talking to my wife I must have been stress-chewing on my finger, because after I hung up I looked at my hand and the most absurd looking happy face was imprinted on my finger. The gap in my front teeth (from my genetically inherited missing eyetooth) gnawed a perfect set of eyes and the lower teeth somehow dug a furrowed smile into the fleshy part of my index finger. It was almost as if my hand was telling me to cheer up, lighten up, let a smile be my umbrella.
I told my hand to fuck off and went back to wallowing in stress.
While I'm talking to my wife I must have been stress-chewing on my finger, because after I hung up I looked at my hand and the most absurd looking happy face was imprinted on my finger. The gap in my front teeth (from my genetically inherited missing eyetooth) gnawed a perfect set of eyes and the lower teeth somehow dug a furrowed smile into the fleshy part of my index finger. It was almost as if my hand was telling me to cheer up, lighten up, let a smile be my umbrella.
I told my hand to fuck off and went back to wallowing in stress.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Not the worst movie ever made...
...but certainly in the bottom 10%.
I refer of course to "G.I. Joe". I was dragged kicking and screaming by the wife unit in the spirit of family togetherness and whatnot. I would have preferred to spend the day on the bike trail, but it was 100 degrees and 80% humidity in the northwest burbs. Also, My youngest daughter's asthma was acting up and that was the stone that tipped the seesaw. Conditioned air and popcorn for everyone!
So, it sucked, but not as much as I feared and not as much as Transformers 2. At least I didn't feel like I needed a shower after this one. It was certainly the finest movie ever made that featured a member of the Wayans family. After I saw Transformers 2 I wanted to petition the Hague to bring Michael Bay up on charges for crimes against humanity. G.I. Joe was at most a misdemeanor.
It would have been vastly improved with the addition of a scene where Meryl Streep makes a pear tart.
Which brings us to the second film of the weekend. We don't usually see two movies a week, but we did one for the kids and one for mom and dad this week. We managed to sneak away to see "Julie & Julia" on Saturday morning. Not exactly date night but in one respect it was a vast improvement on our usual "dinner and a movie" date. Usually we have to rush to eat so we can make the 7:30PM showing, and if the film is long enough to prevent us from getting home by 10 then the date does NOT progress past the "movie" phase. If I don't get the wife unit tucked in before 10 then I don't get "tucked in".
Am I being too subtle?
Anyway, "Julie and Julia" was not bad but I walked into the theater knowing a bit more about the characters, or at least the people the characters are based on, than I needed or should have known. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you without knowing where the artist bought his brush or where he dipped it.
I didn’t know much about Julie Powell, the woman that wrote the blog/book that half the movie was adapted from, so I googled her before we went. What I found didn't help, but it did reenforce my belief that fame is bad and should be avoided at all costs. It started with an article in Newsweek about how the blogosphere had turned on her, and how people who had once reverred her were now "hating" on her. The article, which actually was written to defend her, led to google searches for "julie powell divorce", "julie powell infidelity", "julie powell bloodthirsty cleaving maniac".
The truth is, I'm not a curious person when it comes to gossip. I didn’t want to know unsavory details about the real-life woman that inspired the “Julie” part of the movie. I didn’t need to know what she really looks like (Amy Adams is much cuter, but so what? Matt Damon, who will play me in the movie version of my life, is marginally better looking than me). I didn't want to know that sometime before or after she achieved some level of fame from her blog/book she apparently cheated on her husband with some guy. And I REALLY didn't want to know that her next book is about her new favorite hobby: Butchery. By the time I finished the ten minutes of "research" it was virtual certainty that the fictionalized version of her life would be much less repulsive than the real thing (Just like the fictionalized version of my life). Even so, it was hard not to color my opinion of the movie, at least the "julie powell" parts, with the bits of superficial knowledge about the real Julie Powell gleaned from the web.
I refer of course to "G.I. Joe". I was dragged kicking and screaming by the wife unit in the spirit of family togetherness and whatnot. I would have preferred to spend the day on the bike trail, but it was 100 degrees and 80% humidity in the northwest burbs. Also, My youngest daughter's asthma was acting up and that was the stone that tipped the seesaw. Conditioned air and popcorn for everyone!
So, it sucked, but not as much as I feared and not as much as Transformers 2. At least I didn't feel like I needed a shower after this one. It was certainly the finest movie ever made that featured a member of the Wayans family. After I saw Transformers 2 I wanted to petition the Hague to bring Michael Bay up on charges for crimes against humanity. G.I. Joe was at most a misdemeanor.
It would have been vastly improved with the addition of a scene where Meryl Streep makes a pear tart.
Which brings us to the second film of the weekend. We don't usually see two movies a week, but we did one for the kids and one for mom and dad this week. We managed to sneak away to see "Julie & Julia" on Saturday morning. Not exactly date night but in one respect it was a vast improvement on our usual "dinner and a movie" date. Usually we have to rush to eat so we can make the 7:30PM showing, and if the film is long enough to prevent us from getting home by 10 then the date does NOT progress past the "movie" phase. If I don't get the wife unit tucked in before 10 then I don't get "tucked in".
Am I being too subtle?
Anyway, "Julie and Julia" was not bad but I walked into the theater knowing a bit more about the characters, or at least the people the characters are based on, than I needed or should have known. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you without knowing where the artist bought his brush or where he dipped it.
I didn’t know much about Julie Powell, the woman that wrote the blog/book that half the movie was adapted from, so I googled her before we went. What I found didn't help, but it did reenforce my belief that fame is bad and should be avoided at all costs. It started with an article in Newsweek about how the blogosphere had turned on her, and how people who had once reverred her were now "hating" on her. The article, which actually was written to defend her, led to google searches for "julie powell divorce", "julie powell infidelity", "julie powell bloodthirsty cleaving maniac".
The truth is, I'm not a curious person when it comes to gossip. I didn’t want to know unsavory details about the real-life woman that inspired the “Julie” part of the movie. I didn’t need to know what she really looks like (Amy Adams is much cuter, but so what? Matt Damon, who will play me in the movie version of my life, is marginally better looking than me). I didn't want to know that sometime before or after she achieved some level of fame from her blog/book she apparently cheated on her husband with some guy. And I REALLY didn't want to know that her next book is about her new favorite hobby: Butchery. By the time I finished the ten minutes of "research" it was virtual certainty that the fictionalized version of her life would be much less repulsive than the real thing (Just like the fictionalized version of my life). Even so, it was hard not to color my opinion of the movie, at least the "julie powell" parts, with the bits of superficial knowledge about the real Julie Powell gleaned from the web.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
What's all this then?
Am I the last person in America to do this? Maybe so, but I care not for what others have done before me as long as they didn't do it to me.
Why "Bleeding Time"? There are a couple ways to interpret that. In a certain vernacular of the Queen's English you could prefix that phrase with an "about" to express your long suffering impatience that a particular event or happenstance has finally occurred. As in "It's about bleeding time you started a blog, guvnor." However, I am neither a queen nor am I English. I'm an American and I would express that particular thought thusly: "It's about fucking time you got off your ass and started a blog."
"Bleeding Time" may or may not have been a catchphrase from an Arnold Schwartenegger movie from the 80's. But this is not an homage to the governor of California
I did a quick google search before I started this to make sure I wasn't intruding on one of the 70M other blogs out there. All I found was an apparently unused corner of the internet staked out by a pharmaceutical company. If I have trodden upon the tender feelings of a pharmaceutical, please forgive me, and please do not sic your lawyers on me.
"Bleeding Time" is what we all do every second of every day. We bleed off seconds, minutes, hours of our lives to the cause of work, home, family, television sitcoms, or to find out what 70M people with internet access think about the President, celebutantes, impossibly fertile single mothers, or Julia Child.
For the record:
Why "Bleeding Time"? There are a couple ways to interpret that. In a certain vernacular of the Queen's English you could prefix that phrase with an "about" to express your long suffering impatience that a particular event or happenstance has finally occurred. As in "It's about bleeding time you started a blog, guvnor." However, I am neither a queen nor am I English. I'm an American and I would express that particular thought thusly: "It's about fucking time you got off your ass and started a blog."
"Bleeding Time" may or may not have been a catchphrase from an Arnold Schwartenegger movie from the 80's. But this is not an homage to the governor of California
I did a quick google search before I started this to make sure I wasn't intruding on one of the 70M other blogs out there. All I found was an apparently unused corner of the internet staked out by a pharmaceutical company. If I have trodden upon the tender feelings of a pharmaceutical, please forgive me, and please do not sic your lawyers on me.
"Bleeding Time" is what we all do every second of every day. We bleed off seconds, minutes, hours of our lives to the cause of work, home, family, television sitcoms, or to find out what 70M people with internet access think about the President, celebutantes, impossibly fertile single mothers, or Julia Child.
For the record:
- I am not at all hostile nor am I particularly hopeful about the President.
- I could care less about Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, et al.
- If I am to be subjected to more unavoidable coverage of the "octomom", I much prefer that it result from her career in reality TV than in the offers she received from the porn industry.
- I have a vague sort of fondness for Julia Child, but if you ever feed me chicken livers in Aspic I shall bolt for the door.
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