Word of the day: cathexis
: investment of emotional or mental energy in a person, object, or idea
Friday thoughts:
- We need to get to Savannah tomorrow and bad: Back in the Day Bakery is calling out to me!
- Gabriel loves frozen yogurt and pizza again!
- I can't quite figure out if this job opportunity that keeps getting offered me is legit or not!
- I no longer care about Nashville - there just aren't enough compelling storylines
- The Christmas tree lights are going up tonight
- Nothing but mid-60s and 70-degree weather over the next ten days
- Julia has already started stuffing stockings!
- Julia is pleased as pudding that her new I-Pad is here!
Here are my NFL picks for the weekend:
Buffalo over Jacksonville
Detroit over Indianapolis
Green Bay over Minnesota (has ever Aaron Rodgers ever played two lackluster games in a row)
NY Jets over Arizona
Carolina over Kansas City
New England over Miami
Dallas over Philadelphia
Denver over Tampa Bay
Baltimore over Pittsburgh
A tough week to pick gets even dicier with these picks:
Oakland over Cleveland
San Diego over Cincinnati
Houston over Tennessee
Chicago over Seattle
Washington over NY Giants
SF over St. Louis
Last Week: 8-8
Season Record: 111-64-1
Not too much today, guys, since I've already done a post over at http://mybookylife.blogspot.com/. Check it out!
Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Pizza Night
Word of the day : garniture
: embellishment, trimming
: a set of decorative objects (as vases, urns, or clocks)
Well, the week's grinding down again. Gabriel and I are going to get fro-yo today (or 'goke' as he mysteriously calls it) and the family will pick up some pizza tonight. It was a cold morning, but the ten-day forecast calls for almost consistent low-70 weather: One thing you can honestly love Georgia for!
There's only one movie of note opening this week (other than the Universal Soldier sequel, of course):
Killing Them Softly New Zealand writer-director Andrew Dominik re-teams with Brad Pitt again (after 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) for this adaptation of the George Higgins novel. Pitt is a contract killer scouring 2008 New Orleans for some lowlifes who robbed a Mob-protected poker game, causing the criminal economy to temporarily collapse; critics like it, but say it's little more than a stylish genre exercise. The cast is full of tough guys: James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Sam Shepard, and Richard Jenkins.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
*
A pick for tonight:
Hmmm. Let's consider:
The Saints own the Falcons.
The Falcons are nominally the best team in the NFL right now.
The Saints are 5-6 and on the verge of elimination; this is a must-win.
The Saints have already beat the Falcons once this year.
The game is in Atlanta.
Atlanta can sew up the division with a win.
Hesitantly, I'll go...
New Orleans 30, Atlanta 26
*
A selection today for my list of my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:
Emma Stone
as Olive in Easy A (2010)
Pretty much the movie that made Stone a star, and why shouldn't it have? She's great in it - bubbly, quick-witted, infectious, insanely energetic and sharp, likable. Stone has a great screen face, and she would have been fun to watch in any era of moviemaking. Would it be possible for an actor to not have chemistry with her? More movies by Will Gluck (Friends With Benefits), please!
*
Since I love nature so much, I want to go ahead and start a new feature: Interesting Animal of the Day:
Today, let's give it up for the goblin shark:
Yikes! What a freak! This shark, whose habitat consists off the waters off Japan, Portugal, Australia, and South Africa (although sometimes it drifts into the Atlantic), has a trowel-like protrusion from its head, enabling it to navigate the deep, muddy waters it courses through. It has small eyes, needle-like teeth that the shark can manipulate like a hand or claw. Anything standing in its way that the shark can spot (it has tiny eyes but its other, investigative senses are very keen) is a goner. The species was discovered by a Japanese fisherman at the end of the nineteenth century. It is not endangered, though sightings of this unusual shark are rare.
Images courtesy of:
http://gonewiththetwins.com/pages/2010/screenshots/easya/001.jpg
http://www.greengoblin.com/internal/corner/shark.jpg
Information courtesy of:
http://www.greengoblin.com/internal/corner/shark.html
: embellishment, trimming
: a set of decorative objects (as vases, urns, or clocks)
Well, the week's grinding down again. Gabriel and I are going to get fro-yo today (or 'goke' as he mysteriously calls it) and the family will pick up some pizza tonight. It was a cold morning, but the ten-day forecast calls for almost consistent low-70 weather: One thing you can honestly love Georgia for!
There's only one movie of note opening this week (other than the Universal Soldier sequel, of course):
Killing Them Softly New Zealand writer-director Andrew Dominik re-teams with Brad Pitt again (after 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) for this adaptation of the George Higgins novel. Pitt is a contract killer scouring 2008 New Orleans for some lowlifes who robbed a Mob-protected poker game, causing the criminal economy to temporarily collapse; critics like it, but say it's little more than a stylish genre exercise. The cast is full of tough guys: James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Sam Shepard, and Richard Jenkins.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
*
A pick for tonight:
Hmmm. Let's consider:
The Saints own the Falcons.
The Falcons are nominally the best team in the NFL right now.
The Saints are 5-6 and on the verge of elimination; this is a must-win.
The Saints have already beat the Falcons once this year.
The game is in Atlanta.
Atlanta can sew up the division with a win.
Hesitantly, I'll go...
New Orleans 30, Atlanta 26
*
A selection today for my list of my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:
Emma Stone
as Olive in Easy A (2010)
Pretty much the movie that made Stone a star, and why shouldn't it have? She's great in it - bubbly, quick-witted, infectious, insanely energetic and sharp, likable. Stone has a great screen face, and she would have been fun to watch in any era of moviemaking. Would it be possible for an actor to not have chemistry with her? More movies by Will Gluck (Friends With Benefits), please!
*
Since I love nature so much, I want to go ahead and start a new feature: Interesting Animal of the Day:
Today, let's give it up for the goblin shark:
Yikes! What a freak! This shark, whose habitat consists off the waters off Japan, Portugal, Australia, and South Africa (although sometimes it drifts into the Atlantic), has a trowel-like protrusion from its head, enabling it to navigate the deep, muddy waters it courses through. It has small eyes, needle-like teeth that the shark can manipulate like a hand or claw. Anything standing in its way that the shark can spot (it has tiny eyes but its other, investigative senses are very keen) is a goner. The species was discovered by a Japanese fisherman at the end of the nineteenth century. It is not endangered, though sightings of this unusual shark are rare.
Images courtesy of:
http://gonewiththetwins.com/pages/2010/screenshots/easya/001.jpg
http://www.greengoblin.com/internal/corner/shark.jpg
Information courtesy of:
http://www.greengoblin.com/internal/corner/shark.html
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
On the Horizon...
Word of the day : sederunt
: a prolonged sitting (as for a discussion)
... Don't you just love that word?
Here are some things I'm looking forward to between now and the end of the year:
1) Julia's brother David visiting us for two weeks
2) Getting a Kindle Fire
3) Julia getting an I-Pad, Gabriel getting a Mini I-Pad
4) Going to Jacksonville and St. Augustine
5) Going up to Augusta and Beaufort, too
6) Going to the Bluffton outlet malls and Robert Irvine's restaurant
7) Taking David to get another tattoo, maybe to see a few movies (I haven't gone to the theater in a year, people - a year!)
8) Further planning out next summer's European trip
9) Watching Gabriel's face on Christmas Even when he gets his new big wheel, Jake and the Neverland Pirates toys, and tent.
10) Seeing how the seasons of Dexter and Homeland end
11) Waiting to see if Julia has any job interviews lined up when she goes to Seattle
12) Spending Christmas Eve in Savannah
*
One show you should be watching right now:
PBS' Call the Midwife
Julia got me into this show, and I'm just about done with the show's first season (six episodes); the second season premieres soon. It was released in Britain in the wake of Downton Abbey's success and actually averaged more viewers in its first season than that show did in its first season!
Based on a trilogy of memoirs written by the late Jennifer Worth, the series follows a group of nuns and midwives working in London' East End in the 1950s. The main character is Nurse Lee (played winningly by Jessica Raines), one of the newest members of the nursing convent (Nonnatus House), a young woman who quickly adapts to the life: bicycling around the slums and flats, ready to lend a sympathetic ear or capable hand to pregnant young mothers or lonely old men who have no one to talk to. The most memorable of the midwives is Chummy (Miranda Hart), a big, broad-shouldered, earnestly clumsy woman who means well.
What can I really say about the show? It's appealing, nicely acted, often touching and moving, sometimes dryly funny, never boring. There's usually one rather bloody, squeamish birthing scene per episode; the film doesn't skimp on the verisimilitude of the creation process. It's a pleasant hour in front of the TV; oh, yeah, and it's narrated by one of the greatest actresses alive, Vanessa Redgrave.
*
And finally, let's unveil one more selection to my unfolding list of the 500 Greatest (English Language) Performances of All Time:
Denzel Washington
as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in The Hurricane (1999)
Washington is at his absolute best - steely, magnetic, charismatic, jazzy, impassioned - as the real-life boxer Carter, who, as Bob Dylan sung, "could have been the champion of the world." Carter was, of course, railroaded by some racist New Jersey cops, charged with a murder he didn't commit. Norman Jewison's compelling, absorbing biopic might not be 100% accurate, but enough of Carter's spirit and fire gets across; it's a film that sways and infuriates you. And, really, it's Washington's show the entire way, and he delivers in scene after scene. Denzel is one of those rare creations: a great movie star who is also a great actor.
Images courtesy of:
http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/22/article-1327261735803-11680A8E000005DC-736362_636x407.jpg
http://thumbs.anyclip.com/tFSllztGb/tmb_8166_480.jpg
: a prolonged sitting (as for a discussion)
... Don't you just love that word?
Here are some things I'm looking forward to between now and the end of the year:
1) Julia's brother David visiting us for two weeks
2) Getting a Kindle Fire
3) Julia getting an I-Pad, Gabriel getting a Mini I-Pad
4) Going to Jacksonville and St. Augustine
5) Going up to Augusta and Beaufort, too
6) Going to the Bluffton outlet malls and Robert Irvine's restaurant
7) Taking David to get another tattoo, maybe to see a few movies (I haven't gone to the theater in a year, people - a year!)
8) Further planning out next summer's European trip
9) Watching Gabriel's face on Christmas Even when he gets his new big wheel, Jake and the Neverland Pirates toys, and tent.
10) Seeing how the seasons of Dexter and Homeland end
11) Waiting to see if Julia has any job interviews lined up when she goes to Seattle
12) Spending Christmas Eve in Savannah
*
One show you should be watching right now:
PBS' Call the Midwife
Julia got me into this show, and I'm just about done with the show's first season (six episodes); the second season premieres soon. It was released in Britain in the wake of Downton Abbey's success and actually averaged more viewers in its first season than that show did in its first season!
Based on a trilogy of memoirs written by the late Jennifer Worth, the series follows a group of nuns and midwives working in London' East End in the 1950s. The main character is Nurse Lee (played winningly by Jessica Raines), one of the newest members of the nursing convent (Nonnatus House), a young woman who quickly adapts to the life: bicycling around the slums and flats, ready to lend a sympathetic ear or capable hand to pregnant young mothers or lonely old men who have no one to talk to. The most memorable of the midwives is Chummy (Miranda Hart), a big, broad-shouldered, earnestly clumsy woman who means well.
What can I really say about the show? It's appealing, nicely acted, often touching and moving, sometimes dryly funny, never boring. There's usually one rather bloody, squeamish birthing scene per episode; the film doesn't skimp on the verisimilitude of the creation process. It's a pleasant hour in front of the TV; oh, yeah, and it's narrated by one of the greatest actresses alive, Vanessa Redgrave.
*
And finally, let's unveil one more selection to my unfolding list of the 500 Greatest (English Language) Performances of All Time:
Denzel Washington
as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in The Hurricane (1999)
Washington is at his absolute best - steely, magnetic, charismatic, jazzy, impassioned - as the real-life boxer Carter, who, as Bob Dylan sung, "could have been the champion of the world." Carter was, of course, railroaded by some racist New Jersey cops, charged with a murder he didn't commit. Norman Jewison's compelling, absorbing biopic might not be 100% accurate, but enough of Carter's spirit and fire gets across; it's a film that sways and infuriates you. And, really, it's Washington's show the entire way, and he delivers in scene after scene. Denzel is one of those rare creations: a great movie star who is also a great actor.
Images courtesy of:
http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/22/article-1327261735803-11680A8E000005DC-736362_636x407.jpg
http://thumbs.anyclip.com/tFSllztGb/tmb_8166_480.jpg
Saturday, November 24, 2012
PIGS!
Word of the day :
An exciting Black Friday yesterday for the Fischer family: two big pigs, one male and one female, were running loose in the neighborhood! They settled down at our house and stayed in our yard for about two hours! One of them chased Julia around, and Gabriel, who loved them, wanted to ride one of them! Funny things!
I've never encountered anything like it before. The pigs brought the neighbors out and had Daisy hoarse with fury!
*
One movie you should watch:
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
2012
Directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, The Debt)
I really enjoyed this one... okay, I loved it. It's a sweater movie - you know, cozy, comfortable, warm, familiar. It's a crowd-pleaser. Heck, it's a movie for all ages, and it stars some of the greatest over-50 British actors on the planet.
Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, and Ronald Pickup are Brits who, for various reasons, find themselves traveling to India and staying at a faded, adorably ramshackle hotel run by a charming local boy who is something of a likable black sheep in his family (Dev Patel).
Dench is a recent widow forced to sell off her possessions; Nighy and Wilton are, respectively, a man who made a terrible investment and his wife, who finds joy in absolutely nothing; Smith, in her element, is a racist old codger forced to travel to India to have hip-replacement surgery; Wilkinson is a retired judge who wants to return to the land he grew up in; Pickup is an old lothario on the prowl; Imrie is a woman seeking a wealthy man and a new start.
Needless to say, the cast is divine, and the film is well-shot. It's constantly inviting and engaging, touching. It's safe filmmaking, to be sure, but I wasn't expecting a scathing expose on modern India - for that, I'll read (and am reading) Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Adapted from Deborah Moggach's 2004 novel These Foolish Things by Ol Parker, the film moves well and is damn near impossible to actively dislike.
I can't wait for the possible sequel.
*
NFL Picks for the weekend:
(Well, I was 2-for-3 on the Turkey Day games, which I'll take. Other than the Denver-K.C. game, I don't feel good about any of the following picks. I'm going with some upsets this week, for better or worse:
- Tennessee over Jacksonville
- Buffalo over Indianapolis
- Pittsburgh over Cleveland (ehh...)
- Oakland over Cincinnati
- Chicago over Minnesota
- Denver over Kansas City
- Seattle over Miami
- Atlanta over Tampa Bay
- St. Louis over Arizona
- Baltimore over San Diego
- New Orleans over San Francisco
- Green Bay over NY Giants
- Carolina over Philadelphia
Last Week: 13-1
Season Record: 103-56-1
*
Born today:
Well, guess...
Clues:
- post-Impressionist
- a chronicler of colorful and bohemian arisian nightlife, specifically the Moulin Rouge
- due to a congenital condition and bone dysfunction, never grew taller than 5'1
- frequented the social circles of Montmartre, illustrated for magazines, and was a lithographer
- his most famous work was probably the posters he did in conjunction with the opening of the Moulin Rouge:
- became friends with Oscar Wilde
- due to the stresses that accompanied his physical deformities, he was often depressed and frequently battled alcoholism
- was admitted into a sanitarium two years before he died of alcohol complications and syphilis
Give up?
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Images courtesy of:
http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/the-best-exotic-marigold-hotel.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g1Vd1Ywd2Qw/TWYec2JHsII/AAAAAAAAAVo/YMpUP-VGQGI/s1600/300px-jane_avril_by_toulouse-lautrec.jpeg
http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/timelines/modern_art_slideshows/p7ssm_img_1/fullsize/Toulouse-Lautrec_2.jpg
http://www.awesome-art.biz/awesome/images/medium-i2/At%20the%20Moulin%20Rouge%20by%20Toulouse-Lautrec.jpg
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/EUR/2300-2037~Moulin-Rouge-Posters.jpg
An exciting Black Friday yesterday for the Fischer family: two big pigs, one male and one female, were running loose in the neighborhood! They settled down at our house and stayed in our yard for about two hours! One of them chased Julia around, and Gabriel, who loved them, wanted to ride one of them! Funny things!
I've never encountered anything like it before. The pigs brought the neighbors out and had Daisy hoarse with fury!
*
One movie you should watch:
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
2012
Directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, The Debt)
I really enjoyed this one... okay, I loved it. It's a sweater movie - you know, cozy, comfortable, warm, familiar. It's a crowd-pleaser. Heck, it's a movie for all ages, and it stars some of the greatest over-50 British actors on the planet.
Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, and Ronald Pickup are Brits who, for various reasons, find themselves traveling to India and staying at a faded, adorably ramshackle hotel run by a charming local boy who is something of a likable black sheep in his family (Dev Patel).
Dench is a recent widow forced to sell off her possessions; Nighy and Wilton are, respectively, a man who made a terrible investment and his wife, who finds joy in absolutely nothing; Smith, in her element, is a racist old codger forced to travel to India to have hip-replacement surgery; Wilkinson is a retired judge who wants to return to the land he grew up in; Pickup is an old lothario on the prowl; Imrie is a woman seeking a wealthy man and a new start.
Needless to say, the cast is divine, and the film is well-shot. It's constantly inviting and engaging, touching. It's safe filmmaking, to be sure, but I wasn't expecting a scathing expose on modern India - for that, I'll read (and am reading) Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Adapted from Deborah Moggach's 2004 novel These Foolish Things by Ol Parker, the film moves well and is damn near impossible to actively dislike.
I can't wait for the possible sequel.
*
NFL Picks for the weekend:
(Well, I was 2-for-3 on the Turkey Day games, which I'll take. Other than the Denver-K.C. game, I don't feel good about any of the following picks. I'm going with some upsets this week, for better or worse:
- Tennessee over Jacksonville
- Buffalo over Indianapolis
- Pittsburgh over Cleveland (ehh...)
- Oakland over Cincinnati
- Chicago over Minnesota
- Denver over Kansas City
- Seattle over Miami
- Atlanta over Tampa Bay
- St. Louis over Arizona
- Baltimore over San Diego
- New Orleans over San Francisco
- Green Bay over NY Giants
- Carolina over Philadelphia
Last Week: 13-1
Season Record: 103-56-1
*
Born today:
Well, guess...
Clues:
- post-Impressionist
- a chronicler of colorful and bohemian arisian nightlife, specifically the Moulin Rouge
- due to a congenital condition and bone dysfunction, never grew taller than 5'1
- frequented the social circles of Montmartre, illustrated for magazines, and was a lithographer
- his most famous work was probably the posters he did in conjunction with the opening of the Moulin Rouge:
- became friends with Oscar Wilde
- due to the stresses that accompanied his physical deformities, he was often depressed and frequently battled alcoholism
- was admitted into a sanitarium two years before he died of alcohol complications and syphilis
Give up?
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Images courtesy of:
http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/the-best-exotic-marigold-hotel.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g1Vd1Ywd2Qw/TWYec2JHsII/AAAAAAAAAVo/YMpUP-VGQGI/s1600/300px-jane_avril_by_toulouse-lautrec.jpeg
http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/timelines/modern_art_slideshows/p7ssm_img_1/fullsize/Toulouse-Lautrec_2.jpg
http://www.awesome-art.biz/awesome/images/medium-i2/At%20the%20Moulin%20Rouge%20by%20Toulouse-Lautrec.jpg
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/EUR/2300-2037~Moulin-Rouge-Posters.jpg
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Turkey Day
Word of the day : pertinacious
: adhering resolutely to an opinion, purpose, or design
: stubbornly tenacious, persistent
Happy Thanksgiving, readers!
Our Thanksgiving week got off to a good start - we spent the day in Charleston on Monday.
Yesterday, we had a good day too - I took Gabriel on some errands. Julia caught up with a new BBC show she likes, Call the Midwife.
Today, well... who knows? But these are things I would like to do over the break:
- start Call the Midwife, maybe even Downton Abbey
- finish this collection of noir stories I've been reading (only three to go...)
- read Katherine Boo's nonfiction book about life in a Mumbai slum, Beyond the Beautiful Forevers
- keep plowing forward in Ken Follett's Winter of the World (I stopped for awhile)
- work a little more on my novel
- take Daisy and Gabriel on plenty of walks
- get caught up on some TV shows
- watch some goof football and college basketball games
There are a few movies opening today:
Life of Pi Ang Lee's hyped, destined-to-be Oscar contender, taken from the all-but-unfilmable Yann Martel bestseller. A young Indian man is stranded on a boat in the Pacific with no one but a Bengal tiger as his companion. A technical achievement, though it has plenty of religious overtones.
Verdict: Interested
Hitchcock Oh, yeah. Sacha Gervasi's fun, amusing look at the making of Psycho - a film for those interested in the iconic director's psyche (though some critics say the filmmakers go about this in a too facile, one-dimensional manner) and for film nerds interested the behind-the-scenes goings-on of a classic. Anthony Hopkins, as Hitch ("hold the cock"), and Helen Mirren, as his wife Alma, are Oscar contenders, and Scarlett Johansson is Janet Leigh. Toni Collette and Jessica Biel are also here.
Verdict: Very Interested
Rust and Bone Marion Cotillard is in the Oscar running too as a whale trainer trying to move on from a terrible accident (involving the whale - take a guess). She starts a relationship with a poor single father who treats her without pity. The story sounds wild, and there are some mood shifts, but critics for the most part say it's an interesting journey.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
Red Dawn Dreadful reviews for this needless remake of an 80's film that stunk to high heaven. The original saw Communists invading a small American town, inciting a ragtag band of high school students to defend the town. Well, the remake has North Korea invading the town of Spokane, Washington... come together, kids! The acting - the cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan - is supposed to be bad.
Verdict: Not Interested
*
Football picks for tomorrow:
Houston over Detroit (though a scrappy, underachieving Detroit team could give a suddenly vulnerable-to-the-pass Houston squad a hell of a challenge)
Dallas over Washington
New England over the NY Jets
I'll be back on Saturday!
: adhering resolutely to an opinion, purpose, or design
: stubbornly tenacious, persistent
Happy Thanksgiving, readers!
Our Thanksgiving week got off to a good start - we spent the day in Charleston on Monday.
Yesterday, we had a good day too - I took Gabriel on some errands. Julia caught up with a new BBC show she likes, Call the Midwife.
Today, well... who knows? But these are things I would like to do over the break:
- start Call the Midwife, maybe even Downton Abbey
- finish this collection of noir stories I've been reading (only three to go...)
- read Katherine Boo's nonfiction book about life in a Mumbai slum, Beyond the Beautiful Forevers
- keep plowing forward in Ken Follett's Winter of the World (I stopped for awhile)
- work a little more on my novel
- take Daisy and Gabriel on plenty of walks
- get caught up on some TV shows
- watch some goof football and college basketball games
There are a few movies opening today:
Life of Pi Ang Lee's hyped, destined-to-be Oscar contender, taken from the all-but-unfilmable Yann Martel bestseller. A young Indian man is stranded on a boat in the Pacific with no one but a Bengal tiger as his companion. A technical achievement, though it has plenty of religious overtones.
Verdict: Interested
Hitchcock Oh, yeah. Sacha Gervasi's fun, amusing look at the making of Psycho - a film for those interested in the iconic director's psyche (though some critics say the filmmakers go about this in a too facile, one-dimensional manner) and for film nerds interested the behind-the-scenes goings-on of a classic. Anthony Hopkins, as Hitch ("hold the cock"), and Helen Mirren, as his wife Alma, are Oscar contenders, and Scarlett Johansson is Janet Leigh. Toni Collette and Jessica Biel are also here.
Verdict: Very Interested
Rust and Bone Marion Cotillard is in the Oscar running too as a whale trainer trying to move on from a terrible accident (involving the whale - take a guess). She starts a relationship with a poor single father who treats her without pity. The story sounds wild, and there are some mood shifts, but critics for the most part say it's an interesting journey.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
Red Dawn Dreadful reviews for this needless remake of an 80's film that stunk to high heaven. The original saw Communists invading a small American town, inciting a ragtag band of high school students to defend the town. Well, the remake has North Korea invading the town of Spokane, Washington... come together, kids! The acting - the cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan - is supposed to be bad.
Verdict: Not Interested
*
Football picks for tomorrow:
Houston over Detroit (though a scrappy, underachieving Detroit team could give a suddenly vulnerable-to-the-pass Houston squad a hell of a challenge)
Dallas over Washington
New England over the NY Jets
I'll be back on Saturday!
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Oscar Forecast
Word of the day : misnomer
: the use of a wrong or inappropriate name or designation
Well, it's a Saturday in Statesboro... which means the family will search for something to do. We'll try out the International Festival... because there's so many international citizens in this county?
In Thursday's post, I forgot to mention one of the opening new movies, a film I thought opened next week, but officially opened in New York and L.A. yesterday.
Silver Linings Playbook One of the most acclaimed films of the year, hyped-up, and a surefire multi-Oscar contender. Director David O. Russell's adaptation of Matthew Quick's quirky novel casts Bradley Cooper (a Best Actor outsider) as a bipolar man recently released from an institution and living with his parents (Jacki Weaver and assured Oscar nominee Robert DeNiro). Along comes a mysterious woman with plenty of problems of her own; in the part, Jennifer Lawrence is the front-runner for Best Actress. A terrific cast (which includes Julia Stiles and Chris Tucker) in an offbeat movie that mixes romance, silliness, drama, and poignancy.
Verdict: Very Interested
I went looking around at various Oscar-prognostication sites to see what the latest predictions are in the races; nominations are announced January 10. Here they are:
(* denotes a film that actually hasn't been screened by critics yet)
Best Picture
- Argo FRONTRUNNER
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- *Les Miserables
- Life of Pi
- Lincoln
- The Master
- Silver Linings Playbook
- *Zero Dark Thirty
(Possible: Amour, *Django Unchained, *The Hobbit, Skyfall)
Best Actor
- Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln FRONTRUNNER
- John Hawkes, The Sessions
- Anthony Hopkins, Hitchcock
- Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
- Denzel Washington, Flight
(Possible: Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook; Richard Gere, Arbitrage; Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables; Jean-Louis Trigniant, Amour)
Best Actress
- Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone
- Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook FRONTRUNNER
- Helen Mirren, Hitchcock
- Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Naomi Watts, The Impossible
(Possible: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty; Emmanuelle Riva, Amour)
Best Supporting Actor
- Alan Arkin, Argo
- Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
- Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
- Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln FRONTRUNNER
(Possible: Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild; Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike; Ewan McGregor, The Impossible)
Best Supporting Actress
- Amy Adams, The Master
- Sally Field, Lincoln
- Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables FRONTRUNNER
- Helen Hunt, The Sessions
- Maggie Smith, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
(Possible: Susan Sarandon, Arbitrage; Kerry Washington, Django Unchained; Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook)
Best Director
- Ben Affleck, Argo FRONTRUNNER
- Tom Hooper, Les Miserables
- Ang Lee, Life of Pi
- David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
- Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
(Possible: Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom; Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master; Michael Haneke; Amour; Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained)
I'll be back in about six weeks or so to give my own final predictions on the eve of nominations-unveiling, but if this current forecast holds, it will truly be extraordinary, in the sense that while in a normal year, there are anywhere from six to ten first-time nominees, this year there will only one: the 10-year old Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild: though I guess you could say Affleck (Who won an Oscar in the Original Screenplay category) would be a newbie too, for he has never been nominated for a Director Oscar.
Also, if this holds, fifteen of these nominees have already won before; six of them have won twice!
*
NFL Picks for the weekend:
Atlanta over Arizona (Falcons rebound)
Tampa Bay over Carolina (the Bucs can score)
Dallas over Cleveland
Houston over Jacksonville
Green Bay over Detroit (tough game)
Cincinnati over Kansas City
St. Louis over NY Jets
Washington over Philadelphia (I'm done with the Eagles, just done)
New Orleans over Oakland
Denver over San Diego
New England over Indianapolis
Baltimore over Pittsburgh
SF over Chicago
Last Week's Record: 7-6-1
Season Record: 90-55-1
*
Have a good weekend! I gotta go read and walk Daisy!
: the use of a wrong or inappropriate name or designation
Well, it's a Saturday in Statesboro... which means the family will search for something to do. We'll try out the International Festival... because there's so many international citizens in this county?
In Thursday's post, I forgot to mention one of the opening new movies, a film I thought opened next week, but officially opened in New York and L.A. yesterday.
Silver Linings Playbook One of the most acclaimed films of the year, hyped-up, and a surefire multi-Oscar contender. Director David O. Russell's adaptation of Matthew Quick's quirky novel casts Bradley Cooper (a Best Actor outsider) as a bipolar man recently released from an institution and living with his parents (Jacki Weaver and assured Oscar nominee Robert DeNiro). Along comes a mysterious woman with plenty of problems of her own; in the part, Jennifer Lawrence is the front-runner for Best Actress. A terrific cast (which includes Julia Stiles and Chris Tucker) in an offbeat movie that mixes romance, silliness, drama, and poignancy.
Verdict: Very Interested
I went looking around at various Oscar-prognostication sites to see what the latest predictions are in the races; nominations are announced January 10. Here they are:
(* denotes a film that actually hasn't been screened by critics yet)
Best Picture
- Argo FRONTRUNNER
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- *Les Miserables
- Life of Pi
- Lincoln
- The Master
- Silver Linings Playbook
- *Zero Dark Thirty
(Possible: Amour, *Django Unchained, *The Hobbit, Skyfall)
Best Actor
- Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln FRONTRUNNER
- John Hawkes, The Sessions
- Anthony Hopkins, Hitchcock
- Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
- Denzel Washington, Flight
(Possible: Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook; Richard Gere, Arbitrage; Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables; Jean-Louis Trigniant, Amour)
Best Actress
- Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone
- Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook FRONTRUNNER
- Helen Mirren, Hitchcock
- Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Naomi Watts, The Impossible
(Possible: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty; Emmanuelle Riva, Amour)
Best Supporting Actor
- Alan Arkin, Argo
- Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
- Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
- Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln FRONTRUNNER
(Possible: Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild; Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike; Ewan McGregor, The Impossible)
Best Supporting Actress
- Amy Adams, The Master
- Sally Field, Lincoln
- Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables FRONTRUNNER
- Helen Hunt, The Sessions
- Maggie Smith, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
(Possible: Susan Sarandon, Arbitrage; Kerry Washington, Django Unchained; Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook)
Best Director
- Ben Affleck, Argo FRONTRUNNER
- Tom Hooper, Les Miserables
- Ang Lee, Life of Pi
- David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
- Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
(Possible: Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom; Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master; Michael Haneke; Amour; Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained)
I'll be back in about six weeks or so to give my own final predictions on the eve of nominations-unveiling, but if this current forecast holds, it will truly be extraordinary, in the sense that while in a normal year, there are anywhere from six to ten first-time nominees, this year there will only one: the 10-year old Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild: though I guess you could say Affleck (Who won an Oscar in the Original Screenplay category) would be a newbie too, for he has never been nominated for a Director Oscar.
Also, if this holds, fifteen of these nominees have already won before; six of them have won twice!
*
NFL Picks for the weekend:
Atlanta over Arizona (Falcons rebound)
Tampa Bay over Carolina (the Bucs can score)
Dallas over Cleveland
Houston over Jacksonville
Green Bay over Detroit (tough game)
Cincinnati over Kansas City
St. Louis over NY Jets
Washington over Philadelphia (I'm done with the Eagles, just done)
New Orleans over Oakland
Denver over San Diego
New England over Indianapolis
Baltimore over Pittsburgh
SF over Chicago
Last Week's Record: 7-6-1
Season Record: 90-55-1
*
Have a good weekend! I gotta go read and walk Daisy!
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Sickie, Sickie
Word of the day : unwieldy
: not easily handled, managed, or used
: cumbersome
Well, Gabriel is a little under the weather today, so we'll keep him home... which means he now will have, by my count, eleven days off. Good God! What to do with him? Well, we're gonna take him up to Charleston one day... the other ten? Help!
Here are the new movies opening this weekend:
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part II This franchise, despite how much money its made, just feels over. The usual crew is here - Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning - and director Bill Condon, who did the last one, is back too. Critics say it moves glacially but is self-aware and occasionally rousing. The end. Now we wait for the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's The Host.
Verdict: Not Interested
Anna Karenina Despite some very talented filmmakers - screenwriter Tom Stoppard and director Joe Wright - critics are saying this bold, modern take on the Tolstoy perennial is a miscalculation, overdirected and overwritten, with some flamboyant touches; too much style and too little substance. The cast is getting pretty good notices - Keira Knightley (the director's muse it seems, after appearing in Pride and Prejudice and Atonement), Jude Law as her aloof husband, Aaron Johnson as the Count she is drawn to, Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Matthew MacFayden (Mr. Darcy in Wright's Pride and Prejudice). It seems as if all the film's Oscar expectations have filtered away.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
Price Check It seems like it has been a long time since Parker Posey has had a plum role and really run with it. Well, she has one here in a slight comedy playing the Boss From Hell, a ruthless, mean, acidic, sarcastic employer who makes life hell for the new guy (Eric Mabius) on his way up the corporate ladder. He doesn't know how far he wants to climb, however, if it means turning into Posey (who's forty-four now; Parker Posey's 44!).
Verdict: Mildly Interested
*
A pick for tonight? Well, I need to re-group after a disappointing 7-6-1 record last week. The Dolphins seems like they're fading, and the Bills had a great showing - on a loss - at New England last week. Both teams have very slim playoff chances. I'm at a loss here. It's in Buffalo, where the weather will probably favor the Bills. However, Fred Jackson is hurt, and the Dolphins defense is probably licking its chops after a terrible showing last week against Tennessee. Tough call. I guess I'll give it to the Bills, in a close one, though it could go either way.
Buffalo 20, Miami 17
*
The National Book Awards were announced yesterday. I was glad to see a book I just checked out yesterday from the library, won the award for Best Non-fiction: Katherine Boo's look into the life of a Mumbai slum, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity
The fiction award went to Louise Erdrich's Round House, a unanimously-praised drama/mystery about a woman attacked on a North Dakota Indian reservation. Erdrich has been writing acclaimed fiction for decades - all revolving around modern Native American lives and issues and customs - and this one had been described/pitched as the Native American To Kill a Mockingbird.
*
Finally, to wrap up this Thursday, let's select another one of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time (according to me):
Gene Hackman
as Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle in The French Connection (1971)
Hackman's first Oscar win and one of the most unsentimental, streamlined, unglamorous, unsettling, lived-in portraits of a police detective ever put on screen. It's an exciting movie and performance - still, forty-one years later - and Hackman never seems to care whether you like Doyle or not; he is who he is - relentless, flawed, racist, and, ultimately, fatally wrong.
Images courtesy of:
http://www.theweeklydriver.com/files/2011/01/hackman.jpg
http://www.characterblog.com/assets/CA-katherine-boo-1.jpg
http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/screencrush.com/files/2012/11/anna-karenina-review.jpg
: not easily handled, managed, or used
: cumbersome
Well, Gabriel is a little under the weather today, so we'll keep him home... which means he now will have, by my count, eleven days off. Good God! What to do with him? Well, we're gonna take him up to Charleston one day... the other ten? Help!
Here are the new movies opening this weekend:
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part II This franchise, despite how much money its made, just feels over. The usual crew is here - Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning - and director Bill Condon, who did the last one, is back too. Critics say it moves glacially but is self-aware and occasionally rousing. The end. Now we wait for the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's The Host.
Verdict: Not Interested
Anna Karenina Despite some very talented filmmakers - screenwriter Tom Stoppard and director Joe Wright - critics are saying this bold, modern take on the Tolstoy perennial is a miscalculation, overdirected and overwritten, with some flamboyant touches; too much style and too little substance. The cast is getting pretty good notices - Keira Knightley (the director's muse it seems, after appearing in Pride and Prejudice and Atonement), Jude Law as her aloof husband, Aaron Johnson as the Count she is drawn to, Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Matthew MacFayden (Mr. Darcy in Wright's Pride and Prejudice). It seems as if all the film's Oscar expectations have filtered away.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
Price Check It seems like it has been a long time since Parker Posey has had a plum role and really run with it. Well, she has one here in a slight comedy playing the Boss From Hell, a ruthless, mean, acidic, sarcastic employer who makes life hell for the new guy (Eric Mabius) on his way up the corporate ladder. He doesn't know how far he wants to climb, however, if it means turning into Posey (who's forty-four now; Parker Posey's 44!).
Verdict: Mildly Interested
*
A pick for tonight? Well, I need to re-group after a disappointing 7-6-1 record last week. The Dolphins seems like they're fading, and the Bills had a great showing - on a loss - at New England last week. Both teams have very slim playoff chances. I'm at a loss here. It's in Buffalo, where the weather will probably favor the Bills. However, Fred Jackson is hurt, and the Dolphins defense is probably licking its chops after a terrible showing last week against Tennessee. Tough call. I guess I'll give it to the Bills, in a close one, though it could go either way.
Buffalo 20, Miami 17
*
The National Book Awards were announced yesterday. I was glad to see a book I just checked out yesterday from the library, won the award for Best Non-fiction: Katherine Boo's look into the life of a Mumbai slum, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity
The fiction award went to Louise Erdrich's Round House, a unanimously-praised drama/mystery about a woman attacked on a North Dakota Indian reservation. Erdrich has been writing acclaimed fiction for decades - all revolving around modern Native American lives and issues and customs - and this one had been described/pitched as the Native American To Kill a Mockingbird.
*
Finally, to wrap up this Thursday, let's select another one of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time (according to me):
Gene Hackman
as Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle in The French Connection (1971)
Hackman's first Oscar win and one of the most unsentimental, streamlined, unglamorous, unsettling, lived-in portraits of a police detective ever put on screen. It's an exciting movie and performance - still, forty-one years later - and Hackman never seems to care whether you like Doyle or not; he is who he is - relentless, flawed, racist, and, ultimately, fatally wrong.
Images courtesy of:
http://www.theweeklydriver.com/files/2011/01/hackman.jpg
http://www.characterblog.com/assets/CA-katherine-boo-1.jpg
http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/screencrush.com/files/2012/11/anna-karenina-review.jpg
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
RLS
Word of the day : eructation
: an instance or act of belching
Well, it was a beautiful weekend and Monday. We had a fantastic time in Savannah, going to the Veteran's Day parade and art show and even discovering a new bakery. Gabriel had a fun time going to the park a few days in a row, and there were some good football games too. And Sunday's episodes of Homeland and Dexter were, as usual, immensely entertaining.
*
On today's date, in 1850 Edinburgh, Robert Louis Stevenson was born. Stevenson just might be the most famous novelist you've never actually read.
He was a sickly child, attended and read to by his nurse; early on, Stevenson displayed an interest in religious issues and Scottish history. At Edinburgh University, he was a below-average student, interested in his own writing - and bohemia. To his father's disappointment, he chose to become a writer rather than an engineer. He began writing humorous and philosophical essays and even travelogues of his journeys, through places like France and America. Stevenson started a relationship with a married American ten years his senior, Fanny Osborne; eventually the two ended up back in England after a stay in the Napa Valley, where Stevenson's flailing health was given time to improve.
From 1880 to 1887, Stevenson's health continued to wax and wane, and he was traveling constantly. This, however, was the greatest period for him as an artist: Kidnapped (1886), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and, of course, Treasure Island (1883). The latter novel originated with Stevenson drawing a treasure map for his 12-year-old stepson and then thinking up a story around it; the novel was serialized over the course of three or four months in a boys' magazine.
Stevenson wasn't a great artist in the sense that Dostoevsky or Zola was; he admitted that he was in the entertainment business first and foremost. He wasn't interested in realism (which was the mode of his era) but, rather, escapism.
His art seemed to commercially dry up and his health and depression worsened. He and Fanny (and hi stepson and mother) took a long South Seas cruise in in late 1888: from Hawaii to Tahiti to Samoa, the Australia, and dozens of islands in between. He wrote diaries, letters, and essays documenting the wildlife and cultures he saw; a lot of his political views of the various societies and peoples he saw (and tended to sympathize with) were quite radical. He was a champion for the poor and oppressed.
He never returned to Scotland, but died in Samoa in 1894. His death sent shock waves throughout the literary community and world. Incidentally, it was his work about the South Seas (his travel writings, essays, etc.) that was seen by critics as his strongest work, though his beloved adventure novels are the ones that are synonymous with his name.
Information courtesy of:
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/stevensonbio.html
*
One of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time, according to moi:
Johnny Depp
as Edward Scissorhands (1990)
You either really like or really don't like Tim Burton's bizarre, tragic, outsider-romantic fantasy, but either way, you, um. cut it, Depp's creation - aided by Colleen Atwood's magnificent costume design and Stan Winston's makeup - is one for the ages. Depp's Edward (created by a wacky inventor, played the late, great Vincent Price) is a sad, soulful figure, eternally unable to fit in; Depp's eyes seem to cry out from a cold, friendless void. The actor makes Edward funny and touching and, as characteristic from this inventive actor, weird and charismatic. I can't think of one other actor who could have pulled this role off.
*
Don't forget to check my other blog, http://mybookylife.blogspot.com/, for some recent reviews!
Images courtesy of:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2011/4/22/1303501517149/BE047683-006.jpg
http://afcadam.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/600full-edward-scissorhands-photo.jpg
: an instance or act of belching
Well, it was a beautiful weekend and Monday. We had a fantastic time in Savannah, going to the Veteran's Day parade and art show and even discovering a new bakery. Gabriel had a fun time going to the park a few days in a row, and there were some good football games too. And Sunday's episodes of Homeland and Dexter were, as usual, immensely entertaining.
*
On today's date, in 1850 Edinburgh, Robert Louis Stevenson was born. Stevenson just might be the most famous novelist you've never actually read.
He was a sickly child, attended and read to by his nurse; early on, Stevenson displayed an interest in religious issues and Scottish history. At Edinburgh University, he was a below-average student, interested in his own writing - and bohemia. To his father's disappointment, he chose to become a writer rather than an engineer. He began writing humorous and philosophical essays and even travelogues of his journeys, through places like France and America. Stevenson started a relationship with a married American ten years his senior, Fanny Osborne; eventually the two ended up back in England after a stay in the Napa Valley, where Stevenson's flailing health was given time to improve.
From 1880 to 1887, Stevenson's health continued to wax and wane, and he was traveling constantly. This, however, was the greatest period for him as an artist: Kidnapped (1886), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and, of course, Treasure Island (1883). The latter novel originated with Stevenson drawing a treasure map for his 12-year-old stepson and then thinking up a story around it; the novel was serialized over the course of three or four months in a boys' magazine.
Stevenson wasn't a great artist in the sense that Dostoevsky or Zola was; he admitted that he was in the entertainment business first and foremost. He wasn't interested in realism (which was the mode of his era) but, rather, escapism.
His art seemed to commercially dry up and his health and depression worsened. He and Fanny (and hi stepson and mother) took a long South Seas cruise in in late 1888: from Hawaii to Tahiti to Samoa, the Australia, and dozens of islands in between. He wrote diaries, letters, and essays documenting the wildlife and cultures he saw; a lot of his political views of the various societies and peoples he saw (and tended to sympathize with) were quite radical. He was a champion for the poor and oppressed.
He never returned to Scotland, but died in Samoa in 1894. His death sent shock waves throughout the literary community and world. Incidentally, it was his work about the South Seas (his travel writings, essays, etc.) that was seen by critics as his strongest work, though his beloved adventure novels are the ones that are synonymous with his name.
Information courtesy of:
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/stevensonbio.html
*
One of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time, according to moi:
Johnny Depp
as Edward Scissorhands (1990)
You either really like or really don't like Tim Burton's bizarre, tragic, outsider-romantic fantasy, but either way, you, um. cut it, Depp's creation - aided by Colleen Atwood's magnificent costume design and Stan Winston's makeup - is one for the ages. Depp's Edward (created by a wacky inventor, played the late, great Vincent Price) is a sad, soulful figure, eternally unable to fit in; Depp's eyes seem to cry out from a cold, friendless void. The actor makes Edward funny and touching and, as characteristic from this inventive actor, weird and charismatic. I can't think of one other actor who could have pulled this role off.
*
Don't forget to check my other blog, http://mybookylife.blogspot.com/, for some recent reviews!
Images courtesy of:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2011/4/22/1303501517149/BE047683-006.jpg
http://afcadam.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/600full-edward-scissorhands-photo.jpg
Friday, November 9, 2012
FRIDAY
Word of the day : kaput
: utterly finished, destroyed, or defeated
: outmoded
: useless; unable to function
Beautiful weekend down here in Romney-ville. I don't have too much today - the Fischer family is just itching to get out of town and go to Savannah - but I might as well give my football picks for the weekend:
- NY Giants over Cincinnati
- Baltimore over Oakland (the Raiders and Bengals' seasons will be kaput after this weekend)
- Denver over Carolina
- Tennessee over Miami (I don't know, now that their owner has called them out, I'm expecting the Titans to respond in a game in which I think they have more talent)
- Detroit over Minnesota
- New England over Buffalo (the Bills never win in Foxboro. Never.)
- Tampa Bay over San Diego (tough game to pick)
- Atlanta over New Orleans ( I want to pick the Saints in this one, but I feel like I keep under-estimating the Dirty Birds)
- Seattle over NY Jets
- Philadelphia over Dallas (Who knows? I mean, Christ, who knows?)
- SF over St. Louis
- Chicago over Houston (great game, could go either way)
- Pittsburgh over KC
Last Week's Record: 10-4
Season Record: 83-49
*
Let's keep with sports today. I'm pumped about the start of the college basketball season too, which is right around the corner. Here's the AP top 25:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/ncaa/men/polls/
Wow, the top 4 are all "Tri-state" area teams, with even UC making an appearance at the bottom of the poll.
*
A performance today for my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:
Robert Ryan
as Montgomery in Crossfire (1947)
Pretty much the movie that put the often-cast, criminally-underrated Ryan on the map, this tough, cracking, message-heavy film noir stars Robert Mitchum and Robert Young (a lot of Roberts here, folks) as a cop and sergeant, respectively, trying to discover which member of a group of de-mobilized soldiers who killed a Jewish man. Ryan, earning his lone Oscar nomination for his powerful turn, is the anti-Semite, embittered man most likely responsible. Ryan, nasty and bile, makes his prejudice raw and (sad to say) invigorating; what a scoundrel!
*
Best song I've heard so far this year:
Adele's new theme song from the James Bond pic Skyfall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HKoqNJtMTQ
WOW!
Image courtesy of:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zZN63nSqOmk/To1kRz2IsuI/AAAAAAABFDc/NfT-6btA2uk/s1600/2731275311_26c8b7a550.jpg
: utterly finished, destroyed, or defeated
: outmoded
: useless; unable to function
Beautiful weekend down here in Romney-ville. I don't have too much today - the Fischer family is just itching to get out of town and go to Savannah - but I might as well give my football picks for the weekend:
- NY Giants over Cincinnati
- Baltimore over Oakland (the Raiders and Bengals' seasons will be kaput after this weekend)
- Denver over Carolina
- Tennessee over Miami (I don't know, now that their owner has called them out, I'm expecting the Titans to respond in a game in which I think they have more talent)
- Detroit over Minnesota
- New England over Buffalo (the Bills never win in Foxboro. Never.)
- Tampa Bay over San Diego (tough game to pick)
- Atlanta over New Orleans ( I want to pick the Saints in this one, but I feel like I keep under-estimating the Dirty Birds)
- Seattle over NY Jets
- Philadelphia over Dallas (Who knows? I mean, Christ, who knows?)
- SF over St. Louis
- Chicago over Houston (great game, could go either way)
- Pittsburgh over KC
Last Week's Record: 10-4
Season Record: 83-49
*
Let's keep with sports today. I'm pumped about the start of the college basketball season too, which is right around the corner. Here's the AP top 25:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/ncaa/men/polls/
Wow, the top 4 are all "Tri-state" area teams, with even UC making an appearance at the bottom of the poll.
*
A performance today for my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:
Robert Ryan
as Montgomery in Crossfire (1947)
Pretty much the movie that put the often-cast, criminally-underrated Ryan on the map, this tough, cracking, message-heavy film noir stars Robert Mitchum and Robert Young (a lot of Roberts here, folks) as a cop and sergeant, respectively, trying to discover which member of a group of de-mobilized soldiers who killed a Jewish man. Ryan, earning his lone Oscar nomination for his powerful turn, is the anti-Semite, embittered man most likely responsible. Ryan, nasty and bile, makes his prejudice raw and (sad to say) invigorating; what a scoundrel!
*
Best song I've heard so far this year:
Adele's new theme song from the James Bond pic Skyfall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HKoqNJtMTQ
WOW!
Image courtesy of:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zZN63nSqOmk/To1kRz2IsuI/AAAAAAABFDc/NfT-6btA2uk/s1600/2731275311_26c8b7a550.jpg
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Allergy Thursday
Word of the day : stem-winder
: one that is first-rate of its kind ; especially, a stirring speech
Oh, the allergies! South, you kill me!
Ah-choo, ah-choo... well, let's get to the new movie openings this weekend:
Skyfall 50 years of James Bond, ladies and gentleman, and this is supposed to be one of the all-time best. I'm not sure people thought that Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) was the right man to helm it, but critics are unanimous: this is one terrific actioner. Daniel Craig is back, as is Judi Dench, who is supposed to have more to do than ever, as M, and who can go wrong with Javier Bardem as the villain? Albert Finney, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, and Rhys Ifans co-star, and Adele's theme song is supposed to be a knockout. But I've never seen a James Bond movie and won't start now.
Verdict: Not Interested
Lincoln Oscar nominations galore are waiting for Steven Spielberg's long, talky epic of one of the most famous Americans of all time: in the role, Daniel Day-Lewis (talking in a reedy voice) is supposed to be nothing less than spectacular. Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln will surely be an Oscar front-runner, as will Tommy Lee Jones for his scene-stealing turn as Thaddeus Stevens, a radical anti-slavery Republican. Tony Kushner's script doesn't focus on battles or much Civil War fighting as much as it does political maneuverings. It's leisurely paced, which might turn off some viewers. A large cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, David Strathairn, Lee Pace, Jared Harris, Tim Blake Nelson, John Hawkes, and Jackie Earle Haley.
Verdict: Very Interested
*
A prediction for tonight? Well, I think the Jaguars are the worst team in the league - them or the Chiefs. Talent-wise, I don't think they are very far behind the surprising 5-3 Colts, who are the shocker of the year and a possible playoff contender. I think the Jags will come out tonight inspired and... still lose. The Colts and Andrew Luck won't let themselves get swept by the lowly Jaguars.
Colts 24, Jaguars 17
*
A performance today for my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time?
Paul Newman
as Frank Galvin in The Verdict (1982)
As a drunker lawyer scraping for redemption and confronted with one of the most challenging cases of his life - a medical malpractice suit - Paul Newman is absolutely flawless. It's a pleasure just to listen to him talk. Surrounded by a terrific cast - including James Mason's Oscar-nominated work as a cagey lawyer - Newman oozes desperation and smarts, and you just can't take your eyes off him. The movie's never as good as you want it to be - but Newman is.
Images courtesy of:
http://writlarge.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/verdict_1.jpg
http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/11/06/lincoln-daniel-day-lewis.jpg
: one that is first-rate of its kind ; especially, a stirring speech
Oh, the allergies! South, you kill me!
Ah-choo, ah-choo... well, let's get to the new movie openings this weekend:
Skyfall 50 years of James Bond, ladies and gentleman, and this is supposed to be one of the all-time best. I'm not sure people thought that Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) was the right man to helm it, but critics are unanimous: this is one terrific actioner. Daniel Craig is back, as is Judi Dench, who is supposed to have more to do than ever, as M, and who can go wrong with Javier Bardem as the villain? Albert Finney, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, and Rhys Ifans co-star, and Adele's theme song is supposed to be a knockout. But I've never seen a James Bond movie and won't start now.
Verdict: Not Interested
Lincoln Oscar nominations galore are waiting for Steven Spielberg's long, talky epic of one of the most famous Americans of all time: in the role, Daniel Day-Lewis (talking in a reedy voice) is supposed to be nothing less than spectacular. Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln will surely be an Oscar front-runner, as will Tommy Lee Jones for his scene-stealing turn as Thaddeus Stevens, a radical anti-slavery Republican. Tony Kushner's script doesn't focus on battles or much Civil War fighting as much as it does political maneuverings. It's leisurely paced, which might turn off some viewers. A large cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, David Strathairn, Lee Pace, Jared Harris, Tim Blake Nelson, John Hawkes, and Jackie Earle Haley.
Verdict: Very Interested
*
A prediction for tonight? Well, I think the Jaguars are the worst team in the league - them or the Chiefs. Talent-wise, I don't think they are very far behind the surprising 5-3 Colts, who are the shocker of the year and a possible playoff contender. I think the Jags will come out tonight inspired and... still lose. The Colts and Andrew Luck won't let themselves get swept by the lowly Jaguars.
Colts 24, Jaguars 17
*
A performance today for my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time?
Paul Newman
as Frank Galvin in The Verdict (1982)
As a drunker lawyer scraping for redemption and confronted with one of the most challenging cases of his life - a medical malpractice suit - Paul Newman is absolutely flawless. It's a pleasure just to listen to him talk. Surrounded by a terrific cast - including James Mason's Oscar-nominated work as a cagey lawyer - Newman oozes desperation and smarts, and you just can't take your eyes off him. The movie's never as good as you want it to be - but Newman is.
Images courtesy of:
http://writlarge.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/verdict_1.jpg
http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/11/06/lincoln-daniel-day-lewis.jpg
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
A sigh of relief perhaps... or not?
Word of the day : comestible
: edible
Are you happy or sad this post-election day? The country sure is divided, no?
Alas, we don't talk politics on this blog. For that, you need to go elsewhere.
On this date ninety-nine years ago, one of the 20th century's greatest writers was born: Albert Camus (1913-1960). He grew up in Algeria, but came to France in the late 1930s. He held deep interests in philosophy and revolutionary ideas. Camus joined the French Resistance during WWII and worked as a political journalist during the war. He became even more active in theater and fiction; he had already written essays and novels at that point, but he started gaining more and more recognition - thanks to his work in the theater - after the war.
What we most remember Camus for today is the existentialism. Hopelessness, dissatisfaction, loneliness, isolation. The Stranger (1942) is, of course, his most famous novel - about a man involved in a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Camus claimed he wasn't so much an existentialist as he was an absurdist, which is similar to existentialism and nihilism, but slightly different in that existentialists believe that the existence of the individual is above and more important than anything else, whereas absurdists believe that personal meaning and existence isn't that important at all. Camus' essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" has been credited as one of the first works of art that is absurdist without necessarily being existentialist.
Other important novels from Camus are The Plague (1947), set in a small North African town, and 1956's The Fall, about an amoral Parisian lawyer. In 1957, he became the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (only Rudyard Kipling was younger); two years later, he died in an automobile accident.
Information courtesy of: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-bio.html
*
Well, we're a week into the new month and I haven't added any selection to my list of the 200 Essential American Films:
Here are this month's selections:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004; Michel Gondry)
A terrific cast meets an ambitious director full of visual ideas meets a brilliant design team meets a one-of-kind screenwriter. Doesn't get much better and or more creative than this for a romantic drama.
Groundhog Day (1993; Harold Ramis)
One of the slyest comedies ever, with a brilliant Bill Murray. Repetition (i.e. modern existence) as hell. And yet, oddly, a movie you can watch over and over and over again.
In a Lonely Place (1950; Nicholas Ray)
A blistering, sad, noir-ish mystery (taken from the Dorothy B. Hughes novel) about an alcoholic screenwriter (Humphrey Bogart) who might have committed a murder and the neighbor across the way (Gloria Grahame) who might have seen him to do it - and might love him anyway. Drenched in the glorious fatalism of the great Nichols Ray.
King Kong (1933; Merian C. Cooper)
Peter Jackson's remake was good, but it's got nothing on the grandaddy of them all.
Mulholland Drive (2001; David Lynch)
The mind-rape of all time. I've seen it three or four times and am still utterly hypnotized and baffled by it. Naomi Watts is absolutely incredible as the bright-eyed actress new to L.A. - God help her!
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988; David Zucker)
One of the funniest movies I've ever seen. "I have to get up early tomorrow - it's Arbor Day."
Shadow of a Doubt (1943; Alfred Hitchcock)
Hitchcock's thoughts on suburbia - right here, folks. Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright are memorable as a woman-killer (literally) and the niece who suspects him.
The Sweet Smell of Success (1957; Alexander Mackendrick)
Tough, tough, tough. Burt Lancaster is an unprincipled, everything's-for-sale newspaper columnist who starts messing, tragically, with the life of press agent Tony Curtis. Relevant and brilliantly performed.
Touch of Evil (1958; Orson Welles)
Visual razzle-dazzle, Orson Welles' last major, fully-inhabited performance, great lines...
Vertigo (1958; Alfred Hitchcock)
Hitch's deepest, most profound film, Jimmy Stewart's greatest work, but it just might bore you. Patience, people!
*
The Raven (2012) isn't as bad as critics say it is; I had a mildly good time with it. It's one of those serial-killer movies that doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you scrutinize it too closely, but it's got a decent plot and central performance by John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, whose last days are left scrambling around Baltimore, trying to outwit a serial killer who is using the works of Poe as his inspiration; Cusack is strident and pushy here, but at least he's entertaining. (**1/2)
Which reminds me... It's about time John Cusack made an appearance on my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time, right?
John Cusack
as Rob Gordon in High Fidelity (2000)
In this effervescent, spot-on, very appealing and smart adaptation of the London-set Nick Hornby novel, Cusack is at his charismatic, puppy-eyed, fast-talking best as a Chicago record store owner with an annoying staff of two (Jack Black and Todd Louiso), a list of reasons why his love life hasn't worked out, a stunning vinyl collection, and a new love who might just be the one for him. Cusack makes neuroses lovable and catching; he's a guy we all know and love. Great body language too.
Images courtesy of:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/files/2012/01/Albert-Camus.jpg
http://www.impassionedcinema.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/600full-eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind-screenshot.jpg
http://www.jaxhistory.com/kingkong.jpg
http://bplusmovieblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/the-naked-gun-14.png
http://opionator.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/john-cusack-being-the-tortured-artist.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2bEoxg2pHtQ/UBLQtR2Z3lI/AAAAAAAAASo/EivD7GOygzc/s1600/HighFidelityJohnCusack.jpg
: edible
Are you happy or sad this post-election day? The country sure is divided, no?
Alas, we don't talk politics on this blog. For that, you need to go elsewhere.
On this date ninety-nine years ago, one of the 20th century's greatest writers was born: Albert Camus (1913-1960). He grew up in Algeria, but came to France in the late 1930s. He held deep interests in philosophy and revolutionary ideas. Camus joined the French Resistance during WWII and worked as a political journalist during the war. He became even more active in theater and fiction; he had already written essays and novels at that point, but he started gaining more and more recognition - thanks to his work in the theater - after the war.
What we most remember Camus for today is the existentialism. Hopelessness, dissatisfaction, loneliness, isolation. The Stranger (1942) is, of course, his most famous novel - about a man involved in a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Camus claimed he wasn't so much an existentialist as he was an absurdist, which is similar to existentialism and nihilism, but slightly different in that existentialists believe that the existence of the individual is above and more important than anything else, whereas absurdists believe that personal meaning and existence isn't that important at all. Camus' essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" has been credited as one of the first works of art that is absurdist without necessarily being existentialist.
Other important novels from Camus are The Plague (1947), set in a small North African town, and 1956's The Fall, about an amoral Parisian lawyer. In 1957, he became the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (only Rudyard Kipling was younger); two years later, he died in an automobile accident.
Information courtesy of: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-bio.html
*
Well, we're a week into the new month and I haven't added any selection to my list of the 200 Essential American Films:
Here are this month's selections:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004; Michel Gondry)
A terrific cast meets an ambitious director full of visual ideas meets a brilliant design team meets a one-of-kind screenwriter. Doesn't get much better and or more creative than this for a romantic drama.
Groundhog Day (1993; Harold Ramis)
One of the slyest comedies ever, with a brilliant Bill Murray. Repetition (i.e. modern existence) as hell. And yet, oddly, a movie you can watch over and over and over again.
In a Lonely Place (1950; Nicholas Ray)
A blistering, sad, noir-ish mystery (taken from the Dorothy B. Hughes novel) about an alcoholic screenwriter (Humphrey Bogart) who might have committed a murder and the neighbor across the way (Gloria Grahame) who might have seen him to do it - and might love him anyway. Drenched in the glorious fatalism of the great Nichols Ray.
King Kong (1933; Merian C. Cooper)
Peter Jackson's remake was good, but it's got nothing on the grandaddy of them all.
Mulholland Drive (2001; David Lynch)
The mind-rape of all time. I've seen it three or four times and am still utterly hypnotized and baffled by it. Naomi Watts is absolutely incredible as the bright-eyed actress new to L.A. - God help her!
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988; David Zucker)
One of the funniest movies I've ever seen. "I have to get up early tomorrow - it's Arbor Day."
Shadow of a Doubt (1943; Alfred Hitchcock)
Hitchcock's thoughts on suburbia - right here, folks. Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright are memorable as a woman-killer (literally) and the niece who suspects him.
The Sweet Smell of Success (1957; Alexander Mackendrick)
Tough, tough, tough. Burt Lancaster is an unprincipled, everything's-for-sale newspaper columnist who starts messing, tragically, with the life of press agent Tony Curtis. Relevant and brilliantly performed.
Touch of Evil (1958; Orson Welles)
Visual razzle-dazzle, Orson Welles' last major, fully-inhabited performance, great lines...
Vertigo (1958; Alfred Hitchcock)
Hitch's deepest, most profound film, Jimmy Stewart's greatest work, but it just might bore you. Patience, people!
*
The Raven (2012) isn't as bad as critics say it is; I had a mildly good time with it. It's one of those serial-killer movies that doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you scrutinize it too closely, but it's got a decent plot and central performance by John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, whose last days are left scrambling around Baltimore, trying to outwit a serial killer who is using the works of Poe as his inspiration; Cusack is strident and pushy here, but at least he's entertaining. (**1/2)
Which reminds me... It's about time John Cusack made an appearance on my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time, right?
John Cusack
as Rob Gordon in High Fidelity (2000)
In this effervescent, spot-on, very appealing and smart adaptation of the London-set Nick Hornby novel, Cusack is at his charismatic, puppy-eyed, fast-talking best as a Chicago record store owner with an annoying staff of two (Jack Black and Todd Louiso), a list of reasons why his love life hasn't worked out, a stunning vinyl collection, and a new love who might just be the one for him. Cusack makes neuroses lovable and catching; he's a guy we all know and love. Great body language too.
Images courtesy of:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/files/2012/01/Albert-Camus.jpg
http://www.impassionedcinema.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/600full-eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind-screenshot.jpg
http://www.jaxhistory.com/kingkong.jpg
http://bplusmovieblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/the-naked-gun-14.png
http://opionator.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/john-cusack-being-the-tortured-artist.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2bEoxg2pHtQ/UBLQtR2Z3lI/AAAAAAAAASo/EivD7GOygzc/s1600/HighFidelityJohnCusack.jpg
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
E-Day
It's Election Day, which means there won't be any new post until tomorrow.
I encourage you to catch up on my other blog, http://mybookylife.blogspot.com/, if you have a few minutes.
And choose wisely today...
I encourage you to catch up on my other blog, http://mybookylife.blogspot.com/, if you have a few minutes.
And choose wisely today...
Friday, November 2, 2012
Weekend Forecast
Word of the day : sequacious
: intellectually servile
Ah, the weekend before the election, and I don't want to talk about it. Let's talk instead about two movies I've rented recently that I think you should see.
Magic Mike (2012)
Sure, you can think of it as the "Channing Tatum stripper movie," because that's what it is. But it's also one of the year's better entertainments. Tatum, in a star-making performance (that is, if he wasn't already a star), is Mike, an entrepreneurial young man who has ambitions to start his own business but is forced to earn a living as a male dancer/stripper at a nightclub run by charismatic owner Dallas (Matthew McConaughey). Mike, the star of the show and a 30-year old without one meaningful relationship, befriends a wayward nineteen-year old, played by Alex Pettyfer, and takes him under his wing. It's a classic, film-like entryway into an exotic world - show it through the eyes of a newbie - and one of the things I like so much about the classically-structured film (directed with verve and energy by do-it-all Steven Soderbergh and written by Reid Carolin) is that it doesn't objectify the dancers and it also doesn't give us the pat moralizations we're used to: sure, these guys might do all right for themselves and make good money, but stripping is wrong, folks. Like Boogie Nights, the film shows the pitfalls of the profession, but mostly it looks like a lot of fun. Grandly entertaining and shot nicely by Soderbergh (using a pseudonym, as usual), who vividly contrasts the color tone of the nightclub sequences with the dirty-yellow, bright, unforgiving daytime sunlight of Tampa, the film features a somewhat blank performance by Cody Horn (as Pettyfer's sister and Tatum's love interest) but a hypnotic one by McConaughey, who steals all his scenes commandingly. I'm sure the routine with Tatum dancing and stripping to Ginuwine's horny, propulsive "Pony" will be something of a classic and YouTube sensation.
(***1/2)
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
Equally terrific and better than it has any right to be is this Sundance smash about three Seattle magazine writers (Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, and Karan Soni) who decide to do a story on a strange man who placed an ad seeking a companion to time travel with. When the trio shows up at the man's seaside town of Ocean Shores, they find him working as a cashier in a supermarket; the plan is to get the girl, the novice of the three, to befriend him and see what exactly he is up to. She does so, and begins to find his eccentricity oddly endearing and attractive; the guy, Kenneth, is played compellingly by Mark Duplass (it's a tricky role). I thought the whole thing would break under the weight of its whimsical premise, but what's remarkable in Derek Connolly's smart script is that the movie is engaging, strangely believable, and surprising scene after scene; I never knew where the film was going, and I was on board with the entire way. Well-directed by Colin Trevorrow, the film is anchored by a good cast, at the vanguard of which is the breakout turn by Aubrey Plaza as Darius, the girl (virgin?) who sets about finding what makes Kenneth tick. Plaza is funny and sharp and witty, and by the time her character takes a leap of faith at the end, it's clear that it's earned.
(***1/2)
*
I was going to do a bio today on... well, I forget. I don't know many people have really been reading my blog lately anyway, so I'm not gonna bother. Instead, here are my NFL picks for the weekend:
Denver over Cincinnati (a very easy game to pick)
Baltimore over Cleveland
Green Bay over Arizona
Chicago over Tennessee
Miami over Indianapolis (tough one)
Washington over Carolina
Detroit over Jacksonville (though the Jags displayed signs of a passing game last week)
Houston over Buffalo (I can just smell the Buffalo turnovers in the air)
Tampa Bay over Oakland (though the Bucs never win on the west coast)
Seattle over Minnesota
NY Giants over Pittsburgh (maybe the game of the week)
Atlanta over Dallas (Big D's last stand for 2012 - but the Dirty Birds are awfully good)
Philadelphia over New Orleans ( a shoot-out, regardless)
Images courtesy of:
http://roccosrevolution.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/magic-mike-0.jpg
http://cdn.wegotthiscovered.com/wp-content/uploads/mark-duplass-interview-safety-not-guaranteed.jpg
Last Week's Record: 8-6
Season Record: 73-45
: intellectually servile
Ah, the weekend before the election, and I don't want to talk about it. Let's talk instead about two movies I've rented recently that I think you should see.
Magic Mike (2012)
Sure, you can think of it as the "Channing Tatum stripper movie," because that's what it is. But it's also one of the year's better entertainments. Tatum, in a star-making performance (that is, if he wasn't already a star), is Mike, an entrepreneurial young man who has ambitions to start his own business but is forced to earn a living as a male dancer/stripper at a nightclub run by charismatic owner Dallas (Matthew McConaughey). Mike, the star of the show and a 30-year old without one meaningful relationship, befriends a wayward nineteen-year old, played by Alex Pettyfer, and takes him under his wing. It's a classic, film-like entryway into an exotic world - show it through the eyes of a newbie - and one of the things I like so much about the classically-structured film (directed with verve and energy by do-it-all Steven Soderbergh and written by Reid Carolin) is that it doesn't objectify the dancers and it also doesn't give us the pat moralizations we're used to: sure, these guys might do all right for themselves and make good money, but stripping is wrong, folks. Like Boogie Nights, the film shows the pitfalls of the profession, but mostly it looks like a lot of fun. Grandly entertaining and shot nicely by Soderbergh (using a pseudonym, as usual), who vividly contrasts the color tone of the nightclub sequences with the dirty-yellow, bright, unforgiving daytime sunlight of Tampa, the film features a somewhat blank performance by Cody Horn (as Pettyfer's sister and Tatum's love interest) but a hypnotic one by McConaughey, who steals all his scenes commandingly. I'm sure the routine with Tatum dancing and stripping to Ginuwine's horny, propulsive "Pony" will be something of a classic and YouTube sensation.
(***1/2)
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
Equally terrific and better than it has any right to be is this Sundance smash about three Seattle magazine writers (Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, and Karan Soni) who decide to do a story on a strange man who placed an ad seeking a companion to time travel with. When the trio shows up at the man's seaside town of Ocean Shores, they find him working as a cashier in a supermarket; the plan is to get the girl, the novice of the three, to befriend him and see what exactly he is up to. She does so, and begins to find his eccentricity oddly endearing and attractive; the guy, Kenneth, is played compellingly by Mark Duplass (it's a tricky role). I thought the whole thing would break under the weight of its whimsical premise, but what's remarkable in Derek Connolly's smart script is that the movie is engaging, strangely believable, and surprising scene after scene; I never knew where the film was going, and I was on board with the entire way. Well-directed by Colin Trevorrow, the film is anchored by a good cast, at the vanguard of which is the breakout turn by Aubrey Plaza as Darius, the girl (virgin?) who sets about finding what makes Kenneth tick. Plaza is funny and sharp and witty, and by the time her character takes a leap of faith at the end, it's clear that it's earned.
(***1/2)
*
I was going to do a bio today on... well, I forget. I don't know many people have really been reading my blog lately anyway, so I'm not gonna bother. Instead, here are my NFL picks for the weekend:
Denver over Cincinnati (a very easy game to pick)
Baltimore over Cleveland
Green Bay over Arizona
Chicago over Tennessee
Miami over Indianapolis (tough one)
Washington over Carolina
Detroit over Jacksonville (though the Jags displayed signs of a passing game last week)
Houston over Buffalo (I can just smell the Buffalo turnovers in the air)
Tampa Bay over Oakland (though the Bucs never win on the west coast)
Seattle over Minnesota
NY Giants over Pittsburgh (maybe the game of the week)
Atlanta over Dallas (Big D's last stand for 2012 - but the Dirty Birds are awfully good)
Philadelphia over New Orleans ( a shoot-out, regardless)
Images courtesy of:
http://roccosrevolution.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/magic-mike-0.jpg
http://cdn.wegotthiscovered.com/wp-content/uploads/mark-duplass-interview-safety-not-guaranteed.jpg
Last Week's Record: 8-6
Season Record: 73-45
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Fall Movies
Word of the day : dissociate
: disconnect, disunite
Happy first day of November, readers! Hope everyone had a safe and intriguing Halloween - I know we did.
Let's take a quick look at some of the movies coming out this weekend. A few of them are getting excellent reviews.
Flight Denzel Washington, after a decade of crap, is getting some of the best reviews of his career and is a surefire Oscar contender as Whip Whitaker, a cocky pilot whose life after a harrowing crash dissolves into a mess. Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? etc.) is supposed to be at the top of his form here, and the script by John Gatins might just take home the Oscar. The special effects are reputed to be unnervingly good, and there's a terrific cast supporting the marvelous Washington: John Goodman as his his cocaine dealer, Don Cheadle as a cold-blooded lawyer, Bruce Greenwood as his friend, English actress Kelly Reilly (doing a Southern accent) as a fellow alcoholic, and Brian Geraghty ( ATM, The Hurt Locker) as a fellow pilot.
Verdict: Very Interested
The Bay Director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Diner, Bugsy) in a genre he's never done before: horror. Specifically, found-footage horror. The reviews are really, really good for this inspired-by-true-events story (!) about the terrifying events that occurred in a small Chesapeake Bay seaside town in 2009. Levinson, working with unknown actors, tells the story of the biological catastrophe (don't go in the water!) that authorities tried to cover up through "found footage" such as iPhones, webcams, Androids, cell phones, etc. Ingenious.
Verdict: Very Interested
Wreck-it-Ralph An animated kids movie about a video game character (voiced by John C. Reilly) who is tired of the game he is stuck in and, more specifically, the role of villain he is destined to play. He breaks out of his role and tries to prove his worthiness.... or something like that. Good reviews. Voice players include Jane Lynch, Mindy Kaling, Jack McBrayer, Ed O'Neill, and Sarah Silverman.
Verdict: Not Interested
This Must Be the Place Boy, this one sounds odd. Sean Penn, decked out in mascara like the Cure's Robert Smith (and speaking in a fey, disaffected voice), is a 50-year old former rock star/turned Nazi hunter (!) making his way across America to avenge his father's injustices. Judd Hirsch and Harry Dean Stanton are here, as is Frances McDormand as Penn's wife. Critics like it - and Penn's understated performance. Challenging and beautiful to look at, the film takes its title from the Talking Heads song.
Verdict: Interested
The Details A good cast in a poorly-reviewed satire about a suburban husband (Tobey Maguire) who becomes fed-up (to say the least) with the raccoons damaging his property. Cue the drugs, adultery, organ donation, extortion and murder. Wild tonal shifts apparently. Laura Linney, Elizabeth Banks, Ray Liotta, Kerry Washington, and Dennis Haysbert are among the cast. I'm kind of curious, but the preview didn't look that good.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
The Man With the Iron Fists Hmmm... The Wu-Tang Clan's RZA directs and stars in this epic martial-arts adventure set in 19th-century China. Not screened for critics. Somehow, RZA got his friend Russell Crowe to tag along for a meaty supporting role.
Verdict: Not Interested
Vamps Clueless writer-director Amy Heckerling returns after a long absence with this comedy about two modern NYC club-hopping single women (Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter) who just happen to be vampires. It hasn't been screened for enough critics yet to gauge its quality - but frankly, you probably already know if you want to see it or not. Justin Kirk, Sigourney Weaver, Malcolm McDowell, Wallace Shawn, and Richard Lewis co-star.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
*
A performance today for my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time? How about two - by the same actor?
Charles Chaplin
as a Tramp in City Lights (1931)
and
as a Factory Worker in Modern Times (1936)
What can I say? These are unimprovable performances. Who today could balance the comedy and pathos - and sheer physical eloquence - of silent comedy with such grace? Well, Jean Dujardin tried - and won an Oscar for the effort!
*
A pick for tonight? Gee, what a who-cares game! I'll give it to the underachieving San Diego just because they're at home, and Kansas City is truly godawful, which is a mystery in and of itself, considering that they have plenty of good players.
San Diego 30, Kansas City 13
*
Check back in tomorrow for some movie reviews and a brief bio of Joseph Radetzky (born on Nov. 2, that's why)
Images:
http://www.creativelydifferentblinds.com/BlindImages/1228.jpg
http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/modern-times.jpg
http://hiphollywood.com/wp-content/themes/morning/functions/theme/thumb.php?src=http://hiphollywood.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Screen-shot-2012-06-07-at-3.50.19-PM.png&w=630&h=350&zc=1&a=c
http://thefilmexperience.net/storage/2012/thebay-still.jpeg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1349265479418
: disconnect, disunite
Happy first day of November, readers! Hope everyone had a safe and intriguing Halloween - I know we did.
Let's take a quick look at some of the movies coming out this weekend. A few of them are getting excellent reviews.
Flight Denzel Washington, after a decade of crap, is getting some of the best reviews of his career and is a surefire Oscar contender as Whip Whitaker, a cocky pilot whose life after a harrowing crash dissolves into a mess. Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? etc.) is supposed to be at the top of his form here, and the script by John Gatins might just take home the Oscar. The special effects are reputed to be unnervingly good, and there's a terrific cast supporting the marvelous Washington: John Goodman as his his cocaine dealer, Don Cheadle as a cold-blooded lawyer, Bruce Greenwood as his friend, English actress Kelly Reilly (doing a Southern accent) as a fellow alcoholic, and Brian Geraghty ( ATM, The Hurt Locker) as a fellow pilot.
Verdict: Very Interested
The Bay Director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Diner, Bugsy) in a genre he's never done before: horror. Specifically, found-footage horror. The reviews are really, really good for this inspired-by-true-events story (!) about the terrifying events that occurred in a small Chesapeake Bay seaside town in 2009. Levinson, working with unknown actors, tells the story of the biological catastrophe (don't go in the water!) that authorities tried to cover up through "found footage" such as iPhones, webcams, Androids, cell phones, etc. Ingenious.
Verdict: Very Interested
Wreck-it-Ralph An animated kids movie about a video game character (voiced by John C. Reilly) who is tired of the game he is stuck in and, more specifically, the role of villain he is destined to play. He breaks out of his role and tries to prove his worthiness.... or something like that. Good reviews. Voice players include Jane Lynch, Mindy Kaling, Jack McBrayer, Ed O'Neill, and Sarah Silverman.
Verdict: Not Interested
This Must Be the Place Boy, this one sounds odd. Sean Penn, decked out in mascara like the Cure's Robert Smith (and speaking in a fey, disaffected voice), is a 50-year old former rock star/turned Nazi hunter (!) making his way across America to avenge his father's injustices. Judd Hirsch and Harry Dean Stanton are here, as is Frances McDormand as Penn's wife. Critics like it - and Penn's understated performance. Challenging and beautiful to look at, the film takes its title from the Talking Heads song.
Verdict: Interested
The Details A good cast in a poorly-reviewed satire about a suburban husband (Tobey Maguire) who becomes fed-up (to say the least) with the raccoons damaging his property. Cue the drugs, adultery, organ donation, extortion and murder. Wild tonal shifts apparently. Laura Linney, Elizabeth Banks, Ray Liotta, Kerry Washington, and Dennis Haysbert are among the cast. I'm kind of curious, but the preview didn't look that good.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
The Man With the Iron Fists Hmmm... The Wu-Tang Clan's RZA directs and stars in this epic martial-arts adventure set in 19th-century China. Not screened for critics. Somehow, RZA got his friend Russell Crowe to tag along for a meaty supporting role.
Verdict: Not Interested
Vamps Clueless writer-director Amy Heckerling returns after a long absence with this comedy about two modern NYC club-hopping single women (Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter) who just happen to be vampires. It hasn't been screened for enough critics yet to gauge its quality - but frankly, you probably already know if you want to see it or not. Justin Kirk, Sigourney Weaver, Malcolm McDowell, Wallace Shawn, and Richard Lewis co-star.
Verdict: Mildly Interested
*
A performance today for my 500 Greatest Performances of All Time? How about two - by the same actor?
Charles Chaplin
as a Tramp in City Lights (1931)
and
as a Factory Worker in Modern Times (1936)
What can I say? These are unimprovable performances. Who today could balance the comedy and pathos - and sheer physical eloquence - of silent comedy with such grace? Well, Jean Dujardin tried - and won an Oscar for the effort!
*
A pick for tonight? Gee, what a who-cares game! I'll give it to the underachieving San Diego just because they're at home, and Kansas City is truly godawful, which is a mystery in and of itself, considering that they have plenty of good players.
San Diego 30, Kansas City 13
*
Check back in tomorrow for some movie reviews and a brief bio of Joseph Radetzky (born on Nov. 2, that's why)
Images:
http://www.creativelydifferentblinds.com/BlindImages/1228.jpg
http://www.thingsyoungerthanmccain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/modern-times.jpg
http://hiphollywood.com/wp-content/themes/morning/functions/theme/thumb.php?src=http://hiphollywood.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Screen-shot-2012-06-07-at-3.50.19-PM.png&w=630&h=350&zc=1&a=c
http://thefilmexperience.net/storage/2012/thebay-still.jpeg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1349265479418
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