Repost from old blog, 9/22/2007
I read Blake Nelson’s novel Girl when I was in high school (back in the day, devouring my girl friend’s used copies of Sassy in study hall). I enjoyed it a great deal (a novel about teens with sex and drugs!), but Nelson fell off my radar until recently, when I read that his young adult novel Paranoid Park was the basis for Gus Van Sant’s latest film (I’m a big Van Sant fan, with a particular affinity for his slowest, most boring work).
Repost from old blog, 4/20/2008
God, how stupid is this? While wasting a perfectly good half-hour browsing user reviews on Netflix, I became troubled by all the negative reactions to the 2006 film “Old Joy,” which was one of the best movies I saw that year. I was compelled to write my own review, but when I tried to submit it Netflix gave me this dumb error and wouldn’t take it. I’m going to post it here so my waste of time isn’t even more wasteful. Why do I fucking care what people on Netflix think of a movie I like? I hate the internet – it’s like this, you know, continually making mountains out of molehills, getting you lost in little insignificant alleys of data and opinion that are fucking meaningless, time-wasting, ignorance-building, distracting.
And so, my take on “Old Joy”:
The opening scene of “Old Joy” shows a man meditating in his back yard, and getting distracted. I suppose that’s as good a metaphor for all the negative reactions here (on Netflix) as any. This is a movie that requires you to sit, to let go; but naturally some viewers are going to get anxious – for movement, for change, for distractions. I wasn’t one of them. This was one of the best movies I saw last year. It’s certainly not about plot or characters changing and having some grand revelation. It’s meditative, it’s poetic, it gives you spaces in which to think and to lose yourself. The characters are wholly convincing and fully realized. Subtlety like this is rare.
Note from 2010: As of right now this film is available to view on Netflix Instant View.
Joe Gage showed me this clip a couple of years ago, a deleted scene from Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous,” and I’ve finally discovered it online. I remember the ending being drawn out a bit more, with more attention being drawn to the boyfriend’s mysterious hand motion, and extended eye contact between them…but maybe I just watch too many Joe Gage movies.
Okay, sure, I re-watched Dreamscape on Netflix for pretty much the sole reason of reviewing this memorable shot of a young Dennis Quaid in bikinis that rival the size and purposelessness of Ripley’s. But it’s actually a pretty good movie with some fantastic imagery, amusing performances (wherefore art thou, David Patrick Kelly?), an inspired score by Maurice Jarr, and sexiness beyond the obviousness of Dennis Quaid’s flat stomach and juicy butt. Recommended!
What a piece of shit. Is there anything more excruciating than the third act of a bad action movie? Where you know exactly what’s going to happen, and who is going to win in the end, yet have to sit through an endless battle sequence anyway?
How it pains me to refer to action movies when discussing a film based on Alice in Wonderland, for christ’s sake, a story that is meandering and exploratory – and not action oriented – in a most pleasurable and singular way. But this is a 2010 Disney movie and so we must have action, a villain with a scarred face, and a lame female empowerment message to wrap it all up. I’d rather not even mention the fact that it was directed by Tim Burton who used to make good movies, I think? Not that this one didn’t have its redeeming qualities, but sometimes you have to take a stand.
There’s lots to hate here. Dreary, cluttered CGI landscapes. A pummeling music score so intent on enforcing a feeling of WONDER and AMAZEMENT that it never abates for more than a second or two. Unattractive characters that don’t inspire even a passing interest. Anne Hathaway embarrassing herself.
About an hour in my nine-year-old charge turned to me and said, “They’re stealing everything from other movies.” She still liked it, but the path to cynicism is slow and sure.
Repost from old blog, 1/20/2009
…are my favorite.
sex, lies, and videotape (Cliff Martinez)
Heathers (David Newman)
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (Thomas Newman)
Thomas Newman – Several Letters
I can’t walk two steps from my toilet without hearing about this goddamn movie which I will not name. When all I can think of is that it’s a) going to suck and b) going to be disgusting and furthermore:
…the conceit is as figuratively a bunch of crap as it is literally. Heiter’s plan is for his three-person creation to share a digestive system, but merely attaching people and leaving their intestines intact does not accomplish this. The head eats, digests and shits into the middle’s mouth which goes through her digestive system and passes to the next only to go through her digestive system. Oh yeah, and if you only eat shit, you die really quick.
NO SHIT
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I watch this movie sometimes to remind myself of how glad I am not to be in college anymore.
