Serenity mark 1 A

I watched the "blogger" preview of Serenity on Monday and I'm going to write about it quickly but not going to give it the benifit of the evil "musts" of the "new media" blogging concept that the e-mail entailed. Not because I won't give the movie all the free publicity I can, which I will, but because, free publicity with a hook is still non-free publicity.

Um, I loved it.

Here's the non-obvious part right from the beginning, the Reavers genuininely scared the fuck out of me. And they are the bad guys. I was genuinely in a sphincter-clenched-mode through-out the whole first major chase scene, and I'm not kidding. Are you 30 something young?

Do you remember either of two things that I am about to bring up?

Do you remember the episode of Greatest American Hero in which he invesitgates a Haunted House and that "claw" works him over? Do you remember the episode of Buck Rogers with the space vampires?

This movie has those two scaries combined and it does them so insanely well (and so prettily becausue, um, they're film .now.) that you forget how tv-ish it is in concept. Something interesting happens at the end of all that pretty film, though I will not spoil the movie. But the thing is, for 40 million dollars Joss has made a movie that warps dimensions around awesomesomesss as regards any other 180 million dollar movie including that movie I most loved previously this year - "Batman Begins".

Jehovah-Christum - the movie includes the line: "Dear Buddha: I want a pony and a plastic rocket . . . "

Are we clear on how many ideas of Buddism that breaks - pretty much all of them and intentionally? That's maybe the best line the movies will have all year (The cynic in me mildly favors "It Is said that" Evil Prevails when good men fail to act." It should be amended to "Evil Prevails"". "Lord of War.)

So favorite film of recent-dom, though not as favorite as Kill Bill Vol. 1 which is like saying I liked it, but Paul just wasn't as convincing as that guy Jesus.

Sacreligious is true and fine, especially now that my father has appeared on TV denouncing the Roman Catholic church (in an attempt to salvage it).

I _can_ guarantee he loved Serenity more, even, then I did, and I'm seeing it once again this weekend. He's seeing it at least twice, again this weekend and the thing is, I don't think he's alone. Genuinely _great fucking movie_. It sort of sneaks into my number two or three slot. I haven't decided yet. It's very close to my favorite movie of the year and it's into play on my favorite more ever list. If it were shorter it would eat slots, but it ends up kinda wordy and talking a bit. Funny-talkish, but that's problematic.

Anyway, mind, I love it, which is the most important lesson to take from this.

Lord of War B

The kind of movie that I'm more glad for having watched than I actually enjoyed watching at the time. Nic Cage is brilliant as usual, but the relevent precident here is Blow which also enjoyed a stellar central performance by a great actor, but was hampered by usual plot mechanics of inevitablity. Blow is actually strikingly apt in comparison also because the main characters in both tales are intrinsically bad people, and the work for even worse people (Escobar is replaced here by Baptiste, but it's essentially the same sociopathic character) and you're supposed to feel, well, what, exactly?

It fits in a little to well with my generally liberal world-view for me not to feel icky with even the idea of liking it - it would be like patting myself on the back from several directions at once, which, I don't really play that.

OK, to be more specific about why I like the Gorillaz video as much as I do, though I'm past the infatuation period at this exact moment, my friend (N) was buds with De La Soul way back when and he has since told me Posdnous had his brain connected somewhat. To see them again in this video makes me feel all cockled, as in my cockeles (of my heart) are all looking airbrushy right now. I also love the idea of animators creating videos, and I suspect this _is_ the future in a big way. Linkin Park is part of the trend toward this way, though their Numb/Encore production is way more instructive then they are as a band as such. Both hip-hop and Rap will be integrated into music, and more importantly is multimedia, which is to say videos will become more key than anything. Lesson here is from "Mark Romanek's "Closer", which is kinda maybe the best video ever, but which also showed the way toward videos which make the songs premanently better even just listening to them. Feel Good Inc. has this quality also.

Assuming I ever formed a band, which I wouldn't, I would absolutely ask an animator to be in my band, like, pronto. If they have musical talent (a la Mr. Hahn) then great. If they don't, um who cares? I need someone who c an bring the visual noise, and let's be honest, Jamie Hewlett may have significant musical skill or not, and I have no idea personally, but visually, he's near the head of the class of people who can make shit look aw3some. *

*intentional in terms of attempt to propogate a meme. It may not be reaching the right people, which is problematic, but this will tell me something, anyway.

Feel Good Inc by the Gorillaz (video edition)

I don't think this can be over-rated by anyone ever. Hyperbole? perhaps? But it's a damn good song and it's a damn good video. Now part of this is my sheer respect for the various members of this super-supergroup. But oh my goodness is this a good video combining anime with a sort of laid-back style that is so American it hurts.

More on Spartan, alas. And also more on personal intent. I will defend movies that are about defending girls with my life - though if those girls happen to kick ass, that's even better. Films with insanely intensely scripted dialouge, I'll love also. Continuity is a huge plus, but not key for me forming a relationship with that movie.

I guess, point is, I _Really liked Spartan a lot, as in maybe my favorite of that year lot and maybe even into my ten best movies ever sort of lot. It is _so_ sharp. I wish Mamet could be a better director of film, but his direction of actors deserves plaudits aplenty. His work here somehow borders between brlliant and fucking sterling as regards actor-handling, and that's keeping in mind that I have always liked Val Kilmer quite a bit (I think he was the actual protagonist in Top Gun though I also like Tom Cruise as an actor that makes excellent choices). Quite the sausage factory mess that I created for myself with that statement, eh?

Movie log for 09/04/05:

40--year-Old Virgin, The (2005): B Much more R-Rated than you expected. Example line: "Are you gay? Because it's cool if you're gay. Do you like to fuck guys? Because I know guys that fuck guys. [3 second pause]. In prison." It sends you out, however, on an incredible high due to a musical number at the end, which if I'm ever a director I shall promise to end every comedy with a musical number.

Aristocrats, the (2005) B Who would have thought the dirtiest version of the joke would come from Bob Sagat (Though the South Park boys are a close third) In the middle is Sarah Silverman, whom I fucking adore on so many levels it isn't even funny, telling a truly offensive joke, pissing off one celebrity to the extent of suing, and also managing to turn a joke that's best as a meta-joke into a meta-meta-joke. Oh My God do I wish I were Jimmy Kimmel right at this second. But then, you know, you wake up, and say, Jimmy Kimmel?

Eurotrip (2004) B- But with my favorite cameo ever by Matt Damon. He proves that he is every bit as cool as he seems to be. The Affleck might be the suck but the Matt appears to be the man.

Spartan (2004) A(borderline A+): This rating is colored by how much I like writers. It is possibly the writers' best screenplay ever, right down to it's title which has a double entendre, assuming you get turned on by writing. And also, it has Kristen Bell) 2nd viewing.

Tesseract, The (2004): C-ish, undecided but leaning hard toward C- at best:. Will let you know later. Weakish source material (though I like, in general Alex Garlands writing dopesn't help. The first 10 minutes are silly stylish. Then, um, not so much in terms of distracting from a a plot that apparently defines itself on the basis of a hyper-cube, and, um, I havge passing knowing of quantum theory and astro-physics and I can't describe a hypercube to anybody that doesn't - fuck - I can barely describe it to myself. so but Alex Garland couldn't describe it to either Einstein or my new pet chipmunk: "chihuahua". And neither can Oxide Pang.

A statement of Intent of sorts:

The intent is that this is the sucessor of the old blog which was an extension of the old blog though in this case the intent is to get more disciplined, as in, only write about things directly related to A&E. That said, we need to get a few things out front as early as possible:

1) I don't much care about men. They do scale in terms of regard but on a far more even level than women do:

2) Actresses, for me, occupy a special place in my universe. They are all on the "regard" scale, alas. And on the bright side for them, it is almost impossible for them to fall on the "regard" scale.

There is no non-bright side as far as I know. Examples of women that enjoy incredible regard: Jennifer Connely, Sarah Silverman, Any Twin Peaks sex kitten (Madchen Amick, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, Heather Graham, Moira Kelly, and Joan Chen), and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Why I adore them so is a weird combination of prettiness and smartness and willingness to choose good roles. Prettiness alone is not adequate even a bit.

Emma Thompson, for example, and she is profoundly pretty, but, shall we say a bit more wise than her colleagues in my standings, has extremely high regard. The profoundly untalented though certainly extremely pretty Kate Hudson on the other hand has the exact opposite of regard. Her regard level closes in on negative. And I said people can never lose regard - I was wrong.

Anyhow, that's how my actress (and to much lesser a level, my actor) thing works.

The reason this then comes up for me is that whilst I reallly didn't like Tiffani Amber Theissen at all, her Fastlane work is pretty awesome and so she has gained x number of points as regards regard. Though in all fairness, Peter Facinelli (who I would swear is Tom Cruise's brother were I not to know it isn't true) and Bill Bellami are recieving about 50% of those points as well, as s McG for producing the damn thing and directing the one shot I loved the most from the series.