Will Farrell should win an Oscar for his portrayal of Harold Crick. There are thousands of ways to describe his performance, but i will settle with inspired. Maggie Gyllenhaal is sweet. Dustin Hoffman is playing himself in an very apt way. He is, after all, he is Banjamin Braddoc, Ratso Rizzo, Louis Dega, and a hundred other roles that place him as a dean of American cinema alongside Pacino and DeNiro. I wonder if it was written especially for him? Queen Latifah is awesome in her strong woman role. Emma Thompson is incredible. Her transformation is even more amazing than that of Nanny McPhee. Her turn as Kay Eiffel is good work, but it is completely overshadowed by Farrell. This is a five star movie with an all-star cast. I simply can't gush enough. They even pulled Linda Hunt out of cold storage for a brilliant piece of business as a psychiatrist.
Get off the couch and see the best film of 2006.
10 November 2006
29 October 2006
25 October 2006
23 October 2006
Marie Antoinette
Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette has been incredibly panned in some of the popular press, but most reviewers and students of film will find this as an incredible journey and a feast for the eyes. Sophia Coppola has yet to make a bad film, and along with The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation this film is wonderful. Kirsten Dunst is wonderful along with Jason Schwartzman and a surprisingly god perfomnace by Marianne Faithful. The rest of the cast is endearing, angry, catty, and charming all at once. The costumes are amazing, as to be expected, and there are thousands of them. I was surprised at how much I liked this film, not because I expected it to be bad, but just because I expected it to be something it wasn't. That seems to be the core of the general confusion surrounding the film. It isn't at all what you expect, and therein lies part of the brilliance.
If you enjoy film I urge you to see Marie Antoinette. It won't be what you expect.
If you enjoy film I urge you to see Marie Antoinette. It won't be what you expect.
20 October 2006
13 October 2006
an untenable position
so I am in an untenable position. I am angry about it, and I guess that makes me an asshole.
my wife is leaving me, but she loves me, but she doesn't love me enough to stay. I am broken, that isn't a secret, but she doesn't love me enough to help me get better. ergo, I don't think that she can love me. if she did she would stay, she would help me get better, or she would simply allow me the time to get better.
I don't think she has the ability to admit to herself that maybe she never loved me, but that what she thought was love was not. That just maybe she doesn't really know what love is.
I know that staying together is never the easiest choice, but not making that choice is indicative of a larger problem. I know it was never the easiest for my parents, or for hers. Yet they did it.
my wife is leaving me, but she loves me, but she doesn't love me enough to stay. I am broken, that isn't a secret, but she doesn't love me enough to help me get better. ergo, I don't think that she can love me. if she did she would stay, she would help me get better, or she would simply allow me the time to get better.
I don't think she has the ability to admit to herself that maybe she never loved me, but that what she thought was love was not. That just maybe she doesn't really know what love is.
I know that staying together is never the easiest choice, but not making that choice is indicative of a larger problem. I know it was never the easiest for my parents, or for hers. Yet they did it.
10 October 2006
stoned on seroquel
so I have spent the last several days stoned. that is, my new medication sucks. I am tired of being stoned, I do not like how it makes me feel, and I am about done with it. I have to drive, and when I take this shit I feel like I cannot. So therefore I can't work either. work = drive and all that.
there has to be something else.
there has to be something else.
07 October 2006
random anger
I am having a lot of random anger today. About my situation, my predicament, and my inability to cope. last week the psychiatrist officially started calling what happened to me a nervous breakdown. So much for the mid-life crisis theory.
My surreal life...
I am discussing birth control options after pregnancy with my pregnant daughter. She wants her tubes tied. The doctor , of course, refuses to do ligation until she is 30.
04 October 2006
The Notorious Bettie Page
I just finished watching "The Notorious Bettie Page". I was completely satisfied.
When I first visited Florida, at the age of eleven, my first memory apart from the thick, wet heat, was the postcard. Bettie Page in a leopard skin biking superimposed in front of an Alligator.
Her hair is raven black, her skin is burnished copper. The water is blue, the sand is bright, and I am riveted. Bettie is imprinted at that moment as the personification of sexual attraction and female beauty. Next to that was a dozen other postcards, but they may as well have been blank. Still today, if I was asked to imagine the perfect woman, the perfect physical ideal, it would be Bettie Page.
In the post-punk gothic industrial scene we called the girls Betties. Backseat Betties. The women wanted to be pale, Bettie's other iconic image. Pale skin, raven hair, black lingerie, seamed stockings.
"The Notorious Bettie Page" was a fantastic film. Gretchen Mol was about 80% Bettie. Which is probably about 70% more than most women could ever hope for. Playing an icon guarantees an impossible standard, but Gretchen was stunning in her warmth, her poise, and her embrace of the work. As much as any woman could be in 2004 when the film was made, she is Bettie Page.
Her stellar performance is only slightly less noticeable because she is standing with Jared Harris, Chris Bauer, Cara Seymour, and the always amazing Lili Taylor. The film was incredibly well shot in period styles. The color was arresting, the black and white sequences ( a majority of the film) were incredibly apt.
Bettie Page never found love, never made it all fit together. Sadly, neither did the makers of this film. It never found the audience it so richly deserved. See "The Notorious Bettie Page".
When I first visited Florida, at the age of eleven, my first memory apart from the thick, wet heat, was the postcard. Bettie Page in a leopard skin biking superimposed in front of an Alligator.
Her hair is raven black, her skin is burnished copper. The water is blue, the sand is bright, and I am riveted. Bettie is imprinted at that moment as the personification of sexual attraction and female beauty. Next to that was a dozen other postcards, but they may as well have been blank. Still today, if I was asked to imagine the perfect woman, the perfect physical ideal, it would be Bettie Page.
In the post-punk gothic industrial scene we called the girls Betties. Backseat Betties. The women wanted to be pale, Bettie's other iconic image. Pale skin, raven hair, black lingerie, seamed stockings.
"The Notorious Bettie Page" was a fantastic film. Gretchen Mol was about 80% Bettie. Which is probably about 70% more than most women could ever hope for. Playing an icon guarantees an impossible standard, but Gretchen was stunning in her warmth, her poise, and her embrace of the work. As much as any woman could be in 2004 when the film was made, she is Bettie Page.
Her stellar performance is only slightly less noticeable because she is standing with Jared Harris, Chris Bauer, Cara Seymour, and the always amazing Lili Taylor. The film was incredibly well shot in period styles. The color was arresting, the black and white sequences ( a majority of the film) were incredibly apt.
Bettie Page never found love, never made it all fit together. Sadly, neither did the makers of this film. It never found the audience it so richly deserved. See "The Notorious Bettie Page".
03 October 2006
caveat emptor
with all of the bullshit currently going on at six apart I am considering leaving both Vox and LiveJournal for good. My only question is, is this really any better? Are we doomed to be packaged, lubed (if we are lucky) and fscked as bloggers -- unless we go it alone without a community?
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