Dog

I missed movie night because I'm sick.

Dark Spots

Movie Night 1-24-04
Sullivan's Travels. If you've never seen Sturges' movies, you need to. There is a nice new set with about six of his movies, and so far so good. Queue em up. I probably liked this a little less than Unfaithfully Yours, but it might be the better movie. Let My People Go. Powerful stuff. And funny, too. We may change movie night to Sturges night for a month or so.

Sports
Lots of people are looking forward to next weekend, but this one has the better shiz. Australian Open finals: This guy Gonzalez has been stomping great players. I think he might take a set from Federer. I'll root for Williams over the babe.
My tennis elbow returns. I hit backhands like Gumby.

Tonight, the Jazz play the Nuggets. I think that would be a good one to go see, but I doubt there's a ticket left. I hope the Jazz win, but I won't be surprised if those two Nugget guys get 50 apiece. I know a fella that loves A.I. and has prophetic dreams concerning him.

Bowie
I'm gonna listen to a lot of Bowie over the next few months and maybe Fridays I'll write about it, album by album or something. I started with the very early recordings compiled on a disc called The Deram Anthology 66-68. This is weird stuff for him. He sounds like he's trying to fit in with the sixties pop crowd but feels very insecure about it. Some are still really good, others are really, really bad. I guess it's pre-satan worship, so no one was telling him not to put fart noises at the ends of songs, or chipmunk choruses and laughing gnomes. The music for the most part is well produced and interesting, using lots of different styles. I think Dukes of Stratosphear must have loved this stuff.

I got a letter from my future self today. It said, "Tough luck, amigo." Made me kinda nervous. That's not me. That's Fight.

Hehheh. Look at the big picture. Fight has a reminder to "HOOP" on his hand.

HAHAHA

No way? You don't have to do any better than Little Miss Sunshine to get an Oscar nomination!? Hell, Crash won last year. Drop what you're doing and throw together an insincere, sentimental screenplay and see what happens. If you make sure you know exactly which previous successful screenplay you're gonna use for your format, it won't cost more than a few days off work. I'm rooting for Mexicans only. BTW, no real nominations for Children of Men? Stupid. Don't know why I care.

Pointlessness

If you were shot into space and you were allowed to bring along the entire output of five musicians and thats it, who would you choose?

I read something like that on another blog recently and I'm a dork so I've been thinking about it. This is a pretty good idea of who I would want at this moment:

Eno - Man, I'm telling you, Eno is a great choice for anyone. You get all the great Eno albums (even the ambient stuff probably sounds great in space), plus three of Bowie's best, three great Talking Heads, Devo, Roxy Music, U2, the Microsoft Windows theme, Dune theme...
Bob Dylan - I had Brian Wilson all typed up here, but then I got a little worried. Maybe I'd get sick of it too quick. Dylan has much more variety. Album for album, I want Pet Sounds though.
Miles Davis - I was thinking of that band Can, but they're kind of a new love of mine and I'm not ready give myself to them completely yet. Plus, they sound a ton like late Miles Davis. Davis has like 300 albums, so he can occupy some time.
Lou Reed - I choose Lou over John Lennon, just barely, because I really think the Velvet Underground stuff would hold more interest to me if I were alone in outer space. Transformer? Sweet. Lou has a lot of stuff you could live without though.
Bach - I'm not that familiar with him, but he must be a good choice, right? Smart people would probably choose all classical composers, anyway.

You?

Dark Spots

First, I stole the title for my bundle articles from Fight.

Movie Night 1-17-07
We got free tickets to the movie that won best foreign language film from the wrinkly golden globes (I was going to link to Borat's acceptance speech, but Dick Clark Productions apparently shut it down on youtube. Dick.) Letters from Iwo Jima is not a foreign film. It tells the story of this battle with a focus on the Japanese, but it is still very clearly from the perspective of an American. That's the most disappointing thing about the movie: it purports to show the other side, but it just doesn't work in that way. I still really liked it, though. It uses the other side thing to bring up issues of how we value life, both our own and those of Others. It's long and kind of slow; it's a lot like every other war movie; its winning best foreign film is bullshit; but I still recommend it, if you're ever in the mood.

FESPN Podcast
I think it would be cool to do a podcast version of FESPN. The Wood's are way funnier than real sports talk personalities, and some of the posts on that site are totally good. Does anyone have any advice on good ways to record and post podcasts? I don't know if it will really happen, but it would be fun.

Boots
K ordered us some boots this week. I'm pretty excited about it. I haven't had boots since grade school. Those look pretty heavy duty, eh? Then we're going to go on wussy little hikes that we pretend are big and difficult and require heavy duty boots. B will love it.

Harry Potter and the Immigrant Wars

Children of Men is the second really good 2006 movie I've seen. It really affected me and it's hard to tell if it's a great movie or if its themes just resonate so perfectly. Big, culturally relevant themes don't necessarily make something a work of art. Like the other movie I watched this week, Idiocracy. Funny, relevant, but not great. Children of Men has some flaws too I think, but I found myself not really caring. I believe the director, Cuaron, has made a sincere and compassionate movie that everyone really should see, about what could happen to our society if we forget to be respectful of all life. The future in Children of Men is horrible, but Cuaron adds such genuine hopefulness to it that in the end I felt inspired by it and not depressed. It says a lot that he was able to do that so convincingly.
I liked Y tu mama tambien, and now I may actually check out that Harry Potter movie he made. I think this dude will probably make some great movies, and Children of Men might be the first.

K Phones In On Os Mix 06

K-Wad posted some snarky comments about my mixtape, and about me in general, on her site. Funny stuff over there at MacNDos.

Movie Night 1-10-07

We took a chance for movie night last night and chose a very recent movie. Before 2046 the youngest movie we'd watched was released in 1970.
I've heard lots of good things about Wong Kar Wai and there are definitely things in 2046 that impress me: Every scene is really pretty, almost always very tight on the characters, usually just one man and one woman, suggesting both the intimacy and claustrophobia of the relationships; the acting is subtle and interesting; and it's clear that Wong Kar Wai is an artist with something to say, and a vision of how to say it.
But, overall 2046 is a vivid mess. Kar Wai apparently wants cultural events to serve as a backdrop to the stories, but their meaning and impact upon the characters is never really examined. The "2046" gimmick is another empty layer that basically only adds confusion to what is really a very simple story. By the end even the beautiful visuals become monotonous.
That's all pretty harsh I guess, because the movie did have some interesting aspects and I wouldn't write even this much about a film that didn't affect me in some way. I guess I need to look forward to the directors next work. And to next movie nights selection being an old one.

Thats Gavin drawing his entry for charades. He had a hard time doing Indian Chief, so all's fair.

Os Tracklist

1. Beirut – Elephant Gun

Dosh – O Mexico

Peter, Bjorn, and John – Objects of My Affection

Six Organs of Admittance – The Desert Is A Circle

Johann Johannsson – Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black

Herbert – Down

Califone – The Orchids

Spank Rock – Sweet Talk

Fujiya & Miyagi –

The White Birch – We Are Not the Ones

Belle and Sebastien – Act of the Apostle II

Fiery Furnaces – Nevers!

Yo La Tengo – Sometimes I Don’t Get You

Band of Horses – The Funeral

15. Swan Lake – The Freedom

Dark Spots

Os Mix 06
I made a little music mix thing to give to people that want it. It's a set of about 16 songs, i think, all released in 2006, and all songs that I really like. I tried to dig a little deeper, so it's not my favorite songs. I left off Bob Dylan and Joanna Newsom and Destroyer (its got one Swan Lake, though), just cuz most of my migos know that stuff too well. I'll put up the track list when I can find it.
Email me if you want it. Or come see me.

Prairie Home
K and I watched Altman's final movie last night. I really did not like it. I know Altman's improv style meant that his movies flopped sometimes, but Companion is a drag all the way. Doesn't matter. I love Altman. He must have made more really excellent movies than any other single director. Is that true? I count 10 that I consider very good at the least, and thats not including Popeye. Can you think of anyone else? There must be. Hitchcock? Kurosawa? Bergman? Spielberg? (sorta J/K about Spielberg)

Something for Nerds to Look Forward To

I just read this on the Criterion website. Seems pretty neat. I'm definitely excited to see what they release:

We are launching a new line. The news will be official on Friday when we ship out PDFs of the first sell sheets for Series 1: Early Bergman. For the past couple of days, we’ve been ironing out the last details of the packaging and finalizing the twenty-six words that will appear on the back of every cover: “Eclipse presents a selection of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed films in simple, affordable editions. Each series is a brief cinematheque retrospective for the adventurous home viewer.”

... We want those films to be more readily available, and that’s why we’re creating Eclipse. Each month we’ll present a short series, usually three to five films, focusing on a particular director or theme. There will be no supplements and the master materials will be the best we can find, but they won’t be full Criterion restorations. Retail pricing for each set will average under $15 per disc, and we are examining the logistics of making the sets available at an even more favorable rate on a subscriber or club basis. The goal here is to make these films available, to make sure that Criterion’s own work style doesn’t contribute to the continuing unavailability of these films.

The New Year

I have to go back to work tomorrow. That's sad, because I've been off for 10 days now. Getting pretty used to waking up at 11 and not showering til 6. New year. I woke up really depressed, you know? I don't know why, I guess it's just the world not quite living up to what I'd like it to. I usually go through a pretty heavy depression at the beginning of a new year. Is that normal? Anyway, I'm kinda shaking it off already, and trying to feel good about 2007. I had fun on New Year's Eve, hanging out with friends, like Adam ^. Looks like fun, eh?

Here's some resolutions:

1. Try not to buy so much crap. I hate how much money is wasted on cheap shit. I want to be more aware of what I'm buying, and to whom the money is going. K. had some statistics about the distribution of capital in this country that just made me sick. I can't really summarize it here, but maybe I'll try to post it soon. I can't believe people are okay with the huge and growing gap between rich and poor. All this ties in with...

2. Somehow get more involved in community issues and activities. Seems to me, the best way to make an impact would be for communities to learn to be less dependant upon corrupt, intrusive corporations. This may be an unrealistic goal, but it's important to me personally to combat what feels like an epidemic of consumerist greed and corporate manipulation.

3. Become less ignorant about politics and history. That means read a lot of books on the topics. Trouble is, I don't know what to read. Please make suggestions.

4. Eat better; get in shape. Every year my appetite and love of food seems to grow, so every year I get a little chubbier. I don't want to stop eating the food I love, just to be aware and work out regularly. This is the perennial resolution. The one I always blow. Lifto, are you going to work out with me, or what?

5. Help K. with home improvements. This one i'm not excited for, cuz it means lots of work and lots of money, but it's important, and the results will be worth it.

There are lots more, but I guess they're more personal, ordinary things.

I am going to finish up an Os Mix '06 with some of my favorite songs from last year that I'll send to whoever wants it. I'll post here when I finish it. Let me know.