Belligerent and Numerous: Off the Face of the Earth

Monday, November 01, 2004

Off the Face of the Earth

Man. So in preparation for the month ahead, (wherein I'm supposed to write 2,000 words a day, everyday and oh dear God what have I gotten myself into) I took this weekend off to catch up on all my reading, finishing off the 3 books I currently had going.

And because I already had the momentum going, I knocked off a 4th on Sunday, slamming all the way through A Home at the End of the World in about 6 hours. It takes a pretty good book for that to happen. But man, talk about depressing. Like someone took a knife and stuck in in my chest and started rooting around. "Does that hurt? How about now?"

Other than that, I watched a steady stream of football and movies all weekend long, pretty much as background noise. Had a slew of people over for ice cream sundaes on Friday and scary movies on Halloween. Luckily no small children came a'knocking at the door, so I got to give away all the fruit roll ups to my guests, rather than whiny children. We also learned: John Carpenter's Vampires is incredibly-over-the-top-trashy bad, but what did we really expect with James Woods and Daniel Baldwin as the headliners. Plus: The Ring still freaks me out far more than it has any right too.

Other things of interest:

The voting plan is all worked out, I researched all the candidates and have my ballot ready for tomorrow. I even have a map to the voting place. I am totally ready for this thing tomorrow. Let us hope I can make it home before 7:00 to actually get to Rock the Vote properly.
This week is Birthday Week for me, so in addition to all the writing all the time, I plan to be more drunk than usual, and have outings planned for much of the week. 23, people! I only hope the two bottles I have in my house will be enough. And I totally apologize in advance for anything I do or say on Friday, the apex of birthday celebration.

So that's that. If you hear from me much less this month, trust that I'm slaving away on a long, crazy, poorly-written-and-plotted story and pray for my safe return.

1 comment:

erin said...: JASON
what have we gotten ourselves into...i don't have time for this mess...yet I can't tear myself away from writing my 1667 words today. Keep me updated yo.; 12:06 PM

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Where My Opinions Count

(500) Days of Summer - Let's start with the caveat that this movie is nothing but a stacked deck against me. You've got Joseph Gordon-Levitt (seriously my favorite actor in the world), in a funny role of a guy unsure of what he wants to do with his professional life while his love life is in constant turmoil. Oh, and Regina Spektor songs keep playing in the background. If there is such a thing as a movie marketed directly to me, this is it. But y'all, this movie is so good. Not in a traditional storyline sense. Or even in an acting sense (although JGL is on fire the entire way through). It's about the feeling it gives you - liberally borrowing from every cliche available - musicals, old black and white cinema, jumping timelines, everything - all working in concert to give you the feeling of a relationship as it ends, and the things you remember. The overrall impression is so great that I forgive the minor quibbles I have (hammy sidekicks are over the top, Zooey Deschanel is playing her stock character #2, much as she has for the last 4 things I've seen her in). This is my movie of the year, right here. Absolutely stunning.
Push - So much better than I was expecting that I may have wrapped myself so far around that I actually enjoyed it. There are some terrible, terrible parts (the Casio-grade Music of Love that they played every time that Chris Evans and Camilla Belle were in the same room, for instance). But Dakota Fanning was pretty great, and I'm up for anything that gives Cliff Curtis or Ming-Na more work. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's kinda too bad that it tanked - I could totally be up for a sequel.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Got my nerd on and wrote a whole boring essay on it.
Let The Right One In - A good movie that gets better the more I think on it. Despite being a mildly gory vampire movie, it's surprisingly subtle. They don't try to hit you over the head with anything, it's all underplayed. The mother's soft neglect, the father's hints of homosexuality, even the parallels that can be drawn between particular characters - nothing jumps out at you. That, combined with the natural way that Oskar and Eli's relationship is handled, paints something like a real life picture that just happens to have a vampire somewhere in there. It's more than a little unsettling, especially the way the bullying keeps escalating as the movie continues. Overall, the movie's a little methodical for my tastes (I like my supernatural horror scary, not just ungodly depressing) but it's undeniably a great film.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - So bad I exceeded the character limit. If you care enough: Go Here
The Hangover - Delightfully vulgar and meandering. That's pretty much my the sum of my thoughts. "Genuinely and shockingly funny" is another soundbyte I could add in there as well. After seeing his Fiona Apple music video, I always assumed Zach Galifianakis would remain an unacknowledged American treasure forever, since the combination of that plus his standup act had still left him in obscurity against all odds. But I am gleefully overjoyed to be proven wrong. May he blossom and go on to larger-scale fame. He made this movie.