Executive Decision

Because I exercise complete authorial control over this lovely space, I have made a command decision and decree that henceforth Friday's will be Annoying Review Days. Wherein I spew out my opinions on everything that I watched and read during the week. This way, you know exactly which day to avoid the blog. And also, I'm forbidding reviews on other days, to make sure that the boringness level is kept the bare minimum.

So.

ANNOYING REVIEWS!

She's The Man - You know, I just was talking last week about my irrational but unending love for What I Like About You, the Amanda Bynes Jennie Garth sitcom that has been on, against all rational odds, for like 6 seasons. With that written, the gods looked down upon me and laughed; the series finale of the show was on that very night.

But whatever, I'm trying to get to a point here that does not involve the gods tormenting me. I love Amanda Bynes completely. She seems like the most rational and down-to-earth of all the Lohans/Duffs/Olsens and is the only one who doesn't look like you could get cut on her collarbone. She has some really damn good comedic timing, and has mastered the art of the comic pratfall better than the Lohan could ever hope for.

So I had to go see the She's the Man. And you know what? It was actually pretty funny, even excepting my deep and abiding love. Okay no, she never once looks like a boy, sounds like a boy, or acts like a boy ever, in the entire hour and fourty-five minutes, but that's really beside the point of the movie (even though, purportedly, that's the entire point of the movie). She's got the timing and presence to carry the movie, the supporting cast is pretty impressive considering the B-side nature of the movie (Thank God for David Cross. (Aside: have you read this really old thing? He completes me.)).

There are a couple of gags that obviously looked better on paper than they came out on the screen (nerd girl fell very flat and she was used a lot) but the sum total was nice and happy and consistently funny, which is usually all I ask. Sadly, the main thing that I wonder the most about after the movie? How on earth did they find a boy who looked so much like Amanda Bynes as to be able to convincingly play her twin? Was there a casting call for "Teenage boy who looks like Amanda Bynes?" I cannot fathom the process. Maybe I'll finally discover the truth on the Making Of documentary once it comes out on DVD. Until then, I wait in anticipation.

Capote - Talk about two diametrically opposite movies. I put this one off until video, because I had no one to go see it with. Because really, who wants to see high pitched voice Philip Seymour Hoffman in any sort of movie?

Well, me, apparently. This movie was intensely good. Intensely. I read In Cold Blood ages ago while I was still in high school, and didn't really appreciate it all that much. I think I sort of glossed over the whole "non-fiction novel" part, which the whole thing, really. I started reading it again last week, and it has this whole other light now, that makes it amazing. The movie is compelling to me, not just because of the story, but because of its (however sensationalized) relation to real life. As crazy as the entire plot sounds, it is mostly very accurate.

(To shorthand it: Truman Capote reads an article about the murder of a family in Kansas. He goes out there with the intention of writing an article about it for the New Yorker. Instead, he ends up befriending (read: sort of falling in love) with the captured killers, gets the complete inside story and writes up a non-ficiton novel account of the entire thing. He also helps get the killers a decent attorney, only to turn around and remove his support in the end to get the ending that his story needs.)

So, the story - amazing. The acting - so amazing (both nominations entirely deserved). The pacing, shot selection, editing - top notch. Seriously one of the best movies I've seen in forever. At first you think there's no way you can handle the voice and mannerisms. By 7 minutes into the movie, I completely forgot about all of it. It really is a perfect performance. I mean damn.

As with all my "really good movie" reviews, I have no words to actually express anything. If you haven't seen this, you should. Now.

The Squid and the Whale - I'm taking the low road on this movie because my hands are tired:

• The shortest movie that I think I've ever seen. Barely over an hour.
• Also wickedly good. Laura Linney is, as always, the consummate actress. Jeff Daniels made his character so perfectly unlikable I have to give him major props. And that kid who I used to really like from the execrable Get Real TV show acquits himself amazingly in a very difficult role.
• The dark-ish nature of the comedy is handled very well. Sort of like The Royal Tennebaums, only much more focused, because there are so few principle actors involved.
• Final estimation: Trifling, but flawlessly executed. Bravo.

--------------------

Well, that was painful, wasn't it? Tune in next time, wherein I discuss the worst interview I have ever had in my entire life. Which, as you probably know, is saying a whole damn lot.

He'll Always be 4 Stars to Me

There may have been plenty of things I've disagreed with Roger Ebert about lately, but I will always love him, as long as he keeps throwing out lines like
this:

I cannot recommend the movie, but ... why the hell can't I? Just because it's godawful? What kind of reason is that for staying away from a movie?

from his review of Basic Instinct 2 (which, yeah, nice try, I'm still not gonna see it).

And also, he gave the Amanda Bynes movie 3 stars and a really good review, which I totally agree with. More on that later.

Shine on, Ebert, shine on.

The Challenge is Gone

Usually when I go to write something in this here blog thing, I have to focus all of my will on making it even remotely interesting. There needs to be colorful metaphors, rambling asides, and exciting misadventures just to get people to stop by.

But today, the challenge is gone, because this story is so straight-up bizarre, there's no need for anything but the facts.

FACTS:

• My hair looks like crap. Too long on the sides, way too flat on top, I look like a Muppet.
• I've been meaning to get it cut for about a week now, but I keep forgetting and rote-memory driving home from work every day.
• Yesterday I got out of work wicked late, so when I got to the place I usually go to, it was closed and I had to look around for a different place.
• I find this tiny little salon wedged in a corner of the shopping center I'm at. The windows are very dark. There are red Christmas light strings just randomly hanging down from the ceiling in front of the windows. It looks pretty closed, but there is a "Welcome Open" sign in the door.

OPINIONS:

• I walk in [despite my grave misgivings] and poke around. This absolutely insane looking old woman, who's hair is a cross between The Bride of Frankenstine and Condoleza Rice and then spray painted silver, pops up from behind the counter and asks if I am there 'for the haircuts.'
• I reluctantly say yes. She grabs my arm in a death grip, steers me to the nearest chair, drapes a towel over my shoulders, and proceeds to start attacking my hair with a pair of scissors. And attacking is the only way to describe it - it's like my hair has done her wrong and she is carefully circling it and occasionally striking at it like a cobra.
• All the while, she keeps up a most impressive broken English monologue, mostly concerning how she likes my hair. Her thought process gets stuck on the word 'luscious' and she starts repeating it over and over like a record skipping. Luscious, luscious, luscious...

INSANITIES:

• I am very very frightened.
• She finishes the sides [I guess] and sort of rounds off the edges on my neck and around my ears. "Now, now now, the top!" She starting rubbing my scalp really hard with the handle of her scissors.
• I do not run screaming from the building. [This is a mistake in hindsight.]
• After about three cuts, she begins her monologue anew. I will try to recreate it here from memory: "You, you, your hair. I like this. This, this hair, it is good. Good good, like like like like like [I'm not even kidding, the 'like's went on for a good two minutes] like like I should not be cutting this hair, it it it, it is lovely. You know what what what I will do? I I I I I I am going to only cut this first half. I am texturizing [the word texturizing has never sounded more menacing, ever] this this top part, here here here right here [a particularly vicious strike with the scissors accompanies each 'here' and then I am nearly impaled through the head on the 'right here'] and and and I will cut it no more. It is perrrfect the way it is." [just to note, she never once stopped jabbing at my hair with the scissors the entire time the monologue was going on.]
• "AND AND AND [wild gestures with the scissors as she whips the towel off of my shoulders] I will only charge you half the price, because because you only had HALF of a haircut.
• I feel as though I have witnessed some sort of experimental avant garde art installment, wherein I was an unwitting prop. I keep expecting her to take a bow.
• But nothing of the sort happens, I run from the store only ten dollars lighter, and the cut really isn't that bad. Sort of a little chunky on top, and a little longer than I like. But since I got to keep my life as part of the deal, I'm pretty okay with the whole thing.

I knew I should have just gone with the bald.

Catch Up, The Second

Continued from below

More Movies

Dorian Blues: You have to understand, there are entirely different standards that exist in the world for gay movies, among my people. (The homos, in case I lost you there.). Meaning, yes, a certain level of suck is expected in any gay themed movie. Poor production quality, lame acting, or contrivedness, all are given allowances just because the subject matter is in place. I'm not saying it's a good thing, I'm just stating the fact.

That out of the way, this movie is good under normal standards and under the standards of independent gay film, it's amazing. It's sort of like low-expectation theatre, I was expecting horrible, so when I got pretty good, I was blown away.

Facts about this movie: It stars Michael McMillian, my TV boyfriend from Amanda Bynes' What I Like About You, a show that I know has no right to still be on the air, and yet still love unconditionally. It's one of those 'gay coming-out and coming-of-age' movies that have been done to death, chronicaling his life from a senior in high school up through the midpoint of his college career, and contains every possible cliche, from the parents, to the priest, to the psychiatrist, and beyond.

All of which sounds like enough to send any rational person heading for the nearest exit. But, whatever, the entire thing is excellent. Michael actually carries the movie beautifully, he some some damn fine comedic timing. His relationship with his brother is the cornerstone of the movie and is refreshingly well-written. Actually, the entire script really does dialogue well. The overall arch of the movie isn't the best, but the individual conversations are spot on and just the right amount of witty and realistic.

Plus there are some literal laugh-out-loud moments, some cringe-in-complete-understanding moments, and an amazing Billie Holiday impersonation, all of which makes for a really good movie. Color me ridiculously impressed.

The Book Reviews

The Time Traveler's Wife: Okay so I realize that I've become a more emotional person as of late. I can get choked up easier, I let myself get caught up in things quicker, movies can affect me pretty fast. But nothing in the world could prepare me for this book.

The book is a straightforward (heh, only completely shuffled around) love story between an artist named Claire and a librarian named Henry. The twist being that Henry is a time-traveler - times of extreme emotion can cause him to randomly jump through time. This is set up early in the book and then pretty much taken at face value throughout the rest of the novel. Which I can dig, just give me the rules and lets get going.

It's an immensely readable book, compelling and interesting. The weird thing is that the main characters are...well... sort of unlikable. I mean, not completely, but he's sort of a dick and she's got all these issues, and they're both some serious hipsters and it's just a strange road to take.

But anyway, the story goes on and it's varying degrees of cute and serious and funny and awesome. Just a really good read. And then.

About 100 pages from the end, it becomes the goddamn saddest book in the history of the world. I am not entirely ashamed to admit that I have cried at the end of a book. On multiple occasions. The written word is very powerful to me. But this book. Not even exaggerating in the slightest, I was about to bawl through the entire last 1/5. I'm talking a good two hours of reading, choked up beyond any rational measure. And the ending? Totally ashamed, but whatever: cried like a baby. Harder than pretty much anything ever.

And I didn't even like the characters! It's maddening beyond words. But I just report the news, I don't get a say in the truth. I guess I have to recommend it, and it was pretty damn awesome, but ouch ouch ouch. So frickin sad.

Assassination Vacation: Quite possibly the quickest non-fiction read I've ever had. Sarah Vowell has presidential assassinations on the brain and goes through a sort of Americana tour of all the significant locations involved in the first three American presidential assassinations.

It's just perfectly written, conversational, wicked informative, and extremely funny. It's what I always want non-fiction to be and never is. I finished the entire book on two connecting plane rides. I cannot recommend it enough. I have a copy if you want to borrow it.

High Fidelity: Man, usually I love Nick Hornby with utter abandon, but I could not get into this book. It had its seriously great moments, and some really perfect lines, but the overall story just did not sit with me right at all.

No doubt you've seen the movie (I am apparently the only person in the world who has not) but in short form: guy owns a record store, is unlucky in the love, sort of hapless, and takes on a quest to find out if he's entirely incompatible with all women after his girlfriend leaves him for the guy upstairs. The dialogue is good, it flows along pretty well, but so much of the book is taken over by whining and generic ruminations, I was over it all pretty quick. No one cares about your generation and their relationship woes. Or maybe people do, but definitely not me. I wish more of the book could have been focused on the friendships and the record-banter: all the top five lists and the discussions thereof were just top notch and hilarious. Oh, and the ending just annoyed me to the very core of my being.

Not on the same level as anything else he's written, but still pretty good. If you've got some free time, perfectly fine to read, but not until you've exhausted About A Boy.

Quick Music Review

Sun, Sun, Sun - The Elected. Based off of this sort of positive review, I picked this up, because I love me some Rilo Kiley and it sounded interesting. I cannot stop listening to this CD. I have no real reason why, other than that the songs are pretty catchy, but I love it so much. As I was trying to explain to Roommate Frank, if more country music sounded like this, I would totally listen to it more often. ("Except this isn't country." - Frank "My point exactly" - Jason)

I don't know. His voice isn't the best and there is gratuitous use of a slide guitar, but I dig the whole thing way too much. Highlights: 'Do Me Good' s sort of 50's blues feel, the really sweet melody behind 'Fireflies In A Steel Mill' and the gratuitous use of the phrase "and I don't fuckin' care" on 'Not Going Home'.

Yet another thing I cannot recommend enough.

-----------------

Damn man, I'm just running off at the mouth today, aren't I? I'll leave the etiquette question for another day. This is what happens when I don't write anything for two weeks. I get backlogged in garbage writing.

Catch Up

In the best interests of you, my viewing public (as it were), I'm going to get all the boring stuff I want to write about out in one big dumping pile of a post. It's all reviews and bitching, so feel free to skip over it and wait for the next action-packed entry (which at the current rate of posting will appear sometime in mid-July).

Onwards!

Movies:
The Hills Have Eyes: Not remotely kidding, easily the most traumatic experience I have ever had in a movie theatre. Within the first 15 minutes I was tensed up into a tiny ball and basically remained that way until the literal end. And at the end, when I stood up I was absolutely drenched in sweat and looked like I had been mugged. The entire thing was horrific and so intensely disturbing that any skills that I might possess in language fail completely in trying to describe it.

The storyline is pretty straightforward - classic midwest family on a cross-country mobile home trek gets trapped in the Arizona desert by a bunch of mutated cannibalistic hillbillies who proceed to pick them off one by one. You know, like ya do. Weirdly enough, though, it's actually some sort of message movie about the dangers of nuclear-testing, oppressive governments, and man's inhumanity against man. Which seems incredibly out of place in movie that prominently features the eating of a live parakeet straight from its cage, but I digress.

As traumatic as it was, I have to give props for a few things: the acting is ridiculously good for something that basically amounts to a gore-fest, the special effects are tightly done and realistic, and yeah, big points for being successful at working up a visceral reaction in your audience. Man.

So yeah, it was unendingly horrible, but well done. Talk about your walking contradictions.

(Real Life Aside: I went to see it with someone, who (if such a thing is possible) was even less able to cope with the movie than me. At one point she had to physically leave the theatre, due to the trauma. With her gone, the entire row of seats I was in was empty. So when the woman who was sitting behind her shifted positions and kicked the back of the seat next to me, I freaked out in a manner that I usually reserve for only the most private of situations: literally yelping, flailing my arms and almost flying out of my seat like a startled cat. I like to think that my little spasm helped ease the tension in the theatre a bit, everyone got to have a nice little laugh at my expense before the next dismemberment. Good times.)

A History of Violence: Again, why do I not have people who point me in the direction of these good movies? I thought I had a good system of knowledgeable people in place, but maybe we've all just stopped going to see things nowadays. Anyways, a rockingly well done movie.

This one also sort of lacks any sort of dramatic plot: Viggo Mortensen is small-town diner guy who becomes a local hero after thwarting some would-be robbers, and then his past catches up with him in most dramatic and bloody fashion. It also goes comes with a message, about (obviously) violence and how it can be passed on and one's inability to escape it, on multiple levels.

But I liked the parallels in the story, it's practically allegorical in some parts but not too heavyhanded about it (*cough*Crash*cough*) and the acting was just out of the park. Maria Bello jumped roughly 9,000 points in my estimation, and she was already pretty high just due to her work in Coyote Ugly. I was a surprised by how little William Hurt did in the movie (although his part was excellent); really if you're giving out award accolades Maria was light-years ahead of everyone else, but I can see how Supporting Actress was a much deeper field this year.

I highly recommend this one, even if the ending is a bit abrupt for my taste.

V for Vendetta: And here's where my network actually worked out - I was recommended this movie by everyone on Earth practically, and would have never gone to see it without their spurring (despite my unending Natalie Portman love). Apparently everyone on Earth has good taste, the movie was most excellent, if a little contrived.

In 2020, plague has forced Britain into a totalitarian regime and one man in a ridiculous mask decides to take a year to try and overthrow said regime. Natalie Portman plays his weird love-interest/sidekick/bald person and rocks the part hard. I dug most everything about the movie - the pacing, the action, (again) the message, the tight acting all over the place, the way overblown audio throughout, even the lesbianism was cute.

I quibble with a few of the key motivations, but nothing that really detracts from the overall feeling of the movie. I will say this though - Hugo Weaving has an incredibly distinctive voice, which really takes the shock factor out of a pivotal point in the movie.

But I complain unnecessarily. Great movie, entirely worth the 8 bucks it cost to get in, which was really all I was looking for.

(Sort of Real Life Aside: Natalie Portman's hair is still wicked short ages after the movie has wrapped. Do you think she's keeping it that way on purpose, or is she just a really slow hair grower? I'm inclined towards the former, because it looks awesome short so I like to think it's a fashion choice, but I'm not willing to rule out the latter. Inquiring minds want to know.)

And okay, I totally lied at the beginning of this thing, it's going to take two posts to get all this out, since I've already written 9 miles of junk and I just finished with 3 movies. One more movie review, 3 more book reviews, and one lingering office etiquette question to come, as soon as I catch my breath.

The California Roll that is my Heart

So I think I'm in love with the girl who takes my order at the sushi restaurant by my office.

Okay, maybe not real love, she is a girl after all, which presents some serious issues, but something like a facsimile of love. Love-ish. Faux-Love. Love-Lite. All I know is that she can recognize my voice in a second over the phone and knows my order by heart, despite my going there only about once a month. And whenever I go to pick up the order, we have a round what I would normally call flirting but is actually closer to what Bring It On would refer to as Cheer Sex. (Sushi Sex? That just sounds really gross. And our love is so pure, it seems crass to nickname it.)

And okay, I don't necessarily want to lead anyone on. That's not how I roll, I'm all about full disclosure. But there's already something of a language barrier going on. When I can't exactly explain the concept of "I work in the building next to yours, setting up mortgages" without getting some important verbs lost in translation, I think it would a really bad idea to try and present the concept of "While I do dig you, I sort of like kissing boys more." I think there are several layers of intimacy being skipped there, and there's really no clean way of expressing the term "big old homo" in easy-to-understand game-of-charades-terms, without me getting punched in the face, and possibly attacked with a sushi knife.

In any case, seriously, she is so cute, and she makes these little jokes about how I always get the same, really safe, thing and one time she fed me a sample of something that was very raw and sort of bluish and actually pretty tasty.

So we live in this weird little limbo, of jokes and smiles and the very meaningful passing of sushi plates between us. It's not necessarily bad, but the simple fact that I have a crush on the sushi girl is just so sad. I am a disgrace to my people. They're gonna make me turn in my membership card.

Oh well. Anyone up for some edemame? I know a great place.

Seriously? Crash? Crash?!

Oh, the injustice. The hideous, hideous injustice of it all. Robbed, I say! So much so that I have informed Frank that we are no longer allowed to watch Miss Congeniality because it stars Sandra Bullock, who was also a star in Crash. I almost said that we were also never allowed to watch Cruel Intentions again, but even horrible injustices have their limits. I don't think I can live in a world without Cruel Intentions. Mmmm, Ryan Philllllllipe...

Wait, what were we saying? Right.

THE INJUSTICE! I demand a recount and a swift punching in the head of everyone who voted for Crash over Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture.


I mean, not that it was a horrible movie (I think if we dig up the archives I put Crash in at around 25 on my list of movies from last year, and ranked it at 'Good') but better than Goodnight and Goodluck? No. Better than Munich? NO! Better than Brokeback? Hells NO!

My brain is full of white hot rage and whatnot. But I'm pretty sure I'll be over it by the morning, so I need write it out now.

Other than that, The Oscars are so damnably boring that I can no longer watch them all the way through. Glad that Rachel won, although I would have rather Michelle Williams or Amy Adams have taken it. I watched Walk the Line yesterday and totally agree that Reese deserved all of that award. I didn't realize exactly how much I wanted Jake to get Supporting Actor until George Clooney got up there and I felt the near uncontrollable urge to punch him in the throat. Since when do I hate the Cloones? Right now, apparently. In terms of crazy dorky things, I was happy to see some of Peter Jackson's guys win those technical awards - I feel like I know them intimately after watching the associated 45 hours of Lord of the Rings documentaries that I own. Dolly Parton? Also robbed.

And that is that. Stupid Oscars, getting me all het up. And I didn't even watch all of them! Jon Stewart was okay, though. He can stay.

--------------------------------

Side note: This entry is coming to you from the sexiest thing on the planet currently: my new computer. I would write at length about it, but I know that's boring. Or, more boring than what I usually write about, if such a thing is possible. But it is so hott. And it has a flat panel monitor, which I theoretically understood to exist in the world, but never comprehended how truly awesome they were.

Whatever. I'll try to post more this week. No promises. I've had a lack in the funny lately, but I'll be trying to bring it, as such, in the coming days.