8.13.10
6:01 pm
How come nobody ever dressed up like Jason Voorhees* on Friday the 13th and just gets nuts with a machete?
Seems like a waste of...something.
Not sure what, but a waste nonetheless.
I get this vague feeling of loss when I think about it.
Hm.
Anypoo, last night I watched The Shawshank Redemption for the first time in a while.
Might have mentioned this before, but I believe it's one of my favorite movies of all time.
There is NOTHING wrong with it.
It's, to me anyway, the perfect film.
Every actor, every character, everything.
And yes, I understand there are a few cozy coincidences, such as the walls being made of dust, the main character getting a corner cell, the outside wall of the cell overlooking a pipe just the right size for him to squeeze out through and that wonderfully well-timed thunderstorm happening at just the right moment in the character's arc, but, fuck you.
It's perfect.
I don't care how much of an asshole Tim Robbins is in real life, he's earned it.
If I were him and someone started calling me a prima donna or whatever horribly barbed insult people are hurling at actors these days, I would just yell, "Have you even seen Shawshank Redemption?!"
Seriously, it would be my Hollywood Get-Out-Of-Jail Free card.
For instance, Christian Bale, while a very good actor, hasn't had a Shawshank Redemption (and his Batman voice is a bit silly), and therefore has no right to throw his grandmother down a flight of stairs or scream at the lighting guy or whatever.
Not yet.
But if Tim Robbins did that?
Shit, people would be like, "Why is the lighting guy fucking with him? Hasn't he seen Shawshank Redemption?" and "Why is his grandmother being such an unreasonable bitch? Remember when he has to crawl through that shit tunnel?"
And Morgan Freeman?
Do NOT get me started about THIS motherfucker.
His voice is like a warm hug from a creature made from velvet and fresh apple pie smell.
Listening to him is like drowning in a sea of friendly rabbits.
But he can be stern as well.
I wonder if his grandchildren realize how fucking lucky they are when Pop Pop Morgan comes to read them a bed time story.
Probably not.
Little assholes.
And those are just the two main characters.
Clancy Brown as Byron Hadley, the head guard?
God damn that man can play evil.
Not only is he Lex fucking Luthor, but the Kurgan? The evil priest from Carivale? Shit, nig, this man is like the Wu Tang Clan, NOT to be fucked with.
He beat that fat guy to death for NO reason.
OG, motherfucker, OG.
And the Warden?
Man, cold as ICE, bitch!
He put Tim Robbins in solitary for TWO MONTHS after killing his son figure AND his only way out of a life sentence?!
Suicide was too good for that dickbag.
At least he appeared religious so that's some tasty irony.
Dickbag.
But, again, that's just four characters, while none of the others are quite as featured or important, they all do a great job.
Hello, William Sadler?
Jeffery DeMunn?
That fucking guy they got to play Elmo Blatch?! He was on screen for about one minute, but his performance is so...chilling!
God!
If you haven't seen this movie in a while, buy it and watch it again.
If you've never seen it?
Seriously, what the fuck?
How are you breathing?
I'll buy you a pack of gum and show you how to chew it! Whoo!
Like Andy DeFrane says, "You gotta get busy living or get busy dying."
And if you haven't seen this movie, you are dying.
You.
Right now.
Are DYING.
And, tying everything back into the title of this little oil slick, I also watched J.J. Abrams' Star Trek last night.
I have never seen an episode of Star Trek in my life.
I know, through the myriad of pop culture references and parodies through the years, more than enough to understand the plot and get the more basic fan nods.
Kirk is a bar brawlin' devil-may-care punk ass, McCoy is gruff and says, "Damn it, ______! I'm a doctor, not a ______!", Spock is into logic and everyone else is a minority (Russian, Chinese, Scottish etc.).
These were enough to find this film massively enjoyable.
The casting of Zachery Quinto as Spock was at once both inspired and obvious.
Inspired if you've never seen Heroes, obvious if you have.
Kirk, Sulu, Ohura and Chekov?
Whatever, I'm sure fan boys cared more than me.
But Simon Pegg as the angry Scotsman?
Very tasty.
And the plot?
Meh, it's a big summer movie centering around the Many Worlds Theorem.
Big whoop.
Not bad, not G.I. Joe or Transformers or anything, but it kind of made me want to watch BSG again.
All in all, a tight, fun, well done movie.
Except for the lens flares.
Here is when to use a lens flare:
1. When you need to sort of cover the identity of someone with the sun behind their head.
Other than that?
You don't put them into a film.
And I'm not just talking about the action sequences, with the lasers and explosions, I'm talking about the quiet-talk-in-a-dimly-lit-room scene, the emotional-moment-in-a-stopped-elevator scene, the IN-A-DARK-UNDERGROUND-CAVE SCENE.
There was not ONE scene I can remember where I wasn't squinting at the screen because of these goddamn things.
I felt like someone was sitting behind my television with a fucking Mag Lite having a seizure.
J.J., what in the FUCK were you trying to achieve?
Can someone seriously find me an interview or an article?
I've seen his other stuff, namely, Lost, Cloverfield and Fringe.
No abundance of flares in either Cloverfield or Lost that I can recall.
In Fringe there are some here and there (usually when there's, you know, a visible light source), but not anywhere near as aggressively, distractingly in your face as in Star Trek.
There was a fist fight between Spock and Kirk and it looked like it took place at a fucking rave.
I didn't know who'd won until someone straight up fucking said, "Spock, that's enough, you've won."
It sounds like a small thing, but it actually ended up taking me out of the movie.
Based on the fact that there was none of this bullshit in his early work, some in Fringe and a fuckton in Star Trek, I'm assuming Super 8 is going to be primarily a strobe light pointed at a camera with occasional CGI Lovecraft monsters tossed in every 23 minutes**.
Anyway.
I'll gladly see the sequel, maybe while wearing blinders or something.
Tomorrow, I am Brunching with B.J., Lisa and B.J.'s lady friend and maybe some other random person.
Then, perhaps more sleep as today was a hell of a busy one for me with two auditions (both more worthless than used toilet paper), broken sleep and a solid shift from 4:30 to 11.
I know I don't DO anything, but that can really take it out of you, yeah?
Might also see Scott Pilgrim for money this time.
I'll be happy to pay for it as I have recently TOTAL immersed myself in the world of this work.
After seeing the movie, I read the books, downloaded the soundtrack AND score (mostly Nigel Godrich doing original stuff on the latter, most of it pretty great) and, as of last night, I own the video game, which is a total old school gas.
The Onion reviewed the movie and gave it a C+, saying that it's hollow, great moment to moment, but unsatisfying as a whole, but fuck them.
They aren't always right because they're snarky.
I almost think might have given it a shit score because it's too much of an Onion movie and people were probably expecting a big, sloppy kiss from the review.
Whatever, it's fun as hell and as stylish as any Edgar Wright work, maybe more so.
Go see it.
It'll dangle your bangle xmax, I promise you.
And finally, I was between books, just having finishing Anno Dracula, which was given to me by Christina.
Enjoyable, but I found it got a bit bogged down by all the historical accuracy. If misused, historical accuracy can be more harmful as a badly placed library research chapter.
I had read a few pages of Will Shetterly's Cats Have No Lord because Chris rants about the man and he makes a mean vegetarian frittata, but, after only a few pages I was having second thoughts.
I floated around, bookless for a day or so, then had an urge to re-read Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas.
Man, what a romp.
If even half these things are true...just, man, what a romp.
I think the closest thing I've done to "running a savage burn" on a hotel was leaving a letter addressed to John"The Smuggler" Linnell at the front desk of the Trump Plaza, then taking the elevator up to the 16th floor and running down the fire stairs before I was caught.
Will will back me up.
We were two wild and crazy guys.
Or the time I refused to pay the eight dollar fine or whatever to sign Will and Phil into my dorm after 11pm (a jerk off rule if ever there was one) so we wandered around New York City from midnight to six, asking a magazine guy which was the most popular porno mag (Latin Inches, mostly purchased by "happy men"), getting sort of mugged by a scrawny black dude in front of where the ESPN Zone would someday be and sitting under the Citicorp building, just existing.
Not quite kidnapping a teenager, filling her full of acid and then dropping her off a some random hotel, but fun.
It's quite astounding to see how much of the book, verbatim, appears in the movie.
I'm probably going to watch that again after I finish the book.
You actually know what the fuck is happening in the movie after you've read the book.
It's like a Bablefish.
All right.
I'm gonna go fondue with cheddar.
*"Voorhees" was in Spell Check. Way to go, Microsoft.
** You vigintitresologist fuck knob, you.
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