The Literary Rock Star

Just Visiting #fridayflash

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:23:29 PDT

Terrance wanted to go out to play, but it was raining outside. Here it was, bright and colorful outside, when the trees looked like their leaves were on fire, and Mother said that he had to stay in. It was raining she said. Too cold, she said. He had a coat. He had rainboots. He could put them on and be fine. Water and cold couldn't get to him. That's why he had those clothes.

There wasn't much to here, either. This house was stupid. They had come here to clean up after Grandpa went away. All this old junk, dusty and boring and not-to-be-touched. There weren't any of his friends here. There wasn't any TV, either. Just the rain on the window and this old house with its funny smells and his parents coming in and out taking care of things.

The few toys that Terrance had with him didn't hold his interest for long, and he began to explore the house. There wasn't much here. Well, there was a lot of stuff. But nothing he found very interesting. The first few rooms his parents had gone through already. They were cleaned out, empty shells with a fresh smell of cleaner and the windows thrown open. Then there was the room where they were working. There was the faint sound of people rummaging and talking to each other. He passed them by, he didn't want to talk to his parents right now.

Instead, he headed further down the hall, to the other rooms they hadn't had a chance to look at yet. Each door he peeked into was another room packed full of shelves of books. It made him feel like he was in some sort of library, with the old worn titles fuzzy and indistinct in the dim grey light of the day outside. He wasn't sure what he Grandpa did, but he obviously needed a lot of stuff.

Terrance slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor. Here there was no air moving and his parents voices faded into nothing. It was warmer up here and felt dustier and older. Terrance looked around uneasily. All the rooms on this floor were closed and he wasn't sure what to expect in any of them. His parents had told him not to play around up here. Maybe they were just full of valuables.

He opened the first door he came across to find another room full of books. Unlike the other rooms, though, these books were big and thick and didn't have any titles. They were unlike any books he had ever seen. Carefully, he crept into the room, looking around at the shelves. There weren't nearly as many here, and they all seemed pretty old.

In the middle of the room was a small, low table, with a few books on it. That must have been what his Grandpa was reading before he went away. Terrance wondered whether it was anything interesting. He was still learning how to read in school, but he enjoyed books with pictures. He knew the small serious looking books downstairs wouldn't be any help, but the big books up here reminded him of the photography books his father had at home.

The books on the table, though, were filled with tight lines of cursive. Terrance couldn't read that, for sure. It wasn't even a proper book. It was something his Grandpa must have been writing it. He flipped through it really quick to make sure, but there was nothing but pages and pages of writing and some sketches of things he didn't understand. He put the book down on the table where he found it and left the room.

The next two doors were locked. He tried fiddling with them, but no matter what they wouldn't open and the doorknobs were big and heavy and metal and alien. Whatever was behind them, he wasn't supposed to be able to get at them. He sighed and went to the next door. This one opened easily.

Inside this room was a bunch of junk. He wasn't sure what it all was, but it was everywhere. There were figurines and statues and knickknacks of every kind. The shelves were jammed full of it. There were larger displays of vases and paintings and weird devices that looked like spyglasses or hourglasses, but he was sure they were neither. They looked valuable, though, so he didn't touch them.

Instead, on one of the shelves he spotted what appeared to be a toy car. He grabbed it and looked at it. It was metal, big and heavy and oblong-shaped. He wasn't sure what kind of car looked like that, but it was pretty cool otherwise. He set the car on the top of one of the dressers and rolled it along. One of the wheels squeaked but it rolled just fine. He picked it up and walked out of the room before his parents could catch him.

As he left the room he noticed one of the other rooms at the end of the hall had yellow tape over the front of it. He wasn't sure why, but he walked towards it and tried to read what the tape said. He could read the letters just fine, a C and an A and a U and a T and an I and an O and an N, but he didn't know the word they made. He tried to sound it out, but it didn't sound familiar.

He turned the knob behind the tape and pushed the door open. There wasn't anything special behind the tape, though, just an old bathroom like the one downstairs. This one, though, was stark white without any of the rugs or mats or shower curtains. It was just tile and a white bathtub and a toilet. Even the mirror above the sink seemed to be gone, though Terrence noticed bits of the mirror left in the frame.

He closed that door and was about to go downstairs to play with his new car when he noticed that the door at the end of the hall was cracked open. He walked over to it and pushed it open. The room it opened onto, though, seemed to be empty. It was just a room, narrow and long and going to the big window on the front of the house.

He walked inside the room, curious about it. It didn't look as if his parents had touched it. There were cobwebs in one of the corners and a layer of dust on the floor. But it was completely empty otherwise. The ceiling was tilted funny, one side coming in at an angle. He wasn't sure if his parents would be able to even stand up straight in this room. The light from the big window made everything feel grey and dreamy, even if the room was the same boring wood and beige as the rest of the house.

Terrance sat down in the middle of the room and began to play with his car. This was a big open space, perfect for the car to roll around. But as he was doing it, he noticed that the car didn't seem to go straight very well. If he put it on the side of the room with the slanted ceiling, it kept rolling to the edge of the room, as if the floor were slanted. He crawled over to where the car kept going off its path and looked at the floor. It looked normal at first, but when he brushed the dust off of the floorboards he noticed one of them had a small hole where someone could maybe put a finger in and pull it up.

He looked around, worried that his parents were going to burst in. But there was nobody and the entire upstairs remained silent. He reached into the hole with his finger and curled it around the floorboard. It was a tight fit, but it was enough to get a grip. When he pulled, at first nothing happened but then the board came up, a cloud of dust kicking up. Terrance coughed and dropped the board, rubbing his eyes with the front of his shirt.

Inside the board was a small, slender box. Terrance picked it up and set it on the floor. It was only about an inch or two high, but wide on each side. He looked at the front where there was a small lock. It was one of the turning numbers locks, like his father's briefcase.

The top of the box was glass and he peered inside. At first it seemed to be just black inside, probably empty, but as he looked at it he noticed that the black inside seemed to be swimming. Whatever was inside was moving around like smoke or ink. He paused for a second, unsure what he should do with the box. Then he turned the numbers a few times, trying combinations. Nothing seemed to work.

Frustrated, he hit the top of the box with his fist. "Open, you stupid box," he said aloud.

At the top of the box, the black swirls seemed to slow, then stop. The top of the box was still, but suddenly letters appeared out of the swirl. They were white and wispy, like they were made out of smoke too, but they were clear enough for Terrance to read.

WHO ARE YOU?

"Whoa," Terrance said to himself. This was just like the Magic 8 Balls he saw at the store. Though way cooler looking. Especially since he could read what it said. "Um ... my name is Terrance. Who're you?"

MY NAME IS ALASTOR

Terrance tried to sound that out. "Al ... alas ... Alastor... that's a funny name."

I KNOW

Terrance sat the box in his lap and looked down at it. This was easily the coolest thing he had seen since coming here. Maybe even cooler than the TV Blake down the street got the other week. "So ... what were you doing in the floor?"

I WAS PUT THERE

"Who would do a thing like that?"

OSWALD PATTERSON

Terrance was surprised to recognize the name. "My Grandpa? Did you know my Grandpa?"

YES

"He's gone now," Terrance said. "Mom says he went away. Dad says we have to get rid of all his stuff. I get the week off of school, at least. But this place is boring. Or was, until I found you."

GONE AWAY? CAN YOU LET ME OUT?

Terrance shook his head without realizing it. "I don't know the combination. Besides, it looks like you'd spill out everywhere."

There was a long moment where the black churned under the lid before the words floated to the top.

I WON'T SPILL OUT EVERYWHERE, I PROMISE. WE CAN BE VERY GOOD FRIENDS, YOU AND I. VERY GOOD.

Terrance didn't understand all of that. But he did read GOOD and FRIENDS. Still, there was the problem of the lock. "I still don't know the code."

THE COMBINATION IS 616

Terrance turned the numbers to 6 and 1 and 6 and popped the lock. The clasp flipped up and the letters instantly disappeared from the blackness underneath the lid. Terrance hesitated for a moment, then slowly pried up the lid. There was nothing inside.

Just blackness. Nothingness.

It was oblivion in there.

------

Melody Patterson walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. She pulled one down from the cupboard and filled it and was drinking it, staring out the window and trying to figure out how they'd get everything taken care of in a week. She barely noticed Terrance at the table until she turned around. He was being unusually quiet, sitting at the table looked down at the newspaper.

"Wha'cha doin', honey?"

"Looking at the paper," Terrance said quickly. "How long are we going to be here?"

"Not too long," Melody said. "A few more days."

"I don't like this place very much."

"I know, sweetie, but you won't be here for much longer."

"It feels like I've been here forever," Terrance said, not looking up at her. She would have scolded him for whining, but they did drag him out here away from everything he knew. If he was a bit petulant, what would it hurt to let him be for now?

"Don't worry, we'll find something for you to do tomorrow. Maybe we'll hook up a TV and go to the video store. Just be patient." She put the cup in the sink and walked back to the room where she and John were cleaning. He looked over at her as she came in and smiled. "How's Terry holding up?"

"About as well as you might expect, considering," she said. "He was reading the paper, probably bored out of his mind."

"Reading the paper? I don't remember him ever doing that before. Besides, he can't really read all that well."

Melody thought back to what he was doing in the kitchen, but the memory was fuzzy. Was he reading the paper? Surely not. John was right. Terrance had enough trouble with books for kids his age. "Yeah, he must have been looking at comics or something. What else is there for him to do in a house like this? We've kept him away from everything else."

"For good reason. Who knows what kind of scary crap Dad had in here. You know how he was. I don't want to have to drag my kid to therapy until he's an adult."

Melody rolled her eyes and filled another box with dozens of books, from the ridiculous to the classic, and other titles in languages she couldn't even read. Terrance was quickly forgotten, in favor of the herculean task at hand. There was simply too much to do and things like that tended to fall through the cracks.

shadows ( A Short Story )

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:43:19 PDT

This is something I wrote in the dim mists of time several years ago. Back then, I was a writer with half a first draft to my name, no job and a lot of fire and passion for writing that I couldn't be bothered to actually do. In those dim recesses, when I was trying to gain some sort of writing habit for the first time, I was charged with writing a short story by a mentor of sorts at the time.

I believe the prompt was to write a short story that dealt with some form of historical event. I'm pretty sure this doesn't exactly qualify, but it appeared nearly fully formed and I committed it to paper where it remains one of my favorite short stories I've ever written (admittedly not a huge claim).

It's not much like anything I'd write today, but I figured I'd share it in its original form. I did little more than excise nearly a hundred misused commas. More likely remain. My comma use is decreasing over time, but they're still the zerg rush of puncutation that I just can't seem to shake.

I hope you enjoy it! And next week, you'll get a proper FridayFlash of original fiction like you all deserve.

~ Matt

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

Shadows

The sun shone down upon the lone figures walking along the beaten path. The rains had not come for weeks and the men left clouds of dust in their wake. The figures moved slowly and the wind blew from behind them. If they were not careful, they could choke on their own dust. Yet these men were not careful.

“With this dust, we will breathe in the anguish of the world,” the eldest of the men said. He was a shriveled thing, no more than a shambling corpse. The words that came from him could have been the wind through the barren trees.

“As we choke and spit up this dust, we spit up our anguish and return it to the world,” the youngest of them replied. He was not as thin as the old man, but he was also shriveled and malnourished. What would have been a handsome young man in normal circumstances was no more than a slowly decaying shell.

“Returning our anguish to the world, we cleanse ourselves of it, and the dust does not find us,” said the third member. He was not so young as the young man, but he was not old. Like them, he was thin and worn. Yet, unlike them, he did not walk with a bent back or the air of a broken spirit--he held his head high. He tread the path ahead of them with a subtle confidence and the other two men were satisfied to follow.

This was a day like any other day. The three men made their way in the wilderness. They had all forsaken towns as cesspools of human suffering. Out here, so close to the earth, it was more possible to face your suffering head on. Here, you could easily find it and cut it away from you.

At least, that was the theory. The third man was tired of walking. They had been walking since before the sun had risen, and they would continue until the stars were clear in the night sky. It was just now past the height of the day, and yet his feet were sore and his mind was troubled. For him, it was an all too common occurrence as of late.

“Siddhartha,” the old man spoke sharply. “What troubles your mind? You stray from the group.”

“It is nothing, revered one,” Siddhartha answered.

“Do not lie to me. I know your thoughts when they are mindful and I know your thoughts when they are not. You are troubled by them. You are running from it. You cannot do that. You must embrace your pain. You must relish it and use it to scour your sins from you.”

“Yes, revered one,” Siddhartha answered.

“Good, good. When you scour your sins away with the pain of them, you will be cleansed. You will be holy. Only then, will you experience rapture.”

“Yes, revered one,” Siddhartha answered for the final time.

The men walked in silence once more. Siddhartha tried to focus on the suffering of the world. It was not difficult. All about him was suffering; his past had been strewn with visions of suffering. For years, he had walked among the poor and the afflicted. The old and the sick and the wounded and the dying—all of these had been subjects of study. Study in the abject pain of humanity that he had taken to with vigor.

As he walked, he tried to use his knowledge of human suffering to cleanse his spirit. To use the pain it caused to scour his own suffering from him. The hope was that by subjecting the body to such physical and mental exhaustion and suffering, it would be possible to burn away the impurities and leave only what was good and happy. That bliss came to those who subjected themselves to the worst deprivation.

The three men continued along the path, chanting together. It had been days since they had seen another person. They were out away from villages. Here was just fields and fields, with only a few farms interspersed between them. When they found a farm, they steered clear away from it. They did not need to poison their pure acts with the common, petty suffering of everyday life.

Now that it was afternoon, they foraged for their meal. The season had been dry and each day brought about a struggle to find food. Today providence had provided, as they found themselves coming upon a grove of wild fig trees.

The three men looked up into the boughs. Branches creaked in the wind. The leaves were mostly shriveled and discolored. These trees were dying. Yet perhaps they still bore fruit. One last act to continue to exist, if only through offspring. Siddhartha wondered to himself if perhaps it was not too farfetched that the trees and people were so different.

“This is a wonderful lesson,” the older man said. “These trees stand here, suffering. In fact, they are suffering, not just experiencing it. Living beings who cannot survive, existing together in their pain. Even the wasps who come to create the fruits we are about to consume have all fled. It is worth taking to heart. We take from their suffering, we eat what they offer us, so that we may continue on our own path. They are here to add to our suffering. We should add their pain to ours.”

The men searched the trees and found several figs. They were small and dry and hard, but there was enough to keep them going. Each of them had two figs and they sat there under the trees to eat and reflect on their lesson. Siddhartha ate his figs slowly, looking up at the trees. These beings would soon be devoid of life, after what looked to be a long and torturous fight. Once that had happened, no more would their be any fruit for wayfarers along this path. The grove would die and fall into the dust and there would be nothing left.

Yet here they were, parasites consuming the last hopes of this grove. Their fruits would end up in their stomachs and the trees would die. Suddenly, Siddhartha felt loathing for himself and his companions. Without their presence, perhaps the trees would have dropped their fruit. Perhaps new trees would have been born out of the rains that would come before too long. But now there would be nothing. In trying to devour suffering, they had devoured all the life of this place.

While the other men sat and meditated, Siddhartha looked down at his remaining fig. This would be all he would be able to eat until they found their next meal, probably the next day. And yet, as he looked upon the tiny fruit sitting in his palm, he could not imagine himself living with having eaten the fig.

He stood up and walked away from the others. They all typically indulged in walking meditations, so there was no question raised. He wandered the grove, looking for a suitable spot. Finding a patch of soil that wasn’t strangled with roots, he cleared a hole and set the fig into the ground, scooping up soil and covering the fruit. “You will suffer, but you may live yet. That is what is important,” he whispered to himself as he buried the fruit. That done, he dusted the soil from his hands and returned to his companions.

The other men were ready. “Siddhartha,” the youngest spoke. “We are ready to be off. Are you satisfied?”

Siddhartha nodded, looking up at the trees above him. His stomach protested, but he smiled. “Indeed, I am. Let us resume our journey.”

The men made their way along the dusty path once more. Some hours later, as the sun was nearing the horizon, they found a river. It was slow and shallow, but it was enough. The older man looked at it and up at the sky. “There are rains in the mountains in the north. Perhaps they will come here. But we should take this opportunity to wash the dust from us. Then we can rest.”

The men all agreed and set to bathing in the river. The water lazily made its way across the land. It was not deep, perhaps waist high at its deepest point. As Siddhartha waded out to this point to bathe, he saw the land on either side that had made up the riverbed when the rains had been strong and the water flowed freely.

As he washed, his thoughts drifted. The water reminded him of his life before. Before all the suffering he had seen. He remembered the water flowing from great stone fountains in the palace of the rainy season his father had built for him. The palace was built to hold the water, with small streams of it carved into the stone, falling from the roof on decorated spouts into lagoons in the main courtyard.

He remembered bathing in pools of scented water, back when his clothing was fine and his hair clean and fresh. When his body had been strong and full and his mind carefree. That was before his eyes were opened. Before he had become mindful of pain and suffering. Siddhartha remembered those days with a bitter fondness. The attendants, all young and healthy. His life, sheltered and structured to keep him free of pain. It had been ideal; a perfect life.

Aside from the fact it was not true.

He had been a full adult when he finally discovered the truth. His own will had taken him out into the world. And there, the suffering of all things rushed upon him like a storm. Until that point, he had never laid eyes upon an old person before. Yet among his eventual subjects were hundreds of them. The horror of their existence had torn his life forever from his eyes.

Siddhartha smiled to himself as he bathed. It had been some time since he had thought of his life before. There was so little in common between that luxury and his existence now that it seemed as thought it had been a story happening to someone else. There was no more proof of who he was upon his person. He was a man without a past, a man of the present, suffering like all the other followers suffered.

It was as he was remembering his life that he forgot himself. In that moment his body betrayed him. He could not say after whether it was the soft river sediment or his legs weak from his observations of the rules of his path. But before he knew it, he no longer had his footing and his legs buckled from underneath him.

He fell into the water and as he struggled to right himself he found that he could not muster the energy to. He flailed about but his mind had been unprepared and he panicked in this moment. The water was above him and though he could reach down and touch the bottom and reach up and crest the surface of the water, he could not find the strength to stand upon his own feet and raise his head above the water.

His breath had failed him and he inhaled the water into his lungs. As he did so, his mind seemed to sharpen though the edges of his thought were fuzzy and dark. He saw the sun shining on the water above him. He saw the water around him, the sediment kicked up by his struggles. Yet he also saw his life before him.

He saw the days of his youth, with the finest things around him and his head full of bliss and ignorance. It was ideal, it was happy, yet it was not true. Now that he knew more of the truth, he knew that it would never be his again. Never again could a man who has seen be content with blindness.

He saw the years of walking among the suffering. He absorbed their pain, catching up on years of learning about a kind of life that he had never seen before. Aging. Sickness. Death. Violence. Suffering. It was all terrible, all horrifying. Yet many of these people were still happy. Many of these people carried on with their lives regardless of their afflictions.

He saw his life now. The life of an ascetic. The years of begging for his food, existing through the good will of others. He observed every regulation of the path. He owned nothing. He survived only on what fate provided him. He lived a life of suffering, depriving himself of all things. When he contributed to the suffering of the world in a way unbefitting his existence, he punished himself as he should.

It was with the vision of himself as a decrepit old man, skeletal and broken by the weight of years, that he was hauled from the water and laid upon the shore. Hands pressed at him, trying to push the water out of him. He was detached from it and for a moment weighed whether or not he would bother expelling the water from his lungs. Perhaps it would be easier to simply allow fate to take its course. There would be no more suffering, no more quest for truth. All the truth he would ever need would swallow him into nothingness.

It was a recent memory that struck him, then. He planted the fig into the soil. The rains were coming. The fig would suffer, but it would live. He had commanded it to live, despite its pain. If the fig would live, so should he, despite the suffering he might face.

He coughed water up, his body shaking and heaving with the effort. The men before him looked relieved as they watched Siddhartha slowly regain his breath. He lay there, staring up at the sky as the stars slowly emerged in the dome of the sky. His chest was full of pain, the blood in his body pounding a heavy rhythm. Yet he was breathing. He breathed in and smelled the truth of the world around him. He breathed out and he was himself again, alone in the world as he had always been.

The men said nothing of this event and soon they continued on their quest for purification. Finally, the lack of things to forage for drove them to the next village by their most dire need. Here, they would ask for what dried bread and clean water the people could spare. And the people, either through pity of the men or fear of denying men holier than themselves, always opened their hearts and offered far more than the men would accept.

It was as they wandered the town to look for food that a young girl came up to Siddhartha. The other men had decided to spend the morning meditating in the middle of the town, making a display of their deep piety. However, Siddhartha’s mind and eye were full of wanderlust and he would rather see if he could find some other thing to focus on than the same meditations he had been doing in the featureless wilds.

He noticed the girl only as he finally realized she was approaching him. She was young and her arms were laden with a bowl and a pitcher. When he realized that yes, it was to him she was coming, he stopped and looked at her. When she realized she had his attention, she hesitated before coming towards him.

“Excuse me, but I hoped you would appreciate my offering,” the young girl said.

Siddhartha was taken aback. “For what do I owe the offering?”

“I made my wish, as I was supposed to, and it is said that a spirit would come and make the wish come true. My wish is true and I had hoped you would remain so I could thank you with an offering, spirit. This is the best I could do, I hope it is sufficient.”

It took some moments of reflection before he realized that it was his extreme appearance that had prompted the girl to mistake him for a spirit. But he was not surprised. He was rail-thin and worn to the bone, but he knew a vigor that the other ascetic scorned. Siddhartha looked at what she had brought. In the pitcher was milk, white and pure and thick. And in her other container was some sort of pudding, pale and creamy and sweet looking. The smell wafting up from the food made Siddhartha delirious. His stomach ached to look upon the food. His body yearned for it. Yet his mind again tried to hold fast to its current path.

“I’m afraid I cannot accept this,” he said slowly.

The girl looked up at him, with tears in her eyes. “But … but you must. I have to thank those who do undeserved good towards me. That is the law. You helped me, spirit, when I didn’t do anything to deserve your kindness. I must thank you, or it will come ill of me. Please, I know it is not much, but please accept this.”

Siddhartha finally nodded and took the offering. Why he took it, he could not be sure. Perhaps because fate had provided it. Perhaps because he could not inflict the pain of his refusal on the girl. Perhaps because he simply wanted a good meal, despite his devotion to his path. Yet when he sat down and ate and drank from what she had brought, it was as though a whole new world had opened up for him.

For those minutes that he ate and drank, he only tasted the sweetness of the food. He only smelled the thick smell of the meal. He drank the milk and it renewed his strength. He had been unaware he had been so weak until he felt vigor returning to his limbs. During that meal, he thought nothing of suffering. The world was the world, he was Siddhartha, and he felt a satisfaction in the simple act of eating a peasant meal such that he had never known.

For the sparsest moment, he had a glimpse of some truth. Something that seemed to him to feel so utterly right that he stopped eating. He stood up, and his mind reeling to try to recapture his thoughts, he walked away from the girl. The thought that this might disappoint her did not occur to him, such was his mindset. The girl, though, looked into his face and was satisfied that she had done her duty. She collected the uneaten food and returned home.

Siddhartha was troubled when he returned to his companions. He did not tell them of what had happened. They would have looked down upon his indulgence as going against the path. Yet, what he had felt in that moment … had he really been in the wrong? The thought of it gnawed at him for the rest of the day.

His thoughts were still troubled when they finally departed for the town. They continued, yet the other men could sense Siddhartha’s disquiet. The old man scolded him for his unmindfulness, but Siddhartha paid him no mind. He cared not for the rote ritual of the ascetic, that morning. His own thoughts kept him occupied.

As they walked, they happened upon a Bo tree next to their path. The men decided to sit and meditate under it. As they did so, Siddhartha looked up into its leaves. The tree was healthy, and flourishing. Yet, it was old and bent, and Siddhartha could see the years of pain and suffering writ into its very trunk.

The men focused inward, trying to purge themselves of suffering, but Siddhartha focused his attention fully on what was before him. Here was a tree that had lived longer than he and had experienced much worse deprivations in its lifetime. Yet, here it stood, it’s leaves full and green. The wind blew the boughs and the tree rustled with a joy that Siddhartha was astonished by. This tree existed in the world of suffering, but sitting under it, Siddhartha felt as though the tree was happy despite its existence.

Again he grasped at the thought that had barely escaped him as he ate the meal in the village. He felt a great truth, just out of reach. If only he could lean further than before, if only his grasp was longer, perhaps he could take a hold of that truth and bring it into himself. Here, he felt that truth again. There was something that he was missing, some great thought that would put everything into perspective. He only had to find it.

It was like catching a fly in the dark. It danced about his head, so close and yet impossible for him to find.

In time the men were ready to move on, but Siddhartha remained unmoving. When they looked at him, they saw a man they barely recognized. Siddhartha looked deep in thought, yet his face was full of an emotion they did not recognize.

“Siddhartha,” the old man said. “Come away. It is time we resumed.”

Siddhartha shook his head. “I cannot. I feel that I am discovering something, some truth that I cannot ignore. Here, under this tree, I feel a thought swelling in my mind. How can I leave now?”

“What are you speaking of? Nonsense. Come away. We will walk and you can consider your truth. What can you hope to gain sitting here under the same tree?”

Siddhartha breathed in and out steadily, but said nothing. The men were uneasy. Here was their companion, acting completely different than he ever had. The old man pushed him further.

“Siddhartha, please. Do not fall into this path. To sit forever and contemplate is a way of madness. How can you hope to cleanse yourself when you do not take the world’s suffering and pain as a vehicle to purity?”

Siddhartha smiled. “I am not sure that I wish to do that anymore. I do not need to take the world’s suffering into myself.”

“What are you speaking of? Come, Siddhartha, follow us. This path you are on leads only to delusions. It is the wrong way. You are lost. We shall help you find your way.”

Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked upon them, and saw them as they were, and found himself moved to pity by the sight. “I told you, I cannot. You may curse me for a heretic if you will, but I must have my truth. It is important to me. I will sit here. I will think. The shade helps me concentrate. When I find my truth, only then will I stop and return to what I was doing, taking my truth with me. You are free to wait and you are free to go. You are not held to me.”

“If you take this path, you will walk alone. I will not sully our efforts with your disregard for our belief,” the old man shook with what could have been fury or could just as easily have been fear.

“Then I will sit alone,” Siddhartha said.

The men argued amongst themselves, but they said nothing more to Siddhartha and he said nothing more to them. He simply sat and watched as they finally gave up their struggle to bring him with them and decided to continue on without him. As they returned to their path, Siddhartha watched them go. They were empty, moving but already dead, continuing their funeral chant as the dust blew up around them once more. They were like ghosts, moaning to validate their existence as they shuffled along. But there was nothing to them.

Then they were gone and Siddhartha was alone. He sat and closed his eyes. He breathed in. There was the tree. The tree that had seen suffering for years. The tree that still laughed when the wind blew through it. It was of the world, and still itself. It was a thing of wonder to contemplate.

Siddhartha breathed out and he was himself. There was Siddhartha, of the world and still himself. Apart, to be sure, but still a part. It was a thing of wonder to see.

The One With the Waggly Tail

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:00:02 PDT

The clerk sighed as the customer approached the counter. "You again? How many times are we going to do this?"

The customer shrugged, trying not to look too chagrined to be there. "They keep dying on me. I can't help that, they're old when I get them!"

The clerk leaned closer and spoke softly over the din of people laughing and talking around the viewing enclosures and cages. "You know, if you're having problems taking care of them, you shouldn't be buying them. They can put you away for that, you know. There are laws against cruelty and mistreatment."

The customer recoiled in horror. "Look, I'm not some sort of monster! The last one had liver problems. I couldn't pay for the surgery. Nobody would, really. Not when the old girl was that close to death. So I just let her go peacefully. You're telling me nobody else comes back here?"

"Oh, they do, but not nearly as often," the customer said. "I suppose you do look to adopt the older ones, though. Fine. But if you're in here again in six months I'm going to have to notify my supervisor. We can't be going through that much stock for one person. We could get in trouble, too."

"I understand," the customer said. "Don't worry. I really do take my best to be the best caretaker. They have beds and food and things to play with. I put on music that they like. I take them out for walks, don't let them wander the streets."

"I believe you," the clerk said. "You seem on the up and up. You leave a lot of broken hearts when you finally walk out of here."

"They'll all find loving homes, I'm sure," the customer said. "Everyone needs something in their life. Without a sense of responsibility, taking care of a living creature, nourishing them, building that companionship... well, what person doesn't like that?"

The clerk smiled. "Exactly right. I hope you enjoy your selection. Have a nice day."

----

The customer let his new acquisition into the passenger's seat of the car, then got behind the wheel. You were supposed to keep them contained until you got home, but that seemed a little inhumane to the customer. How could you wait to set them free?

When he sat down in the drivers seat, he looked over. "Don't worry. It'll be all right. I'm your new owner. I'll take care of you. We'll be the best of friends."

The woman in the passenger's seat looked at him, eyes bright and hopeful amid a deep set of wrinkles. "I sure hope so."

"What's your name?" the customer asked.

"Hazel," the old woman replied, reaching over and putting on her seat belt.

"Hazel." The customer thought for a moment, committing it to memory. "Pretty name. I'll probably call you Gran. I hope that's okay."

"Of course!"

"I'm glad," the customer said, smiling. "All right. Let's go. I'll show you my place, and then we'll get some food in you."

"Oh, lovely. Antiques Roadshow is on later, too. If you don't mind..."

"No, of course not," the customer said. "I love that show."

Together, bonding over talk of knickknacks, the two pulled out from the parking lot and headed towards home.

Ships Passing - fridayflash

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:30:00 PDT

Not much to say about this one. I felt really empowered by all the positive comments on last week's #fridayflash and thus I'm here again laying down another one. I was hoping for something a little less moody, but a foggy day and a Zoe Keating song determined what I was writing this week. Hope you enjoy, and see you all next week!

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

He sat parked in his car along one side of the street. It was dark, the empty isolated kind of dark where dawn is only a few hours off but still being kept at bay. Not that you could tell. There were only the sparse glow of street lights and an all-encompassing fog that had settled over the city that night.

He was buzzed but not drunk. A gathering with old friends as he was passing through was enough to get him wistful and reflective. But they all had jobs or kids or both now and they weren't open to staying out until dawn talking like they had been back in the day. Hell, he wasn't sure he was open to that idea anymore, either. So instead he came here, the only other place in the whole city he could think of.

At this time of night, the street was the only thing in the universe. The well-worn pavement was the only thing holding him up from a fall into oblivion. The fog didn't cut off his universe, it seemed to define it, a world smaller than a block in size, lit from the faint, hazy suns of the street lamps.

He knew that eventually the real sun would come and the universe would expand again. He knew that on either side of this single street were simple two story houses like the kind found in any third year old suburbia in this part of the country. He knew each house like he knew his teachers growing up. He might still be able to name half the neighbors. This wasn't a place people typically moved out from.

Except him, of course.

His head lolled forward and he let out a long sigh. He wasn't sure why he came here. There was nothing but memories, some of them good to be sure but all of them painful. After going so long and so far to get away from this place, here he was again--sitting in a car on this street wishing that life could be .... different.

But it wasn't. Instead it was the same old street with the same old lights and the same old fog that could come down this time of year and really mess with a person. He had always loved this fog in the days of his youth. It was a fog of magic and concealment. A fog that asked for people to come together as close as they could to stave off the isolation.

He sat and stared out at the street as his head slowly cleared. The thoughts in his mind were just a vicious circle of memories and futile ruminations on why life was the way life was. He wished one of his old friends had come along. But he wasn't sure that the conversation they would have had would have been any more fulfilling. It was a lost cause all around. You couldn't go home again.

He started up his car, sitting and waiting and trying to savor the moment one last time. It was late and he was tired now, but who knew when he'd be back through here? As he took it in, tried to get a feel for this one small, insignificant place that meant so much, he noticed a light in the distance. It wasn't the halo of a lamp, but a single tongue of flame off in the darkness, followed by a small glowing dot. Someone was out here, smoking.

He put the car in gear and slowly began to roll forward. As his headlights swept over the fog, he saw that the ember belonged to a person sitting in one of the parked cars on the opposite side of the street. That gave him pause. His reverie had been intruded on by this stranger sitting in their own vehicle thinking thoughts that were probably vastly different than his own. The whole venture out here suddenly felt cheap and self-indulgent.

Still, he didn't want to look like some sort of thief scoping out the neighborhood. Whoever it was had been there before he got there. He suddenly felt like he owed them some sort of explanation. So he slowed as he neared the car, pulling up next to the open window. The smoke drifting out the window was quickly swallowed up by the greedy fog, but it made him feel like this person was a part of the atmosphere, cutting everything off from the reality he remembered and making this night something other.

Their facing windows were open, and he waved as casually as he could as he got close. "I'm sorry for bothering you, I was just driving through. I used to live here. Was in town, figured I'd stop and look at the old neighborhood, get a feel for it again."

The figure leaned forward, a female shape. As she came closer to the window and into the light, he recognized her. For a moment, he almost cried out in surprise. But he just remained rigid as she blew up another thin stream of smoke. "Not much to see on a night like this."

She was looking at him, but she didn't seem to recognize him. It took him a second, but then he remembered how different he looked from back in the day, how much he had changed in the twenty years since he had been here. She hadn't changed, though. Older, a bit more careworn, but still the same.

"Yeah ..." he said slowly. He wasn't going to announce himself if she didn't realize who it was. He hadn't spoken to her in two decades and he wasn't even sure where he'd begin if he had to. Instead, she was just a woman on the street where he used to live. "Well, it's still the same. I remember nights like this. A kid could get into a lot of trouble on a night like this."

She smiled, a thin smile that felt as tired and melancholy as he had felt sitting here. What was she doing here? The same thing he was? He had no idea what she was doing anymore. Maybe she lived here. Maybe she was just passing through like he was. His imagination reeled with the possibilities.

"Yeah, one certainly could," she said. "Still, it's not the same. Back then, it felt so full of possibilities. Now it's just a single tiny street in a city full of them. In a country full of cities. Nothing special."

"I tend to think of it the other way around," he answered her without thinking. "Back then, I was always looking for something more. Something bigger and better. This place was just a stepping stone to adventures. But just seeing the road, as beat up and worn down as it is, and knowing that it's this place above all places ... it's special to me. There's nowhere else I could go to relive the memories I have here."

"You must have some good memories, to be here now," she answered him casually. She didn't seem that interested, just making conversation.

"Some, sure," he answered. "Not all. But even so, I couldn't just let them go. No matter how hard I try or how far I go, they're still with me. And when I was in town, I came here as sure as birds fly south. I figure it's just ... fate."

"Maybe so," she answered, taking another long drag of her cigarette and neatly flicking ash out the window. "I hope you enjoyed coming back, if only for a little while."

"It's been something else," he answered truthfully. "But I certainly don't regret it." He looked at the clock, realizing he had a flight out in only four hours. He could sleep on the plane, but he had to get ready. "You have a good night. And don't be too hard on this whole place. In the morning, it'll go about its business with a bunch of people living their lives, and none of this memory will exist anymore. It'll burn away with the fog. Might as well enjoy it now."

She nodded, though this time she didn't smile. "Have a good night. Drive safe. It's dangerous out there."

"You too," he said, as he rolled up his window to keep out the chill and began to pull away. The streetlights loomed up out of the darkness, one after another, keeping this contained universe the same size and shape even as he moved inside of it. But the car and its occupant disappeared behind him into the darkness, little more than a memory.

Reflect - fridayflash

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:01:16 PDT

At the urging of one Elizabeth Ditty, I decided to participate in this week's #fridayflash. I'm suffering under the worst ear infection ever, so I'm not really in any condition to elaborate on anything. But I hope you enjoy the story, at least.

-----

REFLECT

He stood at the window and peered out into the twinkling sea of lights in the city. His apartment was high above the rest of the world, a luxurious penthouse far above the squallor of the city. But tonight he stared out longingly through the huge windows, peering through the reflection of his own face distorted by the darkened glass.

He stepped back from the brink of the city unfolding below and looked at himself in the glass. He was naked from the waist up, the dark room warm in the summer heat.

On the other side of the window was his reflection, pale and slender. He looked down at himself. His skin nearly glowed in the darkness. His chest was narrow and flat, a faint dusting of feeble hair across the middle of it. He frowned, rubbing his hand across it. A hundred memories of being mocked for his bird-chested figure crossed his face, his lips pulling tight and his eyes narrowing. It wasn't an unfair comparison.

He looked up at the reflection in the mirror, reaching up with his free hand and brushing a wild strand of hair from his eyes. The reflection before him mimicked the action, but instead of a wispy lock of hair it pulled back a long, straight length.

The figure on the other side of the window was equally slender and equally pale, but it wasn't nearly as emaciated or weak. The twig-like torso was expanded into subtle curves. The hollow chest had filled out with two small but graceful looking breasts. The detestable tuft of hair was gone.

He looked into the face in the reflection, afraid to see his hollowed cheeks. But instead there was a rounded face that was beautiful and feminine and utterly alien. Yet when he looked into the eyes, the eyes that looked back were his own.

His hand reached up and touched the glass, and the woman on the other side reached up and touched the glass from the other side. Her fingers were slender and artful, beautiful in comparison to his own hand, with hairy, over sized knuckles.

He pressed harder against the glass, trying to reach the figure on the other side. The reflection seemed to strain to reach out to him, too, muscles in her arm flexing. He stared into the eyes of the other person, seeing her yearning to come across just as strong as his yearning to pull her through the window and into the reality of the room.

He sighed and relaxed his hand, realizing that nothing would get the reflection to come through the other side. She was forever opposite him, floating like an angel above the myriad lights of the city. And there she would remain for as long as he stood there staring out into the darkness, yearning for the impossible.

His other hand came up and pressed the barrel of the gun in his hand against his temple. On the other side, the reflection did the same thing, her slender feminine arm rising up against her head. The reflection of the gun was dark, though. So dark that he couldn't even see it against the night sky.

"I'll never see you again, but ... maybe that's for the best," he said, pressing the muzzle tightly against his temple. He closed his eyes, hoping that the reflection would continue to mimic him. He didn't want her to see this. She was too perfect to be sullied by the gross reality of his existence. His finger tightened on the trigger.

The noise of the gunshot was loud, but brief. This was a luxurious apartment, and noise was swallowed up quickly. There was only the darkness, and a body slumped against the ground, hand still outstretched towards the window, grasping in vain.

There was silence that settled in the apartment. The city continued to shine below, oblivious. But in that silence, with no eyes watching, two slender feet stepped between the splayed legs of the man lying there on the carpet, a hole in his head and a blood stain like an oil spill on the hardwood floor.

The female figure stood there, arms crossed over her bare chest, looking down at the man lying on the floor. She stared at him as though he was possibly familiar, but then shook her head as if clearing away the last remnants of a bad dream.

On a nearby chair was a dress shirt that she pulled on and buttoned up. She approached the window, stepping over the body, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. The reflection was of a man, thin and sickly and disgusting looking. But it didn't seem to bother her as she adjusted the shirt in the mirror, seemingly ignorant of the aberrant reflection staring back at her.

The shirt adjusted so that it didn't look too out of place, the woman turned and walked out of the apartment. At the window, the reflection of the man remained. He stared at the woman living where he had once lived, beginning where he had ended. He pressed his hand to the glass. There was just him and the body lying on the other side inside the apartment.

Slowly, the man faded from the window. The body remained, backlit by the hustle and bustle of the city, but it was alone.

Movie Rundown - This Past Weekend

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:00:00 PDT

Here you go, part two of the movie extravaganza, this time detailing the movies seen from Friday through to Sunday. Hope you're still with me. Like most second acts, it's a dark and dreary road.

Halloween II (**)
Probably the worst Rob Zombie film, and that's saying something (I adore House of 1000 Corpses, but I'll freely admit it's a trainwreck of a movie). The problem isn't that Zombie has no good ideas. In fact, there are lots of good ideas here. A realistic look at what horror movie survival can do to a heroine, a solid amount of gore, and an incredibly well-used Malcolm McDowell. That said, the film is so horribly put together and has so many OTHER ideas that are simply garbage that I will recommend this one to the hardcore only.

Indie Sex (****)
A fantastic four-part documentary about sex in film, from the beginnings of cinema to the modern cutting edge of envelope-pushing art films. This one's a great tribute to a lesser-known line of films, from the incredibly influential to the extremely obscure, but treated with the proper thoughtful discourse that our culture so often lacks when it comes to such things.

If you're a film person? This is a must-see. For everyone else, I would simply say that if the subject matter interests you, there's little that's not covered here.

Anchors Aweigh (**)
An incredibly flawed musical starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. As much as I like Gene Kelly, and as famous as the sequence of him dancing with Jerry the Mouse is, the movie's too long and too lacking in musical bits to really grab me. It just feels terribly bloated and self-important. I would suggest looking up the musical bits on youtube, and letting this one pass by the wayside.

La Vie en Rose (***)
A beautiful film about French singer Edith Piaf, this movie is ... frustrating. The character is well-acted, but is so terribly unlikable that I spent the first two thirds of the movie wishing I were doing something else. I don't know how accurate it is, but it's very off putting. That said, I think that it ends pretty well and the music and cinematography are second to none. I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, but then, I rarely think biopics scream recommendation.

What A Way to Go! (****)
A great dark comedy starring Shirley MacLaine and a bunch of leading men (Gene Kelly, Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman, etc.) about her continued efforts to land a man who appreciates the simple life and her curse of them all trying to gain huge fortunes and dying. The movie is goofy, but one of the best things about it is that each of the men she goes through has a genre of film spoofed about their relationship. It's a neat touch, and the film itself is clever and light and everything it needs to be. A comedy that still works as much as the day it came out, a rare treat.

Les Paul: Chasing Sound (****)
A documentary about the life and accomplishments of Les Paul. It's good. I learned a lot. If you like music or interesting people, it's well worth watching. That is all.

Movie Rundown - Catching up, honest!

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:00:21 PDT

Okay, ladies and gents. It's been WEEKS since we've done this, because I kind of fell out of my movie watching habits aside from the odd new release, and ... well, to be honest, I didn't feel like writing about one movie at a time. Unfortunately, it's added up, and become a list so lengthy that trying to go through them all would be nigh impossible.

So you're getting three installments. First, we'll catch up to this past weekend. On Wednesday, we'll cover the weekend proper. And on Thursday, we'll talk about the movie marathon that saw me through Labor Day. I was going to make this one big tome of a thing, but a certain Miss Ditty, Esquire decided it would be best if I split it up and she generally knows what she's talking about.

So, here you go. The long road to the present!

Clerks 2 (****)
Clerks 2 was the end of this summer's Kevin Smith project, and has become tied with Chasing Amy as my favorite of his films. Things of note? Musical sequences, a great cap on the universe that's come from all of the other films, and Rosario Dawson being amazing (as she always is). I think that Kevin Smith's best watched in order, but if you've seen Clerks at least and enjoyed it, you owe it to yourself to see this brilliant, brilliant movie.

Nosferatu (***)
The original vampire movie. Like most silent films, it's nearly impossible for me to judge the quality. I thought it was okay, with the plus of atmosphere and an amazingly haunting portrayal of Nosferatu himself coupled with the fault that it ends rather abruptly with what I can only call a cop out. Still, for fans of horror movies or film in general, it's a must see.

(500) Days of Summer (***)
I really loved this movie a lot as I left the theater, and it struck a chord with me. There were parts of it that seemed taken exactly out of my experience. If I had written this then, it would have easily garnered four stars. That said, weeks have passed, and my feelings have cooled significantly. My problem with this movie is that it simply tries too hard to appeal to the hipster 20-something crowd. While watching it, I didn't notice as much, but it's most decidedly built to make everybody of a certain age think it's written about them. That touching personal nature instead started to feel like calculated demographic-targeted writing, from the quirky girl to the guy who talks about philosophy over a table arcade game to the Top 20 offbeat musicians that make up its soundtrack. It's nothing special, but if you're of the right age, I bet you'll walk out feeling like it touched you in some way. I just ... am not sure the intentions were correct.

Ponyo (*****)
Ponyo. Miyazaki. Either you know of the genius of Hayao Miyazaki or you know nothing of film. This isn't his best movie, but it's a brilliant movie, as just about everything he does is. This movie needs to be seen by everyone, as far as I'm concerned. It is, like all of his movies, magical.

District 9 (****)
Great movie, though the first half is FAR better than the second half. That said, it's the second best sci fi movie of the year so far (behind MOON) and is well worth people's time.

Inglourious Basterds (****)
Tarantino going back to the kind of noiry post-modern cinematic mashups that he did prior to Kill Bill. Fantastic movie. I ended up wishing that many of the characters had films about them. That's always a great sign. It's not going to win over anyone who hates Tarantino (those sad, misguided souls) but for everybody else ... I wouldn't be surprised to see this movie on my best of 2009 list.

Imbibers One Hundred (I got 39!)

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:00:08 PDT

Instructions:

1) Copy this list into your blog, with instructions.
2) Bold all the drinks you’ve imbibed.
3) Cross out any items that you won’t touch
4) Post a comment here and link to your results.

If you don’t have a blog, just count the ones you’ve tried and post the number in the comments section.

List of Drinks You Must Try Before You Expire

Manhattan Cocktail
Kopi Luwak (Weasle Coffee)
French / Swiss Absinthe
Rootbeer
Gin Martini
Sauternes
Whole Milk
Tequila (100% Agave)
XO Cognac
Espresso
Spring Water (directly from the spring)
Gin & Tonic
Mead
Westvleteren 12 (Yellow Cap) Trappist Ale
Chateau d’Yquem
Budweiser
Maraschino Liqueur
Mojito
Orgeat
Grand Marnier
Mai Tai (original)
Ice Wine (Canadian)
Red Bull
Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice
Bubble Tea
Tokaji
Chicory
Islay Scotch
Pusser’s Navy Rum
Fernet Branca
Fresh Pressed Apple Cider
Bourbon
Australian Shiraz
Buckley’s Cough Syrup
Orange Bitters
Margarita (classic recipe)
Molasses & Milk
Chimay Blue
Wine of Pines (Tepache)
Green Tea
Daiginjo Sake
Chai Tea
Vodka (chilled, straight)
Coca-Cola
Zombie (Beachcomber recipe)
Barley Wine
Brewed Choclate (Xocolatl)
Pisco Sour
Lemonade
Speyside Single Malt
Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
Champagne (Vintage)
Rosé (French)
Bellini
Caipirinha
White Zinfandel (Blush)
Coconut Water
Cerveza
Cafe au Lait
Ice Tea
Pedro Ximenez Sherry
Vintage Port
Hot Chocolate
German Riesling
Pina Colada
El Dorado 15 Year Rum
Chartreuse
Greek Wine
Negroni
Jägermeister
Chicha
Guiness
Rhum Agricole
Palm Wine
Soju
Ceylon Tea (High Grown)
Belgian Lambic
Mongolian Airag
Doogh, Lassi or Ayran
Sugarcane Juice
Ramos Gin Fizz
Singapore Sling
Mint Julep
Old Fashioned
Perique
Jenever (Holland Gin)
Chocolate Milkshake
Traditional Italian Barolo
Pulque
Natural Sparkling Water
Cuban Rum
Asti Spumante
Irish Whiskey
Château Margaux
Two Buck Chuck
Screech
Akvavit
Rye Whisky
German Weissbier
Daiquiri (classic)

Reposted from artofdrink.com.

The Omnivores 100 (I got 41!)

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:00:01 PDT

Reposted from Very Good Taste

The Omnivore’s Hundred

Here’s a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food – but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Winter Night -short fiction-

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:59:12 PDT

By the time the snow rolled in it was already fully dark. When I had come into the bar the sun was still fitfully struggling against the quick descent of night but as always it gave up and ran away for another day and the winter night gripped the city. At first the snow was just a faint hint in the air, a heaviness to the clouds in the sky that only bespoke the possibility. But then it happened, and from the bar I could look outside and see the flakes falling so hard and fast it was hard to make out the building across the street.

"Aw, damn," the bartender said as he leaned against the bar and looked out the window with me. "I was hoping it'd swing south and miss us." He gestured towards my drink, only half a finger of scotch left in the glass. "You want another?"

"Probably shouldn't," I said. "It looks like it might get kind of nasty out there. I'll finish up and see if I can't get home before the worst of it hits."

"Smart man. By the time I get out of here, it's going to be hell. Doubt the plows will go by this way by then." He wiped down the bar and looked around at the other customers to see if he was needed by any of them. The bar was muted and slow with the weather pressing down so heavily.

I watched him tend to cleaning up as best he could and lifted the scotch glass. In the dim light, the amber liquid glistened. I moved the glass in a circular motion and watched its contents coat the inside of the glass. Then I lifted it to my mouth and downed what was left in a single swallow. It was mellow and slightly sweet in my mouth but warmed my throat all the way down to my stomach.

As I set my glass down the side door to the bar opened. Patrons all seemed to become smaller as the cold wind blew in and the temperature suddenly dropped. The figure who had opened the door came in, stomping their feet on the mat in front of the door. Snow dropped off of them and the temperature was finally climbing back to normal when they took off their coat. It was an old man, someone I didn't recognize. He was eyeing a spot at the bar.

I stood up and peeled my coat off the back of my barstool. "You can have this spot, sir," I said. "I'm headed out."

"Oh, thank you very much," the man said. "You have no idea how chilly it is out there. Feels like the temperature up and jumped off a cliff once the snow started. You be careful. Night like this it helps to stay inside."

"Thanks for the heads up," I said as I put my money down on the bar for the bartender. He was over filling up a pint, but waved at me as I headed for the door. I tried to slip out quickly to keep the hot air in, but I could feel everyone behind me retreat into themselves to stay warm as I stepped out into the cold.

Outside the world was quiet. The jazz music that had been playing inside was gone. Instead there was only the muted silence of a winter night in a heavy snowfall. You could hear it, the deafening silence when the world curled up. I pulled my coat tighter around myself and looked down the street. There was already nearly a good inch of snow fall on the ground, with the promise of more coming. I slowly made my way back to my car, the only moving thing on the street with my breath trailing in big puffs behind me.

By the time I got to the car I was covered in a thin dusting of snow. But that was nothing compared to the car. I shook off the snow as best I could before I got in and started the car, turning the heater and defroster on high. Then I grabbed the brush from the back seat of my car. Brushing the snow off the car was easy, it was light and powdery. But an untimely gust of wind meant that by the time I was done I was covered in snow and shake as I might, I was cold and wet by the time I got the car. It didn't help that it was still cold inside. The heater was trying, but it was unfair to ask the poor thing to fight off an entire season.

I breathed into my hands and cursed my lack of gloves. I hadn't expected this much snowfall tonight. I turned on the wipers to keep the windshield clean and waited for the car to start to heat up before I buckled my seat belt and put the car in gear and pulled off of the side street where I was parked.

The streets were nearly deserted everywhere. Cars were quickly becoming buried with snow and the few who were out and about were carefully hurrying home to get out from under it all. In the snow, the streetlights reflected off of the snowfall and the entire world was cast in a brighter, orange hue that it normally would be at night. At least I didn't have to worry about visibility.

With only the roar of the heater and the soft crunch of snow under my tires, I started the slow drive home. This time of night, most of the streetlights were flashing yellow and I rarely had to stop. Instead, the long stretches of road became a trek through a world that seemed transformed. Houses loomed dark far from the street. Drifts of snow curled around trees and danced in front of my headlights. From time to time, I spotted a plow a few blocks away, but I was taking out of the way streets.

I emerged from the residential area I was driving in to a major intersection. Here the street was a bit busier, with a plow trundling past at a snail's pace. Ahead I saw the road I would take to head home, a barely visible line that hadn't been touched by a plow yet. It led on and on, into the darkness, the street lights on either side lighting my way.

I idled for a moment, by now warm and damp but comfortable in my car. I looked ahead at the road I would need to travel, slippery and empty but leading towards home where the heat would have kicked on automatically and it would be warm and I could get a hot shower and maybe a cup of tea. I could be as comfortable as I wanted, waiting out the snow like everybody else.

I turned on my blinker, announcing to nobody that I was turning left. I turned onto the plowed road, seeing nobody aside from that single plow. I followed back behind it for a ways, avoiding the spray of salt and sand but happy to be driving in its wake. It was major roads all the way to my destination, many of them already plowed. Some were once again begin overtaken by drifting snow, others were kind of slushy from the salt and were treacherous. I kept it slow and they were no problem, though the snow kept coming down as if challenging me to stick around and see what it could do.

I was finally at my destination, the bright fluorescent glare of an open establishment on an otherwise dark and desolate street. There were a few cars parked outside, people as foolish as I was on a night like this. I slid into one of the parking spaces and shut my car off. The moment I opened the door, the wind blew against me and I felt the cold seeping into my body again. It was the kind of cold that made your bones ache. I pulled my coat tight against me and walked up to the entrance.

The sign on the door said YES, WE'RE OPEN. Inside were a few people sitting at tables and at the counters, all drinking from steaming cups of coffee. The cook was inside frying eggs and hash browns and sausages right on the other side of the counter. He was in the middle of some discussion with one of the patrons, his spatula being used as much for gesticulation as it was a cooking utensil.

Outside the door were a few people, one or two I recognized as possibly being regulars. The waitress was also outside. They were all huddled close to the entryway. I stopped at the group and said good night to them all. The waitress knew me, offered me a cigarette. I thought for a moment and looked in at the inside of the diner. In there was warmth and light and good smells and even better food. But it would still be there after a smoke.

I took the offered cigarette and lighter, setting the cigarette against my cold lips and flicking the lighter. The flame was bright in the darkness of this huddle and warm against my face for the brief moment it took to light the cigarette. I inhaled, warm smoke pulled into my body that heated my core even as I felt the wind take the heat from my hands. I would be frozen by the time I was done smoking. The rest of them looked well on their way there, too.

The waitress looked at me as I pulled my coat tighter around myself and tried to shield my one exposed hand from the wind as best I could. She was obviously amused. "Nice night we're having, huh?"

"The best," I said. I wasn't sure whether that was sarcasm or not.

"Shoulda stayed home," one of the other people, a short woman I didn't recognize, said. "Not a night to be out."

"What else am I going to do on a night like this, go home?" I answered her. I took another deep drag on the cigarette. Everyone around me laughed in understanding. The heavy snowfall and the brisk wind made the laughter silent to all but us.

How We Came to This -- a ramble on editing

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:28:02 PDT

Hello out there in internet land! I'm actually making a blog post that isn't just me regurgitating opinions on the latest and greatest in film. No, no, instead of inflicting my massive ego on you by proclaiming my thoughts every week, today you're going to get me talking about myself! Great change, huh?

Whoa, whoa, don't click CLOSE on that tab yet. Come on back. I promise I'll do my best to make this interesting. How so? Well, y'see, this blog is gonna be about writing. You know, that thing I claim I do but never talk about? Today we're going to talk about it.

I've been kind of not writing since early in the year. After NaNo, I burnt out on the whole writing thing for a while. I toiled slowly towards the finish line of the NaNo 2008 novel, and then set the whole thing aside. It had been somewhere between not-great and aggressively shitty, so a respite was in order.

That respite has lasted until three weeks ago.

One might ask how a little break can turn into 7 months of dicking around, but really, it's pretty easy. I have a lot of interests, movies and video games and hanging out with friends and just existing on the internet. That takes up gobs of time. I spend more time refreshing twitterfox each day than I do in my entire morning routine. Not reading twitter, just physically refreshing twitterfox.

The internet is the world's second best waster of time, behind the incredible power of Man to ignore his own agenda in favor of anything else.

But now that's not what's happening. Somewhere between hearing one of the writers I follow was getting represented by an agent (congrats again Kristin!) and feeling the days starting to drift into the long hot bulk of summer, I realized that it was nearing time for NaNo again and I had accomplished fuck all in the interim.

Me! The guy who's always been so sure of what he wanted to do with his life, puttering around without purpose for months!

There's an excuse for taking a break, but the break had become a habit of neglect. And somewhere along the line I kind of snapped a little. Not the guns-blazing-soon-to-be-a-made-for-TV-movie snapping, but the quiet kind where I feel something shift inside of me and suddenly you resolve to things with the kind of conviction that surprises me, because normally I'm a pretty mellow (or, y'know, slothful) guy when it comes to responsibility.

But I'm editing now. I decided to take a crack at my NaNo 2007 novel, Way's to Commit Suicide When You're Bored (shortened to WTC here and elsewhere), the third novel I've ever written and quite possibly the most personal of the books. It was written at a pretty dark period in my life, when I was just starting to wrap my head this whole 'being a writer' thing.

Going back to it has been a conflicted experience. On the one hand, I'm feeling really engaged with the writing process again in a way I haven't felt in almost a year. That alone has made the whole endeavor worthwhile. But at the same time, undertaking editing this is easily the most complicated, difficult thing I've ever done. I'm not a great editor, and this book is big and complex and parts of it are in really rough shape.

So I've been working on the edit for the past few weeks, and so far it's going okay, though a bit slow. I have a hard time getting started, though once I do it all seems to go pretty good. I might take a week or so off in September and just cut myself off and do a lot of work, see how that goes. So far I've just been managing about 1000 words a day, sometimes more and sometimes less. I'm still readjusting to making my writing into a part of my daily life. Hopefully in the next fortnight it'll become a habit and then the start up process will go faster and I can get more done.

Of course, aside from the basic mechanics of doing a full draft/rewrite of a novel, there's the emotional factor. A novel is a huge project, and when one is particularly personal it becomes a reflection of the person who wrote it. This novel, WTC, is imbued with the spirit of who I was in late 2007. Where my head was at, who I was as a person and how I related to the world, all these things are dripping from every paragraph.

The problem is, I'm no longer the person I was in 2007. And that makes approaching this book like opening up a time capsule. There are things that I can still relate to, but even after only two years, it's like looking in on someone else's life. The world view of the author is different than the world view of the editor. But at the same time, I feel so connected to it by the tethers of my memories, that separating the experiences of writing it then, working on it now, and seeing it for what it can be becomes an intricate knot of priorities that ... well, frankly, the editing tends to make me exhausted.

I'm not yet at a pace where this book's going to be edited by the time NaNo 2009 rolls around, but I'm starting to get ideas for that and I'm really excited to come off of this and write a new novel. So here's hoping that I finish the edit before then, or I'll be juggling an edit and a first draft at the same time, which sounds about as close to writing hell as I ever want to get.

And that's really all I have to say about the editing job. Maybe I'll have more later, but I really just wanted to write out where my headspace was at when it comes to the work, lately. I'm not exactly the most communcative when it comes to my writing, and this was originally supposed to be a blog about a writer talking about writing. Unfortunately, writing novels doesn't leave a lot of energy to write extra and isn't so dynamic and fast-paced that I regularly have things to say.

I still might check in now and again. This editing experience is new for me. I've never done a project quite like this, and it's a learning experience (and will continue to be so). So ... thanks for following along so far, and hopefully for listening in again in the future.

Oh, and as a parting shot, I'll put up a rough synopsis for Ways to Commit Suicide When You're Bored here at the end so you can see what it is in abstract. I might talk more about it later, in more specifics, but for now this'll have to suffice.

Max has hit an interesting time in his life—he’s dropped out of college, stuck in a dead-end job in the middle of Nebraska, and longs to have someone, anyone, pull him out of the mire that is his existence. It's become so bad that he's started retreating into his own dark imagination for respite. But when an old friend shows up at his door, he leaps at the possibility of winning her heart and escaping from his dark corner of the world.

The problem? She's knocked up, wanting his help in getting rid of the baby.

Now he's left trying to help her while struggling with his ideal of their relationship. But his mental world is starting to take over his life, manifesting in the real world and blurring the lines of what happens in his head and what happens in real life. What starts out as a complicated situation becomes a struggle to deal with his demons and confront the ghosts of his own mind, before he becomes a prisoner of his own mind forever.

Movie Rundown - July 13 to July 19

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:45:24 PDT

All right, ladies and gentlemen! We're up to our asses in films this week, so let's not beat around the bush.

Movies incoming!

Benny & Joon (**)
I checked this one out on the recommendation of one Elizabeth Ditty, who typically has great taste in film. Perhaps that still holds true, but I found Benny & Joon to be a frustrating, empty experience. In short, a man caring for his schizophrenic sister takes in an offbeat layabout (played by Johnny Depp) who acts like Buster Keaton. Antics ensue.

There's some stuff about mental health and other stuff about a budding romance, but it's pretty light fare. The problem comes from the actions of the titular Benny and Joon, both of whom are basically entirely unlikable and spend the entire movie doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons until the writers ran out of pages and let them all live happily ever after.

There is something very charming about Depp's performance, back in the day when he hadn't yet learned how to play Movie Star Johnny Depp. But unless you have a thing for him or a high tolerance for sappy-at-the-expensive-of-all-else kind of movies, stay away.

Reclaiming the Blade (****)
A documentary about swords. Seems straightforward enough. But this is a movie with an edge. More to the point (okay, I'm done) the film is about the history of these weapons of legend, from their first developments to their use in modern day in sport, reenactments, movies, etc.

There's quite a lot to love here. It explains the sword in function and theory, and the Western infatuation with the blade. There are interviews with actors, sword trainers, martial arts experts, blacksmiths, scholars. It's pretty exhaustive, though even after an hour and a half I was ready for more.

Of particular note are two sections, one on how fencing bears little to no resemblance to any sort of actual swordfighting, a reduction of a skill to a sport and how the proliferation of fencing nearly ruined the heritage of European martial arts. And secondly, of the rediscovery of the true European martial arts, both of swordfighting and grappling, that has risen up very recently.

If you love movie fighting, real fighting, or just documentaries in general, this is for you. It's on Netflix Instant, for anyone who's interested. And it's well worth the investment.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (***)
This is going to be short. Either you're A) a Harry Potter fan and are going to see this one no matter what and nothing I say is going to sway you one way or another B) someone who hates all the Harry Potter garbage with a passion and nothing I say will get them to watch this or C) someone who's kind of meh about the whole thing.

I fall pretty heavily in category C. But I encourage all Category C people to go ahead and see this one. It's solid enough, not as flashy or pointless as the last two felt, not as whimsically stupid as the first two. It's not as good as Prisoner of Azkaban, but it's a decent movie that had to do a lot to get away from the soggy trainwreck of a novel that is the Half Blood Prince book.

I don't really have much more to say on the subject. The films are bigger than my opinion. I thought this one in particular had an eye for how to shoot a dynamic scene and the actors gave much better performances across the board than they ever had before, but the story itself is kind of long-winded and ineffectual, as penultimate stories typically are.

That said, it's a worthy setup to the two Deathly Hallows movies, and if you've come this far through movies 1-5, you're probably going to see this one anyway. So yeah. Harry Potter. Another one. Woo.

Dogma (****)
Dogma is the next in the Kevin Smith project, and one that had already been highly recommended to me many times before. It's an amazing movie, funny and smart and surprisingly well-paced especially for a Kevin Smith movie.

The story of a young woman who is drafted by Metatron, the voice of God, to stop two angels from fulfilling a plan to lead to the destruction of all creation, Dogma is part quest film, part road movie, and part religious satire. Along the way, the woman runs into the 13th Apostle (Chris Rock), the Muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek) and more.

There's a lot of things I'd say about this one, but instead I'm going to tell you to go and watch it. Much of the comedy would be spoiled by a bigger, better explanation. But I will say that as long as you don't mind some punches being thrown at the Catholic Church and Christian religion, you're going to have a great time. Guaranteed.

Cannibal Holocaust (*)
I don't know if you've heard of this, but if you're a fan of horror or exploitation or controversial movies in general you should have. In fact, you've probably seen it, as it's one of the most ubiquitous exploitation movies of all time.

Which is unfortunate, because it's terrible.

The movie charts a professor who goes into the jungles of South America to find a missing film crew. In doing so, he stumbles upon a wild tribe who have the rolls of film, and then returns to New York City to view the grisly footage on display.

The problem is the film is a trainwreck. There's a hamfisted message about how civilized man is worse than cannibals in the wild, because while cannibals are just doing ritual slaughter modern man comes and destroys and rapes and pillages.

Of course, the film has no qualms about going around showing you just how bad the film crew is. There are multiple murders, and multiple rapes, to the point where something's getting screwed, shot, or stabbed about every three minutes in the last half of the film. And it's all done with a flair for the graphic detail, which leads to an onslaught of gore and hyperviolence that permeates the second half.

The problem is, for all that fury it ends up shooting itself in the foot. You watch so many people get hacked apart, so much raw looking flesh get eaten, and so many people violated in so many ways that it just ceases to be affecting and becomes slightly queasy and slightly boring. When they talk about the deadening affect of violence in media, this could be the poster child. For all its atrocities, they're all misused and stripped of context until it all becomes meaningless and stupid.

But, sadly, this is still a significant film. And despite my hatred for it, I know how it exists and why it's so regarded and controversial to this day. Any film person is going to have to give it a go sooner or later. And while I absolutely hated it, maybe ... just maybe, someone else will see something in there I don't.

(as a final note, I know some people are really weird about animal cruelty, and know that this movie has real images of real animals having bad things happen to them on camera. none of them are so cuddly as dogs or cats or anything, but ... it's there, and it's as gratuitous and exploitative as the rest, but worse for being real )

Moon (****)
Imagine a future where Earth gets all of its energy from a substance called Helium-3 mined on the far side of the moon. It's a mostly automated process that only needs limited oversight. So there's a single man who signs up for a three year contract on the moon base, watching the harvesters and doing any necessary repairs.

This is the world of Moon. And in many ways, it's a world of isolation. It's about what happens to a man when he's cut off from the world, and what that can do to a person in stages of their life. The film is basically Sam Rockwell in a single set the whole time, kept company by an AI built into a mobile console played by Kevin Spacey.

It's when Sam (Rockwell's character) gets in an accident and wakes up in two places at once that things get dicey. The two versions are both identified by the AI as being the same person, and they both share the same memories. And it is the interplay between the two versions of the main character and the AI that become the driving force of the film.

And guess what? It works. Really well. There are multiple layers to the story, and whenever I figured I had it pegged and was like 'huh, it'll end on this level and that'll be kind of cliche' it went ahead and took it further. There was just so much atmosphere, and the performances were so great, that it was impossible not to get sucked in.

Well recommended. Easily one of the best sci fi movies I've seen in years and years.

Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (***)
I can already tell you exactly whether or not you'll like Jay and Silent Bob. Are you into his other movies that came out previously? Do you like the things that Kevin Smith is into (Star Wars, comic books, movie nerdism, etc)? Can you appreciate fan service? Do you like Jay and Silent Bob as characters?

If so, you'll like this movie. It's entirely a fan service project, a movie that Kevin Smith made as a love letter to the other movies in the same universe, where characters exist together and everything is touched upon. Actors play two different roles if they were in two of his movies, just about every familiar face returns, and the whole thing is kind of a goofy romp through the world that Kevin Smith created, seen through the eyes of his dumbest characters.

At heart a buddy road movie, Jay and Silent Bob isn't very good, but it's great fun. I mean, the climactic battle involves Kevin Smith as Silent Bob facing off with Mark Hamill (doing a barely-disguised Joker voice) in a lightsaber dual in a batcave knockoff.

I think this is the movie with the highest barrier to entry of all of his, because it does have so many callbacks. But for a part of the movie project? It was like a love note to what I had been doing, taking in these movies so rapidly. Just don't expect a masterpiece. At the end of the day, Jay and Silent Bob go through life smoking weed and telling dick and fart jokes.

Nosferatu
I really debate rating movies like Nosferatu and others in the silent film genre, because of how far removed we are. That movie is literally 87 years old, and generations of movie advancement apart. How good it is at that point becomes really abstract, requiring a lot of context and knowledge that I might not necessarily have. So ... I think I'm going to abstain from rating it.

That said, it's an interesting retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula, focusing more on the first half of the novel. Guy goes to sell a mysterious Count a house, gets trapped in the castle, Count turns out to be a vampire who is infatuated with guy's young wife, heads to England to drink her blood.

The movie itself takes plenty of liberties with the source material (though, then again, it's not a direct Dracula adaptation). But all in all it's very well put together. The makeup on Nosferatu himself is well done, going for a rodent-like appearance over a charming count. And all in all, I think it's a far better portrayal of a monster than trying to humanize it. That said, if you're into horror movies, vampires, or silent films, it's well worth watching. It's endured through the ages for a reason.

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And that's all for today! I didn't get through one of my netflix discs, but it'll show up next week. Also on the agenda is Clerks 2, the last of the Kevin Smith project. Past that? Who knows! Gonna be playing it by ear a bit more next week.

Movie Rundown - July 6 to July 12

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:10:11 PDT

All right, I've been working on one of my previous books, rereading it in order to get an edit job going in the next week or so. So to be honest with you, I really didn't have much time or energy to watch many movies. This was compounded by work being extra special plusbad difficult last week, so ... the fact that I decided to watch a bunch of movies this weekend is the only thing that really guaranteed I'd do one of these this week.

An eclectic bunch, but nothing new, so let's just get started.

Hellboy (****)
I rewatched Hellboy for the first time since 2005 on Friday, a nice blu-ray copy on a friend's nice television. Aside from making me crave my own BD player, the movie was a nice reminder of just why I originally fell in love with the work of one Mr. del Toro.

Hellboy's aged pretty well. This was the extended edition, so there were some scenes (especially some nice ones with Selma Blair) that really rounded out the characters nicely. But the movie itself remains as fun and well-made as always. With the higher resolution, some of the CG doesn't hold up, but I think that's mostly true across the board.

That said, I think I've finally decided that of the two the original movie is the superior product. What little I know of Hellboy as a comic I think was likely much better captured in the first film. The second film, for all the things I enjoy about it, certainly feels like del Toro ran with his own fever dream visions much more so than he did. Which is fine, but detracts from the original Mignola style of the comics and first movie.

Moon Child (****)
Moon Child is a Japanese film starring pop singer Gackt and L'Arc-en-Ciel guitarist and lead singer Hyde. Hyde plays a vampire who is discovered by a young orphan. The two become fast friends, and as the young orphan grows up (played by Gackt) they become a team taking on crime-ridden streets and living a life of abandon.

The movie is surprisingly touching, given the fact it stars two music stars. The movie explores what it means to grow up, and what happens to friendships over time based on the choices people make. It's heavy stuff, full of death and betrayal, with an emphasis on typical gangster fiction played out as the backdrop to the personal drama.

The movie itself was touching, but more surprising is the fact it exists at all. Yes, the stylish action and goofy humor at times make the movie feel uneven tonally, but I could never imagine an american musician ever making a film half as deep or complex as this one. If you're into either of the musicians, or into Japanese films, or vampire movies in general, it's well worth seeking out.

Chasing Amy (*****)
The latest in my ongoing Kevin Smith project, Chasing Amy comes on the heels of last week's Mallrats, which I wasn't much into. However, things have come around and in a big way. Chasing Amy is not only fantastic, but might be my favorite romantic comedy of all time.

Why? Well, that's hard to explain. But the movie itself feels very grounded and very real, with characters who act in ways that I could identify with and didn't seem cliche at all. That's the key, how relatable the characters are, that makes Kevin Smith's best work so great. These people are all fucked up, some a lot and some a little, but they're fucked up like you or your friends. And so, the situation doesn't seem trite or rehashed, but real and meaningful and (when it all clicks) very moving.

Of particular note here is Ben Affleck, who continues to grow on me with just about every movie I see him in. Here he is endearing and infuriating and it all works in a way that feels right. He's a leading man who doesn't lead anything anywhere. And in his understated performance, he sells the entire situation.

Go see this movie. There are some minor complains that maybe I could make, especially thematically, but they're well beyond the scope of this write up here. Just go see it. It's wonderful. I'm not sure what else I'll get out of Kevin Smith, but this movie alone makes the entire project a rousing success.

Scoop (***)
Scoop. Oh Scoop. I picked this one up on recommendation of one Elizabeth Ditty, who normally has solid taste in movies. This time, though, I'm going to have to disagree with her.

Scoop is a Woody Allen movie, and is admittedly the first one I've seen, but I was very unimpressed. A offbeat comedy-mystery starring Allen himself, Scarlett Johansson, and Hugh Jackman, it's a light movie that kind of trundles along at its own lazy, happy pace. In reality, though, the whole thing felt a little too empty. At the end of the day, I felt like I had watched something in line with Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys, young bumbling detectives who figure out a case and ...

Look, the movie's fine. It's cute, sometimes it's genuinely funny, but it's pretty harmless all in all. I was looking and hoping for something with some more oomph, maybe a little deeper meaning, and I was left feeling a little hollow. I don't know if that was just an expectation problem, but at the end of the day the film left me more annoyed with it than pleased.

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And that's it! As of the time of this writing, the Netflix website is down, but I'm hoping in the next week to see Dogma and, if it's out on DVD yet, Tyson. Also up is the new Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Bloated Penultimate Book, which I have very low expectations for. There might be something else thrown into the mix, but I couldn't begin to tell you what at this time and date.

That's all, friends! I might post a bit about my editing process, maybe throw up some notes or whatever. I don't know. Writing books doesn't make for compelling blog content, I've noticed. Especially since right now I'm not doing much more than reading and making notes.

Oh well. See you on the flip side of the week, if nothing else!

Movie Rundown - June 28 to July 5

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:30:20 PDT

Not much to say about movies this week. My movie project procedes as usual, and my most anticipated movie of the summer turned out to be kind of a bust. That said, there are several notable things in movie land this week.

First off, the arthouse theater in town is showing The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly at the end of the month. As one of my favorite films, and I think the best shot film I've ever seen, I'm very very excited to be able to experience it on the big screen. Going to be an experience.

Second, from the creators of Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police (both amazing, amazing movies) comes this trailer this week. Watch it, and enjoy it's awesomeness! Movie reviews will follow below, and we'll see you next week with another one of these!

Gran Torino (****)
Clint Eastwood's latest movie about a Korean war veteran set in his ways. The movie opens on his wife dying, on the family that is spoiled and estranged from him and his old fashioned ways. His life is one out of time, the kind of man that doesn't exist anymore, a man who can fix things and keep a strong face and knows his shit. Which is when a Hmong family moves in next door and he's thrust into a living world that actively tries to bring him out of his shell.

The interesting thing about this movie is that it plays off of the traditional antihero action guy role that Eastwood has been playing his whole life. By referencing it but placing it in the background of this angry old man, it lends a certain amount of sadness and an undercurrent of dark humor to it. Clint Eastwood has been the baddest of badasses, but watching him groan to reach down and pick something up is both heartbreaking and endearing.

The movie itself deals with what it means to be American in the 21st century, and an older generation learning to accept a new generation and new realities while still understanding how they're relevant and what they can contribute to the world even long past their prime. I couldn't help but watch the movie and think of my own father, who is of a similar age and acts in very similar ways sometimes. And in creating something that would probably speak to his own generation and say something to people my age, Eastwood has made a movie that feels realistic but also a great postmodern twist on Eastwood's ancient action persona.

Mallrats (***)
The second in my Kevin Smith project, and a disappointing entry. Mallrats, especially coming hot off the heels of Clerks, feels kind of hollow. Sure, the film has a budget, and it's in color, and it is determined to give you a good time. But in doing so, the heart seemed to be missing from it.

The characters seem far more cartoonish than they were in Clerks, and the comedy is a lot of running around and doing things without any of the subtext and deeper meaning that Clerks had. Clerks was about finding direction in a life that was going nowhere. Mallrats is just about some guys trying to win the hearts of some women.

Funny, but ... disappointingly lacking.

My Name is Bruce (****)
Bruce Campbell. Either you know what I'm talking about or you don't when it comes to the man best known as simply The Bruce. If you don't know, this isn't for you. But if you do, let me spin you a tale.

Bruce Campbell is a B-movie star of such films as Evil Dead, Bubba Ho-Tep, and Man with the Screaming Brain. He's got a slimy agent, a bunch of nerdy fans he hates, and an ex-wife who hates his guts. But suddenly, a fan shows up and kidnaps him, taking him to a backwater town. The reason? A real demon has been unleashed, and the town decided that the best way to fight a demon would be to hire a guy who made movies about fighting demons.

Makes sense, right? Problem is, Bruce thinks its just an appearance gig.

This movie is a no-budget horror production. As it should be. It's hilarious, awesome, and full of Bruce. Bruce. Seriously. If you like Bruce, see this. The man is in almost every scene and is nothing but magnificent.

Bruce. Accept no substitutes.

LolliLove (**)
A mockumentary written, directed by, and starring The Office's Jenna Fischer. It charts the fictionalized attempts of her and her then-husband, James Gunn, to get a homeless charity off the ground. It's a ultra-no-budget affair, a bunch of people messing around with commercial cameras on the weekend sort of thing.

It's not bad, but it's ... amateur. The whole thing is short and kind of lame, but Jenna Fischer is her typical endearing self. All in all, though, I'd say that you'd be fine just not bothering with this. It exists, but you're not missing much.

Public Enemies (***)
Where to begin with this one? I don't want to seem harsh, but this isn't a great movie. It's an okay movie, with some solid performances but some serious flaws. Among them? It's WAY too long, WAY too slowly paced, and the cinematography that Michael Mann uses to great effect to explore modern urban areas is wasted here, becoming a jumbled mess that feels brutish and ugly.

In making a film about John Dillinger, Mann has spent most of the film so in love with the idea of making a biopic that he forgot to make a satisfying story. One might argue that with prior warning, that would be fine, and in the hands of another filmmaker I would agree. The problem is, Michael Mann doesn't make biopics. He makes crime dramas. Out of his element, the film doesn't have a lot going for it when it comes to plot or direction, and it shows.

That said, the actors do amazing jobs. Johnny Depp turns in what is probably his best performance in years, reigning in his usual Depp-ness in order to portray a much more reserved, much more down-to-earth man in Dillinger. The film banks on his name, and he carries it well.

Sadly, Christian Bale wasn't so lucky. He's become something of a go-to guy these days, but with his terrible southern accent and his blank demeanor, he's basically wasted here. It's a shame, too, because the film seems primed for a meeting of the minds much in the way of Heat. Sadly, that never comes to pass.

It's an okay movie, and worth seeing (especially for Depp fans, or Michael Mann fans) but ... be forewarned. It's a frustratingly disappointing film on multiple levels.

Movie Rundown - A long list of movies

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:26:57 PDT

Okay, so here's a big catchup post of movies from the past three weeks or so. I don't remember exactly how long, but ... yeah. Long time. I think I'm getting back into movies, and I started another movie project, so hopefully this'll be a little more regular after this.

Maybe.

Sorry for the short intro. Work's been busy, and I'm trying to keep my rambling for a minimum. Hand troubles and all. So let's begin.

Kids (***)
This is one of those movies that's worth watching, but isn't a very good experience. The movie itself is fine, don't get me wrong, but it's depressing through and through in every aspect. The story of teens in New York City, it's about sex, violence, and the spreading of AIDS. And it's not happy, heartwarming fare. Nor is it comfortably tragic a la RENT. It's bleak. Refreshingly so, but ... it's not going to bring smiles to any faces. For people into depressing experiences only.

UP (*****)
Go see UP. Look, Pixar's never made a bad movie, even if I'm not really into A Bug's Life. This one is easily their best and miles above Wall-E. It's fantastic, it's beautifull, it's sad. Then after you watch it, go watch Kiki's Delivery Service and Howl's Moving Castle by Miyazaki and realize that they get their magic by emulating the master of magic.

But mostly, just go see it. It's wonderful.

Drag Me to Hell (****)
Look, I have a love/hate relationship with Sam Raimi. I really love Evil Dead 1 and 2. I'm not as into Army of Darkness. And I'm really ambivalent about Spider-Man. One was okay, two had it's great moments, but three was the blockbuster trainwreck of that year. Hated it. Hate hate hate.

This, however, is love. It's much more like Evil Dead. If you go into this as a straight up horror film, you'd be sorely disappointed. You see, Raimi has a fetish for torturing his characters. And so Drag Me to Hell, much like Evil Dead, exists in the little-explored region of horror/comedy. If you're into that sort of thing, go see this. It's brilliant. If you're not into that, no amount of explanation will ever make you see this. Which is sad, you closed-minded bastards.

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (***)
Look, have you seen Tremors? No? Because it's a CLASSIC. And the second one isn't too bad either. If you're truly a masochist, you need to go ahead and watch Tremors 3. It's awful, almost completely irredeemable, but ... then you get to this. The ghettoist ghetto. Tremors 4. A prequel to a movie that most people have never even heard of.

And guess what? It's pretty good. I mean, it's silly, sure. And it has almost no budget. But as a monsters-in-old-west story it plays pretty well. It knows what it is and that it has to tell a modest story and it does that handily. Just for the setting and genre alone I'd say go ahead and give this one a watch, assuming you like Tremors as a franchise (such as it is).

Miami Vice (****)
Michael Mann. That enough is gonna get me to see a movie. And this one is pretty much a Mannstravaganza (which sounds, in retrospect, like something WAY different). It's full of fast-paced dialogue and ambiguous characters on either side of the cop/criminal divide. It has a few action beats that are vicious and feel realistic and have impact because they're so minimally used. It's not Heat, but it feels a little more measured in terms of the character portrayals than heat. Of particular note is Colin Farrell, who I've never really been into but really surprised me here.

Easy Virtue (*****)
I already reviewed this one, and basically I feel the same way as I used to. So go HERE, read this review, and then go see this movie in any way you can.

Clerks (****)
Okay, so I started a new movie project this summer (last summer was the Coen Brothers filmography) and I chose Kevin Smith. I don't know why I chose Kevin Smith, other than I had really been feeling like comedies lately and Kevin Smith movies are all films that I wish I had seen but haven't ever gotten around to seeing.

So, Clerks. I assume most everybody's seen Clerks. Its one of those movies that is everywhere and I hear jokes referencing it all the time. So I was expecting the movie itself to be bereft of much of its original voice and impact. Surprisingly, that wasn't the case. In fact, I found this movie to be surprisingly relevant to now even if it's well over 15 years old now.

The story of a bunch of apathetic convenience store clerks over a single day, Clerks is a no-budget slice of life comedy with a good eye for dialogue and a perfect sense of how guys talk when nobody's around. I know, because this movie very much feels like it's out of my own life. While I'm not sure how much people who aren't just out of their late teens/college years would like it, I felt that it was heartfelt in its vulgarity because it was so true. It really connected to me, on a multitude of levels, where I actually related to the characters in a way I typically don't.

So ... yeah. Clerks is great. And I'm looking very forward to watching the rest of Kevin Smith's movies.

----

So, that's done. Who knows whats on the agenda this week, aside from my much-anticipated viewing of Public Enemies on Friday and Mallrats sometime this week. My friend Adam is trying to rope me into watching Twilight, but ... I don't think anybody wants that, other than him.

And he's a bastard.

Is this fiction? I was supposed to write fiction.

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:35:14 PDT

I'm supposed to be writing a short story right now. At least, that's what I agreed to. I was sitting here, idly munching on a slide of provolone cheese and drinking a strawberry Fanta when some miserable harpy of guilt and responsibility alighted upon my window sill.

TAP TAP went the sound of her gnarled beak on my window.

"Nooooo, no no, I'm not going to let you in," I said aloud to an empty room. This is, believe it or not, not uncommon behavior for me. So you're just going to have to roll with it.

TAP TAP was the (predictable) response.

I knew the game here. If I was to acknowledge the tapping, I would get all sorts of disapproval. You see, I like to make intimations that I'm some sort of writer. Hell, for a while there, I was even acting like one. With drafts and novels and career plans and all that happy crappy.

But lately, man. Let's just say that the guilt thing would be both well-placed and sorely unappreciated.

"Go away! I'm on vacation. I don't want any. No solicitation. It's on the sign!" In truth I have no such sign, but surely solicitation so early in the morning by something so horrible is never a welcome thing. And even if I DID have said sign, I'm pretty sure the harpy would have happily ignored the proclamation of my disinterest. Besides, bird-things don't read, to the best of my knowledge.

TAP TAP. TAP.

I waited patiently several minutes for the tapping to stop. Maybe if I ignored it, it would go away and torment some other poor soul who was much more deserving of its nightmarish dedication to upholding idealistic dreams than I. Someone who had woken up sometime normal. I have been awake since 3 PM the previous day. Not a huge amount of time, I'm not ready to hallucinate yet, but it's been a long day and the last thing I need is a mental trip down self-loathing avenue. I do enough of that on my own.

I'm a conveniently long-sleeved shirt and a bad dye job away from being the emo poster boy of reluctant artists everywhere.

With better taste in music, though.

I was just getting ready to settle back into my drink, maybe check webcomics or the daily woot deal, when suddenly there was a single, resonant TAP. Clear. Declarative. Firm. This was no request for idle entry. This was a command. A seige in a sound. An order in an onomatopoeia. An anguished attempt at alliteration.

All these things, and more. I was compelled!

Idly, I opened the window. There was the accursed Harpy! I will spare you the labored description of such things, but I will tell you if you had been there to see the shrieking, gesticulating, emphatic menacee, you too would be reaching deep down into your bag of adjectives and finding that there was nothing that properly reflected the horror that you felt.

"Good morning," I ventured idly. A strong sense of apathy is just the thing to defeat those who would try to influence you emotionally. Especially when they're prodding your sensitive bits. No, no, not those sensitive bits. The sensitive bits of the psyche. No, the ones left of those. Yep, you got it.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" This was an unhappy Harpy.

"That's a terrible way to greet someone," I replied. Because, protip: beginning a conversation with anything including the word fuck? Bad form. Bad form indeed.

"You really should be writing," the Harpy began without a moment's hesitation. It's a single-minded beast, sent only to prey upon my deepest neuroses. I can respect that kind of dedication.

"Look," I began, holding up a hand to cut it off before it really began a tirade. "I'm on vacation. Work was really busy, and I typed my hands into uselessness and pain, and I took some days off in order to recover and shit. I don't need you showing up in the eleventh hour and trying to get me to pick up the yoke of your literary oppression all over again. Remember what happened with the script? I remember. I'll always remember."

Cue the thousand yard stare. If I had a soundtrack, there would be an overlay of furious typing drifting away into swearing. The sound of glass shattering. Paper burning. Maybe an explosion for good measure. Why half-ass it, right?

"That was like ... months ago. When are you going to grow a pair and act like you know what the hell you're doing?"

"That's just it. I don't. I can't get started and it's all crap and I hate myself and I hate life. Leave me alone! I was on vacation. Vacay. Last day. Does that mean nothing to you? Do you have to violate this last sacred bastion of my blissfully empty existance?"

The Harpy arched one skeptical, sculpted eyebrow. "Blissful, huh? You don't seem very blissful to me."

"SHUT UP!"

"Real mature, dude. Listen, you should write."

"Last day. No bueno. DO. NOT. WANT. Were you not listening, or do I have to break it down a little further? Kiss my ass, and don't let the balls hit you in the face on the way down."

"Colorful. Maybe you should be putting your snark to good use and ... y'know, maybe put out some fiction. You are supposed to be a writer."

"I don't know who you've been talking to, but those are lies. Foul, foul lies. I never claimed anything of the sort."

"I really don't want to point to your blog, or your twitter bio, or your facebook, or anything like that. But I will if you insist on being stubborn like this."

It was at this point that the harpy had a point. And also when I realized that I'd probably never get to properly finish my dinner of cheese and fruit soda. So I bit the bullet.

"Vacation. I'm supposed to be R&Ring."

"That's not a verb," the Harpy offered.

"Who's the writer here?"

"Technically, I am. You claim to be, but I don't see it." Ooooh. Burn. This Harpy was a real Witch-with-a-B.

"What the fuck? That's ice cold."

"Hey, I call it like I see it. You're supposed to be all rockin' the world with your books and shit, but you haven't filled out a postit note in months."

"But ... last day ... vacation."

"C'mon, you can do better than that. What better time to write than when you have nothing better to do? What else were you gonna do? Watch TV? Surf the internet? Tweet a bunch?"

"Those all sound like pretty good options to me."

The Harpy rolled its beady little eyes. "Do yourself a favor, write something. Anything. It'll help get you started. A short story, even. Nothing serious. Just something. Be a writer. Pretend for a little while. Maybe you'll surprise yourself."

"If I do this, will you leave me the hell alone?"

"No, but I might stop bothering you for a little while."

"You're a real dick, you know that?"

The Harpy climbed back up to the window. "Aren't all Harpies female or something?"

"Hey, I don't know. You're the Harpy, you tell me."

"I think this metaphor's been stretched far enough. Good luck, kid, you'll need it." And then, cackling at the trauma it had just inflicted upon me, the wretched beast flew off. I was alone. With a sudden, reawakened sense of my own responsibility as a one-time writer and oft-time proponent of doing something with my life.

So I pulled up google docs. There were the two novels to be edited. That was right out. In my prime I couldn't wrap my head around editing. If I was a race horse right now, I'd be part glue. No way I'm ready for that.

Then there's the crazy short story project Miss Ditty roped me into. Nope, that's not going to work. That's all like ... concept stuff. I can barely type a sentence without descending into madness. How would I ever work on something like that?

I tried in vain to write something new. Something relevant and witty and gripping in the way that good fiction gets. I got as far as some interesting first sentences such as "When the barista disturbed Teresa he got a faceful of 'fuck you'" and "When the electricity in my part of the state finally went out, I could have sworn I still heard a TV putting out the distinct electrical hum associated with being on but not displaying a picture."

These were not great opening salvos in the war against the rusted gears of this creaky word-weaver.

Instead, I contemplated doing nothing. The Harpy was gone. She would not return today, and I could ignore her for a little while longer. Why do today what you can put off until whenever, or whatever. I could carry on as before without anyone to answer to but myself.

But for a moment, a voice spoke up. "Dude, could you really live with yourself if you took this moment, when you literally have no excuse, and gave up without even really giving it a try?"

And I stared really hard at my computer screen, and I answered that little voice. "Dude, no. You're right. Let's DO THIS!"

And so I thought for a minute, and decided to let the muses decide. I pulled up blogger, I clicked on New Post, and I typed the opening line:

I'm supposed to be writing a short story right now.

My Strawberry Fanta is probably flat. That's okay. I have some more in the fridge.

Movie Rundown - April 20 to May 10

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:40:38 PDT

My apologies for this taking so long. Things have been kind of hectic, with the failure of my Script Frenzy attempt and some family issues. I'm probably not going to talk about either here on the blog. Maybe the Script Frenzy thing. On a day when I'm feeling particularly self-destructive.

I haven't been much in the mood for netflix movies lately, so this list is going to be short for how much time it covers. I've just been watching The Office in my spare time. Good stuff. As for the movies, here we go!

Resurrecting the Champ (****)
Josh Hartnett plays a struggling sports journalist who discovers that a homeless man who goes by Champ (played by Samuel L Jackson) is a former boxing contender to a world title. He tries to form a bond with Champ in order to write his story, a sure-fire hit.

It sounds like it could descend into the saccharine, but I found it a really good movie. Hartnett, who's never really set me afire, is surprisingly solid in an ineffectual everyman sort of way. The real star here is Jackson, though, who forgoes his typical blaxploitation schtick to turn in a great performance. Champ is run down, ancient, wobbly and screechy, and Jackson's portrayal is at times heartbreaking and others repellant. It's the backbone of the movie, and it carries it well.

2 Fast 2 Furious (**)
The second move in the series of things that are Fast and Furious, this is widely regarded as the worst of the series. And I'm willing to agree with that. This movie is kind of messed up from the get go. It just plods on with a formulaic adherence to mediocrity that's startling. There are moments that are fun, but there are (minus one) no moments that are great.

For a big budget summer action movie? That's inexcusable.

Also, there's a crazy amount of CGI used in this movie, especially at the beginning. It got better over time, but at the beginning it was nearly insufferable. The rule of car movies needs to be "NO CG." And its lack of faith in the subject matter is disheartening. For completionists only.

Diva (***)
I had never heard of this movie until I read an essay from Tom Robbins where he answered the question "What is your favorite movie character?" He cited this movie and one of the characters in it. The joy of the modern world, I could have it in my mailbox within a week.

This is a French movie about a young man who records a singer who refuses to record her work for his own use. But when his tape is mixed up with a tape incriminating the leader of a prostitution ring, the young man is tossed into a world of intrigue and blackmail.

The movie itself is strange, with an odd surrealist quality to everything. Tom Robbins' favorite character dances around the periphery of the story like some sort of mad monk, which is probably what appealed to him. But the action itself takes on this strange dreamlike quality where the danger feels almost unimportant in the face of people's desires as they go through the story. That detachment I'm almost certain is on purpose, and I like the dreamlike nature of it, but I wouldn't say it's particularly gripping. If you like strange French thrillers, go right ahead and watch this, though, and you won't regret it.

Earth
I'm not rating this one, and you might say that's a cop out but I'm going to defend it. Simply put, there was a narrative here, but my enjoyment of it was completely independant of whatever storytelling they were trying to do.

We all know the story. Disney nature documentary using footage from the Planet Earth miniseries from a year or so ago. There's a story about some families of mammals in the struggle to survive on a dynamic ecosystem such as ours. There is some talk of global warming and whatnot.

But what this truly is is nature porn. It's the landscape and the creatures upon it as art in themselves, presented in the most breathtaking ways. This is one of those films that thrives on camera technology, on the ability to shoot HD and slow motion and from far away with a Steadicam and still get detail. And what it picks up is amazing, from slow motion footage of a cheetah bringing down prey to a time lapse of a frozen forest coming to life. It's spellbinding in a way that is all about the image and very little about anything else.

I highly suggest anyone who is into things beautiful go see it, if it's even still playing. The nicest screen you can find it at. This is one that benefits greatly from the HD experience. I would probably not been as affected had it been on a TV running a plain old DVD.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (*)
I was going to write up why this movie was completely fucked from end to end, but you could get that from a lot of places. It stands as the worst movie I've ever payed money to see, from the terrible CGI used all over the place in glaring ways to the insipid script that ruins perfectly good actors on material that would have been at home with the Super Friends. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber try their hardest to add some gravitas to the proceedings, but it's not enough, nor is the typically solid Harry Gregson-Williams score. Whoever made this movie like this messed up huge. It's trash. Garbage. Don't give them your ticket money. Simple as that.

Star Trek (****)
This one is easier to write about, because it's easy to gush. So I'll keep it short. Star Trek is a reboot of the franchise that everyone all over the world has heard of. It's a new Kirk, Spock and McCoy back when they were just starting out on their first adventure. It's made by J J Abrams, who apparently is pretty popular these days.

It is also fantastic. Every bit works, from the pitch perfect casting to the balance between being faithful to the fans of Trek and making a movie that nonfans would actually care about. It's emotionally strong, it's fast paced, it's interesting, it's full of actual danger and real risks and they pay off big time in surprising ways (which I won't go into, but have ramifications for any sequels that come about).

Go see it. I don't care what you think about the original Star Trek. I was sorely tempted to give it five stars, but even at four, I think that it's a movie that everyone needs to see and a movie that'll find its way onto my Top Movies of 2009 list later this year. You need to see it. It's a movie that's bigger than a fanbase, and bigger than serious moviegoers. This is THE event film.

( Also, because I have to give shout outs to the best parts of the movie, Karl Urban as McCoy is BRILLIANT. I could have watched a whole movie about him. I've been behind him since I saw him in The Two Towers, so seeing him really put in that strong of a performance is thrilling. Also, Michael Giacchino, the composer, does an amazing job of providing strong thematic material to help underscore the movie. It's big and bombastic, but it rarely feels heavyhanded. In fact, I'm listening to the score as I write this. Giacchino also did the scores to the underappreciated Sky High and Speed Racer, and the rightly appreciated Incredibles. He's a man I'm going to watch, because I ALWAYS enjoy his work. )

The Soloist (***)
I slipped this one in on Mothers Day and came away kind of ... unenthused about the whole thing. The story is easy enough, the tale of a Juliard dropout with schitzophrenia who's living on the streets playing music when he's discovered by an LA Columnist who takes an interest in his story. I'd heard of the story when the book was released, and the movie does a good job of retelling it.

The problem is that the director doesn't seem satisfied with letting the actors do their job. There is a bombardment of jump cuts and surround sound wankering with voices to help illustrate the schitzophrenia. There are strange, surrealistic scenes plopped in seemingly at random. And there's an absolutely mood-breaking moment of synesthesia placed smack dab in the middle of what should have been one of the most affecting parts of the movie. But instead of trusting Jamie Foxx to do his job, the director seemed more interested in how he could play around with his tools.

Disappointing, I say again. Solid performances, but the filmmaking itself left a lot to be desired. I wouldn't say its a waste of time, but it's nothing special.

------

And that's a wrap. I'm going to be trying to start writing again this week as I try to get out from under all the problems that aren't my creative work that have been pressing me down. I've also go the madness of a younger brother graduating high school this week, but ... I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get some output.

See you on the other side of this week.

Movie Rundown - April 13 to April 19

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:00:00 PDT

The Cutting Edge: Magic of Movie Editing (*****)
Film editing is one of those hidden arts of making movies. It's rarely obvious, it's rarely noticed by the average movie-goer, but it is one of the most essential aspects of the art. It's right up there with the writer and the director. An understanding of editing is essential to appreciating movies as art.

Good thing there are things like this documentary to point out examples of editing achievements and techniques, of a brief history of editing from the first person to splice film together to the MTV generation of quick cuts and the ability to edit within the frame.

This is one of those documentaries that needs to be seen, an examination of the film medium in total, an elaboration on one of the most under appreciated aspects of movie-making, bringing it out and exposing it in way that I guarantee will provide nearly everyone with a great appreciation of the task after having watched it.

Breathless (****)
One of the major films of the La Nouvelle Vague, Breathless is the film of a thief and his love interest as he tries to lay low after the unintentional murder of a man during an escape.

This is a hard film to talk about, if only because like many of the most influential of films from the era, what it did best has been so mined and replicated that it can kind of feel like old hat. But Breathless sets itself apart by keeping the characters and acting interesting, with a story that carries on to an inevitable end but invests you in the characters who try their hardest to avoid it.

The real key here is in the film making techniques. Goddard was big into jump cuts, disregarding the traditional editing of film to provide a more kinetic experience. It's almost jarring at first, with the film skipping like a record with a scratch, but the energy on the screen is absolute. By cutting out the unimportant things, or choosing when to show them, the empty spaces are given a weight and impact that most films lack. I can't help but recommend this one for just being that amazingly put together.

Milo and Otis (***)
I saw this on the urging of my friend Adam, who said that he had fond memories of it. It's the story of a cat and a dog who grow up on a farm together and end up getting lost in the wilderness on an adventure. Standard animal fair along the lines of Homeward Bound or similar?

Not really. See, Milo and Otis was actually a Japanese movie that was appropriated for American audiences, given a comforting narrator and turned into a comfortable story. But like the most classic fairytales, there's something in the storytelling that makes me feel as if there's far more here. The animals are described in adorable ways, but they act like animals, with the instincts of hunters and scavengers and fighters. There is a kind of hard undercurrent, dark and bleak, that keeps the storytelling interesting.

I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like there are two stories here, a very adult, mature story about the stages of life and the isolation of men over time, even in the state of nature, and the cozy bedtime story of farm animals looking for home. And it's that dichotomy that makes it worth watching, the hidden depth that provides entertainment across the age groups.

Yeah, for an animal movie, it's pretty good.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (****) [rewatch]
It's getting to the point where the car movie reviews are coming to be old hat. So let me just break this down really fast. The third entry in the franchise of things that are both Fast and Furious to varying degrees is a fun movie. It's got a silly but servicable plot, some pretty solid acting, and absolutely amazing car work. It also it completely fetishistic about how awesome Japan is, from the crazy styles to the crazy food to the insanity that is Japanese culture.

If you haven't seen any of the movies before, this one is essentially a stand-alone film, so you wouldn't be missing anything by just skipping to this one. It's got some cute eye candy of both genders, some great music, and brilliant car work (almost all of which was done practically, see my complaints about the original Fast and Furious below).

Also, Sonny Chiba.

Sonny Chiba is the motherfucking MAN.

Bullitt (**)
This is ... troubling. Bullitt is the first of the 'rogue cop who doesn't play by the rules' movies. Or at least, the first big one. Dirty Harry, Die Hard, whatever you want. That archetype made it here. The problem is, as the first of a subgenre, it feels really mellow and tame compared to the rest. So the film itself seems long and boring and convoluted.

That said, there's a classic car chase through the streets of San Francisco in here that's FANTASTIC. The problem? It's 10 minutes long, and the movie goes on for another 45 minutes after that.

This one's just aged really badly, I think. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't looking at it for a particular film reason. Like I said, it's noteworthy, but ... not my thing.

State of Play (****)
I wasn't really that excited for this movie going in, which might have been a blessing or not, because I ended up really surprised. You see, I wasn't committed to seeing anything this week, but knew I should, and this was showing before Observe and Report so it got the vote.

This tale of reporters after a conspiracy is a strange beast in this day and age. The BBC miniseries version from a few years ago probably was a little more relevant, I'm not sure, but this is a movie that exists in the last days of the newspaper business. And it's aware of that, with a newspaper that's a small arm of a giant media company and the tension of a Journalist with a capital J and a member of the paper's younger blogging branch teaming up.

It's an odd combination, but it really does work quite well. It feels kind of strange, though, watching the paradigm shift. The world isn't going to be the same, and while Journalism will eventually find its proper home after the sinking of the newspapers, right now we're entering a time when this kind of story would be nigh-impossible to actually come about. The idea of a newspaper having the resources to dig into a conspiracy? Well, that's hard to do if the newspaper is owned by corporate business interests. Impossible if there's no funding for that kind of in-depth research. Ridiculous if there's no power to protect sources and go where one shouldn't in pursuit of the story.

It's a digression, but that the movie left me with those feelings is only to its credit. To turn back to it, it's a tightly plotted political thriller with a great cast. I'm never a Russell Crowe fan, but I have to admit that he always is a credit to any movie he's in. And Mr. Affleck is the perfect actor to portray a Senator. It's impossible to tell with him what's real and what's artifice, and the role suits him.

It's a great movie. I'd recommend it for anyone with even the slightest interest in the subject matter or genre.

The Fast and the Furious (***)
So I picked this up at Walmart for the hell of it on Friday night after seeing State of Play, and rewatching it is kind of a frustrating experience. See, this is one of those movies that is going to go down as the kick off of a franchise that's become pretty good in the past two movies. But this one isn't so great. In fact, it's sometimes infuriating.

Why?

CGI.

See, the whole point of any decent car movie is to see these powerful, behemoth vehicles doing things that a normal person could not make them do. It's pushing the limit on what can be done with something that is normally so ordinary. The drivers are exceptional, the equipment is top notch, the magic the two make is thrilling.

Unfortunately, in one of the first noteworthy scenes of the movie, the majority of the race is done in CGI. Which exhibits a lack of faith in the subject matter that I find disturbing. A director who can't trust the cars to sell themselves is a director who hasn't committed to the idea of making a car movie.

That said, it's a solid enough film, and the second half is much better about this than the first half, with some solid races and an absolutely killer final crash that's all in camera and breathtaking for it.

This one is eventually going to go down as a guy movie classic, I think, so going back to it is to acknowledge its influence. Unfortunately, Tokyo Drift and Fast & Furious are much better films, but will likely suffer for not coming first.

The Darjeeling Limited (***)
This one's confusing. Because I really adored the first half of this movie, only to really lose my patience with it in the final 30 minutes or so. You see, this is a quirky movie about some idiosyncratic brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, and Jason Schwartzmann) who take a train ride across India for reasons that aren't originally clear. It's a movie about dysfunction, about the relationships between family, about growing up and growing together. It's a nice film.

It just makes its point too damn early. There's a moment towards the hour point of the film where all three brothers are sitting around a campfire bonding. And everything that comes after that is simply a retread of that moment. I don't know, call me crazy, but I felt that the pacing on this one was all knocked out of alignment near the end.

That said, I did enjoy it. It's got a great style, and is shot well, and the three leads are genuinely funny. I just ... didn't enjoy it as much on the exit as I did during the watching.

10 Questions for the Dalai Lama (****)
Despite being more than moderately curious about Buddhism, the history of Tibet and the Dalai Lama has never really been a big subject for me. I knew about it, of course, but not in such detail as this documentary provides. Shot by a man who spent the month before a 10 question interview with the leader of Tibet-in-Exile travelling through the land and taking in the religion and traditions of the people, this is an intimate and compassionate look at the displacement of Tibet and the history of the region, including the Chinese invasion.

It all culminates as the director sits down and talks with the Dalai Lama about the nature of happiness, cultural change in the face of globalization, the problem with China on the international scene, and other things. What's remarkable about this movie is the Dalai Lama himself. Here is a spiritual leader who embraces what is new and different, a man who's devoted to learning and understanding not just his faith, but things all over the world. As you watch this man dressed in monks robes fiddling with electronics, or talking about quantum theory, you can't help but be amazed that in a world where all too often religion goes hand in hand with closed-minded zealotry, here is a man who can embrace his faith and the works of humanity all in a single grasp. A man who believes in peace as a road to solve all problems. A man who laughs even when faced with a bleak, unwinnable position, because he refuses to be a victim and refuses to resort to emotional vengeance and self-destruction.

It's inspiring, just to watch him. This is one of the few times I've ever been moved by the statements and arguments of the leader of any faith. And I think that it is worth experiencing, whether you would agree with him or not.

Dark City (*****)
Talk about going out on a high note. This movie was a recommendation from a random person on twitter, and I added it mostly on a whim. Little did I know what I was walking into.

Dark City is a neo-noir about a world where nothing is as it seems. Memories are faulty. The hero wakes up remembering nothing with a dead hooker in his room. There are men in black coats after him. There is a wife he doesn't remember, played by the enchanting Jennifer Connelly, playing a jazz singer who steals the show whenever she stands in front of the microphone in one of her vintage, solid-color dresses, the bright spot of an otherwise mundane world.

This is a movie about mystery. A movie about identity. It did what The Matrix tried to do better a year earlier, with more regard for having substance. It's empowering, it's mysterious, it's unknowable and yet familiar. I can't heap enough accolades upon it.

Go see it. Seriously. The director's cut can be picked up for cheap at Walmart, or you can netflix it, or whatever. But it's a brilliant film that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to EVERYONE. I don't even want to talk about it, for fear of spoiling things. Just ... go see. You won't be disappointed.

------

And there we go! Next week is already pretty planned out, though I wouldn't be surprised if something out of the norm shows up in there, too. So far on the agenda we have the following movies coming from netflix:

City of Lost Children
Diva
2 Fast 2 Furious

And on Friday I'm planning on seeing Earth, Disney's new nature documentary that looks gorgeous. I'm not even into nature docs, but it's utter eye candy and digital theaters mean that I'm willing to see things just to look at them and drool for a while.

Until next week, enjoy! Time to get working on the script!

(p.s. Lovely readers, I'm planning on getting the script up on the blog once Script Frenzy is over for anyone to read. Look for that in early May some time, I'll have to figure out how to host it and all that first.)

The Travel Urge in the Dead of Night

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 01:39:16 PDT

It's late. 2:37 to be exact, though I think it feels closer to midnight. That's because I slept way longer than I had any reasonable excuse to sleep today. Six hours. And that's after the six hours of proper sleep I got between Friday and Saturday.

I didn't mean to, but my saturdays trend towards a lot of sleep. I don't know why. Perhaps because I'm so chronically sleep deprived during the week. I know the rule is that you can't 'catch up' on sleep, but your body does accrue sleep debt. And I somehow doubt that my body would accept a deferred payment plan or a government bailout for my sleeping schedule.

I have the urge to climb into the car and take off for parts unknown. I get these urges from time to time. Especially now that the weather is reasonable. I've had my window open all day and outside of the rise in noise level, one couldn't tell. Which means that winter is officially dead and gone, at least for another handful of months when it comes around again, an uninvited guest that always comes at the wrong time and stays too long.

I won't go anywhere, not the least reason being I have nowhere to go. Where do you go at 2:40 AM when there's nowhere open and no destination in mind? When you're by yourself, nowhere. You just look out the window at the street lights lining an empty road and your mind dreams up warm meadows of grass moving in shadow where you could be if you weren't here listening to music in the same room that you live in even when the weather is terrible.

You know, somewhere away from the cityglow, where you could maybe see some stars. It's bad enough around here that I couldn't tell you if the night were truly clear or not. Too many lights. Maybe I would go out several miles from town and there would be nothing. No stars, no moon, just the heavy ceiling of the air keeping me from the heavens. That kind of darkness would be absolute. I'm pretty sure I've scared myself off of traveling.

The most substantial roadtrip I ever took was with my family one year to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. I suppose that 'family' isn't entirely accurate. I went with my great aunt and my mother and brother. My father was never big on family vacations. His opinion was that he had spent his life travelling the world and had settled where he was, and he didn't see any point wasting a lot of energy going back out again.

I didn't see much effort in going out simply because I wasn't interested. I brought along a book. It was Stephen King's The Stand which I checked out of the library even though I was only a tyke and the book was clearly labelled adult. I'm pretty sure that the librarian was grateful that there was a child interested in reading more than she was in what was 'proper'. This was before the Harry Potters and Twilights of the world. Childhood literacy was a bigger concern. I imagine it still is, but nobody's paying as much attention.

I remember the van eating up miles as I lay stretched across the back seat (even then I was nearly too tall for that, the idea of doing it now seems laughable) delving into worlds beyond anything I had ever imagined before. Looking back, locked in a car with my family was probably what made that book so magical to me, reading about people moving across the topography of our country even as I was doing so. But now, with the urge to travel nipping at my mind I wonder if I missed my enjoyment in the activity.

Probably not. I was always a terrible passenger.

I didn't appreciate travel until I started driving. My brother goes to high school for another month in Gretna, a small nigh-rural town on the outskirts of Omaha. To get there, you can take the interstate most of the way but it eventually exits onto a two lane state highway that cuts through fields where horses are penned and corn grows and other fields that simply grow wild grass because nobody farms them. I used to, for a very short time, live in this small town. I have no fondness for it, but that's how it was.

But driving from that little place into the city where everything I cared about was became an experience. Cars have taken on, over time, a transformative quality for me. They are more than simple tools for transportation, but are the conduits of our urging for freedom and change. They turn will into action with little more than the hinge of our foot and the turn of our hands. We don't even have to get up and we can fly across any land we dare traverse. Is this not marvelous?

These were the times when I was a creature of darkness. Not so melodramatic as that, perhaps, but I was often out until all hours of the morning. And I became quite adept at night driving, watching my car eat the miles between one place and another, the road unspooling out of the narrow field of view of the headlights. This is out where there were no lights, where there could be anything out in the road that you couldn't see. Where the darkness felt a little more real and your movement through it a little more important, an island of technology driving through a sea of wilderness.

But the driving bug isn't the travelling bug. See, there are two different ways to experience travel. Travel by yourself is about the satisfaction of an act done mindfully. You exist, you have a goal, you make it happen through your action. Driving requires a certain minimum of engagement that keeps you aware of what you're doing. The Buddhist way prescribes being aware of the present moment as the highest form of meditation. To drive in an engaged way is to meditate in motion.

But a trip. A trip is a more ephemeral thing. A trip is about a companion and the experience. What you're doing is irrelevant. The driving part is only because it's the easiest to take. A trip is about being with someone and going on this shared experience away from both people's comfort zones. It's about the connection that forms when you GO with someone.

It doesn't matter if it's a friend, really. It helps, certainly, but so long as the person isn't insufferable a sense of bond will form between the people on a trip. It can't help but do so. Because deep down, people on trips all know that the trip itself is a unifying ritual. People go, people experience in tandem, and what comes up between the people on a trip is a result of the bond that forms due to shared experience.

One time I was travelling into the woods to go camping with some friends. We were young and it was late and my friend's father was driving. It was another night when the darkness was absolute. The beat up old truck was tearing through the night and on the radio came Little Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham and the Pharaos. And we all sang along and it has a togetherness and bonding that still carries with me to this day. When I hear that song, I feel the night and the summer wind and the darkness and the vibrations of a battered old vehicle on a forgotten road.

I remember the time I was on a church trip (back when I did such things) and the annoying, hyperactive brat of a kid one night decided to pick on me, the quiet studious one. We were at a lake in Iowa. The night ended with me throwing him into the water. People cheered. I remember sitting on the sandy beach and feeling everyone's satisfaction that the act was done and their shame that it wasn't them doing it. I had just reacted without thinking. I remember being concerned about the mosquitos. But I also remember that he didn't bother anyone quite so aggressively again.

I remember walking through a closed open air mall in Tucson just last year with a dear friend of mine. The air was drier than it is here, so it felt cooler. The mall at night, with the lights dimmed, felt like a graveyard. We stood at a balcony that overlooked the city, on an elevation that had the rest of Tucson spread out in front of us. And serendipity, that magical force that turns the ordinary into the miraculous, summoned a fireworks show in honor of something (we still don't know) over the dim city lights. I remember standing with my arm around her and watching the fireworks and feeling a transient feeling of contentment. One of those moments where the universe brings all things together.

I remember walking through downtown Lincoln with my roommate at the time, the dead of morning when we made our way through the historical district. We were talking about the supernatural on a day devoid of life. We were feeling the power that moves through buildings and the tingling feeling that comes when you feel like a place is haunted, whether you believe it or not. We both looked on a building that I, to this day, would not go near in the darkness and would hesitate to enter on a busy day. And not just because of some of the stories I've heard about it.

These are journeys. Going. Doing. Sharing. Existing in a space with another person, bouncing off of one another. Energy is the vibration of atoms, brushing up against one another. People act the same way. The force of our bonds, the lives that we share, are enriched by our own vibrations, the energy that's released when we come into contact, even if we repel each other.

Often especially when we repel each other.

Long roads. Some day I'm going to make my trip, but I lack a destination or a companion. I don't need both, but I need one of them. Until then, I'm going to look and dream and wonder at the roads. The possibilities. What will the sky be like when I finally go? Will there be someone sitting next to me to take it all in, to share in the experience? Or will it be me and the world as the unknowable machine driving it all, the window open and the music up?

Movie Rundown - March 30 to April 12

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:08:55 PDT

Okay. Sorry everyone that this was two weeks in the making. Last week I just felt there were too few movies. Now there's too many. Blame the illness I had this weekend, where I didn't want to work on Script Frenzy and instead decided to tear up my netflix movies so I could send them all back.

Maybe we'll see one next week, maybe I'll end up with my nose to the grindstone for Script Frenzy. I don't know. But for now, enjoy.

Fast & Furious (***)
Okay, Fast & Furious. The 4th film in this series. It's a fun film, exactly what it needs to be in the genre. But if you don't appreciate silly plots with incompetent FBI agents and honorable street racing near-mystics, this probably isn't for you. But then again, you probably knew that, didn't you? Because you looked at the first one, which is a genuinely solid film, and said "Oh my, cars and Vin Diesel? Not for me, thank you."

Well, you should go see that one. The first one. See what you think. Because this movie was good, but essentially more of the same. Better than all but the first, more serious than Tokyo Drift but still light fare. For those that are interested, yes it's worth your time. It's fun, kinda goofy but Vin Diesel is back in top form and the car stuff is pretty brilliant.

If you weren't curious about this series, though, maybe we should talk car movies for a second. Because I rewatched ...

Death Proof (*****) [rewatch]

... and let me tell you, this is the movie that convinced me to check out car movies. In fact, this is THE car movie, in my eyes. Better than anything else, full of intense action and brilliant cinematography. But I mean, this is Tarantino. Even his worst movie (Pulp Fiction, if you're curious) is pretty damn good, a classic in its own right.

So go see this movie. I don't care if you hate cars. If the idea of a car movie makes you yawn, see it anyway. This movie is awesome. It's a cinematic wonder, full of amazing shots of amazing scenes with amazing actors walking the careful line between schlock camp and genuinely moving performances.

Going in, know that this is part of the double feature with Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror. That movie isn't required for this, but they do have some character crossover. This is definitely the better movie, however, and should be on EVERYONE's Must See list.

Australia (****)

This movie is hard to rate, honestly, because I'm kind of conflicted about it. At first, I was confused that the western became some sort of a romance/war film, but then it all started to make sense. At least, to me it did.

The point of Australia is about the things that are bigger than us. About the tribal traditions that form the land and the power of the environment. About the social groups that people have to move through as best they can. About the belief systems of a time that control how people behave. And about how the dreams of individuals are so rapidly changed by something as impersonal as war.

I think the tonal shift works, but at first it's terribly jarring. Especially since the beautiful, color-drenched world Baz Luhrman paints in the first half gives way to the dark and muted palate of Australia after Japanese raids. It's a strange combination, but the film that it creates is a testament to the power of the movement of time, despite people's attempts to hold onto their dreams and ambitions. A well-recommended film.

Amélie (*****)

Talk about another well-recommended film. This movie is so good that I included a scene from it retroactively in my Top 20 Favorite Movie Scenes (go find it here!) The story of a French woman who decides to go out of her way to help people, this is a truly magical movie. There are films that feel colorful and films that are uplifting, but some times they come together in a way that transcends the sum. Amélie is a storybook version of France, a world of romance and wonder and beauty and love--both romantic and for humanity at large.

I can't believe it took me so long to watch this movie. Don't make the same mistake. Just go watch it. You'll see. It's wonderful.

Re-Animator (***)

One of the classics of cult horror films, I admit that I was remiss in watching this. It's truly an awesome film, with drop-dead hilarious moments that I would LOVE to see in a midnight movie some day. Also, it stars Jeffrey Combs, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite character actors ever. His portrayal of a mad scientist type without descending too far into ridiculousness is the template upon which all mad scientists should be built.

If you're into goofy horror, you've seen this. If you aren't, this probably isn't for you. But it's short, fun, and well-put-together.

Planet B-Boy (****)

This documentary is about break dancing, and the international competition for title of top team. I've never really cared one way or another about break dancing, but it was highly rated and I was in the mood for a documentary. And let me tell you, it was the right choice.

The movie follows five teams from France, the US, Japan, and South Korea as they train and prepare for the yearly comptetition in Germany. In between is the history of the dance, from its origins in the 60s to its pop-fad moment in the 80s and 90s to its state today. And in doing so, it makes a convincing argument as a valid art form. I might not have cared about break dancing before, but I can say after watching this that I have a newfound appreciation for it.

Part of what I find so compelling about it is the dedication of the dancers themselves. In any art form, what drives it is people who are dedicated to it to the near-exclusion of all else. And that is certainly the case here, where people from all backgrounds and walks of life push themselves to the brink to express what they feel and who they are through their chosen medium. And that is what I find really compelling about any sort of artist, be it dance or filmmaking or painting or writing or music.

Dragonball: Evolution (**)
All right, let me lay this one out for you. I grew up a fan of Dragonball and Dragonball Z. I know they're terrible, but they were my first real exposure to anime and they have a nostalgic place in my heart despite the fact that I know they're trash. So the idea of a terrible American film based on a mediocre anime series was exactly the ticket.

No, this movie isn't good. I knew that when I went to see it. The effects are cheesy, the action is lacking, and it mostly misses the point of both series in favor of MacGuyvering them together into some sort of monstrosity. That said, it was kind of goofy and at moments had a lot of the charm that Dragonball had, so long as you didn't think too hard about where it came from.

But a terrible film is a terrible film, and even if I have a taste for train wrecks, that doesn't make it worth seeing. Unless you're a sucker for ironicly watching bad movies, don't go see this. Just stay the hell away from it.

Coffee and Cigarettes (***)
Okay, so this is a collection of short films by Jim Jarmusch. I've only seen one other film of his, the amazing but incredibly opaque Broken Flowers. So I went into this expecting something hard to properly analyze, because ideas such as plot and meaning hold little sway here.

All of the films are about people talking while drinking coffee and smoking. There are some recurring themes, but all it really is are actors in these strange rolls about the human condition when we're at our most relaxed and contemplative. Of note, there's an amazing on with Cate Blanchette playing herself and her fictional un-famous cousin, and a hilarious short starring Bill Murray, The RZA, and the GZA.

I wouldn't say rush out and see this, but if you like the idea of a true character piece, this is it. Just don't look for a lot of substance behind it. There's more in the absolutely gorgeous black and white cinematography than there is in the dialogue when it comes to 'meaning', but it's all pretty airy.

Gone in 60 Seconds (***)
Okay, if you've been reading this blog, you know that I have a thing for classic car movies. Well, this is one of those. None of that overrated Nic Cage bullshit. This is the real fucking deal. A guy wrote, directed, produced, and starred in his own movie, casting family and friends and buying his own cars to smash into each other. The stunts are real, the cars get real banged up, and this is one of the first notable indie action films.

Also, this film revolutionized the car chase, with an epic 34-minute showdown between the main car and two dozen police cars that takes place over five cities. It's the longest chase in film, and it's incredible. The movie itself is basically a vehicle to exhibit the cars, which are as powerful and varied as 70s cars can be. You just have to overlook the lacking performances by all involved.

Tokyo Zombie (****)
The story of two lazy workers at a fire extinguisher plant who spend their days learning jujitsu until the zombie apocalypse puts them on the road to adventure, this is the kind of movie that makes me question what this movie rundown is for. See, for me, I think it was awesome. Four stars. But it's a Japanese-language satiric dark comedy zombie/martial arts movie that goes from the Dumb and Dumber version of 28 days later to Gladiator-meets-Land of the Dead.

The term 'niche' doesn't even begin to apply.

So I'm left wondering, can I give a movie four stars when 90% of the people who read this won't even give it a second look as soon as they see the title? The movie's funny, clever, heartwarming, and goes to some interesting places. But nobody's going to even bother with it. So ... I suppose it doesn't matter what I say, does it? You won't watch a Japanese zombie movie. I know you won't. You're missing out, but ... that's your loss.

Four stars. Great movie. Up there with Shawn of the Dead as the best zombie comedy I've ever seen.

The 20 Best Movie Scenes Meme - Day 4

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:34:44 PDT

Here we go, the final day! Parts uno, ni, and drei can be found by clicking on the numbers, but by now I assume you know how this works. This is my favorite day, so let's get cracking!

Spirited Away - Train from Nothing to Nowhere (youtube)
Spirited Away is one of those magical films that feels unlike anything else. It's pure magic, every second. And that magic often takes the form of the strange and crazy, as the story revolves around a demon bathhouse, where the spirits of Japanese folklore come and gather to relax. There is all sorts of chaos, all kinds of colorful characters. It's noisy chaos.

But then the heroine Chihiro has to go on a journey to find a witch to solve her problems. And to do that, she needs to take a train through the spirit world. With her companions, including the shadowy No Face that she's befriended after healing it of its corruption, she boards the train that stretches across the endless waters of the spirit world.

The ride itself is what's so evocative. After the chaos of the world that they've been in for the first half of the film, the spirit world is an empty landscape of flat water. Chihiro, who we're introduced to as an impatient girl with little regard for the mundane, watches intently as endless miles go by. Out of the water rises random islands of road, or a house, or an empty train station. The only people are shadows, spirits that are mute and featureless. It's desolate, but in a beautiful way. And it's taking that break from the chaos to express that beauty that provides the contrast of the film.

Kill Bill - House of Blue Leaves (youtube)
This is perhaps as far from the last scene as one can get. This scene is all about the flash and the flair. The heroine is coming to kill the bad guys, but the bad guys are so badass they get one of the greatest intros of all time. With the blaring music, the slow motion pans of O-Ren Ishii and her entourage, cutting a swath through a restaurant like wolves among the sheep. If I could, I'd pick this whole scene, the intro and the 20 minutes of carnage that follow it. But if I have to pick just one moment, it would be this one, where you just sit back and say "whoa, that's badass."

Amélie - The Hunt for the Mystery Girl
Amélie is an amazing film, full of wonder and beauty. But the best moment, for me, was when Amélie attempts to return a found photo album to the young man who she's in love with. Too shy to actually approach him, she leads him on a chase through an amusement park with carefully staged signs and clues, all the while watching him search but being unable to say anything. That kind of exposure, of showing him who she is while having never met him, is incredibly touching. And the whimsical approach to something as mundane as a courtship dance between two people is so fragile and perfect that it makes the heart soar and one fall instantly in love with the woman who would do all this.

Evil Dead 2 - The Possessed Hand (youtube)
The best horror-comedy ever made. And while Army of Darkness is the fan favorite, nothing reaches to the heights that this film pulls out. The evil Book of the Dead releases demons and it's up to bumbling jerk Ash (played by professional bumbling jerk [and my hero] Bruce Campbell) to stop it. Of course, in doing so he ends up killing his girlfriend (twice) and watching most of his friends die horribly.

Eventually his hand is bitten by one of the demons, and is possessed by the evil spirit. What happens is the best slapstick in modern cinema, with reverse footage and slightly undercranked pacing to give it this crazy, silent film keystone cops quality. The hand flips Ash, hits him in the head with plates, tries to strangle him, etc. It's hilarious, it's raucous.

And that it ends with an amputation? Priceless. A must see, especially for the aftermath.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - Final Showdown (youtube)
When I first approached this project, this was the scene that popped into my head first. You know why? Because this is the best scene ever committed to film. Nothing is shot so well. Nothing is so perfect. These are a scant few minutes of cinematic nirvana the likes of which I've never, ever seen before.

Watch it, then come back. In fact, go watch the whole movie. It's an amazing film, with tons of stuff nearly as good as this. But the film wisely saves the best for last, and the final scene is a masterpiece. There's just nothing like it.

It's in the framing, with three characters who keep eyelines logical. In the scope, with huge towering figures against rambling landscape. In its pacing, with long cuts interspaced with quick edits that build and build with the rousing Morricone score that leads to the final moment of violence, a second payoff that is worth every agonizing moment.

And all this at the end of an amazing film that keeps building and building to this inevitable point. Truly, the best scene ever.

One Last Bonus Scene
Speed Racer - The Finish Line
I know nobody saw this one, but I'm putting it here anyway. The Speed Racer movie is not a great movie. It's kind of a mess, but it's a pretty mess. It has its moments, though , and among the best is the ending. The movie is a racing movie, as one might guess, but it's also a technicolor dream wrapped around mind-blowing effects.

By the end, it's become a flash of color, a swirl of lights and tones that is a blur of motion as Speed races towards the finish line. And in that last moment, the film transcends its trappings into a complete impressionistic vision. The lights become smears of moving color, and we enter a POV as the track begins to fade, then to spin in the final corkscrew, becoming nothing more than a tube of lines that converges into a point of white. Which suddenly bursts into a pattern of black and white as the checkerboard is passed, a full screen of lines that mean almost nothing at first as your brain tries to put it together, finally figuring it out as the car comes to rest, melting, past the finish line.

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And that's it! If you feel like joining in, feel free to do this as just a list, or something as involved as mine, or something in between. Nobody's gonna judge, though showing your movie cred is always awesome. Until next week, stay classy San Diego!

The 20 Best Movie Scenes Meme - Day 3

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:35:02 PDT

Okay, here we are at day three. (see the first two parts here and here) If there was such a thing as a theme to all this, this is the day where I grouped together all of the most depressing and/or disturbing things.

Clockwork Orange - Singin' in the Rain (youtube)
Singin' in the Rain isn't the only movie to feature the song. There's also this one, my favorite Kubrick movie and a damn fine film. This is the adaptation of the novel, of course, but I feel like the movie takes this in a savage direction by not blinking during truly terrible things. In fact, part of the appeal of the movie is that it never blinks, even when the film itself is about how people are all too willing to blink in the face of the monster in all of us, until we come to a point where we don't have to any more.

It's hard to articulate without seeing it, but this film is very much about the evil of man. And how that evil expresses itself. And this scene, where Alex and his goons invade a house, rape a woman and attack a man while singing Singin' in the Rain, has become one of the iconic scenes in film on its own. Because it doesn't pull back. Because it's brutal and cruel and without any redeeming features. It's hard to watch, and in being so, impossible to look away from.

The Thing - The Defibrillator Mishap (youtube)
The Thing is one of those movies I wished I had seen growing up. I adore horror films, gore films, monsters films, anything like that. And when I finally got around to watching this movie last year, it STILL made me lose my shit, and I'm one jaded mofo when it comes to this sort of stuff. The Thing is the best creature movie I've ever seen, with jaw-dropping effects that still haven't been topped, even after two decades.

In this scene, one of the men at the remote Antarctic research station's heart's stopped. Little does everyone know that he's been infected by the thing that they pulled out of the ice and brought in. The thing being some sort of being or infection that can take any shape and assume any form or function.

They don't know, that is, until all hell breaks loose. All gory, awesome, monster hell. Just ... watch it. The joy is in the effects, in the pitch-perfect reactions and framing. The pinacle of awesome practical effects.

Requiem for a Dream - The World's Worst Montage
Requiem for a Dream is not a happy film. In fact, it's a terrible, soul-crushing look at people and addictions and drugs. Without being preachy, it follows the logical conclusion of obsession to its disgusting, bleak conclusion. And that's in the final montage of the movie, right at the end. Where the threads of the characters all fray off into dead ends as nobody wins. From the main character who's infected arm from drugs gets amputated, to the mother addicted to pills to lose weight undergoes a nightmare vision of shock treatment, to the girlfriend who completely debases herself by publicly having sex with another woman, surrounded by leering businessmen, in order to score.

It's a symphony of human suffering, with a rousing score that pounds into you with its incredible tempo. After the entirety of the movie, which just keeps going down and down, the finale explodes in pain and such a thorough examination of the futility of the characters actions that it reaches down and tarnishes your own soul for looking at it. It's beautiful in how ugly it is, moving only in how quickly it tears away the happy facade of life and shows just how far and how quickly any person can fall.

Not for the weak of spirit, but ... an amazing scene.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - The Payoff
This Korean film is about a young girl who was coerced into confessing for the murder of a small child by the real killer. She's found guilty and ends up going to jail, where she begins her transformation from a naive, weak-willed girl to a vengeful, remourseless woman. By the time she's let out, she sets in place the machine of her retribution, finding the man who set her up and killed the child.

That is, until she discovers that he's killed more than that child. He's killed dozens. And with her nagging sense of having gone too far in her quest for vengeance, she decides to make one gracious gesture, a show of support and pity for the wronged.

Which is why she calls in all the parents who's children have been killed, and shows them the killer, tied up on a chair. Which is why she passes out weapons and raincoats and lets the parents draw straws on who will get to go first.

The results are messy, and there's nothing here to condone. It is people reacting to their pain by lashing out. A monster getting his with no sense of satisfaction. And the blank stares of the parents as they wait their turn, making small talk over the sounds of screams from the other room, just underlines that. It's grisly, but it's touching in its utter practicality. If put in the same situation, you would imagine that any parents would likely do the same.

Grave of the Fireflies - Fruit Drops
This is one of the best anti-war movies ever made. And don't just take my opinion on it, Rogert Ebert agrees with me, and we don't agree on ANYTHING. This is the story of a young boy and his even younger sister, orphaned during World War II. It's a heartbreaking film, about the cost of war among the civilian populace.

The children end up bouncing from house to house, until they end up living in a cave, with the elder brother going and doing odd jobs to buy food. One of the few indulgences that his sister has is a small tin filled with fruit drops, a hard candy that she enjoys. But finally the candy dwindles, and they end up filling it with water to make sugar water that she can drink. But eventually, even that goes away.

Towards the end, when both of them are starving, forgotten and alone, she's delerious with hunger and puts rocks in the can, rattling it in memory of the candy she used to have. And charting that path, from happy children to two dying, starving kids in a cave just miles from a city in Japan, is one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen.

You can buy those fruit drops at any Japanese import store. They still make them. They're online! And they're quite good. But every time I get them, when I eat them, I remember that movie, and it's all a little bittersweet. Because that small tin of candy was the last happy memory of a girl who suffered for nothing she did, but only for the actions of her country.

The 20 Best Movie Scenes Meme - Day 2

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:00:00 PDT

This is day 2 of the movie meme, where we list our favorite movie scenes. The first day can be found here.

Today's theme: music and musicals!

Pulp Fiction - The Dance (youtube)
Pulp Fiction is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of film for me. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. Especially since it's divided into three distinct films, one of which I love and one of which I hate.

This scene comes from the one I love, the first one starring John Travolta as a hitman charged with taking his murderously overprotective boss' new wife on a date. The wife, played by a young and exotic-looking Uma Thurman, is pushy and seductive in all the ways John Travolta wishes she wasn't, and plays him like a harp as she brings him into the world's best themed restaurant. The restaurant, a 50's themed diner with star and starlet look-a-likes and modified classic cars for booths, is an amazing setpiece for the awkward, self-aware back and forth that plays out between the two as they feel each other out.

But suddenly they're pushed into a dancing competition by Thurman's character, who teases the lazy, bumbling hitman that he can't dance but that he better do a good job if he's to get a good report with the boss. On the hook, John Travolta steps up, and with all the flair that John Travolta has, creates one of the most iconic dance scenes in Hollywood history (certainly in the past two decades).

But you don't have to take my word for it. Youtube is up above! The pacing, the dancing, the truthfulness the characters express that all their earlier posturing belied. It's an amazing character piece and just a damn fun set piece.

Singin' in the Rain - Singin' in the Rain (youtube)
Oh, Gene Kelly, how many things I could put up here as some of my favorite scenes in movies. A close second was his dance with an animated Jerry the Mouse in Anchors Aweigh. Also up there was his tap routine with a newspaper in Summer Stock. But this, this is the most iconic image of American musicals.

You've all seen it, and if you haven't the youtube link is up there. Gene Kelly, newly in love, so full of emotion that he can't help but let it out, singing and dancing in the rain. The dance is, as it always is with Kelly, emotional and clever. The song is so full of genuine good cheer that just watching it brings a smile to the face. There's a reason this scene is so historically significant. It's everything good and pure about the musical, distilled into a single, soggy song and dance.

Happiness of the Katakuris - Minna Koishiteru (youtube)
I already devoted a post to Happiness of the Katakuris, but this is still one of my favorite scenes. The thing I appreciate about musicals is their disregard for normal logic in favor of making a scene work. Some movies shy away from that, usually to their detriment. Other movies dive in and become all about the scene.

When depressed and shy single mother Shizue is out with her young daughter, she comes across and overenthusiastic, if somewhat strange, suiter--Richard Sagawa. What follows is his efforts to woo her, sweep her off her feet and away from her boring, unhappy everyday life. And if that involves group dancing, wire work, jazz hands, and a final psychedelic scene, so be it.

Takashi Miike is a director known for his amazing style. I could put most of his more recent movies up here without hesitation, but this is the one that I think best demonstrates his ability to play with reality, so long as it serves the story of the film.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - The Boat (youtube)
Now look, I know that you've seen this movie. This is one of those films that nobody gets through life without seeing. It also happens to be one of the most uneven films ever, with scenes that I adore and scenes that I can't even watch (do we really need the gloomy, overlong Cheer Up Charlie?)

But this is the best part of the movie. Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka is sublime, and after he's charmed everyone in the room with the Pure Imagination (which almost found its way onto this list instead) he pulls up a boat. Which is exactly when all hell breaks loose.

See, the genius of Willy Wonka is that he is completely, irrevokably insane. He has the peculiar fairy tale quality of being both helpful and dangerous, but the line between them is nebulous and you're never really sure where the good cheer begins and the dangerous irresponsibility begins. So when he piles all these children and parents aboard the boat ride from hell and reveals something of his darker side, the cheerful candymaker facade falls away and you're left with the kind of mad passion that brought him to such a unique position as the world's greatest candymaker.

The Fifth Element - The Diva Plavalaguna (youtube)
The Fifth Element is one of the best and--though it's increased in popularity in the past few years--one of the most underrated sci fi films of all time. It's vibrant, expansive, full of great actors in weird places and the kinds of amazing scenes that could only exist in a world as crazy as the one the film paints for us.

Towards the 2/3 point of the film, things begin to build to a point. Bruce Willis' character, Korben Dallas, is hired on by the government to meet the Diva Plavalaguna, an alien opera singer who has artifacts that can stop an evil energy heading to earth to destroy it. At the same time, the agents of the dark energy are on board the cruise ship to steal those artifacts to prevent their use.

Good thing that Bruce Willis brought with him the perfect being, Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), who happens to be there at the perfect time to intercept the bad guys.

The scene itself is strange, with the opera singer a bizarre alien with a voice that at times sounds nearly electronic. But during her performance, we're punctuated with Leeloo's battle with the bad guys. It plays out with the energy and inventiveness that is Luc Besson's strength, turing something that sounds crazy on paper into a truly amazing scene.

BONUS MUSICAL SCENE
Blue Skies - Puttin' on the Ritz (youtube)
The bonus scene is Fred Astaire at, I feel, his best. Blue Skies was right before his first temporary retirement, and the film is a solid affair--some great moments, but goes on a little too long. Of note is Bing Crosby being his perfect, crooner self, and this amazing scene from Astaire. The scene itself starts out slow, with a casual, lazy, worn out shuffle. But it slowly builds into an amazing tempo, with cane tricks and a certain savagery to the dancing. Then, finally, it peaks as Astaire throws back the mirrors in his room to reveal a chorus line of ... Fred Astaires, which all dance the final bit of the number in sync.

It's an amazing production, and a testament to perhaps the most famous dancer in all of film. It's a titan, and only Mel Brooks ever hoped to nudge against it with the version in Young Frankenstein. It's linked right up there, so go watch it.

The 20 Best Movie Scenes Meme - Day 1

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:00:00 PDT

So, my friend Elizabeth was talking to me about movie scenes, and she came across a meme that was about your favorite movie scenes. Being the kind of person I am, I jumped at it with both feet. Being the person I am, I didn't think it through.

See, I watch a lot of movies. And I have a lot of things that I like about movies. But the problem is that many of my favorite movies don't have iconic scenes. You can see the problem here. Thankfully, I have bunches of other things I can pick. Bunches and bunches. Like I said, I've seen a LOT of movies.

This'll be a week long project, I think. I'll post up five of these a day, with descriptions and bonus scenes if I think they're relevant. This is an eclectic list, and it's not really organized much. One scene isn't necessarily better than any other, aside from one that I'll get around to. If I can find youtube links of the scene, I'll post them, but I wouldn't expect much on that front.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - The Deceit of the Sultan
First off, this is probably one of my favorite films of all time, so it's hard not to just say "watch the whole movie, it's all awesome." But one scene stands out more than others. Early in the movie, though, is the scene that encapsulates the entirety of why the movie is awesome. The Baron Munchausen, in one of his famous adventures, is visiting a Sultan. The Sultan offers him his best wine, which the Baron disparages in favor of wine from the court in Vienna. The Sultan then offers a life-or-death wager. If the Baron can deliver the wine in an hour, he can have as much treasure as the strongest man can carry. If he cannot, he will die.

Fortunately, in the Baron's band of heroes is the fastest man in the world. Who, even though he falls asleep under a tree a hundred miles away on the journey, manages to get the bottle of wine and deliver a love letter for the Baron, winning the bet a split second before the Baron is to be decapitated. And then the Baron allows one of his companions, the strongest man in the world, to stack the Sultan's entire treasure hoard upon his back, walking out with a mountain of gold and jewels. And when the Sultan renegs on his agreement and attacks the Baron, he and his heroes take down the Sultan's guards with aplomb.

And this is all in the first half hour of the movie!

I'm not going to say it's my favorite movie EVER, but it's close.

Heat - Final Showdown
Heat is an all around good movie. Perhaps my favorite gangster/heist movie. It's violent, it's smart, it's tense. But it all finally comes to a head at the end. When the cop who is nearly as corrupt as the criminals (Al Pacino) and the honorable criminal you want to root for (Robert DeNiro) finally collide, it's in an amazing gunfight on the tarmac of an airport, the final confrontation before our "hero" gets away.

With Michael Mann's near-peerless pacing and tension, the cat and mouse game is the final culmination of both characters, portrayed by both actors in the prime of their personas. It's a clash of titans, and as it brings closure to an amazing film, it's hard to know who to root for. And what makes it better is that both men know that neither of them are sure anymore if they're the good guy or not, but they are who they are, and there's only one way the scene can end.

Death Proof - Ship's Mast
The greatest car scene ever. I know that sounds kind of silly, but I think it's true. Stuntwoman Zoë Bell (playing herself) is lying on the hood of a white Dodge Challenger (the car from Vanishing Point, another classic car movie) with nothing more than two belts tied to the door posts. As she clings onto the front of car, exhilarated by the stunt.

That's when Stuntman Mike (a perfect Kurt Russell performance), a psychopath stunt driver with a black Dodge Charger, decides to kill the women in the car, who he has been stalking. What follows is one of the longest, most break-neck, nail-biting car scene ever, with Zoë Bell clinging for dear life on the hood of the car, which is unable to stop as Stuntman Mike's car keeps ramming into them at full speed. It's amazingly shot, it's perfectly pitched, and it's all done with real drivers. Or as Stuntman Mike would say, "real cars crashing into real cars and real dumb people driving em."

Drawing Restraint 9 - Transformation
Nobody's seen this film. Don't feel bad if you haven't. I only saw it through happenstance at my indie theater. It doesn't have a DVD release, so far as I know. It's an incredibly austere art film about whaling made by Bjork and Bjork's husband. It's weird and the ultimate in obscure. But the climax of the film stakes a claim on this list due to sheer uniqueness.

In the film, Bjork and her husband play two characters who have been brought aboard a Japanese whaling ship for some sort of ritual. At first, it's unclear why this is, they seem to be uncomfortable with the ship and strangers to each other. It's only at the end, in this final scene, that it's clear why they're there. They are both led into a room wearing ceremonial robes, but proceed to disrobe and embrace each other tenderly. That's when the ship openes up a valve in the room they're in, and they're flooded with ambergris from the whales that had been hunted that season.

Both characters, suspended in the liquid ambergris, proceed to draw whalebone knives and carve at each other as they embrace and kiss and float in the middle of the room. It's horrifying and tender, as they cut away chunks of flesh from their partners piece by piece, peeling skin and slicing through muscle, blood making fractal designs in the ambergris. But as they cut away each others legs, underneath emerge fins. And when they peel the skin from their partner's back, what's revealed is a blowhole. And from the carnage of their human sacrifice is born two new whales which are released, with thanks, into the ocean.

It's an amazing scene that sadly, is wrapped around the most pretentious film I've ever seen. I can't say that I recommend everyone rush out and see this one, but it's left an indelible impression upon me.

Troy - Hector vs. Achilles (youtube)
This is the fight scene, out of any I've seen, that I chose to be on here. Why? It's not the flashiest, and it's not wrapped around the best movie in the world. But this is exactly what a fight scene should be. The whole movie is built around building these two heroes up, both of which are flawed but both of which are sympathetic. Yet they're on opposing sides, and it finally comes to pass that Achilles calls out Hector, and one of the major battles of ancient lore is played out. And how masterfully it's done.

The key here is the impressive storytelling that's done through the choreography. Achilles is flashy and fluid, moving with an inhuman grace that betrays his devine heritage. In opposition, Hector is of the earth, with aggressive, emotional movements. The choreography is amazing, with beautiful spear stunts and an amazing back and forth. It's the bright point of a solid film, elevated to the great by just giving us two characters fighting that MEANS SOMETHING.

BONUS ACTION SCENE
The Protector - Up The Building (youtube)
The Protector is a Tony Jaa vehicle. Tony Jaa, if you don't know, is a muay thai badass who takes dudes down in movies that are so awesome they can barely stand on their own two legs, because those legs are busy kicking you in the face. And that's never more clear than in this one, huge steadicam shot in The Protector. Tony Jaa is after the sacred elephant the bad guys stole, and between him and the answer he seeks is several floors and dozens of bad guys.

What follows? Action bliss.

There is nothing so satisfying as watching your hero cutting dudes up with his awesomeness, it's the kind of thing that turns an action film into a choreographed piece of art, with an actor who knows what they're doing moving perfectly through a complex, involved scene, with all the visual flare and impactful action that they can. This is one of the finest examples of that.

Movie Rundown - March 16 to March 29

BandAidWriter@gmail.com (litrock) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:56:44 PDT

Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price (***)
A documentary about Wal-Mart, pretty self-explanatory. The problem with this movie is that it's both played out and done with a kind of one-sides zeal that made me kind of dislike it. Yes, we know Wal-Mart is evil. But there are only so many stories of small store owners nobly carrying on that I can stomach before I'm ready to just go do something else that doesn't aim for cheap populism. That said, Wal-Mart is evil. And this movie will give you bunches-o-reasons why.

Let the Right One In (****)
This is the kind of vampire story the world needs. None of that stupid girl-fantasy with a bunch of sparky nancy boys frolicking around, none of Anne Rice emo-fests of immortal rock gods of questionable sexual orientation. This. A story about a developing friendship between a loner and a young vampire girl. With all the mystery and violence that entails. It had a very fairy-tale quality, both magical and dark. I couldn't recommend it more.

Duplicity (***)
This is a fun spy movie starring Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. I mostly went because of my Clive Owen fanboyism. It's a great movie, with the typical spy/heist slickness applied to corporate espionage. The movie lives and dies by its characters, because modern movies of this type are pretty common. I think that it was done really well, but it wasn't particularly groundbreaking. If you're a fan of this type of movie, go see it. But it's not necessary to go out of your way.

Ghostbusters (****)
It's Ghostbusters. If you haven't seen it, shame on you. If you have, then you know it's awesome. If you don't think it's awesome, let me know because I've never met an actual FREAK before.

Also, Ghostbusters is better than the sequel. That is all.

Monsters Vs. Aliens (***)
Okay, let me be up front about this. I like animated movies. And I like 3D. So I really liked this movie more than three stars. The characters were good, the animation was gorgeous (the retro futurism look went off better than Incredibles, IMO), and the jokes were by and large well done. That said, I recognize that this movie has a stupid story, and would almost have been better if it eliminated the villain and all. It's good. Better than Bolt, even. But I know that most people would never give it more than an average pass. I recognize that.

But if you like movies like this, it's worth it.

Easy Virtue (*****)
This was the obsession of Elizabeth for the past few months, and I finally decided to just up and watch it. This is a period film about a young British man (Ben Barnes) bringing his spirited American wife (Jessica Biel) to meet his stuffy, high class family. Wackiness ensues. At first, I wasn't sure what I thought of this movie. I went back and forth between great and meh, but it finally resolved itself in the last third as stupendous. There's something about the quality of the story that I felt was very empowering and emotional without pandering.

The film won't find its way to the US until May, but if you get a chance to watch it, I highly recommend it. It's fantastic. Also, it has amazing music.

Rachel Getting Married (***)
Okay, this one is an issue. You see, this movie is complicated for me. The first half of the movie was nearly painful to watch, reminding me of people in my life I'd met who were portrayed with all the honesty of a great film. I didn't want to watch it. It made me squirm uncomfortably. But then, somewhere around the halfway mark, it seemed that it was tired of being interesting and tried to fix all the problems raised in the first half. It doesn't, thankfully, but it all seemed a little pat and soft. Anne Hathaway is great, but I wish that she was given a more consistent movie to be great in.

Time Bandits (****)
Okay. So part three of the vague "imagination trilogy" of Terry Gilliam films (others are Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen). And put together in order of their production, they all flow pretty well. This one is about a young boy who wants to escape his boring, suburbian parents. It just so happens that some time travelling dwarves show up and take him on a journey through the ages with a map they stole from the Supreme Being, robbing historical eras of riches.

The three movies put together are about the freeing ability of imagination, of the power of the individual and their fantasies. And the death of magic in the age of reason. Of the three, Baron Munchausen is still the best, by far, but Time Bandits is really good, with interesting pieces and some great ideas. It all kind of shakes apart with a non-ending straight out of Gilliam's Monty Python days, but the rest of it is evocative and solid.

The Illusionist (***)
So, The Illusionist. When this movie came out, I was more interested in The Prestige because it was directed by Christopher Nolan, and never got around to seeing this one. Now that I have, I'm left a little perplexed. It's a great film, with some amazing ideas and a good sense of mystery about the magician, as opposed to the 'behind the curtain' nature of the Prestige.

I was really liking this film, too. The dynamics between the characters were interesting, and the casting was absolutely fantastic. But the ending absolutely spoiled it for me. I had ideas of where it was going, and there were multiple ways they could take it that I could accept. But in the end, it went for the crazy twist that was so lazy and bereft of emotion that the cleverness of turning the story on its ear was completely wasted. It took a great film and knocked it all down to an average film, though it's very pretty.

Still, it's a shame. The problem with those types of endings is that they run the risk of betraying the audience's experience of the film. It has to be done with a certain amount of grace and respect for the viewer. This movie, instead, just hits you over the head with it. Disappointing.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (****)
A French musical from 1964, this is a technicolor dream of a film about two young lovers and the twists and turns their lives make. It's one of the strangest musicals I've ever seen, particularly in how pedestrian it is. It goes out of its way to play upon cliche and the story is well-tread ground, but it's done in a way that keeps it all interesting.

One of the strangest things is that the film doesn't really have 'songs', so much. It's done in what's almost an operatic style, with trivial dialogue all being sung to the music. It doesn't feel wrong, but it is different than the Broadway style musicals that are rife in the genre. It's a breath of fresh air to have a musical that just happens to have everyone singing. It elevates the story into a place that is greater than the sum of its parts, I think. Well-recommended.

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And that's it. Not sure what's up for the next week, and I'll be busy with the impending Script Frenzy, but I'll try to post one of these at least every two weeks in the next month, if not every week.