You know what has always fascinated me? Well, not always, because its the sort of thing you have to grow to be able to even really think about. Not grow like age but grow like start taking the steps toward the direction of even becoming self aware enough to ask this sort of question. And I know that sounds pompous, like, 'oh, I'm far more evolved in thought than others', but think about it. Look around next time you're in public and tell me most of those people you see have the presence of mind to think about anything other than their basic, animal functions. The people reading these words will see what I mean and feel a kindship in what I say because most of them I know and I know they have the mental facility/mapping for this. But look at the everyday people on the street. So many of them are open books: Eat, Fuck, Phone, Work, Shop, Sleep, or something such as this. "WELL WHAT THE FUCK FASCINATES YOU ALREADY???" I can hear You saying.
My head.
Seriously, sit back and think. Not about anything in particular, just let your mind wander around for a while. Daydream. Contemplate. Whatever. Now think about work (not for too long), think about your school days, the bar last weekend, your lover's face, or Parent's sitting at the dinner table, think about as much stuff as you can. Then pull yourself out of it and become lucid of the N.O.W. again, and think about all those thoughts, what are they? Electrical impulses triggered by inner neural activity yada yada - they're like files in a Mac right (sorry PC users)? Well, look at your hard drive right now, how many MB of your total MB does what's on it use? There's the photos (those images of Ma and Pa at dinner), the song caught in your head (MP3), the conversational points you took away from a political sparing match at the pub last evening (Word file). All of these different types of information flicker across your screen as electrical impulses too, but they are also stored and accessible again and again (except perhaps the finer points of that discussion at the pub, if you were drinking more than you should have been). Stored and accessible and thus they take up room on that hard drive. HOW MUCH ROOM DO OUR THOUGHTS TAKE UP? WHERE ARE THEY STORED?
That's my point in a nutshell. I remember the first time I thought of it like this, and I mean really THOUGHT about it was on a drive to Dayton several years ago with Sara. She had taken the wheel and I think I was still in a quasi hypnogogic state after zoing out behind the wheel for an hour or two in the flat NOTHINGNESS of the Midwest (I love You Midwest) and I sat there in the passenger seat staring out the window thinking and then all of a sudden I was thinking about the space inside my head. There are YEARS and a multitude of physical locations and music and images and people and words and all this other shit, all collapsed down enough to fit inside my head. And if you're like me, when you go wandering through that stuff an enormous, amorphous landscape opens up and to catch yourself lost in thought is like standing on a precipice at the edge of some vast adn epic Savage land, rolling hills of information and feeling stretching out as far as the eye can see.
So where does all of it go? To think of it in possibly more abstract terms, how does all of that fit in this little round box equipped with all these other funky gizmos whose purpose is collecting MORE information ALL the time? What extra-dimensional theory would explain or map how all of these things fold and collapse into our physical form, and then open up for our perusal at a mere thought? 11 dimensional Supergravity? Brane theory? Superstring? I don't know, but thinking about it really revvs that inner landscape...
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Magick crowd control...
So I've done this before. Back at the bar. I used to HATE it when certain people came in. There were regulars that would suck up a bar seat for a whole night sometimes, leave next to no money, be abusive, irritating, annoying, demanding, whatever. Finally I got the idea to create a servitor, a tulpa, a Magickal (ie Will controlled) thought form that is programmed, much like a computer is, to do X when criteria Y is met. For the bar I named the servitor Karla, after Karla from the 80's television show Cheers, a no-nonsense bitch of a waitress that wouldn't take shit from anybody and would easily chase unwanted clientele from the establishment. I 'programmed' X = make undesireables leave the bar when Y = I drank tea. I don't know why I used that, but it worked. In fact, after I did that several of the unwanted regulars disappeared, hardly ever to come back.
Now at the bookstore we're worse than the fucking bar, especially of late. We have DROVES of high school kids who come in, take up all the seating, buy next to nothing, fuck things up, act like douche bags, are LOUD and all of this makes our (management) lives that much harder because not only do they annoy us, but they annoy our customers (many of whom are fucking annoying too) and then they complain to us. So guess what? Yep, I'm going to program a new servitor and attempt to attach it to the store. We'll see if it works.*
*some people would no doubt hear about the accomplishment at the bar and say, "oh, that's just a coincidence. you've convinced yourself that it worked, but it just happened to coincide," to which I would answer, "Who cares, as long as it works". That's the point of 'Magick' or whatever You want to call it.
Word
Now at the bookstore we're worse than the fucking bar, especially of late. We have DROVES of high school kids who come in, take up all the seating, buy next to nothing, fuck things up, act like douche bags, are LOUD and all of this makes our (management) lives that much harder because not only do they annoy us, but they annoy our customers (many of whom are fucking annoying too) and then they complain to us. So guess what? Yep, I'm going to program a new servitor and attempt to attach it to the store. We'll see if it works.*
*some people would no doubt hear about the accomplishment at the bar and say, "oh, that's just a coincidence. you've convinced yourself that it worked, but it just happened to coincide," to which I would answer, "Who cares, as long as it works". That's the point of 'Magick' or whatever You want to call it.
Word
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Fixx...
I bought the vinyl of their 1983 2nd album REACH THE BEACH over the weekend for 50 cents at a thrift store and I cannot stop listening to it. I have always loved the tracks ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER and SAVED BY ZERO but know I love the entire album. And the weird, 80's art album cover is cool as hell. Thrift stores are so wicked for always finding these types of 80's niche records in.
Cloverfield
Where to begin? By hte time I finally saw this on the day it was released I had the definite feeling Cloverfield could NEVER live up to the expectations I had. If there was an award for the best marketing campaign, this should definitely get it. nd I'm not even talking about whatever the viral marketing campaign was, as I missed out on that completely. I don't watch tv or listen to the popular radio or really read much of the newspaper (preferring to get my news as an NPR junkie) so all I had to invest me in the film was the teaser before Transformers last July and the sudden proliferating billboards all over LA. Well, it was enough.
One thing that built suspense was my own approach, in that I refused to read anything that had to do with the flick. And then I planned to see it on opening day, something I normally would never do. IN this case though, I figured it may become damn well impossible to avoid the revelation of what it was that was that had torn the head of the statue of liberty off in the teaser. When you work at place with a lot of sci fi and horror movie buffs, avoiding something like that the next day is pretty hard if they've all already discovered the secret. It was hard enough avoiding it up until now, as many folks were scouring the net looking for clues to sate their anticipation. Myself however, I like to be surprised, really surprised, and I wanted to be sitting in that chair, baked, and have whatever it is scare the hell out of me the same way it would scare the hell out of the people on the streets of that fictional universe's Manhattan.
SPOILER>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Okay, well, there were two big rumors that had me concerned. The first was that this was a Godzilla remake. I may have mentioned here once before, I had effectively sworn an oath in front of many people that if in the big reveal it was in fact Godzilla I was going to stand up, shout Fuck You at the screen and leave. Of course, that would have made me quite the asshole, but it would have been well warranted, at least in my mind. Godzilla was cool in nineteen fifty. That 'Atomic Age' bullshit is dead and gone, we've been living with the repercussions for half a fucking decade, and so the concept of a giant atomic-irradiated lizard wreaking revenge on mankind is about as poignant as remaking a flick were characters flush aligators down the toilet and they grow super large via hazardous waste chemicals and attack.
The 2nd rumor that had reached me was that this was possibly a Cthulhu movie. Now, at first that seemed like an awful idea. But about a week before it opened I started dreaming about this flick, as though I was in it. I started to imagine that the monster was Cthulhu, only being that it was supposedly shot all on home video as though recorded by a person caught in the midst of it there would never be a place for the filmaker to actually get a 3rd person perspective and so, we would never know it was the big C unless they had designed the monster so that those Lovecraft nerds out there (myself most definitely included) would recognize him. This idea I liked. Imagine, a film based so much out of a love for that mythos that it was enacted so true to life that it had the perspective of one of Lovecraft's protagonists - they're recording what is happening to them, unaware at the street level that this is the awakening of the elder gods, yada yada yada. My inner fan boy is starting to need a mental book-checking, but you get the point.
It was, however, not Cthulhu. although, there is a way the nerd quarter fo my brain sees that the filmmakers could have intentionally left it open for those in the know to argue that it was. But I'll get to that later.
The only inkling of a let down was that the monster did not live up to the abstract horrors my imagination had half conjured in rampant expectation. The day before seeing it my friend Amy stirred this to a boil when she said she had read one review that had described the monster as being 'a thing of 17 nightmares' or something to that effect. Now, of course, when expectation adn the abstract inner realms of imagination get working together like this, their offspring could NEVER be realized outside of that abstract realm of imagination, let alone on a DV camera via special effects. But man, I'll tell you this, sitting there in that theatre, pulled so deep into the chaos of having that handheld home movie camera put me street level with all those screaming, dying, looting people, when I saw that motherfucker for the first time it was something akin, I think, in film comparison, to that scene in M. Knight Shamalamdingdong's SIGNS with the first footage of the 'Buenos Aires birthday party'. It scared the LIVING FUCK out of me. It was glimpse, glimpse, terror, expectancy pushed through the roof of your mouth like venomous barbs and then full on HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?
Now that, my friends, is a fucking monster movie. Mail your dime store giant lizard back to 1950 where someone might spill their pop at the sight of it. These days its gotta be the some-deep-sea-trench-just-vomited-this-abysmal-black-horror-into-the-lap-of-unsuspecting-mankind, and directly or indirectly, that IS H.P. Lovecraft.
Nerd addendum.
So, there is a scene, after we've seen the monster attacking, where the armed forces are attempting to evacuate what's left of the people of Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge and off the terrorized island when suddenly a giant tentacle-looking thing reels up out of the water and destroys the bridge. NOW, I know this is irrelevant to most folks lives, I know its nerdly obsessiveness the likes of which I make fun of others about, I know I should get a fucking life or find something worthwhile to do, but You know what? I will. I'm off work the next two days, just finished my third screenplay this year and am hard at work on my new one in another window, so writing this is my little tangent and I'll 'get a life' again when I damn well feel like it.
Anway, the point is, the monster we've seen thus far (and I do believe there may have been two even though here:
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/01/09/cloverfield-building-a-better-monster/
the designers discuss its creation as if it is just one) wasn't the only one. Seems to me since we were only seeing it from one camera perspectives, there were glimpses of more than one thing that were unable to be confirmed or followed up on. Now, the biggest example of this is that tentacle in the water. The monster is on land in Manhattan, and has no tentacle, so what the hell was in the water and attacked the bridge? The argument could be made that the monster we've seen was the spawn or herald of something much bigger, and what is a much bigger horror and usually travels with a herald? Beside Galactus? CTHULHU. So, my hopes are Mr. Abrhams will put all his effort into the last few seasons of LOST, make a killer star trek movie, even though I HATE star trek, fo rthe most part, and then make a companion piece, NOT A SEQUEL to Cloverfield that will give us more angles, if you will, of what exactly is happening that night in Manhattan, Cthulhu or not.
One thing that built suspense was my own approach, in that I refused to read anything that had to do with the flick. And then I planned to see it on opening day, something I normally would never do. IN this case though, I figured it may become damn well impossible to avoid the revelation of what it was that was that had torn the head of the statue of liberty off in the teaser. When you work at place with a lot of sci fi and horror movie buffs, avoiding something like that the next day is pretty hard if they've all already discovered the secret. It was hard enough avoiding it up until now, as many folks were scouring the net looking for clues to sate their anticipation. Myself however, I like to be surprised, really surprised, and I wanted to be sitting in that chair, baked, and have whatever it is scare the hell out of me the same way it would scare the hell out of the people on the streets of that fictional universe's Manhattan.
SPOILER>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Okay, well, there were two big rumors that had me concerned. The first was that this was a Godzilla remake. I may have mentioned here once before, I had effectively sworn an oath in front of many people that if in the big reveal it was in fact Godzilla I was going to stand up, shout Fuck You at the screen and leave. Of course, that would have made me quite the asshole, but it would have been well warranted, at least in my mind. Godzilla was cool in nineteen fifty. That 'Atomic Age' bullshit is dead and gone, we've been living with the repercussions for half a fucking decade, and so the concept of a giant atomic-irradiated lizard wreaking revenge on mankind is about as poignant as remaking a flick were characters flush aligators down the toilet and they grow super large via hazardous waste chemicals and attack.
The 2nd rumor that had reached me was that this was possibly a Cthulhu movie. Now, at first that seemed like an awful idea. But about a week before it opened I started dreaming about this flick, as though I was in it. I started to imagine that the monster was Cthulhu, only being that it was supposedly shot all on home video as though recorded by a person caught in the midst of it there would never be a place for the filmaker to actually get a 3rd person perspective and so, we would never know it was the big C unless they had designed the monster so that those Lovecraft nerds out there (myself most definitely included) would recognize him. This idea I liked. Imagine, a film based so much out of a love for that mythos that it was enacted so true to life that it had the perspective of one of Lovecraft's protagonists - they're recording what is happening to them, unaware at the street level that this is the awakening of the elder gods, yada yada yada. My inner fan boy is starting to need a mental book-checking, but you get the point.
It was, however, not Cthulhu. although, there is a way the nerd quarter fo my brain sees that the filmmakers could have intentionally left it open for those in the know to argue that it was. But I'll get to that later.
The only inkling of a let down was that the monster did not live up to the abstract horrors my imagination had half conjured in rampant expectation. The day before seeing it my friend Amy stirred this to a boil when she said she had read one review that had described the monster as being 'a thing of 17 nightmares' or something to that effect. Now, of course, when expectation adn the abstract inner realms of imagination get working together like this, their offspring could NEVER be realized outside of that abstract realm of imagination, let alone on a DV camera via special effects. But man, I'll tell you this, sitting there in that theatre, pulled so deep into the chaos of having that handheld home movie camera put me street level with all those screaming, dying, looting people, when I saw that motherfucker for the first time it was something akin, I think, in film comparison, to that scene in M. Knight Shamalamdingdong's SIGNS with the first footage of the 'Buenos Aires birthday party'. It scared the LIVING FUCK out of me. It was glimpse, glimpse, terror, expectancy pushed through the roof of your mouth like venomous barbs and then full on HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?
Now that, my friends, is a fucking monster movie. Mail your dime store giant lizard back to 1950 where someone might spill their pop at the sight of it. These days its gotta be the some-deep-sea-trench-just-vomited-this-abysmal-black-horror-into-the-lap-of-unsuspecting-mankind, and directly or indirectly, that IS H.P. Lovecraft.
Nerd addendum.
So, there is a scene, after we've seen the monster attacking, where the armed forces are attempting to evacuate what's left of the people of Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge and off the terrorized island when suddenly a giant tentacle-looking thing reels up out of the water and destroys the bridge. NOW, I know this is irrelevant to most folks lives, I know its nerdly obsessiveness the likes of which I make fun of others about, I know I should get a fucking life or find something worthwhile to do, but You know what? I will. I'm off work the next two days, just finished my third screenplay this year and am hard at work on my new one in another window, so writing this is my little tangent and I'll 'get a life' again when I damn well feel like it.
Anway, the point is, the monster we've seen thus far (and I do believe there may have been two even though here:
http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/01/09/cloverfield-building-a-better-monster/
the designers discuss its creation as if it is just one) wasn't the only one. Seems to me since we were only seeing it from one camera perspectives, there were glimpses of more than one thing that were unable to be confirmed or followed up on. Now, the biggest example of this is that tentacle in the water. The monster is on land in Manhattan, and has no tentacle, so what the hell was in the water and attacked the bridge? The argument could be made that the monster we've seen was the spawn or herald of something much bigger, and what is a much bigger horror and usually travels with a herald? Beside Galactus? CTHULHU. So, my hopes are Mr. Abrhams will put all his effort into the last few seasons of LOST, make a killer star trek movie, even though I HATE star trek, fo rthe most part, and then make a companion piece, NOT A SEQUEL to Cloverfield that will give us more angles, if you will, of what exactly is happening that night in Manhattan, Cthulhu or not.
Monday, January 14, 2008
WEEN...
Ween is an amazing band. I could do the whole 'drop to your knees and worship them' bit but Henry Rollins did it first and he did it better (cuz he's Rollins) and I'd rather recommend You hunt down that spoken word piece of his (or ask me for a copy) and listen to it.
It's not just Rollins' delivery this time though, he speaks the truth here. Ween is possibly the greatest living rock band in the world. Now I know that's a bold statement but let's look at it, shall we?
You get two fuck off stoner misfits who went from spending their ingenuity on rigging gas masks into scotch guard bongs and recording fuck off comedy music with a few heart-felt breakup songs scattered in for personal development issues to the fellows that hired a troup of living Nashville legends and wrote the best country album of the last decade (those who don't agree wither have not heard 12 Golden Country Greats or regard Deana Carter and keith Urban as country, which they ein't!!! From there the 'brothers' Ween gave the world The Mollusk, the perfect fusion of their old funny/catchy/quirky scotch guard era comedy music and a mature beyond imagining assortment of breath taking rock songs, from the title tracks Beatle-esque simplistic beauty to the magnum opus immortality of the faux 70's Brit rock of Buckingham Greene. I remember the day The Mollusk came out, I ran to the old record swap in beautiful downtown tinley park and traded in a NIN cd, along with some more forgettable titles because I knew the new Ween album was coming out and wanted to sit down with my friends Brown and Sonny to partake but I had no dough. After a quick record swap (perfect naem for the now defunct independent franchise, eh?) I headed over to Sonny's where the three of us smoked ourselves into a fucking coma and sat down to listen. NONE of us were prepared for what we heard, esp. Buckingham Greeene.
After that we learned not to expect anything from Dean and Gene because they were clearly able to do ANYTHING. So a few years later we get White Pepper and BAM! Wow, it was as if the bastard sons of ELO, ELP, XTC and a tour bus of Jimmy Buffet impersonators were squeezed into those scotch guard bongs now. I pictured Dean using a plunger to push Andy Partridge's arms and Keith Emerson's legs deep into the modified tubing of the apparatus while Gene flicks the lighter on em and takes a massive, lung-filling inhale.
Did I forge the live album, Paintin the Town Brown. No I didn't. Up there with The Who Live at Leeds and Slayer Decade of Aggression. I usually hate live albums. Not these, and definitely not ones that show case a band that can not only play any one of their songs a hundred different ways but has such a back catalogue of gems that ANY time you see them they are able to pummel you with something you've never heard before and make it sound like it was their number one hit accross the Universe. Such is PTTB and a priceless gem like COVER IT WITH GAS AND SET IT ON FIRE.
Another thing about Ween is they have SOO MUCH MATERIAL. I mean, I'm not about to go through their whole catalogue right now or I'll be running on at the mouth in front of you worse than on the Drum Off post. Suffice it to say up through the years (and now I'm getting kinda weirded out considering how many albums, and thus years, I've been with this band. Brown must be even more weirded out, as he's been into them since the first fucking album!) Ween has consistently defied all expectation, all convention, and still managed to put out the funniest, catchiest, most unique and memorable rock music I've heard. There are many other rock bands I love, but there is only one Ween.
It's not just Rollins' delivery this time though, he speaks the truth here. Ween is possibly the greatest living rock band in the world. Now I know that's a bold statement but let's look at it, shall we?
You get two fuck off stoner misfits who went from spending their ingenuity on rigging gas masks into scotch guard bongs and recording fuck off comedy music with a few heart-felt breakup songs scattered in for personal development issues to the fellows that hired a troup of living Nashville legends and wrote the best country album of the last decade (those who don't agree wither have not heard 12 Golden Country Greats or regard Deana Carter and keith Urban as country, which they ein't!!! From there the 'brothers' Ween gave the world The Mollusk, the perfect fusion of their old funny/catchy/quirky scotch guard era comedy music and a mature beyond imagining assortment of breath taking rock songs, from the title tracks Beatle-esque simplistic beauty to the magnum opus immortality of the faux 70's Brit rock of Buckingham Greene. I remember the day The Mollusk came out, I ran to the old record swap in beautiful downtown tinley park and traded in a NIN cd, along with some more forgettable titles because I knew the new Ween album was coming out and wanted to sit down with my friends Brown and Sonny to partake but I had no dough. After a quick record swap (perfect naem for the now defunct independent franchise, eh?) I headed over to Sonny's where the three of us smoked ourselves into a fucking coma and sat down to listen. NONE of us were prepared for what we heard, esp. Buckingham Greeene.
After that we learned not to expect anything from Dean and Gene because they were clearly able to do ANYTHING. So a few years later we get White Pepper and BAM! Wow, it was as if the bastard sons of ELO, ELP, XTC and a tour bus of Jimmy Buffet impersonators were squeezed into those scotch guard bongs now. I pictured Dean using a plunger to push Andy Partridge's arms and Keith Emerson's legs deep into the modified tubing of the apparatus while Gene flicks the lighter on em and takes a massive, lung-filling inhale.
Did I forge the live album, Paintin the Town Brown. No I didn't. Up there with The Who Live at Leeds and Slayer Decade of Aggression. I usually hate live albums. Not these, and definitely not ones that show case a band that can not only play any one of their songs a hundred different ways but has such a back catalogue of gems that ANY time you see them they are able to pummel you with something you've never heard before and make it sound like it was their number one hit accross the Universe. Such is PTTB and a priceless gem like COVER IT WITH GAS AND SET IT ON FIRE.
Another thing about Ween is they have SOO MUCH MATERIAL. I mean, I'm not about to go through their whole catalogue right now or I'll be running on at the mouth in front of you worse than on the Drum Off post. Suffice it to say up through the years (and now I'm getting kinda weirded out considering how many albums, and thus years, I've been with this band. Brown must be even more weirded out, as he's been into them since the first fucking album!) Ween has consistently defied all expectation, all convention, and still managed to put out the funniest, catchiest, most unique and memorable rock music I've heard. There are many other rock bands I love, but there is only one Ween.
Update 666
If You've put off taking my advice to go check out Technoccult.net, this is the kind of gem Your missing.
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8U3916G0
Thanks to Tiamats Vision for posting a link to this there.
http://www.technoccult.net
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8U3916G0
Thanks to Tiamats Vision for posting a link to this there.
http://www.technoccult.net
Saturday, January 12, 2008
There Will Be Blood
SPOILERS CONTAINED WITHIN:
I have been looking forward to this movie for quite sometime. The trailer had me with its Penderecki-like violin scratchings ripping and clawing all over the images of the early days of the oil business imagery. It opened here in LA several weeks ago (Dec. 26th I think) but only played at the Arclight in Hollywood for most of that time. Now, the arclight is THE place to see I flick, judging from my only experience back in July when my friend Chris and his buddy Avner brought me to see Danny Boyle's Sunshine there. The sound was fantastic to the point of nearly being painful, which is exactly how I like the sound in a theatre to be. Twice this year we saw big blockbusters out in 'burb theatres and the sound literally seemed to be emanating only from the front of house. Fuck that, I want that shit to RIP my fucking face off! So the Arclight would have been the first choice, except the juxtaposition between Sara's schedule and my own has made it pretty much a massive inconvenience at best to get there. So anyway, P.T. Anderson's newest masterpiece (and probably the best film of his career thus far) opened wide this weekend and we made our way to the theatre in Rancho Palos Verdes, our local fav thus far, to finally see it.
We were not disappointed at all.
What with the three weeks or so of hoping to see it but being thwarted again and again I had begun to worry that my anticipation had been revved to the point of being unquenchable.
Nope.
From the very first note, the very first shot, all the way through to the end, There Will Be Blood is a breath-taking, dark, witty, funny, horrible, emotional piece of art that will stay with me for the rest of my days. I have a lot of favorite movies, but within that realm there are a certain few whose perverse mixture of the horror and the comedy of life, exemplified by stand out, iconic performances make them actual facets of my personality. Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining or Dennis Hopper in David Lynch's Blue Velvet spring immediately to mind. Their violence, sarcasm and beligerence is motivating in that it not only shows you how bad a person can be, but also motivates the impressive tales that contain them to leap off the screen and make you jump, flinch, laugh and hollor along - the inherent 'fun' in being able to be so unbelievably evil just by invoking the character through the quoting of iconic lines or acting along with the characters. Well, everything I'm trying to bestow to you above, Daniel Day-Lewis has it in this film. Hopper's role in BV is argueably a lesser part of the film in that he is not the main character (although I my self would argue he is the main character to some degree; he certainly drives lot of what transpires even if he does not have as much screen time as Kyle MacLachlan) but Day-Lewis' role as Daniel Plainview reminds me so much of Nicholson's Jack Torrance in that since seeing it I find myself wanting to run around holloring any number of memorable lines at the top of my lungs.
Now, TWBB also reminded me of another favorite from this past year, Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country For Old Men. So much quiet. So many big, open spaces where there was no movie on screen but a window into the characters' lives. Sara put it best, and I'll paraphrase her here, but after TWBB she said really like both these films for the fact that they were not so much conventional stories, with set-up, conflict introduced, exposition and finally climax and resolution, but more like recordings of real life. I liken them to using the camera not so much to tell a story the way most filmmakers or filmgoers think of a story, but more as an unnatural observer that watches a cadre of people's lives from point A to point B and then ends. TWBB is definitely that, and I would argue that the problem many people have with NCFOM is that it takes a tale that should have a resolution and everything else and twists and tweaks it so that it does not have them.
My picks for 2007:
Best Film: No Country For Old Men (TWBB a very close 2nd and the one I think will actually win the award)
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Actress: Not sure.
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Director: P.T. Anderson
Best Score: Johnny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood
Best
Biggest piece of shit: Probably Transformers. I know there was tons worse (there's never any shortage of shit on the movie screen) but this, ah, even though I enjoyed myself profusely watching it, it was just bad. Not that it could have been anything else really, but my god, that scene with the autobots leaning backwards over neighboring houses trying to keep out of sight of the kid's parents? John Tuturro in this horrible role? NOOO!!! I'm going to rewatch Miller's Crossing soon to try and renew my faith in the guy.
I'll trail off here because I haven't given the rest that much thought.
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