Saturday, December 31, 2011

Dick

fisher.

Friday, December 30, 2011

All of man’s problems

come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people's discharges and stuff.

And my feeling was, 'Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?' That's what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now?

Worked very briefly for Sports Illustrated magazine,

where he was assigned to write a piece on a racehorse that had jumped a fence and attempted to run away. After staring at the blank piece of paper on his typewriter all morning, he typed, "The horse jumped over the fucking fence," and left.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Those who see the world as a battleground revel in what they’ve made impossible for others.

Those who see the world as a commons revel in what they have made possible with others.

Death is not the greatest loss in life.

The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.

CHECK THOSE APHORISMS, BRO.

Monday, December 12, 2011

The letter

fuck.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

SAMIZDAT

: a system in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and countries within its orbit by which government-suppressed literature was clandestinely printed and distributed; also : such literature

Monday, November 28, 2011

What terrible

purpose.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Violets

in her eyelids.

Friday, November 25, 2011

You wanna end war and stuff?

You gotta sing loud.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Like

terror.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Because

fuck.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Self-

controlling.

I don't like

other people's friends.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Butt

much?

Sunday, November 13, 2011

I sold my memories

to a microscope.

We didn't need dialogue.

We had faces!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Every night I lay myself down to sleep,

I ask myself these questions three:
What the fuck are we fighting for?
What the fuck are we fighting for?
What the fuck are we fighting for?

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

We should do away with saying

that, to me, a thousand years is a blink of the eye. Yes, I am the infinite. Yes, I am eternal. Yes, I am fucking bored.

Cracks

in the earth.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

If dreams and memories sometimes get confused,

well, that's as it should be.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Man takes picture of penis

every day for five years.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Kids grow up.

Hanna - 8/10. Compelling! Between something as blunt as the Bourne movies and as atmospheric as 'Drive.' All of the principles handle themselves well: Ronan shows a great range, Bana is friendly and dangerous, and Blanchett creates her own Anton Chigurh-esque vision of evil. It's fun!

Excelsior.

With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story - 5/10. Reads as a table of contents. His interactions with his wife are adorable and I'd rather have seen a movie about them twos more'n a movie that glosses over comic book history.

A truck driver wanting to be a woman.

Being Elmo - 6/10. Warms the heart, aye, but it's got nothing to say, err.

Her head don't come off.

Labyrinth - 5/10. Seeing this and all those Muppets movies recently, Jim Henson's got a great ability to create characters but he can't seem to make a solid story around them. He's more concerned with character moments that character arcs. Sarah's got no fear in her. She's just a thing that guides us to the next set piece.

My hands are a little dirty.

Drive - 8/10. Lars and the Real Shit, y'all. Extremely well-made. It delays gratification when you most want it and releases it on people you don't care for it to be released on. That's its biggest flaw and the most interesting thing it's got going for it within all of its interesting parts.

Babies are not found in cola cans.

Mary And Max - 8.5/10. Just the sweetest fucking thing, I swear to god.

No one likes putting a dick in their mouth.

50/50 - 5.5/10. Boring guy gets cancer, continues to be boring. Take the Seth Rogen and last twenty minutes from this movie and smash it into 'Funny People' and you've got something maybe. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, oh, how you don't really act that well except for that one scene towards the end which is actually very good, nice job.

Ugly girlfriend means no confidence.

Moneyball - 5.5/10. No follow-through. When it plays around with numbers, it can be a very compelling movie, but it lobs so many other threads in the air that never find their way back down. Thusly, the movie never really finds a satisfying emotional conclusion to any of its unformed parts. It's not really about anything.

Is there a gay kiss with a boy & is this movie on DVD ?

For The Bible Tells Us So - 4.5/10. It comes off like it's talking to people who already believe what it believes, which makes it useless. I'd love to have a movie to hand to my mom where she could cry a little tear and shit, but this movie'd just get her all defensive, as it does a good deal of talking down. It's not tactical warfare.

Maybe he just wanted to fly one time.

The Bridge - 7/10. It's haunting to watch 20-some people jump off of the Golden Gate Bridge. Each time is surprising and, as it goes on, it creates tension out of inevitability. The movie doesn't offer anything in the way of closure of elucidation into the nature of suicide, or why this bridge, but there's only so much you can expect, I guess. 'The reality of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime, can ever be the whole truth.'

Closed on account of the TV.

Best Little Whorehouse In Texas - 6.5/10. Lively, full of characters, but nothing to really prop them up besides a small handful of good songs.

We are lost!

Sherlock, Jr. - 8/10. The best Buster Keaton I've seen and the first one where I really get Buster Keaton as a character – if Chaplin has a twinkle in his eyes, then Keaton has butterflies in his stomach. It's less the size of the tricks with this one and more their seamlessness in being pulled off. It approaches magic, friends.

Making a point

without making an enemy.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Be obscure clearly!

Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.

Into

the middle of things.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

The answer

is the road.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

FUCK

CITY

Doubt is the hole

from which new ideas sneak in.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The first progressive step for a mind overwhelmed by the strangeness of things

is to realize that this feeling of strangeness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe

Monday, October 24, 2011

It's a war

of how it should be.

Personality

is the first thing that goes.

Friday, October 14, 2011

A pack

of throats.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

We are

such little men.

With the rich and mighty, always a little patience.

Holiday - 7/10. Katherine Hepburn at her most likeable.

Looooook aaaaat meeeeeeee.

Source Code - 4/10. Sincerity should be a crime. It's sci-fi surroundings never become believable. What is reality, bro.

There's a kind of neglect.

Fright Night - 7/10. The remake. TBS New Classic. Colin Farrell acted good!

Trust.

Attack The Block - 7.5/10. Just a really well-constructed movie that deserves extra points for its willingness to kill people we like.

You're half sweet and half acid.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - 6/10. There's no one else in the movie but Russell and Monroe, and that's unfortunate, because the whole thing's a bit about finding someone to chase after.

I'll fuck you 'til you love me.

Tyson - 7.5/10. He's a bad man, but hey, I like him. He's got a great ability to make you feel sympathy more than pity, and to have you come over to his side, which is just a different way to win a fight.

Gods aren't afraid to die.

They're afraid to die without meaning.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition.

Always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning.

Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows 2 - 7.5/10. Hey, this was pretty good! Good guy fighting the bad guy and all. If it weren't for all of the useless shit from the previous movie that permeates through this (and emotional beats that repeat themselves through this), it might have been the best of them. It's not, though. Whatevs. What you got, Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

I don't like bullies.

Captain America: The First Avenger - 7/10. THAT FIRST HOUR WAS THE SHIT, BRO. After that, it never quite hits the emotional beats that were set up so well. As with Thor, it sacrifices a bit of itself in order to become a lead-in to the next act, which is both unnecessary and exciting.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

They're babies, they cry.

Babies - 7/10. It's a spectre of a movie, but it's captivating to watch. Like 'Koyaanisqatsi,' but, you know, for cute things.

Barely visible wrinkles of boredom and impatience.

Cries and Whispers. - 3/10. I fell asleep to this movie three times. It is my failing as a moviegoer that I can't find value in unlikeable characters.

Philosophy stares,

but brings no reasoned solution, for from nothing to being there is no logical bridge.

Nothingness

may well have been more convenient.

Friday, September 23, 2011

"Spider! Spider!"

Spider!
Spider!
It was crawling on my head!
And now it's only dead!
What was going through its mind?
As it was crawling across mine?
What was its last little thought?
Before the farm was bought?
"Explore!," it might have said,
"For soon we all are dead."
"Kerthunk!," I replied.
"Get the fuck off of me, you shit."

Monday, September 19, 2011

They're only as good

as they're allowed to be.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

When strangers do meet in far off lands.

Charade - 8/10. It's an Alfred Hitchcock/Cary Grant movie, if Alfred Hitchcock knew what to do with Cary Grant.

Friday, September 16, 2011

This is the theory

... that anything that is art ... is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it's no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it's irritating.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Inserting

a lie.

Maybe on their planet, 'responsibility' just means 'asshole.'

Green Lantern - 5/10. The worst thing isn't to be bad; the worst thing is to be boring. No concept of pacing and how that's used to built drama. No idea how to bring all of its pieces together. But hey, Ryan Reynolds was trying.

Don't expect me to get excited over another damn thing we need to find.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 - 4/10. Harry Potter and the nothing fucking happens for two hours. Harry Potter and the convenient storytelling. Seven(?) movies building to a final confrontation, and they walk around in the woods for two hours. I'm sure you could go into the next movie with no knowledge of this movie existing and miss absolutely nothing. It strikes me as a grab for your hard-earned socialist working man dollars. If you need a thousand pages (or four hours) to tell this story, then you are lazy or a hack. Yo, Bro? Fuck this movie.

A man must know the right occasion to indulge in tax evasion.

Shock Treatment - 6/10. The 'sequel' to Rocky Horror Picture Show. Suffers in the unnecessary comparison/continuation to/of that movie. Besides that, a handful of good ideas that don't go anywhere (and would be better explored in different, later movies), and a handful of really fun songs.

The sickest, most wicked-est motherfucker that ever vaporized motherfuckers in cold-blood.

Crank 2: High Voltage - 7.5/10. The first movie was burdened by its reliance on a plot. This movie simply does not give a fuck.

Fuck it, let's have a barbecue!

Daybreakers - 6/10. So deadly serious that it's hard to have fun.

Shit should be in a fucking medical journal.

Crank - 6.5/10. Has a hard time keeping up with the pace that is central to its plot, but it certainly is a lot of fun.

There is no sincerity like a woman telling a lie.

Indiscreet - 3/10. Ingrid Bergman didn't seem to have her heart into it. It seemed like it was going to have a point and something something I don't remember how it ends.

Meanwhile...

Marwencol - 6/10. It's an interesting reality to live in, and it does a fun job of exploring that particular reality, but it does a poor job of exploring the reality outside of it.

It was as if the last day, as people say in the Bible.

God Grew Tired Of Us - 7.5/10. The Lost Boys of Sudan come to America, find a world that's different from the world they know. Funny and sad in the same turn. Depressing and empowering as they realize what they can and can't do for themselves in relation to what they can and can't do for the people they left behind. The Burden Of What You Feel You Owe To People Who Are No Longer Like You.

Lots and lots of puberty.

Monster House. - 7.5/10. Goonies. Surprisingly dark and, despite the crude animation, very well-acted, with the characters' faces showing a great deal of subtlety.

Peace was never an option.

X-Men: First Class - 8/10. I loved the shit out of this, bros. Just stupid enough to counterbalance the parts where it takes itself seriously.

Help me to not tell lies.

The Tree Of Life - 6.5/10. Beautiful, and there's an entire hour and a half in the middle that's put together extraordinarily well and is extraordinarily moving, but it seems like a movie that wants to convince you it has a point, and I can't for the life of me figure out what that is. I'll give it a try: we've got problems and shit, and the universe ain't give a fuck. DINOSAURS.

Choosing not to believe in the devil doesn't protect you from him.

The Rite - 5.5/10. Shit, I can't even remember how this one goes. I like religious-themed horrors because there's an underlying theme of 'well, maybe…', but they lose me when that gray area becomes more solid. Atheism, bros. You feel me?

This is so awkward. I really want you to leave.

Bridesmaids - 8/10. Funny and moving. Kristen Wiig is game for most anything, which will make her, deservedly, a star. I greatly enjoy Apatow comedies, but they also leave me in no real mood to see them again. Maybe it's their length. Maybe it's the sadness that runs underneath a lot of them.

If everybody lies, then there's no reality.

Inside Deep Throat - 6.5/10. Great for the context it offers, which I was almost wholly unaware of, and everyone involved in the production of the movie are fascinating characters, but (and this is maybe because Lovelace is dead), the drama is never really ramped up. At times, almost, as in the old people's fear of gangsters, but they're just snippets.

You are an old man, and a fool!

Thor - 7/10. Overall very fun and worth your while, but comes with its share of faults. Taking place on two worlds means too many supporting characters to care about any but a couple of them. The costumes 'look stupid' on Earth, and the movie wisely makes fun of that, but I think it'd be a more 'legitimate' movie if they just didn't have shit look stupid. I don't care to write more. I'm tired. It's fun. Chris Hemsworth is a doll.

Gentlemen, do you think I'm a lowlife?

Brewster's Millions - 4/10. A snooze, bros.

Harvesting farts.

Paul - 3.5/10. So fucking earnest as to be impossible to watch at certain points. And then people die, unexpectedly and atonally. This movie is fucking weird. Also, boring. In being all over the place, it hardly manages to be interesting.

Do I dare, do I dare, do I dare?

William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe – 9.5/10. I regret taking so long to write about this, because it's one of the best movies I've ever seen, and I had a lot to say about that. It's directed by the daughters of a famous civil rights-era lawyer who suddenly began defending less defensible clients, and it's from the perspective of the daughters trying to figure out what changed their father and it all builds into this incredible, incredible climax where he, dead, manages to sum up his entire life and make sense of most everything he's ever done in a public square, and makes you feel bad for not being as brave and makes you feel stupid for not realizing what bravery really is.

I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return.

Frida - 5/10. A collection of moments in some woman's life. Its brief forays into the abstract are interesting, and rarely as long as they should be.

Rick Rape.

Gamer - 6/10. It dials its stupid up to the point of absurdity, and it somehow becomes this incredibly fun movie to watch.

A boy, Dastan.

Prince of Persia - 6.5/10. Surprisingly fun. I don't have much to say. Jakey-poo keeps it alive. He's a decent amount of humor, charm, and athleticism. I can't remember the ending, but it was surprising in its choices, I think.

It's terrible. I love it. It's awful.

R.E.D. - 5/10. BACK-TO-BACK KARL URBAN. There's a lightness to everything, and everyone seems to be having a small amount of fun, but I don't know, man – I just ain't care. I'm going to blame it on someone thinking 'cute old people with guns' was all the work they had to do.

CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO WORLDS.

Pathfinder - 2/10. Things I Watch At Home With My Dad. Karl Urban has one of the oddest career trajectories of anyone I'm presently aware of.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Because you want to not,

because everyone else is.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Not that you like me.

That you are like me.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

People Talk About What They Do All Day

and How They Feel About What They Do.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Casual

racism.

White trash

with good taste.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Fighting for

less expensive soda product.

Monday, July 25, 2011

He knew why there are things, endless things, and not nothing.

And as though they had all forever been waiting for this, all leaning forward eagerly or impatiently and fixing on him, waiting to see if he would finally get it, those things now sank back, and let go, and letting go they went comfortably to sleep. It was all right.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The world doesn't make sense

unless you force it to.

Friday, July 15, 2011

We are always playing

with the truth.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

We will come to the conclusion

that we are doing exactly what we want to do.

Me, I'm a soul-catcher for God.

Here I come with my butterfly net of words. Here I catch the chrysalis. Here I blow life into bodies, and hurl them fluttering to the stars and the care of God.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A cure for self-absorption is saturation:

telling the story over as though it were another's until like a much-repeated word it loses sense.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Bullying

as a form of art.

The price of making something

is having to talk about it.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Toward an eternal aspiration

for vague things.

I have tried, in my way,

to be free.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Recreating

human emotions.

Friday, June 17, 2011

The real hell of life

is everyone has his reasons.

You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white,

good and bad, and you try to do the right thing. You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, f--- it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing.

Superior, detached, possibly frightening,

but deeply humane, and deeply good.

A mind that is stretched to a new idea

never returns to its original dimension.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

It belongs to us and them,

Not to any of the others.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The purpose in life is not to find yourself.

It’s to lose yourself.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Clever

can be so cruel.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The everything man,

from the anyverse.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

We gotta party on the left, a party on the right.

We gotta party for our motherfucking right to fight.

Friday, May 13, 2011

The struggle between what I intended

and what I did not intend.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Thinking in terms of ideas

destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

For all his intimidating physicality,

Darkseid is very rarely seen in "action." He doesn't punch through a wall and start trading haymakers with Superman, his actions are geared towards conditioning people to embrace and exploit their own base hatred and fear. That's how he wins and remakes the world in his own image, by dividing humanity and spreading the evil of hate, fear and ignorance, allowing them to believe that they can justify believing that someone else is somehow less of a person.

Unlike most villains, Darkseid's ultimate goal doesn't really involve killing anyone. He's devoted not to death but to Anti-Life -- described by Walter Simonson "the outside control of all living thought," a slavery that masquerades as freedom by allowing its victims to give in to the dark side of humanity. Again: No subtlety whatsoever.

But it's what he does. In Forever People, it takes the form of an amusement park where the exhibits are his victims, conditioning people to ignore the suffering of their fellow man, terrifying the children who realize what's happening while the adults become more an more jaded. In Mr. Miracle, he commissions a trap for the world's greatest escape artist that doesn't involve ropes, chains, or locks, but rather a building full of people who have been convinced that Mr. Miracle isn't one of them, that he's something other, something that isn't a person and is therefore there to be destroyed.

It might not be subtle, but at the same time, it's hardly the grandstanding form of blow-up-the-world evil that comic books have a reputation of portraying. This is a villain who exploits the small selfishness that we all see, experience, and even commit on a daily basis and shows how it all adds up to towering evil, and that makes him one of the most genuinely terrifying villains in comics. Darkseid's not real, but the evil he dabbles in is.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Why bother to compete

with the universe?

The struggle of his own littleness

to grasp the infinite.

Nature might stand up,

And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'

Relies, like an overgrown infant,

on always being forgiven.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

You coming home tonight?

Naw. Be back Sunday likely.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Spend the next forty years

moving the thermostat around.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The thing I don't understand

is why so often one hears discussion of the fruits of human labor as if it's all the creation of some alien race

Creeping

normalcy.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

It would as well be ten minutes back in time

for all the chance you’ll change your mind.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Firmly rooted

in its own separate logic.

Monday, March 14, 2011

And as things have been,

they remain.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Parallel worlds,

and the parallel needs of man, explained through story for man to cope with himself!

Monday, February 28, 2011

Culture

is the ability to describe Jane Russell without moving your hands.

The street

will find its own use for things.

Who taught you to hate yourself,

from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?

Lady, I need a vacation.

And you seem like a long way from home.

The right

to be selfish.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

You just woke up.

Pandorum - 6/10. It is a combination of every successful sci-fi movie I've ever seen. The Reavers from 'Serenity' + the aliens from 'Aliens' + 'Cube' + the ending of 'The Planet of the Apes' + 'Event Horizon' + 'Sunshine' + 'Ink.' The first twenty minutes are actually great, a good mystery and bad lighting, but as soon as kung-fu space woman shows up, it becomes everything else. So it manages to be fun, but the only place it's going to stand in the history of things is being confused for something else.

What matters is the fight, more than the outcome.

Milk - 6.5/10. The same problem I've got with the documentary in that I've now seen about four hours worth of footage about this one guy, and I really don't have a good sense of who he is. I hate to keep saying this, but Dan White comes off as the most interesting person.

I have to sing stupid.

Blue Valentine - 8/10. You like a person for who they are and then you get mad at them when they don't change. The opposite spectrum of 'The Kids Are All Right.' There's a connective tissue missing between Ryan Gosling being a decent person to becoming an asshole, but it's probably found in each of them allowing the other to be who they were, even as they were becoming something different. The point is to grow in the same direction, I guess.

Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Shorts.

The Confession - 6/10. Not unexpected, but that last little scene has a great deal of heart.
Wish 143 - 4/10. Entirely expected.
Na Wewe - 7/10. Swift-ian. The final joke about U2/Hutu is vomit-inducing, but it doesn't mar an otherwise effective satire.
The Crush - 5/10. Fine, but if this is one of the year's best, then the state of live-action shorts is poor.
God of Love - 7/10. A great deal of fun.

And terrorism.

Gasland - 5.5/10. The guy making the movie sounds like the guy making fun of the Star Wars movies. He doesn't help its legitimacy. Somehow, by bringing the story back to himself, he makes the movie seem smaller. I don't dislike Michael Moore, but people shouldn't take his lead.

This is the kind of box Jesus would have taken parking fees from.

The Parking Lot Movie - 7/10. A parking lot as a microcosm of everything right and wrong with the world.

You want what I won't give you. It's not me you want.

That Obscure Object of Desire - 6/10. I get this one, I just don't like it very much. Light-hearted, but it wasn't fun. The French.

That's mighty white of you.

The Enforcer - 6/10. I really do love Harry Callahan, but his lack of awareness in seeing that he's helping to create these dangerous scenarios where people he cares for are dying is just, you know, a lack of growth.

A man's got to know his limitations.

Magnum Force - 6.5/10. A clever sequel – the inevitable result of Dirty Harry's policing politics on a new police force. But it takes the admirable simplicity of the first movie's plot and just complicates it, leading to a fairly odd (re: stupid) final set-piece. And a lot of potential drama is missing from trying to find out exactly what separates these guys from Harry. And he's such an unsexual creature.

It was one of the most eloquent expressions of a community's response to violence that I've ever seen

The Times of Harvey Milk - 6/10. Paper-thin. Very little cultural context, and very little insight into the man himself. It may just be that the bad guy is that much more interesting than Harvey Milk, but he manages to steal the show away from its star. What a guy.

You had a hard enough time being yourself.

The Fighter - 6.5/10. Christian Bale and Melissa Leo are showy actors, but at least they're having fun.
So it's unfortunate that the rest of the movie rests itself on the shoulders of such a gumpy fucking gus. If Mark Wahlberg's character's story is to remove himself from the shadow of his brother, he certainly doesn't do it by being interesting.

Soon your mother will give birth to two children and a dog.

Dogtooth - 8/10. If Harmony Korine made The Royal Tenenbaums. I forget the quote, but it's something about how great books teach you how to read it as you read it. Same here.

Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself.

Dirty Harry - 7.5/10. Impossibly cool.

Whore youth.

The Kids Are All Right - 4/10. Men are stupid and women are evil. I get to hate one movie a year, and this misogynistic shit is it. There seems to be a terrible trend in movies lately where a terrible character doesn't change, doesn't *want* to change, and the movie asks us to accept them for all their flaws. So while Annette Bening does a nice acting job, her character never seems to admit to any sort of fault, so when the point of the movie ends up being 'love is hard, you know?,' then no, it isn't hard, you're just an asshole and you should break the fuck up. Placing that kind of message on a character like hers makes this a Harmful Movie, because it passes off a Very Bad Idea as a good one. Mark Ruffalo comes off as a decent, if sleazy guy whose character gets shuffled away because facing him would be facing a much larger truth that no one seems to want to have to face. Pussy shit.

Great actors undermine their own credibility by their very presence.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work - 7/10. Joan Rivers talks shit about everyone, but she doesn't have a bad thing to say about anyone. A shining example of an actress becoming her part to the point of it being indistinguishable, but her career's failure is the movie's failure – she's a character, but she doesn't know how to tell her own story.

The wicked flee when none pursueth.

True Grit - 8/10. Just a fun movie. The whole thing threatens to disappoint when they finally catch up to ol' Tom Chaney, because they've set him up as some sort of evil, and he ain't half that but, as they tend to do, that's not what the movie's really about anyway. I admire the Coen brothers' ability to 'round the corner' and pull a greater point out of a simpler plot. They are magic men.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

It has something to do

with young men killing each other.

My motto now is you either love or you hate

and you must do so violently.

Bravery to do the right thing.

Lack of courage to do the wrong thing.

Some men see things as they are and say why.

I dream things that never were and say why not.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

I guess I'm just a girl you stay with

to see what you can get away with.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

We touch them here

so that they can touch you there.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Transform yourself

into a giant.

Monday, February 14, 2011

But accidents

in a very busy place.

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.

Confusing personal truths

with human truths.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

The democracy

of sound.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Brothers

before unwed mothers.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

This generation fights in a new way,

but we fight just as hard.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

I arise in the morning

torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

There is great chaos under heaven.

The situation is excellent.

Monday, January 31, 2011

The solution

presents itself politely.

I guess it was faith.

The kind you have when you're very young and don't know any better.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

I may

not always love you.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt,

finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Hence it comes that all armed prophets have been victorious,

and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed.

I wish that I could talk

in technicolor.

Friday, January 14, 2011

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason,

then all possibility of life is destroyed.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Alas, a previous engagement.

The King's Speech - 7.5/10. Geoffrey Rush plays magical negro to the king's speech problems. Well-done, occasionally very funny, and it doesn't seem to let accuracy get in the way of telling a good story. Everything builds up well, leading to the final speech, and a man becomes a king. But weirdly, and unnecessarily, it brings up tangents that it never tops off. We learn that Geoffrey Rush is a failed actor. Nothing comes of it. People keep saying that Colin Firth is the bravest man they know, if he'd only get over his fear. Presumed fear of his family. Never arriving at a realization, or some understanding of why he is so brave. So it just ends up this movie about friendship. Which isn't bad. It just seems like it's trying not to be.

Thing I made.

Things Real People Don't Say About Advertising.

Jaf Slifly? You're not gonna get this one, bro.

Bricoleurs

are comfortable in unfamiliar realms of learning and experience because they learn best by using indirect connections to known information, even if the details of the skills are not exactly related. They try things out until they figure out how to do something.

Monday, January 10, 2011

ADD and carpal tunnel.

Greenberg - 6/10. I hate how Ben Stiller moves his face. Greta Gerwig! and Rhys Ifans are interesting and both people, with less screen-time, have more defined (and more interesting) story-arcs, while Greenberg himself seems to start and finish at the same place, despite what the last scene would lead you to believe. OH, SHIT, Y'ALL – MAYBE THAT'S THE POINT???

They come to snuff the rooster.

Reality Bites - 6/10. It tries very hard to be a movie that defines its period. I generally dislike 'the 90s' as a plot device.

Written in blood, by the hands of fate.

The Corsican Brothers - 4.5/10. 'The Count of Monte Cristo,' but instead of being locked in prison for twenty years, they live generally good-to-great, carefree lives not knowing of the tragedy that befell them. And when they find out, they have to get revenge. Because they have to. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. is a charmer in one of his two roles, and that's all that's really worth watching. One of the last scenes in 'The Princess Bride' is a little bit cribbed from one of the last scenes here.

Never ask for what ought to be offered.

Winter's Bone - 8.5/10. Oh, I thought it was great. Fighting for your little piece of nothing. Natalie Portman will probably win Best Actress, because her movie's *about* acting, but Jennifer Lawrence is my favorite performance of the year.

They are a part of our folklore.

The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie - 4/10. Yeah, I didn't really get this shit.

I'm a frog.

Muppets Take Manhattan - 5.5/10. Generally just disappointed with you muppet-folk.

Movie girlfriends.

Baghead - 6/10. Greta Gerwig should be a star. She's natural and flirty and kind of desperate. It's a great character. The movie's fun, but it doesn't match up to her.

Fool.

The A-Team - 6/10. This movie enjoys the presence of its own company. Bradley Cooper's personality distilled into a two-hour movie. In smaller portions, that's okay. Things go boom. Pet peeve with characters who have given up violence, only to decide that they have to be violent in order to succeed. Generally convoluted, and gradually becomes more so. Jessica Biel looks weird.

Trippin'.

Flipped - 5.5/10. Coming-of-age romance told from different angles. Cute-ish, never really gains momentum.

Hoot hoot.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls Of Ga'Hoole - 5.5/10. Zach Snyder continues to be a hack. By no means is this a reason to see the movie, but: it is very pretty.

I should probably pee first.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - 6.5/10. Fun, with no sense of drama. That's not a terrible thing. Jay Baruchel's a doll. The girl is attractive.

You are a stupid.

Red Heat - 2/10. My reluctance to watch good movies is more my reluctance to watch anything over 100 minutes long. This is bad. You needed me to tell you that.

Spot Conlon is Brooklyn.

Newsies - 6/10. They are ragged and dirty. Fun. A relic.

A suicide.

Sunshine Cleaning - 5/10. That year's 'Little Miss Sunshine.' Emily Blunt has bits of a decent emotional arc, but otherwise it's just sort of useless.

The king of swing.

Hostel - 5/10. People I don't care about. Takes a long fucking time to get where it's going, but at least when it gets there, it's more interesting than anything before it.

What happened to my sweet girl?

Black Swan - 8.5/10. I've got a boner for art about art. Being a great actor means becoming it. Leave nothing behind, bitches.

We lose.

AVP: Alien Vs. Predator - 3/10. Because I talked to a guy at work and he took that as an invitation of friendship. The more Predator movies they make, the more I feel like I'm watching 'Battlefield: Earth.' These characters are both archetypes who do not need an added mythos to make them seem more interesting. I also hate when popular culture takes popular villains and turns them into anti-heroes. Too many people. There's a lot not to like.

The lovers, the dreamers, etc.

The Muppets Movie - 6/10. I think I've worked up the myth that these movies only started to suck over time, but they sort of sucked from the beginning, didn't they? A few solid jokes during long stretches of nothing special. Steve Martin is great.

She should be killed.

Afghan Star - 7/10. Fascinating for the little bit of perspective it brings. Singing and dancing was banned in Afghanistan. With the Taliban no longer in control, people can sing and dance again. And it's fascinating that, for what a huge victory that is ideologically, the culture itself will only let themselves go that little bit. They don't see freedom and say 'fuck it, let's run for it,' they say 'no, that's it, that's all we can handle.' So it's greatest success, in showing how cultures hold themselves back, is undercut by its commitment to its narrative. Rather than following the tangent that Setara brings when she dances and removes her scarf on national television, she and her death threats and what she represents are relegated to the background as we try to find out who wins the damn thing.

What the fuck are you?

Predators - 5/10. Somewhere along the way, it becomes less about being hunted and becomes about 'working together to save our humanity. We're the real predators, man.' Fuck that shit. Get hunted. Get bitches.

You get to go find a new dream.

Tangled - 8/10. Aside from being generally great, one of its biggest successes is creating a Disney villain who isn't somehow evil to the core. By no means a good person, but she's one of the more true representations of what mothers can be. It's one failure that I can tell is dismantling her like she was a Disney villain, rather than giving her the nuance she deserved.

You're the best around.

The Karate Kid (2010) - 6.5/10. Not bad! Jaden Smith isn't annoying and Jackie Chan isn't trying to destroy everything he's built his career on.

People are fighting with knives and shooting at each other.

The Expendables - 4/10. An action beat every ten pages. A complete misunderstanding of catharsis.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

The only interesting answers

are those that destroy the questions.

Monday, January 3, 2011

What I do when not working.

Jesus

was a tan-skinned man.

You've got your rhythm

but you've lost your rhyme.