Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in robert's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Saturday, June 6th, 2009
6:45 pm	Politeness Overly polite people freak me out.  People who will hold a door open for a complete stranger who is still fifty feet away, as the residents of my apartment building are wont to do, freak me out.  When did opening a door become such a monumental burden that it requires a group effort?  I now often find myself going out of my way to avoid having people hold doors open for me. I've also noticed that the people in this building won't drive through the parking garage gate if there is another car coming in the opposite direction.  Even though the gate is large enough to easily accommodate two cars, they will usually sit there and wait until the oncoming car has passed before driving through.  I have no idea what that's all about. And how anyone can get through an entire day of repeating the exchange, "Hi, how are you?"... "Fine, thanks.  How are you?... I'm good, thank you," with everyone they meet and maintain the level of sanity necessary for their positive responses to be even marginally accurate is a complete mystery to me.  Just hearing it -- in elevators, in stores, outside my own window, like a vignette that is constantly being rehearsed -- is enough to make me question my own sanity, or else the humanity of everyone else.  It seems so much more logical that they're simply advanced androids and I've just been even more ignorant of the current state of technology than I thought I was. I don't know if I'm offended more by the rote, automatic way these lines of dialogue are invariably exchanged, cheerful and desperately friendly on the surface but wholly indifferent and mechanical subtextually, or by the actual questions being asked.  Because, to me, the inherent implication behind the question "How are you?", and the frequency with which we are bombarded by it interminably throughout our lives, is that the natural state of a human being is to be unwell in some way, mentally or physically or both, and that we must constantly be updating the state of our well-being to others in the event we should regress back to this debilitating starting position.  Yes, I am "fine."  I am "okay."  I am "good."  Am I not supposed to be these things?  All we are doing is perpetuating the notion that no, we are not meant to be okay, but somehow we manage it anyway.  Jesus, no wonder we're all so screwed up.  This, of course, makes the robotic delivery of the question doubly insulting. And what if I'm not okay?  Is that really important to you, at this moment, when you're asking me this question?  If not, then why ask it?  Surely there are easier and more pertinent ways to greet someone or start a conversation. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
12:55 pm	Justice For Me Holy crap, I cried the first time I watched the Susan Boyle video, and I just watched it again and I cried again!  Best moment in television history.  It's even better than the "Don't Stop Believing" scene from Glee (which also made me cry). When did Betty Boop become so popular?  Everywhere I go, there's a car in front of me with a Betty Boop sticker and/or license plate frame.  I don't get it. Karma has a way of balancing things out.  To wit: I went to the movies yesterday, and as I stood in line to buy my ticket, I debated whether to use my PayPal credit card, like I normally do, or simply hand over the 20-dollar bill I had in my wallet, and thus make things easier for the ticket seller.  I decided to use the 20, reasoning that the tickets cost ten dollars so I would just get a ten back and nothing could be easier than that (other than, I suppose, handing over a ten-dollar bill).  So when he announced the price as "$10.50," I instinctively jerked my hand back.  Oh dear lord, I have to get two quarters back, and then carry them around in my pocket, hoping they won't fall out as I'm sitting in the theater seat?  I knew I should have gone with the credit card!  But I handed the money over anyway, and noticed with horror a moment later that he didn't have enough ones in his drawer to provide me with the proper change.  With mounting dread over the flagrant inconvenience in which I had managed to ensnare myself, I waited as he counted out six quarters and held them out for me.  I sheepishly took them, and as I did so, I noticed they were unusually shiny.  To my utter astonishment, I discovered that five of the six quarters were brand new, District of Columbia quarters!  I didn't even know these existed!  And I now had five of them!  Thus was the state quarter collection I started a decade ago completed (unless they decide to come out with a Puerto Rico quarter or something), and a happy ending was had by all. The D.C. quarter bears the words "Justice for All,"  beneath a picture of, for some strange reason, Duke Ellington. In a men's room I saw an old man who had actually fallen asleep standing at the urinal. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
8:04 am	Let the Sun Shine In I really can't stand Adam Lambert anymore.  I hate his facial expressions, and the tearful, mawkish, unintentionally comical look he adopts when he's trying to be Sensitive (which is just about every song now).  I feel like I'm watching the hippy actor from The Producers.  I keep waiting for him to say, "If everyone in the world had a flower instead of a gun, there would be no war, there would just be one big smell-in!"  And I hate his screechy voice, too.  All he does is scream and cry.  I could watch a Kim Basinger movie if that's what I was looking for in my entertainment.  I can't believe the judges buy into his act, when it's the very same affected bullshit for which they've called out contestants in the past. Kris Allen is not one of my all-time favorite Idol contestants (that would be Melinda Dolittle, David Cook, Carrie Underwood, Nadia Turner, and Chris Daughtry), and in fact he's really not that great of a singer, but I like him, and his version of "Ain't No Sunshine" was awesome both times he did it, so I hope he wins.  But I doubt he will. If you didn't watch Glee last night, you missed the greatest musical number in television history.  I just wish the show wasn't so cliched, and didn't feature actors in their late 20s playing high school students (is this really what casting directors think teenagers look like?).  I know it wasn't trying to be realistic, but someday I would like to see a realistic show set in high school.  I don't know what kind of demented high school today's television writers went to, but in my high school, kids in wheelchairs did not get locked in porta-potties by bullying jocks.  We didn't even have bullying jocks. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
12:48 pm	TV Thoughts I don't understand how Lost can be so utterly pointless and stupid, and yet still be so damn entertaining.  I mean, let's not kid ourselves.  The show is basically chasing its own tail at this point, and any compelling reason for it to even exist has long since evaporated.  It makes no sense either as drama (a show in which the drama centers around whether the characters can go back in time and stop the entire series from ever happening just because it wasn't much fun for them isn't much of a show) or as science fiction (its theory on time travel seems to be: "You can't change the past by traveling back in time, unless you introduce a variable, like a time traveler."  Ummm... what?).  And yet I'm still watching it.  Damn them for making me watch it.  Granted, it's not Heroes-stupid (I haven't watched Heroes since the first season, but from what I've read about it, it sounds like it's gone from merely being a bad show to being the show by which bad television is measured), but it's still pretty stupid. The Office, on the other hand, is back to being thoroughly wonderful again.  There was one episode about a month ago that bored the crap out of me (I never thought I'd be bored by The Office), but the past three episodes have all been excellent.  And they make it seem so effortless, too, which it clearly isn't, if Parks and Recreation is any indication.  I only watched the pilot, but it was basically The Office as performed by actors without any comedic talent.  Leave it to Amy Poehler to show us how good the cast of The Office really is. And how awesome does Glee look?  I can't believe the hype that Fox is giving this show.  I've never, ever seen a new series promoted so heavily.  A sneak preview of the pilot episode?  In May?  After the American Idol finale?  With TV commercial spots for two or three months in advance, during just about every commercial break?  Jesus, this better be the best fucking show ever. Oh, yeah, American Idol.  I don't really care anymore. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
10:06 am	Pulling the Plug There's a huge billboard on the 105 freeway (the freeway made famous by Speed, before it was finished and lost its magic ability to grant the power of flight to city buses) advertising a web site called "Pull the Plug on Atheism."  I find this disturbing.  It has nothing to do with my beliefs... I'd be just as disturbed if it was an ad for a web site called "Pull the Plug on People Believing in God."  This kind of irrational, "Everyone must believe what I believe" mind set is just... sick, is what it is. And to make it worse, the ad and the web site try to use science to explain how the non-existence of God is a scientific impossibility.  Um... no.  That doesn't quite work.  There are so many contradictions and paradoxes there, from both a scientific and a spiritual viewpoint, that I wouldn't even know where to begin. Besides, everyone knows that the real Supreme Being is Nannerpus.  Nannerpus is the Way, the Truth, and the Light.  Nothing in my life made sense until I found Nannerpus.  And guess what!  He loves pancakes! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 18th, 2009
11:05 am	A Poor Balance There's a townhouse community near my apartment called Knott Townhouses, which amuses me, because it sounds like the subject of an Abbot and Costello routine. "What's the name of the place where you live?" "Knott Townhouses." "What is it then?" "Knott Townhouses." "I know it's not Townhouses, but what is it?" "It's townhouses." "You just said it's not townhouses." "That's right." "I'm just trying to find out where you live." "Knott Townhouses." "Yes, but where?" "Knott Townhouses." Captain Eo is so awesome.  A sci-fi superhero rock musical?  Did I, like, make this movie and somehow erase it from my memory?  I wish someone had sung "Another Part of Me" on American Idol's Michael Jackson week.  It's one of his best songs, and I think someone could have done something really great with it.  Although I never knew until I looked it up recently that he's saying, "We're sending out a major love."  Even now that I know what he's saying, it still doesn't sound remotely like "major love."  It sounds like he forgot the words and is just mumbling gibberish.  I suppose it's for the best, because it's kind of a stupid lyric.  Maybe he's just embarrassed to be singing it. I'm reading Pride and Prejudice now.  After reading Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, I needed to read something that I knew would have a happy ending.  The latter is a great book, but holy crap, is it bleak and depressing.  Actually, it is and it isn't.  I'll explain why behind an LJ cut in case anyone wants to read the book (which I definitely recommend doing) and doesn't want it spoiled. ( Read more... ) Actually, I think the main reason I don't listen to the radio anymore is because every time I find a station I like, it goes away.  This has happened twice in the past month or so alone.  I started getting into 97.1 talk radio, especially Danny Bonaduce (though I didn't understand why his show was only an hour, while fucking Tom Leykis got like five hours, when Danny is much more interesting and likeable, not to mention famous) and then a week or two later it suddenly became a hip-hop station.  Then I discovered Movin' 93.9, which played nothing but '70s and '80s music, and then a week later it became a Spanish station.  And this isn't the first time a station I like has turned into a Spanish station (do only Mexicans listen to the radio anymore?).  I must be cursed.  When it comes to radio stations and frozen dinners, I'm cursed (every time I find a frozen dinner I really like, they discontinue it).  Radio stations should be paying me to not listen to their stations, just so they'll stay in business. Revelation of the week: Taxi Driver really isn't that good of a movie.  I must have been overly influenced by the hype the first time I saw it (and yet when I rewatched Raging Bull recently, I liked it a lot more than I did the first time... go figure). (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
9:04 pm	Music Musing I think I have some sort of disorder whereby, if I see a movie title that is the same or similar to that of a song, I get that song stuck in my head.  It doesn't even have to be an exact match, it could just be a key word that the two titles have in common.  So, for instance, the two current movies that are wreaking havoc through my brain are Knowing (which puts "Knowing Me, Knowing You" in my head, every time) and Goodbye Solo (which breeds "Goodbye Stranger"... and I fucking hate Supertramp!).  Most of the time I'm not even fully aware of the occurrence, until I stop and realize what song I have in my head and why.  I think it might drive me insane one day. I've pretty much reached the conclusion that I have no interest in music unless it's accompanied by some sort of visual image, whether it be a movie or TV show, a stage show, or simply an image in my brain of a movie or stage show that I have yet to create.  That's why I can't listen to the radio anymore.  Everything sounds so tediously incomplete.  Unless a song comes up that I plan to use in my '80s musical, and then I can visualize the scene in the movie while I listen, and everything is fine and good. I'm excited about next week's American Idol, because the theme is songs from the year the contestants were born.  So basically it's '80s week (except in Allison's case), which means happiness and joy. Here's what I hate: jaywalkers who expect cars to stop for them.  Few things make me angrier.  It's arrogant, and it's stupid.  The other day, a jaywalker actually yelled "Thanks a lot!" (sarcastically, of course) at me because I didn't stop to let him cross in front of me.  No, I'm sorry, that's not going to happen.  I don't see how that makes me the rude one.  In fact, I think I'm on pretty solid ethical ground here.  I mean, either I had to stop for him, or he had to stop for me.  Either way, somebody had to be inconvenienced, so it stands to reason that it should be the one breaking the law.  It's why we have crosswalks, asshole. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
1:49 pm	Idol Thoughts I haven't really had anything to say about American Idol lately, mainly because I was getting a bit bored of it.  There were a lot of good performances but nothing that really stood out for me, either positively or negatively.  But last night there were definite extremes of talent on display, and it really became clear who deserves to be there and who doesn't. The Great Kris - Wow.  I never thought he had much of a chance, but last night I think he made himself a front runner.  Good job, Hot Guy (why is there always one hot guy each season who mocks me with his unattainability?). Adam - I always said Anwar should have been playing Jesus in Godspell.  Well, Adam should be playing Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar.  And I mean that as a compliment.  I'd actually be surprised if he didn't play that role at some point, if he hasn't already.  There's never been an Idol contestant quite like him.  I mean, this guy's a fucking showman!  I loved Paula's comment, comparing him to Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler.  She may have overstated it, but she's definitely onto something. The Good Scott - Simon was right, this was definitely his best performance.  I've always liked his voice, and this time he really showed it off.  And he somehow gets better looking each week, which I don't really understand. Danny - He's been my favorite so far, but this wasn't my favorite performance by him.  He's growing predictable and a bit boring.  But I still like him. The So-So Lil - Again, Simon was right, this was very old-fashioned and reminiscent of something you'd see at a wedding.  And plus I just don't think her voice is that great.  She's a great technical singer, but there's nothing distinctive or interesting about her voice. Allison - I'm really starting to not like her.  She's this season's Amanda Overmyer, and, just like with Amanda, I liked her in the beginning but quickly grew tired of her.  And plus she just gets more and more incoherent each week.  Next week I expect her to come on stage and just start grunting and banging sticks together. Matt - That was just tedious and indulgent.  And his voice always irritates me anyway. The Horrific Anoop - I had a feeling he would turn out to be this season's Sanjaya, but I didn't want to admit it to myself.  But their Idol careers are almost perfect parallels: both guys were really likeable in their auditions and made you want to root for them, but they ended up turning out one painful performance after another, eventually sinking into a miasma of suck from which they will never recover and revealing themselves to be obnoxious douchebags in the process.  I hate to say it, but I think there's a reason why Indian guys don't become pop stars in this country.  "I want to be an R&B singer."  Yeah, good luck with that, Anoop. Megan - Oh, dear lord, make the nightmare end.   She is now officially this season's Mikalah Gordon.  She's even got the "I know my fans will support me" line that she delivers each week.  Um... no, Megan.  You see, that's where you're wrong.  We don't support you.  I know this because I was a fan, but I jumped ship long ago.  I kept waiting for her to do something good, like maybe something by 10,000 Maniacs, just because her voice sounds a bit like Nathalie Merchant's (and come to think of it, has any contestant ever done a song by her?  You'd think they would, or maybe I'm just biased because she's like my favorite female vocalist ever).  But she's just a fuck show. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
7:41 pm	Of all the myriad facets of humanity that I just don't understand (and there are many), possibly the most mystifying of all is the inability humans have to tell time.  I'm not talking about difficulties with reading an analog clock (even I have trouble with that sometimes).  I'm talking about the way people literally cannot tell the precise time without rounding it or otherwise altering it in terms of the nearest hour or half-hour.  If it's 2:05, people will invariably say "2:00."  If it's 2:10, they will still say "2:00."  Yesterday, a woman I delivered to asked me what time it was so she could write it down in the appropriate space on the delivery form.  I told her it was 2:20, and she actually wrote "2:30."  I mean, what is that all about? But most bizarre of all are the 15- and 45-minute marks.  People don't say "2:15 or "2:45."  They say "a quarter past two," or "a quarter 'til two," or, most puzzlingly, "a quarter of two" (what does that even mean?  It makes no sense!).  "2:15" has three syllables.  "A quarter past two" has five syllables.  How on earth is that easier to say?!  What the hell is wrong with you people?! (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 6th, 2009
10:55 pm	I Was a Teenage Rain Man So I finished Cloud Atlas and it was kind of disappointing because it got all preachy at the end and it hit us over the head with the Message and then I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and it wasn't what I expected because I had heard that it was a murder mystery in which the victim is a dog so I thought it would be a murder mystery in which the victim is a dog but that's not what it was at all but it was still good and now I can't stop writing like this. American Idol continued its bizarre and unprecedented trend of not disappointing me and now I'm very excited because everyone I liked made it into the Final 12 except now it is a Final 13 and it is now clearly the Best Season Ever.  Normally I'm lucky if there's more than two or three contestants I love but this year there's only two or three contestants I don't love so I don't know what I'm going to do come voting time. (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 5th, 2009
8:10 am	I have a growing suspicion that Lost is way more idiotic than we have hitherto been led to believe. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
9:44 am	What I've Been Reading I take back what I said about American Idol, since it's already shaping up to be, potentially, the best season ever.  So far, America has got the top 12 almost exactly right.  The only mistake was choosing the roughneck guy over Anoop, but even that's not that bad.  Otherwise, they're exactly who I would have chosen.  Although I would like to see more of that blonde chick with the tattoo (Megan?  Morgan?  Something like that).  Even though her performance wasn't that good, I thought she had a lot of potential, so I hope she makes the wild card round. I think I'll take a moment to do something I never do: write about what I've been reading.  After finishing Sense and Sensibility (which I enjoyed but only in small doses, and which therefore took me forever to read), I suddenly got really into novels, mostly thanks to the existence of a book called 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.  I now have a reading list to last most of the rest of my life, and I feel quite comfortable utilizing it as such because, of the 40-something books from it that I've already read, I agree with just about all of them (and the two I disagree with are the two Dirk Gently books by Douglas Adams, my favorite author... I mean, I like them and all, but I don't think they're "must-reads" by any means).  It lists the books in chronological order, so I began with the last book, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (I knew no other method of selecting a reading list other than to start from the end and work my way back, unless I started from the front and worked my way forward, which would mean slogging my way through all the Classic and Renaissance and Victorian stuff for the foreseeable future, which is just not something I'm prepared to do... I've since modified my approach, however, and am no longer reading them in a strict back-to-front order).  I've now read several books from it and have loved them all. Incidentally, I got the 1001 Books book (henceforth to be referred to as the Book) from my sister for Christmas, and then Jason's mom also got me a copy, which I can't seem to get rid of for various reasons.  So if anyone would like a brand new, unopened copy of this book, and is willing to drive to Buena Park to get it, it's yours. Anyway, here are my thoughts on what I've read: Sense and Sensibility - My first foray into Jane Austenland, and can I just say a big "Fuck you" to Emma Thompson and Ang Lee?  Because I was so put off by their damn movie that for years I avoided Jane Austen and, indeed, all 19th-Century novels written by women (and the movies based on them, as well), when really Austen is quite delightful, if a bit flowery for my taste (she's basically like a florid, feminine Charles Dickens, but not as talented).  There's just nothing good about Emma Thompson or the things she does. Sister Mine by Tawni O'Dell - This isn't from the Book, this is just a book I picked up because I like the author.  Unfortunately, each book she writes is a step down in quality from the previous one.  Her first book, Back Roads, was a masterpiece; her second, Coal Run, was very good, indeed; and Sister Mine was just merely good.  All of her books take place in small coal-mining towns in western Pennsylvania, though Sister Mine (which sounds like an awful title, until you realize that "sister" is an adjective rather than a noun, and "mine" is a noun rather than a pronoun) is the first to feature a female protagonist, which is probably why, for the first time, O'Dell falls into a lot of the literary traps common to female writers (I'm not being sexist... male writers have traps, too, just different ones).  It's also a semi-sequel to Coal Run (in the sense that the protagonist of that book shows up as a minor character in this book), but lacks that novel's emotional punch.  Incidentally, I hear Back Roads is being made into a movie, but I think I'd rather see Coal Run on the big screen.  The former is a better novel, but I think the latter would make a better movie, and might even make a better movie than a novel. Never Let Me Go - Absolutely compelling, but more because of the way information is given to the reader rather than what the information actually is.  It takes place in a sort of a parallel, dystopian universe, but it's written in a way that implies that it's a book from that parallel universe, and the first-person narration assumes we already know the nature and status of this world it takes place in.  So the joy in reading it lies in the way the actual premise is only gradually revealed to us.  My only problem is that, once everything is clear, it's a lot less emotionally powerful that it seems to think it is.  I still recommend it, though. Saturday by Ian McEwan - Excellent book, concerning a very eventful Saturday experienced by a British neurosurgeon.  I now get the hype over McEwan. On Beauty by Zadie Smith - I loved this book, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of.  I mean, it has almost no plot, and most of the characters aren't even very likeable, but they're also characters that stay with you, like family members.  It's a very perceptive social satire about a bi-racial family and the various people in their lives, and the sort of quiet desperation with which they all search for their places in society.  And it's as lovely as the title implies. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth - I really enjoyed this book, although it feels a bit dated now.  I mean, it kind of reads like every Jewish comedian got together and wrote the ultimate Jewish stand-up comedy monologue, replete with every cliche imaginable (though I suppose they're cliches because they're true).  But I imagine it seemed fresh when it was written.  It also reminded me a lot of I Am a Sex Addict, a movie that Jason rented and which we both enjoyed immensely. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - The book I'm currently reading.  I'm one chapter away from the end, and it's pretty much a work of genius.  I won't know how genius it is until I get to the end, but it's definitely the best book I've read in a long time.  It combines several different genres and several different writing styles into one big postmodern, metafictional epic, and it's incredible stuff.  I think there are also plans to turn it into a movie, but I have no idea how they would pull something like that off. (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
8:25 am	Taken the Piss I love that Taken is doing so well at the box office, considering it received no hype and little publicity, and got lukewarm reviews (and technically it's a foreign film, albeit one in English).  But it's a genuinely good movie.  And by the way, For Your Consideration next year, Academy: Maggie Grace.  Yeah, I know, the annoying chick from Lost, but she's incredible in this movie.  I didn't even recognize her, and was startled to learn it was her from the closing credits. I don't have much to say about the Oscars, except that I hated the way they presented the acting awards.  Really weird show this year, like they didn't quite know what they were doing and were just sort of winging it.  Steve Martin was awesome as always, though (well, I shouldn't say "as always," since his performance in the Pink Panther movies offends me as a human being, and I've only seen the commercials and trailers for them). Here's what I hate: the British expression "taking the piss."  Not only does it sound repulsive, but I'm not even sure what it means exactly, since I've heard and seen it used in so many, incompatible ways.  I don't think the British even know what they mean when they say it, they just plug it in whenever it seems appropriate and they want to sound cool and, you know... British. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 19th, 2009
5:57 pm	I find it strange that Mike White, the actor and filmmaker, is a contestant on the new season of The Amazing Race. Here's what I hate: escalators.  Well, not so much the contraptions themselves, but the way people use them.  I hate people who stand on the "down" escalator, without walking.  People like that are either ridiculously lazy or infinitely patient, and I have no tolerance for the former or understanding of the latter. But even more than that, I hate people who feel the need to stand next to the person they're with, on the same step, and thus block the path for anyone who isn't a lazy piece of shit and actually wants to put their legs to use.  And these people are invariably oblivious to our plight, or, indeed, to the very idea that there could possibly be someone who wants to be transported under their own power and therefore needs to somehow get past the human blockade they have erected.  The most amusing ones are the ones who taking an escalator to the gym, because really, what the fuck is that about? I go to a lot of offices in my line of work, and oftentimes there's a basket of outgoing mail at the reception desk, and in such cases there is almost always a Netflix envelope inside it.  I find that amusing, too. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
8:41 am	I don't know if I can watch American Idol this season, not when it has both Flaming Gay Emo Boy and Psych-Ward-Escapee Hysteria Girl, the two most annoying creatures the human gene pool could possibly conspire to produce.  I'm not even sure I can own a TV anymore, knowing they're on it. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
11:36 pm	TV Thoughts I love how all of my favorite actors from the '90s who never quite achieved stardom are now finding new careers on television: Mary-Louise Parker, Elizabeth Perkins, Natascha McElhone, and Tim Roth.  Unfortunately, three of these appear on Showtime, which means I have to wait for the DVDs (I've still never actually seen Californication, but now that I know my beloved Natascha is in it, I really want to), and the fourth has a show that frankly isn't very good.  I suppose if you're into those CSI-type police procedurals, you could do worse than watch Lie to Me, but it's really not my thing, and despite the gimmick, it's awfully generic.  I've pretty much lost all interest in TV dramas that don't begin with the words "Previously on..."  Tim Roth is never not awesome, though. Incidentally, I finished out Season 3 of Weeds, and, despite a shaky start, I ended up loving it.  I've heard Season 4 isn't that good, though.  That worries me, because it already seems to be following the same pattern as the last show I watched on DVD, Nip/Tuck (excellent first two seasons, trashy but fun third season, nearly unwatchable fourth season). The Office is really picking up, though.  I'm so happy with NBC, and the faith they have in shows that they know are good but which don't get the ratings they deserve.  They stuck with Homicide until the end even though the ratings were dismal, and now they've put The Office on immediately after the Super Bowl, as if to say, Damn it, this is a show you should be watching!  And the makers of the show stepped up to the plate (or whatever the analogous football metaphor would be) by giving us the best cold opening they've ever done.  If that scene didn't make people want to watch the show, nothing will.  And Thursday's episode  was great, too (though I had to watch it online, as we had a power outage right after the show started). I wonder how Kitty feels about herself and her changing body. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 30th, 2009
5:33 pm	Chasing I don't fully understand why Fridays are so crazy for me at work.  The rest of the week is usually pretty slow and relaxed, but then Friday comes and suddenly everyone needs a courier.  I also don't understand why people get so freaked out by a court summons or a subpoena.  I should think receiving one would be terribly exciting. The highlight of my day was stopping at a red light in Beverly Hills and seeing the two hot twins from Desperate Housewives on the sidewalk next to my car.  But they weren't making out, and this is the part I find strange.  Four out of five kitties agree. I love how things come full circle.  When I lived in New York, I banked at Chase.  Then I moved to L.A., and they didn't have Chase, so I got an account at Coast Federal.  Coast Federal was then bought out by Home Savings, so they became my bank.  Then Home Savings was bought out by Washington Mutual, so they became my bank.  And now, Washington Mutual has been bought out by... Chase.  I had thought WaMu would still remain, but now it looks like they're all becoming Chase banks, which means I'll be banking at Chase again.  Too funny. I actually kind of want to switch to CitiBank.  Again, four out of five kitties agree. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 24th, 2009
9:06 am	Can You Feel a Brand New Day? I can't decide which type of car honk is more obnoxious: the staccato double tap, or the long, sustained blast.  The former says, "I am a condescending, pedantic prick," while the latter says, "I am just a fucking asshole," and I'm not sure which is worse. I tire of humanity.  With their smoothies.  And their paninis.  And their intermittent wipers. There's no question in my mind that Craisins are the world's most delicious fruit, but what amazes me is how every bag is different.  Sometimes they're dry and tasteless, sometimes they're oily and gooey, and sometimes they're just right.  And all they are is dried cranberries and sugar.  And then there's the organic dried cranberries I bought at Trader Joe's, which are completely unlike Craisins in every way other than physical appearance.  They don't taste like cranberries at all.  What they taste like is fruity, chewy candy (and I hate fruity, chewy candy).  This is a mystery to me, as they're ostensibly the exact same thing as Craisins.  The only difference is that the organic ones contain vegetable oil and Craisins don't. Life is otherwise good (and plenty).  On the same day Bush stopped being President, Jason got his student loan check, so we don't have to worry about money.  It really seemed like the first day of a brighter, happier era for everyone, like when the Allies rolled into Berlin, or when the sun came out at the end of The Abyss. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
3:00 pm	If I Picked the Oscars Best Picture - Frost/Nixon Again (just like last year), it's the only nominee I liked.  Well, okay, Milk was an okay movie, but it was basically a rote biopic, and it left me strangely unmoved.  The other three movies were all rubbish. Best Director - Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon Although I would despair of giving Ron Howard another Oscar, I can't in good conscience vote for any of the others.  I mean, I'm happy David Fincher finally got a nomination, but it's a shame it's for the worst movie he's ever made, and I just plain don't like Danny Boyle or Gus Van Sant, neither of whom have made a good movie in more than a decade.  And Stephen Daldry again?  The Hours is looking more and more like a fluke (and I'm beginning to suspect that it was the actresses and Philip Glass who made that movie what it was). Best Actor - Richard Jenkins, The Visitor This is the category that they got right except for Brad Pitt.  I'd be happy if any of them won except for Brad Pitt, because the nominees this year are four truly great performances and Brad Pitt.  Seriously, Brad Pitt over Clint Eastwood?  Robert Downey Jr.?  His presence here is a little embarrassing, actually, considering he took a character that, on the page, had zero personality, and then somehow managed to give it even less personality. Best Actress - Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married I love that they nominated Richard Jenkins and Anne Hathaway, my two favorite lead performances of the year.  But I have a feeling that Kate Winslet is going to win, just because the Academy sucks that way.  But it could have been worse... it could have been Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road (I love Kate Winslet, I really do, but I think she had an off year).  I'm a little sad that Michelle Williams wasn't nominated, although the real shocker is Sally Hawkins's snub, considering she's winning everything else (though personally I thought she was a bit overrated).  I love Meryl Streep, but I'm sorry, this was not a great Meryl Streep performance. Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight It sucks that they're giving me exactly what I wanted with these acting nominations, because I have nothing to bitch about (or even talk about, that I didn't already discuss in my top 10 list).  Michael Shannon was great, too, by the way, by far the best thing about that movie. Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for the wrong movie, though (really, what did he do besides adopt a "black guy" voice?). Best Supporting Actress - Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button And then there's this cateogry.  Even before the nominations came out, I couldn't think of a great, stand-out supporting performance from an actress.  The nominations they came up with are all fine, I guess, but still, none of them really stand out for me.  So I picked Henson, mainly because I thought she should have been nominated for Hustle and Flow (and because I didn't even recognize her throughout most of Benjamin Button).  She did the Sally Field mom role really well.  Viola Davis only had one scene, and I reject this notion that a performance is Oscar-worthy just because the actress can cry and deliver an emotional monologue convincingly. Best Animated Movie - WALL-E It's the only one I saw, but I did like it.  At least, I liked it when there were just robots on the screen.  Too bad the humans had to go and ruin it. Best Original Screenplay - In Bruges WALL-E?  Really?  Yes, I liked it, but it was purely an animator's movie, not a writer's movie.  It's not like there was an intricately crafted story or insightful dialogue, and the lame attempts at social satire were just embarrassing.  But they nominated In Bruges, so that makes up for it. Best Adapted Screenplay - Frost/Nixon Again, this is by default.  Slumdog Millionaire is this year's Little Miss Sunshine, a shockingly idiotic script that otherwise intelligent people are mysteriously embracing.  The game show scenes are particularly inane (I don't care what country it is, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? would never be broadcast live, or allow a contestant to take a bathroom break in between reading the question and answering it, or have such a ridiculously easy final question, etc., etc.).  As for the other nominees, Eric Roth should not be rewarded for chopping up his Forrest Gump script and creating a whole new script from the spare parts; Doubt was basically the play, on film; and The Reader was just hopelessly lame. Best Art Direction - Changeling The period setting was the best thing about the movie. Best Cinematography - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button I didn't like the movie, but I have to admit it was lovely to look at. Best Costume Design - Revolutionary Road Whatever. Best Editing - Frost/Nixon Yeah. Best Makeup - The Curious Blah Blah Blah There were times when I honestly couldn't tell what was makeup and what was CGI.  That takes talent.  Or maybe it says more about the visual effects team than it does the makeup artist, I'm not sure. Best Original Score - Danny Elfman, Milk I don't really remember it, but since he has (shockingly) never won, and because I don't really like the other nominees, I'm going with him.  But whatever happened to the great, memorable film scores?  1981 seems like a miracle now, when Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the most iconic and memorable scores ever written, didn't win because it happened to come out the same year as Chariots of Fire, also one of the most iconic and memorable scores ever written.  Have all the great scores already been written? Best Original Song - "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire I had to download all of the nominees before I could remember what the hell they were, but I actually quite like this song.  It's fun and catchy, and certainly better than that Peter Gabriel song or that other, much more annoying song from Slumdog Millionaire.  But what a weird category this year.  Whatever happened to the great, memorable film songs?  And where the hell is "Rock Me Sexy Jesus"?! Best Sound Mixing - The Dark Knight Best Sound Editing - Iron Man Best Visual Effects - Iron Man Best Foreign Language Film - Waltz With Bashir I had a lot of problems with this movie, especially the ending, but the only other nominee I've seen is Revanche, which I didn't like at all. Best Documentary Feature - Encounters at the End of the World No Dear Zachary, so I'm going to have to go with the Herzog film, even though I wasn't crazy about it, and it had the usual pretentious, egotistical Herzog narration.  But Man on Wire bored me (I have no idea why everyone loves it so much, or why it has a 100% Tomatometer), and I haven't seen the others. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 11th, 2009
7:22 pm	10 Best Movies of 2008 1. Synecdoche, New York Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York is -- and I can say this without any doubt or hesitation -- a pure, cinematic masterpiece, by far the most artistically significant achievement the medium saw all year, perhaps all decade.  It's the only film in recent memory that possesses the depth and richness of great literature (in fact, it reminded me in many ways of Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish, another underappreciated work of insane genius), and yet remains a wholly, uniquely cinematic experience.  Unusually for a film of this level of brilliance, however, it's not something I ever care to see again.  Just about every review I've read of the movie claims that a second viewing is essential to fully grasp it, which quite frankly mystifies me, since I had the exact opposite reaction: my single viewing felt strangely complete and inviolate, as though it were meant to be experienced only at that particular moment in my life, and never repeated.  And to be honest, I'm not sure I could sit through it again.  The movie dredged up feelings and thoughts about myself and life in general that, although they were ultimately brought to an invigorating, purifying catharsis by the film's end, are not experiences I would like to revisit.  I loved it, I hated it, but most of all, I feared it.  That, my friends, is freakin' art! 2. Dear Zachary It seems like every year, there's always one documentary that creeps into my "top 10" list, despite the fact that there was once a time when I actively avoided them, and even now I watch the majority of them with a kind of grudging sense of obligation, usually on DVD (since it always feels like a bit of a waste to try to catch them on the big screen).  Dear Zachary was one I saw the trailer for and dismissed as just another self-important, feature-length YouTube video that had somehow managed to acquire theatrical distribution.  It received rave reviews, however, which had me mildly intrigued.  So when it eventually turned up on MSNBC, of all places, I figured, What the hell, I'll DVR it and watch it at my leisure, since it requires no effort and I don't even have to give up one of my precious Netflix spots.  So I watched it, and at first it was more or less what I expected, a documentarian's cinematic ode to a friend of his who had been murdered, and I'm thinking, Yes, I'm sure he was a great guy, but the world is full of great guys who are murdered, and they don't all get documentaries made about them.  I couldn't help thinking that, if it had been any one of his other friends who had been murdered, he would have made the exact same movie, with the exact same sound bites of close friends and relatives eulogizing him. But the film soon took a different turn, and became something else entirely.  I'm not even going to describe the events that follow, except to say that they just grow more and more bizarre, as the facts behind this seemingly simple murder case, and the circumstances surrounding it, are gradually divulged.  At first it slightly bothered me that the film was so blatantly, unabashedly one-sided, until it dawned on me: of course it's one-sided!  This isn't an objective piece of investigative reporting, but an angry, impassioned (but ultimately uplifting) visual diary, delivered with frantic, expertly timed editing.  I was soon glad that I had recorded it instead of watching it straight from the TV, as I found myself feverishly fast-forwarding through the commercials to find out what happened next.  By the end of it, I was literally sobbing.  I can't begin to describe the effect this movie had on me, but I will say that it's an important film that everyone needs to see.  Indeed, when it was over, it seemed impossible to me that the whole world didn't just share that experience with me, and I felt angry that I couldn't discuss it with anyone, and everyone. 3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days I had never heard of the Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu before seeing this movie, but from the very first shot, I knew I was in the hands of a master.  With the last shot, which was brilliant both as a shot by itself and for the way it echoed that terrific first shot, I knew I had seen a great movie.  Not that I needed much convincing, since what came between those two shots was a thoroughly gripping account of an illegal abortion in the decidedly pro-life Romania.  Judging from this movie and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (which made my "top 10" list two years ago), Romania is a really sucky place to live in.  But damn, they're making some great movies over there. 4. In Bruges This one really surprised me.  The trailer made it look like yet another generic, Ritchie-esque British gangster movie crossed with a dumb, Sandler-esque buddy comedy, so I was hesitant to go see it at all.   And while, yes, it is a British gangster movie, and yes, it's a buddy comedy, it's a much more thoughtful and artistic work than either of those descriptions imply.  It also happens to be pretty damn hilarious, easily one of the funniest movies of the year (with only one real rival... see below).  Colin Farrell is absolutely fantastic in the principal role, showing off a startling gift for comedy and making up for his dreadful performance in Cassandra's Dream all at once.  But it is Brendan Gleeson who is most deserving of an Oscar nomination, in the lead or supporting category, I don't care which (I had always thought of him as a supporting actor, but the Golden Globes nominated him as a lead, so whatever).  This is the one movie of the year that I can most see becoming a personal, endlessly rewatchable favorite of mine. 5. The Visitor Tom McCarthy only has two movies as a writer-director under his belt, but he's already become something of an auteur, with a distinctive idiom.  He seems to be interested in the ways disparate people find ways to connect with one another and form unlikely friendships, and it's a niche that he pretty much owns right now.  The Visitor is an even more accomplished work than his previous effort, The Station Agent (though maybe not as entertaining or instantly embraceable).  Once again, he proves himself a master at both creating lovingly nuanced characters and directing his actors to inhabit these character completely.  Like the trinity of Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, and Bobby Cannavale in the last movie, Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, and Danai Gurira are all phenomenal in this film (with Jenkins in particular turning in perhaps the performance of the year).  It's a lovely, wonderful film in all respects, and I can't wait to see what McCarthy does next (my guess is that it'll be a movie about an unlikely friendship between three people, and that's fine with me). 6. Vicky Cristina Barcelona In real life, most people don't have character arcs.  If they're dull, or shallow, or bashful, or mean-spirited, chances are they're going to remain that way.  This is something that Woody Allen explores in his latest film, and in so doing has created the best movie he's made since maybe Crimes and Misdemeanors in 1989, certainly since 1992's Husbands and Wives (I'd have to see the latter film again to make that call).  Indeed, this movie achieves levels of awesomeness that, quick frankly, I no longer thought Allen capable of.  It's funny, it's charming, it's poetic and insightful, which are all things Woody Allen movies seldom are these days, and never all at once.  Rebecca Hall: discovery of the year. 7. The Dark Knight Those who know me might be surprised to find this movie on my list.  And after I rewatched Batman Begins and confirmed for myself that yes, there's really nothing good about it at all, I myself was not expecting the sequel to make this list, either.  So I was surprised and elated to find that it was a vast improvement on the original in just about every way possible.  At last, Batman makes sense as a character.  At last, we have a villain worthy of the name.  At last, we don't have to close our eyes and pretend Katie Holmes is someone else.  At last, David S. Goyer did not write the screenplay (why do people keep hiring that man?).  It's easily the most purely, viscerally compelling superhero movie ever made, and to be honest I didn't want it to end.  Actually, no, that's not quite accurate. An ending never even crossed my mind.  It's the only movie that has ever made me forget that an ending is forthcoming, and that this wasn't simply my new life, watching this movie.  I haven't even mentioned the already legendary Heath Ledger performance yet.  After seeing this movie, I was actually pissed off that we would never see another performance from him.  That's how good he is.  And am I the only one who totally wants to hang out with the Joker? 8. Hamlet 2 It's a bit strange that Hamlet 2 and Synecdoche, New York came out in the same year, because they're kind of the same movie.  They're both essentially exercises in solipsism, and both movies are about a neurotic theater director and playwright stuck in a loveless marriage to an icy and self-centered bitch played by Catherine Keener (she really needs to stop playing these roles, lest I ever meet her and find myself unable to resist punching her in the face), struggling to put on a play against various obstacles, both mental and physical.  Both the tone and intent of the two films are entirely different, however.  Hamlet 2 also happens to be the most widely misunderstood movie of the year, both by people who have seen it and those who have not.  Most of the latter category fall into the camp of those who saw the trailer, which included a clip from the play-within-the-movie's signature musical number, "Rock Me Sexy Jesus," and assumed the movie was making fun of Christianity (which it isn't, not remotely).  But even people who saw the movie seem to misinterpret it, and in fact I haven't read a single review that gets what this movie is doing (which is probably why most of the reviews were negative).  And what it's doing is really kind of brilliant.  The movie basically takes place more or less within the protagonist's mind.  Or, to be more accurate, it's the movie that the protagonist, Dana Marschz (played by Steve Coogan) would be making about himself, if he were the one making this very movie.  It never overtly identifies itself as such, but all the clues are right there for anyone paying attention, starting with the fact that Coogan narrates the movie himself, but speaking in the third person and doing his best Jeremy Irons impression (and just in case we can't figure it out, the character himself does a Jeremy Irons impression at the end of the movie).  And then there's the absurdly happy ending, which, good lord, no wonder everyone hated this movie if they thought that it was literally taking place outside of Dana's mind (and when viewed in the way I've described, it most assuredly is not a happy ending).  Just like his mind, the movie itself is frantic, scattershot, almost schizophrenic, and entirely solipsistic.  Indeed, the other characters scarcely even exist.  David Arquette, arguably the most recognizable (to Americans, anyway) member of the cast, shows up and literally does nothing, and says only slightly more.  The students in Dana's high school theater class are little more than talking props, pawns in the conceited wish-fulfillment fantasy that the movie becomes.  So really, the only thing the movie is making fun of is movies about inspirational high school teachers, and, of course, egotistical theater directors (I mean, come on, Dana not only dares to pen a sequel to Hamlet, but he casts himself in the play as Jesus, and not just Jesus, but a sexy Jesus, with "abs that transcend space and time!")  And yes, it's also very, very funny, with more laughs than any other movie I saw all year.  Coogan is like a force of nature in this film, and Dana's embarrassing antics, completely devoid of self-awareness, are at once agonizing and wonderful to behold.  Most remarkably, the film's structure assures that even when the comedy falters (as it does whenever Amy Poehler is on screen, but that's just because Amy Poehler sucks), it's still somehow funny.  And I defy you to walk away from this movie without "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" stuck in your head. 9. Iron Man Hmm, this is starting to look like my 2006 list, which not only contained a Romanian film, but two comic book superhero movies, a DC and a Marvel (and, just like this year, it's the DC movie that comes out on top).  Anyway, Iron Man is pure superhero fun, a dazzling, exhilarating ride with flawless special effects and an even more flawless lead actor.  Robert Downey, Jr. is deservedly receiving much of the credit for the film's success.  He's brilliant, really, portraying Tony Stark as a natural extension of the persona he's been projecting, both on and off screen, for most of his career.  Aside from Downey, what I remember most about the film is its depiction of flight.  This is the first time I've seen a flying character possessing real weight and presence, and gravity being a serious issue.  My only real problem with the movie is that it feels more like a two-hour pilot episode of a TV series than a stand-alone feature film.  It's like a really great appetizer, but it left me hungry for an actual entree.  Hopefully, Iron Man 2 will deliver. 10. Rachel Getting Married I don't have a lot to say about this movie (partly because I basically just wrote nine movie reviews and I'm tired), but it's a pretty exquisite little character study.  At first I resisted it, mentally screaming, "Not another low-budget indie drama with handheld cameras!", but it gradually won me over, thanks in no small part to Anne Hathaway's magnificent performance.  In a decade full of self-important, low-budget indies, this is the real deal, a class act all the way. Honorable Mention The Edge of Heaven Wendy and Lucy So this is a pretty great list of movies, especially compared to last year's, even though the pool of honorable mentions is pretty shallow.  Of course, the year closed out with the usual shitty Oscar-bait fare: Slumdog Millionaire (basically a lame, non-comedic, feature-length remake of that Cheers episode in which Cliff Clavin was on Jeopardy! and all of the categories were things like "The U.S. Postal Service," "Beer," and so forth, crossed with City of God); The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (AKA Forrest Gump Redux); Revolutionary Road (a movie that is to Titanic roughly what The War of the Roses was to Romancing the Stone, except that it takes itself completely seriously instead of being the black comedy that it doesn't know it wants to be); and The Reader (the tragic tale of a Nazi who can't read... the Family Guy parody practically writes itself).  And once again I reject them all.  I did like Frost/Nixon and The Wrestler, even though both movies are pretty routine and formulaic (they just happen to do the formula very well, although I am getting a bit tired of Darren Aronofsky's strange obsession with self-destructive characters). Worst Movies of the Year In Search of a Midnight Kiss Have you ever seen a movie so bad that it shatters your perception of the world, simply because it gets good reviews and you can't possibly fathom how anyone could like it?  I know Crash was that movie for a lot of people, but for me it's In Search of a Midnight Kiss.  I don't even know how to describe how bad this movie is.  Imagine Before Sunrise remade on crappy digital video in pretentious (pretentious precisely because it's video) black and white, transplanted from Vienna to downtown L.A., with actors who cannot act, and you're only halfway there.  Oh, the acting!  Oh, the dialogue!  I literally sat there with my jaw hanging open throughout most of the movie.  I wanted to walk out, and I really don't know why I didn't, except maybe because I just wanted to see how bad it could possibly get.  I can't say I hated every second of this movie, though.  There were small moments when I thought, Ah, this must be where it starts to get good.  But every time this happened, it would go back to being jaw-droppingly awful five seconds later.  And somehow this movie got good reviews.  Not great, mind (if that were the case, I might have killed myself), but good nonetheless.  How could these critics not see how purely, fundamentally bad this movie is?!  There's apparently a new indie movement called Mumblecore, which is basically a cutesy term for a movie made on a video camera by a group of friends with no money with which to make a real movie.  And based on the two Mumblecore movies I saw last year (the other being Baghead), I never want to see another one again.  So fuck you, Alex Holdridge!  You suck!  You're a terrible, terrible filmmaker, and you're clearly going to filmmaker hell! Towelhead Any chance I might ever have watched Six Feet Under was obliterated by this, Alan Ball's first, and hopefully last, movie as a director.  It plays like Welcome to the Dollhouse as remade by Spike Lee, except its depictions of pubescent angst and racism make those of Solondz and Lee, respectively, look like the very essence of subtlety and clear-eyed rationality in comparison.  This movie is excruciatingly bad from the first scene to the last, and is filled wall-to-wall with some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard, words that no one, in this or any other parallel universe, would ever think to say.  As a sample, I offer a line spoken by the protagonist's boyfriend upon learning that another man has manually broken her hymen: "That was my blood, not his!"  And that's not even the worst line in the movie.  So fuck you, Alan Ball!  You're a terrible, terrible filmmaker, and you're clearly going to filmmaker hell! Dishonorable Mention Be Kind Rewind Burn After Reading The Duchess of Langeais Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Mamma Mia! Vantage Point I'm sure there were worse movies than some of these, but I didn't see any of the really vilified movies. (14 Comments |Comment on this)