Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Since this is nominally a movie blog

Lemme give high props to my brithday boys, and break it down, Houx Style, the Oscars. Every category - like an SAT test - can be broken down usually to two choices. Here's how I see it playing out.

Best Picture:
Crash vs. Brokeback Mountain - EDGE: Brokeback Mountain
Best Director:
Ang Lee vs.... Paul Haggis I guess - EDGE Ang 'Motherfucking' Lee
Best Actor:
Phillip Seymour Hoffman vs. Heath Ledger - EDGE: Me.
Best Actress:
Reese Witherspoon vs. Felicity Huffman - EDGE: Witherspoon. (note: I have a friend who thinks the Weinsteins can pull it off for Huffman. My guess is that Witherspoon is just more cinematic a choice, and Transamerica seems so forgetable)
Best Supporting actor:
Paul Giamatti vs. George Clooney vs. Jake Gyllenhal- EDGE: George Clooney (note: Peeps want it to be Giamatti, but George Clooney got four nominations this year, and this seems the best category he could win. Also, I feel like if the cards get played right there could be some extra BM love, still, I think it's Clooney's)
Best Supporting Actress:
Michelle Williams vs. Rachel Weisz - EDGE: Weisz [by a cunt hair] (seriously, BM's got the top two locked, but I think it's possible an actor win will come down the pike)
Best Original Screenplay:
Good Night and Good Luck vs. Crash - EDGE: Crash (this is another close one, it could be Clooney's, but Crash needs it's good dog reward. Hrm.)
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Brokeback Mountain vs. Brokeback Mountain - NO EDGE.... LOCK LOCK LOCK LOCK

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

LIVEBLOGGING: JOYSTICKS

10:41 - Three minutes in, a classic. Opening lame montage to theme song about Video Games, and then gratuitous nudity. Keep drinking, this film may lose its master status.

10:44 - Is this the backstage intruige of how an arcade is run? All those years playing at nickel arcades ignorant of how randy running a quarter joint makes a lady... damn.

10:46 - Pac Man transition! Goofy Monk!

10:47 Fat dude addicted to Pac-Man. Greydon Clark once compared this sequence to the end murders in The Godfather.

10:49 - The Fat man sneezed on a hot dog, and threw it in a girl's cleavage. This sequence recalls the cut scene from Sherlock Jr. in which Buster Keaton accidentally felated a banana.

1o:51 Lazlo Hollfield, Mitchell and Cruiser sharing a frame? Mirrors within mirrors.

10:52 - The fat man farted. God is good and just.

10:59 - Stip video games. Nuff said.

11:00- The great song "Shake it around" with lyrics such as "Shake it around, shake it around, yo baby, yo baby, yo baby... Shake it around, shake it around."

11:01 - Corrine Behrer, how I long for you.

11:05 - The plot machinations have hit their stride - Bufford Pusser is planning to bust up our heroes' arcade. How dare you, Bufford!

11:08 - The geek character is being raped by a sleeping woman... yeah. BY JOE DON BAKER'S WIFE!

11: 16 - Having defeated the sidekicks to Mr. Walking Tall, it's time to Par Tay.

11:17 - In PJ's.

11:18- It's a game of SATAN'S HOLLOW. A game which makes no sense.

11:28 - Blackmail plans to stop Pusser have not yeilded hoped for results. Curses!

11:30 - King Vidiot and Mitchell are plotting to overthrow the arcade!

11:36- the jerking off/joysticks parallel has been made. Thank goodness that was made clear.

11:37 - Mudfight Catfight.

11:44- A final game off! Yes!

11:48 - The hero's fear of videogames is because of a sexual disfunction!

11:51 - Training montage!

11:52 - The tense final game off! Fucking flashbacks!

11:55 - More men being raped, An old man being seduced by Space Invaders.

11:59"Face your fears, play video games!"

12:01 Other brother Darryl! Fears faced! The only possible cherry on top would be gratuitous nudity!

12:02 - Grandpa's back! So's the chick the MC boned!

12:03 - Nerds need to get laid! Recall to sleeping woman into music to fade out credits! And we're good.

"Men forgive women's taste like women forgive men's cleanliness"

Said Q at lunch today. I think it's a half truism, but it rings true in some ways to me.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Thursday, January 19, 2006

GET CRUNK, GET BUCK



Boxes/"Because I have a penis"

We found a place up the street from where I live. I'm happy with it, but my commute's the same. I'm hoping Aili's cool with it, but all the places we looked at in Burbank were just too flavorless. Then again, Burbank. And so I have twelve days to get all my possissions in boxes yet again, and move less than four blocks. Aili's got two months to burn on her old place and so she gets to be more relaxed about it, but here I am again, staring at blank walls and boxes upon boxes of DVD's. And a slightly annoyed cat.

Speaking of, we have our first "quiet storm" fight where she was talking about money and how she ahd no problem paying for this or that when it came to our new place, and I got really huffity about it. I took me a couple moments to figure out why, and - as I told her - it's because I have a penis. There's just some things a man wants to do, primitive as it may seem, and I like to provide a little for my lady. And this is something that's magnified by our current situation. So I'm going to try to provide what I can for rent and stuff without putting myself in debt just to prove that I can get a hard-on. Or that I'm more than just one.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Larry Wachowski is one Sex Partner away from "The Dude with the Pussy(cat)"

And I say I find his desire to be a bottom in BDSM games and turn himself into a woman is strange. I say I don't understand such extreme masochism.

And then I go around and request 2005's THE MAN from the DVD Journal. These things do not equate. Because actively wanting to watch THE MAN seems about as painful as getting pins stuck in your genitals, but maybe that's just me.

Seriously, Tom Jones...

has become the John Tyler of Oscar Winners. I looked up John Tyler to make this joke, and my penis died while reading his biography. MY PENIS IS DEAD.

People who are going to burn in hell and die

Big Baby (2006)

Directed by Raja Gosnell

Writing credits:
Gregg Lichtenstein
Adam Mazer

Genre: Comedy / Romance

Plot Outline: Ignoring his wife's wish to have a baby, a workaholic husband is cursed with a power that causes him to behave like an infant.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

I like writing about Sam Peckinpah

The new reviews are bold, but I thought I'd collect my Peckingpah writings:
Bring me the Head of Afredo Garcia
The Getaway!
The Osterman Weekend
Pat Garrett And Billy the Kid
Ride the High Country
Straw Dogs

Right there, that's almost half of his filmography. Oh and this:
Seven Men From Now

Saturday, January 14, 2006

There's got to be a morning after...

Shelley Winters died, and I just saw The Posiedon Adventure for the first time this week, not an odd confluence at all, but it means I'll probably forever connect the two.

Friday, January 13, 2006

We're all "Sensitive People," with so much to give. Understand me, sugar?

I spent a good two hours on the dance floor tonight. God damn did I miss it. Since I was driving, I let my lass lap me boozewise, and by about nine whatever European shyness she had wore off and we hit the floor. Aili started very body conscious, and honestly it bugged me. It's the worst thing white people can do while on the dance floor, the sort of ironic movements that bespeak a body unwilling to give in to the carnal pleasures of shaking a tail feather. But she wore down. And so did the DJ, who started with such aight cuts as Devo's "Satisfaction" and Gary Numan's "Cars," which made me almsot forgive my wife's sluggishness, but she was saved when "Brick House" hit, and both she and I started to get into the groove.

Now, when I dance I sweat, and tend to sweat hard after a good thirty or forty minutes on the dance floor. But I can't leave the floor for much more than a pee break if the cuts keep coming, and I will run out of the bathroom parts-a-hanging if I hear me some Prince. I took a song break to get a beer, and then heard Erotic City, which forced me to chug it as quick as I could (thankfully it was a Pabst, the watery beer) and hit the floor as I tried to tastefully belch as a result of the quick consumption.

By eleven, I was soaked, and Aili was looking at me like I was crazy to still be there. I think we were both damp at that point. Ahem. But The Rolling Stone's "Miss You" hit and I had to keep going, which is a better dance song than I thought - there's such a great predatory sexuality to it. Thankfully some Madonna made our exit palatable, and in the car we couldn't keep our hands off each other. I'm just glad we made it to her place safe. I'm just out of the shower, and my body is pleasently sore. Time to get some sleep, but thank god for dancing.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Of a Lolitian Age

There is a Mexican place across the way from where I'm working. I like their food in that way where it's as much that I go there because it's close as it is anything. As I was walking back to work, two girls of undetermined age (somewhere between 12-15) saddled up near me. Talking loud in that way teenaged girls do. One asked for a piggyback ride to finish getting across the street. Then I had another street to cross. "Push the button, you little slut." I mentioned that I already pushed it. Girls doing what girls do to draw attention to themselves. I look at them. They are very very young. Before I moved here a friend I used to work with described the "Thirteen" phenom as if it were something to be afraid of. Am I too old or too young to look at these girls with anything but a mixture of amusement and melancholly?

Sunday, January 08, 2006

I need a hero!

The Bad Sleep Well
The Valachi Papers

Apartment hunting weekend with the wife. I'm so tired I'm just trying to drag through the day. I'm getting pretty good at making Bloody Mary's, though.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Whiskey and Beer.. Steers and Queers

After a trip back to Portland, I have decided I want to become the absolute master of the Bloody Mary. It's fruity enough to be tasty and manly enough not to be a girl drink. Over the New Year's Eve weekend, I bought some vodka and some Hot and Spicy V-8, but tonight I got Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, good pepper, some Stolichnaya, and some sodium free V-8. I need to get some celery, some celery salt, some Horseradish sauce, and maybe some olives. This is a change for me, as I tended to be a whiskey drinker, and mostly a beer drinker.

The Wedding Crashers, the problems are more evident with multiple viewings. Still, I love on the Vaughn in this.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Ralph's, Rock and Roll

I was on Sunset on Monday, and I couldn't not reflect on something that happened a couple months back. I was visiting a friend, and wanted to get some beers before I went home. I grabbed a sixer of Newcastle and a sixer of Grolsch, not sure what would wet my whistle before I got home, and looking at a weekend of reviewing. I also grabbed some diet Pepsi, as is my want. I then started looking for some food for the next day. While in the aisle, I hear a woman getting in a fight on her cell phone, saying she doesn't want to go see The New Pornographers with some guy because he knows what he'll think. She hits the freezer door as she hangs up.

I couldn't help myself: "Too bad about the show, they're great live." She looked at me, shook her head and laughed. "I'm getting hit on by Phillip Seymour Hoffman at Ralph's. Great." that sort of brokethe ice as I waxed on a bitabout how I'm not PSH and how I love the New Pron. "A coworker. I don't date coworkers. It always ends bad." I couldn't help but ask about her accent. Somehow the conversation turned to Cronenberg, and I told her how excited I was to see A History of Violence. I shocked myself by exchanging digits. And so it began.

The Erratic Thriller pull quote for XXX: State of the Union

"Watching XXX: State of the Union is like having a great threesome with fat twins. There may be some guilt, but once you get over that, it's a hell of a ride."

Sunday, January 01, 2006

2005 - the end of impartiality

As I reflect, that's the biggest change. I know people now almost too well to sayI don't have biases born of friendships. 2005 was a fairly decent year, too, did lots of crazy stuff, though the winner in that category is still getting married. For that last night was a fucking blast. Aili let me drive, and she got all girl drink drunk with my friends, and for the first time I got the sense that she was relaxed around my friends - hell, she's normally not that relaxed around me. We got home around three and had drinks until the sun came out on a very cloudy morning. Aili's decided to quit smoking, and we sat on her deck out back, I enjoyed a cigar, she her final cigarette. Then we had sex and she decided she deserved another cigarette. This is going to be hard.

Reviews

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Vol.4
The Cave
The Dark Corner
Four Brothers


Honestly, it's like my day's begining right now. I woke up at two, and there you go.