November 2010
57 posts
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DECEM-BEARD: the preamble
So, on November 30th 2010, at 2:00pm EST, the Decem-beard officially commenced.
What is the Decem-beard you ask? It is when me and my band shave off any and all facial hair on/around December 1st and then do not shave at all for the entirety of December. Whosoever has the best (re: fullest) beard at the end of the month is declared the winner. I have, in the past held the lead for the majority of...
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My Year In Movies #136: Hero
So, I saw this is in theatres when it was released in America, and I quite liked it then. I was always lukewarm on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but for some reason, I connected much more with this film. As it stands now, I still quite enjoy it. The usage of color I feel is especially beautiful, each scene given its own color scheme, on a costuming level AND in the general pallor of the...
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This is my song for today. Hooray for me!
Anonymous asked: Do you have a favorite new MCR song? What are your thoughts on the new album?
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My Year In Movies #135: M
What an astonishing work of cinema. Fritz Lang’s first “talkie” is so pitch-perfect in the way it is executed, so amazing in its framing and structure. And, apparently, one of the first films to adopt the opera technique of the musical leitmotif; in this case, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” used to signify the presence of the serial killer. Simply wonderful...
hey, uh, ask me some shit. I'm bored. →
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My Year In Movies #134: Casino
Like Goodfellas, this is another Scorcese movie based on a true rise and fall in the area of organized crime. Unlike the previous film though, Casino has less of a through-line. I feel like it suffers a bit in that area, as there’s no Henry Hill to feel alternately pity and revulsion for. What it DOES have is a sense of the operatic. Everything in the film feels big, from the setting to...
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My Year In Movies #133: Chocolate
I’m not sure what kind of movie this was trying to be, as the tone was all over the fuck place, including some very tense drama, very goofy comedy, an animated sequence, and lots and LOTS of fighting. But see, that’s what made it pretty cool: the fight choreography was outstanding, and never really got repetitive or boring. Weird movie, but fun.
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My Year In Movies #132: Close Encounters of the...
This movie scared the dickens out of me when I was a kid. Seriously, between this and ET, I had nightmares for years. I already probably read way more alien abduction books when I was young than I should have, and this just gave me visuals to draw from to fuel my imagination with spindly limbed, big eyed, and EVIL aliens. And look, how wrong I was. This movie isn’t supposed to be scary...
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My Year In Movies #131: Grant Morrison: Talking...
Grant Morrison is my favorite comics writer. He’s behind some of my favorite works ever, including The Invisibles, All Star Superman, The Doom Patrol, Flex Mentallo, and his current run on the Batman titles at DC. So, of course, this documentary was on my radar from the moment it was first announced. Or actually, from the first time the director, Patrick Meaney, mentioned it on his blog....
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This ain’t a party, get off the dancefloor!
...
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My Year In Movies #130: Where The Buffalo Roam
I’m a bit of a Hunter Thompson enthusiast, so I’d put off seeing this for a while, as I’d not heard good things. And to be honest, what I heard was pretty fair. As an example of who HST is/was, it’s not very good. In reality, it’s mostly bullshit. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by how great Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas is, I don’t know. But still, Bill...
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My Year In Movies #129: Tokyo Gore Police
For fuck’s sake, Japan, what the hell? I thought Machine Girl was ridiculous enough, and then you give me THIS?
Seriously, there’s over-the-top gore and violence and weird sex stuff and body modification and god knows what else going on in this. It’s like the older Peter Jackson films, but with access to bad CG and dosed up with a liberal amount of Japanese crazy.
I mean, if...
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My Year In Movies #128: Tombstone
What a badass movie. Seriously, it shouldn’t work, it should be a mess of a film, but somehow, Tombstone comes together to be pure western greatness. And I can probably put it down entirely to the cast, as they are uniformly excellent. Val Kilmer RULES IT in this as Doc Holliday, and Kurt Russell brings the righteous fury as Wyatt Earp. I really like how the entire film builds to this...
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How I Became Invisible. “Lucky”,...
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My Year In Movies #127: Red Cliff
The word “epic” gets thrown around a lot these days (especially by me [and my band]), but seriously, this movie is pretty much the definitive version of EPIC. Everything about it is larger than life, and BONUS: it’s all true. Well, the story is. Maybe some of the individual fighting details were a bit… accentuated. But still, goddamn. I saw a lot of the influence of Lord...
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My Year In Movies #126: The Good, The Bad, The...
For some reason, this movie reminded me a lot of Spielberg’s more adventure-style films, especially Raiders Of The Lost Ark. The color palette, the use of long tracking shots, the very use of the frame, all reminiscent of the ’80s classic. But don’t let that fool you: this movie is very good on its own merits. The mix of Asian cinema tropes with American western ones works very...
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My Year In Movies #125: Apocalypse Now Redux
What can be said about this film that hasn’t been said by others both smarter and better than I? It’s a masterpiece, the visuals just overwhelming you as you get dragged into this horrific depiction of war and entrenchment. I love the hell out of Robert Duvall in this especially; he goddamn owns every frame of film he appears in. Amazing fucking movie that NEEDS to be seen by...
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My Year In Movies #124: Shiri
I’ll admit I wasn’t paying attention to this movie throughout it’s entire run time, but it was pretty good. A very well-made and interesting Korean espionage thriller, it has some neat twists and turns in the plot, and the action scenes are all pretty high strung and excellent. Good times.
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My Year In Movies #123: Machine Girl
“From the makers of Death Trance” was enough to pique my interest. The opening scene, with all the weird CGI blood and decapitations, and the knife play, and the girl with the Gatling gun arm, and the straight up weirdness, was enough to hook me. And then the rest of the movie happened, and it was just as crazy. Things happened without any real motivation or connection to what...
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My Year In Movies #122: Scott Pilgrim vs The World...
YES, I still love the shit out of this film.
Also: THIS.
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My Year In Movies #121: The Manitou
This movie is so entertainingly bad, I’m not even sure I can put it to words.
It took THREE people to write this monstrosity. THREE people. It is so boring, so goddamn boring, yet it’s shot very professionally (in fact, the picture quality is similar to, of all things, Jaws), with a few name actors, and some pretty neat production tricks. But it is all completely derailed by the...
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My Year In Movies #120: The Men Who Stare At Goats
I can’t really say this movie was any good. It was kind of a mess script-wise, and the direction was kind of boring and pedestrian. In addition, the story itself was just too… I don’t know, “weird” isn’t right, but it tried to stake this territory between reality and goofy fiction that just didn’t work. It was almost saved though, by the cast of actors...
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My Year In Movies #119: Zombieland
Well this was a fun little movie. Like the action film cousin to Shaun of the Dead almost. While it’s certainly not too deep or thematically resonant, it has a lot of light-hearted goofiness to it that is definitely in its favor. Woody Harrelson is especially a lot of fun. The direction had verve and motion to it, which I liked a lot, and while the script isn’t super groundbreaking,...
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So HERE’s a song that was never officially...
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My Year In Movies #118: Batman (1989)
Despite my misgivings to Tim Burton as a director now, he did have quite a run at one point, including this film. I already talked about his sequel, and my problems with it, earlier in the year, but I’ll be honest: this movie is still a lot of fun. Yes, I have some issues with it, mostly revolving around the origins of the respective main characters, and Michael Keaton doesn’t make...
A list without context
Zen
Bother?
Kiss
Funeral
Unnoticed
Mr.
Balloon
Crawl
Mars?
Around
WHAT COULD THIS ALL MEAN?
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As promised, here is the full-band version of...