Groonkly Bits

The weekend is here but I saw GRINDHOUSE on a Monday. I’m just cool like that.

Quick Lesson: A film makes you think. Think about rain forests. Think about culture or why The World turns your shit on its ear, all of that. That’s a film’s job. That’s what it does.

A movie is distraction. You laugh, or you cry, or you kill the bad guys while executing a reverse back flip onto a three-legged horse and ride off with the lady at sunset. That’s their function. They are catharsis taken through the eyes and ears.

Some films are so full of high-minded snootiness that you want to beat them past death with a shit-shovel. Some movies are so blindly idiotic and artless that shit-shovel death would be a mercy. (Folks in The Biz seem to excel at those.) You can mix and match to your leisure, of course, but that’s the visual arts in my nutshell.

Now when we talk about GRINDHOUSE, or PLANET TERROR/DEATH PROOF, we’re talking full-on movie loving from the heart and crotch(in that special tickle sort of way). It’s a tribute to all the crappy movies that managed to inspire.

GRINDHOUSE is the funnest movie I’ve seen this year.

PLANET TERROR/DEATH PROOF
I went into GRINDHOUSE as sure as satan it would be my first love. The theatrical trailer already had me crushing on it hard. PLANET TERROR appealed to my inner 12 year old. You know the one. He’s the kid that wants to blow shit up, ride motorcycles and kill zombies until early morning. Zombies, GoGo Girls, lesbian love affairs and badass zombie killers is what I expected and it’s damn well what I got!

At the same time PLANET TERROR was disappointing. In all the mayhem carnage and, perfectly timed, off-screen sex it managed to fall a few points short of perfect. I’m sure to buy the DVD and gush to friends, strangers, whoever will listen about PT’s awesomeness. But my inner 12 year old movie lover was, if only slightly, let down.

Having said that: GoGo Girl with assault rifle leg. Fuck yeah!

The Best Trailer for a Movie that(Probably) Won’t Get Made: DON’T
Edgar Wright is genius.

PLANET TERROR/DEATH PROOF
Quentin Tarantino has this innate ability to shoot actors and actresses in the height of repose and make that shot the damn most interesting thing on the screen. The fact that DEATH PROOF had the finest women ever assembled in his movie didn’t hurt in the least. An Engineer once told me that was because QT has style.

He’s not wrong.

DEATH PROOF was a bit talky but it made my inner 16 year old, the gearhead that loves superfine ladies with attitude, giggle and squeee. It was a very manly giggle and squee. Trust me.

I hear the MPAA forced RR and QT to make cuts to the racier bits of their movies and that both directors couldn’t be happier about that. I’m sure you’ve heard, ad nausem, that grindhouses of old had missing bits of film. Teenage projectionists would cut out the naughtier bits for more personal viewings. The MPAA played right into the spirit of the grindhouse. The directors made the cuts to humorous and frustrating effect. I guess that makes MPAA screeners no better than horny teenagers who take all the good porn for themselves. The selfish bastards.

PLANET TERROR/DEATH PROOF may not have the box office gross(currently) but they are films you WANT to see. If you like fun, carnage, and sex you need to see GRINDHOUSE. If you’re under 18, you need a parent or guardian to watch GRINDHOUSE with you. Sorry, kids. You’re minds are too weak for melting balls, the sexiest non-stripper lap dance ever (possibly)filmed, and muscle cars wrecked at the speed of insanity. You’re just not old enough to handle that type of fun alone.

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Do you know what a Humanist is? I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We Humanists try to behave well without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.

We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, “Isaac is up in Heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in Heaven now.” That’s my favorite joke.
–Kurt Vonnegut

Thanks, Boingboing.

More things Kurt Vonnegut said better than anyone else.

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When the internet tells me that my not having sex is a “good thing.” I know I’ve crossed into the mirror-verse where Pepsi is greater than Coke and goatees are the requirement and not some yet-to-die facial hair fad.

*I’m not doing a graphic for their this because of time and their noise is blatantly retarded.

(found@warrenellies.com)

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The artist is, in effect, a sort of gangster. He hitches up his trousers and goes into the guarded bank of the unconscious in an attempt to steal the gold of inspiration. The producer is like the getaway driver who sells the getaway car and waits outside the bank grinning about what a great deal he’s made.
— David Mamet

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I took a gander at the Geraldo Rivera vs Bill O’Reilly drunk driving debate to kill precious time. It ended up filling my heart with blind hate and disdain for showboating, loudmouthed psycho people.

FOX News is the wacky cartoon show inside a Flinstone episode. Pointless, useless, and so far from any kind of journalism it’s a parody of decency.

Yet somehow, deep wthin this laughable villain lay newshounds.tv. Their main purpose in weblife is: “We watch FOX so you don’t have to.” I was sure that was what THE DAILY SHOW and THE COLBERT REPORT were for.

I may have to re-think my position on silver linings hiding inside clouds.

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A 58-year-old software engineer is set to become the fifth ever space tourist when he blasts off on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft this Saturday.

Billionaire Charles Simonyi, who led development of Microsoft’s Word, will lift off from Kazakhstan at 1731 GMT.

The $20m ride will make him the 450th person to enter orbit and by his own admission “the first nerd in space”.

[…]

Once on the space station, Dr Simonyi will carry out a series of experiments including measuring the amount of radiation that he is exposed to while onboard the ISS.

The aim is to help to generate an accurate map of the radiation environment onboard the space station.

He will also be updating his website, charlesinspace.com, and taking time to gaze down on the planet.

There was a time that being an astronaut was all I could think about. This is after the time that I wanted to be a palentologist. I ignored the fact that I lacked the proper math skills, no matter how hard I studied and tried to improve them, and pushed forward with this idea/dream. Years passed, and it slowly became apparent that I would never reach this goal. Painfully apparent, in fact.

Thoughts of bouncing around weightless in low orbit gave way to thoughts on how the fuck was I going to make a living on Earth. Which, I suppose, will be the only way that I’ll ever reach the top of the world. I’ll have to pay for it like a common John. A super-rich common John.

These days I feel bad that Lance Bass never got the chance to go up with the Russians. It would have been one hell of an experience and would have validated untalented space nerds everywhere.

Now I think I’ll transfer my hope onto the winning pony. Charles Simonyi, I’ve got my eye on you, you rich bastard. Share everything you experience so that we can live the life, too. I know you have the means to type-up your words, you help invent Microsoft Word.

There’s a slim chance in hell us less-than-wealthy geeks will have the space experience. Virgin’s first Galactic Spaceport ride is scheduled for 2008(as of an article dated 2005). Maybe by then, I can afford my one ticket to ride.

No Comments | In: Hero of the week | | #

Sweet zombie jesus, what did I just see?! Did I see a Frank Miller comic brilliantly adapted for the screen? Again? Did I see the unrelenting totality of Frank Miller’s ideas translated to silver screen better than Rodriguez’s SIN CITY? Surely, I didn’t. It had to be a trick of the light.

Fuck me, I did.

Zack Snyder made the often clumsy spoken-dialogue work. Yet it still sounded like things Frank Miller would say/write. 300 was beautifully shot and rendered. The B story involving Leonidas’ wife even played beautifully. It blended nicely with the battle scenes and keep us audience folk from getting “battle weary.”

And goddamn the flick simply kicked all sorts of ass!

…

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I am returned.

18) Declare your apartment an independent nation, and sue your neighbors upstairs for “violating your airspace”
26) Finish all your sentences with the words “in accordance with prophecy”
58) Repeat everything someone says, as a question
—101 ways to be annoying

I’m 34% more annoying and I’m working hard on #18.

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