Movie Ramblings

[thehefner]

Our house has become infested with stink bugs.

I just put eight outside in the last few minutes. When I caught a funny scent on my fingers, I said, "Hey Edd, smell this, I think I got sprayed." After a diligent, rather curious sniff, he instantly recoiled with, "AW GOD! IT'S LIKE BAD CUCUMBERS!"

Hopefully our infestation of spiders will take care of them.


So onto movie stuff.

I finally saw DOUBLE INDEMNITY last night, with my brother Edd. He was just going to watch a bit, then go back to working on the mosaic. We were glued to the screen for the next couple hours. Fucking great classic film noir, and I'm ashamed to have seen it only yesterday.

It was followed on HBO by BRICK, which is a bloody perfect double-feature. Maybe it's just that I generally hate teenagers and teenage culture with the fiery burning passion of a thousand flaming Hot Topics and GAPs, but BRICK had no right to be as good as it was. It should not have worked in a million years, and yet it absolutely, totally did. In my opinion, the keystone scene was the moment with the Pin's mother. If it weren't for that scene, I think the whole film would have prolapsed into its own dour self-seriousness. As it was, that perfectly played scene took the piss out just enough, while never winking at the camera once. Perfect.

Also, it features HEROES' Nora Zehetner, who is as hot as she is vapid, devoid of charisma, and not so much "terrible" as much as "lame."


So they're remaking NEAR DARK. Fucking hell. If you haven't seen it, do. It's one of the very few vampire movies I love*, and it features Lance Henricksen, Jenette Goldstein, and Bill Paxton (who's awesome as the psycho main vampire thug)! Yes, Bishop, Vasquez, and Hudson (see icon), reunited as western vampires by the lady who did POINT BREAK! What's not to love?


I showed my Mom John Carpenter's THE THING. Yes, I am proud of myself. Still my favorite horror movie of all time. Incidentally, I'm watching ICEMAN (No, not Bobby Drake! Nor Eugene O'Neill! The caveman movie!) right now, which was filmed about three years, and I keep waiting for the Thing to burst out and attack the caveman. Possibly out of Timothy Hutton's afro

Speaking of ICEMAN, can someone please find John Lone work? The man was fantastic in THE LAST EMPEROR, YEAR OF THE DRAGON... hell, even THE SHADOW! What's he being wasted on these days? WAR? RUSH HOUR 2? Crimminy. Couldn't Jon Faverau have at least gotten him to play that other classic "Yellow Peril" villain, the Mandarin, for the IRON MAN movie?

(and seriously, who the hell IS playing the Mandarin? That whole plot point has been kept pretty hush-hush)


Which reminds me: Even Jackie Chan doesn't like his American movies. Apparently, he never understood why the hell anybody would laugh at them, nor does he understand Amercian humor, and just did it for the freaky huge paycheks. He also says that his upcoming film with Jet Li really isn't good either.

I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, he's absolutely right in his opinion of the RUSH HOUR films. On the other hand... well, CHUD.com's Nick Nunziata got me thinking about this in his editorial, "Fuck You, Jackie Chan."


Speaking of CHUD.com, my love-hate relationship with Devin Faraci has struck again, this time in the form of his BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT review. Not only does he admit to never liking BLADE RUNNER (which I don't hold against him; I have a whole list of universally beloved thing I just do not get), his remarks on the death of a certain character--not going to spoil it, but let me just say that it's modern classic sci-fi scene--reminded me why this opinionated hobbit gets on my nerves sometimes:

The crystal example of this is the death of ________ - a moment so over the top and overwrought that even in my most angsty teenage years I couldn't embrace it. His speech is nonsense, all pretty word sci-fi signifiers that mean absolutely nothing whatsoever (the Tannhauser gate? You're just stringing syllables together here) , until he gets to the cloying finale: "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." Like, because he's crying... and it's raining! I heard a similar sentiment once expressed on an episode of Mork & Mindy where an upset Mindy took a walk in the rain because no one could see her crying. There's about the same level of profundity at play here, except that he releases a dove that he got from who the fuck knows where. I hope to have the foresight to be so symbolic at the time of my passing.

Granted, I of all people probably shouldn't throw stones at someone for being so picky and critical... and I suppose he's right, in a sense... but really, that death is one of my favorite in all of films. I think it really works, and who cares if they're nonsense words? It's sci-fi poetry! Or maybe I'm just sucked in by the Vangelis music and the man-god that is... er, the actor in question.


Okay, this post is ass-long as it is. I'll stop here for now, as I think the stuff from the Onion's A.V. Club recently deserves a post of their own.



*I really, really, really, really hate vampires. Like, to the extent that I almost want them to be real, just to justify how much I hate them. (I think Joss Whedon has admitted to feeling the same way about God) I don't even hate them enough to want to be a vampire hunter, I just hate them, period. God damn angsting, smug, superior, whiny, arrogant, evil, sociopathic, selfish parasites. They're like a combo of zombies and body snatchers with added self-satisfaction and frilly shirts.

Comments

[pokeyburro.livejournal.com]

From hate comes pain. From pain comes art. I think you should write about anti-vampire vampires. Well-adjusted, humble, self-aware, gregarious vampires, trying to make their community work in a world (in an outpost! on the edge of space!) that doesn't understand them. Perhaps even protecting that world from greater evil, or from itself. I think it would sell. Oh yes.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

You... may be on to something there.

Yes indeedy. Hmmm.