Thought I'd post this little ditty as a belated holiday greeting. This wasn't done by my hands mind you, but still worth noting that this was prepared for someone I know by an old lady at a certain fine eatery. Suffice to say, this was a written request that said someone had made. That it was done and recorded for posterity is my special present to you, my dear readers:
Like the cake says...
TV: "The Shield": Along with The Wire, one of the better exits for a TV show this year (if not ever). Among the highlights: one horrifying resolution to a main character's torment (probably the most bone-chilling scene of TV I've witnessed in a looong time), one betrayal, a couple of loose ends wrapped up, and corrupt cop Vic Mackey getting sent to his own personal purgatory. If that isn't vague, allow me to paraphrase an old quote: "God often punishes us by giving us exactly what we want."
"A Colbert Christmas": A Christmas special that doesn't make me want to drench myself in gasoline.
"24: Redemption": A nice primer for this January. And not many shows can claim to have the Midnight Cowboy, the Candyman, and Begbie from Trainspotting in one show.
MUSIC: The Killers, Day and Age: Enjoying this one so far.
Kanye West, 808s and Heartbreak: Too much Auto-Tune vocal mischief here, but not unlistenable.
DVD: "Hancock": Two movies that are unfortunately sandwiched into one, and unfortunately, both together don't work. A slight dissapointment, even with the image of a man's head up another man's ass.
TV: "The Shield": Still one episode to go in the series, and boy it still has me wondering what will happen. After one or two OMG moments this week, there was still my favorite moment of TV in a long time: corrupt cop Vic Mackey's confession of ALL his crimes (among them, the murder of a fellow cop). The sinker line (regarding the audio recorder during this confession): "How much memory does that thing got?"
"South Park": A spotty string of episodes ends with Goth kids, fake vampire kids (obviously a rip to those damned Twilight books), and the torching of a Hot Topic. Good times.
VIDEO: "Wall-E": One of the best animated movies I've seen in a long time. Slapstick comedy, a love story, and a sci-fi story all bunched into one solid film.
"Tropic Thunder": My favorite comedy this year (even if it is on the salty side). A nice poke at Hollywood, war movies, and actors (and god knows they deserve it).
DVD: "Forgetting Sarah Marshall": Sunny vacation spot, a puppet musical, a wince-inducing break up, and frontal male nudity? Sign me up! (long pause to rethink previous statement) Um, not so much for the male nudity, but the rest is OK.
"Iron Man": I had an idea to run around in a metallic super suit with lasers coming out of it...until some rich sicko did it first. One of the better comic book films ever made.
"L.A. Confidential": Just rewatching one of my favorite films ever. I saw this in theaters when it first came out, and its still a personal favorite.
TV: "South Park": Indiana Jones being raped, offensive Chinese stereotypes, and men being shot in the mommy/daddy button. Well, I can say I didn't expect to see ALL of that in a half-hour before now.
MUSIC: Lewis Black, "Anticpiation": Angry rambling brought to comic brilliance.
Nickelback, "Gotta Be Somebody": Peppy, and sure to irritate me six months from now, when it's played to death on the radio and everywhere else.
Man, I'm a wee bit bummed out right now. I just discovered one of my favorite actors ever, Paul Newman just died from cancer. It's strange, remembering how I saw Cool Hand Luke in high school, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Color of Money on TV while in middle high, and then being surprised how he still was able to be potent in late-bloomers as Empire Falls, Road to Perdition (still one of the best looking movies of this decade, IMHO), and even playing a talking roadster in Cars.
What still shocks me in retrospect is that I can't claim to have seem a bad movie from him (and yes, this list includes The Towering Inferno). It's rare to see an actor make his own way in an industry that seems only locked on satisfying the lowest common denominator, and still contribute outside of Hollywood. I recall hearing him discuss retiring from Hollywood last year (even though he was planning to direct a stage play prior to his cancer treatment), and felt how much I'll miss seeing ol' Butch Cassidy again on the big screen. But man, what he left behind...
Well, as mentioned previously, my plans for a summer vacation went sideways. Then I had to spend a good part of this week without Internet, and guess what happens when I get it back? I find out that Bernie Mac is dead. As much as I love the Ocean's films, I still remember the great stand-up set he did in The Original Kings of Comedy film. A great blend of real-life drama and observational humor there that should be examined by scientists.
I would post a clip of it online, but am concerned about getting dropped for the frequent uses of the word "m*****f*****" in ANY of those clips. However, I did find one clip worth posting with little problem: his appearance in the "Hood" parody flick Don't be a Menace In South Central While Drinking Your Juice in The Hood as a self-hating black cop. We'll miss ya, man...
A list of the stimuli keeping me occupied this week:
MOVIES: "Hellboy 2": Liked the first movie, LOVED this follow-up. Never before has being a pile of gas (Johann Kraus) seemed so cool as it does here (even if it does sound like Brian from Family Guy's German cousin). Plus, who wouldn't want a giant right hand of Doom (I know I would)?
MUSIC: Beck, Modern Times: Just started listening to this one.
COMING ATTRACTIONS: "Terminator Salvation": The current Batman becomes John Connor...and that's all I know. Until next summer. That and there's a giant Terminator. Shit.
"Watchmen": Saw this trailer online before it showed up in front of "The Dark Knight" (speaking of which, I should be seeing that later today), and been watching it obsessively ever since. One of my favorite books seems to look like a great movie? Holy crapola! I'm waiting to watch Rorscrach (the dude with a trench coat and face mask for ye who doesn't know) run around in slow motion in eight months...
DVD: "The Ruins": A horror film this year that's actually scary? Wow, color me a shade of surprised. Featuring one of the nastier and cringe-inducing amputations ever committed to film. It's kinda like The Happening, but good.
"Dr. Strangelove": Finally got this on DVD. One of my personal favorites, even if it is about nuclear armageddon. It also shows how unstable our leaders could actually be. Case in point:
MUSIC: Coldplay, Viva La Vida: Pretty good album. Picked it up on iTunes and got a piano-centric version of "Lost" as an extra. Nice!
Patton Oswalt, Werewolves and Lollipops: Funny Funny Funny!
GAMES: "Grand Theft Auto IV": A near-brilliant piece of adult-oriented video gaming.
A brief list of my current nuggets of fulfillment:
DVD: "Dirty Harry Ultimate Collector's Set": This I file under "guilty pleasures". Something about watching Clint Eastwood killing bad guys with a mammoth hand cannon makes a wimpy dude like me happy.
TV: "Lost": Moving an island? Locke in a coffin? Sweet Lord, when will the questions end? Oh wait, in two more seasons. I forgot.
"Battlestar Galactica": Man, I'm starting to get a bit weepy that this is the last season now (and this week's spectacular episode didn't lessen the blow either). "About time". Ah man, now I need some tissues...
MUSIC: Weezer, The Red Album: Me liketh the nerd-rock!
Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple: Nothing says offbeat hip-hop like these cats.
BOOKS: Pride of Baghdad, Brian K Vaughan and Niko Henrichon: A powerful and ultimately heartbreaking story (from one of the writers of Lost and based on an actual event) of a pack of lions who escape their zoo in Baghdad during the end of Saddam's reign. Sure its a comic book (a long-form one to be sure), but its definitely worth checking out for those non-comic fans who want something more challenging than superheroes beating each other senseless. Among my favorite books of the year.
Here's a little list of my current earphone stimuli:
Arcade Fire, Neon Bible: My favorite album of last year, still in rotation.
Black Mountain, In The Future: Solid rock album in the tradition of Queens of the Stone Age and Rush (if that makes sense at all...).
Bear McCreary, Battlestar Galactica Season 3 soundtrack: One of my favorite music scores on television, and with the reworking of a Bob Dylan tune no less!
Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs: Really good album here.
Foo Fighters, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace: Recently got back into this album after a mild lapse.
Kanye West, Graduation: Not his best album, but still some great tunes.
Nine Inch Nails, The Slip: A good album for free? That's what I call thinking outside the box.
Nirvana, Nirvana: A must-have compilation of solid tunes from my teenage years.
Radiohead, In Rainbows: Dind't think this album be hanging around my playlist this long, but I guess that's a good sign.
REO Speedwagon, The Hits: Yea, I said it. REO Speedwagon. Want to take this outside? Let's go then! C'mon!
(long pause)
Hang on, I have to finish listening to "Keep on Lovin' You"...
You know, I happen to occasionally mess up my valued sleep in some way or another. Sometimes I think I bring this kind of pain on myself, whether it be through finishing papers at the last minute or finishing my own personal stuff. In this case, I did it through watching late-night movies on cable. While I watched the Japanese serial killer movie Vengeance Is Mine (one I haven't seen in a long while, but still a bizarre retelling of a serial killer in Japan during the 1960s), that isn't what effed up my sleep. The following movie did that work for me in half the time Vengeance did. That movie?
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Yeah.
Now, I have heard of this movie before, and honestly didn't watch it (albeit a few brief clips that have popped up here and there) until now. For ye not in the know (or just not interested in emotionally scarring yourself, and I wouldn't hold it against you), let me explain something about Henry: the movie is a very cold and mostly fictional story based on serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who claimed to have killed several hundred people during his reign of terror (most of which were proven false). This 1986 movie was not a mega-budget affair (it was made in
The reason it got so much controversy is because of the very creepy way the murders are committed. You don't have a killer smiling or pontificating about his evilness (like say, Silence of the Lambs), but you have a man who kills people in the way people hunt and kill deer: without pause. Instead of a master villain like Hannibal Lecter, you get a true and unnerving sociopath in the form of Henry. This of course is helped by Michael Rooker, who plays Henry (who you may have seen in Slither and Mississppi Burning, among many others) and makes him truly terrifying. You've met guys like Henry before, and when you do, should rightly run in the other direction. Which of course, makes the end of the film even more shocking (I would compare it to the subtle way we as an audience know Anton Chigurh has killed someone offscreen in No Country for Old Men).
While some may think the idea of mid-1980s horror movie that can still be creepy today seems implausible, please keep the following in mind: this is during the advent of VHS and camcorders. The film uses our killer and (at first) reluctant companion's discovery of a video camera to tape their crimes to comment on the voyeuristic tendencies to sensationalize brutal crimes that is in full bloom today. As Henry's friend Otis rewinds the taped murder of a small family (the movie's nastiest sequence, shown through the view of a camcorder's viewfinder), Henry can only ask what's he doing. Otis calmly says, "I want to see it again." And if you wanted to do the same back then, you might be as sick for wishing it. Now, you could linger on brutal crimes over and over again on almost every new network on primetime alone. It makes a CSI rerun look as tame as an afterschool special. Ewww.
The only judgment made against Henry's actions is what the audience thinks. There's no celebration of the murders of innocent people. There is no comeuppance or assurance of good prevailing against evil. It's just happens, and will seemingly go on (if not by Henry, then by some other sociopath brewing in our society) as the twenty years since the movie has proven.
What I'm trying to say is this: I don't think Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is the exploitive trash that many of its detractors would suggest it is, but it might be the most unsettling movies about modern sociopaths I have ever witnessed (and this is from a man who saw the remake of Godzilla...in a movie theatre). It's a good movie for its subject matter, but by no means is this movie for the squeamish or easily traumatized (I can now understand how my older sister felt after watching the end of Seven). I don't regret seeing it, but I'm really not jonesing to see it again anytime soon.
(And if I didn't do an adequate job of warning you about how disturbing this movie is and you decide to watch it, PLEASE don't write me complaining how it screwed you up, okay? If you don't want to risk your immortal soul, write to me for a plot summary. I'm sure I can encapsulate it for you in a less soul damaging way. Or look it up on Wikipedia. Whatever works for ya.)
While I'm busy doing a truckload of things this week, I managed to get some free time to keep myself entertained with the following:
DVD: "American Gangster": Loved this flick in theaters and passes as a decent timekiller. As good the leads are, I really dig the supporting cast (including the man who appeared THREE effin' times on my best movies of last year list, Josh Brolin!). While not as flashy as some of his earlier work, director Ridley Scott definitely "keeps it real".
"Michael Clayton": A prestige award nominee film that doesn't make me grate my teeth in irritation? It happens rarely, like in this case. Some truly good performances (woe Tom Wilkinson for losing an Oscar for Javier Bardem, but I'm not going to be too sore about that BTW), and some nice twists and turns. Definitely earns a early spot in my best movies I've seen (being the operative word) this year.
I had a slight quip on the Rolling Stones song Wild Horses for this screen grab, but I came to my senses in time.
