I saw this movie tonight and it was good, although I could have done without it ending with a freaking Ayn Rand quote. Still, it was funny and sweet. I still like teen movies as much as I did when I was a teenager, and the actors (mostly gathered from a craigslist posting, apparently) were all charming and believable.

Earlier in the evening, I saw Source Code, which is a lot better than it’s trailer. The director is Duncan Jones, who also did Moon… I guess the man has a real boner for stories where good men are exploited by science-fiction technology for the sake of mankind. Jake Gyllenhaal was there and everyone was pretty excited about that — during the q&a, he came across as awkward and dorky and unaware of his own charisma as Donnie Darko himself.

Then I got on the bus and this happened: 

Bus driver to the hipster kid across from me: So, calling it a night early? [note: it was almost 1am]

Kid: Yeah, gotta be back here in the morning.

Bus driver: What are you going to be doing downtown in the morning?! Working??

Kid: No, I’ll be at the conference. 

Bus driver: What conference?

Kid: Um. SXSW?

Bus driver: What’s that?

Kid: Um, it’s like a music and film festival… there are panels… uh, that’s why there’s so many people downtown?

Bus driver: No man, that’s just ‘cause it’s Friday night.

To be fair, the man has a point.

One of my favorite movies of all time. Nothing epic or beautiful about it, just funny and real and sad and sweet and funny again and Chris Eigeman and his hands in his pockets and the first time I watched it was this fabulous pizza and underwear kind of evening and “I’d rather be bowhunting” and it’s Noah Baumbach you know and Parker Posey is always so pretty and it’s just really good and I like it. A lot.  Anyway, the poster above is apparently in the possession of my friend Albert and because he is amazing he said he’s going to give it to me. It will be the first movie poster to get a proper framing and hanging in my home. Actually, I have a small poster for Head in one corner, but it’s not framed. Max: I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already looked back on it in my memory… and I didn’t have a good time. 
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One of my favorite movies of all time. Nothing epic or beautiful about it, just funny and real and sad and sweet and funny again and Chris Eigeman and his hands in his pockets and the first time I watched it was this fabulous pizza and underwear kind of evening and “I’d rather be bowhunting” and it’s Noah Baumbach you know and Parker Posey is always so pretty and it’s just really good and I like it. A lot. 

Anyway, the poster above is apparently in the possession of my friend Albert and because he is amazing he said he’s going to give it to me. It will be the first movie poster to get a proper framing and hanging in my home. Actually, I have a small poster for Head in one corner, but it’s not framed.

Max: I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already looked back on it in my memory… and I didn’t have a good time. 

Halloween Double Feature

My friend and amazing film blogger, Cole at Vitagraph, American, throws down a challenge: the concept is pretty basic - you have one theater for one halloween night. what double feature do you program and why? two films and your motivations for selecting them, otherwise no limits. i leave it to your unfettered imaginations.

[here are the submissions thus far]

My choices are: 

1. The Eye of the Beholder [The Twilight Zone season two, episode #42]

I’m going to begin by cheating, because this isn’t technically a film. Of course, it feels very cinematic, like the best TZ episodes were. And more importantly, when I think about being frightened and enthralled and interested and creeped out and all the things you’d want to feel in a theater on Halloween, this is the very first thing that comes to mind. When I first saw it I was maybe ten and I can honestly, truly say that it completely changed my perspective on pretty much everything at the time. And it gave me legit goosebumps.

2. Nosfertatu the Vampyre

I do like my scary movies with a dose of sex, and Herzog’s Nosferatu is at once unsettling, titillating, creepy, and strangely romantic. Watching it in a theater full of people? Even better. During the scene above, you would be able to feel the legs crossing and uncrossing all around you in a combination of discomfort and arousal. Happy halloween!

 Just wanted to take a quick note of the fact that this picture was taken three years before Scott Pilgrim Vs. Cute Girls With Cute Hair came out. Since I know lots of cute chicks are gonna jump on the pink bob bandwagon and I’ve pretty much decided I’m now ‘too old’ for that but will still be jealous as heck, I’ll just gloat about my I was there first ness. Actually, let’s be fair, Gwen Stefani was there first. But that was even longer ago, and who’s counting? Oh wait, I am. Damnit.
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 Just wanted to take a quick note of the fact that this picture was taken three years before Scott Pilgrim Vs. Cute Girls With Cute Hair came out. Since I know lots of cute chicks are gonna jump on the pink bob bandwagon and I’ve pretty much decided I’m now ‘too old’ for that but will still be jealous as heck, I’ll just gloat about my I was there first ness.

Actually, let’s be fair, Gwen Stefani was there first. But that was even longer ago, and who’s counting? Oh wait, I am. Damnit.

this short film is just completely infinitely charming and delightful.

thedailywhat:

Lights Out: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Channing Tatum star in Morgan and Destiny’s Eleventeenth Date — hitRECord’s acclaimed SXSW follow-up to Sundance’s Morgan M. Morgansen’s Date with Destiny.

[spansen.]

Source: oldblueeyes

The Road The Movie

I skipped it in the theater because I loved the book so much that I was confident the movie would disappoint in comparison, and I was right, but not as right as I thought I might be. The movie spends way too much time on the dead wife and draws out the end for too long, plus it milks tears in places where the book was more subtle and quietly beautiful or terrifying. That said, for a Hollywood movie it is indeed very bleak, scary, sad, and slow and for that I commend the filmmakers.

Mostly though, there is Viggo’s face. Holy hell. This is an (/the only) area in which the movie really adds a layer of depth rather than removing layers, because oh lord can he act with his eyes and his skin and his everything. I probably wouldn’t even be bothering to say anything about the film without Viggo specifically in that role. It commanded empathy for a very quiet, repressed, tortured man, reminding me a little of Heath Ledger’s work in Brokeback Mountain (which might be the best performance of the last decade IMO). No one else could have done it better, or done it at all. Hooray for Viggo.

But. I cried a lot but not for the same reasons I cried while reading the book. For the most part, despite Vigs, I wasn’t deeply moved by the film. I was shallowly moved, as in: ‘oh no child in danger ahh child seeing death ahh look away child child child.’ The book made me examine all kinds of things: love, death, environmental destruction, parenting, morality, religon. The movie primarily made me examine my maternal instinct.

If you saw the movie but didn’t read the novel, I highly recommend the book. It will stick with you for the rest of your life — I can almost promise that and I don’t even know you.

It’s times like this I’m happy and proud I work at the Alamo. These times and all the other times, too.  Well, most of them. thedailywhat: Alt Movie Posters of the Day: The Alamo Drafthouse asked Olly Moss to illustrate a set of none-too-shabby movie posters to promote their upcoming “We Are All Workers” Rolling Roadshow, which features screenings of modern classics such as Jackie Brown and Robocop in the locations where each film was shot or set (The Del Amo Fashion Center in Los Angeles and Detroit’s Russell Industrial Center, respectively). More info can be found here. [wemadethis.]
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It’s times like this I’m happy and proud I work at the Alamo.

These times and all the other times, too. 

Well, most of them.

thedailywhat:

Alt Movie Posters of the Day: The Alamo Drafthouse asked Olly Moss to illustrate a set of none-too-shabby movie posters to promote their upcoming “We Are All Workers” Rolling Roadshow, which features screenings of modern classics such as Jackie Brown and Robocop in the locations where each film was shot or set (The Del Amo Fashion Center in Los Angeles and Detroit’s Russell Industrial Center, respectively).

More info can be found here.

[wemadethis.]

Holy shit. The TRAILER just made me cry. It’s been awhile.

Source: youtube.com

yerawizardharry:lifethatyouhate: ankleinjuries What I really like about this screenshot/quote (from my favorite Disney movie) is that part of the whole moral of the story, really, is that Tramp is wrong here. The human heart has room for darlings, dogs, babies, terrible aunts, trampy boyfriends, and a whole litter full of puppies. And then some.
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yerawizardharry:lifethatyouhate: ankleinjuries

What I really like about this screenshot/quote (from my favorite Disney movie) is that part of the whole moral of the story, really, is that Tramp is wrong here. The human heart has room for darlings, dogs, babies, terrible aunts, trampy boyfriends, and a whole litter full of puppies. And then some.

Source: lalanadelgay

Strange but true: The more specific a film is, the more universal, because the more it understands individual characters, the more it applies to everyone. I can imagine someone weeping at this film, identifying with it, because he always wanted to stay in the Marines, or be an artist or a cabinetmaker.

Roger Ebert on Brokeback Mountain

Obviously this applies as advice to any writer or artist. I like pouring over old Ebert reviews for gems like this one when I can’t sleep. And I think I’m ready to watch Brokeback Mountain for the first time since Heath Ledger passed away, even though I know I will cry like a baby.

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