There's a Facebook chain posting where you write 25 random things about yourself, thereby allowing all your friends to peer through a little window into your world. Here's mine.
25 random things
1. The revelation of Things to others, however random, is a TOTAL violation of my Show No Weakness policy. What if you people spot some kind of Balkan soft underbelly and attack?!?! I guess you can decode this one as an admission that I am aggressively defensive, not comfortable with criticism (however constructive) and can't have honesty without a punchline to defuse it.
2. I love movies. I have been to Sundance twice, have Netflix and two movie channels, will watch anything anytime, am a standard go-to for the answer to entertainment questions, and have a standing self-bet that I can name any movie that shows on TV between the time it starts and the time the title rolls.
3. Sadly, I don't really understand "sports". Thingy in the goal. Thingy over the line. Go for two. Don't block in the back? Whatever.
4. Ironically, I am El Commissionero Magnifico of illegal gambling pools on football, basketball, and even baseball. Turns out, you don't have to appreciate sports to appreciate the rewards of gambling thereupon.
5. I use a lot of words. It's what I do.
6. My first car was a Honda Prelude. Wrecked it. My second car was a Datsun 280Z. Wrecked it. My third car was a Jeep Cherokee. Drove it until it smelled funny. Thus begat the Bronco era, as fondly and incorrectly remembered as the Antebellum South.
7. My dog is my boy. He was a handful of heartbeat and fur about 12 years ago; and now, much older, he still limps to meet me at the door every day. He's sullen, bitter, distrusting, gregarious, loving, carnivorous, agedly unathletic, selectively friendly, occasionally enthusiastic, perpetually hopeful, and always thrilled to see his friends. I don't know where he gets it.
8. Underneath the house freaks me out more than any other thing. My greatest fear is knee-walking under there on some critical home maintenance mission, rising up between two floor joists, and come down wearing a spiders' nest like an Afro.
9. I lettered in High School. In Quiz Bowl. Two years. Captain of the team. My letter has no football, no winged track foot -- it's a lamp of knowledge. Try using that to meet chicks. For best results, try using more words. You may need to supplement this with financial success or frequent gymnasium visits.
10. My grandmother owned a business, survived a mass murder, cared for my grandfather through MS and cancer, became a sad alcoholic, and died with Alzheimer's in a nursing home with no memory or property. She taught me two things on purpose: (1) you're going to meet a lot of people you don't like and you better get used to it, and (2) wear a towel when you walk from the bathroom to the bedroom; it's just basic courtesy. She taught me another thing by observation: Life sure is complicated... full of love and hurt and loss and forgiveness, but mostly complicated.
11. I wish I were a fireman. I have the helmet, and you know I can get the mustache.
12. I wish I could drive my car like a stuntman. Actually, I already do; I just wish I had formal training and a certificate to give the authorities.
13. I wish I did something that was worthwhile. I admire people that put it all out there, and I guarandamntee you they aren't in Global Financial Investment Marketing Service Management.
14. There's nothing I admire more than Cleverness, nothing I detest more than Lack of Consideration. I'm looking at you, person having loud conversation on cell phone.
15. While not strictly "scared" of children, since they don't build nests in the crawl space, I am not entirely comfortable around them. Their noises are not pleasing to the ear, their hands are often smeared with jelly and snot, and I was once bitten by a toddler. If you know how tall a toddler is, and what sensitive area is about teeth-tall on a man, you can calculate exactly how wary I am now.
16. I married my high school sweetheart. She is my most trusted partner in crime and confidence, my best audience, my favorite performer, my keeper and my responsibility, my challenge, my support, and the one I love most clumsily but purely. She does not High Five.
17. I own a reasonable number of firearms, and can use them. I count among my proudest moments the time I took Dad shooting, and he turned to say, "You're really good."
18. I can make linguine alla puttanesca really, really well.
19. Skynet rules.
20. "Good things happen to net givers."
21. I like to watch people smile, when their eyes crinkle at the corners. People with experience laughing are good people.
22. "I was gonna" is no longer part of my Library of Excuses. Either make the mix tape, or don't.
23. Every voicemail message my mother leaves is always to the maximum of three minutes, and devotes at least one minute to the weather conditions of the recent week. I cannot find the "skip ahead" command. One day, this statement will make me sad.
24. I don't want to be excluded, yet I do not like to be discussed.
25. I will help you move, for beer. I will help you move the body, for whatever reason that's important to you. Friendship is more than Christmas cards, bub.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sundance, the last, a week late
Having been out of Utah for a week, I feel the wave of enthusiasm for anything I may have to say about Sundance may have crashed and receded.
Being habitually disinterested in whether others have an interest in what I'm saying, however, I press on (as is my way).
When last we spoke, I had soothed my aching knees with some freely-applied general anaesthetic at a random sponsor party on the way home from snowboarding. It was held a ski shop just across the lot from our accomodations. The couch made of solid ice and covered by a fur throw caught my eye, as did the buckboard full of rye whisky, campfire, and martinis filled via ice luge. Inside, they had beer, models in ski togs, stacks of food -- and not crappy Costco heat-em-ups either -- and an acoustic band. There was a raffle with a bajillion prizes, but sadly, the gods of good fortune smiled only enough to grant me the cocktails and sammiches. I really wanted those Skullcandy headphones, you know, for my DJ'in' and such. The band, incidentally, did a version of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" that was somewhere between smoky and folksy; and while my appreciation may have been fueled by free Steinlager, handfuls of gratis canapes, and the fact the two lead singers were hot girls, it really did stop me in my tracks. We'll file that event under S for Serendipity.
Friday morning required more coffee, so we hit Starbucks because we (a) embrace their version of accessible consumerism and (b) still have some gift cards to use. This gave us the last celebrity sighting of the week: Paul Mitchell, the hirsute hair styling guy. I gave his wife some Splenda, so I'm pretty sure he owes me a wash-n-cut.
We saw "Big Fan" at 8:30 am. If you are a Giants fan, it's a must-see. If you are a football fan, it's a must-see. If you have ever called into a sports radio station at midnight to bust balls, you might be a Yankee, and it's a must see. I liked it, but I was conflicted by the representation of the protagonist as a loser because he watched the home games on TV in the tailgate parking lot instead of going to the game. One member of the audience commented to the director how shockingly unbelievably funny this was, and we slunk a little further down in our seats. We smirked, but we slunk.
After that, we saw "The Yes Men Fix The World". Merry pranksters with deep pockets, they mock the raging injustices and stupidity of the Powerful. I can't believe they aren't in jail. They create opportunities for themselves to be invited to speak to conferences or on TV as representatives of corporations or government, then perpetrate hoaxes that are as shocking as they are poignant. They were live on the BBC pretending to represent Dow Chemical, promising to pay off all the victims of the Bhopal disaster of 1984 -- something Dow has conspicuously ignored. They made a presentation in New Orleans, purporting to be from HUD, rolling out a new program to reopen existing housing developments for immediate occupancy -- something that is necessary, but not done because there's more money in tearing them down and building new ones. It's eye-opening and invigorating to watch, but... Well, I didn't ask, but had the question, "Does this ever result in change?"
We waitlisted for "Peter & Vandy", which is a perfect combination of "About Last Night" and "Go". That is to say, it's a basic boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl-because-of-tirade-about-sandwich-making-protocol, boy-gets-another-chance-with-girl kind of story; but it's told out of order. You get to see them live together before you see their first date, which is kind of cool because you already know how they interact when you see them first tentatively begin to bond. Also, I learned if your Pad Thai smells funny, you should call it Poon Thai.
Afterwards, actor Jason Ritter was on stage with the writer/director and other cast members doing Q&A. One member of the audience asked, "What's your background?" He stepped up to the podium and said, "What's my background? Well, bricks, wood, a really huge screen..." Everybody looked at him like he'd just quoted a Pakistani poet in the original language. He paused and gestured behind him -- brick wall, wood trim, and the huge movie screen we'd just watched. His timing was impeccable, and totally juxtaposed the pretensiousness of the moment with pure corn. I thought that was perfect, and an indication of really good sense of humor.
We considered trying to waitlist into "Dead Snow", a midnight showing of a movie about Nazi zombies in the Alps. I was willing to risk the nightmares, but the decision was made for us by the guy handing out the waitlist numbers. "No way." he said. "I've already given out all 150 waitlist numbers. That, and you'd look like the babysitters in that crowd." Ouch.
For dinner, we went to Pizza Beer Taco. That's not the name of the place, but it is the three neon signs in the windows. I had all three. We sat next to a guy from San Francisco in town to represent his company, Scenechronize. I checked it out online later -- pretty cool.
Why can't every day be filled with pizza beer taco conversations with people doing cool movie things?
Being habitually disinterested in whether others have an interest in what I'm saying, however, I press on (as is my way).
When last we spoke, I had soothed my aching knees with some freely-applied general anaesthetic at a random sponsor party on the way home from snowboarding. It was held a ski shop just across the lot from our accomodations. The couch made of solid ice and covered by a fur throw caught my eye, as did the buckboard full of rye whisky, campfire, and martinis filled via ice luge. Inside, they had beer, models in ski togs, stacks of food -- and not crappy Costco heat-em-ups either -- and an acoustic band. There was a raffle with a bajillion prizes, but sadly, the gods of good fortune smiled only enough to grant me the cocktails and sammiches. I really wanted those Skullcandy headphones, you know, for my DJ'in' and such. The band, incidentally, did a version of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" that was somewhere between smoky and folksy; and while my appreciation may have been fueled by free Steinlager, handfuls of gratis canapes, and the fact the two lead singers were hot girls, it really did stop me in my tracks. We'll file that event under S for Serendipity.
Friday morning required more coffee, so we hit Starbucks because we (a) embrace their version of accessible consumerism and (b) still have some gift cards to use. This gave us the last celebrity sighting of the week: Paul Mitchell, the hirsute hair styling guy. I gave his wife some Splenda, so I'm pretty sure he owes me a wash-n-cut.
We saw "Big Fan" at 8:30 am. If you are a Giants fan, it's a must-see. If you are a football fan, it's a must-see. If you have ever called into a sports radio station at midnight to bust balls, you might be a Yankee, and it's a must see. I liked it, but I was conflicted by the representation of the protagonist as a loser because he watched the home games on TV in the tailgate parking lot instead of going to the game. One member of the audience commented to the director how shockingly unbelievably funny this was, and we slunk a little further down in our seats. We smirked, but we slunk.
After that, we saw "The Yes Men Fix The World". Merry pranksters with deep pockets, they mock the raging injustices and stupidity of the Powerful. I can't believe they aren't in jail. They create opportunities for themselves to be invited to speak to conferences or on TV as representatives of corporations or government, then perpetrate hoaxes that are as shocking as they are poignant. They were live on the BBC pretending to represent Dow Chemical, promising to pay off all the victims of the Bhopal disaster of 1984 -- something Dow has conspicuously ignored. They made a presentation in New Orleans, purporting to be from HUD, rolling out a new program to reopen existing housing developments for immediate occupancy -- something that is necessary, but not done because there's more money in tearing them down and building new ones. It's eye-opening and invigorating to watch, but... Well, I didn't ask, but had the question, "Does this ever result in change?"
We waitlisted for "Peter & Vandy", which is a perfect combination of "About Last Night" and "Go". That is to say, it's a basic boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl-because-of-tirade-about-sandwich-making-protocol, boy-gets-another-chance-with-girl kind of story; but it's told out of order. You get to see them live together before you see their first date, which is kind of cool because you already know how they interact when you see them first tentatively begin to bond. Also, I learned if your Pad Thai smells funny, you should call it Poon Thai.
Afterwards, actor Jason Ritter was on stage with the writer/director and other cast members doing Q&A. One member of the audience asked, "What's your background?" He stepped up to the podium and said, "What's my background? Well, bricks, wood, a really huge screen..." Everybody looked at him like he'd just quoted a Pakistani poet in the original language. He paused and gestured behind him -- brick wall, wood trim, and the huge movie screen we'd just watched. His timing was impeccable, and totally juxtaposed the pretensiousness of the moment with pure corn. I thought that was perfect, and an indication of really good sense of humor.
We considered trying to waitlist into "Dead Snow", a midnight showing of a movie about Nazi zombies in the Alps. I was willing to risk the nightmares, but the decision was made for us by the guy handing out the waitlist numbers. "No way." he said. "I've already given out all 150 waitlist numbers. That, and you'd look like the babysitters in that crowd." Ouch.
For dinner, we went to Pizza Beer Taco. That's not the name of the place, but it is the three neon signs in the windows. I had all three. We sat next to a guy from San Francisco in town to represent his company, Scenechronize. I checked it out online later -- pretty cool.
Why can't every day be filled with pizza beer taco conversations with people doing cool movie things?
Friday, January 23, 2009
Sundance recs
After some great discussion with Lynn, I think we can add "Arlen Faber" and "World's Greatest Dad" to the list of you-need-to-see's. You need to be a grown-up, and open-minded; but after hearing her analysis, I'm convinced.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Catchup
"Adventureland" is "Superbad" without the fat curly-haired kid (the sample-sized Seth Rogan). It's not profane, it's kind of cool to watch -- particularly if you are a fan of the Replacements, Lou Reed, or 1987. Ryan Reynolds plays against type, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig stay thankfully in the background, and Kristen Stewart is now on my List. It'll make $33MM at the box office, but wait for the DVD.
"Cold Souls" is "Being John Malkevich", but creates some really good questions about the nature of the human soul. Lynn liked it; I think, "Eh."
Okay -- today is Thursday, and while I beat my knees into gravy while snowboarding, Lynn went to THREE movies without me. She got to watch Bobcat Goldthwait do Q&A after watching his new movie, "World's Greatest Dad", which is a pitch black comedy and apparently pretty good. She got to sit next to the director of a documentary about Up With People, and got a Chapstick with a fuzzy head on it. She also saw "Arlen Faber" and something about tween girls ("Don't Ever Change"?), but liked WGD the best -- ask her for details. Three movies in eight hours -- she's a pro.
But on my walk home, I passed a ski shop that was hosting a party with free food and free booze.
I win.
"Cold Souls" is "Being John Malkevich", but creates some really good questions about the nature of the human soul. Lynn liked it; I think, "Eh."
Okay -- today is Thursday, and while I beat my knees into gravy while snowboarding, Lynn went to THREE movies without me. She got to watch Bobcat Goldthwait do Q&A after watching his new movie, "World's Greatest Dad", which is a pitch black comedy and apparently pretty good. She got to sit next to the director of a documentary about Up With People, and got a Chapstick with a fuzzy head on it. She also saw "Arlen Faber" and something about tween girls ("Don't Ever Change"?), but liked WGD the best -- ask her for details. Three movies in eight hours -- she's a pro.
But on my walk home, I passed a ski shop that was hosting a party with free food and free booze.
I win.
Sundance --recommendation
There was one movie that I specifically wanted to see, and it remains the best one I've seen so far. "Taking Chance" is the story of a Marine escorting the remains of a young man killed in action in Iraq. Based on a terse journal of the events written in 2004, it is singularly saddening and uplifting in the way that only stories about fellowship can be.
Your homework: find the original story online -- Google "taking chance phelps strobl wyoming" and you'll get hits for the movie and the original narrative. Read the story. I first read it in '04 or '05, and I've read it every Memorial Day since then. When I read the synopsis of the movies at Sundance and realized that this story was now a film, I made damn sure I was literally front row center for this one.
You can watch the trailer for the film as well. While the story can prepare you for the movie, and the trailer can prepare you for the movie, it still is a humbling, enriching, soulful presentation that is done with care, respect, objectivity about the war, and sensitivity of the impact of sacrifice. It's about the fellowship of warriors, the rituals they observe to mark the passing of their own; and the way that one soldier's death can allow us to share that loss.
It's beautifully done, too. There's a sense of reverence in every shot that is not merely slow pacing. It's respect in mourning for a brother lost. There is a montage in the Dover AFB mortuary of the preparation of the bodies prior to their final trip home, and it's so clear that the people there are washing away the war and pain, readying the fallen for rest.
It got a standing ovation, well-deserved. The director spoke after the film, with Kevin Bacon and the original author, Lt. Col. Strobl. I wanted to ask a question or make an observation, but didn't have the nerve -- or a good question.
I did take the opportunity to linger after the Q&A to speak to Lt. Col. Strobl, and it was difficult to talk. I thanked him, as I try to do for anyone in the armed forces; but still felt very useless, as I usually do around anyone in the armed forces. I hope he understood that he brought home more than Chance Phelps, he brought home to me the meaning of losing just one boy in battle.
Put this one at the top of the list.
Your homework: find the original story online -- Google "taking chance phelps strobl wyoming" and you'll get hits for the movie and the original narrative. Read the story. I first read it in '04 or '05, and I've read it every Memorial Day since then. When I read the synopsis of the movies at Sundance and realized that this story was now a film, I made damn sure I was literally front row center for this one.
You can watch the trailer for the film as well. While the story can prepare you for the movie, and the trailer can prepare you for the movie, it still is a humbling, enriching, soulful presentation that is done with care, respect, objectivity about the war, and sensitivity of the impact of sacrifice. It's about the fellowship of warriors, the rituals they observe to mark the passing of their own; and the way that one soldier's death can allow us to share that loss.
It's beautifully done, too. There's a sense of reverence in every shot that is not merely slow pacing. It's respect in mourning for a brother lost. There is a montage in the Dover AFB mortuary of the preparation of the bodies prior to their final trip home, and it's so clear that the people there are washing away the war and pain, readying the fallen for rest.
It got a standing ovation, well-deserved. The director spoke after the film, with Kevin Bacon and the original author, Lt. Col. Strobl. I wanted to ask a question or make an observation, but didn't have the nerve -- or a good question.
I did take the opportunity to linger after the Q&A to speak to Lt. Col. Strobl, and it was difficult to talk. I thanked him, as I try to do for anyone in the armed forces; but still felt very useless, as I usually do around anyone in the armed forces. I hope he understood that he brought home more than Chance Phelps, he brought home to me the meaning of losing just one boy in battle.
Put this one at the top of the list.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Sundance Shorts
Short films offer artists a way around limited budgets, limited casts, limited equipment, and limited access. It's one of my favorite genres, and we always schedule a couple of blocks of shorts to see what's germinating in the fertile ground of future great filmmakers.
To be honest, it really comes down to my attention span -- visible only through an electron microscope, and comparable to the lifespan of the male of the mite Acarophenax tribolii. This thing "develops inside the body of its mother, fertilises its female siblings, and then dies before it is even born, all within the space of a couple of hours." Actually, that's too long in real time; but I'm pretty sure my focus on anything is generally over before it begins. Short films appeal to me in particular because I'm never more than 14 minutes away from seeing something else.
Where was I?
Shorts. Shorts can be comedic, tragic, evocative, shocking, endearing, way cool, way off base, intensely personal, or an effort to lobby for more funding for expansion into a feature.
They are like those beer samplers stacked in the aisles at your local grocer and gift shoppes around the holidays. You get an ale, a lager, a port, a double-bock, a stout, an IPA, and another three kinds of brew whose recipe was scribbled on the back of a TGIFriday receipt when the brewmaster wondered if jalapeno poppers and pizza bites could be brewed into bottle form. Some are good, others are merely noble efforts. Over 5600 short films were submitted for competition -- less than 50 made the cut for inclusion, so they all have something worth noting.
I walked out of first block of shorts firm in my belief that it was biggest pile of steaming crap left behind since the circus left town.
Dude, when I think about one of the shorts, from Iceland, even now my hands are shaking a little -- I have never been so enraged by something so raw and painful and wrong. When the directors go down front for Q&A afterwards, many of the questions are about budgets, lens choice, shooting schedule and production development. I wanted to ask, "Yeah, WHAT IN THE FUGGING HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?" I still want to punch him in the face.
Huh... Two days later... I still want to punch him. He created a story that was so brutal and painful, that I feel rage days later. I may have to concede that kind of impact is a form of artistic success.
And then, there was the one about the giant pencil with the creepy face. And the one they made for just the $50 in digital tapes they used. And the one by a famous music video director that bounced around time and viewpoint to let you come to an conclusion about what happened in a drug shootout. And the one that was technically porn, but in a good way, with a Buzzcocks soundtrack. The variety is wonderful, the results vary, and the passion for film is inherent in each.
As with the beer sampler, I generally discover a couple that I wish there were more of, a few worth recommending, and at least one that is like that beer with the upside-down chicken on the label that tastes like Pine Sol, coffee grounds, and the floor of my fraternity house basement.
(Try the Almost-Porn Ale.)
To be honest, it really comes down to my attention span -- visible only through an electron microscope, and comparable to the lifespan of the male of the mite Acarophenax tribolii. This thing "develops inside the body of its mother, fertilises its female siblings, and then dies before it is even born, all within the space of a couple of hours." Actually, that's too long in real time; but I'm pretty sure my focus on anything is generally over before it begins. Short films appeal to me in particular because I'm never more than 14 minutes away from seeing something else.
Where was I?
Shorts. Shorts can be comedic, tragic, evocative, shocking, endearing, way cool, way off base, intensely personal, or an effort to lobby for more funding for expansion into a feature.
They are like those beer samplers stacked in the aisles at your local grocer and gift shoppes around the holidays. You get an ale, a lager, a port, a double-bock, a stout, an IPA, and another three kinds of brew whose recipe was scribbled on the back of a TGIFriday receipt when the brewmaster wondered if jalapeno poppers and pizza bites could be brewed into bottle form. Some are good, others are merely noble efforts. Over 5600 short films were submitted for competition -- less than 50 made the cut for inclusion, so they all have something worth noting.
I walked out of first block of shorts firm in my belief that it was biggest pile of steaming crap left behind since the circus left town.
Dude, when I think about one of the shorts, from Iceland, even now my hands are shaking a little -- I have never been so enraged by something so raw and painful and wrong. When the directors go down front for Q&A afterwards, many of the questions are about budgets, lens choice, shooting schedule and production development. I wanted to ask, "Yeah, WHAT IN THE FUGGING HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?" I still want to punch him in the face.
Huh... Two days later... I still want to punch him. He created a story that was so brutal and painful, that I feel rage days later. I may have to concede that kind of impact is a form of artistic success.
And then, there was the one about the giant pencil with the creepy face. And the one they made for just the $50 in digital tapes they used. And the one by a famous music video director that bounced around time and viewpoint to let you come to an conclusion about what happened in a drug shootout. And the one that was technically porn, but in a good way, with a Buzzcocks soundtrack. The variety is wonderful, the results vary, and the passion for film is inherent in each.
As with the beer sampler, I generally discover a couple that I wish there were more of, a few worth recommending, and at least one that is like that beer with the upside-down chicken on the label that tastes like Pine Sol, coffee grounds, and the floor of my fraternity house basement.
(Try the Almost-Porn Ale.)
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