Poisonville

End of 2005 Wrap-Up

2006-01-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

Top Movies of the Year

1. Head-On - I saw this movie Feb. 5 and it was number one when i walked out of the theatre. Nothing displaced it all year. It's brilliant and exciting and chaotic and surprising. It's basically what people should be going to the movies for. To be surprised and to see something that is dangerous. Something that'll scare you just a bit. Not in a horror sense, but in a life sense.

2. Munich - I am harsh on The Beard, but I will always be the first to admit when I see greatness. And this is a truly Great movie. All the tools that he uses to manipulate emotion are put to intelligent use. This is s movie made by the man who directed The Sugarland Express.

3. Cache - It always warms my heard to put a French art film on the list and especially so high up. Any other year this would have been number one. The most intellectual and thought-provoking film of the year.

4. Oldboy - Wow. What a movie.

5. A History of Violence - I don't really feel like rebutting anyone at this time, but you fall for the movie or you don't. If you don't, well, I'm sorry. If you do, welcome to the cool kids' table haha.

6. Syriana/The Constant Gardner - I specifically said this wasn't a top 10 list cause i knew i was gonna double up. How happy am I that twisty, smart, international spy films are back being great again? I am very happy, that's how happy! A big long New Yorker piece?!?!? Yes! I'm in -- that's why I have a subscription and it doesn't even have George Clooney in it every week. Ralph Fiennes wandering around Africa and Bill Nighy being an evil bastard? I'm sold.

7. The 40 Year Old Virgin/The Wedding Crashers - R-rated comedies that you can keep going back to and laughing over and over at. There is no greater gift in cinema than repeated laughter.

8. The Squid and the Whale - beautiful, touching movie with great performances.

9. Match Point - Woody's return to form!! Just kidding. Some people make bad movies, but then they make good movies and then they make bad movies and then they make good movies. It happens in a long career. This happens to be a really enjoyable film. Even if it sucked, i would still be in the theater opening day for his next one.

10. The Beat That My Heart Skipped - Finally someone (of course a Frenchman) came up with the idea of turning James Toback's great film ideas into films that are worth watching.

Last but not least

11. Layer Cake - has there been a more consistently fantastic genre than the British Gangster film over the last 25 years? And usually first or second films by their directors. Matthew Vaughn's first is no exception.

Best Performances

Actor - Jeff Daniels "The Squid and the Whale"
Actress - Sibel Kekilli "Head-On"
Supporting Actor - Oliver Platt "The Ice Harvest"
Supporting Actress - Amy Adams

Director - The Beard
Script - Steven Gaghan
Cinematography - Cesar Charlone "The Constant Gardener"

Thanks to David Edelstein of Slate.com

2005-10-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

There is no contesting that it's a self-congratulatory hagiography of Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and that Clooney and his co-screenwriter, Grant Heslov, are highly selective in how they portray Murrow's fight to broadcast a damning assessment of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his overweening anti-Communist crusade on the timorous CBS network. But it's also a passionate and rousing piece of filmmaking—a civics lesson with the punch of a good melodrama.

Although most of Good Night, and Good Luck is set in the CBS studios, it's anything but static. Clooney and his cinematographer, Robert Elswit, use high-contrast black-and-white to evoke both the era in TV and the starkness of the forces in play. The movie never settles into one of those loitering period pictorials. It feels electrified; it has the chain-smoking jitteriness of its protagonist. Cigarettes, by the way, are everywhere, and the way the white smoke curls against the deep blacks is both beautiful and ominous: You don't need to be told that Murrow perished from lung cancer.

Jack is obviously correct that Murrow did not lead the charge against McCarthy. But since when does TV news ever lead charges? With the exception of such programs as Frontline (and, at the opposite extreme, administration mouthpieces like Fox News), the medium generally lags behind print in afflicting the powerful, constricted as it is by the interests of its sponsors (Murrow's principal underwriter, Alcoa, looms large in this movie) and the celebrity status of its anchor people. (They are fat targets, indeed: See "Rather, Dan." A weighty subplot here revolves around the disintegrating psyche of Ray Wise's local anchor Don Hollenbeck, who finds himself regularly pilloried as a pinko by a powerful tabloid columnist.)

More important, the larger battle for Murrow and Friendly in Good Night, and Good Luck is with the network itself. CBS employees have been ordered—on pain of termination—to sign loyalty oaths to the United States; and a gutless midlevel executive (Jeff Daniels, here fatted by complacency) all but begs Murrow to choose another target—preferably, heh-heh, Joe Kennedy. He threatens Murrow with the worst fate imaginable for a journalist with pretensions: more puffy celebrity interviews. (The one shown here, from Murrow's Person to Person, is with a coyly closeted Liberace.) In a big oaken office reeking of power, chairman William Paley (a wittily grave Frank Langella) argues that McCarthy's going to self-destruct anyway and hints that such a broadcast could imperil the network's standing and the careers of its employees. (See "Rather, Dan.")

Not all of Good Night, and Good Luck clicks. I found the moody interludes between acts—smoky jazz numbers, often ironic in context, sung by Diana Reeves—a mite self-conscious. The subplot featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson as secretly married CBS employees (such alliances were against the network's rules) seems shoehorned in. As much as I like Strathairn's crisply understated performance, saints don't do much for me. And I could have done with at least the suggestion that some rational people at the time believed Soviet Communism was a threat and that there might have been spies in the State Department.

But Clooney's (and Murrow's) straightforward message—the movie's raison d'etre—that "we should not confuse dissent with disloyalty" feels especially vital. It wasn't too long ago that Andrew Sullivan was labeling writers who raised questions about the evidence for an invasion of Iraq "fifth columnists" for the enemy. (Although Sullivan has furiously backpedaled on the war, he has not, to my knowledge, recanted that characterization.) Bill O'Reilly declared such critics "Enemies of the State." (The words appeared in bold letters on the screen.) And Ann Coulter topped the best-seller lists with her assertion that most Democrats are guilty of "treason"—which, the last I heard, is punishable by death. (The unhinged Coulter wished actual fiery destruction on staffers at the New York Times—odd timing, given that the faux First Amendment martyr Judith Miller was well into her neocon campaign of disinformation.)

None of those writers or TV personalities has the power to imprison, thank heaven. But, like McCarthy, they are happy to resort to the ultimate smear, the political "smart-bomb." That's why the stand of such a middle-of-the-road figure as Murrow mattered then and, in Good Night, and Good Luck, matters now. ...

Top 20 Movies for Ben

2005-08-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

I listed them in no particular order.

Top 20 Here

For Joshua

2005-08-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

From the Paris Review Archived Interviews:

Interviewer
"Well, Faulkner once said that nothing can injure a man's writing if he's a first rate writer."

Norman Mailer
"Faulkner said more asinine things than any other major American writer. I can't remember a single interesting remark Faulkner ever made."

Happy Monday

2005-08-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here's what i think is the cover to the new Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely "All-Star Superman comic coming out in the fall.

For Tim

2005-08-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

via The Sports Guy:

"The question remains: Why waive a solid player with a ridiculous contract to save a few bucks when you could simply trade that ridiculous contract to the Knicks? "

So true.

Elevator to the Gallows

2005-08-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Pacing problems aside, it is one of the best films about the nature of film I've ever seen.

A Few Things

2005-08-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

-tonight's episode of "Rescue Me" is about as close to a perfect episode of television I can come up with. a self-sustaining episode (for the most part) that just colors each character to perfection and in a show that has over 10 lead roles does an outstanding job of getting it right. lovely television.

-my first cd reviews for the magazine Ghetto Blaster are due this week and it is causing a minor anxiety. First on the list is the new Dirty Three album "Cinder". a band that i like and have always had strong feelings for, except now I actually have to back them up with facts. horribly monumentous a task.

-The Wedding Present's "George Best" album is one of the greatest debut albums of all time.

-I have been trucking through the book "Flicker" and it surprises at every page. even though some of the prose is redundant and it contains moments of over-writing, if you are a fan, even a casual fan of film history, then this book is a must read. it crams in a lot: templars, cathars, silent film history, american cultural history, the works -- and i can't wait to see how it all turns out.

-alex robison's "Tricked" proves to be as beautiful a story as his first graphic novel "Box Office Poison".

-saw "The Aristocrats" this evening and found it to be pure fun on every level. A great documentary subject composed with the passion and intelligence and as even footed as the ability to tell the joke with as much off-the-cuff jazz that seems necessary to do it correctly. yeah, that last sentence made no sense was horribly constructed, but sue me, i'm not retyping it.

-got together w/ tom, jessica, and robert mitchum last night to see "Farewell, My Lovely". The cinematography sucked, the direction is borderline pbs television special, but goddamn if it wasn't a great time at the movies. it was such a straightforward presentation of the raymond chandler book, that it might have effectively worked as a book on tape. but robert mitchum as Marlowe needs to be seen, as well as the great supporting cast (who seemed to be cast as literary representations instead of actual actors) including Charlotte Rampling as the femme fatale. the beautiful line readings of Chandler's prose made the showing all the more fun. Half the film was out of focus, but it didn't matter in the end -- laughter and good times were had by all. especially tom, whose reverberating laughter inspires baby laughters of its own. Props to "El Coyote" for having a damn fine margarita as well.

Quote of the Day

2005-07-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

via Defamer:

"'I feel like the show is relatable to anyone and I definitely relate to it,” she tells the stunned TV press. Cue the “Sex and the City”-was-an-inspiration quote. “I related to it and I felt that it was the only thing I related to in that way,” says Graham of “Sex.'

Note to Graham’s and/or ABC’s publicists: Never teach her a new word right before she has to speak to the press."

It was defamer's snark that made me chuckle. heather graham actually talking makes me sad.

Quick Weekend Notes

2005-07-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

-Tom had a session of birthday drinking on friday night and it was fun.

-saw beck and the decemberists at the universal amphitheater (my first trip there) and after a slow start to beck's set, really hit a stride and was damn fun (mandy, i will call you tomorrow -- got your message)

-it's hot and my apartment is hot. lots of sweat.

-fantastic four is a terrible, terrible movie. although chris evans is great as johnny storm -- he's got a future. ioan gruffudd though might want to consider other lines of work. another stale and ultimately pointless marvel comics screen adaptation. i realize avi arad is making a ton of money for marvel, but jesus, get better people involved -- tim fucking story? fucking hell.

in case

2005-07-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

hey -- call back, for some reason my phone wasn't ringing at the office. hi.

I'm glad

2005-07-18T23:39:00.000-07:00

hi mandy. glad to see you opened up the comments again. hugs and kisses.

Birthdays

2005-07-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Tom!! We need to go back to that bar again for happy hour.

Comicon 2005

2005-07-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

My Spider sense tells me I'm at COMICON 2005!!!!

My second favorite of the convention. He seemed to not understand why people were laughing.

His banner means "Death to nerds" and I'm not making that up.

My favorite of the bunch -- obviously.

Dave told me not to put this picture on the blog.

My friend Jill's favorite stuffed animal -- only lifesize!

Brian at the Adult Swim Party acting kindly for the camera.

The Adult Swim Party DJ. Free hooch and balloon animals. Thanks to Dana "The Shake" Snyder for the invite.

Dave moving in for the kill of a metal Alien.

Black Spider-Man

Although no ghosts were apparently present, the ones who bust them were in the house.

Some of the numerous Star Wars characters walking around wreaking havoc on Asian women

The Hollywood Blvd. Superman makes the trip down to San Diego

My budday Dana Snyder aka The Master Shake

Comicon 2005

2005-07-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

It's drawn by the artist of the book Alberto Ponticelli.

"Perfect From Now On"

2005-07-09T01:09:00.000-07:00

Arrived home after a blistering performance by Built to Spill. I owe a thanks to Tom as he sent me their album "There's Something Wrong With Love" several months ago. It all came full cirle tonight as the newly moved Tom joined me for their show at the House of Blues.

I have added comments back to the blog because it would make me a hypocrite if i didn't considering i've said to the peanut gallery that you can say whatever you want to me, just leave my friends alone as they are so much better than any of you will ever be, that you are really just embarrassing yourselves. so comment away -- but if you peeps continue to be idiotic, then i'll just erase them as usual.

anytime you'd like to have a sensible dialogue i would be happy to oblidge, otherwise, piss off.

Paris Review

2005-07-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

Some good time wasters can be found at the Paris Review Interview Archieve. Some really great and interesting dialogues with the best writers of the last century. HERE is where you can find them all. The more recent decades haven't been posted, but nearly all the older ones have (minus the Graham Greene one which I was disappointed by, but what can ya do?) Highly recommended are ones with Aldous Huxley and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday aka "Hell to the No"

2005-07-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

-After a lovely birthday party for the Tim @ Cha Cha Cha we headed over to the Fox Fire Room where a few scenes from "Magnolia" were filmed and Tim was bought shots to his heart's content. As I was the DD, I was not able to partake in the delicious beverages, but it was quite a fun time, especially when the Dude bought Tim a rose, a bag of Fritos, and a shot. I think he could have scored with him.

-Sunday was lazily spent with Ms. Emilie hobnobbing around Beverly Hills and seeing all that Endeavor has to offer. It's nice to go in to a place knowing that you'll never be there again. You appreciate it a lot more. So we walked to the all food farmer's market on (S) Santa Monica and the came back to my place. Shared some beverages and watched "Being Bobby Brown" and "Blow Out" -- two lovely shows to get catty to and share an afternoon.

-"Entourage" proved to be wonderful again and then i picked up my first scoups of Mashti Malone's ice cream and as i type this satisfies my sugar tooth.

-Dave and Pat are throwing a BBQ tomorrow and I cannot be more thankful. Two delightful blokes one could not hope for.

-A special welcome to Tom and Jessica for moving back to Los Angeles and providing me with two more friends I don't deserve.

-Happy 4th of July tomorrow to everyone who reads this parcel of land called Poisonville and to all the people I've done wrong.

Recent Movies

2005-06-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

On excursions to the theater with the boys Ben and Tim these past two nights, I caught "Blue Velvet" and "War of the Worlds". You can't really pick two polar opposites in style and creator than those two films, but I enjoyed them all the same. I hadn't seen "BV" in several years and revisiting it on the big screen was a treat. Seeing the depravity and beauty captured in the frame along with the score surrounding the images was one of the finer film experiences I've had. It's a shame that Kyle MacLachlan hasn't had the career he deserves. His and Lynch's collaboration in the early years easily rivaled Scorsese/DeNiro, Fellini/Mastroianni, and dare I say Herzog/Kinski (without the threat of murder). I'm sure I left off other famous pairs, but it's late so forgive me. Lynch's films come from the dream-state and he seems to relive the moments he experiences by patchmaking them in to a narrative. An errant quote that I cannot remember who birthed said that all true artists are redoing the same themes throughout their work. No better example can be found in David Lynch. On that note, Steven Spielberg (or Steven as I used to call him) has been revisiting what makes a family with almost every one of his films (whether it be a platoon, slaves, or androids). This is ever present in his new film as Tom Cruise wants to reunite his broken family -- alien invasion bedamned! The story is one big suspense scene carried out over two hours but it is a very effective two hours. My main complaint is that Steven continues to shy away from the hard drama -- the difficult choices. He undermines one of the more emotional moments of the film with his unifying ending and it hurts the overall effect of the movie. Has there ever been a more talented artist at his craft with absolutely no regard for the intellectual sides of a story? I don't think there has. He continues to pretend that movies are just things to entertain people without seeing that they can show so much more. To make a film of the destruction of the earth and have no modern metaphor for it except two brief lines about "is it the terrorists?" is inexcusable. But with that said, the napkins in my hand were balled up and torn apart due to the tension he created on screen. He is a master of his craft, but at this point in his career he's like a painter who paints knowing that his work will be in a gallery. All he has to do is complete it and it'll be successful. I guess I keep saying disaparaging things about the man because he has so much talent and doesn't use it to the levels that he is capable of. Will the intelletual in him come out before the end of his career or was he always just a kid who loved movies so much he knew exactly how to make them? I guess we'll have to see.

Always See Your Face

2005-06-30T22:48:00.000-07:00

I really can't stop listening to Love lately and this song is just fantastic. It's featured on the "High Fidelity" Soundtrack but should be purchased along with the rest of Love's "Four Sail" album. There are just some loves that are inescapable. You'll take all the regrets, and the feelings, and the images to your grave. As much as you'd like to forget them, you never will and Arthur Lee captures it perfectly.

Won't somebody please, Help me with my miseries
Won't somebody see, yeah what this world has done to me.

And I know, I know
and I say oh, I say
that no matter where I go no
I will always see your face

Won't somebody please, Help me with my memory
Can somebody see, yeah what this world has done to me. (Yeah Yeah)

And I know, I know
and I say oh, I say
that no matter where you go no
you will always see my face

and no matter where you go no
you will always see my face
and no matter where you go no
you will always see my face
and no matter where I go no
I will always see your face
Girl, I'm looking I can see your face
Yeah, look and you can see my face
Yeah, I'm looking at you looking at me

AEIOU

2005-06-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

I picked up the above titled book at the comic store yesterday and i was completely taken aback by how great it was. Written and drawn by Jeffrey Brown, it is the story of his own relationship with a girl he meets during grad school and shows the entire course of their relationship. It's funny, heartbreaking, and anyone who picks it up will see a similarity to relationships they've had in their own lives. The sample page was taken from I believe his second GN "Clumsy". i just ordered it from the top shelf comics website located @ www.topshelfcomix.com. it's the same publisher who put out Craig Thompson's beautiful "Blankets" so they are a quality company to say the least. You can find Jeffrey and his Chicago Artists collective @ www.theholyconsumption.com.

Thank the Lord

2005-06-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

I finally got a new computer at work and will be able to actually put posts up once and a while. your appetite for more dashiell will be satiated.

Ramble, Ramble, Ramble, Die.

2005-06-26T18:23:00.000-07:00

Lots of stuff to write horribly about.

-"The Beat That My Heart Skipped" is an extraordinary french film based on a James Toback movie from I think '78 called "Fingers". Romain Duris (who could be a dead ringer for Anton Newcombe) gives an energized performance. I hope this causes a chain reaction in the french film world and all early James Toback films get bought up and remade with as much beauty and pathos. Toback's original film starred Harvey Keitel and it was fine. An interesting idea that Toback does his best to fuck up. Thank god for the French as they took the film and made it emotional and human.

-Shane Black is a funny, demented, crazy, neurotic, self-centered talent. He writes maybe the best example of a pure hollywood script and hearing him talk about his writing was a good evening of entertainment.

-Love's "Four Sail" might be one of the best records of all time.

-Miranda July's "Me and You and Everyone We Know" is a lovely little movie about people living in the modern age where technology brings people together while keeping others worlds apart. John Hawkes gives a great performance and July couldn't be any cuter. Everybody is just passing time, but it's always better share that time with someone you love.

-"Land of the Dead" was a fun time at the movies. Half Romero's usual zombie as satire movie and the other half a John Carpenter action movie (i realize that the john carpenter comparison is being brought up in every review of the film, but rightly so, it is almost like Carpy was brought on to guest direct those scenes).

-William Dean Howells "The World of Chance" is a great summer read. I read about the plot in an issue or two ago in The New Yorker and immediately ran to the Iliad bookshop in North Hollywood to pick it up (it's out of print, but easily found with some effort).

-I picked up "The Believer" music issue just for the amazing CD that accompanies it (I read through a few of the articles and found it to just be bland and uninteresting). Here's a tracklisting for the CD (well worth the $8 or so price of the mag):
Ohio [by Damien Jurado] 4:57 CocoRosie
Why I Didn't Like August '93 [by Elevator to Hell] 2:05 The ConstantinesSurprise, AZ [by Richard Buckner] 3:39 Cynthia G. Mason
Bridges And Balloons [by Joanna Newsom] 3:21 The Decemberists
Fistful Of Love [Antony & The Johnsons] 6:46 Devendra Banhart
Firefly Refrain [by Fursaxa] 6:45 Espers
My Fair, My Dark [by David Schickele] 3:14 Ida
Nighttime/Anytime (it's alright) [by the Constantines] 3:58 Jim Guthrie
The Golden Window [by the Cherry Blossoms] 2:40 Josephine Foster
Waterfalls [by Thanksgiving] 1:58 Mount Eerie
Pet Politics [by Silver Jews] 3:21 The Mountain Goats
Late Blues [by Ida] 3:49 San Serac
We Will Become Silhouettes [by the Postal Service] 3:00 The Shins
Decora [by Yo La Tengo] 3:14 Spoon
Anna's Sweater [by Blear] 4:44 Two Gallants
Be Kind To Me [Michael Hurley] 3:56 Vetiver
Claxxon's Lament [by Frog Eyes] 2:57 Wolf Parade

-Michel Houellebecq is the cover story of this week's LA Weekly and his article can be found
HERE. Great profile I have to say. Urby, the name of the book is "The Elementary Particles" just to put it in writing for you so you don't forget.

Have a good monday all.

"I don't want to see that"

2005-06-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

The Comeback is a terrible, terrible show. Worse than Arliss. Entourage was good though. Not great, but a good start up again.

Found this amusing...

2005-06-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

From the New Yorker:
"One of the valedictorians who did speak, she recalld, "read that Dr. Seuss book 'Oh, the Places You'll Go!' to the audience. I mean, she read practically the entire book."

Mandy, didn't P. Franks read at least a large passage from that book too? I can't remember which Seuss book it was, but i'm pretty sure it was this one. god was her speech lame and boring for someone (rumored!) who dropped some acid and smoked a lot of pot.