Category: What the…?

Movies I’ve watched recently:

Stranger than Fiction

Entertaining exploration of the boundary between reality and storytelling

The Departed

Over the top but it’s Scorsese

Flags of Our Fathers

There was something a little too pat and obvious about the story after the return from Iwo Jima but sometimes life is like that, too

Mystic River

Liked the doom and darkness of the story although I didn’t exactly buy the local shopkeeper as the leader of a gang

Babel*

I don’t buy how all the white people lived through it

Man of the Year*

Was going to write this story as a book for my thesis project in 1990 but had to write about Shakespeare instead

Thank You for Smoking*

All of a sudden we were getting a lot of movies with references to people dying from smoking or trying to quit smoking, this was the only one I deliberately chose

Children of Men*

Something about this one irked Barbara but she couldn’t put her finger on it, OK by me though

The Da Vinci Code

I only got it for the much-hyped Smart car chase scene, which sucked

For Your Consideration*

It wasn’t Spinal Tap or Best of Show, but we got some laughs

Paths of Glory

This movie should be shoved down the throats of every Iraq war planner

Taxi Driver

Somehow I’d never seen this before, but I’m really glad now I did

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?*

Another old movie I’d like to force some people to watch, although the people who need it would probably just hoot and holler at Jane Fonda’s demise

The Constant Gardner*

We’re suckers for Le Carre

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers

I was disappointed by this, it just seemed slapdash, but then Greenwald’s just sort of churning them out

Apocalypto

The Running Man, set in Mesoamarica, a tried and true formula with little dialog needed; you may not admire Mel Gibson but he knows global marketing for action movies

Richard III*

This was the first movie I deliberately chose from what I’ve seen before; it’s a great turn by Ian McKellan who does a fantastic job with the 1930s retelling of Shakespeare

Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie

Realized I’d seen part of this on TV before; it’s pedantic and extremely repetative, although there is some interesting information buried in there

Good Night, and Good Luck*

Missed it in the theaters, but it worked well on TV, the medium it portrayed

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind*

A hell of a career for Chuck Barris, even without the killing

The Last King of Scotland

I can’t wait for the sequel; seriously, Forest Whitaker was a fantastic Amin, it just seemed like the movie focused too much on the doctor and that there wasn’t enough of what was going on around him

Nuts in May

A seriously odd ’70s British telemovie about snooty “nature-loving” prigs messing up a camping vacation for the “lesser” people around them

Bill Hicks: Sane Man*
Bill Hicks Live: Satirist, Social Critic, Stand-up Comedian*

I’d seen some clips of Hicks, so I got a couple of his shows, but something about his delivery just rubs me the wrong way after a little while; it was just a little too mugging and too obvious

God Said Ha!*

After what I said about Hicks, I suppose people would wonder how I could like Julia “It’s Pat!” Sweeney’s cancer show, but it didn’t seem as forced and it was more of a storytelling style I’ve always thought worked well

Passport to Pimlico

Could anything subversive like this or The Mouse That Roared get made in the US any time in the past decades and be at all successful? A suburb of London finds out they’re actually part of France and uses the fact to get around post-war rationing, with not entirely beneficial results

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill*

Obsession about animals; I recognize it

Rashomon

For some reason, this is always trotted out as an example of relativism and different people telling different versions of the same story (Rashomon-like) but now that I’ve seen it, it’s just different people telling different stories, sort of like in criminal court, which is what’s going on in the movie

I’m All Right Jack*

An old British film about missile defense plant owners sending getting their stupid upper-class twit relative a job in the workers ranks to muck things up and cause a strike; except that the workers are portrayed as not too bright either. A pox on everyone’s house. Entertaining, but not one I screened for dad.

Wages of Fear (and bonus disc)

A very interesting movie from the ’50s, about the relationship between the US, Europe, and covered with a thick sheen of oil.

Richard Pryor: Live in Concert*

I’d only ever seen the expurgated version of this on TV. I like Pryor, but it doesn’t live up to the hype as the best comic concert performance movie ever and not just because it’s dated.

The Battle of Algiers (and 2 bonus discs)

Very gritty and oddly-entertaining portrayal of the French vs. the Algerians.

Z

More old-style political drama I’d never seen, but found quite gripping

You’re Gonna Miss Me*

Roky Erickson’s adult life on video. Some days I think I’ll end up like Roky, just without the talent.

American Hardcore*

This just depressed me. Not because I wasn’t in the scene in the big cities or because it exploded, but the bands featured were just the ones I really didn’t think were all that good.

Donnie Darko: Director’s Cut

I’ve heard about this movie for years but while I liked it’s playing with time and space and I could see how it might be appealing to a teenage crowd, it didn’t hang together for me.

* Barbara watched it

One thing I remember with great fondness during my brief stint in the mid-’80s as a volunteer disc jockey was running across the music of Texas garage band legend Roky Erickson, whose material was going through a bit of a revival. Pink Dust Records put out an album called Don’t Slander Me in 1986, which I played to death in the cassette deck of my Pacer.

Don’t Slander Me is a vocal extravaganza, like virtually everything of Erickson’s. It was recorded several years earlier, after Erickson got out of the mental institutions where he spent much of the ’70s.

The title track, “You Drive Me Crazy”, and “Burn the Flames” — a wild rant that equals Arthur (“I am the God of hellfire!”) Brown’s best — are probably the best-loved by Roky fans, but I’ve always been partial to “Bermuda”, which sets an amazing pace and drives to an exciting, hoarse finish.

Roky Erickson lived on the edge of everything for years, claiming that he was inhabited by a Martian, having trouble getting by on Social Security, until very recently when his brother managed to get guardianship and see that Roky got the treatment he needed.

He’s started performing again the past couple of years, and today a documentary has been released about his story. He’s scheduled to play at Bumbershoot in Seattle and rumor says he’ll be here in Portland for MusicFest NW in September.

The DVD of the documentary is supposed to be here tomorrow.

Reed College sent out an electronic newsletter linking to Die Zeit‘s article on quality US schools (“Die Wundertüte”), which mentioned Reed right up front.

The translation in the newsletter provided by a German professor said the school was right for students “who are highly intelligent or simply a little bit different” (“für die hochintelligenten oder einfach ein bisschen anderen Studenten”). I guess I know by now which category I fall into.

A word from my cousin Roxana about our grandmother:

I have spent many years in a volunteer capacity working against domestic violence, so I was shocked when my grandmother was shot and killed June 11 in the White Salmon area. My grandmother was bedridden, blind, and has suffered many strokes over the years. I did not expect her to die in this manner.

She died because her caregiver, Toni Stencil, was the target of an angry man.

There is not room to write all the details Toni has given me, and Toni has her own story to tell. I am not a legal expert, or an expert in domestic violence. I am simply a granddaughter asking questions and looking for answers on why my grandmother had to die so violently.

Through my questions, I have found out that the state of Washington has a Mandatory Arrest Law, as does Wisconsin, where I now live. This law does vary from state to state, and I’m not clear on the stipulations in your law. What I have been told by Toni is that she called 9-1-1 on the Thursday evening prior to the (Monday) shooting because this man had bound her and held her against her will for over three hours. She talked her way out of this dangerous situation and did call 9-1-1.

I wonder why he was not arrested on that evening. Certainly this will be determined, and police in White Salmon have declined to answer my questions concerning this issue at present.

Why should you care about this law? Remember that my grandmother was an innocent victim of a dispute between two people that she had absolutely nothing to do with. This was a dangerous man. Are the laws you have in place working for you? If not, why?

These are the questions running through my head that keep me up at night. There is another state law that interests me as well that I’m checking into concerning self-help information that is to be given to victims of domestic 9-1-1 calls. Three days passed between Toni’s initial call for help and the shooting; she needed professional help. I have found out that you have the Programs For Peaceful Living. This program could have offered Toni some very needed support in a number of ways.

I pose these questions and tell this story because it is my way of helping and healing. On my own, I cannot look into your laws and check into the rapport between your police force and your programs in place to help people. You need to be concerned because you care about the health of your community. I believe domestic violence issues are so important, because the health of a whole community starts in the home.

Please support your local law enforcement and program such as Programs For Peaceful Living in working together against domestic violence.

Although I launched this site in February 2004, I didn’t put the Site Meter up until mid-August of 2005. It’s been slowly climbing its way up to the 100,000 mark — with volume going from 4,000 page views last June to 14,000 last month — and when I checked it this morning, there it was at 100,001.

A thread of commentary elsewhere led to one participant saying:

Hey Darrel,

Ever wonder no one reads your stupid blog?

And the short answer is: no, I really don’t.

The love triangle, the most dangerous love shape.

Happy 60th birthday, Iggy Pop.

And thanks for the invitation to the show, Eric.

My friends Annie and Eric have opened up 3 Fish Studios on 3rd Street in San Francisco. I’m glad to have played my little part in helping out.