In Heaven, Everything is Fine

Recently I was at Hollywood video looking for two movies: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Eraserhead. I found the latter, and was checking out the 3 for $20 rack where I procured The Host, The Fountain, and Knocked Up. I was feelin' pretty good about things.
When I got home, I had a couple of hours to kill, so I decided to pop in Eraserhead (it's due on Wednesday, after all). Let me preface my Eraserhead experience by explaining my recent David Lynch fixation.
David Lynch movies have a tendency to crawl into your head and stay around for awhile, even when you'd prefer it if they left. I endured many nights of terrible dreams after watching select episodes of Twin Peaks as a lad, but since then have become fascinated with why his stuff managed to scare me so bad. Over the years, I've seen most of his work, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive being my favorites. Each of these films have a special way of making things that are normally safe and familiar (Bobby Vinton/Roy Orbison songs, the elderly, coffee, and traffic lights) and making them scary and alien. Awhile ago, Sheree introduced me to Sigmund Freud's essay called The Uncanny where Freud explains that this transition from the familiar to the unfamiliar is the basis of what he calls "the uncanny." I think that this is why David Lynch's films are so unsettling and bizarre.
That being said, Eraserhead (Lynch's first movie, filmed over about six years while he was attending the American Film Institute) is the weirdest movie that I have ever seen. In a nutshell, it involves a dude named Henry Spencer whose fling with Mary X has produced a strange, reptilian baby. The two get married, but Mary X can't handle the mutant baby's constant crying and gurgling throughout the night and leaves. Henry takes care of the baby, and has become fixated on the radiator in his apartment, where he sees this June Cleaver type woman (but scary because she has these huge distended cheeks) that sings and dances on a dilapidated stage. Henry falls in and out of bizarre hallucinations, has a brief fling with his neighbor (who stiffs him for another dude, causing the mutant baby to laugh at him), freaks out and stabs the baby-creature. This causes the electricity to overload, and (I think) the world to blow up. Man, just reading that doesn't even do it justice. It's so damn bizarre.
Anywho, the next movie I watched was Knocked Up, which in a completely weird and unexpected way, helped me understand Eraserhead a little better (but not much, mind you). I think that, like Knocked Up, Eraserhead is about life unexpectedly catching up with people who aren't really prepared for it. Eraserhead is just a really twisted and psychologically unsound interpretation of this phenomena.



Take that home. Chew it.

Finals Week, The WGA Strike, and a Little Bit of Sabotage

Bonjour! At the moment, the twin suns of Mondo-Oblivia have aligned and as we all know, that means that it's finals week. I hate finals week, and finals week was made an even more horrific finals week because I took the Praxis I (for those of you who don't know, or who think that the pursuit of a career in education is beneath you, the Praxis I is a test that you take as part of your application to the teaching program. It's 4 hours long). Luckily, I bitch-slapped that mutha and am one step closer to exposing the younger generation the multitude of lies and travesties that have infested the American dream like maggots in a rotting corpse.
Speaking of rotting corpses, my MySpace friend James Gunn (writer/director of such fine films as Dawn of the Dead and Slither) is a member of the Writer's Guild of America, and is thus on strike. I've been reading his blogs about the whole sitch, and I have decided to lend my support to their cause (as depicted by the sweet banner above). However, my support is limited to the fact that pretty much all of the good shows on TV are off the air because of this strike, and I miss them. That's really the only reason I want the strike to end though.
Now, let's just take a moment to pay tribute to the greatest music video of all time:


It's a beautiful thing.

A Weird Picture, My Final Paper, and Two Things That Bug Me About Rolling Stone Magazine

I've just finished a draft of a seven page paper on Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita (see Sheree's blog for a picture of Behemoth the Cat wielding a machine gun, a scene from the aforementioned Russian novel). It's for my 20th Century Russian Literature class, which has been kicking my ass pretty hardcore. So, since I'm in a complainey-type mood at the moment, I'm going to bitch about a few things.
First, I hate it when new bands get pigeonholed by critics as the modern version of an older band (Rolling Stone is notorious for doing this). For example, if someone says to me, "The Silversun Pickups are like the next Smashing Pumpkins" I'd headbutt that person in the face, hopefully driving their septum directly into their brain. This phenomena irks me for two reasons: 1) The Smashing Pumpkins are still around! They are the next Smashing Pumpkins because they have always been the Smashing Pumpkins! 2) Even if the band under comparison is not around anymore, it's not cool to say, "This band sounds like the Pixies, hence they are the next Pixies," because that automatically limits the band in question to one type of sound. I call bullshit on that! Though I enjoy trying to discern a new band's influences when I listen to their stuff, I'm not about to up and insult them by saying, "They sound like a band that came before them, but haven't been able to transcend what said past band did for the world of Rock and/or Roll, so we'll just call them a modern version of said past band." And you wanna know why I wouldn't do this? Because I kick ass and take names on a regular basis, that's why!
Second, mentioning Rolling Stone magazine got me thinking of how much I'm pissed at their shenanigans. I mean, I'm down with the liberal mentality. I believe in a person's right to live his/her life however he/she wants to. I do not believe in anything that seeks to put others at a disadvantage because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation. That being said, it drives me nuts that Rolling Stone magazine has positioned itself on a platform of "liberal journalism." Why? Because Rolling Stone magazine knows that right now, on college campuses around the nation, it's cool to hate Wal-Mart and President Bush. Rolling Stone magazine knows that right now, gay rights and Stephen Colbert are cool. That's it. All of the magazine's liberal posturing is spawned from a desire to be considered cool by the burgeoning hipster intellectuals of America. Oh, and to make a lot of money. This brings us to the core of my pissedness at Rolling Stone: It portrays itself as this mecca of inclusion and tolerance, but it only includes and champions that which society has deemed cool (homosexuality is cool, democrats are cool, veganism is cool, Eddie Vedder and his ugly ass beard are cool, etc.) while excluding that which society has deemed uncool (Wal-Mart is uncool, ultra-conservative Christians are uncool, censorship is uncool, etc.). For example, last month's issue ran an article about Mitt Romney titled, Mitt Romney: The Huckster. In this article, Romney's religion was brought up as a negative: "Once you've heard this kind of drivel enough times, it's not hard to see how this flag-waving conservative actually won the governorship in Ted Kennedy's home state, or propelled his Mormon magic-underwear-wearing self to near-front-runner status in a party that is overwhelmingly, intolerantly Christian" (Courtesy of Matt Taibbi, RS Oct 2007). So here's Rolling Stone, a magazine that's all about respecting the beautiful rainbow of diversity, bashing a presidential candidate because he's Mormon/Christian. And why is it okay to bash Mormons/Christians? Because society has deemed such groups as uncool, and it's okay to be intolerant of the uncool. Frakkin' ridiculous (BSG kicks ass).

Okay, I'm going to finish this rant for now because it's getting pretty long, but I will kill again.

Not What You're Like, But What You Like

I remember writing something earlier about how I was going to explain how High Fidelity ruined its potential to be a perfect film. Most of these flaws come from uninspired changes to Nick Hornby's book, and others are just flaws that come with bad choices when making a movie. If you haven't read the book, I recommend it, because otherwise this rant won't be as cool.
My main gripe with the movie adaptation was the character of Laura (played in the film by Iben Hjejle). In the book, Laura was more of a sympathetic character and you could understand her perspective on the crumbling relationship she had with Rob (John Cusack). Movie Laura was really unlikable. This made the movie's plot (which revolves around Rob's and Laura's complicated relationship) difficult to swallow. If Laura comes off as icy and shallow, it's difficult to understand why Rob wants her back so much (personally, I would have liked the movie more if Rob ended up with Marie DeSalle). Book Laura was the kind of person you'd feel completely lost without, and you were kinda pissed at Rob for not seeing this earlier. Not so much in the movie, where you're pissed at Rob for not forgetting about her real quick. So, gripe #1: Movie Laura is a jerk.
The other gripes I have about this movie are pretty much superficial, but they did have quite an impact on how I saw the film after reading the book. One such gripe is the part in which Rob is asking Barry (Jack Black) whether or not his saying "I haven't seen Evil Dead 2 yet" denotes a desire to see the movie (a hypothetical experiment he is inspired to conduct after being told by Laura that she hasn't had sex with her rebound boyfriend Ian (Tim Robbins) yet). It's a valid question and all, but it's Barry's response that irks me. He's not exactly following Rob's train of thought, so he tells him that anyone would want to see it because "it's so funny, and violent, and the soundtrack kicks ass..." Though Evil Dead 2 is funny and violent, it's soundtrack is just moody, atmospheric horror stuff. This response puzzled me for years until I finally read the book. In the book, Rob asks Barry the same question, but instead of Evil Dead 2, it's Reservoir Dogs. Now the whole discourse makes sense to me. Reservoir Dogs is funny, is violent, and its soundtrack does kick ass. So my question is this: Why change this conversation at all? Or, if you were going to change it, why leave the bit about the soundtrack in? In a movie/book that is largely punctuated by pop culture references, this travesty should not have happened. Gripe #2: Why?









My last gripe is in regards to Rob's stupid hairdo. This one is pretty self-explanatory; Rob's hair has that Boris Karloff Frankenstein's monster thing going on, much akin to Wayne Campbell when he's not wearing his Wayne's World cap. Normally a bad hairdo doesn't affect a movie's watchability, but in this case it's that bad. My visualization of Rob Gordon that I made when I was reading the book had much cooler hair. Gripe #3: Stupid Frankenstein hair (see Sheree's blog for a sweet exposition of this anomaly).
That's about it. If Mr. Stephen Frears took these things into consideration, I think High Fidelity would have been perfect. His casting of Jack Black and Todd Louiso as Rob's snobby clerks Barry and Dick? Perfect. His decision to change the location from London to Chicago? Nice. Marie DeSalle played by Lisa Bonet, who is hot(Lili Taylor and Catherine Zeta Jones were great in their roles as well) ? Very nice. The scene where Rob visualizes all of the different ways he'd like to respond to Ian's conflict resolution, especially the one where he knocks his teeth out with the phone and Dick drops a TV on his head? Priceless. If only Laura wasn't so lame, the Reservoir Dogs/Evil Dead 2 thing was sorted out, and Rob's hair wasn't so freakish, it would be one of the greatest movies of all time.

What Kind of a Hipster am I?

Sheree found this cool quiz that I'm going to take now. Let's see how cool the both of us are!

If you had to choose:

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly? Gene Kelly. Wasn't he in Singin' in the Rain? That movie was cool.
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises? The Sun Also Rises.
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington? Count Basie, for he is friends with Count Blogula.
4. Cats or dogs? Dogs. I'd like a beagle someday. I'd name him Ajax.
5. Matisse or Picasso? I'm gonna go with Picasso.
6. Yeats or Eliot? Eliot. It's not his fault Cats was so...disturbing.
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin? Buster Keaton. Wait...yeah.
8. The Who or the Stones? The Stones. Hey, I just realized that I've seen both of these bands live! I'm cool!
9. Trollope or Dickens? Dickens, cuz I don't know who Trollope is. Sounds like a tasty, cream-filled dessert.
10. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald? Billie Holiday.
11. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky. Screw War and Peace.
12. Hot dogs or hamburgers? Burgers. Especially those of the In&Out/Acme Burger variety.
13. Letterman or Leno? Letterman. I impersonated him for my fifth grade talent show.
14. Wilco or Cat Power? Cat Power. I just haven't been able to get into Wilco.
15. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe? Marilyn Monroe.
16. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? Johnny Cash. Who is Bill Monroe, and why is he being compared to Johnny Cash? Why not Waylon Jennings or something.
17. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando? Marlon Brando, although I do not respect the way he let himself get all inflated.
18. Vermeer or Rembrandt? Rembrandt.
19. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity? Grosse Point Blank. High Fidelity was almost the perfect movie, but it made a few tragically critical mistakes. I'll write a post about this one.
20. Comedy or tragedy? If we're talking about Shakespeare, I prefer his tragedies. I guess overall I like tragedies. I'm morbid.
21. Fall or spring? Fall. That's when my birthday is, plus Halloween and Thanksgiving are great too. Today's Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving!
22. The Sopranos or The Simpsons? The Simpsons. Best...show...ever.
23. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin? Gershwin and Gershwin.
24. Joseph Conrad or Henry James? Conrad. Heart of Darkness is one of the best books ever written, and it's in the guy's like, third language.
25. Sunset or sunrise? Sunset. That's when the magic happens.
26. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter? Johnny Mercer. Read 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.' You'll understand.
27. Mac or PC? Mac, cuz I'm writing this on a mac, and macs are cool.
28. New York or Los Angeles? I guess New York. The dudes on Entourage say that the pizza is much better in New York.
29. Stax or Motown? Stax. Thank you, history of rock n' roll class.
30. Van Gogh or Gauguin? Van Gogh. Cutting off your own ear shows commitment.
31. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello? Elvis Costello.
32. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? Magazine. I like to hold onto what I'm reading.
33. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde? Bonnie and Clyde. It's a cool story.
34. Ghost World or Election? Ghost World. Election was kinda lame, plus Ghost World had that awesome mullet guy.
35. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny? Daffy. Bugs is freakin' sellout.
36. Modernism or postmodernism? Postmodernism. The end is near.
37. Batman or Spider-Man? Batman all the way. I would love to see Batman kick Spider-Man in the chest.
38. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf? I'll say Jane Austen. Virginia Woolf looks like an ugly Nicole Kidman.
39. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show? Honeymooners.
40. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity? Double Indemnity. I like seeing Fred MacMurray do evil.
41. Blue or green? Blue's pretty cool.
42. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It? I knew we were talking about Shakespeare! I choose A Midsummer Night's Dream.
43. Ballet or opera? Ooh. Ballet?
44. Film or live theater? Moviefilms.
45. Acoustic or electric? Electric. Always electric.
46. The Music Man or Oklahoma? Oklahoma, since it served as the inspiration for 'Cannibal: The Musical.'
47. Sushi, yes or no? Yes, but only under certain circumstances. Like, I don't like it when people put 'going to get sushi' on par with 'going to the movies,' or when yuppies meet at sushi bars to discuss yuppie things.
48. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee? Tennessee Williams. Streetcar is dope.
49. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe? Mies. Yup.
50. Diana Krall or Norah Jones? Norah Jones.
51. Watercolor or pastel? Pastel. Watercolor is so kindergarten.
52. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter? Smooth. What if those crunchies are bugs?
53. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser? Willa Cather.
54. The Fifties or the Twenties? Twenties.
55. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick? Huck Finn.
56. Thomas Mann or James Joyce? Joyce. I think I'm gonna read Ulysses someday.
57. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman? Whitman.
58. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill? Lincoln. I ain't no Brit!
59. Italian or French cooking? Italian.
60. Anchovies, yes or no? Never had them. Overall, I'd say no, but I'm not opposed to trying them once before I die.
61. Short novels or long ones? Long ones.
62. Swing or bebop? Bebop, especially when he fights ninja turtles with Rocksteady.

Nice! I totally finished this quiz. I'd also like to point out that I've been watching A Scanner Darkly (that I purchased with L.A. Confidential in an excellent two for ten dollars deal at Peterson's) and it's a total mindfudge.

Freud vs. Horror Movies

As the (belated) 4th Annual Halloweenie Roast draws near, I feel that it is important that we delve into the list of moviefilms that will be featured this year. The inspiration for this list came from an essay by a dude named Stephen Schneider called Monsters as (Uncanny) Metaphors. In this essay, Schneider has generated a list of "surmounted beliefs" that was set up by Freud and later by Lakoff that have inspired modern movie monsters (alliteration sometimes kicks ass). Here goes:

1. Surmounted beliefs that the dead can return to life (dead bodies and evil spirits)
2. Surmounted beliefs in the omnipotence of thought (that's telekinesis, Kyle)
3. Surmounted beliefs in the existence of a double (robots and schizophrenics)

In order to properly exhibit Freud's observation, the following films will be ingested over a period of twelve hours (if we can make it that long):

1a. DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)
This was a fairly obvious choice, seeing as how zombies are the ultimate example of the dead returning to life. And for all y'all who are all, "The 1978 one was superior," I beg to differ. Although I liked the original, and I won't say that the remake is better, I will say that the remake is cooler.
I mean, the opening credits alone are freaking amazing.

1b. FALLEN
In addition to dead bodies returning to life, evil spirits and possession fit into this category. Not to mention that this movie is freaking awesome. Whenever you hear "Time Is On My Side" by the Rolling Stones after seeing this movie, you'll be watching your back.

2a. SCANNERS
I haven't seen this movie before, but I hear that it's about folks who make other folks' heads explode with their mind powers. Sounds great.

2b. CARRIE
Here is another film that I haven't gotten around to watching. Again, we have some telekinesis that is applied liberally. And now that I'm writing this, I remember seeing bits and pieces of The Rage: Carrie 2 and wanting to gouge out my eyes with a corkscrew. Hopefully the first one won't inspire a similar reaction.




3a. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Alex, how does this apply to a fear of doubles?" And here is my reply: "You see, robots that look like people are scary because maybe somewhere out there someone has made a robot copy of you. And let's not forget the T-1000 who can shapeshift and become a copy of you right before he stabs you with a blade." Does that answer your make-believe question? Good.

3b. EVENT HORIZON
Now here you're probably all, "Wait. I now understand the Terminator thing, but this? No way." "Yes way," I reply calmly, "because doubles can also exist inside our own minds. When this happens to a person, it is called schi-zo-phre-ni-a (ski-tso-fre-ni-a). In Event Horizon, some people succumb to this horrifying malady, and are therefore doubles of themselves."
"Interesting..." You say, clearly convinced of the argument's brilliance, "Now, what's to be done about this ski...schi... what was it called again?"
"Schizophrenia."
"Yes. What's to be done, and am I at risk?"
"Luckily, schizophrenia is quite commonly dealt with by professionals on a daily basis, and as for yourself, I would like to reassure you by saying that schizophrenia only happens when someone has been through a large amount of psychological trauma, like having a watermelon dropped on your head or watching The Rage: Carrie 2."
"Whew. Now that is a load off. Praise be unto your mighty genius."
"Why thank you. I...Oh! I seem to have trailed off. I hope that those of you who dare witness the unnatural mutation of Freud, Lakoff, and six horror movies enjoy yourselves. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

Sometimes, You Just Can't Keep it in: The Origin of the Halloweenie Roast

Hello again, loyal readers. I thought this was an accurate portrayal of how one feels after Halloween is through. October was a crazy month for this guy. I hit up Disneyland with my lady (and her family, who was kind enough to take me along), spelunked into the dark depths of Vegoose (see previous post, if you dare), and had a shit load of homework to do.
So, because it's tradition and all, the 4th Annual Halloweenie Roast will be taking place next week at my house. I'll post a list of movies on the menu in a few days (I still don't have my snobby choices finalized), but for now, let me explain the origins of this unholy rite.
It all started four years ago in the cursed realm of Makeevka, Ukraine. I had about two months before I headed home, so I wanted to leave a legacy of sorts. I got the awesome idea to get my English class as well as the LDS youth around to go out into the woods with me and the other missionaries so we could scare the crap out of them. On the outskirts of said woods, we found a ruined church that was downright horrifying. There were paintings of Bible stories right up on the walls, but all of the characters had their eyes scratched out. The roof was caved in, and the floor was covered in rubble and assorted debris. It had obviously been the scene of many drug deals and voodoo rituals (the photograph carefully placed into a pile of poo gave me this impression).
We had about a week to get it all ready, but we owned it. I'm talkin' robot costumes made out of boxes and tinfoil, old gas masks, and whatever other junk we could find. Once Halloween rolled around we were ready to rock. As soon the other missionaries were in place, we escorted a large group of Ukrainian folks out into our nightmare (think AF's Haunted Forest, but worse).
When our group of victims was successfully led through the woods (there were some priceless moments. Those Ukrainians weren't used to regular spook alleys.) we broke out the hot dogs and had a cookout. Hence, the birth of the first annual Halloweenie Roast.
I've been keeping this tradition up since I've been back (but instead of going out in the woods, we watch a lot of horror movies while we eat our hot dogs), because when you mix horror movies and hot dogs, miracles can happen.