BrockLi Soup

It’s been a banner week here at the BrockLi headquarters. Got in a couple movies screenings, two concerts, and went out with friends almost every night.

On Monday, Schmitty, Fotios, Mace and I saw the screening of Hot Rod. I can’t even describe how hilarious and random it was - I loved it, but you definitely need to go in expecting Super Trooper-style humor.

Tuesday night was a screening of Superbad. Mace and I loved it, Kidder and his friend hated it. Again, you need to appreciate that kind of humor - it’s definitely a Judd Apatow flick. Michael Cera is hilarious and I’ve always loved Seth Rogen

Wednesday night was the Gogol Bordello show at 9:30, which was just as awesome as you would expect it to be. They did all the best songs from the new album and a bunch of my favorites from Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike. As always, their performance was entirely over the top. I left during a drawn-out marathon version of Baro Faro - I was too beat and dehydrated to handle any more - but apparently they did Mala Vida after that. NPR broadcast the show live, and you can listen to it on their site.

Thursday night, I finally got to use my iSight to chat with Ryan and Sarah for a bit. Fonny and Molly were in Columbia for a wedding this weekend, so we did dinner and drinks Friday night with a bunch of other folks. And last night, my roommate’s friend’s band was playing at the RnR Bar & Lounge. I hate to say it, but they weren’t very good. But, I had a good time hanging out with new people. Today, the Film Club went to see Manufactured Landscapes, which was incredibly disappointing. It was an interesting topic, but terribly presented and pretty boring.

This week should be a little quieter. Thursday night is the Swell Season show, also at 9:30, and that’s about it. Fine by me - I could use a week off.

In (reverse?) chronological order of viewing, for the past month or so.

John Waters: This Filthy World - A I’ve only seen Desperate Living and A Dirty Shame, so I’m not a Waters purist, but I couldn’t believe how entertaining he was in an hour and a half of monologue.

Once - B Equally touching and entertaining, and I loved the music. Still don’t know how I feel about the ending, but I liked it. Might be showing at a local Landmark or other indie theater.

Hang ‘Em High - D Georgetown Film Festival is hosting a series of Clint Eastwood films in a couple parks nearby. Schmitty and I went to see it, and the best part was the entirely random scaffold-dancing before hand - the movie was slow, and it seems I’m not an Eastwood fan.

Diggers - B Less chick-flicky than I expected, and actually pretty entertaining. I might have a little man-crush on Paul Rudd.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest - C Everyone says it just sets up for the third one and re-uses jokes from the first, and they’re right. Kind of funny, though.

Night Watch - D Didn’t like the end, but I’ve never seen subtitles that were well-done in themselves. That may have been the best part, but the middle bit was OK.

Waking Ned Devine - C I really didn’t like this as much as I’d hoped I would - seems like it’s a modern classic - but it WAS entertaining.

School for Scoundrels - C Slightly entertaining, mostly bad.

The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning - D The first Dukes movie was a poor representative of the series, and this movie was an abomination of that. It was a little bit entertaining - a LITTLE bit - but had no bearing whatsoever on the original series.

Jim Gaffigan: Beyond the Pale - B Goddamn that guy is hilarious. I’ve listened to the album like three times through, and there were some extra bits in the DVD.

This evening I went to see Fracture with the Sunday Night Film Club (though it was less “club” and more “me and Brian”). It was alright, but not good enough to warrant a second viewing.

But that’s not the important part. The important part is that one of the previews was for Hairspary, with John Travolta playing the role of the mother.

No, seriously.

I turned to Brian and asked, “What the hell happened to Travolta’s career?”

And I think he summed it up nicely: “Scientology.”

If you liked Shaun of the Dead - and especially if you also liked Bad Boys II - you’re going to love Hot Fuzz. I got to see it last night thanks to a pre-screening and Ryan’s generosity (he won passes and took me along). As the guys on The Totally Rad Show said, EVERYTHING in the movie sets up for the climatic scene, or at least some later joke. I absolutely love the sense of humor these guys have - there were so many subtle jokes throughout the entire flick, and a lot of times I was the only one laughing. It may not be everyone’s taste, but I love it.

I’ll be seeing it again this weekend with the Sunday Night Film Club. We’re going to the 4:45 show at the Georgetown AMC Loews, and you DC folks should join us.

Honestly, if you haven’t seen Children of Men, just go buy the DVD. It came out today, and it’s worth it.

I saw it in the theater back in January and never got a chance to see it again while it was still on the big screen, so I had been looking forward to today. I picked up the DVD on my way home from work and watched it tonight, and I assure you, it’s just as good the second time around.

First off, the movie is fantastic. There are a couple shocking scenes early on that keep you on edge for the rest of the film (and rightfully so). It’s the kind of movie where you would never think, “Is this almost over yet?” or, “I need to pee.” Granted, I stopped for a smoke halfway through this viewing, but only because Clive Owen smokes so much (see also: Is It Safe Yet, particularly the bit about Way of the Gun).

The story telling is great, but I left the theater raving about the cinematography. Honestly, I can’t think of a movie that was more impressive in this regard. There are at least three long scenes without a cut, and when I say “long scenes,” I mean a good five minutes each. As anyone who has seen it can tell you, the movie is almost a series of climaxes, but the climax scene - I don’t want to spoil it, but you know the one I mean - is a nine-minute uncut shot. And we’re not talking about an endless monologue; it’s the most intense nine minutes of the film (which is pretty intense as it is).

After seeing it the first time, I read an article saying that the shot was actually five takes spliced together digitally, but now I can’t find it. The IMDB FAQ for the movie links to an article on Access Atlanta (why Access Atlanta?) that says it was all done in one take, and some blood splatters on the lens were digitally removed after the fact (I didn’t notice the blood in the theater, but I was watching carefully for cuts this time through). I was a little less impressed when I heard it was a spliced-together shot, so it’s heartening to learn that the scene really was a single take. For those of you who have seen it - and I wouldn’t recommend this for those of you who haven’t, because you should watch the whole film - the first six minutes are up on YouTube, at least for now.

Also, I added the DVD to Delicious Library, and it gave me some ridiculous “similar to” titles. I’m sure they’re all wonderful, too, but you should start with Children of Men.

Friends, I must confess a grave offense.

Earlier this evening, I supported the box office take on Ghost Rider. It was an irresponsible and regretful act, but I was caught in the heat of the moment. I hope you can forgive me.

I started the evening with the best of intentions; the Sunday Night Film Club was scheduled to see Breach, but it was sold out when we got there. We were left with slim pickins, but we agreed that Ghost Rider would, at the least, make us laugh.

And make us laugh it did. Seriously, I could barely contain myself during some of Nicolas Cage’s serious lines. I mean, I KNEW it would be bad, but this movie reached previously unknown levels of wretch. It’s hard enough to watch Nicolas Cage in a GOOD movie, but this? This was just kind of sad. And Peter Fonda? The goddamn Easy Rider playing Mephistopheles in some low-rent Cage movie? What has become of us, America?

At the moment, Ghost Rider is #1on IMDB’s Tops at the Box Office list. I’ve done a very, very bad thing.

I’ve always thought that it would be a pretty great feeling to have directed or produced a movie. The actual directing and producing is probably a bitch, but once that’s all done, there has to be an immense sense of accomplishment.

TV is probably similar; a live news or sports program is likely frantic at the time, but very satisfying once finished. A weekly program is sort of like a short movie every week: lots of work, but a tangible end-game.

When I was finishing college, I thought I’d really like to be involved in some kind of media. I even looked for jobs at newspapers, thinking that might be a stepping stone into the more visual world of film and television. Obviously, I didn’t wind up there, and for a number of reasons, it’s probably for the best. Even so, when watching the “Making Of” featurettes on DVDs, I can’t help but think that I’d enjoy being involved somewhere along the way. I am most satisfied with any job where I can say, “This is what I made” when all is said and done, and with a movie, there is definitely something showable at the end of things.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I guess I just want to appear in a making-of featurette. Someone should get on that.

To begin with: yes, I’m sitting at home at midnight on New Year’s Eve. I’ve had an upset stomach all evening and really didn’t feel like going out, so I didn’t. I’ve been dicking around with MySQL and writing this post for the past two hours, so I didn’t even realize it was 2007 until I heard fireworks in DC. For the record, they can’t be seen from my balcony. I DID see the last 30 seconds of the ball drop; those people in Times Square always seem to have a much better New Year’s Eve than I do.

Anyway.

It’s been a banner year for movie-watchin, folks! I’m not going to give all the analysis I did last year. In all honesty, I DID run the same queries for this year, but they aren’t interesting enough to include (I don’t know why I bothered last year).

In the way of quick summary: since the beginning of 2004, I’ve been noting every movie I see all the way through, an idea I stole from Grahams. It’s likely that I’ve forgotten one or two, but I consider it to be a complete list. Here are the basic stats for the past three years:

I started watching more movies around the time I started keeping track of them, so I’m more than certain that this year has had my highest volume of movie-viewings yet. 144 movies this year means 12 a month, or one every two and a half days. There were nine movies that I watched twice this year; there are others that I’ve seen in previous years and again this year (ie, Boondock Saints, which I’ve seen five times in the past three years), but I don’t feel like coming up with the SQL query to determine that number.

I’ve definitely become a little more critical in my ratings, something I wanted to improve on from last year. I noted last year that I generally only watch movies I expect to like, so the numbers are skewed toward the positive. It’s hard to say if I’ve actually gotten more critical, or just started taking more chances on movies that I may not like (thus causing more low ratings).

I subscribed to Netflix just before moving to Arlington at the end of last November, and then upgraded from three to four movies at a time sometime early this year. In 2006, I watched 88 movies from Netflix. According to their website, I returned 111 discs this year. Eight of those were movies I got but didn’t watch, and the remaining 15 were TV shows. I’d say I’m getting my money’s worth: at $24/month, I paid about $2.60 per disc (including TV shows and unwatched movies). That’s certainly better than $10 at Regal.

I’ve put a serious dent in the list of movies I need to see, but I’ve still got over 340 discs in my Netflix queue. I approach it sort of like I approach books: if it sounds interesting, I’ll try it. When I glance over the list, I don’t even recognize half the titles. I go through it every month or two and remove a bunch that were added on a whim, but obviously I haven’t done so in a while. I should probably spend some time getting rid of all the crap that will never make it to the top: I’m constantly shuffling my queue, and the stuff I don’t recognize never makes it to the top.

Now, I need some suggestions. I’ve caught up on a bunch of older stuff I hadn’t seen, but I want to spend the first month or two of the new year watching new movies that I’ve been missing. What movies would you recommend from the past year or two? The second season of The Office is coming first no matter what you say, but drop me an e-mail or leave a comment here if you’ve seen something good lately.

Addendum: I’ve just trimmed the queue from 348 to 213. That should help.

Man of the Year is relevant, there’s no question about that. These days, comedy talk shows provide as much real news as actual news programs, and people are calling on Jon Stewart to run for office. At the same time, Diebold can’t seem to get anything right, but the outcome of major elections may rest on their ability to provide reliable voting machines.

So Man of the Year sounds like it should be great. Set Robin Williams lose with contemporary political issues, and you’re bound to have yourself a winner, wouldn’t you think?

You’d think wrong, dumbass. This movie was awful. There were plenty of funny lines and some hilarious scenes, but that doesn’t make a good movie. Barry Levinson managed to take what should have been a great film concept and shit all over it. And apparently, he can’t direct, either - there were a few scenes that felt like he let Williams just run with it, but you could tell the other actors didn’t know how to respond, and the whole thing just felt awkward.

Character development was non-existent. Hell, plot development was non-existent. It was like, “Meet Robin Williams. He’s running for president!” Inexplicably, he put in an edge-of-your-seat suspense thriller sub-story that had no business in a political comedy, which only added to a love story that was less convincing than a production Romeo and Juliet put on by fourth graders (and featured, of course, the girl from the electronic voting machine company, Delacroy).

Before I even had a chance to consider that, though, I had to get past the wildly inconsistent cinematography - during a campaign rally speech, they kept cutting to a close-up shot of the scene on an TV screen, offering a muddled image of Williams’ torso for no good reason. In another scene, he’s doing the Weekend Update on SNL (minor spoiler, deal with it), and the camera PANNED BACK AND FORTH between the actual people, and the people as seen through the monitor on the SNL studio camera. Really, was that necessary? It added nothing more than another distraction for the viewer.

Do not go see this movie. Don’t even see it at the dollar theater. Wait until it’s out on cable, and then watch something else. I can’t really complain when I get to see the movie for free, but this one was so awful that I was actually pissed when I left the theater (just ask Mace).

The Departed was just as good as I was expecting. Jack Nicholson was perfect for the part, and Leonardo DiCaprio was better than I figured he would be (fella’s never been too good with accents, though). Marky Mark played the same character as he did in Four Brothers, more or less, but it works for him.

It’s nearly two and a half hours long, but really didn’t feel like it - Scorsese kept things moving at a good pace. There were a lot of incredibly funny lines that I can’t remember now (mostly from Alec Baldwin) and just enough action to keep things lively until the back-and-forth twisted ending that capped it all off quite nicely.

I’d definitely pay to see it again. Check it out this weekend.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated was WAY better than I expected. As it turns out, there’s a panel of eight secret “average American parents” who rate every movie that comes through the MPAA. I never really thought much about movie ratings before seeing this, but those eight people have significant weight in the industry. A movie with an NC-17 rating is difficult to market, a lot of theaters won’t show it, and Wal-Mart and Blockbuster - two of the biggest video retailers in America - won’t stock it. If a filmmaker can’t convince them that the movie is suitable for an R, they have a hell of a time making it profitable.

I probably wouldn’t pay to see it a second time (only because it’s a documentary), but I would definitely see it again and I’d recommend every see it.

What has two thumbs and gets to see an advance screening of Beerfest tomorrow?

This guy!

This weekend was even better than the last, and I think I’m OK with that trend.

Clerks 2 came out Friday, and we got a crew together to see it at Gallery Place. Fadó is just a couple blocks down from the theater, so after the movie, we sauntered on down there for a rowdy evening of drinking, hollering, singing along with the tunes they were playing, singing along with the tunes we were playing, and discussing the biological makeup of human genitalia (we met a biology teacher).

While there, we discussed plans to have a BBQ here Saturday evening, and I came home from the grocery store last night to find a dozen loud people in my living room. Some more folks came over, and we got to hollering back and forth with the people below us (who were also throwing a BBQ and enjoying their balcony), so we went down there and I spent some time discussing politics and sports with a couple guys from Germany.

Today was lazy as a Sunday can be. I spent some time at the gym, finished some stuff for work, and did a little reading, but mostly just lounged around. I get a wide variety of movies from Netflix and a lot of times I get them in the mail and think, “Why the hell did I rent this?” These movies are saved for Sunday afternoons like this one, unless I find a good one on TV (previously: King Arthur, Sweet Home Alabama, and Miss Congeniality 2). This week I opted for Chick Flick and Ice Cream Sunday Afternoon Extravaganza, which included How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days and some Ben & Jerry’s mint something something. It was girly and relaxing and don’t you judge me because I just might make it a weekly event. You’re welcome to join me next week for Sleepless in Seattle and Cold Stone.

Friday night included early drunkenness, a rowdy trip to Mackie’s, and a way-to-late bedtime.

Yesterday we saw You, Me, and Dupree (disappointment) and spent the evening in a Japanese karaoke cafe. A bunch of drunk college kids were in the Metro station Finger Jousting, so Schmitty jumped in and beat a couple guys before some cops and WMATA employees came down to investigate all the noise (we did a lot of cheering).

Today, after four loads of laundry, almost everything is clean and I feel accomplished. Done a little reading, done a little writing, watched King Arthur (not bad), and relaxed a bit.

Definitely better than last weekend, and now I know where all the drunk girls in this city hang out (hint: Japanese karaoke).

I’ve spent most of my afternoon and evening cleaning up archives. For several years now, I’ve kept movie and concert ticket stubs. I used to write the names of the people I went with on the back of the ticket, but since the beginning of 2004, I’ve kept a spreadsheet with this information, because I like looking back to see what movies I watched when and with who (and occasionally compiling data). I went through my ticket collection, and added what I could from there, but it didn’t amount to much: 21 movies in 2003, and 10 in 2002. Obviously, I lost a lot along the way. I was surprised by how many of the movies I remembered so well - who I had seen it with and where, where we sat in the theater, things like that. I remember losing a contact when I went to see X-men 2 with FN, Brie, and Coo, and lost the other one a week later when I saw it a second time with my buddy Bill. In a lot of cases, I remember these weird little details better than I remember the movie, but I would argue that those are more important.

For the rest of the afternoon, I wrote a WebAudit script to check links on my site. I updated to MT 3.2 a month or two ago, and nuked my images directory while I was at it. There was a bunch of crap in there, so I went through it and only restored the files I knew would be used, missing a few in the process. I also didn’t realize until later that MT 3.2 uses longer file names than previous versions (this can be changed, but at the time I didn’t know it was going to be a problem). As such, a lot of the file names for my posts were different when I imported them, and any links to them broke. I didn’t even notice this until a week or two ago, so I wrote this script to go through and try every link on the pages. I’m not entirely convinced that it worked the way I wanted it to, but I found a lot of bad links that have been fixed.

Tonight, I’m going to make some dinner, pour a drink, and relax. A few of these Netflix discs have been here for weeks, so I think a movie is in order.