Warning: Do not bring Mice to This Movie

We went to see "End of the Century" tonight which is a history of the Ramones. As usual the Metro review was pretty idiotic, babbling about the 3 Stooges, not the much more relevant Iggy Pop - Stooges.

I had never known anything about their personalities or relationships with each other and this is a large part of what the movie is about so I learned a lot there. Especially about the original 4, but you get some sense of the others.

They were frustrated by their lack of as much commercial success and acclaim as they thought they deserved. Now that I know how much they felt that way, I'll be more approving and less disbelieving when I hear Blitzkrieg Bop in a car commercial.

Instead of media darling stars though they apparently served as quite effective infectors - their influence seriously affected the development and spread of punk and alternative music. The movie has clips of various of the people they infected with punk and the courage to go for it. Music would be much lamer if they hadn't done what they did and kept at it for so long.

Another music movie at a Camera theater (12 this time) and another tiny audience - maybe about 15 or so. The ages of this audience were much more varied. Unlike Festival Express where I was the youngest one there.

By the way: If you don't understand the title to this post you need to see Rock and Roll High School :) yes parts of this movie and the fashion sense of the main character are incredibly stupid, like they were grafted on from something from the 60s or 80s, but the end is totally 70s ;) and ought to be appreciated by anyone who was not in love with their high school.

PS: I didn't realize Phil Spector was such a freak, eek!

ghouls and werewolves in high positions in city hall

While at C12 for End of the Century I noticed that the midnight movie this week was Lost Boys. I'd never seen it and had wanted to for years so we came back for it.

The amount of coffee I drank between movies to be sure I'd stay awake through them explains why I'm still up now.

I had heard it was good. It's actually way great! Yeah, partly for the eye candy, but also cuz I can totally see this happening in Santa Cruz, formerly known as the murder capital of the world. Those ghouls and werewolves would explain a lot of what I've ever heard about political happenings there. At the time this movie came out I had the unwanted roomate from hell... and yep the junkie bitch was born and raised in the neighborhood of the boardwalk there... I wonder what creature of darkness she really was?

Lots of wonderful lines. I don't understand why so many critics are harsh on it at all. Maybe they're homophobic-want-to-believe-they're-straight men who can't handle seeing so many cute boys at once... um, I mean -- I think the story was pretty touching, and despite comments in reviews about "don't look for any deeper meaning" there is at least a definite metaphoric level going on. [what I really want to say here omitted cuz it's too huge a spoiler] Simplistic perhaps, but it's a horror-comedy fairy tale, not a drama.

dysenchanted, big lebowski, zatoichi, throw jane fonda from the 6th floor already!

The short film before The Big Lebowski (this week's Wed night outside movie) was
Dysenchanted. http://www.einsiders.com/reviews/archives/show_theatrical.php?review_theatricle=58

Yes The Big Lebowski is a quirky, amusing, and definitely-not-believable movie. The most jarring thing to me was being reminded of the state of cell phones in the mid-90s! Ever since I first saw a modern cellphone in use in a Jackie Chan movie, I've been thinking how much that changes plotting choices from now on. To be believable any contemporary movie will have to use them when appropriate or make a clear excuse why ... it got dropped in a toilet or otherwise broken, they're out of cell range, it's a prepaid phone and all the minutes are gone, someone stole it, don't have and can't get the other person's cell number. It has to be addressed, or you have to assume that the characters can get in touch any time from any place.

The week before was Supercop, definitely not one of Jackie Chan's best. Little of his usual fighting style, extreme use of guns and explosions. Completely nonsensical plot bits -- he's a Hong Kong cop working with mainland Chinese agents to help the DEA? All I can figure is perhaps it was some sort of political kiss-up gesture in honor of the then imminently pending handover of Hong Kong to Beijing.

Zatoichi (the Blind Swordsman) - is hopefully findable in theaters near you, or see it when it comes out on dvd/video -- unless you are unable to handle much blood. The blood starts flying early in so even if you aren't too squeamish to see it, you may be a bit squeamish about eating during it. What to say...? It's a Takeshi Kitano film starring Beat Takeshi as a blind wandering samurai pretending to be a masseur who can single handedly devastate entire gangs of samurai, based on a famous Japanese character. See http://www.einsiders.com/reviews/archives/show_theatrical.php?review_theatricle=58
If you want to watch a trailer, real player is your better bet than windows media player for formats as the sound track stops part way through the wmf trailers, but gets to the end on real. This movie is violent, but not violent. That is there is very much slicing and dicing, but it's so surreal. It's not a lot of punching, kicking, wrestling, or shooting. There are interesting characters, laughs between the fights, it's good.

Ok, now at almost 6 am, I'm getting sleepy... let's just say I don't think Barefoot in the Park is a movie that stands the test of time well at all, or perhaps it totally sucked in 1967 also. Okay, the mom is really okay even though Jane Fonda's character is so sure she isn't, and I feel sorry for Robert Redford's character. Jane Fonda's character I detested almost from the very start of the film, and absolutely by the time they first emerge from the honeymoon hotel room with her whining about her husband daring to return to work. She just gets worse and worse with no redeeming characteristics what ever. I wish someone would throw her - down the stairs, out the window, overboard, off the roof, anything... failing that strangulation might be a fitting end for her. What a bitch from hell! Yet I get the impression we're supposed to like her or at least sympathize a tiny bit with her. No way, it is pure torture every time she opens her mouth. I can't believe reviewers call it funny or witty. Bleccch

movies coming out

we both want to see:

Vanity Fair - based on the book of the same name that Josh has been telling me about and reading snippets of out loud for sometime now.

Beautiful Young Things - based on Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. Waugh is very funny when he satirizes this crowd he used to hang with (spoiled young upperclass English in the '20s). And he does it in a way that holds up over time and across the Atlantic. This should be fun.

A Dirty Shame - um well, it's a John Waters movie.

What's your response to difficulties?

Yeah, I should go to bed already, but I'm going to write this first as it's been on my mind for over a week.

People have various responses when things go wrong. There were several examples of this contrast in the recently ended Olympics.

There were people who kept going, whether the problem was something that someone else did to them, or an error all their own. These kept focussed in the present. They concentrated on still doing their best and finishing their event. Sometimes resulting in surprising medals anyway.

There were others who paid more attention to the disappointment and let it cause them to not do their best. There was a runner I saw who when he saw he wouldn't be first, stopped trying and wasn't near second or third either as he probably would have been had he kept trying. It's not over till it's over, or till you give up. And coming in second or third in the world is no small feat.

There were some whose upset caused them to make further errors and totally get in their own way. They go through the motions of still trying, but instead of doing what everyone knows they are capable of they get in their own way and compound the errors. They can pretend it was that they just were unlucky, or otherwise victimized, but really, that wasn't what happened. The judges don't make you fall off the uneven bars in the event finals. Holding grudges does.

Me? I want to act the first way. I can see how it's a much better, more satisfying, succesful, productive strategy. However I can think of many times when I've definitely acted the second way.

There's no guarantee that you'll win, even if you do your best, but there's a guarantee that you won't if you don't.

I'm writing this entry to help me remember the examples both good and bad that I saw demonstrated so clearly in the last two weeks.

Here's to having the guts and focus to always bounce back and finish with class.