Hideous Penguin Boy vs. Really Big Head

Because more than anything, we need real change.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Perhaps vampires is a bit strong, but...

If there are any funeral directors in my reading audience, perhaps one of them will be kind enough to explain to me why it should cost ten grand just to plant a loved one into the ground. Seems to me like a rather callous time to start price-gouging, no?

When I die, I want whoever is around to just grab a shovel and throw me in a hole. Or I'd like to be strapped with dynamite, thrown into an empty field and blown up. I don't need the pomp or the circumstance. As the Blood Brothers put it so succinctly on their current album Young Machetes, "Death's just death no matter how you dress it up."

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

A vile vanishing point

Okay, this is just wrong. As a rule of thumb, I'm not much into the martini craze anyway... but no. NO.

I'm sorry, there's no debating this. Anyone who values alcohol, who understands the state of exaltion that can come from consuming a fine wine, beer or spirit, would refrain from ever even thinking this combination, let alone sampling it. Even Bukoff doesn't deserve a fate like this. The man who dreamed that up is a demon and should be dealt with accordingly.

Latest proof that Kyle Smith is a moron

Kyle Smith, would-be critic for the New York Post, is without question one of the snidest, least insightful, all-around-worst film critics in America. Even by the low, low standards I keep for the Post (V.A. Musetto is generally worth reading, but nobody else), Smith is an embarassment. I thought his review of Basic Instinct 2, a snotty Rex-Reed-style bitchfest that took up seven paragraphs calling Sharon Stone old, would be his nadir for the year. Then he tackled Fur, criticizing it for its lack of veracity with this howler:

"This movie has little to do with the actual Diane Arbus. Not only did she not fall for a Wookiee and steal his life and ideas - Arbus, who committed suicide in 1971, was known for her portraits of freaks - but Lionel didn't exist."

I suppose Mr. Smith missed the word 'Imaginary' in the film's subtitle.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Serendipity and Crispin Glover

Despite the affirmation in the previous post, I did indeed miss What Is It? For one thing, I didn't realize until this past Thursday that I'd read the calendar wrong and the screening was this Sunday and not December 17th. Lord knows how I mixed that up. At any rate, I went to buy tickets online (a rare thing for Anthology Film Archives to offer) Friday evening, only to find that none were available. Hope springs eternal, and I trundled off into NYC Sunday afternoon anyway.

The screening and related slideshow, Q&A, etc. started at 7 PM. I arrived at 5 PM, putting me second on the standby line. I thought I saw MD'A while I was standing in line, though a look at his screening log says he wasn't there; I did, however, catch a glimpse of Crispin Glover waltzing into the Anthology, umbrella in hand. Two hours later, with sore knees and chilly hands, the people in the standby line are informed that, sorry, no available seats. I cursed, shrugged and headed inside to purchase a ticket for Robert Frank's Me and My Brother instead. The change of plans left me with some time to kill before my train, so I went beer browsing, looking for any unusal or interesting stuff to jump out at me.

I grabbed a Goose Island Matilda for the train ride home and then wandered around the Lower East side for an hour. One place had Rogue Dad's Little Helper Malt Liquor (anybody had this? any good?), which I came close to buying, but something told me to hold out a little longer. At 9:58, two minutes before closing time, I drifted into the Whole Foods in Union Square and beelined towards the beer. There, sitting on the shelf like it had been waiting for me the whole time, was the thing I knew in my heart of hearts I'd been searching for the whole time: Stone '06 Vertical Epic Ale. Three twenty-two ounce bottles was all they had, so I up & cleaned 'em out, panting like a junkie the whole way to the counter.

Finding those made the whole night worth it. And, had I made the Glover screening, I wouldn't have found the Stone, as the shebang didn't get out until well after 10. Ain't it nice when one thwarted opportunity leads to an even more interesting one?

Monday, November 06, 2006

The downside of NYC cinephilia

There's just too much to take in. Seriously.

I've realized this many a time before, but it's only become more prevalent with my increasing interest in repertory screenings. The latest scheduling headache, of course, stems from my obsession with catching Rivette's elusive Out 1. Turns out I'll be able to make the Museum of the Moving Image's two-day, one-shot screening after all. Too bad that doing so, I realized last night, means that I'll have to skip the Anthology Film Archives' screenings of Brakhage's Text of Light and Tony Conrad's The Flicker. (Not to mention Bruce Conner's Report and A Movie, both of which I've already seen but would love to catch on the big screen.) Poop. At least I can console myself by reasoning that the films screening at the Anthology are part of the Essential Cinema series, so they'll likely roll around again, while Out 1 may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

But there's no damn way I'm gonna miss Crispin Hellion Glover's What Is It? on the 17th.