satellite of love

oh man. the fucking cure. disintegration, pornography, faith, ...

this has been my monday morning so far. my monday morning mixtape, monday morning for *you*... special. drive in saturday, computer love, the passenger. rock and roll suicide. perfect day.

oh, and hey, here's some more kraftwerk for you. the best kraftwerk song, ever. on stylophone.

so, true to form, kel and i did miss out on the aforementioned (posted earlier) corey feldman film festival... but hopefully we'll follow through with this.

whoa there, girl. two posts in one day.

oddness abounds. next sunday my best gal, kelqui, and i are attending a haim/feldman film festival at the hollywood cinemas in woodridge, il. at least, that's the plan as of right now. you can never tell with the two of us.

i just signed up to become a member on turner classic movies' main site. for no real reason other than it's all i've been watching lately, i feel as if robert osborne and ben mankiewicz are intimates of mine, practically.

god! i'm a dork. i know it, i'm okay with it at least.

tragedy plus time...

so, happy 2011???

i tell you, i slept right through it.

sometimes i feel like pulling an anna karenina.

but enough of the maudlin. really. i did recently watch get him to the greek, and not two days later, my favorite year, and really, aren't they quite similar? russell brand playing the inebriated, washed up rockstar, peter otoole playing the inebriated, washed up screen idol. that jonah hill guy's character, no different really from the guy from perfect strangers whose name i can't recall at the moment...

ghttg doesn't hold a candle to my favorite year though. watching peter otoole leap onto the policeman's horse in the park, or swinging down from the balcony at 30 rock... really, just wonderful performances. why can't they seem to make movies like they used to? have they really run out of ideas?

BUT OH MY GOD. OMYEFFINGGOD. Sam Riley as SAL PARADISE. I cannot fucking wait.

i've been staying in quite a bit. i also was able to catch scott pilgrim vs. the world (decent), 500 days of summer (sad), singin' in the rain (can you believe i've never seen it before? oh, gene kelly, how have i never appreciated your beauty?!), and this wonderful movie with cary grant and his at-the-time wife, where they adopted two children, in addition to the three they already had... can't remember the name but it was really quite sweet. also roman holiday, for the hundredth time, and walk the line... i tell you, some movies are just like comfort food to me.

i also just finished honey, by honey bruce... the sordid story of lenny's 'shady lady'... it's really sad, what did you expect? i think lenny had a lot in common with another lonely junkie soul, johnny thunders. incapable of coping neither with real life, or with the stratospheres of success, they chose to selfdestruct, leaving behind snippets of brilliance in their wake. its unfortunate, the pull of the old push-and-pull, what the fuck makes people think it's something to be glamorized or sugarcoated? have you not SEEN, i mean REALLY TAKEN A GOOD LOOK at keith richards lately??? if you want to know the true ravages of narcotics, LOOK AT HIS FACE.

oy vey. there's your antidrug.

the direction you don't take

i just watched this, and i do predict a sudden, overwhelming fascination with the 1930's... great depression... gun molls... lives cut short... and other such nonsense.







and let me just say... wow. bonnie parker was really pretty. which is puzzling to me, why such a petite, pretty, and poetic young thing would willingly meet with such a horrific fate... i mean, is that really the draw, the pull of 'true love'?!?

HALP.

Hey, I am looking for these movies. Please to read and help a sista out (and I don't mean send me a damn link to buy it on ebay. I'm broke y'all).

Static (1986)

Home Movies (1980 - obviously not the adult swim show)

Yeah, so I'm kind of on a Keith Gordon kick. Blame AMC for showing Christine the other night.

'All I want to do is graduate from high school, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater and die'

Over the years, critics and fans alike have dismissed Christian Slater as a poor man's Jack Nicholson... and while I don't necessarily disagree with that statement, I have to admit that his early film career left quite an impression on my preadolescent (i.e. oversexed) mind. His 'teen angst bullshit' resonated with the kids of my era... or at least with the hooligans that I hung around, anyway.

Thinking back, I find it kind of disturbing that I was allowed to watch films that dealt with teen suicide, murder, drugs, and sex at that age... but that's another story altogether. Below, his best films... that warped my fragile, fragile mind:

● Heathers

Heathers for me has just become kind of quintessential and played out. I've watched it so many times over the years, I can pretty much quote it from memory. Something about the dark humor and subject matter just appealed to me, I suppose. I can't imagine a movie like this being made now, what with the Columbines and NIUs of today. I never watched it and wanted to blow up my own school, but that's just me. I always saw it as a biting commentary on cliques and social order among teens more than anything. Oh yeah, and Slater as the 'dark horse' Jason Dean? Kinda hot.

● Gleaming the Cube

You know, I need to watch this one again. All that I can recall from this movie is skateboarding, Vietnam, and a bleached-blonde Slater. Which is also pretty hot.

● Pump Up the Volume

The older I get, the more I like this one. I suppose when I was younger I thought it was a bit silly and contrived - which it is - but there's something innocent about it too, about kids rallying together, fighting the good fight. And maybe it's a bit wistful for me because back then, I thought I could change the world too.

Plus, it's totally nostalgic, because I too, was glued to the radio night after night... cause y'know, before the interwebs and downloading and all that stuff, we had to BUY albums, and TAPE songs off the radio. Damn. Now I'm showing my age.

● True Romance

Kinda wish they still had phone booths because of this movie. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

But yea, this one is great. Chock full of pop culture references and homages to all the things that influenced writer Quentin Tarantino, which is why I love his films in the first place. Clarence and Alabama kinda skewed my perception of love- I blame this one, among many others, for making me yearn for Elvis weddings, matching tattoos, and rock and roll. I'm sorry, but that's fucking romantic.


Next Week: Mickey and Mallory Knox: The world's greatest love story?

Hey, wasn't that our fan?

Tonight, I am incredibly disappointed in my medium. In the era of Wikipedia and IMDB, blogs and forums, and the opportunity for literally EVERYONE in the world to share their information, I can't find one simple little fact.

So I guess I will ask you, reader: How many times do The Wonders play their hit, That Thing You Do, in the film of the same name? Granted, I'm watching it right now and could very well have kept a tally, but I figured hey, that kind of information is bound to be on the internets somewhere. As Lewis Black so eloquently puts it, "What the faaaack?!"


I guess it's not vital information, but I am the unofficial queen of non-vital information.

is that Latin?

This morning I watched Groundhog Day, not because it IS groundhog day, but because I fucking love that movie. Bill Murray is pretty much amazing. And I'm not the type to get all sniffly while watching a film, but the scene where he tries to save the homeless man got me all misty-eyed.

Other films that have made me cry:

● Titanic- Yeah, so fucking what. And I didn't actually cry, and it sure as hell wasn't when Jack and whats-her-name say their goodbyes in the icy Atlantic. No, it was when they showed the old couple, spooning in their bed, while the water filled their room. Sniffle. See, I'm not that coldhearted.

● Big Fish- Okay that whole movie was incredibly beautiful and sad, and I'm not apologizing for bawling like a little girl at the end. I really did. Hah.

And actually, that's it. Really. I'm just not a crier... at least when it comes to film. I was told that Brokeback Mountain is a tearjerker too, but that's exactly why I never watched it. And maybe that's partly why my track record is barely blemished- if I know a film is going to be maudlin or depressing, I tend to avoid it. So much for being open-minded!

All Faith Is Autopsy.

If you have been conscious at all this week, you already know the news. And it's incredibly sad and untimely, but there's nothing more to say that a hundred news sites, blogs, and entertainment shows haven't already said before.

Yes, Heath Ledger died, but what's to become of The Dark Knight? No one was more thrilled than me (except, perhaps, my sister) to watch this film come to fruition. Every photo seen, every little snippet of film kept me in anticipation for July.

It seemed like they have been going in a different direction this time, in the way of marketing. Instead of dark, heroic silhouettes of the protagonist, we've been fed colorfully disturbing shots of the Joker. Even the film's tagline, Why So Serious? is a direct quote from our villain. No other Batman film, at least in my limited memory, so heavily promoted a bad guy.

But this was all before the tragic loss of a halfway decent actor (I would insert a "Couldn't it have been ____?" joke here, but I'm afraid of karmic retribution). Some friends will absolutely crucify me for drawing such a comparison, but at the time of James Dean's death, Giant wasn't exactly poised to be the blockbuster hit of that summer. This takes us into an entirely different realm of promotion v. media sensitivity (an oxymoron if i've ever heard one). Can they still promote the movie as they have been, without offending the memory of Ledger? Honestly I think it would be more offensive to his memory to change anything about their marketing plan. With or without his death, the film has always been about the Joker.

And what will become of our perceptions of the movie? We obviously cannot watch it unbiased anymore- in the back of our mind we'll always know that the release was posthumous, and that the role is the absolute last in his career (Unless they somehow proceed with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but I doubt it will even have the popularity of The Dark Knight). How many people will watch and wonder how his performance will conclude his career?

It could go several ways. If his performance is mediocre, it could tarnish his entire legacy. Or worse, it could be glorified by a still-mourning public. Either way, this is something we really haven't seen in our time. River Phoenix, another lost child of Hollywood, only had two minor releases posthumously. The Dark Knight, on the other hand, is this summer's Spiderman.

I suppose it's just a matter of time before we find out how the public reacts. Not to sound crass, but I doubt it will hurt the box office numbers. I will, however, be curious to know how the final chapter of Heath's career is played out.