Archive for January, 2008
corrosion »
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
The minivan in front of me finally pulls off to the third garage from the left. The sedan that was there when I first pulled up is still in the second stall. The break lights flash on the car in the first stall. It pulls forward and a man, slightly younger than me, in a blue jumpsuit presses a button to the left side of the door. It rolls on its track and comes off the ground until it’s a few feet over the man’s head. He gestures his arm, beckoning me forward, and directs me to line my tires with the markings.
Once I’m in, he puts his palm up and I stop, placing the car in park. I keep the engine running, reach down to the left, near the floor, and pull the hood release. There’s no resistance. The toggle swings back and forth. I didn’t feel the typical tug and tell Jumpsuit that I don’t think it’s released. He tries to pull up on the front of the hood. Maybe there’s dirt encrusted in the latch, or water along the edge creating suction.
The hood won’t budge. He bumps along the edge, trying to determine if something’s stuck or loose. A second after he drops to the concrete to inspect from the bottom, a larger man in a button-down and pants of the same color comes toward us from the right. He’s taller than I, by at least a foot. He must weigh just over two hundred pounds. He wipes his hands on a stained towel. He has a familiar face.
He asks how things are going, looking at me oddly. I mention how my release cable is likely broken. Jumpsuit gets back up from the floor and rubs his hands against the sides of his jumpsuit, wiping the sand of his palms. He tries again to bump along the edge of the hood. I turn back to the bigger man, see the name stitched into his suit, and realize, obviously after he had, what the familiarity was.
Mike had been one of those many friends that I’d had in grade school and lost during high school. There had been far more that disappeared between high school and college just as there were many that faded away after that. It’s how things go. I hadn’t talked to him in at least eight years. He stood there, maybe noticing my recognition, maybe not, and watched Jumpsuit try to get to my engine.
I used to spend a lot of time with Mike during school, but our friendship lagged outside of its walls. I remember recesses where we’d play tag in third grade, race through imagined obstacle courses in forth, and then test how high we could swing in fifth. We were on different teams in a bowling league during middle school. I’m sure we talked about important events of the day. Events I can’t remember now.
I looked up at him not sure if I should remark on how long it’s been. Ask him how things have been. Tell him how college was, how my job’s going, where I’m living and other things he’d never care about. The small talk would be tiresome and he’d go back home able to say that he’d seen me, randomly, today. No one else would care. I hadn’t talked to him when we shared a building for eight hours each day. Why talk to him now, when we didn’t even share a state.
I wonder why he works at the quick oil change shop in town. I wonder if he’s got a kid, like so many of our classmates already. I wonder if he still spends his time drinking with the same friends he did ten years ago. He’s thicker than he was. I wonder if he has a house in town. I wonder if he’s still living at his parents’. I wonder a lot of things, but don’t bother asking.
Jumpsuit explains he’d have to get in, track the cable, and replace it, none of which he had time or resources for now. He says that once I get where I’m going I should have a mechanic fix it up and get the oil changed there. I briefly remember that I’m a thousand miles over the recommended already, with four hundred to put on today, but the awkwardness makes me turn and get back into the car. I shut the door behind me and look up at Mike.
The recognition I thought was there had faded. My hair is much different than it was and I’ve obviously aged. Maybe he didn’t remember me. Maybe his recognition was a reflection of mine. I don’t remember any specific activities we shared. We weren’t close. We didn’t share too many interests and the superficial friendship disintegrated easily. He’s one of many people with familiar faces and forgotten stories.
Like the cable between the toggle at my feet and the latch of my hood, the connection is broken. It was strained with lack of use. It grew brittle with changing environments. It’s corroded and fragile, but, unlike the release cable, there’s no motivation to fix it.
the salton sea »
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
I have no idea how to describe this one. I don’t even know what they were trying to do. I added it to my queue only because it referenced the odd man-made mistake that is the Salton Sea south of Palm Springs. I think it was brought up in casual conversation, but I don’t remember the specific person to blame. There may have been a point to this, about redemption or loss or retribution. Maybe.
The story starts out with Val Kilmer (kiss kiss bang bang, the doors) sitting in a room ablaze, playing a trumpet. His narration is in a sort of whispy, stalled, meandering sort of voice. He goes on about how things started (yes, another flashback movie) and where to begin. He’s a speed freak spending time with other speed freaks. Later on we find out many things about his character that paint an elaborate picture. There’s so much going on that it doesn’t technically make sense at any point, but is somehow predictable.
The cast is stacked with names you’ve heard of or actors you see on television. Peter Sarsgaard (Garden state, jarhead), Anthony LaPaglia (without a trace, so i married an axe murderer), Doug Hutchison (green mile), luis guzmán (waiting…, punch-drunk love), adam goldberg (dazed and confused), vincent d’onofrio (men in black, thumbsucker), and r. lee ermey (full metal jacket, mail call) all have a piece of the action. Even meatloaf is listed, but I don’t remember his character.
The acting isn’t great and was barely enough to bring me into the story. Val does a decent job in a dichotomous character, but still comes off with a dumb look on his face half the time. For a film with so much B-list talent, no one stands out. It’s just a mass of people, working together, to make a large pile of mediocrity.
The story itself, with all the twists and turns and manufactured suspense, is lacking. There’s too much going on. The narrative is jumbled and uninteresting. It sort of goes along the path of least resistance with injected “twists” that fall short of actually twisting. It’s not that it was hard to watch, though. It was so tweaked out that it became awesome. I don’t have a reason to watch it again, but I (like I almost never do) don’t regret seeing it. I can’t think of a movie that it’s like, but its uniqueness doesn’t make it good.
There are a lot of odd superimposed scenes, flashbacks, and weird asides. The direction is pretty bad. Caruso did Disturbia and I liked that one, so i was expecting more. He used visual cues. A lot of visual cues. To help us follow along. Sort of like David Lynch if Lynch were to reach through the screen and slap you in the eye when you were supposed to be paying attention.
If you were to go through IMDB.com and watch every val kilmer movie, take the time to watch this one. Otherwise, you’ll probably be okay forgetting it exists.
**
the votes are in »
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
You may have missed it, what with the pointedly pathetic analysis of political happenings and the ridiculous knee-jerk overcoverage of an untimely death (or here or here) autopsy inconclusive. There wasn’t much for coverage beyond a few local articles, but I had to sit through a press conference see: showing my support, so I have to tell you about it.
For the record, the presidential campaign doesn’t interest me. The coverage does nothing to explain the actual issues and how any candidate chosen over another will affect actual people. It’s all bickering to the soundtrack of political positioning. The media is wasting our time and those that follow it closely might as well put a paperclip through their eye. It’s as much, if not more, mentally stimulating.
Heath was a fine actor, but his passing doesn’t even slightly effect me. I had to hear it from roommates. If a few other folk hadn’t talked about it after, I’d likely have made it to the next media circle-jerk and been surprised as all hell in two years when I realized I hadn’t seen him in a movie recently. It was more of a surprise than brad renfro, but despite media molestation and overexposure, who actually knew the guy? He had a few solid roles in films I’ve watched. So did renfro, chris farley, and assorted others who fell tragically or suddenly. related: is anyone else waiting on something like this from britney spears? i think she’s running about twenty years overdue. I’d bet $10 on her being the first non-equine sign of a pending apocalyptic something-or-other. Moving on.
The real news ha, real news; wait… am I the only one laughing?, the reason I had to stand at the airport, after a half-hour rail ride, for a press conference, was the Minneapolis Saint Paul rebranding. With coverage here, here, and my favorite here, it was, as I said, regional at best.
I didn’t realize we had to “brand” cities now. The new slogan for Minneapolis Saint Paul can’t call them “twin cities” anymore, people is “more to life.” Um. Yep. That got me thinking. What the hell sort of slogans are out there? With the help of exhaustive research by Gary, part of the volunteer staff here at U.T.D., I can direct you to this link.
There are a lot of references to specific industries or landmarks: Hershey, PA – “the sweetest place on earth,” St. Louis – “there’s more than meets the arch,” now “st. lou is all within reach;” more on city name-play in a second or Omaha, NE – “rare. well done.” There are some that rely a bit too heavily on the town’s actual name: Walla Walla, WA – “the city so nice they named it twice,” Happy, TX – “the town without a frown,” Tombstone, AZ – “the town too tough to die,” or show low, AZ – “named for the turn of a card.” But then there are some that barely and i’m giving them a lot of credit make sense: charlottesville, VA – “so very virginia,” rapid city, MD – “real. america. up close.,” norfolk, VA – “life, celebrated daily,” or san francisco, ca – “only in san francisco.” Some are a little defeatist even for my tastes after I laugh at them for far longer than I should, like glenpool, OK – “the town that made tulsa famous,” or Shenandoah, TX – “more than just a song.”
They all seem ridiculous, but people still aren’t behind ours check the poll results. The reader suggestions are pretty funny in themselves. Anita throws in some alliteration (“saint paul/minneapolis spender’s splendor”) she tried saying it five times fast and her tongue packed a suitcase and slithered off to the light rail, Mary gets a little weird on us (“Minneapolis Saint Paul: We’re Li[k]e Family!”), and Christina decides something incredibly long will get the tourists pissing themselves to come here (“Minneapolis and St. Paul: Come see what the best of life has to offer”). Dan sounds exuberantly disgruntled with “Minnesota: tax capitol of the world” I guess he forgot it was for the cities, but he’s likely aged beyond reason; good try old chap.
My personal favorite comes from Diana (“moneysota”). Not because it’s clever because it’s not or because she, like Dan, aimed to the state level or even because it sounds ridiculous. She seemed astonished it hadn’t made it to the list yet. “…has been our slogan for years, where have you been?” I’ve never heard this. It doesn’t even make sense. How about “minnesnowta” or the unofficial nickname, “the mini apple?” Is she trying to bash the taxes? The cost of living? Is she trying to imply something positive? That we’re rich? She lost me.
By the way, you can submit photos of the city on their site for some sort of contest. I’d look further into it and give you rules and such, but gary just passed out. I can’t tell if he’s coherent, but he’s repeating “get ’er done, havre” to the point I’m about to slap him.
cloverfield »
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
Have you seen one of the many Godzilla movies? Have you seen the Blair Witch Project? Good… what would be a good hybrid of these two? Picture it. Shake the camera around a bit more. Still picturing it? Add in a couple romantic asides and one that drives your plot and you’ve just mentally captured the basic concept of this film. Unfortunately, you’ve also just pictured a couple thousand low-budget first-time-filmmaker epics shot on their newly acquired digicorders.
I didn’t know what to think going in, partly because of its marketing, but thought I’d watch it like I’ve watched date movie or white chicks—with a passing interest that quickly fades. It tried too much, and fell short if its own expectations, but, the more I think about it, I have to admit sort of liking this one.
The film starts out, like blair witch with a prologue that outlines the discovery of a tape, documenting events and shown to us, the viewers. It does it differently, but still, same jist. The camcorder is handed to a friend in order to film a surprise party for Rob, who is on his way to Japan. There are a few testimonials, some drama goes down, and suddenly the whole place shakes. Everyone runs outside and we see the shot from the previews of the head of the Statue of Liberty being tossed down the street like a father tossing a ball to his young son. From there it’s a conveniently documented scramble for survival and then rescue.
For an unoriginal concept, it was executed well enough. The filming was somewhat realistic given the situation and there was comedic relief by way of comments by the cameraman, Hud (T.J. Miller). The characters were interesting and the plot was driven at a solid pace. The effects were good enough because they were seen through jerky and unreliable camera work. There was some intensity and a few twists that were refreshing. The general perspective was smart. The characters didn’t know any more than they should for odd reasons. None of them were grad students in bio-mutations and went on a long-winded tangent about how things could have gone down.
There was one aspect that I really liked. The concept of the first-person film isn’t new. It’s a cool genre, but has inherent limitations. This one finds an “I can’t believe no one’s thought of this” way to bring in different perspectives, if only temporarily. It adds volume to the story and feeds the plot nicely.
The cast is relative unknowns. Most of them come from television. Lizzy Caplan (mean girls) and Mike Vogel (deaths of ian stone, havoc) are the exceptions. The acting is adequate, but not impressive. It may come from their combined inexperience or the style of shooting. There was enough believability in the character interaction to keep the story moving. They have much the same drama as any group of close friends would. That very much helps the plot as things get worse and worse for the main cast.
I hope the direction isn’t the heralding of a new genre on the back of Matt Reeves. It’s good, but I don’t see how he could translate the style into anything else, except maybe a Bourne film. It’s hand-held first-person-view jerkiness and limitations would get tiresome quickly. The writing is decent, but from a man like Drew Goddard (lost, alias, buffy) you would expect intricate, but not necessarily realistic, stories. It worked for this one, but I can only imagine how bad the product of impersonators will be.
Some of the shots were ridiculous, ill-timed, or down-right hilarious. I was half expecting an icon to appear in the top right, flashing a low battery, and for the picture to cut out just as the monster approached. It would have been just as redundant as most of the character developments. They already took the time to use the over-lens light and night-vision to drive the plot, which is never done.
This is something you’ll want to rent, if you’re into it. You’ll either love it or hate it, but there’s not a lot of room for a gray area. It’s a good time monster movie. If you look at it as more than that it’s forced and simple, so don’t look at it like that.
***
so much to do… »
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
You may think I mean I’m swamped with work after the long weekend. That I’m full up on work-related mishaps to correct. That the projects have piled on the corner of my desk in my absence. Really, it’s just like most weeks, but without a Monday, which is sweet.
The weekend was great despite a lack of adequate sleep and more physical activity than I’m used to. The boarding was decent, but it was cold enough to send a chill down the back of a passing walrus. The bars on the way up were classy $3.75 pitchers of summit = unreal. We stopped and much like far too large a segment of the American populous watched Cloverfield. My thoughts are here and if you’re into the opinion of someone who liked it much, much much more than I did, zfs! has more. Some pictures are here. I don’t mean to rush you folk, I’m sure you want an in-depth analysis of my drinking, eating, and snow-related mishappenings. But, there are more pressing matters at hand today.
As I’m sure you’ve been waiting with halted breath for this moment like a virgin on prom night could just be me, I’ll get right to it. They announced Academy Award nominees today. Your collective sigh tells me you’re sick of me always talking about movies. I’ll ignore it. Moving on. Some are more obvious than others, with some surprises if you haven’t watched any awards shows to date or live under a medium-sized boulder. I have yet to see, as far as all nominated films are concerned, twelve. So many films, so little time.
I don’t have any predictions, yet they’ll be on the other blog, the “thoughts on film” link to the right. I don’t like getting ahead of myself, but I do think there are favorites.
Best picture — no country for old men
Best director — no country for old men
Best actor — daniel day-lewis there will be blood
Best actress — julie christie away from her
best supporting actor — javier bardem no country for old men
best supporting actress — cate blanchett i’m not there
best screenplay — juno
best adaptation — there will be blood
Disagree with me, I dare you. I’ll be at the Riverview theater, at a kerasotes theater, in front of my television, or in front of my computer for the next few weeks. I plan to stop at Cub on the way home in hopes i remember to eat that can sometimes be an issue; i’m easily distracted, even from hunger.