Thought Chasm

Archive for January, 2008

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.

Tags: terrible movie
Posted in chasm reviews | Comments Off

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.

Posted in media, random schtuff, recap | 2 Comments »

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.

***

Tags: rent
Posted in chasm reviews | Comments Off

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.

Posted in media, recap | Comments Off

three and a half hours left

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

I’ve completely checked out. My projects enough of them are completed to an adequate level that they can wait until Tuesday. I’ve visualized my packed bag several times and figuratively penciled in a schedule for tonight so as to be most efficient. As they I don’t know if there’s an applicable ’they’ here say, here in body, not in mind.

To prove my point, here’s an email I sent to a few coworkers. It describes how to make a change to our current home page. I’ve altered some parts so you can better understand it before you ask, I did, in fact send this out; they likely think I’m an aluminum-foil cap away from being committed:

Keep for your records in order to reference if a situation comes up, or to wax nostalgic about our time together while I’m away on my long weekend.

In order to complete the task of swapping an old slide in the home page movie for a new one, you must complete an arduous six steps. They are difficult, and time consuming, but I have all the confidence of an ignorant teenager in you. You’ve shown yourselves quite adept in the [content management system we use] and, if you so choose, I’m sure you, whichever of you is deemed worthy, will have no troubles come Monday morn.

Read carefully, follow closely, and keep your hands and heads within the car at all times.

—Log in
—go to home page ([home page U.R.L.]*)
—click wrench at top of page in order to edit said page
—go to attributes tab
—change value of affected slide to new media asset using the dropdown (ex- slide3: use dropdown to replace [old slide] with [new slide])
—save page

Having completed these steps, in order (that is crucial, as you don’t have any choice), you’ll be able to view your fresh slide as it enters the rotation on the home page. Congratulations. Also, and this will be far more important upon completion of above task, it is considered uncouth to stomp, kick, or trip over those kneeling at your feet in order to kiss them. **

[MY EMAIL SIGNATURE]

*This was necessary only because the title of Captain Obvious is not handed out lightly. There are quotas.

** Can you tell I’m already mentally hitting (in this case with flailing appendages and softened skull) the slopes? Have a good weekend ladies.

Posted in recap | Comments Off

professions i’d be bad at

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

I didn’t bring a lunch and have plans for picking up chinese. I have a four-day weekend planned. Things here are relatively slow just now. I’m more exhausted than usual. I have some shopping to get done tonight. For all these reasons, and probably more, this last hour of work already feels like a trek through the desert, Bear Grylls style without the hotels and camera crew.

In the interest of speeding up the torturous moments, and because it just crossed my mind yesterday, here’s a list of occupations I’d never be able to partake in:

Bus driver
I don’t like driving in the city all that much and don’t at all like annoying people. For this reason, my being a bus driver would be akin to a hefty five-hundred-pound gentleman being a personal trainer. There’s a strong probability of my driving it at excess speeds into perilous turns just to kick-start my neurons in the face of such stress. On another note, the uniforms in no way accentuate my model-like features. I’ve never worn one, but I’m 99.786% positive I look terrible in sweater-vests.

Day car professional
I worked as a janitorial engineer in one back before college. Kids apparently until tween age lick everything. This is a disgusting habit. I would likely wipe something noxious onto the windows and the resulting quarantine would have the whole neighborhood talking. Have you ever talked to kids? It’s all about them and it’s almost complete nonsense. I’d never be able to tolerate it. If I’m talking about myself in never-ending sequences of nonsensical stories, how will I ever find the time to listen to their babbling? My stories are far better anyway; no one cares if there’s a new character on [fill in name of disney or nickelodeon cartoon here] this week?

Bouncer
My frame is small, so I’d have to waste valuable movie-watching hours in the gym to bulk up to a point of intimidation. Strike one. I’d have to constantly interact with people in varying levels of drunk. Strike three because that counts as two. There is one plus: it would give me an excuse to create a 40 days and 40 nights-style website where people placed bets on how long it’d take for me to launch a bar stool through someone’s face. I just don’t have the patience for such things.

Tour guide at art museum
I appreciate art. I understand the skill that goes into it. I admire it and enjoy visiting museums to do just that. I hate listening to people talk about it. I can’t imagine being able to acceptably pull off bullshitting for such an extended period of time. At one of the paintings I’d lose my cool. I’d feel the blood rush to my cheeks and I’d burst out before realizing it:

“Turns out, this one’s just a flower. O’Keeffe had a gigantic garden and she liked to plant flowers of every hue. Then she’d paint them. It’s not a symbol for her emerging womanhood. It’s not depicting her struggle against a male-dominated industry. It’s not a sexual awakening. Those stamen aren’t representations of the most important men in her life through oil on steel. They are stamen. They are the center of the flower she decided to paint. It just happens to be pink. The color means nothing. Moving on, here we have another. This one is oil on canvas. It’s another flower. All this lady does is paint flowers. They are static and uninteresting. She chose them because she couldn’t paint with any detail. Over there is a wall of more brightly colored flowers because she got her paints at a bulk rate in the fall. Please follow me to your left and I’ll show you another small room of more flowers. No flash photography, please. That means you in the New York Yankees hat. Are you from New York? .. Right, I didn’t think so. Fun update for everyone here. If you haven’t lived in or visited New York, but wear their teams’ hats, you’re a dick. Here on your right is a yellow flower. Notice the green of the leaves, like on almost all her other…”

Posted in reflection | 2 Comments »