I am firmly dedicated to seeing as many 2004 movies as possible before I crank out a best of list, which means that I won’t be doing mine until mid-January. Maybe late January, since the Brattle has that Zhang Ziyi flick I wanna see. However: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Closer, Life Aquatic, Kinsey, The Incredibles, Gozu, Last Life in the Universe, Zatoichi, Eternal Sunshine, Spider-Man 2, aw crap that’s ten already? This is gonna be tough.
If you happen to live in Boston and you’re that kind of obsessive, the Brattle Theater is showing the Lord of the Rings trilogy back to back to back on Sunday, January 2nd and Monday, January 3rd. Starting on the 7th, they’re reviewing some of the best movies of 2004, including Last Life In The Universe on the 7th, Takeshi’s Kitano’s Zatoichi on the 8th, and Goodbye, Dragon Inn on the 11th. Plus a lot of other good stuff. I’ve gotta make it to Before Sunset, myself. ...
I never link to viral marketing, at least not on purpose. (What, never? Well, hardly ever.) But. Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah to you.
“Imagine a great metropolis covering hundreds of square miles. Once a vital component in a national economy, this sprawling urban environment is now a vast collection of blighted buildings, an immense petri dish of both ancient and new diseases, a territory where the rule of law has long been replaced by near anarchy in which the only security available is that which is attained through brute power. Such cities have been routinely imagined in apocalyptic movies and in certain science-fiction genres, where they are often portrayed as gigantic versions of T. S. Eliot’s Rat’s Alley. Yet this city would still be globally connected. It would possess at least a modicum of commercial linkages, and some of its inhabitants would have access to the world’s most modern communication and computing technologies. It would, in effect, be a feral city.” ...
A while back I urged San Franciscans to help save the 4 Star. Everything worked out (original); the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance stating that you can’t demolish or change the use of a movie theater as long as that theater is economically viable. This is a horrendous intrusion into the economic sphere and I should abhor it. But, you know, the Four Star is gonna show Dark Water soon and I can’t find it in me to object to a law that makes sure that kind of thing will continue to happen.
For your periodic amusement, if you like weird movie posters, there is this page. Which can also be sucked down as an RSS feed if you like. The cool thing, and I can do this because I have a Mac, is that all I gotta do to upload a picture is drop it into a certain folder and BAM there it is on the Intraweb. 2022-05-30: that link was lost at some point during all the Flickr transitions. C’est la vie.
I’m kind of thinking that the Sacred Pentacle of 80s Rock is made up of U2, REM, X, Husker Du, and Metallica. The Arena, the Alternative, the Punk, the Hardcore, and the Metal. But everyone flirts with everyone.
In the future, everyone in Boston will have parasols for fifteen minutes. There are many more vintage Boston postcards here (original), and I suppose some might want postcards from elsewhere.
Blah blah Tom Wolfe writes bad sex scenes (original) blah. Well… I Am Charlotte Simmons is not a great book. It’s not a lousy book either. In any case, though, there’s nothing wrong with the sex scene in context. It’s written as clinically and as awkwardly as it is because Wolfe is using Charlotte Simmons’ voice in that scene, and from the first time we meet her it’s exceedingly clear that she uses dry, clinical language to separate herself from aspects of her life which make her feel awkward. It’s not Tom Wolfe writing uncomfortably about sex, it’s Charlotte Simmons thinking uncomfortably about sex.
Happiness is 300 megabytes of cult, SF, fantasy, and horror movie posters thanks to, um, sources. Samples inside, cause I can’t resist the pretty pictures.