A lot of movies have been watched at the Presidio Inn: Woody Allen's older films What's New, Pussycat?, Sleeper, Bananas, Mighty Aphrodite, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Celebrity, and Annie Hall. Also, his recent works Anything Else and Match Point, along with Vicky Christina Barcelona's crazy and/or confused females (plus one-trick pony Scarlett Johansson, so-so in The Prestige, a good film) and neurotic, paranoid, aging males.
You see enough of these Allen creations and the scenes start to overlap -- i.e. the part in Celebrity where Kenneth Branagh interrupts his young muse's theater practice, finding her in the sights of another man, and the scene in Anything Else where Jason Biggs follows Christina Ricci to theater practice, and finds her in the arms of a rival. But, eh... if repetition is the worst thing I can say about such a vast catalog, so be it. Maybe he's just trying to get his point across. Not sure what his point is, maybe that love takes time, and luck, to work.
Also, I finally saw Alex Cox's Repo Man, after multiple people including Mike Sherman recommended it. The film is based on a hypothetical: what would happen if Emilio Estevez's bad-ass, Men At Work slacker character were charged with repossessing cars, not collecting trash, and there were aliens. Harry Dean Stanton swears like a sailor, pouring his heart into his role as Estevez's mentor. Perhaps The Wendell Baker Story could have used more cursing, but that's another blog.
Repo Man is up there with Brazil and Time Bandits in its futuristic-yet-trashy, surfy, surreal, damn-near-gritty Magic Realism. They aren't apocalyptic, a la Six-String Samurai. Perhaps that's because no one ever really got their shit together enough to cause a catastrophe. Maybe it's that apocalypse is too easy. Isn't death by a thousand cuts -- paper cuts, in Brazil's case -- scarier, and more realistic? There's just an overall sense of something having gone wrong, and one man (or, in Time Bandits, a few little men) left to salvage whatever's left. The soundtrack is classic punk rock, with the LA bands Circle Jerks making an appearance, and Black Flag claiming territory. I read that David Lynch is considering the sequel to Repo Man, called Repo Chick or something. Hopefully Emilio Estevez is in it. What a dreamboat.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
life digest 060109
All kinds of surprises are happening around 541 Lake. Yesterday, the hydrant got knocked off by an errant minivan across the street. Pete and Britt had a primo view of the action as crowds grew, cars were confused, and firefighters moseyed on over to put out the water.
Today, Pette and Britte made their merry ways to San Bruno, natch, to celebrate Michael's birthday at BJ's Brewhouse. Pete had the Porter homebrew with fish and chips, sharing the avocado roll appetizer with Britt, who ordered one massive "Classic" baked potato. She ordered it without sour cream or cheese, just bacon. It arrived no bacon, and no sour cream, just cheese. Natch. The place got some pretty bad Yelps though, so the couple was prepared.
Pete reads Lolita, while Britt suffers Atlas Shrugged.
Gabriel heads off to college soon, at Loyola Chicago. On Sunday, she went shopping on Haight St. accompanied by her mom, boyfriend, older brother and his girlfriend. They ate at Citrus Club, which everyone more or less enjoyed, after the wait, and ended at Crepes Express. Britt says the servers aren't very nice there and she didn't like her latest apple-cinnamon crepe. Pete liked his alright, though the whipped cream was rather cheapy and melted quickly.
A&E
Though Pete and Keith dug some of the soundtrack, Pete and Britt concur: "Don't see Medicine for Melancholy." Bad stereotypes of racial identity and dialogue, weak acting, shaky camerawork and too much silence do not balance out the filmed-in-SF fun factor, says Pete. "The NY Times review was on point when saying the film doesn't do the identity-politics discussion any favors. Instead, the movie details what it's like to be a guy trapped in your own notion of what a particular skin color means," Pete adds. "It's not pretty."
Today, Pette and Britte made their merry ways to San Bruno, natch, to celebrate Michael's birthday at BJ's Brewhouse. Pete had the Porter homebrew with fish and chips, sharing the avocado roll appetizer with Britt, who ordered one massive "Classic" baked potato. She ordered it without sour cream or cheese, just bacon. It arrived no bacon, and no sour cream, just cheese. Natch. The place got some pretty bad Yelps though, so the couple was prepared.
Pete reads Lolita, while Britt suffers Atlas Shrugged.
Gabriel heads off to college soon, at Loyola Chicago. On Sunday, she went shopping on Haight St. accompanied by her mom, boyfriend, older brother and his girlfriend. They ate at Citrus Club, which everyone more or less enjoyed, after the wait, and ended at Crepes Express. Britt says the servers aren't very nice there and she didn't like her latest apple-cinnamon crepe. Pete liked his alright, though the whipped cream was rather cheapy and melted quickly.
A&E
Though Pete and Keith dug some of the soundtrack, Pete and Britt concur: "Don't see Medicine for Melancholy." Bad stereotypes of racial identity and dialogue, weak acting, shaky camerawork and too much silence do not balance out the filmed-in-SF fun factor, says Pete. "The NY Times review was on point when saying the film doesn't do the identity-politics discussion any favors. Instead, the movie details what it's like to be a guy trapped in your own notion of what a particular skin color means," Pete adds. "It's not pretty."
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