• bullets over broadway: normally i hate woody allen movies, but this one was pretty funny. john cusack and jennifer tilly were good, but dianne wiest was great. shh…don’t speak. don’t speak!!
• othello: strangely, i’d never read othello or seen it in play/movie format…except for seeing “O” last year, but that was a tragedy for different reasons. william shakespeare must look down fromw whatever perch he’s sitting on these days and just thanks his lucky stars for kenneth branagh. the guy’s amazing.
• blue velvet: o. ver. rate. ted. man, what a disappointment. i should’ve known better than to take everyone’s word for it that this movie was a classic. it came out in 1986. nothing that came out in 1986 can be a classic. dennis hopper and kyle maclachlan were just annoying, and what the hell was going on with dean stockwell? gah.
• bob roberts: laughed my ass off. “right is right, left is wrong”. it’s such a great parody of american politics and media shortsightedness. rent it. memorize the songs. you’ll hear them (spoken, maybe, not sung) over the next two years or so.

i’m just getting up from the nap i needed to recover from the weekend i just had. a long delay, a short flight, a quick meeting with a new family member, a special bitter, goldmember, good timing, a surprise, a sleepless night, a beach, a redneck town, a huge party, fireworks, earplugs, champagne & orange juice, a drive home, a barbeque, some primo family time, a drive back, lobster dinner (i had hamburgers), strawberries, an early night, an earlier morning, a short flight, a cab ride, a subway ride, a half-assed attempt at work, a nap, an order for chinese food.

you’re now caught up.

ok, before this rain started, it was so damned humid outside that i’d be walking along and all of a sudden feel a drop of water form on my face. not sweat, mind you, the air was just…shedding water. it was funny, all these people on the sidewalk looking up to see if the windows were being washed…

• the apartment: oldie with jack lemmon and shirley maclaine – who, incidentally, was kinda hot when she was young – was pretty good, actually. not having grown up with movies of the era, i always find the acting kind of wooden, except for lemmon who was always brilliant. not bad, movie-wise.
• heavy: i’ve been meaning to see this for years. i was surprised to have recognize evan dando right away, since ‘ve never seen him on screen before. must’ve been the voice. liv tyler was really good, better than in everything else she’s done short of stealing beauty, deborah harry was good, shelly winters was good and pruitt taylor vince was amazing. i noticed how they made every male other than victor a complete asshole, but what was with the airplanes all the time?
• i shot andy warhol: a little disappointing; lily taylor was incredible, but the movie itself was only so-so. not great, not terrible.
• josie and the pussycats: believe it or not, i loved it. i had no idea it was all anti-corporate, and whther it worked or not doesn’t matter so much. i laughed all the way through. i love parker posie. i LOVE rosario dawson. and rachel leigh cook (now). and if tara reid would justlay off the makeup…anyway, it was good. dujour means seatbelts!!

i have this list of movies that i keep meaning to rent, and i finally took a chunk out of it last week. i rented four (from my new favourite video store…it makes rogers seem like a poor person’s yard sale) and watched them over the past four days or so. and they were all good!!

• kurt and courtney: i wasn’t disappointed, though it wasn’t quite what i expected. after reading heavier than heaven, there was nothing surprising in there, just some amusement in watching courtney love put on a queen bitch display. but what really made it fascinating was this lineup of tortured friends and lovers who talked about kurt and courtney. it was one thing to read about dylan or amy in the biography, but quite another to see them arm-wrestling sanity and death.
• waking the dead: god, what a depressing movie. billy crudup was great, and jennifer connelly is, in addition to being a great actress, just about the most gorgeous thing mine eyes have ever seen, but keeeee-rhist, i felt like doing a g.i. joe roll off my balcony after this one was done. i guess that means they did a good job. then again, maybe i’m just depressed ’cause i know jennifer connelly will never be cuddled up to me on an airplane. frig. frig frig frig. oh scotch, where are you?
• the french connection: i can’t believe i’ve nevers seen this movie. not that it’s indispensable, but just because it’s been around for so long and it’s a classic action movie. great car chase scene – not as technically smooth as ronin, but more visceral; i still haven’t seen bullitt, so i can’t compare. gene hackman’s always awesome, even if he is playing a racist shithead. i loved how it didn’t wrap everything up nicely: bad things happened, the bad guy got away, popeye and cloudy didn’t get their due. maybe that’s why it’s a classic.
• rushmore: i’d actually seen this one before, but i couldn’t remember much of it. having watched it, i’d obviously forgotten how good it was…maybe i’m just a bit more accustomed to wes anderson’s style now, but i was laughing out loud in parts, smiling for selfish reasons in others. i need to rent bottle rocket now.

all in all, not bad. four movies, four winners.

what good, you may ask, is a samurai sword for someone living in an urban centre? with no need for self-protection, and with food delivered or a microwave tumble away, what use have i for it?

well, i’ll tell you.

it’s great for hacking up laundry baskets which have outlived their usefulness and will not fit down the garbage chute in one piece. absolutely great for it.

so, after 4 days in the new place, i’m finally starting to get settled. it’s ex-bloody-pensive to move into a bigger place, especially when you toss a bunch of your older stuff when you move.

i love my new spot, though. especially the climate control, given the subtropical temps (and garbage strike) outside. just needs a few minor adjustments, a few more purchases, and then it’ll be all set. first on the list is a computer desk; i’m goddamn tired of sitting on the floor.

too sick to go to the white stripes show last night. jack & meg, come back soon!

banais!

saturday, june 15, 2002, the wedding of mike and heather. ’twas a delightful affair, fun was had by all, pip pip, cheerio. the trip to kingston was enhanced by a stop at mcdonald’s and my complete control over the stereo, and marred only by the monsoon-quality rain that pelted us an hour out of toronto. p.j., who had encountered the same rain, claimed to have driven for 15 minutes ‘using the force’.

the hall where the ceremony took place was perfect, and very large…fitting, considering the wedding party was comprised of 5 women and 7 men (including the principals). the men were in full kilt, and the ladies looked viciously hot. rowr. now, let me say that i’ve been to quite a few weddings, but never have i been so stunned by the bride on consecutive occasions. at marney’s wedding, i nearly choked up when i saw her walking down the…uh, grassy path toward the ocean (rather unorthodox path for a bride to take, that). while i, and everyone else, know how beautiful she is, you don’t always expect the bride to suddenly asppear before you that beautiful. the same thing happened in this case: you could hear gasps in the room when heather walked in, and when our eyes followed her to the front of the room we saw tears in mike’s eyes. we all thought, “no wonder”; in any case, he was hardly the only one in the room so affected.

the ceremony itself was simple, elegant, well-handled by the official (they can really let it slide sometimes), tear-inducing (i found myself sitting between two female friends…thank heaven the kleenex held out, for i value my sleeves greatly) and quick. we all retired to a nearby pub for two hours, then made for the dinner tables. the rest of the night – for me, anyway – was marred by the sickly feeling of something attacking my body from the inside, so i wasn’t exactly on top of my game (regardless, i had to be up early the next morning to catch a train back home to take care to some rather unpleasant business), but i do recall all of the following, in no particular order:

• several speeches, highlighted by mike’s which left nearly everyone – myself included – veklempt or worse
• heather trying to recover enough from mike’s speech to make her own
• a deaf and evil man who played music until the real dj showed up (at least, i think this is what happened)
• cathy grabbing my sleeve with fire in her eyes saying, “you did bring the chocolates, didn’t you?”
• cigars
• mark and i wimping out on said cigar action, having rich cut one in half so we could share, and then struggling with them anyway
• finally, mark ditching the remainder of his cigar over the balcony into a bale of hay and the subsequent smokey the bear routine
• darryl’s speech, the best i’ve heard put forth from a best man since…well, since mike was ernie’s
• rucking down
• dry heaving in the bathroom when whatever-it-was-in-my-stomach got feisty; i decided to take it easy after that and switched to keith’s
• ernie turning into a dancing queen when “seether” was requested
• ken very nearly sweating to death
• having my ass grabbed twice – sadly, by men on both occassions

all in all, it was nothing less than i expected: a beautiful ceremony honouring two people who everyone in the room would’ve gone to the ends of the earth to witness being wed. there was a palpable sense in the room that everyone, give the chance, would’ve stood up and held forth on their genuine respect and affection for mike and heather. that two people we loved so much could have a day such as that – well deserved indeed – gives you a sense that all is karmically and cosmically pretty damn okay with the world.

congratulations, kids.

one of the best movies i’ve seen all year.

“personally, i think you’re the fucking antichrist…”