two movies which i’d never seen until this past week, for some bizarre reason or another:

• ferris bueller’s day off: despite being a john highes product (the main reason i’d stayed away before), i thought it was good. funny and informative (i’m going to chicago later this month, so it was nice to get a tour). battabattabattabattasaaa-wiiiingbatta
• swingers: this movie was so very, very money. as with made, i hated vince vaughn for the first half hour, but grew to like him a bit. the whole scene with jon favreau leaving messages on nikki’s answering machine had me halfway between hysterical laughter and sympathy pains. i was yelling, “no, don’t call her again!” at the tv. thank god no one was here.

dang, if i’d known there were no decent extras (at least, nothing you couldn’t find on the net) on this 2-disc DVD set i’d have just waited for the 4-disc set coming in november. i’ll probably buy it anyway.

congratulations, new line & alliance atlantis. i am your consumer. your marketing scheme has worked perfectly. well done.

see, i disconnected my cable for the summer, and i discovered this great new video store, and my video list was getting out of control…all this explains why you keep seeing so many movies discussed here. as if anyone’s actually reading this anyway…

• lawrence of arabia: i can see why my brother called this his favourite movie. god, the locations were just incredible…all the desert shots, the sunrises as beautiful as they are sure to mean death. it annoyed me that movie producers ever felt they had to cast white men in arab roles (alec guinness as prince feisal? anthony quinn as auda abu tayi? right.
• bottle rocket: probably would’ve liked it more if i could stand owen wilson. but i can’t. luke, yes. owen, no. only time i laughed was when kumar (kumar pallana, who appears in all of wes anderson’s movies) said, “who was that man?”. and i laughed a lot.
• eight men out: i’d seen it years ago, but i didn’t appreciate it back then. i couldn’t really follow the plot, and i didn’t appreciate how good the actual ball was compared to other shite baseball movies. john sayles is a pretty talented guy; he directed and played ring lardner.
• do the right thing: typical spike lee. not bad, not great. some characters compelling, some annoying (yes, yes, just like real life, i unnerstand), all overdone. rosie perez was and is a medical marvel, able to be extremely sexy and phenomenally annoying at the same time.

also saw signs this weekend. man, it’s fun to watch a scary movie in a huge theatre where people freak out. blair witch was even better for that (the four girls in front of me who covered their eyes, stomped their feet and mumbled “ohmygodohmygodohmygod…” for the last 10 minutes were priceless), but signs was funny too. weird to see people so scared and then laughing out loud 5 seconds after. go see it.

• 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.