Christmas Eve
So... here we are - Xmas Eve '06.
I'll do the Year In Review thing another time.
Suffice it to say it's been one with a lot of changes.
But more of that later.
Not much happening on the home front tonight.
The kids are gone for a visit to San Diego and C and I are alone and just hangin' out.
Before my son left, he managed to complete my website and get it online.
Again, it's @ http://www.nofleshshallbespared.com
It looks good. We'll let things sit and gel for a few weeks and, when he gets back from CA, we'll do some additional tweezing. As I believe I mentioned before, I'm hoping to get some of the old CN interviews up as well as some sporadic fiction. I also plan to post the full transciptions of interviews I've done for Fango. Most of these interviews only get a portion of their content used in the published articles, so people being able to read them in their entirety will be cool.
I sat through a bunch of decent enough cinema in the last few days:
KONTROL: This was actually very good. Directed by Nimrod Antal (whose doing the new Luke Wilson / Kate Beckinsale thriller, VACANCIES), Kontrol was the story of a group of 'monitors' who work the Budapest subway system. It had a very cool vibe to it and its storytelling was unlike most of what you see in American movies. Pretty cool.
A SCANNER DARKLY: I enjoyed this adaptation of the Philip K Dick story by Richard Linklater. The performances were quirky, but fun as hell and I really dug the whole look of the film. I especially dug Robert Downey, Jr.
MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND: Pure shit. I don't know what I was expecting, but... this was total crap. The film had a decent pedigree too - Uma Thurman, Eddie Izzard, Ivan Reitman directing... what could go wrong? The answer: EVERYTHING! Avoid it as if it had open, runnin sores on it.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE: I don't know what to say about this one. I kept hearing how great it was, but... I found it only to be ok; not great, but ok. The cast was good, but the characters were sorta unlikable. They pulled it out a bit at the end, but I'm not exactly sure I can recommend it.
LADY IN THE WATER: This was a film I'd heard nothing but bad things about, but... you know what? It wasn't *that* bad. I love Paul Giamatti (he's one of my Myspace friends!) and he was good in this. There were just a couple of things that played flat (Freddy Rodriguez' character for one), but the 'monsters' were cool as hell. I think Shyamalan just needs to hire someone to sit next to him and tell him when he's going off the deep end. Y'know, slap him in the head and say, "Yeah, don't do that."
I also watched SUPERMAN RETURNS (*hated* it), FOOTBALL FACTORY (which I liked a LOT!), and SYMPATHY FOR THE UNDERDOG with the great Takakura Ken (which was a fun 60's era Yakusa / Ganster flick). SYMPATHY was cool just for that wearing-sunglasses-at-night-and-shooting-guns-while-pseudopsychedelic-Japanese-music-plays-in-the-background thing.
What else?
Picked up a couple of books at B&N a night or two ago. I was given a gift card as the result of a Secret Santa thing at the hospital, so I went and picked up the new Fangoria which has my Berni Wrightson / CITY OF OTHERS article in it (see below) and two books.
One of the books was Stephen Pressfield's TIDES OF WAR (http://www.amazon.com/Tides-War-Steven-Pressfield/dp/0553381393) which is about the warrior Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War. Pressfield wrote the amazing GATES OF FIRE novel and is an exceptional writer and is fast becoming one of my favorites writers of all time.
The other book I bought has a bit of a story behind it. See... The girl at the hospital who gave me the B&N gift card is a bit of a militant Christian. She even went so far as to include a card that had a picture of herself standing next to a Xmas tree with the inscription: "Merry Christmas! May God bless you!!" I found that a vit inappropriate for the workplace. Call me crazy. So, it was with no small amount of irony that I used her card to buy Richard Dawkins' new book, THE GOD DELUSION (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618680004/bookstorenow600-20).
I'm sure she'd not approve.
So, there you go.
Anyway, that's about it.
If I don't get a chance to post for the next few days, I hope anyone reading this has a splendid Xmas-thing.
I'll get to that Yearly wrapup / New Year's Resolution post thing soon.
Maybe...
I'll do the Year In Review thing another time.
Suffice it to say it's been one with a lot of changes.
But more of that later.
Not much happening on the home front tonight.
The kids are gone for a visit to San Diego and C and I are alone and just hangin' out.
Before my son left, he managed to complete my website and get it online.
Again, it's @ http://www.nofleshshallbespared.com
It looks good. We'll let things sit and gel for a few weeks and, when he gets back from CA, we'll do some additional tweezing. As I believe I mentioned before, I'm hoping to get some of the old CN interviews up as well as some sporadic fiction. I also plan to post the full transciptions of interviews I've done for Fango. Most of these interviews only get a portion of their content used in the published articles, so people being able to read them in their entirety will be cool.
I sat through a bunch of decent enough cinema in the last few days:
KONTROL: This was actually very good. Directed by Nimrod Antal (whose doing the new Luke Wilson / Kate Beckinsale thriller, VACANCIES), Kontrol was the story of a group of 'monitors' who work the Budapest subway system. It had a very cool vibe to it and its storytelling was unlike most of what you see in American movies. Pretty cool.
A SCANNER DARKLY: I enjoyed this adaptation of the Philip K Dick story by Richard Linklater. The performances were quirky, but fun as hell and I really dug the whole look of the film. I especially dug Robert Downey, Jr.
MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND: Pure shit. I don't know what I was expecting, but... this was total crap. The film had a decent pedigree too - Uma Thurman, Eddie Izzard, Ivan Reitman directing... what could go wrong? The answer: EVERYTHING! Avoid it as if it had open, runnin sores on it.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE: I don't know what to say about this one. I kept hearing how great it was, but... I found it only to be ok; not great, but ok. The cast was good, but the characters were sorta unlikable. They pulled it out a bit at the end, but I'm not exactly sure I can recommend it.
LADY IN THE WATER: This was a film I'd heard nothing but bad things about, but... you know what? It wasn't *that* bad. I love Paul Giamatti (he's one of my Myspace friends!) and he was good in this. There were just a couple of things that played flat (Freddy Rodriguez' character for one), but the 'monsters' were cool as hell. I think Shyamalan just needs to hire someone to sit next to him and tell him when he's going off the deep end. Y'know, slap him in the head and say, "Yeah, don't do that."
I also watched SUPERMAN RETURNS (*hated* it), FOOTBALL FACTORY (which I liked a LOT!), and SYMPATHY FOR THE UNDERDOG with the great Takakura Ken (which was a fun 60's era Yakusa / Ganster flick). SYMPATHY was cool just for that wearing-sunglasses-at-night-and-shooting-guns-while-pseudopsychedelic-Japanese-music-plays-in-the-background thing.
What else?
Picked up a couple of books at B&N a night or two ago. I was given a gift card as the result of a Secret Santa thing at the hospital, so I went and picked up the new Fangoria which has my Berni Wrightson / CITY OF OTHERS article in it (see below) and two books.
One of the books was Stephen Pressfield's TIDES OF WAR (http://www.amazon.com/Tides-War-Steven-Pressfield/dp/0553381393) which is about the warrior Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War. Pressfield wrote the amazing GATES OF FIRE novel and is an exceptional writer and is fast becoming one of my favorites writers of all time.
The other book I bought has a bit of a story behind it. See... The girl at the hospital who gave me the B&N gift card is a bit of a militant Christian. She even went so far as to include a card that had a picture of herself standing next to a Xmas tree with the inscription: "Merry Christmas! May God bless you!!" I found that a vit inappropriate for the workplace. Call me crazy. So, it was with no small amount of irony that I used her card to buy Richard Dawkins' new book, THE GOD DELUSION (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618680004/bookstorenow600-20).
I'm sure she'd not approve.
So, there you go.
Anyway, that's about it.
If I don't get a chance to post for the next few days, I hope anyone reading this has a splendid Xmas-thing.
I'll get to that Yearly wrapup / New Year's Resolution post thing soon.
Maybe...