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Tuesday, January 20, 2004
DOWN WITH LOVE (D: Peyton Reed, 2003) (A): Really very lovely, with everything turned up to eleven (colors/sights/sounds!) and syncopated line readings and editing. Pays off with performances that are the actorly equivalent of lovely Russian Dolls one can buy for about 50 cents at most discount shops: look simple but may be opened up and there's more... Whole wacky mazelike gender politics stance that hurts my brain when I attempt to unpack it. Not a musical, surprisingly enough. Best bit: the dueling "Fly Me To The Moon"s (Astrud vs. Sinatra).
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
A brand new story by the man who once concieved of a male counterpart to Hooters called Joysticks.
Monday, January 12, 2004
In a brief return to my habits of yesteryear ("yesteryear" used literally for perhaps the first time in the history of prose), I'm returning to my compulsion to comment on film. HERE WE GO: BIG FISH (D: Tim Burton, 2003) is bad. Really and truly. Feeling contempt for a diversion is never a good thing and probably a sign of my typically American sense of entitlement, but still. I despised it as I have no film since BICENTENNIAL MAN or THE GREEN MILE (I've yet, and perhaps never, to see LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, which I'm assured by certain trustworthy folk would make the just-mentioned duo a numeralogically satisfying trio). This really, as I'm certain you've noticed, isn't criticism but a simple declaration of hatred. It satisfies me and frankly I really could care less if you sympathize with my emotions or not.
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
2003 -A PERSONAL YEAR IN REVIEW:
Okay. Many recreational explosives went off and so lotsa kids all around the nation lost fingers in areas right outside their cities and then two bad men started firing at people from elevated areas in DC and then Bush enacted his own production of "Dune" in the mideast without financing by Dino de Laurentis or Kofi Annan and then Buffy saved the world alot and didn't die but Anya and Spike did and my friend Brian left the city to have further adventures in the Central Time Zone and I met the miss south texas woman of color on a bus and I became good friends with a self-proclaimed cuddleslut/Maggie Gyllenhaal-alike who left bite marks on both my hands and then lotsa famous people died and then I started a website which no one reads and then Bill Murray sang Roxy Music in Japan and then Uma Thurman tried to kill bill in Japan and Connie Nielsen walked into many rooms with an imperious gaze in Japan and then both Uma and Connie got into a fight over violence in the media and then my friend Ryan met a pretty girl at work which compelled him to sing a karaoke version of "Uptown Girl" and then I found myself on a stage dressed in a really silly outfit complete with matching hat for a few seconds and wasn't allowed to sing and dance but got clapped for anyway and then, contrary to the editors of VOGUE, the color for the season was declared orange and then many recreational explosives went off and so lotsa kids all around the nation lost fingers in areas right outside their cities.
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Expect a best of the year list on this site in a few days. Not quite sure what bests I'll be presenting but I'm certain the notion of me expressing an opinion will keep you up at all hours in giddy anticipation. A SNEAK PEEK: Broadcast's HA HA SOUND kicks ass!
Friday, December 26, 2003
Here's an awfully nifty new article by Oliver Sacks on the nature of our relationship with time. Read it and feel smart. Then slip on a banana peel as a reward for your presumption of intelligence.
Friday, December 26, 2003
Top 5 songs of the moment:
1. Thelma Houston - "Don't Leave Me This Way"
2. Slumber Party - "Never Again"
3. Shelley Duvall (as Olive Oyl) - "He Needs Me"
4. Eurythmics - "Belinda"
5. Holger Czukay - "Cool In The Pool"
Current Karaoke Favorite:
Yes - "Owner Of A Lonely Heart"
Monday, December 22, 2003
It certainly is very odd when...
...you're informed by a friend that, when out with her, she often looks at the fellas about and mentally pairs you up with them (I'm straight and she knows this).
...you walk into an elevator and find that you and the female already inside are wearing the exact same ensemble: blue jeans and a shortsleeve white button-up shirt under a beige shortsleeve sweater. Didn't see the socks, but I'll take a leap and say she was wearing white also (goes well with the outfit).
...you have a series of dreams about various relatives turning into animals (rhinos, chimps, shrimps, dogs, etc.) inside a fictional bookstore (an odd unlit place that's about the size of a gym - dusty shelves with apparently only books dated before 1940. Very easy to steal from.). That's just weird.
Written while listening to: Squeeze - "Take Me, I'm Yours"
Monday, December 15, 2003
Who ever you are, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE stop sending emails about the Paris Hilton sex tape to my Yahoo mailbox.This is a protest bound to (and designed to) fall on deaf ears but, nonetheless, empty gestures may play a part in raising one's self esteem. So that's okay then.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Ever wondered what a collaboration between evangelical cartoonist zealot Jack T. Chick and legendary neurotic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft would read like? Me neither. But somebody with alot of time on their hands did. Here are the results.
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
filmlog:
THE FOUR HUNDRED BLOWS (D: Francois Truffaut, 1959) (second viewing) 90
Monday, December 8, 2003
FILMLOG:
LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (D: Max Ophuls, 1949) (second viewing) 94
DEMONLOVER (D: Olivier Assayas, 2003) 76 - is:
a. an essay on how a mover and shaker within a system eventually becomes a product of it (both in terms of "an end result" and "an item meant for consumption").
b. a training manual on how to dominate any space one should find oneself in (see: any scene Connie Nielsen is in, ie. virtually all of them).
c. an update of VIDEODROME (too many examples to list, though note how the ending is a downbeat gloss on what VIDEODROME posits as possible transcendence. Less obvious, though still relevant, is the way both films play with the trope of "the murder that seems to never have occurred".)
d. another confirmation that Assayas loves watching beautiful women in action (opening a door, injecting a sedative into a drink, a rilly big fetish involving women entering and leaving cars). The screen becomes electric when these moments are caught, the eroticism easily overpowering the more overtly sexual images of coitus, torture, and bondage.
e. a showcase for various great Sonic Youth instrumentals (they did write the soundtrack). Also the first time I've heard NEU! and Goldfrapp used in a movie.
Written while listening to: The Spinanes - "Kid In Candy"
Saturday, December 6, 2003
As your hands roam her back, her breasts, and trace the swastika on her mound you start feeling like an ancient Aryan warlord yourself...
Oh dear lord.
Thursday, December 4, 2003
I can't believe I just learned about this today. This is the second time this week I find myself laughing in an excessive and embarrassing manner to something with religious implications.
Thursday, December 4, 2003
BRIEF ENCOUNTER (D: David Lean, 1946) 68 - Glorious and useless visuals, with the soundtrack doing every bit of work for the audience - far from a compliment, but not quite (at least in the case) an insult. When read with screenwriter Noel Coward's sexuality as a guide, the film provides, as certain academics may state, an extremely (ahem) rich text.
Tuesday, December 2, 2003
A peculiar experience: coming across a favorite song (Stephin Merritt's giddy "All Dressed Up In Dreams") used in a commercial (for clothing, as one would expect). Quite amazed that it didn't happen sooner. My resentment will commence at 3:00 this afternoon.
Saturday, November 29, 2003
filmlog:
ONE SENTENCE FILM REVIEWS
SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (D: Victor Erice, 1971) 39 A series of themes that never come close to coalescing into a genuine experience, including one (the animal-human psych. thing) handled much better in MON ONCLE D'AMERIQUE; cutest little brat ever though.
QUAI DES ORFEVRES (D: Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1947) 88 - Balzacian, to put it lightly; also, what's with the French fondness for immensely ugly actors (QDE's Louis Jouvet, Denis Levant, Depardieu)?
RABBIT HOOD (D: Chuck Jones, 1939) 71 - I'm afraid it can't compete with the more famous Daffy as Robin Hood parody, even with a cameo by Errol Flynn.
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (D: Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, 1938) 73 - Nothing wrong at all w/ this (hard to criticize a film so clearly likable and giddy), though imagine how great this film would have been if Raoul Walsh had been at the helm; Eugene Pallet's greatness is confirmed.
GOD TOLD ME TO (D: Larry Cohen, 1976) 90 - Cohen has one of the most peculiar aesthetics around - clearly primitive, giving any given scene just enough power to be reasonably effective.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
filmlog:
HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (D: Victor Sjostrom, 1924) 85
A film of astounding power, wherein a scientist (played by Lon Chaney, Man Of A Thousand Appearances On TCM) whose work is stolen by his benefactor can only function in life by ritualizing his original humiliation as art, thus assuming a new career/identity as a clown (it's telling that he chooses to only go by his stage name (HE) post-humiliation). The scenes of exhibition are extraordinary, emotionally raw (try to avoid wincing) to say the least. The film's edge grows dull for ten minutes during the second act for the simple reason being the lack of Chaney (who wants negotiations and a picnic when Chaney exists, removing the mud from his heart (literally) and preparing himself for the confrontation that will form the crux of the film's third act?). A genuine work of psychological horror.
Monday, November 24, 2003
At the downtown campus of UTSA there is currently a curious phenomenon: a shanty-townish skeletal structure, maybe 40 by 100 feet in terms of area, composed almost entirely of white sheets and wood. Every aspect of it seems a rough approximation of a more familiar everyday structure (a wall, a fence, a doorway, etc.) except built slightly off-kilter - each nameable bit built with the same basic elements but a different (probably improvised) design pattern, like a Saul Steinberg cartoon come to life. Around fifty people were milling about inside, most of them localized in what could probably be called its foyer, perhaps viewing the artist(s) showcase the work. I have no clue as to what it represents but couldn't help staring at it for around ten minutes, thinking that this situation could be straight out of a Don DeLillo novel. A definiton of art, by no means cynical, which probably doesn't contradict any others: that which is useless, but compelling.
Saturday, November 22, 2003
filmlog:
EPIGRAMMATIC REVIEWS
WAGONMASTER (D: John Ford, 1950) 90 - "If Bret Harte was a romantic, so was the reality that spawned many of his narratives; the deep continent that spanned so many mythologies..."
- Jorge Luis Borges
YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (D: Fritz Lang, 1937) 82 - "The victor's cause was pleasing to the gods, but that of the vanquished, to Cato" - Lucan
Friday, November 21, 2003
THE DUSTBIN/ASHCAN OF HISTORY
Various ideas/juvenilia, mostly discarded like so many Czarists or mined of energy to be placed in other projects (redistribution of wealth!). Feel free to steal notions, requesting permission of original author when necessary (good luck finding pynchon, tho).
- A short (20 minute) film adaptation of T. Pynchon's "Byron the Bulb" digression in Gravity's Rainbow. Would feature an absurdly fast dry narration, ala JULES ET JIM, AMELIE, etc. Transsectite costume designed.- Opera based upon C. Ware's "Quimb(y/ies) the Mouse" series of comic strips (summ: relationship between a neurotic mouse (who often possesses one head; on occasion two) and a passive and submissive cathead). Outlined already/ set design done (amateurish, naturally). Actually still quite interested in this - anyone with a sufficient knowledge of opera and some musical talent should contact me.
- 3 part film anthology with the running themes being logic, mathematics, entropy, et obsession (dedicated to David Cronenberg). Very similar to POISON (D: TODD HAYNES, 1990) w/r/t structure.
a. "21st" - Man whose 21st birthday coincides with onset of millenium believes himself to be an anthropomorphization of 20th century. Would have starred A Lad Inane. Cameos by the gods of Olympus.
b. "6-sided" - Man undertakes the construction of the largest lego block in existence, one composed of small red rectangular legos. Fake documentary style, a la midperiod Kiarostami. To have starred me (playing a character called "Richard Baez").
c. "Sleep" - adaptation of Haruki Murakami story. Middle-class housewife finds she has lost the ability and desire to sleep. In a casting coup, would have hopefully starred Julianne Moore.
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
FILMLOG:
THE DECALOGUE V: THOU SHALT NOT KILL/A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING (D: Krzysztof Kieslowski (whew!), 1988) 85
THE DECALOGUE IV: HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER: (D: Krzysztof Kieslowski (When you sit a week from now with eyeslids shut, head bent in a solemn half-nod, and hands held in the typical suppliant manner before the bountiful feast that lays upon your white linen tablecloth (hopefully resting atop a table and not a dirt floor), please remember to thank the dear Lord for the often overlooked miracle of the cut/copy/paste function.) 1988) 79
Monday, November 17, 2003
Michael Ian Black (apparently on the lam from a special cell deep in the heart of VH1 fortress headquarters), taking a cue from Jonathan Swift and Louie CK, asks a very important question concerning children.
Monday, November 17, 2003
FILM LOG:
MULHOLLAND DRIVE [second viewing] (D: David Lynch, 2001) - 89 - Seeing it again (last seen in theater), I came to realize a bit of why the movie seems to be embraced by many with such rabid affection - Lynch's love for his two central figures is so damn palpable. He really is pulling for them to reach some kind of happy resolution, even though he's gonna pull the time-displacement/lapsed identity rug out from under them eventually.
Saturday, November 15, 2003
FILMLOG:
TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN (D: Vincente Minnelli, 1962) 59
Friday, November 14, 2003
FILMLOG:
TROUBLE IN PARADISE (D: Ernst Lubitsch, 1932) 88
ALSO: Already the day seems a waste. As usual, the high hopes encouraged by watching the morning begin (even a morning as cloud-plagued as this one) lapse when the first few items of the day's itinerary are checked off (the reliable disappointment of "a job well done"). Hoped that last night's Lubitsch would also provoke a good mood (the "gentleman crook" genre kicks ass), but that elation apparently stalled in my sleep. The above statements represent the main attraction of weblogs: no other public medium (as far as I know) insists that the individual constantly display his/her self-absorbtion and narcissism.
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
FILMLOG:
AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (D: Jose Mojica Marins, 1964) 71
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
New Haruki Murakami short story at the New Yorker website. If only I could orchestrate, through the esoteric (to me at least) magic of HTML, a spinning newspaper headline for this entry.
Monday, November 10, 2003
FILMLOG:
THE BOURNE IDENTITY (D: Doug Liman, 2002) 53
BUENO: The way it mixes classic 50s/60s Hollywood misc en scene (check out that gorgeous composition of Clive Owen on the roof, post assassination) w/ Liman's more typical unsteadicam/jumpcutting aesthetic; lovely theme of being simply, without the real and always expositioned plot getting in the way, a study of mid-to-late-20s folk at a loss w/r/t who they are and what they want to do with their lives; great car chase through narrow Parisian streets (Drive Lola, Drive), no CGI mucking up the action, that refreshingly ends in a parking garage; Brian Cox, as CIA bureaucrat, great in the few scenes he's in (getting things done in distinct contrast to Cooper's approach - no fuss, muss, or moral qualms; evil but a genuine professional.).
MALO: As expected, the hi-tech aspects are fetishized to an absurd extent, the not-so-secret message of the movie being "Hey! Look at all this cool stuff!"; underuse of Clive Owen (he's given a lovely and poignant death scene, though); Chris Cooper turns in a villain template ("callous bureaucrat #3") in lieu of a performance; 3 points off for use of a Paul Oakenfold song.
BUT WILL IT MAKE ME A BETTER PERSON?: Not likely. However, that Buffy episode I caught this morning just might.
MYSTIC RIVER (D: Clint Eastwood, 2003) 86
The good, the bad, and the ugly coming soon.
Listening to Sam Cooke's rendition of Summertime (which has dominated these past few days, done by either Cooke or The Zombies).
Thursday, November 6, 2003
Tsai Ming-Liang, are you my daddy?
ALSO: Based solely upon a brief listen to the first song, the new Broadcast album (entitled HA HA SOUND) is brilliant. I don't own the CD nor have I heard more than 2 other (less luminescent, but still quite swell) songs, but still. It reminds me of Jon Brion's compositions for the PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE soundtrack (which I also do not own, but probably hum to myself whilst packing away the 4 hours of sleep I get every night), if, of course, Brion had sampled a irritated cat's meow and inserted it at random intervals amidst all the harmonium hilarity. Therefore you should get it. With patois like this, my prospects as a car salesman are doubtful.
Thursday, November 6, 2003
filmlog:
HERCULES AND THE HAUNTED WORLD (D: Mario Bava, 1961) 63
Wednesday, November 5, 2003
Film Log:
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (D: Jacques Tourneur, 1943) 77 - Best version of JANE EYRE ever.
Monday, November 3, 2003
The Bin Laden-Von Trier Connection.
Monday, November 3, 2003
film log:
VERONIKA VOSS (D: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1982) 47 - An absolutely gorgeous piece of work that begins strongly and by the end becomes a series of beautifully composed postcards on the themes of delusion and drug addiction. Maybe the intrigue/conspiratorial aspects simply didn't work for me (I've a tendency to prefer the Fassbinders where plot falls away, the characters simply hang out, and it's clear that F.'s having a lot of fun just fucking around, ie. IN A YEAR OF 13 MOONS, BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE, FOX AND HIS FRIENDS(to some extent), etc., etc.... ). Maybe you'd like it (who knows?). Fassbinder's next-to-last film.
VERONIKA VOSS (sans sound) 87- Shiny! Neat! Not since BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA have I seen a film that plays so many elegant variations on the color gray. Sparkly! Plastic!
Friday, October 31, 2003
Film log:
THE SEVENTH VICTIM (D: Mark Robson, 1943) 82: Thus continuing the trend of extraordinary 40s films made by directors of whom I've never heard (see GASLIGHT comments a few notches below). An exquisitely unpredictable little film (at 71 minutes, practically wee) that contains a sense of anxiety and paranoia within every scene and uses this atmosphere with the facility of Hitchcock or Bava. But whereas the violent acts of those filmmakers are normally logically planned ruptures by outside forces upon the protagonist(s), every act here arises from the irrational emotions of some fairly sympathetic individuals - ie., the stunningly bleak ending, which overturns the machinations of the rather quaint Aleister Crowley-ish devil-worshipping villains with a genuine howl of despair.
Written while listening to Squeeze's "Black Coffee In Bed".
Thursday, October 30, 2003
FILM LOG:
STARS IN MY CROWN (D: Jacques Tourneur, 1950) (87)Comments coming later, one hopes.
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Hello again, friendly folk!
Various things have happened, some good, some iffy, some not good. Little tidbits taken from reality and placed within the context of "wacky adventures"- that's my gift and my curse. Here are Just A Few Details One Tends To Notice (unusual sightings! unusual citings! strange occurrences! unexplained phenomena!):
- How the heck did I get that significant bitemark near my knuckle? Anxiety? Misadventure with the most flirtatious girl on the face of the earth? A rabid dog attack, leaving me panting all the way to the vet (who immediately informed me of my biped status and sent me to a doctor for humans)? A really mean baby? None of the above?
- Noticed the other day: possibly the most attractive homeless person I've yet seen, an actual waif (I haven't the authority to classify her as "Dickensian") huddled against the wall of the Central Library. So attractive you can't help but think that perhaps she escaped from some very special episode of a sitcom, wherein the family comes to appreciate their upper-middle class lifestyle via contact with those of a "less fortunate" persuasion. 15 or 16, hair colored purple and rouge, with an extremely vulnerable look on face that only the unhardened-by-life can get, no doubt wondering 'what the hell am I doing here?'. Good luck, kiddo.
- Fellow students releasing an audible collective sigh at the end of recent class. Huzzah for ineffectual protest!
Your friendly neighborhood webslinger,
Richard Baez
Monday, October 27, 2003
God, my depression is deepening. Thanks to the Makhmalbaf clan. Samira, directing her first film (THE APPLE, a film that Godard that likes enough to reference in IN PRAISE OF LOVE) at the age of 18 and a second one at 22, puts me, my semiliterate commentary, and my weak-willed ambitions to shame. Adding to the envy is her sister, Hana, who has, at the age of 15 (when I wasted an entire year obsessing over the faux-transgressive silliness found in Poppy Z. Brite books), directed her first feature. I could go on ("yes, please do!"): father Mohsen is one of the greatest filmmakers alive (THE SILENCE would probably rank in the mid-20s on my list) and the mother, Mariziyeh, directing...Oh I give up. I hear the figurative black dog barking at the door. Let's hope that chewtoy keeps him calm for another few days.
ALSO: I have no intention of turning this site into a cinephile's version of BOOKSLUT, despite all appearances otherwise. I'm just spreading the love, baby.
Monday, October 27, 2003
FILMLOG (As usual, the way this phrase should appear remains a mystery to me. Lowercase or caps? Compound or spaced? Bold, bland, or italicized? Colon or dash? Hence, every time the word is written, a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE situation arises - with grammar in lieu of all those cardboard cowboys, cardboard dinosaurs, and cardboard mad scientists.):
THE LOVERS ON THE BRIDGE (D: Leos Carax, 1991) 83
THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS(D: Ermanno Olmi, 1978) 70
Saturday, October 25, 2003
STRAY QUOTES (overheard, read, spoken to, or spoken by (not bloody likely) me recently):
"Do you know what the word Bible really means? Do you? It stands for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Do you get it?" - parapalegic fella who cornered me in a Barnes & Noble recently
"When we get out of here let's go to Seguin and stop at a Taco Cabana." - One fratguy to another at a Diamond Shamrock earlier today.
"I guess that's why so many people are going to hell lately..." - Overheard at a hospital a few months ago (I would pay big money to learn what prompted that response).
"Minaw...Massahahah" - A 6-month old child attempting to pronounce a horror film title spoken aloud by her 7-year old brother (Title: MINOR'S MASSACRE).
Friday, October 24, 2003
FILM LOG: GASLIGHT (D: Thorold Dickinson, 1940) 73 - Surprisingly spry on it's feet; I expected an Anthony Asquith-ish staid and pleasant animal but this is really quite inventive. The remarkably neat title sequence and credits, the impressive use of long scenes and space in the first real dialogue scene between husband and wife, the incredibly detailed park scene (w/ the detective posing as a harmless old passerby and those street urchins at the fence), the disjointed camera angle in the final confrontation between hubby and wife etc., etc.- little and incredibly effective bits popping up all over the place with little room for the film to slow down. Also features Anton Walbrook, whom I'll basically watch in anything. I've yet to see the Cukor version, which is longer and features Ingrid Bergman. Look out for this Dickinson fella - he's going places!
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Perhaps, nay, almost absolutely the most peculiar gesture at cinephilia I've yet witnessed: Jeremy Heilman is posting representations of various films drawn, by himself and others, in the manner of a four-year old.
Now you can see IRREVERSIBLE and SEABISCUIT the way they the Lord intended: from the front of your refrigerator door. The CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES image may be better than the actual film.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Filmlog:
LATE SPRING (D: Yasujiro Ozu, 1949) 82
BEFORE NIGHT FALLS (D: Julian Schnabel) 53
ALSO: R.I.P., of course.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Apparently, me and J. Hoberman have decided to quote the same lines on the same day.
ALSO: Good golly!
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
For the few who read this page, the Pitas error, which allowed us to harken back with nostalgia to a week and a half ago, has been corrected. Let's hope no more unexpected trips on the Way-Back Machine occur.
Happy Here And Now,
Richard
Friday, October 17, 2003
Various lessons one may pick up over any random 48 hour period:
- In one of God's most amusing rhymes between man and beast, stalkers do resemble sharks: they have flat pasty faces with eyes not dissimilar from hammerheads (in terms of both color (oily black, seemingly blotting out the human's whites) and placement upon the face) and mouths which appear to be perpetually open ragged maws.
- Some people think Ringo wrote "Yellow Submarine".
- An Ozu film can do wonders helping with depression.
- There's a big difference between "talking rubbish" and "talking trash" and a slight gulf between "bullshittin'" and "shooting the shit". No doubt there are many books by Freudians on the need to equate verbal communication with scatalogical concerns.
- Apparently, I'm something of a dandy.
- Disaster is bound to occur if, while making coffee, you neglect to place the coffee pot under the drip.
- There are people actually named Cletus. And they do make radio requests for Dio's "Holy Diver".
- I'm not the only person who's been asked out by someone who dialed the wrong number. I am, perhaps, one of the few who has rejected the proposition.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
My terror was so intense that it was difficult for me to continue breathing. She, who was naked, too, tried to place herself between us, but her husband moved her away with the barrel of his revolver.
"You stay out of this," he said. "Cheating in bed is settled with lead."
Can J. M. Coetzee or Toni Morrison boast of playing Russian Roulette with a police sergeant? Our man in Maconda and Mexico City (not to mention Havana), Garcia Marquez (the funniest man alive), lives to tell the tale.
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Mood: detachment-serene/not quite serene
We (odd habit of referring to myself in the plural) certainly hope that this Pitas page has reached it's final visual form. Quite content with the final look of this page, but suspect that discontent will follow soon enough and then I'll be searching for the correct way to spell fuschia or azure. Let's hope nothing of the sort occurs. I'll probably look upon this post later and feel nothing but blushing (is there any other kind?) embarrassment. Its deletion will then occur. Or maybe not.
Yer pal,
richard
Monday, October 6, 2003
"WE THINK ALL OF LIFE IS A FUNNY JOKE..."
Actually no, we wish we could but we don't;(in all likelihood, an improper use of the semicolon (is it, a_lad?)) a wee bit weary and, as per usual, rapidly shifting from giddiness to a slight melancholy (I haven't the nerve to give myself the obvious diagnosis) within short time-spans strewn all across the day like [can't quite think up a good simile at the moment]. Upward and onward...
I may add a brief review of Ozu's AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON on this site soon. It's one of those great overly formalist pieces of work that I tend to fall for(every other latter-day Ozu film, Yi-Yi, the collected work of Tsai Ming-liang)- nothing happens. Or rather, everything happens: life passes, marriages are thought over, a man comments on how the waitress at a new bar looks more like his dead wife with every cup.... The camera never moves once and sticks to same angles for every different shot, thus getting the most bang for the buck. It's neat. You really should see it because I think you'd like it alot.
Saturday, October 4, 2003
Seen recently, with a note or two if my morning coffee has taken effect. I may expand these 45s into LPs.:
AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON (D: Yasujiro Ozu, 1962) (93)
THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK (D: Josef von Sternberg, 1927) (82): Oddly enough for a Sternberg film, the acting actually qualifies as good. Silent Sternberg, so it's a blast of the pure stuff. Baptism theme noted.
LOST IN TRANSLATION (D: Sofia Coppola, 2003) (78)
Q: THE WINGED SERPENT (D: Larry Cohen, 1982) (68): Like most Cohen films, it moves in fits and start. Michael Moriarty's performance is amazing, apparently taking place in another reality altogether.
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
A quickie, of course.
All apologies for my shoddily, doddily knowledge of HTML and any eyesores that may result from it. I'm making steps, baby steps to be sure, but progress is being made and, as we all know, PROGRESS EQUALS PERFECTION (sounds very much like a slogan on a socialist realist poster).
Expect some more links and maybe a perpetually changing title (current one taken from a Tex Avery cartoon).
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
MIC CHECK...
Simply testing the grounds here. Let's hope all is well and no frustrations ensue.
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bioName: Richard Baez
DOB: 11/28
Currently in: TEXAS
baez_richard@hotmail.com
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