Here is 2008

Author's note: It has been a while since I spent any significant amount of time crafting a New Year's Blog Entry. Please enjoy this afternoon's endeavors.



A lot of the internet is busy listing things from 2007: best-of lists, most important this or that’s, lists of authors who died, etc. Stuff like this is all well and good, and merits existence inasmuch as it makes it easy for amnesiacs and the absent-minded to review what it is that's happened since last January 1st, but they do very little in the way of preparing us for the upcoming year, and it’s always been this website's job to present some things that are urgent, and some that are not. Well, the future is urgent, and the past is not.


In the interest of preparedness I will go ahead and give you the main important information of the upcoming calendar year.

Best Movie:
The Brothers Bloom

Why will this movie be the best movie of 2008? A lot of reasons. The first is that Rian Johnson directed it. If you’ve been paying any attention to living your life you’ve already seen his first movie and spent a lot of time figuring out how the hell he accomplished this. Furthermore, The Brothers Bloom has Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo and Nora Zehetner (who, you might be interested to know, won a grammy for Best Shoulders in 2006, 2007 and will again win in 2008). Also, it is about con men.

--

Best Album:
The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

A year from now all the music blogs and the seemingly-informed will be collecting their best of 2008 album lists, and there’s a good chance that this album won’t show up on those lists; this is because most (though by no means all) people who run sites of the aforementioned types are the kind of mistake-makers who put the lackluster, the lousy, and the downright annoying on their best-of lists this year. Why will Heretic Pride actually be the best album of 2008? Because it’s fucking awesome, that’s why.

--

Best Video Game:
Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii

This does not require an explanation. What’s more, I’m aware that, save for a few, the audience to whom I’m writing is not one that is particularly interested in video games. Those interested don’t need this choice explained to them, and those who aren’t don’t want to have to read about it.



--

Other Things That Will Happen:

America Gets a New President (this doesn’t happen until November, but everyone seems pretty set on broadcasting every detail about the stuff that leads up to it starting last month. Some stuff has to happen before we even know who we’ll get to vote for, so don’t worry about it right now.)

NASA Sends Another Thing to the Moon or Whatever

California will have a natural disaster

I will get tired of doing this blog and abandon it

Now you know, plan accordingly. And you’re welcome.

Here is How Thanksgiving Went

If you’re wondering where I’ve been in the two plus weeks it’s been since I last transmitted Information I can finally tell you: I was on hiatus. This hiatus was special because it was a secret hiatus, and only I knew about it, and only I will ever know the reasons behind its existence. You should not trouble yourself with curiosities regarding those reasons and My Situations in general because such endeavors are pointless and boring.

This Thursday last saw another occurrence of the holiday known to most as Thanksgiving (and known to certain characters from films from true stories as Pranksgiving*), and as is the Donovan Family Tradition we did all we could to not make much of it. The holiday was notable this year for being (I think) the first time all 4 members of the immediate family were not present. My brother (of whose existence I must once again remind and assure you) allegedly spent the holiday in Maine with Some Lady, whose existence I am willing to put up for debate (see what I did there?). Despite this, my parents (whose love for one another becomes less detectable every day) and I did all we could to spend the hallowed day watching things and eating things. The curious reader will ask “what did you watch?” and the reader who is unfamiliar with me and my Ways will ask “what did you eat?” I can answer both of these questions succinctly: “No Country for Old Men,” and “turkey and some biscuits and that’s about it,” respectively. Had I the energy to regale you with reviews of No Country… as well as the other films I’ve seen in the past two weeks I would, but instead I will tell you, in the unlikely event that you didn’t already know, that the Coen brother’s new movie is the best thing you’ll see this year and deserves to win Best Everything. I know how prone I am to superlatives and hyperbole (superbole? get it? Is this pun good or awful?), but this time I am not exaggerating. Honestly. On the opposite end of things, if you’re interested in reading about the worst movie of 2007 you can go here to read a review written mostly by me and credited entirely to someone else for reasons that are not worth going into.

I am almost certain that other things happened, but as far as their worth in terms of being shared as Information is concerned the opportunity cost of writing it all out is less than the returns you or I would get from being able to read it at any given time. What was most important about Thanksgiving break was my return to a state of childlike wonder and adolescent sedentariness in the puffy white-gloved hands of Super Mario Galaxy. If you want to know how many hours over the course of 3 days I spent in front of the television with that remote in my hand I will not lie: more than twelve. Now, upon a successful return to the frigid reality of a semester at its close, and all the work and terror inherent within, the decision to guide a rotund plumber through space in lieu of making headway on a number of assignments might seem like a mistake. It wasn’t, though. I do not make those, and it was worth it, maybe.




*this joke not worth explaining if you aren’t already in on its subtle punch-lines

Here are This Weekend's Movie Reviews

American Gangster (2007)

American Gangster is long, but it is unapolagetically Rad. Denzel Washington gets upset and ruins the days of so many people, and gets inconceivably wealthy while doing so. Russel Crowe proves that Australian dudes with chubby faces can still convey expressions and talk American. Other people are also in the movie, but come on, Denzel Washington. The end.

note: I feel like this trailer gives away too many details and surprises of the movie, though this might only be apparent to me since I've already seen it

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
note: this movie took forever to get distribution, it is finally in theaters.

I will be honest with you: the only reason I am doing a weekend movie review is to talk about this movie. I felt like devoting an entire entry to just one film would be weird and excessive though, considering that this is a pan-genre-information-blog, not a movie blog. Regardless, here we are. I got to see this movie back in April, which is part of the reason I had been anxiously awaiting this weekend’s arrival. Listen: I love this movie so much that it’s unreasonable. I love this movie so much my eyes watered when it ended. They watered out of emotion. Do you have any idea what it takes for that to happen to me? Admitting that information triggers all kinds of nausea and shame responses in my brain and body. Now get out there and give all your money to this movie okay?

Easy Rider (1969)

Easy Rider is this weekend's classic movie up for review. I will admit that the primary reason I'd been interested in seeing it was the fact that one of the more awesome characters on Veronica Mars (a show whose cast of characters' excellence is already unrivaled) had a weird kind of obsession with the movie in question. After watching it I find myself confused by both what would appear to be an unforgivable character flaw in the previously-alluded to fictional person, and the seemingly inexplicable and widely-held belief that Easy Rider is a good and important movie. Mostly it's just two annoying guys riding around on motor cycles, getting high, and hanging out with hippies. Maybe this meant a lot during the summer of love, but now it's just a long string of poorly conveyed cliches. Oh well.

Here are This Weekend's Movie Reviews

(movie posters link to previews)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

This movie’s title is so long, it’s insane. It’s as though this movie took its naming conventions from today’s frustratingly/unsurprisingly assholeish indie music scene, where every band’s name is like three lines long or else consists of just punctuation marks. This is not relevant to the quality of the film. How was this movie: Long. Also, slow (though “deliberate” is probably a nicer and more accurate way to describe it). Also, gorgeous. Conclusion about this movie: Casey Affleck is much better than his brother, and rumors that Brad Pitt’s D would appear in this film are false. It is entirely D-less. This movie is a "should-watch."

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

This movie answers the question “What has Wes Anderson been up to since he was in that American Express commercial?” It also answers the question “Can Wes Anderson make a buddy/road (train)/Wes Anderson movie?” The answer to the first question is “Hotel Chevalier,” and the answer to the second question is “yes.” Conclusion about this movie: Adrien Brody is the best person to have been banned from SNL. This movie is a “should watch 3 times in a week and-a-half and should haul one’s ass to Harvard Square at all hours of the morning and evening in hopes of getting passes to the Brattle’s screening, the one that Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman will be attending but god dammit they (the passes) are impossible to get.”

Any Which Way you Can (1980)

I am going to be honest with you here: if you have already seen "Every Which Way but Loose" (1978) you do not need to see "Any Which Way you Can." While the capers of Clint Eastwood and the orangutan Clyde are heartwarming and all, I really couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accept the idea that the Nazi bikers would be able to set aside their grudge with Eastwood's character long enough to beat the living hell out of a bunch of sleazy New York mafioso guys. This movie is a "watch the original, or, if the original is not available, "Smokey and the Bandit" instead."

Here is How I was Almost an Asshole Today

Another movie-related post. I will try to do something about Typewriters or the Bad Time I Had at the Apple Store soon, in order for there to be variation. Until then though, there's this.

As anyone who knows anything about the greater Boston is well aware, there is a lot of stuff to see between stops on the T, which is why walking everywhere is important (biking is not important because biking is a good way to get killed while operating a device that makes listening to music unsafe). Anyway, what’s relevant here is that there exists a video rental place on the stretch of Mass Ave between Harvard Square and Central Square, and I happened to pass by it on my walk to Kinkos.* The franchise has at least two other locations – one in Davis and one on Mass Ave between Porter and Harvard, if that was information you wanted to know. I am getting off track though.

I saw something as I passed by the video store (the one between Harvard and Central, not the one between Porter and Harvard). It was this poster, hanging in a window, surrounded by yellow “caution” tape. I looked at the poster, and I read the words on it, and I processed the words on it. Here is where things get troubling: somewhere, probably in some highly-evolved human-only bullshit region of my brain, the thought “go in there and rent that” occurred. Obviously the more basic, survival-first parts of my mind (everything in the brainstem for example) recoiled from this notion by dumping hormones and adrenaline into my blood. Digestion stopped, respiration increased, and my senses became heightened as my body dealt with this threat. But still, just for a second, part of me actually thought that it would be a good idea to watch David Lynch’s 3-plus hour movie about…I don’t even know what it’s about. That is not the information I requested. But look, I have reached a conclusion about all of this: while I strive to be a good person, and to live a decent life, I am on some level – however repressed or minimal – a terrible asshole. At my age the desire to watch a David Lynch movie without knowing anything about it makes one a terrible asshole.

I don’t want to turn this into a big whole thing about David Lynch, but I feel like I might have to in order to fully explain myself. Let’s first get one thing straight: I don’t enjoy Lynch’s movies the way I enjoy regular, designed-for-humans movies.** I tried to watch “Eraserhead” once when I was barely a high school student, and wound up being pretty badly harmed. In early 2006 I watched “Mullholland Drive” and was reasonably harmed. More recently I watched “Lost Highway” and was not harmed too badly, but then I watched all of “Eraserhead” and was really badly harmed. Despite all of this, I’ll probably watch “Blue Velvet” sometime soon and be harmed some amount, and God knows I'll get through all of Twin Peaks even if it kills me.

You’d think that, after all these seemingly bad experiences, I’d just give up on watching Lynch movies. But such is not the case. How is it that I am a moth and David Lynch movies are enormous, unshielded 60-watt light bulbs that I fly into? Why haven’t I learned anything from this? Maybe it’s something you grow into unwillingly, the way we look at our parents’ ways with disgust simply because we know that someday we will be like them, and it bothers us now. My dad loves Lynch movies. He also loves watching golf on TV and listening to NPR. Maybe someday I will love Lynch movies and these other things too, after I have lived long enough to hate everything that makes people happy, and to have given up on making sense out of the world. At that point it won’t matter though, will it?

*I went to Kinkos so that I could see about getting that skyline picture I told you about a few days ago printed in big, nice paper. The man at Kinkos was very helpful and it looks like Friday will see the existence of that Nice Print.

**There are two exceptions to this: "The Elephant Man" was good, and "The Straight Story" was very endearing and sweet. Neither of these movies involved cowboys being in two places at once or a baby who falls apart and makes a terrible mess.

What Did I Think of That Fellini Movie?

So I guess I just watched Fellini's "8 1/2." That should look more like a 'and a half' than it does, I mean I guess it just looks like "eight one slash two," which doesn't make any sense. Regardless: I thought the movie was okay. Visually, there were numerous moments that I enjoyed a lot, and the film was consistently nice to look at. Unfortunately I had a hard time giving a shit about anything that was going on during the movie, due in part to the temperature of the room I was in, the size of the screen the movie was being shown on, and the time of day I was watching it. I guess what you need to know is that you should make sure you are very comfortable when you try to watch a Fellini movie. In conclusion the woman who played the main character's wife had glasses that made her extremely attractive.

UPDATE TO THIS STORY: I just got charged FOUR FUCKING DOLLARS in library late fees for this movie. HERE IS THE THING: I did not check it out, NZ did. She checked it out under my name, and then checked it in LATE, despite having the power to backdate it GOD DAMN IT FELLINI, NZ I AM AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE MILDLY UPSET WITH YOU UNTIL YOU PAY ME FOUR DOLLARS.

Stay tuned for more movie reviews in the future, and eventually some information about typewriters.

Know about Koyaanisqatsi

Finally got around to watching the movie “Koyaanisqatsi.” Ever since I have been old enough to like movies (and difficult enough to not immediately do whatever they ask of me) my parents have been telling me to watch “Koyaanisqatsi.” These rare-but-memorable conversations would usually go something like this:

MY MOM OR DAD
You really should watch “Koyaanisqatsi,” it’s really great and you’d like it.

ME
Why would I watch this movie? What is it even about? Does Bruce Willis drive any vehicles into people/objects in it?

MY MOM OR DAD
It doesn’t really have a plot, it is a collection of scenes, mostly landscapes and cityscapes set to music by Philip Glass. It’s pretty mesmerizing.

ME
You are just reading the back of the box.

MY MOM OR DAD
No.

ME
...

MY MOM OR DAD
Yes. Watch the movie.

ME
Okay, yeah, I will sometime (goes another year without watching the movie, watches many movies in which Bruce Willis drives vehicles into things).

But today was the day, it seems. After waking up to the brutal noises of The Place’s roof being repaired or replaced or removed I found myself unable to sleep, dying of sweltering heat, and with well over an hour and a half of free time on my hands. So I got out the movie and I put it in the computer and I watched the movie. Man, it was good. There is no plot, and it is just shots of landscapes and things, and it is set to music by Philip Glass, and I did enjoy it a lot, and it was mesmerizing. So I guess my parents were right. Again. Maybe someday I will get to be right about everything?

Here is a Current List of the Movies I have Watched This Summer

Did you know that I am in a movie-watching contest? Now you do. Who can watch the most movies over the summer, that is the question we are all asking one another and getting ulcers over. Anyway, now I can release this information. Note: Repeat viewings of the same movie count as an additional number on the list. Please enjoy the occasional parenthetical addition.

Begin Date: May 11, 2007

1. 28 Weeks Later
2. Casablanca
3. The host
4. Maximum Overdrive (God Damn it Mr. King what are you doing to Cinema?)
5. The Mangler
6. Shrek 3
7. Monster House
8. Bonnie and Clyde
9. Beat the Devil
10. Night of the Living Dead
11. Waitress
12. Hot Fuzz
13. The Treatment
14. Bug
15. Once
16. Down by Law
17. Pink Flamingos (argh argh fuck fuck shit god damn it ugh)
18. Ghost Dog
19. Paprika
20. Night Watch
21. Bottle Rocket (the fact that I'm trying to do it rarely does it for anyone)
22. Take the Money and Run
23. Wag the Dog
24. Curse of the Golden Flower
25. Old Joy
26. Repo Man (is always intense)
27. Day Watch
28. Severance
29. The Professional (Always like this)
30. My Neighbor Totoro
31. Ocean’s 13
32. Fall Guy
33. Knocked Up
34. Ghost in the Shell
35. The 3 Burials of Melquiades Estrada
36. Flags of our Fathers
37. Sherrybaby (Mad Bunnin')
38. The Untouchables
39. Gigantic: A Tale of 2 Johns
40. Eve’s Bayou
41. Mala Noche
42. Scent of a Woman (Hoo-ha!)
43. Habla con Ella
44. Sicko
45. Raising Arizona
46. Eagle vs Shark (more like "This Movie Wasn't That Good")
47. Mystery Train
48. The Elephant Man
49. A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum
50. District B13
51. Lethal Weapon (Danny Glover wants you to know that he's too old for this shit)
52. Twelve Angry Men
53. The Tall Guy
54. Stop Making Sense (Same as it ever was)
55. Taxi Driver (Listen up you fucks...)
56. Three Kings
57. Tootsie
58. Die Hard (Yipee)
59. Die Hard with a Vengeance (Kai Yea)
60. Live Free or Die Hard (Mother Fucker!)
61. Love and Death
62. Ratatouille
63. Dog Day Afternoon
64. Smokey and the Bandit
65. The Conversation (He'd kill us if he had the chance)
66. Rain Man
67. The Namesake
68. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (a.k.a. "Bitch Cassidy and the Sundance Film Festival)
69. The Hustler
70. Roger Dodger
71. Transformers
72. Human Nature
73. Children of Men
74. From Dusk ‘til Dawn (looking at Tarantino is so hard)
75. Broken English
76. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
77. The Squid and the Whale
78. Cool Hand Luke
79. Paprika (again)
80. The King of Comedy
81. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
82. On the Waterfront
83. Hard Eight
84. Kicking and Screaming (not the Will Ferrell soccer movie)
85. Bulworth
86. The Impostors (Stanley Tucci is up for a Best Dude Grammy)
87. Chaplin (So is Robert Downey Jr.)
88. Fido
89. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
90. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
91. A Few Good Men
92. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
93. Meeting People is Easy
94. Jungle Fever
95. All the President’s Men (Typewriters featured heavily in this movie. Soon: that typewriter information I keep promising)
96. Talk To Me
97. Chasing Amy
98. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
99. Funny Games
100. The Fountain
101. Punch Drunk Love
102. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
103. Scoop
104. Blood Simple
105. Wet Hot American Summer
106. Desperado
107. The Fly (Jeff Goldblum!)
108. Paprika (x3)
109. Brotherhood of the Wolf
110. Wordplay
111. The Thing
112. It’s Pat
113. Say Anything
114. Exterminating Angel
115. Sunshine (not. very. plausible.)
116. Rize
117. Videodrome (Oh my god David Cronenberg what are you trying to do to everyone?)
118. Crash
119. Hostage
120. Hombre
121. Harold and Maude
122. Nobody’s Fool (a very bad movie despite the presence of both Bruce Willis and Paul Newman)
123. Mysterious Skin
124. Blazing Saddles
125. 12 Monkeys

What Did I Think of the New Harry Potter Movie?

It was just okay. It was the first Harry Potter movie I have been to since Chamber of Secrets that wasn't questionably a date. That's weird, right? I'm pretty sure that's weird.

Go see it, I guess?