Death Will Finish Them

I loooove the Final Destination movies. I've given up considering them guilty pleasures - now I just flat out think they're great, fun, sick movies. The second one got a wee bit silly with the whole "birth a baby to save their lives" storyline, which luckily turned out to be a red herring anyway, but then the film allowed itself to close with a great sick joke so no love lost there.

The director and the writer of the first film, James Wong and Glen Morgan, have returned, which I find promising because, as much as I love the second film for being such a completely over-the-top gore-fest with ingenius set-ups and payoffs, like I say it did get a little silly in the story department, while the first one's logic held together better and you actually liked the characters in the first film. As opposed to their just being splattered canon fodder in the second. Plus, Wong and Morgan are the minds behind the X-Files episode "Home" I spoke of recently as being quite possibly the scariest episode of television ever.

So, no shock, I'm pumped (jazzed, you might even say) that the third film's coming out next year (February 10 - mark your calendar!). I've been waiting for images, a trailer, anything, and now there's a poster (above) and a trailer over at ComingSoon which does not disappoint. Looks like it's got all the classic elements - interchangeable teen actors, elaborate mayhem, promises of outrageous splatter goodness - that've made me such a fan.

And rollercoasters! How can you go wrong with rollercoasters?!?

Happy Halloween!

Great link to a melding of art masterpieces and horror characters.

Had a great time over the weekend... well, let me be more clear, had a great time on Saturday, went out dressed as Donnie Darko, got blasted, spent the entire day Sunday sleeping / in various states of achy woe.

Tis the season, and all.

Might catch some of the parade tonight, otherwise I think I'll just be watching a scary movie and taking it easy.

The Week Of Jarhead

I just realized this morning that Jarhead opens on Friday! Damn I'm excited. In this interview over at Dark Horizons, Jake gives me more reason to be excited:

"Frankly you don't say no to Ang Lee and you don't say no to Sam Mendes and you beg both of them no matter what you're doing in either of the movies, whether you're wearing a Santa cap over your dick or whether you're making love to Heath Ledger, you just don't say no to them."

So... that Santa cap's taking on a whole new wealth of... opportunity... right about now.

I know, I know, the movie's about war and stuff... whatev. Jake! Santa cap! I should feel shame, but I have none of it.

Update: This bit is from the EW cover story : "And as audiences will discover when they see Gyllenhaal prancing around in nothing but two Santa hats, one strategically placed, while Christmas for a soldier might be the pits, movie scenes about Christmas for a soldier can be totally hot." God I'm superficial...

Happy Halloween Weekend!

Check out RetroCrush's list of The Scariest Movie Moments of All Time. It's an awesome list and I've spent the past hour or so clicking through it. Good, good stuff.

Have an awesome weekend, all, and remember to check behind you.

This is when they come to get you.

Potter & Radiohead

Wow, two of my obsessions coming together. What's next, Joss Whedon doing a sitcom starring Amy Sedaris? Anyway, a couple members of Radiohead and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp teamed up for a few songs on the Goblet of Fire soundtrack, and you can download them... if you're so inclined... over here (and here for the third).

I haven't listened to them yet (no sound, i.e. bane of my existence), but I read somewhere they're worthwhile. And I believe everything I read. EVERYTHING.

Laura Bush's... Problem

(from The Onion)

Quote of the Day

"Hmm, that's odd. The blood usually gets off at the second floor."

Scary Movie

EW has a list of the Scariest Films Of All Time up, and for once, I can't really find much fault with any of their choices. Classics all of them. Here's the rundown, in (seemingly) no particular order:

- The Shining
- The Exorcist
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Jaws
- Halloween
- Psycho
- Se7en
- Rosemary's Baby
- Poltergeist
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- The Thing (1982)
- The Evil Dead
- Carrie
- Night of the Living Dead
- The Omen
- An American Werewolf In London
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
- The Hitcher
- Lost Highway

Now, I've never seen The Hitcher (I know... shame on me), but I've heard it's scary enough. I'm not a big fan of The Omen, but I do love the hanging-nanny bit. I'm not going to argue with Poltergeist because... clown doll... man tearing off own face... yikes... even though the film's a little too slick. And I need to see Lost Highway again, but I wasn't all that big a fan of it the one time I did.

The Blair Witch Project really should've made it, though. And Audition. And Ringu. And Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).

I can understand they're not including Requiem For A Dream since it's not really seen as a horror movie, but as I said earlier today, I don't think there's been a scarier movie made in quite some time. Just because there are no homicidal maniacs or extraterrestrial-head-spiders, doesn't mean it's not horror.

But otherwise... mostly agreement.

I'm especially happy to see Se7en included, because that's a film I remember leaving the theater after in a complete stupor. Gywneth's.... head??? Trauma. I know a lot of people disagree, but it got me, and it still does every time. I'd also argue it's the most gorgeous looking film in their list, and that that only adds to the horror of it. The lovingly detailed everything (this is a film that revels in the details - the room of air fresheners, the bucket of vomit and waste under the fat man), the gloriously slick sheen of depravity... usually I'm all about a horror film being grainy and gritty a la Texas Chainsaw or Henry, but Se7en was so slick, so pretty in its presentation of atrocities, it was chilling.

It's odd that they chose the first Evil Dead, I think that Evil Dead II is actually much better, but then Part One is more of a straightforward horror film, while the second begins to get really slapsticky. And the first one does have the fairly explicit infamous scene of rape-by-treebranch. Can't forget that!

I'm about as big a fan of Hitchcock as one gets, but I'm beginning to wonder about Psycho's eternal placement on these lists. Blasphemy, I know. It's the same with Citizen Kane on Best Movie Ever lists... the film itself has sort of been swallowed whole, devoured by the culture it spawned, and while it's hard to argue with their greatness, they're just so... a part of everything that came afterwards, they've lost some of their power. For me. I've seen Psycho sooo many times and I know it from beginning to end and everything it introduced to the genre has become so integral, it's hard to imagine anyone actually being scared by it anymore. It may just be a problem of my own perspective. But I, for one, would like to see a list without it.

You know what Hitch film still freaks me out? Frenzy. It's hateful and cruel, and filled with completely unlikable, unattractive people who do horrible things to each other. There are no fanciful motives - it's all ugliness. It's so unlike the majority of his work, it makes me uncomfortable. And unlike most people who say he'd lost his touch by the age he was when he was making it, I think he knew exactly what he was doing, which was raging. It's an angry, hateful movie, expressing his anger at the system that was abandoning him and the women who'd spurned him and anger at himself for his own inner frustrations, with his weight and his age and his sexual repression. Everything he'd once turned into visual poetry was now just eating through, leaving a nasty shell of itself behind.

Chris Evans

Forgive me my gratuitousness, but... DAMN.

(more over at JustJared)

In Other News...

Lots of random little bits of entertainment news catching my eye this morn.

* The film Hostel, by Eli Roth (Cabin Fever), has been on my must-see list for awhile, and I was pleased as punch (very red, very sticky punch) to read that the film's release date got moved up to December 21st. And now there's a trailer to see! I wish it were coming out now, there aren't any scary movies coming out for Halloween that I want to see this year. This one promises to deliver some Extreme-Asian-type gore.

* Darren Aronofsky, director of what I think is one of the scariest (and most powerful) films of the past decade, maybe longer, Requiem For A Dream, hasn't released anything since that film 5 years ago, which has been killing me. The Fountain, his next project, isn't coming out until sometime next year. But now comes word that he's going to be directing an episode of Lost! Too cool for words.

* Willow's going to be on Veronica Mars again! Yippee! Here's a link, but be careful because there are Lost spoilers on it too.

* Peter Jackson's King Kong is going to be a Kong-sized three hours long. Phew. I only hope that approximately 2 hours of that is Peter Jackson directing a gory dinosaur battle, because that's what's got me going. It's like... Peter Jackson doing Jurassic Park... unh... I just came, was it good for you?

* Everybody seems to want to do the second X-Files movie. Yeah, I keep hearing that. And then... nothing. I wasn't a ginormous X-Files fan, I missed out on it at first and got into it some towards the end when it was supposedly only a shadow of it's former self, but I liked the first movie, and the episode "Home" is one of the most horrifying episodes of television ever produced. So I'm excited about the prospect of another movie, especially one that promises to be a stand-alone story, sans their overloaded mythology, because Chris Carter can really freak me the fuck out when he tries.

3 Things

Funny - if FOXNews had been around through history:

Not so funny - Harriet Miers withdraws... my first thought was this was what they're using to distract from the possible indictments. Then, what sort of wingnut will Bush replace her with? The mind boggles. And it's a power-win for the Religious Reich, they brought her down with their insane rantings... but maybe Bush will be spiteful and nominate someone the RR's will hate even more, since he is, essentially, a spoiled brat and hates not getting his way. But Meirs really did seem completely underqualified, so it's not shocking.

Depressing - Fitzy says no announcements today on indictments. Sigh...

Twas The Night Before Fitzmas

Twas the night before Fitzmas, and in the White House

Every one was scared shitless, and Bush was quite soused

The indictments were hanging like Damoceles' sword

As verminous oxen prepared to be gored

The perps were all sleepless, curled fetal in bed

While visions of prison cells loomed in each head

And Dick in his jammies, and George in his lap

Were sweating and swearing and looking like crap

When out on the web there arose such a clatter

The blogs and the forums were buzzing with chatter

Away to the PC Rove ran like a flash

He booted his browser and cleared out his cache

The rumors that flew through the cold autumn air

Made Dubya shiver with angry despair

When what to his horror-filled eyes did he spy?

A bespectacled man with a brown suit and tie!

With an impartial manner that gave Bush the shits

He knew in a moment it must be St. Fitz!

With unwavering voice, his indictments they came

He cleared out his throat and he called them by name:

Now Scooter, Now Libby,

Now Blossoming Turd,

Now Cheney, dear Cheney,

Yes, you are the third

To the bench of the court

Up the steps, down the hall

Now come along, come along,

Come along, all!

He then became silent, and went right to work

He filed the indictments and turned with a jerk

And pointing his finger at justice's scale

Said, "The people be served, and let fairness prevail."

He then left the room, to his team gave a nod

And the sound could be heard of a crumbling facade

And we all did exclaim, as he faded from sight

"Merry Fitzmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Roger & Bai Ling - It's Love!

I just sort of stumbled upon this new interview between Roger Ebert and International Crazy Lady Bai Ling, and... just wow, way to make my day bright.

Roger is, in the first place, completely smitten with her, it just oozes off the page. And Bai Ling is just balls out insane, yet again.

I just have to include this excerpt:

"She starts gabbing away like we're old friends, and I want to catch up on what's been happening since our last sleepover.

"I am on reality TV! New VH1 show! Named 'But Can They Sing?' Celebrity super pop stars, can they sing? They give you four days to learn song. Models, actors, can you sing? I am on with Joey Pants, Larry Holmes, Morgan Fairchild and Carmine Gotti. I tell them, have no trouble with Sinatra. 'The Way You Look Tonight,' no problem! You know what they want me to sing? 'Like a Virgin!' My God! Not my style! Show plays Oct. 30, at [9] p.m." She makes sure I write that down. "Be sure to watch! You have to vote for me! Can vote by phone, Internet, every way."

OK, so that's a plug. But she has already turned the plug into the parody of a plug, and now she hurtles ahead: "One day, I am begging them Sinatra, Sinatra, and they say can I sing old American song, 'McDonald Has Farm.' My God! I never heard of it. They teach me. I like the pig part. Oink oink here!"

She laughs so cheerfully it is all I can do to watch the oinking and not what happens to her dress when she oinks."

There are no words.

Hoo Boy

I am having a hot flash. I think I might be going through The Change.

I made that sound like a horror movie... "The Change"!!! It Will Change You... For The Worse!!!

It's all too stressful - one second they're saying there will be indictments this afternoon, the next we're hearing there may be a delay. I can't take it! It's driven me to stop ovulating!!!

Seriously, the palms of my hands are ON FIRE. I am melting each key as I type, it's surface a sticky plastic sheath coming away with each tap tap tap.

I may be being melodramatic right now. Let me know if it's excessive.

Antici.......................... pation.

I'm trying really hard to not get myself all worked up over the gleeful thoughts rattling around in my brain about the possibility of indcitments falling on Rove, Libby... oh, and good heavens CHENEY in the next 24-48 hours. It was the most Christmassy feeling when I woke up this morning, though, the high hopes and expectations of it all.

But then you think about all the other times you've thought that they can't squirm their way out this time, they've got to be called on what unethical criminals they all are, and nothing happens and you get jaded. A little broken on the inside.

So I am being cautious. But if word breaks today and it is what my gut tells me it should be then... well, I'll presumably end up doing a merry jig around my entire office. There might even be tears.

2000 Dead

Take a moment today to think about the 2000 lives we've now lost since the beginning of this catastrophe of a war.

Then think about their parents. Their brothers and sisters. Their wives, their husbands. Their children.

Their friends. Their classmates, their school teachers, the grocer down the block.

Their buddies who are left behind and will be coming back home. Someday.

Then think of our President, refusing to attend their funerals, refusing to acknowledge their sacrifice (except with his issued talking points, of course), and spending his summer months relaxing on his ranch.

Here The Wild Things Are

.

I was just thinking the other day that I need to pick up a copy of Maurice Sendak's classic Where The Wild Things Are, it's been years since I read it but I, like most of us, remember being hypnotized by the book as a child.

And now in the NY Times there's an article about the possibility of a film happening soon, to be directed by Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich), which sounds pretty darn good. I like Jonze's films a lot, but I think I'd choose his partner in "cool" moviemaking Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) first for this project, but hey, I'm not Maurice Sendak and don't have complete power over what happens with the book.

Which is great - it's nice to see the author has so much power here and we're not going to get a aborted adaptation of Suessian scale (or to quote Sendak as regards to the films made recently of Suess' books: "What is the purpose of this debauchery? Money! Only a seriously sick or brainless person could like them." Indeed.

Gondry just oozes a more dreamlike whimsy in his work - the weird worlds of Jonze's films (think of the scene in Malkovich where everyone has a John Malkovich head, for instance) are less whimsical and more pragmatic, more concerned with how we dream than what and why we dream, if that makes any sense.

Still, to get back on topic, I think it could make for a fine film, and I'm excited to see what comes of it. And I need to go pick up a copy of the book and revisit Sendak's creatures again.
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25 Top Shockers

Tired, as a word, is a complete failure in getting across how completely lacking in energy I am today. This weekend was... tiring, in the deepest, most profound sense that that word can convey.

So, with that in mind, my posting today will probably be scarce. Sentences are just too taxing.

But here's a fun, debatable list of The 25 Most Shocking Movie Moments Ever. These lists are inevitably a failure, but hey, it name checks Hitchcock and Miike, so I'm down. I've not seen every film listed, I've missed out on seven of their choices, but otherwise I like what I have seen.

Do you know the shocking moments of all the films? Even the ones I haven't seen I seem to know what the surprise is. It's interesting how those moments enter the pop lexicon, even if you haven't seen the film itself. I know plenty of people who've never seen Psycho but could identify it's surprise... and probably the chords that accompany it.

Happy Friday the 13th!

No, you haven't entered a timewarp, it's not actually Friday or the 13th of any month, it's Monday the 24th. I have been misleading.

But it is the 25th anniversary of the Friday the 13th franchise! And that's worth celebrating. So today, I want everyone to make like my namesake Jason and find a slut and/or a consumer of drugs and (preferably immediately post-coitus or post-inhale) skewer them with a steel pipe or something equally phallic. It's all in good fun!

Disclaimer: I am kidding. Do not actually kill anyone because I said so. Thank you.

Camel Toads

This article (click for larger) made me laugh this morning:

And boy I need a simple laugh today. I am exhausted and hung-over and there is only running-around ahead for me for the next three straight days. SIGH.

Cookies!

My Grandma sent me a box of homemade chcolate chip cookies.

I am the luckiest boy in the world!

IFC - Indie Screams!

I just almost shit my pants.

IFC is showing Paperhouse next Saturday night. I LOVE Paperhouse. It's only been available on really crappy VHS here in the U.S. I have to figure out how to record a copy on DVD!

And not only that, but they're showing it along with The Wicker Man and Habit (the latter which I've heard good things about but not seen).

In fact, their entire "Indie Screams" line-up for Halloween is awesome. Check it out.

But... Wicker Man and Paperhouse together in one night? WOW.
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Kids These Days

So I saw Death Cab last night. Great show. But if the audience at The Decemberists show I saw a few weeks ago made me feel old, the audience at the Death Cab show made me feel ancient. Like... a pedophile. Like the 16-year olds were looking at me wondering what grandpa was doing there with the audacity to be singing along with THEIR songs. I felt like the guy who keeps going to keggers with high scool kids long past his college graduation. ICKY.

Oh well. If my friends weren't LOSERS and even one of them had agreed to go with me I might not have felt so... icky. But standing there alone, with little cliques of tweens eyeing me suspiciously... yeah, icky. Sigh. When did this happen? I think I'm just projecting my own terror of impending 30 (I still have two years! Okay, 1.5 years...) onto it. It being... everything.

So... the show. Great! Not the best concert I've ever been to, it was a little short, but I guess the CHILDREN have curfews. And nothing will EVER beat seeing Radiohead when I first moved here anyway. But DCFC put on a good, fun show. I didn't write down the playlist and I don't remember every song they sang, but I do remember a few details (memory's first thing to go...).

They opened with "Marching Bands of Manhattan", one of my favorites of the new album. Sounded good. Ben G. got sweaty fast. Like really sweaty. Like that scary guy in Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" video sweaty. How's that for an old-timer reference!

I think next they did "Passenger Seat" off of Transatlanticism, which I love. Somewhere around here they did "Soul Meets Body" which has really grown on me since first hearing it months ago. I was only kinda meh about it at first, but now I'm really digging it. Yadda yadda, sangs some more songs and I don't remember what they ended the first set with.

Ben G. trots back out for the encore by himself, and does "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" acoustically, and it sounded awesome. Yadda yadda, band comes out and they do a couple more songs I don't remember, and they end with what I'd been waiting and hoping for the entire show, a back-to-back Transatlanticism best-of, "Tiny Vessels" and "Transatlanticism", my two all-time-favorite DCFC songs.

So the end was the most memorable part, and I'm glad my grandpappy legs didn't give out from under me and I stayed through the end. I swatted the youngsters outta the g-d'd way with my walker and rode the short bus home. Good times had by all! Even the infirm!

Willow's Faves

Willow (Alyson who? She's forever Willow) picks her favorite four Buffy episodes. I pass it along.

Because I am always, first and foremost, a Buffy geek.

1. ''Hush'' (Season 4; creepy floating demons the Gentlemen rob everyone of the power of speech.) ''It was a whole new way of figuring out how to act, the not-talking thing.''

2. ''The Body'' (Season 5; Buffy's mom dies from an aneurysm; the episode had no background score.) ''I just remember the no sound, no music -- it was so disconcerting.''

3. ''Ted'' (Season 2; John Ritter guests as Buffy's mom’s evil robot suitor.) ''John Ritter was the best. We would all just hang out in his trailer and be like, 'Hi, John Ritter!!' and he didn’t care. And, we got to shoot at a mini-golf place.''

4. ''Dopplegangland'' (Season 3; a spell gone awry spawns Willow's nefarious twin.) ''I was in the vampire Willow outfit, and Alexis had some holy water, and he made this noise, like FFFFT!! And it just cracked me up. I had such a crush on him.'

I don't know if I could pick favorite episodes, but I think they'd end up being all be the depressing ones. "The Body", for sure (Anya's speech in this ep is tied with Buffy's Homecoming "Class Protector" Award as my favorite moments, period), and probably "The Gift" (shut up, Dawn haters).

Oh, "Once More, With Feeling" would probably make it ("Except for bunnies..."), and that's not too depressing. Except... when it is, of course.

Yours?

Staunton Takes Umbridge

Imelda Staunton, last seen as abortion-crusader Vera Drake, is going to play the wretched frog-faced hag Dolores Umbridge in the next Harry Potter movie, which is the person I called the role to be played by after reading Order of the Phoenix a couple years ago.

Yes, I deserved back-pats. And medals. And a cookie.

Staunton will be great. It's a role to rip one's teeth into, a real capitol-B Bitch.

Miriam Margolyes (above - what a scary picture!) would've been perfect, too, but unfortunately (for her) she's already playing Professor Sprout in the films. She's probably horribly depressed she took the Sprout role, since she's hardly gotten anything to do (Sprout's not an important character) and Umbridge is a huge, juicy role - the "most hated" character in the series, she's been called.

Margolyes looks the part more than Staunton (no offense intended, Miriam! Though... yeah, it could not be considered a compliment...) and my roommate voiced concern that Staunton is too sweet-faced for the role... but she's a capitol-A Actress, so I got faith.

Now if only Goblet of Fire would come out already...

The Wisdom of Sarah Silverman

From an interview with my favorite delicate flower in The New Yorker:

“I was raped by a doctor... Which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.”

“Everybody blames the Jews for killing Christ. And then the Jews try to pass it off on the Romans. I’m one of the few people that believe it was the blacks.”

"My skin is paper thin. People don’t realize it, because I’m sassy and I’m brassy, but I just— I see these CARE commercials with these little kids with the giant bellies and the flies, and these are one- and two-year-old babies, nine months pregnant, and it breaks my heart in two.”

In Defense O' Death Cab

I hate it when your ticket to a concert says 6:30. The show isn't going to start at 6 fucking 30. Why do they say something like that? WHY DO THEY LIE????

Ahem. Anyway, I am seeing Death Cab For Cutie tonight, and am duly excited. I hate everyone who's been dissing DCFC lately. Do you hear me? I hate you.

Everywhere I turn is anti-DCFC rhetoric, and I'm sick of it. Just because some helmet-haired Penguin-polo'd nincompoop from a FOX soap opera likes them, suddenly it's the equivilent of having your "cool" raped by... ugly uncool rapist people.

Nonsense, I says. Nonsense.

And yes, I wear Converse low-tops and cardigans. Screw you, I'll cram my senstive-emo-boy fist up your holier-than-thou hipster rectum.

NYC Horror Film Fesitval

Wish I'd known there was a horror film fest this week in NYC.

Even more, now that I do know, wish I had a free second of time in the next week to be able to go and see some of this stuff. Sigh. Oh well.

They're showing Three...Extremes, though, which everyone should see. Three short(ish) films by three Asian directors - Takashi Miike, Fruit Chan and Chan-wook Park.

My personal fave is Chan's third, Dumplings... sick stuff.

Otherwise it's a bunch of short films and features I don't know much about. And Jaws.

Vaughn's Back, Bitches!

I'm not going to even bother tagging this as a spoiler since NOBODY even watches Alias anymore. But I do, and I read it already, and I'm excited, so suck it.

Michael Vartan is apparently back on set and filming again! Yahoo!

I mean, it's Alias and I was pretty much convinced Vaughn would be back anyway, so... it's not a real shocker. But good. I hope he knees Balthazar Getty in the nards and throws him into the bushes. Balthazar Getty's a tumor-faced hack!

If this turns out to be some sort of flashback I'll be kneeing JJ Abrams in the nards.

"You Chauvinist Pig Ape!"

Caught about five minutes of the 1976 King Kong last night... which was about all I could stomach. I'd watched the ending before, which was silly but not godawful, but man, the scene I stumbled into last evening, with Kong eye-fucking Jessica Lange for endless minutes, as she rolls around in mud then bathes under a waterfall in his palm and then he blows her dry as she twitches with orgastic facial expressions... UGH. Nasty bestiality shit.

Wish My Teef Luck

Well, I've got Appointment #2 with my dentist today at 4pm. He's going in, attacking my second supposedly much less serious cavity. SIGH. Even though I had such a non-awful first visit and ended up being a-okay with the whole ordeal, I am indeed stressed again.

Better safe than sorry, anyway. Can't let my guard down, cuz that's when you end up BLEEDING OUT.

After that, I imagine it'll be too late to come back to work (yay!), so I've got a couple shopping expeditions to make. Have to buy the wedding gift for my friend's getting married on Saturday, and for myself I'll be picking up the DVD's of Batman Begins and Land of the Dead released today. They're both super-duper-cheap over at Circuit City.

The excitement never dulls, huh?

In other news, NEW YORK IS ON FIRE!!!!

That ought to spice things up.

Dick'd

AMERICAblog expounds on the rumor that Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation has broadened to be highly suspect of the VP... oh goodness, fat pale wonderful goodness. I need to rein in my highest of hopes, this probably won't turn into the GOP-bloodbath I'm imagining, but... oh, the possibilities.

Supposedly a "senior White House official" has turned and is giving Fitzy info on the VP now. I have to admit, when ever I read "senior White House official" it makes me think Rove, since he's always been the vague source of everything... is it possible it's him? Could he have turned on his boss? They've been distancing themselves pretty furiously... but I'd have to wager that Rove's career was finished if he did turn, and also that they had some serious shit on Karl himself to make him do so.

This is all my completely baseless speculation before 10am, mind you, so... grain of salt, people.

Catherine Keener

Come Oscar time, I hope that Catherine Keener's really lovely work in Capote doesn't get overshadowed by the admittedly-great work by Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the man himself. She's been a seriously underappreciated actress for too long and, here as To Kill A Mockingbird author (Nell) Harper Lee, she gives a terrific performance that speaks more through her facial expressions than the lines she speaks.

Her scene at the bar with PSH after the opening of the movie of her book is the finest scene in the entire movie, I thought. And her final assessment of Capote's behavior is, in essence, what the entire movie is about, and Keener nails Lee's exasperation and disappointment right on.

Oh, and as for the Capote voice I was worried about... it was hard going at times, I'll admit. But PSH really does transcend the affectations and create a really fascinating character study of a flawed and egocentric artist at work.

My boyfriend bemoaned the almost complete lack of Capote's trademark witticisms, but that was what made me happiest - the film restrained itself from going all catty-Oscar-Wilde-queeniness, and showed Capote as a serious and hardworking man, and not just a quipping mince-machine. We don't need any more of that for now, thank you.

Strange and Norrell

I made it! I feel as if I can not read another book for several years after finally making it through Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell last night, which I mean to be much less of an insult than it sounds.

Have I gotten into some sort of hyper-frenetic ADD state of mind? I worry, with my reaction towards this book, that I may have. Because, you see, I loved the book, I found it entertaining and beautifully written and full of insight, but... I was almost driven mad by its languorous pacing and seemingly infinite length. So mad that I decided I was going to finish the book yesterday if I had to kill myself to do so, that I couldn't let one more day pass and still be reading it.

Which, by all accounts, makes me a bit of an ass. I don't really know how to explain it better, though. How can one enjoy a book and at the same time be so completely desperate to finish it already? I don't know. Such are the contradictions that make me such an insufferable piece of dung.

So I was up until nearly 2am last night, and I am pretty sure it took me a full hour to read the last ten pages because I kept falling asleep mid-sentence. What a way to fully appreciate a book, huh?

All of this sounds like the faintest praise ever bestowed. But the book is really wonderful, some of the images Clarke conjures are breathtaking (loved the ships made of rain, the library of ravens, and Lascelles' fate), and there are moments of real fright and rollicking humor throughout the book. What I'd suggest, I guess, is to attack the thing very slowly, when you are filled with a surplus of patience, and feel as if you can set the book aside for periods and pick it back up a little later and dive back in.

I have a horrible habit of, if I set aside a book for any period of time and maybe start to read something else, I never pick up the book again (I promise I'll finish you one day, Choke). So I panicked myself this would happen and forced myself to finish it without touching another book. Which, the book being as long as it is, began to make me feel trapped beneath. It was a ridiculous mental cycle of self-defeat in motion. Or, in other words, me.

But, yeah... uh... the book... it's good. Read it!

Next up, I am going to read some Stephen King short stories, because it's October, Halloween approaches, and my brain craves simplicity.

All Of Them Crooks

AWESOME piece over at Kos on the new Republican talking point, "The Criminalization of Politics." Key quote:

"No. No dice, pundit class. Don't give us vapid, amoral, blastfaxed crap about how horrible it is that everyone-on-the-planet- but-the-involved-Republicans are responsible for a certain collection of viciously partisan figures toeing the fine lines of numerous federal laws, and finally losing their balance on a half-dozen of them.

Is this the best face that the Republican Party can put on? Is this the best defense against scandal after scandal -- to ignore the sentenced, defend the indicted, blame the investigtors, and howl at the injustice of it all?

Honestly, what farce."

Damn straight. The Republican leaders are rotten to the core, and blaming those who point it out has passed its experation date. When you see what a sick state the lot of them are, and the dominoes keep falling and behind every one there's a new scandal, another bunch of liars and crooks, there's only so much of that they can spin.

Whether anyone will be indicted in the Plame business should be announced this week, supposedly. I can't wait for this one.

Quote Of The Day

"I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't enjoy hurting anybody. I don't like guns or bombs or electric chairs, but sometimes people just won't listen and so I have to use persuasion, and slides. My parents, Sharon and Dave. Generous, doting, or were they? All I ever wanted was a Ballerina Barbie in her pretty pink tutu. My birthday, I was 10 and do you know what they got me? Malibu Barbie. That's not what I wanted, that's not who I was. I was a ballerina. Graceful. Delicate. They had to go."

Did anybody else catch Addams Family Values on TV last night? I spoke to my boyfriend later that night on the phone and we'd both watched it... we're such queers. Anyway, I'd forgotten how funny it is. And... so very gay. Paul Rudnick(the writer)'s flames of faggotry were practically setting my eyebrows on fire.

And you wanna know what freaked me out? See that lil' blonde next to beloved Miss Ricci in that pic above? It's Harmony from Buffy! So... young. Weird.
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Yarn Brains!

A re-enactment of Dawn of the Dead using Knitted Yarn Dolls?
Yes, please.

Just A Thought

Good Night, New York!

I'll take two and a to-go cup, please.

I Said I Was Bored

A two-legged dog:

A cat with a lime on its head:

A koala climbing Big Ben:

The Devil having sex with a penguin from behind:

Jake Ryan!

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I am so fucking bored. I'm sitting here at my desk, there is NO work to do, my boss is out of the office, it's still raining like a mofo outside, and try as I might there is NOTHING entertaining to be found online today. WTF?

Anyway, over at Gawker there was a Gawker Stalker sighting of JAKE "SQUEAL" RYAN from Sixteen Candles in my boyfriend's neighborhood, and it's the only thing to have grabbed my interest at all today.

Jake... SIGH. How odd that he quit "the biz" and became a carpenter. I wish I had some shelves or something to be built. I'd turn the heat all the way up in the apartment and force him to strip down and... er, sorry, didn't mean to turn this into some sort of gay Penthouse Forum letter....
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Yawn, It's Friday

I keep thinking that the filling in my tooth feels like a wad of wet paper towel crammed in there. I can't stop pushing at it with my tongue. I'll get over this, right?

It's Friday, and I am damned ready for the weekend. I am sick of rain, sick to death of it, and checking out the prospective weather for the next couple of days things are looking good. Sunshine makes a comeback!

I am trying to figure out what plans, if any, I'll have for the next couple days. I should try and take advantage of the sun peeking out for a bit, since Ol Man Winter's got his stuff packed up and is heading back into town, maybe go to a "park" or enjoy some sort of "outdoor activity." Riiiight.

Cannibal Holocaust is showing as a midnight movie tonight and tomorrow. Consider me curious.

I feel as if I should want to see Capote, but... THAT VOICE. I just dunno if I can take two hours of... THAT VOICE.

I've got a pile o' Netflix at home. I have Inside Deep Throat, the doc on the "70's porn sensation." I've got Uzamaki, an animated Japanese horror-ish story of a small town attacked by... spirals. It's based on a manga I have not read, but DbS recently made sound very interesting. And I've got the recent miniseries of Battlestar Galactica, which was recommended by a very dear reader.

And then there's the behemoth life-drainer known as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which after weeks and weeks I still feel no closer to ever finishing.

All of which, it would appear, conspires against my rendezvous with the sunlight.

Next week's looking busy, I've got the Death Cab concert Wednesday night, then a dear friend stomps into town on Thursday, and TWO weddings over the weekend, all of which makes me think a restful weekend may, in fact, be in order.

Do A Little Dance

It's presumably too early to start celebrating on the implosion of the GOP and the Religious Reich going on these days, but man, what a couple weeks it's been! Really lifts the spirits, watching criminals like Delay and Rove and Frist finally be called on their b.s.

AMERICAblog is a must-read for updates on what's going on.

Admire the way CNN airs footage of a rehearsal of today's Q&A with soldiers and Dubya, where Dubya gets a chance to hear their questions first so he can figure out an answer (or, more likely, his writers can craft him an asnwer from his selected robot phrases, including such gems as "terror is bad" and "it's hard work"), which directly repudiates the White House's claims that it was a non-scripted event. Go CNN!

Stare in non-shock at Bush's approval ratings with blacks having fallen to TWO PERCENT.

Laugh and laugh at the subpoena of Delay's home phone records.

Watch with amazement at the complete fracturing of the GOP over Harriet Meirs, with Dick Cheney reportedly being at the front of opposition to her nomination.

And yawn at the long-foregone-concluded connection in timings between raisings of the terror-alerts and Bush political problems.

Oh, and the good news just keeps on rolling in. Within the next week or couple of weeks, I gather, we'll be seeing what happens with the Valerie Plame case, and if any of these small-dicked-scoundrels get indicted or not. To quote my Magic Eight ball, the forecast looks good! Unless Dubya decides to blow something up to distract us.

The Gay Cowboys Are Coming

That bastard Andy Towle got to see Brokeback Mountain at the beginning of September and now has reviewed it. Sigh. Bastard.

Towle says "Lee's adaptation is everything I wanted it to be — stunning visually, emotionally solid, true to the original story — but at its core it expresses a knowledge of the secrecy and the gut-wrenching pain that gays experience when required to abide by society's heterosexual models for fear that their true feelings, if exposed, will engender shame, humiliation, or violence."

So... it's positive. As is all the early word. Christ I need this to come out already.

Oh, he also says, for the perv in us all,

"And then there's the sex. For the first time, two young A-list actors rising in their careers have taken on roles that require them to not only sell an audience their affection toward one another, but also their overt sexual undertakings.

Consider me sold.

The two actors make out hungrily, wrestle around, intimately embrace naked by the golden light of a campfire, and if you've read the Proulx short story you'll remember this bit:

"Ennis ran full-throttle on all roads whether fence mending or money spending, and he wanted none of it when Jack seized his left hand and brought it to his erect cock. Ennis jerked his hand away as though he'd touched fire, got to his knees, unbuckled his belt, shoved his pants down, hauled Jack onto all fours and, with the help of the clear slick and a little spit, entered him, nothing he'd done before but no instruction manual needed."

Those who come to Brokeback expecting Falcon video's Buckleroos will no doubt be sorely disappointed. But Ang Lee's visual shorthand does Proulx's erotic storytelling justice. There was more than enough sex for me in the context of this story, because the emotional tension makes the small moments count for so much. Those intent on seeing full nudity will see it in a less charged context as well — Twist changing by a lake, del Mar skinnydipping in a river."

SIGH....

Dork Central

The show Lost is really going all out on creating a geek-friendly, web-centric ad campaign. There are bunches of websites where you can go and find out more mysteries, as if the show needs more mystery.

Anyway, here are a couple I've stolen from AICN this mornin'.

There's the ol' standby official site that's been around for ages, www.oceanicflight815.com, but now if you click on the barcode at the bottom of the page you get a snippet of future script, which has the Korean-speaking Jin saying the line “Michael, no! That isn’t Walt! STOP!” Intriguing, yes...

Go to www.theislandiswaiting.com, for... stuff. Likewise, more ...stuff... if you go to www.thehansofoundation.org, and then you begin to fall down the rabbit-hole if you type it in as (note the extra "s" at the beginning) https://wwww.thehansofoundation.org.

Which leads you to www.bigspaceship1.com, which is a name that has my interest peaked and a page that is... odd, and I wish I had sound because I can't hear if anything's being said on these sites. Apparently, according to the psychos at AICN, there is a morse code transmitted on this site that translates to "sometimes a polar pear is just a polar bear." Mmmkay. There's also a page for www.bigspaceship1.org, which has more... well, nonsense, at this point.

Then there's a website for Hurley's former employment, http://mrclucks.com, which says that "due to the recent natural disaster, our flagship store will be closed until further notice." And the screen occasionally flashes and you see numbers and the words "dharma" and "polar bear." There's a link button at the bottom, that has links to a Mt. St. Helens webcam, as well as www.dharmaindustries.com... and god, it just keeps going and going...

Honestly, all this shit is more interesting than the show so far this season... I know we've learned what's in the hatch, but... there are so many questions and I am getting a little fatigued. Not to mention that I'm having a hard time knowing Veronica Mars is on the other channel and that show is just non-stop awesomeness all the time. Sigh....

The Anti-Dentite Reformed

I know, my apologies, I raved and ranted about the dentist all day yesterday, and then... nothin. Shame on me, shame on me.

So, how was it you ask? It was... alarmingly fine. I had a cavity. A bad one, by the dentist's account, so I got a filling. He didn't tell me when he gave me the shot of novocaine, he just shoved the needle in my mouth, so I had no idea and therefore didn't freak out and felt essentially nothing. The needle was what I was most worried about.

After that, I felt pretty much nothing he was doing, except for once or twice when he struck the nerve and my leg shot up straight, though it was more the beginning of pain then actual pain... I don't know how else to describe it. And everyone reading this has been to the dentist before and knows fully what I mean anyway.

There was the very weird sensation of having a man's fist in my mouth. That was odd. And the smell of burning teeth, also odd. But I was pretty much completely calm the entire time, and did my slobbering silently.

So it was... fine. Completely untraumatic. I have another cavity developing on the other side, he says, so I have to go back for that next week, but other than that the dentist expressed admiration at how nice a set o' choppers I've got and understood why I'd never run to the dentist before. Huh.

I'd like to say that I've made another step towards being a Big Boy now (next comes the potty training!) but really, three-year olds go to the dentist, so this? Not really the most impressive feat ever accomplished. But I'm proud!

Butt-Kickin' Mama

This article about Jen Garner's pregnany on Alias in the NY Times is from last week, but I just read it yesterday and thought it interesting. In that, interest-left-over-from-college-gender-debate-classes sort of way. It is nifty that they seem to be playing with expectant-mommy stereotypes some.