Blog Announcement

I know I have more banners to use than the one above (which I already used in my initial announcement of the blogathon and have on the side of my blog), but I just can't get enough of those crazy Bruno Mattei zombies from Virus. Anyway, I figured I should let you all know that posting will be slowing down -- if not completely stopped -- in prep for the Italian Horror Blogathon coming up in a couple of weeks. When October is over, I will resume the Pollack retrospective (covering the second half of his career). I will try to continue my countdown of my favorite episodes of The Office, but expect that to resume in November as well. For now, I'm in full Italian horror mode. See you all in a couple of weeks! And don't forget, details (and more banners) for the blogathon are here.

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Greetings

A quick note and apology:

If you're one of the few that read this blog, I apologize for the lack of content lately. Real life has intervened, and, well, right now it makes more sense to pay attention to the things that pay the bills. I promise things will pick up around here someday. For now, I have two pieces I'm writing for Edward Copeland (I'll link to them when they go up), there's still the music club (link is always on the right sidebar), and then there's Halloween. I do have something planned for Halloween, so be on the lookout for that announcement in the next couple of weeks. Again, sorry for the lack of content. Hopefully I have something to say soon and the time to say it...we'll see. See ya around.

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Thanks

Allow me for a moment to be serious...

I know it's cliche, and perhaps even a little cheesy, to type a list of things one is thankful for, but I felt compelled to compile this short post in light of some recent reading on this eve of the day we give thanks.

To Jim Emerson: Your Scanners blog never fails to remind me that time spent reading the internet is not time wasted. Thanks, too, for always getting me to think at a higher level about what is on the screen. Your blog reminds me daily of the fond memories I have sitting in my English Literature classes during my undergrad; every day was exciting because of the truths discovered through deep explication and deconstruction of the material.

To Sam Juliano: Your generosity and enthusiasm (not to mention your willingness to allow others to add their own posts at your blog) is something I'm glad to have come across in my short time blogging.

Thanks to Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard: Your "Conversations" series is hands down, without hyperbole, my favorite thing to read. Whenever I see a blog update stating that there's a new entry in the series (like your latest fantastic take on the film's of Arronofsky), I take a deep breath, grab a beer, and sit back on my couch and enjoy the ride. I rarely contribute to the conversation in the comments, but that is not because I'm unimpressed with that I've read; it's because your writing and analysis makes my own feel so obsolete. I mean that as the kind of compliment that should be interpreted as such: I don't comment because there's nothing left to add to the conversation; you've covered it all in your leave-no-frame-unanalyzed approach to film criticism. It's detailed, exhaustive, and always brilliant. It's the kind of film criticism that makes one stop and think: "Damn, this needs to be on my bookshelf!" Thanks for helping me see new truths in films I've seen more than a few times.

To Tim Brayton: Your blog, Antagony & Ecstasy, reminds me of why I love not just watching movies, but writing about and discussing them. Your reviews are the most densely packed with a gift for never having a feeling of over staying their welcome; they are the most hilarious, wonderfully irreverent, insightful, entertaining reads on the web. The fact that you can pack all of those into a movie review and not make it come off as cynical, pretentious, or overly verbose is truly amazing.

To my readers: Thanks to everyone who takes time to leave comments on here. It's a petty thing, but those comments always make this recreational writer feel like what I'm doing is at least somewhat useful.  There are so many of you (if your blog is listed on the right, then know that you are definitely thanked) that leave flattering comments, and a lot of you that will leave an insightful addendum to some of my musings. I appreciate that. To those of you that have been here from the beginning (even if I don't see you around here anymore): Ali Arikan, Rick Olson, Greg, Bill R., J.D., Alexander Coleman, Sam (of course), Tony Dayoub, Adam, Ryan, Jake, Bryce Wilson, Troy, Neil, Marylin, Rod, and so many more (again, look to the sidebar).


Thanks, everyone.  Whether you realize it or not, with this crazy thing called blogging, you all bring moments of joy, humor, intellectual stimulation, and new insights into my daily routine. Thank you for that.

So there you go.

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Spend the holidays with Ken Russell!

Yes, folks, that is correct, I will be spending my holidays with a man obsessed with religion...how apt! Apt, I say! (to quote Lisa Simpson) Beginning December 7th or so I will begin my second attempt to cover a director's oeuvre. Ken Russell is the man the majority of you voted for last month, and I have to say that you all must hate me. I don't want to tip my hand to how favorable or unfavorable my retrospective will be, but let me just say this: I have now moved through all of Russell's mainstream 60's and 70's films...and I can only think of two that have made this endeavor worth while. But I'm here to please the voters, and the voters wanted Russell, so I will deliver. I'm a classical music and opera neophyte, so I think naturally some of Russell's early looks at musicians and artists were right over my head. I tried my hardest to look at them objectively, but some of these films could only take me to a certain place because of my lack of knowledge about composers. That being said, I will give it a go in about a month, and the retrospective will be the focus of this blog all December (with some more capsule reviews of 2010 films sprinkled in). I hope you'll join me; it should be fun times. See everyone in a month.

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In the spirit of "friending"...

There's no doubt what the movie of the moment is right now: the Fincher/Sorkin (accredited in the trailer the same way Welles and Toland were in Citizen Kane, suggesting, perhaps that the film wouldn't be what people are calling it if Fincher didn't have Sorkin) collaboration, The Social Network. It will be a looooong while before I see this (okay, not really, but at least a few months), so in the spirit of online friends and community and such, (and living vicariously through other people's ability to get out there and see the film...not to mention their talents in writing about it) here are some of my favorite bloggers and critics discussing the film. Enjoy.

• Jason Bellamy of The Cooler writes a piece entitled "He Drinks Your Milkshake" (great title!)
• Jake Cole of Not Just Movies looks at the evolution of Fincher (and gives the film a 5/5 rating, to boot).
• Craig -- The Man from Porlock -- looks at the film in conjunction with Solitary Man, another Jesse Eisenberg movie.
• Bill of The Kind of Face You Hate discusses the film through the lens of Sorkin and his writing style, and doesn't have gushing praise for it.
• Jim Emerson writes a brilliant piece about a specific tete-a-tete between two lead characters that kicks off the film, and how it offers insights into the film's major themes and motifs.
• Tony of Cinema Viewfinder reviewed the film last week as part of the opening night for the New York Film Festival.
• And finally last, but certainly not least, one of my favorite bloggers (and all around nice guy), Tim Brayton  has his usual exhaustive and brilliant review up at Antagony & Ecstasy.

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Images from a night of movie watching without my wife...

So my wife is gone this weekend at school (she's in a program that meets two weekends every month at Portland St.), and so I decided to be mature and instead of throwing a big party I decided to work on my work samples for my masters degree. I need background noise when I work...so I went to the one genre that always gets me through schoolwork (surprisingly not horror): the action film*. Here are some images of what motivated me while I typed up lesson plans, assessment data analysis, and other various forms of busy work. Enjoy. (oh, and in case anyone is wondering where the second episode thoughts for "Boardwalk Empire" are...sorry. I just don't have the time. The Q&D, though: Michael Shannon is awesome. Oh, and "Eastbound and Down" was highly disappointing considering the amount of talent working on that show.)

*One thing I did notice when I randomly payed attention to these movies: Andrew Davis is a really goo action filmmaker, and his Above the Law is not only the best Seagal movie, but it might be one of the better action films of the 80's. Out for Justice is just goofy, Bronson-esque vigilante fun, and of course Under Siege is beyond awesome thanks to a brilliantly manic performance from Tommy Lee Jones...oh, and Garey Busey!

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Blogging Hiatus (kind of)...

It looks like Ken Russell won the blog poll for my next director retrospective. I have loaded up the Netflix queue with Russell films, and I will begin viewing those shortly. However, when I actually post stuff will be sporadic at best. In fact, I have decided use this retrospective -- and the breadth of Russell's oeuvre -- as a way to get out of doing a second Italian horror-themed blogathon. For those of you that don't know, I am an educator; actually, I think of myself as more of a social worker considering the the type of students I felt a vocational calling to help ten years ago. I've worked with at-risk teenagers for at least five years now, in various arenas, but specifically in an options high school that is associated with a local community college where the students -- mostly teen moms, expelled students from public high schools, marginalized teens, or former gang members (and sometimes just super smart and ambitious students who think the public school system works too slowly for them) -- take a term's worth of classes in three weeks.

I mention all of this because I am in the midst of wrapping up my masters degree in education (I'm writing a research project and two work samples right now), and I'm teaching classes at night. So, I'm essentially working from 9am to 7:30pm. Needless to say I am tired, and I am going to anticipate being tired for a long while. Sadly this will come at the expense of the Italian horror blogathon (but I plan on doing it again next year) and some more recent movies I wanted to go see (I still have a slew of 2010 movies to catch up with); so, expect a lot of content when I'm on winter break (sometime in mid December) and random content until that time. There will be plenty of horror-themed content out there for you all to get your fix. I will continue writing blurbs for the Wonders in the Dark horror countdown, and it sounds like Bill of the wonderful The Kind of Face You Hate is returning with his great October series on horror literature (with the great theme name of The Kind of Face You SLASH).

So there ya have it. I will try my hardest* to continue posting brief thoughts on "Boardwalk Empire", and like I said, I'll get to work on the Ken Russell movies when I have time, but the plan is to step away from multiple posts during the week for my own sanity (and my wife's). See ya when I see ya.

*Not to be a Debbie Downer, but the school I teach at just started the school year off on the absolutely worst possible note: three students -- ages 16, 18, and 18 -- were standing on a sidewalk waiting for a bus outside of our school when a driver who was under the influence veered two lanes over and jumped the curb instantly killing one of the students, injuring another so badly that she died later that night in the hospital, and critically injuring the other one. I was the first teacher on the scene, and I noticed right away that the critically injured student was one of mine; three of my other students saw the entire thing happen, and I know what I saw...so I can't even imagine how they're dealing with what they saw. We're a close-knit school community (only about a 120 students total), and we're all extremely shaken-up by all of this. So, even though film and television is a positive and cathartic distraction for me right now, I think you can understand why I feel so ambivalent towards posting content: On one hand it helps to watch, read, and discuss about other stuff; on the other hand it just doesn't seem to matter at the moment.

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New Blog Design

I'll be back on Monday with some more posts (continuing my look at Oliver Stone's films), but first I wanted to point out the obvious: I've redesigned the blog (yet again).  So I guess I've re-redesigned the blog. Anywho, if you look up top there are now neat little tabs that will take you to a specified page with links. I will place the current year's reviews in a tab at the top (and when I was doing this I was shocked to see that I've reviewed exactly three films this year!) and any previous years will be placed on the right under their appropriate label. Also, I've added a neat little quote that from Jim Emerson...it's pretty much perfect.  In addition, I've added tabs for any of the major features or blogathons I've done on the blog (Italian Horror, Summer of Slash, and Best Films of the 2000's). So, yeah...hope you like the new look, and I'll be back Monday.

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Why The Expendables will be the best movie I see this summer

No, there's no logical reason for the title to this post; this is going to be strictly emotion-based. Next Friday The Expendables – a B-level action movie that seems to be so retro that it has no place being released in theaters in 2010; rather, it would be more appropriate to have it be shown between the hours of 12:45 am and 4 am on Showtime – will be released nationwide. Sylvester Stallone's recent labor of love is an attempt to bring people back to the action movie; people who have become disillusioned with the shaky-cam, CGI-fests that plague theaters and call themselves "real" or "gritty" action films. Stallone is shamelessly trying to tap into a sense of nostalgia with his latest film by casting virtually every action star from '80s and '90s (and more recent tough guys like the always great Jason Statham) from the likes of Dolph Lundgren to Bruce Willis to Jet Li to a cameo by the Governator himself. Sadly Steven Seagal (my personal favorite of the '90s action stars) and Jean-Claude Van Damme turned down the opportunity to be in the film; the former because of a dislike for the producer (seems fair enough), and the latter because – and I'm not joking here – he felt like his character wasn't developed enough. You know, like his well developed characters from such classics as Nowhere to Run, Double Impact, or Hard Target. But I digress...

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A Quick Question...

I've been messing with my blog the last couple of hours.  I've changed some minor things like colors and such, and I've tweaked some major things to the sidebar like adding an index for my Italian Horror reviews, a link that explains who Hugo Stiglitz is, and as a more organized labeling system (yay OCD!)

So, here's what I'm curious about in my ongoing quest to make the blog as aesthetically pleasing as possible: How does this look when YOU see it.  I've viewed it on both Google Chrome and Firefox (the latter has the header pic fill up the entirety of its space and shows borders, while the former shows the pic not quite filling up the entire header, and the sidebar border can't be seen) and was curious what browser you use to view the blog, and how does it look to you?  Are the widths all messed up? Do the colors show correctly (the blog title should be in red)? Do you even view the site from the homepage or do you view it through an RSS reader?

I'm just curious as I've been tweaking these things and I'm wondering if they're improving the blog, or just making it a cluttered mess.  Let me know.  And please be brutally honest!  Hehe.  I'll return late tonight with another installment for my Summer of Slash series.  Thanks!

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Thanks, whoever you are...

Browsing the blogosphere today I noticed that the LAMB blog is doing their annual Lammy's.  I knew this was coming down the pike, and yet I just don't care enough about nominating myself for these kinds of things.  Oh, that doesn't mean I think they aren't fun and cool rewards for hard working bloggers...they're just not for me; or, let me put it another way: as goddamn cheesy as it sounds I don't do this for things like Lammy's.  That being said, I read the nominations today, and no I didn't see my name on there for the final cut, but I did see my blog name down there for a number of categories:

Best Blog Name
Best Blogathon
Brainiac Award
Best Blog
Best Writer

Wow.  My point is...I didn't do this.  I didn't pimp myself out, here. So, whoever did throw my name out there for these: Thank you!  I appreciate it.  It's nice to know that what I'm doing here, tucked away in top northwest corner of the country, is being read and appreciated by people. It means a lot. Only two weeks left of school and work...then it's a whole lot of blogging.  I look forward to coming back to this as a full time hobby.  See ya in a few.

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Those were the days...

Essential reading alert: Jim Emerson (of course) of the fantastic and...oh what's the point...you all know by now.  Just head over to Scanners where Jim has posted an interesting question regarding why me may not see all of the "essential" or "classic" films (I added the quotation marks) we may desire to, or perhaps that we had the desire to seek out in our younger days.  It's an interesting question and one I felt compelled to respond to in his comments section.  The gist of the comment: I think the oversaturation of the marker (i.e. Netflix Instant View) is both a blessing and a curse.  Too many choices leads to stagnation for me in regards to watching essential films from world cinema.  In fact...it's got me thinking about dumping this whole blogging business, which I also think contributes to the lack of movie watching I do, as ironic as that sounds, because I'm too concerned with watching movies solely for the purpose of the blog where I hope to have something new to say about the movie...that becomes a problem when one tries discussing Bergman or Ozu or Dreyer...what is there left to say about those giants of cinema?  It's a dilemma that often weighs on me, and the task of writing about them is so daunting that it almost turns me off of wanting to see their films.  Where in the past I would have simply just gone down to the local library and grabbed seven or eight classic films from world cinema and drank them all in over the span of a week.

Don't get me wrong, I love the blogosphere and the dialogue surrounding contemporary films that can be found within it (I don't know what I do without Jim's superlative essays on No Country for Old Men or Keith Ulrich's insightful look into Miami Vice), but I also wonder if my hobby of blog writing has been dictating what kinds of movies I watch, neutering my film growth in the process?  Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff to be learned about contemporary cinema and American cinema...but I do feel like my knowledge of world cinema has fallen by the wayside.

One glance at Tim Brayton's amazing Top 100 films of the decade list and I'm rushing to Netflix to add a ton of titles from other countries.  I wish I didn't have to do that, I wish I had already seen those films.  I know that geography has something to do with it -- being in Salem, OR isn't exactly the heartland for world cinema -- but really I'm only 40 minutes away from Portland, which has some pretty good options for non-mainstream/non-American film. 

Perhaps that's just the difference between being a young cinephile and being a little older, married, and having a job that isn't part-time.  I was more willing to rush to Portland to catch a film at the Hollywood Theater on a one week run, or I was more willing to drive the 40 miles or so to Cinema 21 to catch a revival of something like Bicycle Thieves.  I don't know...I don't think there's an easy answer here.  I love these kinds of questions, though, and I hope that you all will read Jim's piece.

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My Favorite Albums of 2009

I usually don't talk music on here, but I figured since I'm working on my year-end review (to be posted at the ever-relevant time of January 25th) I would toss up 20 of my favorite albums I've heard this year.  My tastes aren't for everyone, but there's some good stuff in here, and I hope some of you will ask about them in the comments...I'll be more than willing to let you know which songs to sample. 

My choices after the jump...

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Symbolism has never looked so tasty...

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Happy New Year

This picture makes me happy as two of my favorite things, Keira Knightley and Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go, join forces in making sure I'll have at least one amazing filmgoing experience in 2010.  I'll be interested to see how this adaptation turns out, but I remember reading the novel a few years ago and thinking that Keira would be perfect as the opinionated Ruth.  Anyway...I'll have more to post on Monday, but you know, I can never get enough of Keira Knightley...so there ya go.  Happy New Year, everyone!

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Off for the Holiday...

I'll be away from the blog for the next couple of days, but that's not why I'm posting something...no, I just wanted to take the opportunity to wish everyone a happy holiday.  Whether you celebrate it for religious reasons or for taking-a-break-from-all-the-things-I-hate-about-my-job reasons, I hope that you all enjoy a few days of rest and relaxation.  Anyway, see ya in a few days.

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Merry Quiz-mas: Time for another SLATIFR quiz.

Well...it's that time again.  Dennis Cozzalio of the fantastic Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule has asked the blogosphere to fill out one of his endlessly entertaining tests.  I usually feel like a dummy after getting through with these things, but that never tempers my enthusiasm in doing them.  Dennis has lobbed a whopping 50 question(!!) exam at us.  I hope I at least get it out of the infield.  Thanks again, Dennis, for such a fantastically fun exercise. My answers come after the jump...

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...And we're back

Hey everyone...the madness of the past month is over and I'm ready to start posting on here again.  Things will resume this Monday, and there's no telling how many posts I plan on doing in the month I have off from responsibilites.  I plan on doing the following:

Listing my answers to Dennis' quiz
Re-visiting the underrated and undervalued greatness that is "John From Cincinnati"
Catching up with some movies like A Serious Man and last years A Christmas Tale
Reviewing stuff like Funny People and The Limits of Control, as well as other 2009 films
A huge list of things that made me happy the past ten years
My obligatory best of the decade list and best of 2009 list
Fun, shorter reviews for cheesy, violent stuff like The Prowler or some old westerns I've been watching like One Eyed Jacks.

And who knows what else I'll do here.  It should be a fun month...I have a lot on my mind.  Also, as you may be able to tell I switched up the design on the blog.  My brother Troy helped me out since he's an engineer and he can do stuff like that in a matter of seconds.  I like the new look myself, and I started thinking after Troy helped me switch templates and re-design this thing that it looks a lot like Edward Copeland's blog.  So consider it an homage to Ed, who sadly isn't blogging anymore. I look forward to conversing with everyone next week.  Until then...

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A Brief Sabbatical (Thanks to James Woods)

Okay, so I was all ready to talk about how I love the MGM HD channel because it allows me to revisit movies I haven't seen in years. Films like: Southern Comfort, Coffy, The Burning, and Interiors. And I was all ready to write about how the other night they showed this film called Cop, starring James Woods in one of his best performances, directed by James B. Harris who used to work on Kubrick's films from the 50's and 60's (most notably writing the screenplay and producing Paths of Glory), and how the film was standard serial killer vs. cop fare except for the fact that the film had this alluring, sleazy, Dirty Harry-esque exploitation aesthetic that made it impossible to turn away from (not to mention Woods' amazing performance). I was all ready to talk about a film called Cop, a film from the 80's that seems so insignificant in 2009 (I mean why talk about it?), a film that I'm sure not a lot of people have even seen, or if they have, barely remember; however, as I started writing some notes down I realized...I just don't have the time for this. Follow my jumbled thoughts after the jump...

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There's something cookin' here at Hugo Stiglitz

Posting might be light for awhile...but there's something getting ready to bubble up here...

(Image of woman's head in microwave curteousy of Fulci's A Cat in the Brain)

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