onejdc

I know that much of the world is buried under infathomable amounts of snow and wind chills are reaching far into negative double digits. I know these things intellectually but it's a little hard to parse when here it's beautiful and I'm riding motorbikes and wearing tee-shirts every day.

Oftentimes I feel a bit disenchanted with Phoenix. I don't care for the county sheriff and I dislike the snowbirds and the tourists and traffic. On summer days it feels a bit like I'm being baked inside my moto gear.

But seriously, not having to deal with cold and snow? Worth every inconvenience and hot day. Now if you'll excuse me, it's beautiful outside and I think I'll open a couple windows.

--B.

So I've been spending my holiday vacation trying to live life like tomorrow may be my last day, wandering aimlessly in the wilderness, meeting new people from so many different walks of life, finding the miraculous within the mundane...aw, just kidding, I've been spending a lot of time just watching movies! Here are just the ones I want to comment on:

Halloween II (Remake) - I really need to just stop watching Rob Zombie movies, because they never fail to frustrate me to my breaking point. It's not because they're awful, but because Rob has such a fantastic eye for visuals and an encyclopedic knowledge of pre-1980 trash cinema, but somehow he keeps missing the je ne sais quoi of what makes gory slashers and the like work on the most fundamental level. For someone who obviously has a love for off-Hollywood horror films of the '60s and '70s, his films seem to have more in common with the most recent generation of slashers, with their deliberately disposable asshole characters and emphasis on shocks over atmosphere, than with the type of classics and klassics he constantly reveres.

But it is true that Malcolm McDowell and his interpretation of Dr. Loomis does go a long way toward salvaging the film.

Coraline - I finally got around to seeing this and, while I expected I'd enjoy it on some level, I honestly think I'd declare this a classic. The one element that impressed me right off the bat is how it's such a rare thing to have a movie with a child protagonist that comes across as authentic. I've seen reviewers comment on how hard it is find Hollywood movies with child protagonists who actually swear and the like after the mid-'80s, and I think it's almost as hard to find cinematic kids who are allowed to be smart and kind of bratty. Besides that, I thought it was one of the better films with computer animation that I've seen this side of Pixar and that it avoided the pitfalls of trying to be "goth-cute." Above all it just seemed to have that perfect synthesis of visuals and story.

Up - Again, visuals, story, beautifully combined. And, yes, there were at least two scenes that made me tear up.

Whatever Works - I'm not much of a fan of Woody Allen, not because I don't enjoy or appreciate his films but because for whatever reason I just never felt compelled to immerse myself in his works. But I was really curious to see a Woody Allen movie starring Larry David and to see if it is possible for someone who grew up in rural Virginia to die from a New York Jew overdose. Well, I survived, and it was really interesting to watch, since it was basically a light comedy for Huffington Post readers. Without giving too much away, it's a complete inversion of the old Hollywood "effete urban liberals are changed for the better when exposed to authentic small town/rural values", and as such it works pretty well. And it works because the film never lets David's character not be at least a little ridiculous. Maybe people used to Allen's famous classics will be disappointed, but it was a unique, fun little film (especially if you do have the Huffington Post as a bookmark on your web browser, but even if you, like me, once in a while feel like a hick trying to break into Bohemia).

Theater of Blood - Okay, if you like Vincent Price at all, you must see this film. It's basically The Abominable Doctor Phibes, this time with Price playing a vengeful actor who kills theater critics in ways echoing murder scenes from Shakespeare's plays. And, in my opinion, it is exactly as much fun as it sounds. Honestly this should have somehow been the sequel to Dr. Phibes instead of the lackluster Dr. Phibes Rises Again.

Wonkette presents the Top 100 Things of this Rotten Decade. My own favorites:

#98: Joe Lieberman never got to be Vice President.

#94: Sarah Palin didn’t get to be vice president, and had to “give back” all those fancy clothes.

#82: Even though it’s probably Too Late, all kinds of Hippie-Earth-Lover stuff like solar and wind power, pesticide-free food and casual lesbianism became Mainstream.

#77: No matter what stupid embarrassing fad you briefly embraced in decades past, it “came back into style” during the ’00s, so you don’t have to feel so fucking stupid anymore, because look at that asshole ….

#75: Ron Paul.

#74: The Ron Paul Blimp.

#73: Tea Party, Teabaggers, etc.

#71: There is basically video of whatever you think of, on the YouTube or one of its pornographic equivalents.

66: Michael Chertoff didn’t get a chance to kill you and eat your heart.

My Favorite Two Topics

I'm posting too much about politics, which is depressing. I suppose by now I should be used to the fact that I'm living in a time when even the Democrats make Richard Nixon look liberal and just cope with it through a thick layer of sarcasm. Well, I guess that's what I've already been doing, so thankfully there's Glenn Greenwald to keep me from seeing contemporary American politics as nothing but a black comedy. He is honestly my political messiah (although he and I really need to have a long sit-down concerning his perplexing support of Andrew "Bell Curve" Sullivan).

As for the other thing I constantly whine to strangers about, my love life (or lack therof, I seem to have men crawling out of the woodwork all of a sudden. Not only did the guy who I thought had dumped me pre-first date resurface with many profuse apologies, but a few others have suddenly shown an interest in my Morrissey-esque self. I suppose I should celebrate, but, again, being my Morrissey-esque self, I can only scream, "Where were you bastards in the past few years?!"

Suddenly my love life (or lack thereof) is in danger of becoming as convoluted as a story arc in "Sex and the City", except the only organism seeing any action is (TMI, I guess) my right hand. Maybe I should just write about pop culture ad infinitum.

New Who

I liked it quite a bit, and honestly I don't get why some people who have defended RTD's past epics are at best lukewarm toward it. And I'm not ashamed to admit that I loved the "master race" quip. Sue me.

Christmas

I didn't realize just how homesick I was until I made it back to Virginia and could see mountains and deep forests again. Plus it was nice being in a place where I didn't stand out for saying "soda" and "the-ate-er" (in total honesty, I didn't even think of myself having an actual Southern accent until I ended up in the Midwest). I'm actually glad that I get to stick around for a couple of weeks before I have to head back and start worrying about starting a new job and moving house.

The one thing that bothers me, though, is...why the hell did my parents get me a Tyler Perry movie for Christmas? Is it a heavy-handed way to bring me back to Jesus? Or do they assume that as a gay man I'll love anything that involves a man dressed up as a sassy black matriarch?

Orson Scott Card

Well, my favorite insane bigot hasn't written anything of note lately, as far as I know, and you people still haven't sent me a copy of "Empire" to mock in this space, but I had noticed certain denizens of the 'net chastising others for the futility of refusing to buy Card's work. Debating the effectiveness of boycotts against an artist or whether or not they should be punished for their personal (albeit extensively publicized) beliefs are both valid questions for debate, but what irritates me are the people who act as if there's a movement to punish Card for his opinions on, say, tourism expenditures in his home city of Greensboro, NC. It's not even like he's being boycotted for his opposition to gay marriage; he believes sodomy laws should be reintroduced and enforced and that homosexuality is a mental illness. There's just a bit of a difference there, folks.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this detailed (very detailed) analysis of Card's homophobic arguments here. As proud as I am of my own little rebuttals of Card's arguments, the writer put way more effort into it than I even did (or could).

Careerisms

Nothing to report, but...anybody out there a literary agent interested in European history? Anyone?

That's it. Hopefully 2010 will bring with it more to report.

Fans unhappy with the superhero-y tone of RTD's "Doctor Who" epics might hate it, but I did love the requisite cliffhanger/"Oh shit!" ending. So far I like it quite a bit better than "The Sound of Drums"/"The Last of the Time Lords" and "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" (but here's hoping RTD doesn't write himself into a corner...yet again).