Can't sleep.......Pussyfoot'll eat me!

P.s. "I know who killed me" is deliciously awful. I suggest all fans of terrible terrible things go see it (it is online for free).

Cam

Well Liked by the French....canadians.....Apologies for the brief return to radio silence. No real gems amongst the new shows/I've started re-watching Firefly instead of movies while I do my essays. Soon all will be normal.

I just wanted to revel in my own neurosis for a second.

So, I got into a film festival. Montreal World film festival (under the 'student' umbrella). Woo? Of course not woo.

While it has promoted me to be more excited and submit to more things now I'm just all gnarled about whether a) it's a joke festival I'm in and b) if I was actually worthy of getting in and of course c) Why did they pick me and reject others?

You know, the usual stuff.

But for all the scraping and gnashing of teeth involved last year it does make something good come out of a slog. So I'm pleased with that.

Plus I can start putting laurels around my name.

Sweet. I finally control laurels.

Cam

Downloadable Fall T.V. preview Part 1:
Reluctant Heroes Imbued with Powers They Don't Understand!!!!

I've been downloading and watching all the fall t.v. pilots I can get my hands on so, to make myself feel like less of a waste of space, I'll waste space on the internet by clogging it with my opinions of them. SHAZAM!

So for part I of this escapade I'll deal with three shows that seem to follow a trend in t.v. brought on by some mass market research and/or the popularity of Heroes: Viewers love people who are reluctant heroes and have been given some sort of power they don't understand.

You know you love it too. Don't lie. The networks know.

Well on to the crop (with pictures, IMDB links and .torrent links for the interested)

1) PUSHING DAISIES (ABC)
Who is behind this?
Barry Sonnenfeld (who you can make sound good by putting Men in Black/Addams Family in brackets behind his name or you can make sound bad by putting Big Trouble/RV in there) and Bryan Fuller! (who you can't make look bad because his brackets are Wonderfalls/Dead Like Me/Heroes)

Who is our reluctant hero?
Ned (Lee Pace) . He was a sad little child who grew up to own a pie store (SHAPED LIKE A PIE!) and now is a seemingly low-key nice guy.

What is their power/How were they imbued with it?
His touch brings the dead back to life. He's had it presumably since he was born though only discovered it pre-sad little child phase.

Why are they reluctant?
One touch brings the dead back, a second makes them dead again forever. Also, if he re-animates someone for more than one minute a person in their general proximity will drop dead to make up for the imbalance (no word on if they, in turn can be brought back to life).

Who forces them to use said powers?
The Re-animated version of his first love who feels for the dead(awwww), a money hungry P.I. who wants to solve murders/get rewards (CHI MCBRIDE!) and probably a general sense of decency.

Who do they have to keep their powers a secret from?
Pie shop waitress who loves him (KRISTIN CHENOWETH!)and presumably the two aunts of the un-deceased first love (SWOOSIE KURTZ AND ELLEN GREENE!)

Who is out to antagonize all this confused power usage?
Nobody yet except maybe the criminals they take down with their powers. Knowing Fuller though it'll probably be their own moral dilemma, their own lack of knowledge of the power and/or someone imbued with the same power but using it differently.

How does all this make me feel?
Awesome. If you can't tell from all the exclamation marks the cast is amazing. It does get a little Broadway (both in cast and in this case, love of palindrome names) but still, that's the way Fuller tends to throw down. The show has a dreamy feel and has sets and shooting so amazing I have trouble believing they can afford to keep it up for a whole season.

This show is very much a retread of the Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me territory but I loved both of those shows and they were torn away from me so, I could care less.

My only complaint is that it balances its dark humor with some stuff so saccharine (please Jesus let the fairy tale narrator only exist for the pilot) that it doesn't so much balance as make me barf.

I know though that all this will pay off though in Fuller's hands. He writes some of the most interesting and complex comedic characters out there so ,yes this will be smart. Yes this will be funny. Yes I will give up on life if it's canceled before it gets a chance.

2) BIONIC WOMAN (NBC)
Who is behind it?
Sci-fi powerhouse team Ronald D. Moore and David Eick from the wickedawesome Battlestar Galactica.

Who is our reluctant hero?
Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan) , bartender at The Plaza (they never say it's not Vancouver so I'll assume it is) and girlfriend of a fancy science professor at UBC.

What is their power/How are they imbued with it?
After being smooshed in a car accident she gets a robot arm, robot legs, a robot eye and a robot ear as a present from her boyfriend who is really a shady government operative. There are also nanobots in her blood which seem to heal her and do who knows what else.

Why are they reluctant?
Boyfriend wasn't supposed to give her powers so the government is pissed, they want her in jail or dead. She's confused. Also she seems pretty emotional about everything so that's probably in there too.

Who forces them to use said powers?
Shadowy government officials figure she owes them for saving her life so they want her to do missions against various equally shadowy sci-fi things.

Who do they have to keep their powers a secret from?
Deaf/Goth sister (ANN!) and presumably the world at large. Oh and shadowy evil people.

Who antagonizes all this confused power usage?
Katee "Starbuck" Sackhoff as Bionic Woman 1.o who doesn't know why she's mad at her but really wants to kill the boyfriend. There's also a Russian dude who is maybe a robot and maybe commands the first bionic woman and the boyfriend's even shadowier father.

How does all this make me feel?
GONG!

I give Moore and Eick the benefit of the doubt as Galatica is so amazing but seriously this pilot was balls. I pray to the t.v. tiki that more than just the listed effects were temp. because man OH man, save the jaguar leap Sackhoff takes about 1 minute in they effects were balls.

Also, anything dramatic was stupid, confusing or lame. I think they are trying to stress the "woman" in Bionic woman but failing by making her overly emotional and confused by said emotions (the wrestling with love with her boyfriend/sister is eye-gougingly bad).

The things that I could see saving it are :
1) Galactica cameos for all the nerds (there are at least 3 in this episode alone).
2) fights on the streets of Vancouver make me laugh.
3) The Shadowy officials mention how science has come to the point where science fiction is reality so potentially she'll be fighting aliens and bigfoots (bigfeet?) and werewolves like in the original. I can get down with that.

But seriously, I was more interested in The Sarah Connor Chronicles...seriously.

3) CHUCK (NBC)

Who is behind it?
I've got three letters for you: McG. Luckily, the man is counter-balanced by by Josh "The O.C." Schwartz so we are all allowed to get excited.

Who is our reluctant hero?
Chuck...duh? He's an employee of the geek squad (I mean "Nerd Herd") at a Best Buy (I mean "Big Buy")

What is their power/How are they imbued with it?
His college roommate was a rogue spy and for unknown reasons sent him a magical supercomputer's information which crammed it's way into his skull. Now he knows all the CIA and NSA secrets and is capable of realizing complex patterns which can solve crimes...or something.

Why are they reluctant?
He's Seth Cohen as an adult basically. He's awkward and uncool. He works at Best Buy. He has no robot arms/death touch to protect him when bad guys attack.

Who forces them to use said powers?
Decidedly less shadowy government officials played by Adam "Not related" Baldwin and Yvonne "I dont know her either" Stzechowski. OH and their respective bosses played by some woman and CANDYMAN!!!

Who do they have to keep their powers a secret from?
Basically everyone though he's surrounded by so many secondary characters someone is likely to find out about...every week? HILARITY ENSUES!!!!

Who antagonizes all this confused power usage?
Terrorists? No, actually I don't know. Probably baddie of the week type problems. Also, the CIA/NSA aren't keen on him so maybe them as well.

How does all this make me feel?
Pretty good.

It's all pretty solid and funny stuff. I love whole world of working at Best Buy. It's a good touch. Their lame adults seem pretty close to lame adults though Chuck suffers clearly from the "Seth Cohen" syndrome of it being completely unbelievable that he's not charming and girls don't like him since he's an attractive, constantly charming-acting person.

It definitely gives Pushing Daisies a run for its money but there is a the niggling problem of not kind of understanding where it's going. It could end up a pretty procedural show with Chuck becoming a Monk of high level security threats. Will they travel across the country? Will there be interesting bad guys? Are there other computer brains?

Definitely worth a look though. It can take over Bionic Woman's slot when its gone. Zing.

Anyway, for those interested all the torrents are available at www.mininova.org

That's all for now. I need to wait for Cavemen to download.

CAM

MOTD: Hairspray

Oh yes oh yes. Finally finished my first draft of the ol' essay so it means I have time enough to watch a movie every day...or a new TV pilot...whatever I want to write about. I know I was down on this whole program, but seriously I have nothing else to talk about. Unless you want to hear about how much I don't want to read Charlotte Lennox's "The Female Quixote" ?

Anyway, so yes, I chose to watch a fairly well filmed in theater internet version of "Hairspray".

What does it have going for it?
- I love John Waters. I've seen the original a handful of times and I almost once spend 200 dollars to own a boxed set of every movie he's made. I think he's hilarious and the Hairspray era of his filmmaking was when he was at his best
- It's based on a musical that won a lot of Tonys. I trust the Tonys. The book is by the people who did the music for the South Park movie...that's good too.
- Great cast. I can't argue with most of the casting choices. Some unknowns but every other one in my head going in fit the role nicely...except for Travolta...but we'll get into that later.
- I grew up at a school where musicals were the biggest thing next to cheerleading and making out with boys so...yes...they have my attention.

What's against it:
- Directed by the Director of "The Pacifier"
- Travolta
- Amanda Bynes' voice/"acting" (Ian sat through our "What I like about you" marathon...he'll tell you)
- Musicals lately are LAME. lame lame lame. The last one I liked was Chicago and even that was pretty vanillla. I think I was blindsided by Richard Gere's old-timey voice.

So throw that all in a pot and you get--
Meh.

Well better than meh. But worse that "Take me down to the odyssey I'm converted!!!!"/secretly listening to it on my itunes.

The casting was great, the singing was great, Brittany Snow came close to being as awesome as she was on Nip/Tuck as a white supremacist, Michelle Pfeiffer was close to Debbie Harry, Cameos from John Waters AND Ricki Lake!!!

But there was something missing and that something was Waters' trademark sass.

Waters is subversive because he shows that things are ugly and weird but in an exciting and joyous way...that's not here. Nobody's really ugly (think Divine/Harvey Firestein vs. Travolta), Nobody's really THAT fat and nobody is above mildly amusingly racist.

I'm willing to give the playwrights the benefit here as well. I think it's all about the PG rating. There were some little drops of good jokes completely paved over by the direction (and sometimes choreography wtf?) and clearly long boring places where there was probably some joke on Broadway. Musical comedies rarely dip below PG-13 and there was a distinct tang of whitewash marring this whole affair.

Oh, and I've decided I'm kind of attracted to Amanda Bynes so I'm over my hatred. Call me?

Anyway, lets say Two and a Half. Out of I don't know how many. Two and a Half is just a summation of my feelings.

Go see this instead:


Tomorrow : Perhaps something new...perhaps I'll tell you about Terminators and Bionic Women on TV

Cam

Cam : 1 The Pop Culture Curve : O

http://perezhilton.com/?p=1728

vs.

http://cameronm.blogspot.com/2006/06/dear-middle-america-im-sorry-you.html

for those not counting thats MORE THAN A YEAR MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!

Cam

Motd: Superbad

Well, the same day people who actually see early movies got to see Pineapple Express, we got to see Superbad a month early. Thank you awkward facebook freebie group!

The lateness of this review can be blamed solely on the fact that this movie made me want to go out and get drunk after...in the best possible way. This review can be quick and painless. It was hilarious. It was good. You should see it.

I got over my hatred of Jonah Hill and Micheal Cera can officially do no wrong. The B-plot following the cops and the other kid kind of paled next to the main plot but it was passably funny enough to float.

I think the loving or hating of this movie maybe comes down to nostalgia for awkwardness? Not to say that I'm smooth now but this movie had me crying laughing because 99% of my life I've either been the meek, awkward Cera character or the loudmouthed Hill character and seeing them in situations which basically have, and continue to happen to me was, I thought, hilarious.

Some people got awkwarded out. Some were turned off my the randomness and confusion involved in the dramatic stuff (honestly, not that solid). But it just reminded me of highschool and how arbitrary, ridiculous, profane and drunken it was. We didn't do anything logically and we did constantly forget how we felt about things and move on to something else.

OH also, amazing amazing soundtrack of constant funk and probably one of the best title sequences in a long time.

Anyway, yes , it's probably sub-Knocked Up but it has some amazing quotable lines I don't think I'll let go for a while and it was honestly one of those movies you remain psyched on for the rest of the night.

Unless you are Warren. Warren didn't like it.



Boo Warren Boooooooo

Tomorrow : I think I may lay off movies for about a week and try to not fail out of school.

Cam

MOTD: The Chumscrubber...and a difference

I was going to write two entries: One personal, one movie review but I couldn't think of what could actually make the personal one worthwhile so I'm compounding them...maybe this will become a regular thing...that would be unique enough to please me...

So topics today are my weekend and the 2005 movie everyone gets confused with "Thumbsucker". Shall we?

Well I thought, to be rewarded with a blissful lack of worries I'd avoid fun on friday after work and stayed home to get ahead on Moby-Dick. As you may or may not know the final essay is threatening to consume the better part of my life for the better part of the next few weeks as there is a rapid succession of ever-increasing in weight assignments topping with a first draft ("as good as a final draft") on the 25th. I'm writing on the X-Files and Battlestar Galactica. This seemed like a good idea, but perhaps not. Oh well.

Anyway it seemed like a good idea until I woke up Saturday to see my closet flooded by stinkwater from above. A morning of tub-washing every piece of clothing I own and 2 days (and counting) of turning our house into a smelly, moist drying rack leaves me basically being insane.

Put on top of that TWO friends in town from Edmonton (including the incomparable Mark Hayes) and TWO outdoor drinking fests and well...I still managed to get behind on my homework. Not to mention being drunk , frazzled and feeling out of place wherever I planted myself...

wait...that feeling of detached malaise reminds me of a movie I saw recently...
Chalk another one up on the big board for both "sarcastic suburbia satire" and "I need drugs to just feel normal" with Chumscrubber.

The movie is only Okay...Okay movies deserve bullet points:
- The acting by the teen leads, performed mostly by people from Green Day videos, is not surprisingly much like a Green Day video. So much so I did some googling to try to find a link between them. Woefully, thankfully there wasn't.
- Jamie Bell was actually pretty good as the anti-depressed flaneur but I prefer him 12 years old and dancing like no tomorrow
- If Jason Issacs isn't cursing mudbloods I don't quite know what to do with him.
- The main plot is pretty inventive but it gets weighed down by its own ideology. Basically, they want every character to have problems to reflect the soul draining nature of modern life in suburbia (i think ) but there are too many characters with too many problems so most of them remain flat and undeveloped
- That said , I really dug the Glenn Close character. She plays muted suburban housewives with dead sons so often it's pretty impressive to see her pull of an original one.
- Raph Finnes loves dolphins.
- The movie vastly underestimates how good video game graphics have gotten.
- I don't think I grew up recently or in suburbia so the only version of this kind of story I've ever enjoyed are tongue-in-cheek ones like "Weeds"
- Though the film is a bit clunky it has a satisfyingly odd ending. As much as I hate some epic conventions being rode to death, I loves me some heavily ironic comeuppance




Anyway, It kicked all the whiny out of me because I was so disgusted with people being whiny on-screen. I'm caught up on reading, I went to Richmond for tacos, I have a 2 dollar mesh cube to serve as my new closet and, gosh darn it, I dont even need to do well on this essay I'm basically graduated.

bwhahaha

Tomorrow : Superbad hopefully...though you all will have seen it with me...maybe movie reviews nobody needs aren't such a hot idea...

Cam

MOTD : Mysterious Skin

If there's anything movies nowadays don't have enough of it's people who enjoyed being molested as a kid. And also questionable southern accents.


Lucky for those who agree with the above statement there's Mysterious Skin, the latest by Gregg Araki whom I only know from "Doom Generation" which, of course caused millions of boys (and probably Marylin Manson) to love Rose McGowan and fear getting their nards removed by Neo-Nazis. I haven't seen it for years but at the time I remember being amused, though I was heavily into J-horror and Takeshi Miike so a head still talking after it was chopped off was no biggie.

The film follows two boys, one who is missing large gaps of his memory and one (Joseph Gordon-Levitt who maybe can do no wrong) who can't get over how awesome it was his little league coach molested him. To be fair the guy is like a supermolester with Atari and those multi-packs of little cereals but still...heebie jeebies. No memory boy thinks he was abducted by aliens and wants to figure out more about that, Mo' memory boy wants to pal around with now Hot'n'Legal Harriet the spy and turn a lot of rough tricks in his small town. For all you X-files fans I'm sad to say the story is much more gay sex and less UFOs (though there is one).


Woo fan trailers!

But, if you want to see the kid from 3rd Rock from The Sun get sucked off by the "Jump to conclusions mat" guy from Office Space...well man are you in luck. Or if you want to see the kid from 3rd Rock from the sun realize he'd prefer to be a top than a bottom...also the film for you. Basically if you ever got a gayrection watching 10 things I hate about you you'll do fine.

Okay, really I'm being an ass. It was a pretty good movie. At least half the plot was inventive and unexpected (though the other half was obvious as fuck) the rest was well shot and acted. Araki seems to have a bit of a floaty, dreamy, comicbookey style that I can get down with ...especially in a pretty harsh story like this. It made the ridiculous extremes a little more tolerable. Still not sure if the outcome is kind of homophobic...but who am I to judge?

Overall I'd say...definitely if it's on t.v. or if someone else is paying for the rental. Probably nothing you have to own or spend more than like three bucks for but you wont rue the loss of the hour and a half.

Oh and as a side-note after a one day reprieve, I was again treated to various forms of rape. What is it with internet uploaders and rape-movies?

Cam

P.S. The word "Gayrection" and all related merchandising is copyrighted Camerontime productions 2007 (C)

MOTD : Accepted !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Picture: Ferris Bueller runs a University...lets just say, you know Animal House? Well this gentlemen, is Animal SCHOOL!

That's how this movie was probably pitched. Sadly, by having a 50% as charming Bueller wannabe and by not being set in the past or having anything to do with actual university, college, community college or life it manages to fail on every claim.

It's based on two very flawed ideas: One, that everyone's parents and the world thinks they should go immediately to post-secondary (ANY POST SECONDARY) after highshcool or they'll be a failure. Also, there's this vibe that it's incredibly hard to get into any college (and I stress ANY COLLEGE) if you are at all an outsider or cool or even smart or just not a toolish robot. In fact the rejection is so common it's basically akin to any other form of rejection so anyone who's ever been rejected should band together against colleges. In fact you should make YOUR OWN school.

To this movie every university, college, or existing post-secondary institution is ridiculous because they are just you paying for everyone to tell you that you are smart. Tests, schoolbooks and everything else is ridiculous. In fact every school is basically a frat...or is run like a frat...they complain about that a lot.The problem is that other schools don't cater to the individual student...they are just fucking robot factories man! Everyone knows what they want, just nobody bothered to ask them so, in effect, this movie is a kind of liberal arts college wet dream. Self directed learning (or not , you know whatever, is what is important).

Now I hear you saying : Jesus Cam , it's a fucking stupid comedy why dissect it so hard? Well, if you don't give me much to laugh at I just kind of have to actually examine the plot. Here you've got a main character I don't care much about and otherwise the film is chockablock with wacky characters aren't that funny. Stock whore, idiot, ADD kid (nicknamed ADD) , skater, crazy dude, nerd girl who the main guy should secretly like...The only character of interest is Lewis Black's burnt out college professor brought back to the fold but, again, it's warped sense of how the post-secondary system works really removes most of the punch his character has outside of Black's own enjoyable rhetoric.

Plot-wise of course they have the school but The MAN (Fratboy boyfriend of the guys high school crush AND an evil dean) wants to stop it. They don't want to be judged by what they look like. They apparently learned something...though it isn't very evident. I don't need to go into the rest.

It's brainless and not much fun.The highs aren't highs, the lows aren't low. Barely a laugh every 15 minutes. The only thing I got out of it was a slightly higher opinion of Johan Hill who usually I hate, even in Apatow stuff, but was passable here.

Um yeah. That's about that.

Tomorrow: It's friday. If I'm cool, nothing. If I'm lame maybe two movies?

Cam

MOTD : Inland Empire
Let me preface anything by saying I really like David Lynch. His movies and engaging and fun. He's kind of the Bob Dylan of experimental film as there's a palpable smirky joyousness in all his disorientation. Asimov or someone talked about the pleasure of disorientation once...Lynch is one of the few people out there who get it. I thought Mullholland Drive was a step in an interesting direction for him; unpackable enough it wasn't nonsense but tough enough it shook off anyone who didn't care to give it time. I give him time because I love the idea that everything doesn't need to be something and there can be dreams in movies and alternate realities of the same story and time travel. So yeah, I come from there.

Plot Summary: A polish prostitute and "lost girl" sits crying -- possibly hypnotized by the evil "Phantom" -- in a hotel room working through the pain of her dreams by watching a television program about rabbit people and an actress visited by her new "neighbor"/gypsy who gets her to look into her future towards her upcoming role in a remake of a cursed polish film which helps both actress and "lost girl" (arguably the subject of the film) find understanding and comfort within each other and themselves. Add on top of it Harry Dean Stanton needing a buck, musical numbers, a chorus of prostitutes, hypnotized murderers, crackheads as crackheads, films within films (for sure), time jumps (pretty sure), dream realities (also pretty sure), film/reality crossovers (for sure), parallel universes (pushing it) and a lumberjack and you are halfway there.

What does it all mean? well there's something about poland...or europe...something about Hollywood...something about being a whore vs. being a prostitute...and something about being "good around animals"...

Did I like it? Yeah, totally. I think this movie carries on the tradition of hard surrealism in his early films and short films but manages the forward narrative thrust of his later films giving you something to latch on to. With that push you have the ability to make of it what you will and enjoy/abhor what's going on. There are certainly tons of laughs and tons of scares/gross outs that anyone can enjoy.

I will admit seasoned Lynch vets might enjoy it more as it clearly builds on and explores some of his stock themes , with his stock actors, but anyone who likes a little nonsense can enjoy it just as much. Plus, it's on DVD soon and honestly, at 3 hours-ish, this movie can stand to be put down and picked up rather than existing as a whole block.

Hell, David Lynch would probably love that.



Tomorrow : Is another day. Whatever is free and online is fair game.

Cam

Movie of the day : Cannibal HolocaustBlah. I take back what I said. Go get a cup of cocoa and watch "Hatchet for a Honeymoon". Just don't watch "Cannibal Holocaust"

The basic plot sounds great: Documentary team goes out to the jungle in South America to research modern cannibals, they disappear. Anthropologist goes after them, comes back with their footage and then the debate begins, while we slowly see pieces of the footage, if it is important work or sensationalism. The basic idea is visible too: Deodato was offended by news footage and it's goriness and wanted to question the motivations of the people who make this footage as well as anthropological movies and anthropology in general.

Unfortunately for a movie concerned with truth vs. sensationalism it gets pretty bogged down in sensationalism. Yes, unnecessary sex/nudity. Yes, super cannibal gore. Yes, graphic animal manglings. Yes Most. Unnecessary. Rapes. Ever. It's got some pretty disgusting stuff.

Keep in mind this comes from the man who enjoys AND owns the movie with one of the longest rape scenes ever.

But I digress. The movie fails in it's plot involving "jerk off 20 something documentarians fucking with natives" in the same way a lot of the modern horror-snuff does. It's characters start off with a motivation but so quickly turn to nonsense brutality that it's unbelievable such characters exist and punishing them really doesn't do much for me. I get the exploitive anthropology angle but I still don't understand why they felt gang-raping the natives helped them at all. Or why the giggly girlfriend didn't get offended until her boyfriend tried to rape the girl...

Characters can't stand as evil or mean something unless they are understandable. The more relatable they are the more shocking it is to us that yes, indeed, we could be like them. If you just make insano monsters you can't say anything about anything.

Otherwise, I have to say for one of the goriest films of all time, the gore wasn't that amazing. I can see why people believed the infamous pike body for sure and surely that must have been why the director went on trial for killing the actors (if that actually happened...stupid internet). But the important thing to remember, which I understand now, is this film is one of "the most controversial ever made" and banned in most countries (including the country that produced it) for its rampant cruelty to animals. Again, it seemed like he wanted to say something about cannibalism vs. our willingness to fuck up turtles, muskrats and monkies but by cracking open a turtle (gross), cutting up a muskrat and CUTTING THE FACE OFF A MONKEY (the cute kind) it's all kind of lost in the wash of his own animal cruelty.

Seriously, if this movie could've made it's points in a less hypocritical manner and had slightly more understandable characters it could have been of massive importance. It had a lot to say well before other people started saying the same things.

As it is though, it's a crazy gross wannabe snuff movie (there isn't a single video on youtube I feel comfortable linking to due to violent content) that makes me want to join PETA.

It does have a wickedly inappropriate soundtrack though which I'd suggest anyone check out.

TOMORROW: David Lynch's "Inland Empire"...Dear Dave, please no rapes!

Cam

Desired by the people at her school and work

As a tragic sidebar to any man who's ever been best friends with a girl, waited to get their hair cut at a salon, worked at a women's clothing store or looked for reading material in your girlfriend's bedside table, bathroom or living room...

This fall marks the end of Jane Magazine
Jane magazine was a great publication. It got the whole "sexy fun 20 something" thing that Cosmo tried and failed at. It managed to be a sophisticated, interesting publication while still maintaining an attitude of youthful joy about it.

I think people take for granted the fact that most of the interesting celebrity revelations in the past half decade have happened in Jane. Their interview style was relaxed and ambling and allowed for the true personalities of their subjects to be exposed for better or for worse.

It had all the "be a monster in the sack" and "OMG embarrassment" sections of a Seventeen or Cosmo but played them as ridiculous candy to be consumed along with real journalism instead of making them the backbone of the magazine.

And if you don't want to take my word for it:
One time one of my more significant Highschool mentors, my English teacher Mr.Howe, complained that in our I.B. English class we were reading Jane instead of whatever Margaret Atwood or Seamus Heany we'd been assigned but, in retaliation we forced him to read the issue and in the end he decided it was probably better than what we were supposed to be reading and declared it the only magazine worthy of the class. And this is basically my "Dead Poet's Society" so yeah, fucking significant.

Anyway, next time your lady-friend gets up to freshen up and you have to thumb through the 1000 ads of Vogue or zip through the paper-thin content of Cosmo, fondly remember Jane and how there used to be a magazine that you could secretly love at your girlfriend's house.

Cam

(In an effort to preserve my sanity/force outside creativity in this time of intense work/study I'll be watching and reviewing a movie everyday as supplement or compliment to my blog...so...enjoy...or at least don't complain)

Movie of the Day: Hatchet for a HoneymoonMan, if you liked psycho, are italian, don't pay attention too much and like flute interludes this is your movie. At best it's a Giallo movie on crack and Giallo's already on coke...or at least poppers.

Basic plot: Guy is haunted by past so he kills brides, or makes people dress up like brides or sometimes he dresses like a bride. He coincidently runs a bridal parlor. He also has a shrew-wife. Soon a burly Hercule Poirot comes in and starts nosing around and of course the killings become more frequent and sloppy. There's also something about a ghost, which I wont spoil except to say it's the complete opposite of how any ghost has ever worked...ever.

A taste (to avoid spoilers don't click back to youtube):



I've recently become slightly re-enamored with Giallo due to an increase in online horror Fumetti comic scans at places like The Groovy Age of Horror. Their stories tend to be pretty damn creative in how they are fucked up...even if they all tend to involve a rape and severed penis at some point. Italy was the original Japan when it came to superfuckedupstuff in their popular media. All I've learned is that if I want to dress and act like a smooth ass 60s Mario Mastroianni-type I probably have to inexorably link horror and sex or at least love and major injury.

Thanks Italy, I'm fucked up enough as it is.

the movies tend to be the kind of good floating to the top. The balance of creativity and actual art rather than smut. I have my collection of Dario Argentos and "Cemetary Man"s to prove I love the insane lighting and confusing storylines in these things. Heck, even Mario Bava tends to be completely awesome. Danger: Diabolik anyone?

But this movie was some balls for sure. I could have accepted the bride killing, I could have accepted the p.o.v. of tortured killer and I could have accepted the whole childhood/ghost thing but the other ghost was just nonsense. And the "tales from the crypt" EEEEhehehehehehehe finish just compounded that nonsense. Sure, it was like any of those fumetti linked above but hey, those are semi-pornographic nonsense.

I say at best use it for visuals at your next party or read a book in front of it (like I did).

Tomorrow: The Italian Grindhouse crazy-train keeps rolling with Ruggero Deodato's infamous "Cannibal Holocaust"

Cam

To Add to your "List"

I finally knuckled down (was hungover all weekend) and watched the full season of Friday Night Lights and I'm proud to say it is the next in line for shows which everyone said was good, I got around to watching, and now am saying everyone should watch.

I don't even have a clue what day it aired in it's run but now you can get just about every episode streaming online for free.

Again, like Deadwood or The Wire you're going to need to scrap through the first few episodes before you start to like it but again, pays off in spades.

The show is a mix of OC/Degrassi-level high school drama balanced nicely with super-naturalistic storylines and acting. Almost every character works at DQ or Applebees, come on. Also there's a crapload of small town politics going on if none of that catches your fancy. Yes, there is a football game at least every two episodes but damned if they don't last like 15 minutes maximum and they're exciting so shut up.

If there's one thing I can say to convince anyone who watches the first few episodes thinking "what the fuck" its this: Matt Saracen. Shy nerd quarterback who takes care of his crazy grandma and forced to carry the team. Maybe one of the most original and great characters on television. I need to go find the other roles Zach Gilford has played because he'll never be anything but this character to me. Frigging amazing.

My final convincing note is this: Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler. They are in everything and goddamn it if they aren't good in everything and this is no exception save one important thing. I can watch this show and watch them interact and never, NEVER do I think Spin City, Paper a day early, dating Jack Bauer or blowing up as soon as Meredith Grey loves you--NEVER.

It's a tight , tight show that manages to deal with the kind of ridiculous drama that occurs in real life by letting it play out as silly and as awkwardly as it would in real life. It follows a trend of the best independent films in it's acting styles and character choices and you'll like it...I think you'll like it.

If not , just about everyone's pretty to look at so you haven't wasted your time.

In other news :
When I start to fall over I grab on to other people and topple them with me. What does that say about me?

Cam

What the Flock???

I promise that will be my only pun. I don't want Alexander Pope to come back to life and kick my ass.

So, one of the only consolations to recreating a whole new laptop interface is the ability to fiddle with new programs and ditch your shitty ones. Now, in a brief excursion into a territory I can only describe as Cyca-esque I want to tell you about my new favorite program:
Flock
It's basically a web browser thats made for nerds like me who want to upload things and steal photos and blog on the fly. I've wanted, since the major hit to my writing productivity with the broken laptop, to begin again with the "Blog every day" mantra and now this program makes it a button click away to my blog or livejournal or any other damn thing...

I guess all thats terrible is it can only interface with existing services so it's not like you can make it go to a personally made blog but whatever, suck it up.

I also added a me.dium sidebar which allows me to see if other users are on the site I'm on and/or look at weird disambiguations from the sites I'm looking at leading me to hours and hours of wonderful time wasting.

Alls I'm trying to say is I took my computer and turned it so sweet its like I live in the matrix. You probably should too.

Cam

idiot comics (by robert sergel)

Purple Mountain's Majesty

So how did I spend my July 4th?

Well in the spirit of outside patriotism I decided--beyond examining the development of American literary criticism RE:Moby Dick--to finally catch up on the televised iteration of This American Life.

I've heard people complain of University taking the fun out of things they love but having mostly had Film and TV classes I've managed to dodge that bullet for the most part.

That is, except for poor Ira Glass and his radio show.

Whether it's documentary profs discussing their qualms with his process, essay film profs discussing their ANGRIER qualms with his process or just American profs showing chagrin for his view of American life, I always face a diatribe against this show. They say he focuses on--dare I say--New Sincerity minutia rather than big pictures and he wields some sort of militant command over the hip view of Americana and crushes his essayists into working in his style. Needless to say they leave me little room to enjoy things.

Granted, I come into this an apologist for this sort of Americana. I love my Keillor and anyone who's been with me reading an old book about old America knows I love ramblings and -isms and  Sleepy Hollows-a-plenty. I don't know why, but I do. And when various parts of the internet and various crushes on Sarah Vowell lead me to the show I was hooked.

But still, moving into Television Ira...that's like breaking into my house.

So how was it?

It was good. It was what was expected. It was heavily narrated mini-doc essays on various subjects sorted by theme. The subjects were a bit more intense, or at least seemed so perhaps due to the visuals. It had the same radio pace, which made sometimes for bland episodes but overall it had what I'd like and what I'd defend in either version of This American LIfe: It makes you feel glad to be a singular, fallible odd person.

The show always focuses on little crazy things of little importance but simply through it`s focus reminds me of their great importance in my day to day life. Through Glass the tiny imperceptible rolling alongs of people like me aren't squished by the behemoth lives of epic people. Its good that you are weird and that makes you special. It might be sappy, it might be a misrepresentation but damned if it doesn't make me feel good about myself and good about a place that normally runs on daunting overdrive 24/7.

4th of July hug...courtesy of America and Ira Glass.

Cam

Why didn't I have the money to go to this again?


The scene before The Red Hot Chili Peppers went on stage at Coachella by Xtrapop

Home again

So my computer is new. It works. Are we all up to speed?

Today, in a fit or bored/hungover desperation I crossed the thin line between sanity and madness.

How you ask?

I cut my own hair.

Worse yet I cut the back of my own hair.

Don't get me wrong I've done it a million times before. But just it always seems like a bad idea. You miss some spot. Get something wonky. Only a madman would do it.

Or a man who has no haircut time.

Who has the time to leisurely sit in a chair for a damn hour and fork out like 20 bucks to just reset your body. I cut my own nails...why not hair?

From the picture I took of the back of my head it looks okay. A little off on the right but maybe I'll go at it with a shaver.

All the cool people cut their own hair, right?

I'm comfortable with who I am

Cam