Monday, July 21, 2008

perfect

The new Batman movie kind of sucks. It probably wouldn't kind of suck if Heath Ledger wasn't in it. His performance was so good that it overshadowed everything else in the movie and made it kind of suck. There has been talk of an Academy Award nomination, but I think that's just internet bullshit. Actors aren't known for getting Best Actor nominations for shitty superhero movies, or shitty movies in general unless the powers that be deem the shitty movie to be a good movie.

It would have been better if Crispin Glover was The Joker. This was a rumor way back. Crispin Glover wouldn't have overshadowed everything else. Crispin Glover would have played the role of Crispin Glover in Joker makeup. I like Crispin Glover. He is my favorite non-acting actor. I really want to see the remake of Hershel Gordon Lewis's Wizard of Gore. Crispin Glover plays the wizard of gore. It's the only movie that I can think of that deserves a remake since it would have been a really great movie if it wasn't so boring most of the time.

I have a few movies that I consider to be my favorite movies. I've seen most of them somewhat recently. I consider them all perfect, which really shouldn't happen because nothing is ever perfect. I found these movies to be emotionally resonating without being emotionally manipulative like most Hollywood movies. I hate the music in emotionally manipulative Hollywood movies. This is what makes them emotionally manipulative. Like if there's some action scene that isn't very exciting, they will pump some heavy metal to make it exciting and it usually works.

After watching these favorite movies of mine, I felt like I was experiencing a series of feelings that were alien to me. That I didn't know existed. That I am unable to describe. I like feeling this way.

All of these movies are sitting on my hard drive, but I'm afraid to watch them. I'm afraid the initial experience will be ruined for me like Donnie Darko. I used to feel this way about Donnie Darko, but I've seen it so many times and I don't really like it anymore. It kind of bugs me that it doesn't make sense. It should not bug me that it doesn't make sense.

Once Upon a Time in America is my favorite movie. It is directed by Sergio Leone. He did the spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood. It is almost four hours long. The studio hacked the original release down to two hours. I haven't seen it, but it was supposed to have been really terrible. One critic said it was the worst movie that year. The longer director's cut came out on DVD nine years later. The same critic who said it was the worst movie said it was the best movie that year.

Once Upon a Time in America is about Jewish gangsters. It stars Robert De Niro. James Woods plays his antagonist. There is an extremely long flashback to when they were young and friends.

I rented the movie from Blockbuster. It was comprised of two DVDs. It was a little jarring when the first DVD ended. I watched the movie by myself in my room on my laptop computer.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is another long one. I usually don't like long movies (or books), but maybe it needs to be long to be perfect.

I didn't have any interest in the subject matter. The movie made me be interested in the subject matter. Brad Pitt is in it. It is odd how he's an incredible actor and a Hollywood heartthrob at the same time. This should not be allowed. It will cause the destruction of the universe.

I rented this DVD out of a vending machine at the supermarket. I watched the first couple of hours or so at work. Jesse, my co-worker, watched it with me. I was "training" him. He has since quit. We turned the movie off during the last couple of hours of the shift because things started to get busier. I don't know if Jesse ever watched the rest of it.

I was wary of seeing Inland Empire. I had heard it was artsy, nonsensical, and long. I thought it was going to be boring. It was all of these things, but not boring. When a movie is all of these things but not boring, it is a very good movie.

I saw it by myself at the Pleasant Street Theatre in Northampton. It was the last showing, so I got out pretty late. I walked home after and felt really strange. The world looked different. It was like the movie was a psychedelic drug.

Blue Velvet used to be my favorite movie, but I have seen it too many times. The experience has been ruined. I once saw it at an art cinema near where I grew up. They show a "midnight movie" once a week, although it is shown at 11pm rather than midnight.

I also saw Brick at Pleasant Street. I also went by myself. It was the director's first movie and not crazy long like the rest of the movies that I'm mentioning here. It was very artificial. I like very artificial. It had a modern day setting, but all the characters talked like they were characters in pulp noir books from the nineteen forties. They were all high school students. I like pulp noir books, especially those written by Raymond Chandler. The following issue of Bust will probably have a hardboiled theme.

I like stylized dialog. I like artificialness. Brick left me feeling like I could accomplish anything creative-oriented. The movie was not perfect though. Sometimes the dialog was muffled, as if the guy who was holding the boom mic was too far away. This was unfortunate.

I bought the movie on DVD. That was a mistake. I watched it once or twice. It wasn't as good. Although I liked watching it with the subtitles turned on.

I like the medium of television a lot, but I don't think a television show can be perfect. I think a television show is inherently flawed because the content is so dependent on pleasing the viewer and ultimately the sponsors. Most television shows that were close to perfect in the beginning fail because they are not permitted to succeed. The shows get canceled and the creators are either forced to produce a shitty finale that rushes everything to bring it to a conclusion or we don't even get that finale. Or a show is so popular that it goes on and on, outliving its lifespan, plodding on like a flesh eating zombie.

2 comments:

BLAKE BUTLER said...

ha, yeah Ledger kind of owns that shit, and when he's not on screen you just are waiting for him to be again.

glover, man, that shit wold have been ridiculous. he is coming to atlanta soon to show his films and talk, i can't wait.

inland empire, agreed

Bradley Sands said...

I saw him and his movie, What Is It?, in Salt Lake City. He is exactly like his on screen personality. The movie would have been better if it was subtitled because it was difficult to understand what the retarded actors and the man with cerebral palsy are saying.

He did a Q & A afterwards. He is exactly like his on-screen persona. He spazzed out a little when people were being too loud outside (the movie theater is also a video store). My old housemate's ex-girlfriend asked him a really dumb question just because she wanted him to answer a question of hers I guess. He was baffled by the question at first, and then gave a really obvious answer.