Screen Play.

posted by RICK : 10:00 AM

So now that I have cable television I've found a way to spend my entire life in front of a screen. Here's the breakdown of the past 2 days:

On the tele'
I didn't subscribe to any premium channels with my cable, but I did get a slew of not-quite-HBO movie channels. Like Encore for Women. Or something. Anyway, because of this (and really, it'd be the same if I actually DID get HBO1 or the like) I found myself watching the last 20 minutes of MANY films, instead of watching, say, a movie I had never seen all the way through.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In fact, I kind of like it. My overall goal when it comes to movies and television shows is to see as many different one's as possible. Of course, this doesn't play well if you'd like to actually remember anything from them. That isn't to say that I forget movies, but its parts of movies, or better yet, MOMENTS in movies where the magic lies. If filmmakers didn't have to worry about telling a story to make profits at the box office, movies, generally speaking, would be so much better. This is evident in my new digital cable lifestyle. Watching 20 minutes of a movie I've already scene is a perfect way to take in the spirit of the film without having to get all bogged down in story.

I've seen 20 minutes of the following movies since Thursday at noon:
-Rushmore
-The Secret Lives of Dentists
-The Ladykillers
-Poison Ivy 3: The New Seduction
-Kill Bill Vol. 1
-Gangs of New York

Sidebar: the next time you watch the "House of Blue Leaves" sequence in Kill Bill 1 don't so much watch it, as listen to it-- the sound mix is both amazing and hilarious. There's video game sounders, a bowling alley strike, probably lots of crushed melons. But they're used all over the place, and often times one on top of another.

There was one movie I watched in its entirety. It was on Sundance and I happened to recognize the title from my old Netflix Cue: "Party Girl."

The premise is that Parker Posey is a Party Girl, but then starts working in a library. As a film, its basically exactly what should come to mind when you think "early 90s indie-comedy not directed by Kevin Smith or Richard Linklater." However, all I could think of was that it should have been called Nelly: the movie.

At the Theatre
Yesterday Matt and I took in a Loews 3 for 2 for a good portion of the day. Here was the rundown:

KISS KISS, BANG BANG.
Post-Modern film noir comedy much better when it isn't so post-modern.

The Weather Man.
If you've seen the trailer to this movie, then you get it. You really don't need to see the whole thing because it isn't all that good-- especially when the theatre you go to has some sort of short with the center-channel speaker and so every time someone talks its sounds like they're speaking through a tin-can phone. However, there was a moment toward the end of the movie that was so legitimately funny I laughed arguably harder than I've laughed at anything in the theatres this year.

Elizabethtown
This has to be, without a doubt, the biggest mess to hit theatres since... Vanilla Sky(?!). This movie is all over the map. Though rarely unwatchable, its consistently mystifying and sometimes just plain weird. There's been much press about the 20 minutes or so that were cut out between Toronto and its wide-release, and I wonder if they would have smoothed things over? Perhaps what's most troubling about this movie is how great it should of been. Really, this should have been the "Garden State" for those who aren't ironically detached from life. The script is there, minus a few scenes mostly involving Susan Sarandon acting peculiar, but something was lost. I think I know where it might have gone too. Between the page and the screen there is an intermediary that almost certainly sucked a lot of the life out: Orlando Bloom. Perhaps the worst casting decision since ________________(insert your favorite punch line here). It also doesn't help that Kristen Dunst keeps slipping in and out of her faux-southern-accent.
But there were certainly rays of hope trying to sneak through. Most notably Loudon Wainwright and the rest of the Kentucky contingency, the Chuck and Cindy wedding, and the greatest rendition of "Freebird" EVER.

Odds and Ends
Have you seen the new Lindsay Lohan video? It's subtle.

Interesting factoid: watching cable news doesn't make news actually appear. In fact, you'll probably find out just as fast without watching any TV a'tall.

I've had high speed internet since Christmas of 2002, but I've only been hard-wired once-- this week. Let me tell you, its remarkably faster. Not that I'm going to advocate everyone giving up wi-fi, but damn... the atmosphere really sucks the life out of broadband.

OMG, I'm watching VH1 right now and I think I just saw a video for the WORST* song ever.

*best?

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