It may be because…

…I’ve heard all the beats on The Ecstatic from the assorted Oxperiment and Beat Konducta records from thy wonderful Stones Throw-ths, but Mos Def’s new thing puts all these tracks to use, and dare I say, completes these unfinished pieces from their respective records. For example, “Auditorium” could have never sounded better without that little bit of Slick Reeee! So excited that he’s on this track, and oh yea there’s some Dilla shit on here too, with Talib Kweli guestin, making a Black Star reunion!

Hey Dan, I’m going to therapy now.

I think this movie speaks for itself.

Y’all tucked in?

This is my favorite album at the moment, not only does it feature a beautiful piece of misogynistic hip hop, “Treat Her Like A Prostitute”, which talks about how contrary to popular belief, it is perfectly FINE to treat girls like hookers if they don’t earn it. oh the goood ol days, but it features, “Children’s Story” which has got to be one of the most overlooked gems in the hip hop world. The only reason I bring this up is that on Mos Def’s new record, Rick is featured on a track, and I realized most people only know of him as the rapper with the eye patch, which actually has a pretty un-exciting eye losing story, but his debut record is literally one of the greatest golden age rap records before the gangsta rap of the late 80s and early 90s. Also, how great is the marching-worthy sample that appears in “The Ruler’s Back”, which makes me want to do that weird step dance that MC Hammer does, it just brings the biggest smile to your face. Which seems like a complete contrast to the fact that he’s been in and out of jail for most of the 90s and oughts! Come back and make records!

OH NO

My worst fears about Burning Man appear in the Wicker Man. So apparently all of those naked people are Satanists, just like I thought!

Sealed With a Loving Kiss from Melody

I am a much happier person after watching Melody (Sealed With A Loving Kiss) because watching it was like filling in my childhood with all the lovey-dovey, childish things I never did. I never fell in love, I never made rockets, I never ditched school to go to the beach, I never eloped, and I never attacked my teachers as Daniel, Melody, and their cheery classmates did. Sounds far-fetched, no? But the thing about this love story is that it doesn’t seem impossible as other love stories because we are talking about the love story of two kids, and when you are a kid nothing, NOTHING is impossible! When something seems impossible, like being together with the person you are in love with, you get your best friend to fucking marry you in front of all you little friends! Problem solved! This carefree and painless way to solve things can make the movie a sad one because you know that once you grow up solving things in a way that makes a lot of bloody sense is not really the way thing work in the grown up world. Grown ups make things so complicated. I remember Melody asking her parents with a teary face something like “if you want me to be happy, why don’t you help me instead of putting things in my way?”. Awww. So it’s very easy to fall in love with the innocence of Daniel’s and Melody’s affection for each other and the ruckus all their friends cause.

Wow! so this is great!

While I was watching Inside the Actor’s studio with that very uncool guy that hosts it, he informed me that Christopher Walken was once a masterful dancer in musicals before his rise in the pickshurrs, in this movie called Pennies from Heaven, which featured Walken return to his first love, muthafuckin tap dancing without clothes on! Damn this is bizarre.

Nosferatu

Why I hadn’t watched this classic before, I don’t know. But I do know that I finally watched it thanks to the recent vampire revival. Today we have True Blood, Twilight, and Let the Right One In to satisfy our vampire thirst (not to mention the sudden interest in Valerie and Her Week of Wonders by lace and floral/fauna loving girls that drink tea until their blood is diluted). However, if you are parched, Nosferatu will surely do the trick. It is the granddaddy of vampire movies and the one that holds the most vampire-esque essence. By watching this movie, you learn that vampires should be mysterious, ugly, tall and skinny and pointy, magical; they must have some affiliation with a nasty animal such as a rat, live in an empty castle or mansion, have an inept assistant, leave conspicuous bite marks on necks, and haunt you in your dreams. In other words, Nosferatu holds the romanticized vampire that we all hope for in modern day vampire entertainment.

What Just Happened?

I wanted to give this the benefit of the doubt because I really like Robby De Niro and Bruce Willis, especially with a Grizzly beard and a mention to Hunter S. Thompson in the trailer of the film itself. Actually, this was awful, my luck! It’s a movie about making movies so its already kinda shifty to begin with, those movies have a history of never being that good. What’s really absurd to me though is that the basis for the entire movie is the reliance on two trivial ass things that I can’t believe become the conflict of the movie. Just like when Matthew McConaugh-whatever throws that VHS player or something at the end of Tropic Thunder so that it blocks the bomb from blowing up the helicopter with the heroes on it. Really??? A VHS player??? That is what resolves the story, and essentially becomes the hero of the movie? Ahhhhh. First off, the movie that the movie is about that can’t be made is on the verge of production shut down because Bruce Willis won’t shave his beard. Really? That’s the conflict? That’s the rise and fall of this entire thing. How about he shaves? Great! Second, is that this one movie De Niro produced in this movie like totally has a shot of a dog getting killed so that the blood flies onto the screen and all the shaboozle, but the thing is that doesn’t play out big with the test audiences. However, its clearly stated that the cracked-out director doesn’t have final cut, and then when bighead studio execs ask him about changing the ending, he doesn’t, so then that means you change the movie in time for its big debut at Cannes, right big producer lady Catherine Keener? Wrong, they don’t do that, like they said they would do earlier in the movie. So I don’t get it, does the movie forget what it was talking about 45 minutes earlier? And then they have a relatively shitty time at Cannes, very weird that they forgot that crucial element. I like how Bob De Niro is also a super classy guy, who’s still hooking up with hotties in the bathroom stalls when they’re sixty? Classssssayyyy.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

It’s interesting, I put this Scorsese movie off for a long time, but I can’t pinpoint why? Ellen Burstyn is a magnificent speed freak in Requiem for a Dream so why wouldn’t she be great in a Marty helmed picture? I dunno, never really phased me when I heard about it. When you see it,you are overcome by its energy,  you can see the shaking handheld camera is a favorite of the budding director, and it absolutely captures the intensity of any given fight scene or dramatic moment. Like when cowboy Harvey Keitel comes outta the blue to seduce Burstyn and  comes fucking up her whole little apartment cause his wife found he was sleeping around so he becomes the angry one (??). You almost feel like the camera operator will be involved in the altercation, I think its everyone’s wish in this movie or more so Mean Streets that the camera actually become something like the eye of an omnipresent human ghost thing so that it actually gets knocked around during all the intense situations. Not like its an actual character itself but as an object that can be hit or knocked out of alignment by the actors within the altercation. That is why those scenes affect me more than anything else, because of this resistance almost for Scorsese to stage these scenes in a controlled environment, and rather let real insanity occur on the screen, to show the reality of such things.

I also very much approve of the inclusion of Alice’s childhood for what is that, 2 minutes, to describe her background, in a completely and knowingly fake neighborhood street that was obviously made in a studio. I’m sure this is what Coppola took with and ran when he created the entire Las Vegas boardwalk within a studio for the production of One for the Heart. Just eye melting.

Because good guys never finish last

Dear Robert aka Cop in Revanche,

I’m really sorry that you are the one with the shortest straw at every draw. I am sorry that you are sterile. I am sorry that your aim is so bad you accidently killed an innocent prostitute. I am sorry that you received a leave of absence on account of ‘manslaughter’. I am very sorry that your wife cheated on you with your victim’s boyfriend. And I am very VERY sorry that she is having a child you think is yours. Take a hell of a deep breath and freak out all you want. Just remember….you could have been dead.

Love,
sdj