Entries from July 2008

July 31, 2008

for movie night, dusty brought over le gai savoir

i dont know how to write about this movie

i remember sontag writing something about photographs requiring captions

this was the best super-hero movie i’ve ever seen
way better than batman

in that sontag book, there was a part about godard talking about this vietnam era photo with jane fonda but i dont remember anything else
i hear the photo [...]

July 26, 2008

Colossus: The Forbin Project

On its deepest levels, Colossus: The Forbin Project is ultimately a love story. The (gay) love that two inanimate objects developing Artificial Intelligence and human emotions can have for each other. While discussing the dangers associated with artificial intelligence, it becomes clear that the most dangerous intelligence of all is the emotional kind.

So scientists build this [...]

July 23, 2008

they didnt even use actors, because actors ruin movies

remember when the iraq war first ended? i’m not talking about the 90’s. i’m talking about fighter jet suits and mission accomplished banners. i’m talking about spring of 2003.
then it turned out the war wasn’t over. five years later, the war still isn’t over. five years. just like that [...]

July 22, 2008

Batman Their Way

I saw Batman. I liked it. Heath Ledger was cool.
It seems like Batman films are directors’ properties. While there are hundreds of people involved in these productions (trust me, I stayed – on bad information – for all of the credits to Dark Knight) the director is who everyone is focusing on right now as [...]

July 20, 2008

A.A.H.

Well, I did it. I made it through five Animals Attacking Humans films. It’s 3:29. I got home about 20 minutes ago (if I started to write about muni in SF this thing would end up longer than my thesis) and I’m exhausted but so happy.

Phase IV = masterpiece
Unexpected, right? I thought this one was going [...]

July 18, 2008

A 24-Year Itch

A little trip down memory back-alley-trailer-park-Compton (where I spent a year of my childhood and which, subsequently, gives me mega-street cred):
I’m just as excited as everyone else about the new Batman movie. I can’t see it Friday because I’m lazy, Saturday because there’s an ANIMAL ATTACKING HUMANS MOVIE MARATHON, but I’ll for sure see it first [...]

July 17, 2008

are conventions doomed?

i stole this title from a recent blog-post wordpress told me about when i logged in. (do you think it’s interesting that wordpress’s own spellchecker doesn’t recognize wordpress as a word? or spellchecker, for that matter. maybe it’s supposed to be hyphenated. spell-checker.) i think this blog-post’s (the one you’re [...]

July 13, 2008

San Francisco Silent Film Festival: Part 1

Days like these remind me how much I’m going to miss San Francisco. Scott and I volunteered at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and saw two pretty fantastic movies with really incredible live accompaniment. Basically we had to be festival bouncers for about 20 minutes and then we got to sit in the balcony [...]

July 8, 2008

gently baby, it’s mother’s day

billy wilder. can that guy even make a bad movie? wait. what i meant to ask is this: can that guy make anything other than excellent movies?
clarifications on the question:
(1) i think it’s rhetorical,
(2) i’m using excellent in the same way bill and ted use it,
(3) i understand and firmly believe that [...]

July 6, 2008

A Film I Never Wanted to See: Part III

Russian Ark reminded me of this one time I went to The Louvre and saw Tom Delonge with a camcorder, shooting video of every painting he passed. At the time I was all like, “That’s stupid. What, he’s going to go back and watch all of that footage later?” Well, maybe he really likes Rembrandt [...]