Watched a documentary on WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.
Like most things in life, I know very little, but what I do know I get from a documentary. ;)
I had a high-level understanding of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and PFC Manning. This documentary was pretty interesting. It gave a pretty concise holistic explanation of where WikiLeaks came from and ultimately went to. The main focus is on WikiLeaks' biggest leak...that of PFC Manning and almost a half million classified US gov't documents.
This is a good documentary. Good primer on the subject. It didn't address whether Julian bleaches his hair or if it's naturally white, but I'm pretty sure he bleaches it. Cuz that's of REAL importance.
Anyway, this is streaming on Netflix. Check it out if you want to know anything about the topic...
I watched a documentary on the Shining. Specifically, it's just about people's thematic interpretations of the flick.
There are a few different people who put forth some interesting ideas. However, none of them really present anything terribly convincing as far as I'm concerned. People see what they're most familiar with. With something as interpretative and esoteric as Kubrick symbology you're bound to come up with some wild shit. And it can't all be right. In fact, almost all of it will turn out to be wrong.
It's not about the holocaust, the manifest destiny, sexual ghosts, AND the moon landing. So what is it about?
I think there are some neat things that are pointed out in this documentary, but without Kubrick weighing in (from beyond the grave) then it's hard to really give credence to anything that's said.
The most provocative and interesting portion is the whole "Kubrick faked the moon landing footage and this is a confession" suggestion. That's the biggest pill to swallow, but probably the one with the most evidence.
Most of these people just string together two or three things and call it a theory. It's pretty fucking loose if you ask me. Especially the chick who's going on about Minotaurs. She's grasping at straws.
Honestly, I haven't seen the Shining in over 15 years. I need to watch it again. That's all I know. It scared the crap outta me at the time. Beyond creepy.
I missed the second installment of Motorcycle Movie Night this year so I decided to catch up and watch the Wild Rebels at home tonight.
It's from 1967 and it's a hodgepodge of genres. One exec posits that the kids today are into stock car racing, another must mention biker flicks, a third chimes in that gangster/robbery flicks are big business, and a fourth proposes that the protagonist carry a guitar and break into song from time to time to win over the lady viewers. And so Wild Rebels is born from the boardroom.
I imagine it went something like that. Then 15 days later the movie was in the can.
It's all of those genres but none of them. The biker element is the most prevalent for sure, but it's sort of sullied by the cross-pollination that's going on. Wild Rebels is definitely no Wild Angels. No, sir!
But the three-man biker gang (plus obligatory mama) is called the Satan's Angels, and their president is pretty cool. The prez has a unique vibe. His presentation and the fact there's so few locations and actors make it almost feel like a play at times. Wild rebels, on Broadway!
It's definitely worth seeing, as I'm pretty much going to see every single classic biker flick ever made. I genuinely don't think that's too tall a task. There's a finite amount from the 60's and 70's. And I'll watch em all.
It has some funny moments. Obligatory terrible continuity. Paper-thin script. Shitty effects. Crap lighting. No boobs.
But the dialogue is righteous, man. It's outta sight. The way these cats jive, man...it'll blow your mind cuz you're so square you're shaped like a box.
Stream the whole movie on youtube via the link above.
I've been meaning to watch this since...oh...1987.
Hot on the heels of the book I just read on Confucius, I streamed Bertolucci's epic about the last emperor of China. I need to rest my knee after surgery a lot, so this gave me almost three hours of couch time.
At first I almost turned it off. It's set exclusively in Asia yet everyone spoke English. It was driving me fucking nuts. I think Bertolucci sold out big time, and really lost a huge part of the experience by making everyone speak English. Especially because they speak English with Chinese accents, like that's more believable. It still throws everything off. But I stuck with it because it was Bertolucci, so I figured I'd see what all the hype was about. And rest my leg.
It was a history lesson that tied into the book I just finished. So from a "get your world history knowledge from movies" perspective, it was good.
China's history is fucked up, man. For a country with so many innovators, they've suffocated themselves in groupthink from day one. I don't know how those individuals, those innovators, ever got a voice with so much conformity. We see where it got them. But the film underscores how the last century of Chinese evolution was potentiality the most wasted opportunity for growth. They've fucked themselves with conformity for far too long. I think the next century will be China's time to finally blossom as a nation of individuals.
I think China's fascinating and I'd like to go some time. Can burn em for the sins of their past. They've suffered under the hands of the Japanese and they've strangled themselves enough.
Anyway, the film was alright. It didn't blow my mind. Peter O'Toole (R.I.P.) was the best thing about the flick. I also really liked the governor at the prison camp. He played his roll well.
I don't know what else to say. English guy reviewing Italian movie about Asians thinks lone Englishman is the best thing about the movie. Whatever.
Oh, favorite era was the post-flapper-pre-WWII era. That little spell when everyone just looked fucking suave and perfect. If I had a time-machine I'd make a stop in China circa 1934. And in London. And in New York. And Paris. And Detroit and Chicago...yeah. That'd be great.
I've been meaning to watch this again. I hadn't seen it since it came out in the theater in 97. I always remembered it as a good, legit sci-fi flick. Scary to boot. Turns out that my memory was a bit off.
The movie definitely borrows from Hackers when it come to the laws of plausibility and the presentation of all things scientific or computer-oriented. Hackers had the Prodigy and Event Horizon has Crystal Method. Where as both movies are cheesy...I don't really find any redeeming qualities to Event Horizon. Where as I take a perverse pleasure in watching Hackers over and over again.
Event Horizon has a crap, cheesy script. The effects are mediocre. The plot is thin. The ships borrow heavily from H.R. Giger.
But the flashbacks into Hell are pretty gnarly. I remember seeing some stills in Fangoria. Real cool shit, even today.
Stay away, though. I've just saved you the 90 minutes. It's not as cool as it seemed when you were 17.
Here's a creepy flick that I haven't watched in almost a decade.
I saw Caché at the DFT in 04 with Marie. Must have been one of the first few flicks we saw together. It blew me away and I bought the DVD. I raved about it at the time. Since then, Haneke's "Funny Games" (both versions) have also blown me away. The guy is phenomenal.
So, I continue my DVD binge as I'm laid up this week. I popped this in last night. I must admit, it lost some of its luster upon second viewing because it's all about thing being "hidden," and once you've seen it once then it's not quite as hidden anymore. I think I took away different aspects of the film on its second viewing though.
First off, I've you've seen Funny Games and liked it then that's about the only testimonial you'd need to watch this. If you haven't...go watch Funny Games. Then pop this in. It's a psychological thriller. Somewhat Hitchocockian. But with a fucking menace and unease that underpins the entire film. The whole vibe makes you feel uneasy from the first frame through the last. Voyeurism is kinda terrifying. It's a very human fear, and Haneke exploits that fear for the whole two hours.
If you need resolutions, if you need everything buttoned up then stay away. This flick is far more focused on theme and internal struggle than plot and external struggle. It's all relevant, and it's all considered, but dare I say this is a bit more Japanese in its construction. At least, that's my view on Haneke's focus.
Check out the trailer above. See this film. It's a silent powerhouse.
I started watching Captain America. I got 45 minutes into it and just turned it off. CGI strikes again. I just couldn't handle it. So what'd I do? Put on a fucking documentary about Master Sommeliers. The obvious choice.
It popped up on Netflix and I gave it a whirl. 90 minute doc following the lives of a few young dudes prepping for their Master Sommelier exam. It's the typical documentary formula for any situation like this. Interview the people, their families, watch them study for the exam, blah blah blah.
It actually blew my mind how intense the test was. The sheer depth of knowledge is pretty staggering. Very impressive.
If you need to kill 90 minutes and want some light viewing...give this a shot. I dug it.
The interesting thing about sommeliers and wine criticism in general, is how varied the answers can be. How varied the critiques can be. One would imagine that if you're a master of anything there shouldn't be much debate about it. It's black and white, right or wrong. It's this wine or it's that wine. We're not talking about appreciation, we're talking about identification. I think there's a weird blurring of the lines with sommeliers; on the one hand it's a hard skill, but on the other hand it's artistic. So it's hard to quantify or test the artistry. I dunno.
I was drinking Gatorade when I watched it. Whatever. It's better than Captain America.
I ended up watching two movies tonight. I just checked out A Band Called Death.
I picked up their long-unreleased album as soon as it dropped in '09. I had never heard of the single before, never heard of the band. But I heard one track online and loved it. As a forgotten black proto-punk band from Detroit it was obviously something that piqued my interest.
The album is honestly amazing. The production is crystal clear, but it's from the early 70's so it's not over-produced. It's just high fidelity. High energy. The songs are imaginative. They're visceral. They sound like the Bad Brains...but more expansive. It's genius shit.
So fast forward to 2013. I watch the documentary. It's insightful. It gives a total picture of the band from their inception, through their demise, and into their adult years. It's obvious why they were lost for so long. They didn't do shit when they were around. At least judging by this doc' it appears they were a garage band who never made it past the garage. No mention of shows or anything. They just got into the studio, laid down this album, and got rejected by every label under the sun due to their controversial moniker. Even faced with the option of taking 20k (back then) to change their name and sign a deal...they didn't.
It's kinda crazy that this dude's kid finds out his dad was in a punk band from the internet. It was such a closed chapter in his dad's history that he had never even mentioned it. Cool to see the Livewire Board and peeps I know get a mention on screen. Pops, Minicucci, etc. But anyway...the doc. It's good. It's genuine. It's not amazing. But it's definitely worth watching. Death were amazing.
I've only heard horrible things about their current live shows, though. And from what I saw on the doc...yeah, you don't really need to see em live. They've certainly mellowed as the decades marched on. Stick to the album. Watch the doc. It's streaming on Netflix.
Day two, movie two. Since I'm still sitting on my ass feeling weird due to Percocet, I might as well watch more films.
I've had Jackie Brown in my Netflix queue for a long time. This is the Tarantino film I've seen the least. I hadn't seen this for over a decade and wanted to revisit it. So revisit it I did.
It stands out to me. Feels far less stylized and Tarantino-esque than his other flicks. He's nodding to the blaxploitation genre, but he's not. It stars Pam Grier, but it doesn't ham it up like a throw back to her films from the 70's. It's like a very sober version of Pulp Fiction. Almost reactionary to the flamboyance of Pulp Fiction. Like any Tarantino film...it's unique. Uniquely Quentin, and unique in the truest sense of the word.
Samuel L. Jackson kicks out another incredible performance. Obviously. Quentin can write for Jackson better than anyone can. They're made for each other.
I'm getting tired. So...yeah, you've seen this flick. It was good to watch it again. A good refresher for a good film. I wonder what I'll watch tomorrow.
It's been a while since I've posted on here. Been so busy with Temple of Void, work, and buying and selling freakin houses! And now I'm laid up due to my ACL surgery, so I've got some time to watch and read.
Tonight I watched Mario Bava's "Black Sunday." 1960 Italian horror. Particularly good cinematography. The edge lighting was exceptional. Such great lighting from beginning to end. Just take a look at the trailer. Beautiful.
It's a flick about vampires and Satanic possession. There are some gnarly scenes for the time, to be honest. It was a great money-maker for A.I.P. No shock there.
Is it good? Ehhh, kinda. This isn't really my genre, but I found it pretty entertaining no less. If you dig this sort of campy, derivative mid-century Italian horror...have at it! I thought it looked awesome.
The second druggie film for this weekend, Mr. Nice.
This one hops the pond. We trade Haight and Ashbury for Oxford, England, circa the 60's. Weed is rampant all over the world. Yanks and limeys, toking it up.
This film came out in 2011 and it's by the director of Candyman, oddly enough. I remember that being pretty scary as a 12 year old. It's probably shite, though. Mr. Nice is awesome. Definitely worth watching pronto.
It stars Rhys Ifans and he does a terrific job in this true account of Britain's biggest drug dealer of the 60's and 70's, Mr. Howard Marks. Chloe Sevigny and David Thewis back him up. It's a very well acted film all round.
This film is slick. It's entertaining. Takes you on a good ride from innocent Oxford student to international drug smuggler extraordinaire. And unlike Mesrine, Mr. Nice is a hell of a nice guy.
I liked everything about this. You should stream it on Netflix.
The car porn is pretty sweet, too.
The only odd thing is what appears to be the use of green screens with period footage. I'm not buying the superimpositions of Rhys in the 60's and 70's. It's just no done slickly enough. Whatever.
Had a druggie movie weekend. First I watched AIP's Psych-Out and then today I watched Mr. Nice.
Psych-Out is from 1968. Dick Clark produced it, American International Pictures released it, and Jack Nicholson starred in it.
And importantly, Laszlo Kovacs was the DP. (He was famous for Easy Rider and highly revered by cinema nerds the world over.) I just learned that when Jean Paul Belmondo used the alias "Laszlo Kovacs" in Breathless, he wasn't referring to the Laszlo Kovacs. It was just a weird coincidence. Godard dropped Breathless in 1960 and Kovacs wasn't on the scene til later that decade. Interesting.
Anyway, this was an AIP picture from the late 60's starring Nicholson and Bruce Dern...so you know exactly what you're in for. It's drugged-out. It's got a good soundtrack. It's sensational. It has a paper-thin plot. It's crap. But it's good.
Psych-Out is about a deaf girl who goes to SF in search of her brother. She's leaving her troubled life behind and finding solace in weed and LSD, love-in's and jive talk.
Freak out the squares, maaaaaan.
Psych-Out makes it look like everyone in their 20's or 30's in SF was a jobless, stoned, bum. The chicks were all hot and ready to bone ya at the drop of a hat. Drugs were aplenty, and booty was too. Looked like a fun time.
Oh yeah, and everyone talked a lot of psycho-babble and sounded like pretentious fucking retards.
Did I mention Jack Nicholson's character was named, "Stoney?" Yeah.
This is streaming on Netflix. It's not bad to check out. But it's not a "good" movie. It's...interesting.
Dust to Glory is a film by Dana Brown. His dad is the man behind Endless Summer and On Any Sunday. So you know where Dana is coming from. Like father like son.
This flick covers the Baja 1000. It's a totally insane 1000 mile race from Ensenada to La Paz, Mexico. Motorcycles, trucks, Beetles, buggies...whatever. Even dudes like Robbie Gordon and Mario Andretti get in on the action. The only crazier race than this is the Dakar Rally.
Brown's cinematography on this flick is fucking superb. Lots of helicopter footage as well as helmet-cam footage. Every angle and perspective you'd want. It's very slick. Really well put together. The Brown's have a very long history with sports documentaries and Dust to Glory does not disappoint.
This film charts the paths of some specific riders/racers, including "Mouse" who's riding all 1000 miles on a bike solo!!! If the race wasn't crazy enough...doing it solo?!
This is streaming on Netflix. Check out the trailer. It's god damn exciting stuff.
These lovely ladies aren't in the flick, but his photo came up when I did a Baja 1000 search...so.
This was really fuckin good. 90 minuted doc about Eric Bana's Ford Falcon.
I don't really know anything about Eric Bana, but this film ruled. He directed it. It's about the one car that Eric has owned since he was 15 and how it's evolved over the years and been a constant in his life.
Eric and his friends have rebuilt this car 3 or 4 times over the years. This film documents the last Targa rally he entered it in, the time leading up to the race, and a brief period after.
Jeremy Clarkson, Dr. Phil and Jay Leno round out the celebrity cast. Although it's really Eric's family and friends who have the real supporting roles in this flick. Clarkson is as funny and controversial as ever. It's good fun all round.
I don't really want to go into too much detail but this is definitely a flick that anyone slightly interested in cars can enjoy. See it.
I started watching the Ultimate Fighter last season. I dug it. And it just started again a couple weeks ago, so MMA is on my mind.
I saw Like Water come across Netflix and I decided to check it out. It's a 76 minute documentary about Anderson Silva. More specifically, it's about his 2010 title defense against Chael Sonnen (who was a couch in last year's TUF).
It was well done. Definitely more smooth and artistic than I expected. It's got a good original score and nice editing. Zero complaints. I guess the one thing...they should have shown the entire fight at the end for those of us who didn't see it live three and a half years ago. But whatever, you see the important parts and get the gist. Looked like a fucking phenomenal match!
This is definitely one of the better docs I've seen about any sort of fighting or martial art. Recommended.
A co-worker found this movie so I rented it on Amazon today. We watched it as a team.
Dug it! This was as good a documentary as anyone could make about a fucking Linotype machine. Before computers, before photosetters, there were Linotypes. The machines revolutionized the printing industry about 100 years ago when a Ottmar Mergenthaler figured out how to automate hand composition of lead type. The machine was six times faster than a man. And could leap a building in a single bound.
You type, it composes a slug of type with matrices, it then casts that slug with molten lead, spits out your finished line-o-type, and then re-files the individual matrices into their original cases. BAM!
So, this doc (or doco, as I just found out they say in Australia) discusses the history of the machine. It portraits some old operators as well as new operators, craftsmen, museum curators, educators, printers and linotype mechanics alike.
It's a low-budget flick but it tells a compelling story. You can get into it even if you're not a designer. I think...
I know Hammer of Doom has seen this before. He said it was worth watching. So years later I'm checking it out.
It's pretty good. I agree with his assessment. While it's worth watching, you won't be raving about it like William Monahan is the second coming of Guy Ritchie.
London Boulevard has a strong English cast. Lots of staples. I was stoked to see Sanjeev Bhaskar with a small roll, too. He's a funny bugger.
The film sort of walks the middle-path. There are ups and downs, but they could have been much higher and deeper if Monahan had pushed the audience. There's a lot of implied gruesome violence. A lot happens off screen. And while I'm not saying gratuitous violence makes a film better, in this case I think some more visceral shots could have heightened the tension even more.
I dig the plot. It's pretty damn simple. Ex-con trying his best NOT to get caught up in the life again. Ex-con with a heart of gold. Ex-con with a past he just can't escape. Ex-con who's way of life catches up to him. Lots of stereotypical contemporary English lads and gangsters. Del Boy for the 21st century.
I haven't been neglecting the blog. I just haven't finished a book or film in a while. Uncharacteristic, but I think bands, bikes, and good weather have gotten the best of me. Actually, I've been reading a lot of magazines, reading two books concurrently, and watching some TV series...so that accounts for it, too.
So, I finally put the Kill Bill Vol. 2 disc in my blu-ray player and fired it up last night. I should have watched them even closer together for an apples to apples comparison. I THINK I preferred Vol. 1. It's more of a Japanese samurai / Hong-Kong kung-fu flick, with some spaghetti western elements. Where as Vol. 2 is the opposite. And I HATE westerns, so that gives the nudge to the first part.
There were some real class scenes in Vol. 2, though. The buried alive thing, and the Pai Mei sequence were outstanding.
Anyway, upon re-watching both Kill Bill's, I definitely like them more than when I saw them in the theatre. BUT they're still at the bottom of Quentin's pile. So, if Kill Bill is the "worst" movie you can do...you're about the best Director out there. Cuz they still piss all over most Director's best output by a mile!
Another flick I hadn't seen since it's release. I got the disc from Netflix and revisited it to see if I still held the same opinion.
I liked it better the second time around, but I still feel it's easily the weakest Tarantino film by a long shot. I consider most of his films bordering on masterpieces, with two or three of them easily holding that lofty classification. But to me, Kill Bill is bottom of the list. Now, being the bottom of a list of masterpieces is still fucking good though!
And Kill Bill is good. It's just missing something. I don't know what. I don't think the dialogue is up to Quentin's typically high bar. It's just not as compelling. Casting isn't as good, either.
But anyway, I did like it more this time than I did upon its release. I'll be getting Vol. 2 in the mail next week so we'll see how that stacks up. If I recall, that was better than the first one.
Sonny Chiba steals the show for me. His banter with the other guy in the restaurant is good stuff.
I pulled this DVD of the shelf today. A giallo from 1970 starring Edwige Fenech. Look her up and thank me later.
I bought this years ago in NYC and watched it once. I'm not really into old school Italian horror but this is more of thriller/slasher giallo than all out paranormal horror deal. It's about hot women, a slasher, and money. That's all you need to know about the plot.
The film looks like you're viewing early 70's Italy through the lens of Russ Meyer. It's a place where all the women are gorgeous, the styling is brilliant, and the aforementioned women are always more than eager to get naked at parties. And giggle. It's a place where men can just be sleazy and women are totally okay with that. But maybe that's not so much Russ Meyer and more...Italy.
The editing is crap, camerawork is uninspired, sound isn't synced well, the effects are shit. There's no real redeeming artistic qualities to this film. But it's still enjoyable. It is what it is. Sergio Martino wasn't going to win any awards for this...but...he did cast Edwige Fenech in the main role, and for that we are forever indebted to the man.
The plot is pretty good. I'll give it that. Although the ending is a bit Scooby-Do with its exposition dialogue. But whatever. The trailer is above and the whole movie is below (it's in Italian, but you can scrub it to the "good" parts if you're a perv).
It's good.
:)
Edwige isn't the only hottie in this flick. She rolls with other bombshells.
