My Favorite Films This Decade – John

#1 Gomorrah-

Powerful from the first shot. There’s lots of beauty in this film’s ugly. The plot reminds me of Italian film at its best. Meticulous mese en scene.

A SCENE

#2 2046-

An entrancing dream. Wong Kar Wai makes some of my favorite fantasies in cinema, and this is his best. He has a shocking command of visual and music. Tony Leung…

A SCENE

#3 The New World-

The cinematography is so engrossing and poetic you almost forget about the story. The drama more than lives up to it though.

A SCENE

#4 Syriana-

So underrated. The best thriller of the decade. So multi-layered it puts you off-balance. Intelligent in all the best ways, and ahead of the curve politically. And it’s brave enough to have scenes in mall parking lots where nothing explodes.

A SCENE

#5 American Psycho-

It creates it’s own bizarre world that makes so much sense. Hilarious and terrible. So many classic scenes. And C. Bale might have created the decade’s best character.

A SCENE

#6 The Royal Tenenbaums-

Anderson at his peak. No self-doubting here. The soundtrack is simply perfect, the jokes rattle off, and the family melodrama comes off organic, even with all the beautiful artifice.

#7 Wall-E-

Pixar with swagger. Bold and beautiful. A sad film. Much love to Chaplin and Keaton (there’s a ton of old Hollywood in here I don’t know too). And when Wall-E’s flying through space, you’re a sucker for the special effects too.

#8 There Will Be Blood-

Looks incredible, sounds incredible, acted incredibly. You watch it and feel like it’s film at it’s fullest potential.

#9 Talk To Her-

Almadovar has a way of making the simple so layered and make the difficult things in life so airy. A joy to watch every time.

#10 Paranoid Park-

Uses a completely different language. With so many films so bad at depicting the life of a teenager, this film is almost shocking to watch. The beautifully simple plot structure orbits around the crime at the center of the story.

10 more.

Back to the Present

I’ve talked to you about the LHC before.  There were some worries it’d create a black hole, destroy the earth, ect.  Of course, it turned out those claims were made by a Hawaiian grade school teacher.

This new claim is a bit different.  According to two phisiscists, someone is going back in time and sabotaging the LHC, and they say they have the mathmatical evidence to prove it. They’re claiming that the Higgs boson particle is abhorrent to nature, and therefore someone, or something is trying, and thus far succeding to sabotage the LHC.  There has been everything from freak explosions to terrorist arrests assosiated with the Cern project.  And I didn’t even hear about this on Coast to Coast.  So who know.

You can read about it all here.  There’s even some Cern scientists who say the science is at least valid. Here’s what one of the theorists has to say:

“We already know it is not very likely to be true. If the LHC actually succeeds in discovering the Higgs boson, I guess we will have to think again.”

Here’s hoping.

Movies and Their Times

more about “Movies and Their Times“, posted with vodpod

If you liked the film related posts I’ve been giving to you the last couple weeks, great, this is for you. An hour long docu-essay on 80s blockbusters and how they mirrored the times. It’s sharp. And a little nostalgic. And good. Basically, it’ll make you reexamine films you take for granted.

Here’s the rest:

Part II

part3

P IV

&5

Do check out these guys’ blog The House Next Door. Its not great all the time, but they’re still some of the best blogger/critics around.

This Mad Mad World

Mad Men starts season three on Sunday, so the excitement and the links keep building up.  The great thing though is that there’s a lot of intelligent stuff out there, stuff on the craft of filmmaking. It creates an great picture of a masterpiece in progress. Consider this my Mad Men link dump.

On Cinematography

more about “This Mad Mad World“, posted with vodpod

On Costume Design

On the Auteur at Work

And yes, On Cocktails

UPDATE: Footnotes of Mad Men – to catch those little references.

Zodiac: Guy Ward Hendrickson

New outrageous news on the Zodiac killings that scared the shit out of the bay area in the ’60s. After two years of examining evidence, a group of lawyers are came forward a few hours ago to give the public a name: Guy Ward Hendrickson.  Hendrickson’s daughter, Deborah Perez is claming she wrote some of the Zodiac’s letters, has a pair of glasses from one of the last known murders, and came along with her father for a couple of the murders. The problems with this story are that Perez claims that she just figured all this out in 2007, and she has a documentary coming out next year about, guess what, the Zodiac.  All the evidence is being turned in to the SFPD, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Short version with all the highlights here.

Legitimate journalism here.

UPDATE:

Today’s new is that Deborah Perez is a little nuts.  The Chronicle interviewed her half sister and she’s denying everything. Then there’s news from the SFist that you’ll just have to see for yourself HERE because it’s that outrageous. You’ve got to admit that the story she cooked up was entertaining at the very least.

Oregon Fail.

In the spirit of cliche nostalgia, I found a site where you can play Oregon Trail for free.  I used to think I was quite the wagon master, but here is what happened on just my first river crossing…

Apparently, oxen and my friends can't swim.

I lost 75% of my food, some best friends, and worst of all, 3 of my 4 oxen!  I mean, its no Donner Party, but still, ouch. Here’s the link, if you want to play.

Awww, Fuck!

The spectacular Soul:

was broadcast beginning in the late 1960s through the early 1970s, first on NY public TV and it had a brief national run too. It was one of the first African American variety shows of its kind, during, arguably, one of the richest eras for Black culture and politics and amazingly, hosted by Ellis Haizlip, an openly gay television and theatre producer. [Soul Sides]

Soul and Jazz performances that were mostly unseen are now being archived and put online by WNET 13 in New York. So far there are episodes with Tito Puente, Max Roach and others.  This is the Roach episode with a great opening number by Bobby Heb (who?).  These things are a blast to watch and the interviews are great.  Man, this is gonna waist all my time today. 

More are coming soon according to the site.  VIA

Forty Five Years Later

Thanksgiving, 1963

Every year on the anniversary, Coast to Coast has a four hour special on the JFK assassination.  This year it was hosed by Ian Punnett (what does it take to get Art Bell back for a couple hours?).   Here’s a semi-exclusive podcast of the show.  There are deathbed confessions and new revelations from former presidents.  All the conspiracy you could ask for.  Enjoy.

Nov. 22, 2008

Oh, everything.

I spent the last few hours going through old videos and photos of us in our best days. Here are a few gems.

From Spring Break 2005, John figuring out my camera before an epic game of Pictionary.

Make the cyber jump for more.

Happy Birthday Shiv.