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grrgoylSo, where was I?
Oh yes....I'm sick. Again. One day I woke up and started coughing again, and kept coughing for 48 straight hours. I coughed until I was hoarse. I coughed until I truly felt like I might cry if I coughed one more time, my throat felt so raw. It wreaked total havoc with my voice and I lost my entire upper register. Now when I sing I have the vocal range of a Crash Test Dummies song (although every time I try I can't help thinking about my 1-800-Ask-a-Nurse making twirly not-right-in-the-head motions around her ear. "How often do you NEED to sing anyway??!!?!"). I usually think when people lose their voice they sound sexy, with a husky bedroom quality. Since my voice was already kind of low to begin with, now I just sound like I have a 20-pack-year smoking habit, a la Harvey Fierstein (except without the charismatic Brooklyn accent). I just want to be able to sing my Muse again *sob*
I truly have nothing exciting to update with, yet still feel the need to. Don't know why I bother since no one ever comments anymore, but the simple fact is I still enjoy writing and re-reading old stuff of mine when work is really, really slow. So I'll fall back here on some movie reviews I've been saving up.
Constantine: I was warned by very reputable sources that this movie was kind of stupid. I chose to ignore those warnings so I have no one but myself to blame. My sources were correct. There's plenty of eye candy to be had here, just the absence of any kind of recognizable plot. Keanu Reeves is very pretty (especially in slow motion, and here they exploit that strength to its fullest) but simply shouldn't be allowed to speak. Ever. What's wrong with a lucrative career as a male model? Even prettier and, sadly, a better actor, was Gavin Rossdale (of Bush) as the demon Balthazar. I love when movies portray evil with a beautiful face, which makes so much more sense. Where would the temptation be to sin if evil wasn't hawt? He is exceedingly beautiful until, criminally, half his face is burned off by that bastard Constantine. Still, even with half a face his performance is more Oscar-worthy than anything Keanu does for the rest of the film. But most beautiful of all is Tilda Swinton, utterly magnificent as the so-ambiguously-sexy-his-milkshake-brings-all-the-boys-AND-girls-to-the-yard angel Gabriel. Wow. What exquisite casting. Based on this performance, I strongly believe that should Neil Gaiman's Sandman series ever be brought to film, she should be on the short list for Lucifer Morningstar. I mean, honestly:
Also as seen in this example, the ideal choice for Morpheus himself would be a much younger, skinnier Robert Smith from The Cure. But perhaps that ship has sailed.
Gabriel, despite being all teh sex, has pretty muddy motives for wanting to destroy all mankind. Again that hackneyed old tale of angels secretly despising humanity for being given the gift of free will (which was done much more eloquently in Dogma). Get over it already. If Envy is one of the Seven Deadlies, then how can an angel indulge in it without immediately being cast down?
But speaking of Lucifer Morningstar, Peter Stormare does surprisingly a lot with a pretty small part for the King of Hell. Creepily cordial, and no eyebrows. *shudder* Nice.
Oh yeah, and Rachel Weisz (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns) is in there too, sealing her doom (at least in my mind) as the chick from all the CGI-heavy monster movies (yes, she's done so much more, but nothing I've seen).
Big on effects and action, short on plot and acting, which I more or less expected anyway. 2 out of 5
Jarhead: I'm not big on war movies, but you can't go wrong with Jake Gyllenhaal. I'll confess he was the main draw for me. Somewhere in the course of reading reviews I took it into my head that there would be a full frontal Jake involved, despite Tery's attempts to correct this notion. Disappointingly, she was right. I will say about the scene in question that it was a lucky thing all the fireworks going off outside were just a harmless accident; I imagine getting caught in an air raid wearing nothing but a strategically placed Santa cap wouldn't be a lot of fun. I will also say THIS about the scene in question: How can a mostly naked Marine gyrating lasciviously to hip-hop music among a bunch of other men be seen as anything besides homoerotic? (not that I'm complaining, mind you.)
Oh......my. But what the hell is up with Mr. Hawaiian Shirt to the left there, with his tongue hanging out like he wishes Jakey was HIS Secret Santa? If that isn't at least a little gay, well then I just don't know what is.
Between this and the (hilarious) faux-orgy put on for the benefit of reporters, I have to seriously wonder if the military is as homophobic as I've been led to believe. Or perhaps this is more common behavior among men that I simply don't understand.
Speaking of homoerotic, the movie also has the lovely Peter Sarsgaard, who barely appears shirtless, never mind full frontal, but that's probably just as well. He's a bit doughier than Jake (though no less lovable) and probably not very convincing therefore as a Marine. Yes, I'm a dirty-minded so-and-so who occasionally only rents movies for the possibility of nude men. You who are without sin, yadda yadda yadda.
Apart from the hawtness, the movie itself is kind of dull and monotonous, illustrating the disillusionment of youth and how lost and insignificant Generation X has become. Or something. After sitting in the desert for weeks on end, their only enemy boredom, they finally see action with a bit of mortar fire and then the war is suddenly over before the boys ever get to shoot anyone. This drives Sarsgaard off the deep end in the film's (rather anticlimactic) climax. Perhaps more of that incomprehensible military/male mentality, but I can't help but see avoiding killing as well as being shot at by someone else as a good thing. Crazy trigger-happy Marines.
There are a couple of memorable images in the film, such as Swoff's dream where he projectile vomits sand and the surreal shot of an oil-covered horse approaching him in the hellish backlight of the burning oil fields, but otherwise just a whole lot of nothing happens. Which didn't stop me from weeping just a little at Jake's closing monologue about always being a Jarhead and still being in the desert.
Some good acting with a great cast, but overall just left me feeling hollow and bereft. And I refuse to believe that the soldiers (particularly snipers, hello) couldn't have been given sunglasses in the desert. What was up wit dat? 3 out of 5
I have decided that the 4-1/2 minutes of screen time devoted to Alan Rickman in HP: GoF simply will not do to satisfy my craving. I can't get anything as Snape-ilicious anywhere else of course, but for some reason I've been haunted by the memory of a disturbing little movie I saw him in called Closet Land, a metaphorical study of torture techniques. The movie is out of print and exists in the US only on VHS, but I went to Hollywood Video with high hopes. These hopes slowly sagged and were eventually dashed completely as I searched in every conceivable category, even Comedy (though I swear, if I had found it there I just might have gone off on someone). The clerk looked it up and told me they sold their only copy about 3 years ago. What?? Sold it?? To make room for what, more copies of Children of the Corn Pt VII and Lindsay Lohan's new Herbie remake? I lamented this to Tery and she just sighed and chalked it up to my luck in general.
But I wasn't going to drop it. I searched my old standby, eBay, where both the VHS and Region 4 DVD from Spain were being sold for extortionate amounts, due to it being so rare. I just wanted to watch it again, I wasn't convinced I necessarily wanted to OWN it. Fortunately I found a happy medium between combing every Hollywood Video in Denver and paying $30+ for it on eBay, finding it instead on Amazon from a private seller for only $8. Also, just because it was only $2, I picked up An Awfully Big Adventure (bonus! Also directed by Mike "Goblet of Fire" Newell) which sounded similarly intriguing but also similarly unavailable.
To celebrate my Rickman goodies, I made this new icon, the geekiness of which amuses me to no end. And if I don't entertain myself, who bloody well will?
Let the Rickman buffet begin!
Oh yes....I'm sick. Again. One day I woke up and started coughing again, and kept coughing for 48 straight hours. I coughed until I was hoarse. I coughed until I truly felt like I might cry if I coughed one more time, my throat felt so raw. It wreaked total havoc with my voice and I lost my entire upper register. Now when I sing I have the vocal range of a Crash Test Dummies song (although every time I try I can't help thinking about my 1-800-Ask-a-Nurse making twirly not-right-in-the-head motions around her ear. "How often do you NEED to sing anyway??!!?!"). I usually think when people lose their voice they sound sexy, with a husky bedroom quality. Since my voice was already kind of low to begin with, now I just sound like I have a 20-pack-year smoking habit, a la Harvey Fierstein (except without the charismatic Brooklyn accent). I just want to be able to sing my Muse again *sob*
I truly have nothing exciting to update with, yet still feel the need to. Don't know why I bother since no one ever comments anymore, but the simple fact is I still enjoy writing and re-reading old stuff of mine when work is really, really slow. So I'll fall back here on some movie reviews I've been saving up.
Constantine: I was warned by very reputable sources that this movie was kind of stupid. I chose to ignore those warnings so I have no one but myself to blame. My sources were correct. There's plenty of eye candy to be had here, just the absence of any kind of recognizable plot. Keanu Reeves is very pretty (especially in slow motion, and here they exploit that strength to its fullest) but simply shouldn't be allowed to speak. Ever. What's wrong with a lucrative career as a male model? Even prettier and, sadly, a better actor, was Gavin Rossdale (of Bush) as the demon Balthazar. I love when movies portray evil with a beautiful face, which makes so much more sense. Where would the temptation be to sin if evil wasn't hawt? He is exceedingly beautiful until, criminally, half his face is burned off by that bastard Constantine. Still, even with half a face his performance is more Oscar-worthy than anything Keanu does for the rest of the film. But most beautiful of all is Tilda Swinton, utterly magnificent as the so-ambiguously-sexy-his-milkshake-brings-all-the-boys-AND-girls-to-the-yard angel Gabriel. Wow. What exquisite casting. Based on this performance, I strongly believe that should Neil Gaiman's Sandman series ever be brought to film, she should be on the short list for Lucifer Morningstar. I mean, honestly:
Also as seen in this example, the ideal choice for Morpheus himself would be a much younger, skinnier Robert Smith from The Cure. But perhaps that ship has sailed.
Gabriel, despite being all teh sex, has pretty muddy motives for wanting to destroy all mankind. Again that hackneyed old tale of angels secretly despising humanity for being given the gift of free will (which was done much more eloquently in Dogma). Get over it already. If Envy is one of the Seven Deadlies, then how can an angel indulge in it without immediately being cast down?
But speaking of Lucifer Morningstar, Peter Stormare does surprisingly a lot with a pretty small part for the King of Hell. Creepily cordial, and no eyebrows. *shudder* Nice.
Oh yeah, and Rachel Weisz (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns) is in there too, sealing her doom (at least in my mind) as the chick from all the CGI-heavy monster movies (yes, she's done so much more, but nothing I've seen).
Big on effects and action, short on plot and acting, which I more or less expected anyway. 2 out of 5
Jarhead: I'm not big on war movies, but you can't go wrong with Jake Gyllenhaal. I'll confess he was the main draw for me. Somewhere in the course of reading reviews I took it into my head that there would be a full frontal Jake involved, despite Tery's attempts to correct this notion. Disappointingly, she was right. I will say about the scene in question that it was a lucky thing all the fireworks going off outside were just a harmless accident; I imagine getting caught in an air raid wearing nothing but a strategically placed Santa cap wouldn't be a lot of fun. I will also say THIS about the scene in question: How can a mostly naked Marine gyrating lasciviously to hip-hop music among a bunch of other men be seen as anything besides homoerotic? (not that I'm complaining, mind you.)
Oh......my. But what the hell is up with Mr. Hawaiian Shirt to the left there, with his tongue hanging out like he wishes Jakey was HIS Secret Santa? If that isn't at least a little gay, well then I just don't know what is.
Between this and the (hilarious) faux-orgy put on for the benefit of reporters, I have to seriously wonder if the military is as homophobic as I've been led to believe. Or perhaps this is more common behavior among men that I simply don't understand.
Speaking of homoerotic, the movie also has the lovely Peter Sarsgaard, who barely appears shirtless, never mind full frontal, but that's probably just as well. He's a bit doughier than Jake (though no less lovable) and probably not very convincing therefore as a Marine. Yes, I'm a dirty-minded so-and-so who occasionally only rents movies for the possibility of nude men. You who are without sin, yadda yadda yadda.
Apart from the hawtness, the movie itself is kind of dull and monotonous, illustrating the disillusionment of youth and how lost and insignificant Generation X has become. Or something. After sitting in the desert for weeks on end, their only enemy boredom, they finally see action with a bit of mortar fire and then the war is suddenly over before the boys ever get to shoot anyone. This drives Sarsgaard off the deep end in the film's (rather anticlimactic) climax. Perhaps more of that incomprehensible military/male mentality, but I can't help but see avoiding killing as well as being shot at by someone else as a good thing. Crazy trigger-happy Marines.
There are a couple of memorable images in the film, such as Swoff's dream where he projectile vomits sand and the surreal shot of an oil-covered horse approaching him in the hellish backlight of the burning oil fields, but otherwise just a whole lot of nothing happens. Which didn't stop me from weeping just a little at Jake's closing monologue about always being a Jarhead and still being in the desert.
Some good acting with a great cast, but overall just left me feeling hollow and bereft. And I refuse to believe that the soldiers (particularly snipers, hello) couldn't have been given sunglasses in the desert. What was up wit dat? 3 out of 5
I have decided that the 4-1/2 minutes of screen time devoted to Alan Rickman in HP: GoF simply will not do to satisfy my craving. I can't get anything as Snape-ilicious anywhere else of course, but for some reason I've been haunted by the memory of a disturbing little movie I saw him in called Closet Land, a metaphorical study of torture techniques. The movie is out of print and exists in the US only on VHS, but I went to Hollywood Video with high hopes. These hopes slowly sagged and were eventually dashed completely as I searched in every conceivable category, even Comedy (though I swear, if I had found it there I just might have gone off on someone). The clerk looked it up and told me they sold their only copy about 3 years ago. What?? Sold it?? To make room for what, more copies of Children of the Corn Pt VII and Lindsay Lohan's new Herbie remake? I lamented this to Tery and she just sighed and chalked it up to my luck in general.
But I wasn't going to drop it. I searched my old standby, eBay, where both the VHS and Region 4 DVD from Spain were being sold for extortionate amounts, due to it being so rare. I just wanted to watch it again, I wasn't convinced I necessarily wanted to OWN it. Fortunately I found a happy medium between combing every Hollywood Video in Denver and paying $30+ for it on eBay, finding it instead on Amazon from a private seller for only $8. Also, just because it was only $2, I picked up An Awfully Big Adventure (bonus! Also directed by Mike "Goblet of Fire" Newell) which sounded similarly intriguing but also similarly unavailable.
To celebrate my Rickman goodies, I made this new icon, the geekiness of which amuses me to no end. And if I don't entertain myself, who bloody well will?
Let the Rickman buffet begin!
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-05 08:09 pm (UTC)I just saw Constantine the other night too. And I'll admit the only thing that made me watch it was for Tilda, and for that, she didn't disappoint.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-05 08:25 pm (UTC)Tilda was so good. Esp in the business suit with the curly blonde locks. MmmmmMmmmmmmMmmmmm. Tasty!
no subject
Date: 2006-04-05 08:27 pm (UTC)I know hon, same with my f-list.
Course I've been a whiney brat lately and they've probably given up on me.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 12:35 am (UTC)And I whole heartedly agree that Keanu shouldn't speak ever..... completely ruins Much Ado About Nothing in his very minor role. Can't believe he tried Shakespeare.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 04:17 am (UTC)No. Keanu and Shakespeare NO. There is only so much I can take.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 08:27 am (UTC)Closet Land creeps me the fuck out. I mean, I love it, and it's delicious in its creepiness, but I've only been able to watch it a couple of times. The first time I saw it, it gave me nightmares. :(
But he was so hot in that movie. I really wanted to hate the character, but...guh. Sex. And the thing with the voices. Christ, that man...that man.
I hope that makes sense.
An Awfully Big Adventure also has the creepy factor. Oh, but Alan + Captain Hook = yes please.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 04:13 pm (UTC)I remember Closet Land being unpleasant to watch, that's why I wasn't sure I wanted to spend $30 to own it forever and ever. But I still want to see it again. I remember specifically the part where he toys with her by pretending to be another victim, and his pleading voice doing...unmentionable things to me physically. That man, yes indeed.
I'm very curious about Big Adventure. The reviews don't say much other than that it was mismarketed as a comedy, and that Alan doesn't appear until halfway through. But I'd also like to see Hugh Grant as a poofta.