me too. because it's fucking shit

...

You mean worse than all those total shit Jack Nicholson movies or crap westerns you always post about?

hang on, you're the one who watches the total shit Jack Nicholson films, not me. I watch the good ones.

Suuuuuuuuure. Is that what your mum tells you?

This. Well it's not shit but it's easily, without a shadow of a doubt, the absolute most over-rated film of all time, and I've seen the Dark Knight.

Which ones were they?

He likes the early shit, im not fond of jacko until his later flicks. As to his comments about shawshank redemption, how could anyone honestly think it bad?

I honestly don't think it's bad. It was just a spin on your first post. But I do think it's sooooo bland. It's a chicken wrap of a film.

Its good chicken though

You and millions of other fans can't be wrong, I suppose

Anyway



Paranormal Activity

I know it's cashing in on Blair Witch and the sequels became increasingly stupid but the first one is still one of the only horror movies I've seen that genuinely scares the shit out of me.

Now THAT is a bad movie... the first one is ok.. the later ones are boring. Interstingly i liked Dark Skies which is made by the same people but Dark Skies is better made and aliens seemcto be more scary than ghosts who possess people

OK, so we both overreacted. You say PA is a BAD movie, then you say it's OK. I say SR is a shit movie, then I admit it's just a bland one.

Batman, for a start

One of my all time favourites

Heard about this one?

SOAKED IN BLEACH

Can't tell if it's a biopic or documentary or a blend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZemFEssQdo


BTW, is there a "Did Courtney Kill Kurt?" poll somewhere on SYG?

so you think that "something's gotta give" is better than "chinatown" or "easy rider" or "the postman rings twice"?



how much exactly do you love it?


it's a tearjerker for men. i didn't dislike it, it's just not that great a film. so while it's not "bad" it's highly overrated by crying bros.

Sigh. Well, sitting on the bed table, waiting to get they slim little selves loaded: Metropolitan, Last Days of Disco, and Animal House.

if you can, see barcelona before last days of disco.

but if you can't then don't worry about it

metropolitan is my fave stillman. damsels in distress was cute

It's a Gift

Not my fave WC Fields movie but still more laugh-out-loud moments than I get from most other comedians' films.

same here and yes-- damsels even made me cringe but somehow i liked it anyway. how can he do that?



i've never seen wc fields-- i've seen his name under different quotations though. looks like i'll probably have to check this out.

--

anyway recently i watched among other things



the good, the bad, the weird - a korean remake of-- well you know. stylish, ultraviolent, absurd, slightly demented, and superfunny. a blast.



sin city: a dame to kill for. is jessica alba superhot? of course she is, so there's that. but the movie felt more like a tv episode to me. i can't explain what the sequel lost from the first one, which i liked lots better. this one had its great moments but overall it all felt... small. was it that it was made for 3D, maybe?

I think you'd love him. Kind of literary slapstick. But he made tons of films. It's a Gift is a good one but I'd start with The Bank Dick. Although there's moments of brilliance in every one of them.

^^ thanks!

i'll line them up

?? Do you mean the kumquat scene?

That, but lots of other stuff. He was visual (slapstick) but injected these insane, seemingly improvised bits of speech. Like in the kumquat scene when he tells the blind man to "sit down honey".

I see. I've never come across the phrase "literary slapstick" before and I couldn't quite figure out what you meant. Seemed to me like a zen koan or something.

BTW, have you seen Harold Lloyd's Speedy? It features some footage of the streets of New York caught with hidden cameras. Thought you might find it interesting for that reason alone.

Literary slapstick isn't an official term, I made it up. Fields was steeped in literary influences. Loads of his lines elude to it, but he'd undercut them with inappropriate absurdisms, like calling a blind man "honey". I honestly think he was a bit of a genius when it came to language.

But a scene like this probably reflects what I mean more than the Kumquats one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE_2uqCc_K4

I love Harold LLoyd but haven't seen Speedy. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks.

Gotcha. That explains it perfectly.

Wow. I've always liked Fields but I haven't appreciated him nearly enough. An alcoholic who hates kids and beats women, yet manages to be sympathetic, or at least not totally hateful? That's genius.

Thanks. Couldn't find a copy of that at the library, where I got the other two. Strange they'd have these two and not Barcelona, but we take what we can get out here on the tundra.

Still haven't watched them yet, but looking forward to them.

i bet your tundra has great libraries and ILL. anyway, barcelona is not the best one, it's just that it was made 2nd, and LDD was the last of that trilogy. plus i think you'll relate to the "americans in europe" theme.

in a way for me metropolitan remains the most endearing of the guy's whole work-- i have watched it many times and will probably rewatch some more. LDD is the most accomplished one.

since you're mainly a book person i think you'll like his work-- stillman wanted to be a novelist, after all, but he just didn't enjoy the solitude of that line of work (he said something along those lines in an interview).

anyway, cheers, i hope you find time in the weekend.

I am tending bar one time down the Lower East Side of New York.
A tough paloma comes in there by the name of Chicago Molly.
I cautioned her, "None of your peccadilloes in here."
There was some hot lunch on the bar comprising of succotash...
Philadelphia cream cheese...
and asparagus with mayonnaise.
She dips her mitt down in to this melange...
I'm yawning at the time, and she hits me right in the mug with it.
I jumps over the bar and knocks her down.
You were there the night I knocked Chicago Molly down, weren't you?
You knocked her down? I was the one that knocked her down.
Yeah, that's right. He knocked her down. But I was the one to start kicking her.

We really do, actually. Since I live outside the limits, I don't have privileges at the great ones in Iowa City, the U of Iowa and the town's, but I can browse there. The UI library has a huge, fascinating Special Collections section. See story beginning p. 29, the one called Arcanaworld, here: http://www.uiowa.edu/~illumine/issue...e-Fall2003.pdf

I conceived and developed the story idea for the author when I was overseeing that magazine. I'd been spending time over there on breaks and such just relaxing and going through materials and then realized that it was all great background for developing a feature story for the magazine. Anyway, fun stuff.

ILL = interlibrary loan (just to clarify for all)

i get lots of stuff that way-- since youre outside limits it's probably a quick thing via consortium

Yep. I've taken advantage of that.

I love the ILL where I work.

we just hired a librarian from the Univ of Iowa. she worked in the writing workshop where Vonnegut once taught,

Awesome. I might know her from my work at Iowa. I worked with library staff on a few stories, and the main library was a favorite hangout of mine.

Do you mean that she worked at the Writers Workshop when Vonnegut was there?

Nope. she is a young Instruction librarian, a recent hire here where I work

I see. So she worked at the Iowa Writers Workshop. I mean, THE Iowa Writers Workshop. That is a huge deal. Very cool.

We watched Metropolitan last night. Very good!