Bees Love Truth

If any of you is in the film_stills community, I just capped RoboCop (selectively, obviously). If you're not, here's the caps in LJ-gallery form.

( The Many Faces of Miguel Ferrer! )

I never realized that the protagonist of at least Johnny Cash's version of 'Cocaine Blues' is named Billy Lee. This really made me want to do a video for it with footage from Naked Lunch (what is it with me and Peter Weller lately?), although I don't think there's enough there to sustain it. After the William Tell act, there's, uh... I don't know. If I could cg up a jury box full of Mugwumps, I would. Oh, I would.

(Also I'm pleased to note that Naked Lunch appears to be the only keyword hit for 'Talking Anus'. All's right with the world.)

Since I'm sort of paying attention to the Transformers movie (which I have not yet seen and probably will not pay for in the future), further hilarity can be found at the New Yorker. It doesn't live up to the marvelous deconstruction of Dude, Where's My Car? I read in I think Sight and Sound back in 2003 (which was just beautiful), but then LITTLE DOES. (I'm still trying to find a copy of that issue.) Anyway, this thing is a lovely example of exactly what you'd think; snooty and not-quite comprehending, but gamely trying to diss a crummy director who deserves it, for the wrong reasons.

New biopic about Edith Piaf. I had no idea about any of the details of her life (which seem to be pretty surprising), but if Ebert says the actress did a good job, then I am satisfied. I would like to see it.

The cartoonbrew crowd and such are getting kind of goofy over this article, which is unfortunate, in part. Okay, the 'self-perpetuating middle-aged losers' concept is amusing, but what is this crap about referential humor ruining the source material? If you're unable to deal with two different versions of a scene, one amusing and one not, you have larger problems than laughing at the severed horse head in the Godfather (also, what a poor example! Jebediah Springfield's head is only contextually a stand-in for the horse head; if these putative idiot viewers are 1. still watching season one of the Simpsons, and 2. able to make the conceptual leap with really only atmospheric and timing cues for help, then they are probably decently well-educated in film/television and will appreciate the reference).

Admittedly, Family Guy has taken this to an obnoxious extent, which the article does address (substituting 'recognition' for 'humor') in a nice way. I can't even watch Family Guy anymore, even though I used to sometimes watch it for the One Legitimately Funny Bit per episode. However, at least in the first twelve or thirteen seasons (can't vouch for later ones; stopped watching) of the Simpsons, referential humor is usually used as a layer over an already amusing concept. At the very least, it's an entertaining way of hitting a plot point, which is generally not Family Guy's way.

I would also like to point out the egregious 'THINK OF THE CHILDREN' stinger at the end of the article. You know you're reaching when you're bringing that up.

Pretty neat essay about popular music in Rear Window. Good stuff.

(Actually, this is ancillary, but it's funny to see what people think Bart said instead of 'St. Swithin's Day'. 'Saint Wyvens day'? 'Thanksswivings day'? Dang.)

Yesterday I stopped in the middle of reading an Iain Banks book and instead read the entirety of this book (The Boy Detective Fails). I'd picked it up with the Barnes&Noble gift cert my grandmother gave us (took the relatives long enough to give us such sensical gifts), on the recommendation of Jackson Publick (one of the Venture Brothers guys (Makes total sense.)).
Iain Banks was pissing me off with his halfassed intrigue (I mean, I enjoy some of the guy's work an awful lot. Then there's the rest of it) and endless pointless PROTAGONIST HAS AN ERECTION, LET'S TALK ABOUT IT sequences.

So anyway, The Boy Detective. Very amusing book, probably six hours worth of reading, but pleasant. The comparison that's just hit me is sort of a David Byrne-influenced Chris Ware universe. Like, the deadpan sad-little-people Chris Ware with a core of engaged people-are-amazing-and-interesting David Byrne True-Storieslike attitude, instead of Chris Ware's ambivalence. There are a couple of points where there are some lovely wry humorous protrusions into the story (page 86, the police show theme, f'rinstance) that really made it for me.

The book does sort of gradually slide from downbeat (which I was enjoying) into a happy ending that didn't quite come together properly (I mean, it technically tied up the loose ends, but character-wise I dunno), I thought, but then that could be me. (I realised not too long ago that I generally value story-universes for their possibilities rather than their actual events, which is why I read the Dune series repeatedly and pretty much always when asked why I liked some scifi book will say 'the universe was awesome.' So, anyway, that is maybe why the ending was unsatisfying to me, because I was hoping for some more meaningful occurrence to manifest itself, since I knew it was possible.)

I do also enjoy a good downer. Sometimes it takes more guts to not allow things to come out okay, and sometimes the opposite (the example I always give here is of Baron Munchausen. I maintain that it was more courageous for Gilliam to allow the story to end happily, knowing his tendencies and given the rest of the film. There's the money thing, though, too, which is contrary). I had a big discussion with a school chum of mine a couple of months ago regarding Pan's Labyrinth, which he despised. He mostly had perfectly good reasons (the trailer did not reflect the film well, so he developed erroneous expectations; he dislikes downers; he dislikes unclear motivations; he dislikes lack of attention to mise-en-scene detail (he's a screenwriter)), but, while I agreed that his problems were present, they did not bother me. I'll be an asshole and paste the conversation, since I already said this:

( Cut for thematic spoiler for Pan's Labyrinth )

So, in short: I will be reading more of Mr. Meno's work. I also eagerly await season three of Venture Brothers. Iain Banks can go play Civ for a while though. ('Complicity', incidentally, had a very Civ-like game in it, which gave me the small measure of amusement I derived from the first half.)

This article mostly makes me sick. This is the movie industry, guys. What the game industry aspires to be. You can't tell, can you? 'Rats must not be hot, because Dreamworks/Aardman's thing didn't do well. The rat content is obviously the only factor worth looking at here.'

I'm not a fan of the Pixar rat character designs, incidentally; I don't see why with Steve Purcell on the team this was the best they could come up with. They're a poor compromise between 'realism' and 'less scary,' I think. People who are scared of rats/mice are scared of
1. fast motion
2. naked tails and paws
3. yellow gnawing teeth
4. beady shark eyes
(And then maybe disease-carrying or whatever, but I'm concerned with visual stuff.) So Pixar removed most of those things (installing white human teeth; did we learn nothing from Stuart Little?), but left a big one, naked appendages. Also, I don't see why all the character designs out of them nowadays have this huge freaking white eye area with a relatively small iris/pupil. Can't we balance this out a little? The feeling of beadiness isn't really alleviated with this approach, either.

Side note: I don't remember the Cars trailers very well at all. I remember having a pretty negative reaction to them, though, but that was in regards to the character designs. Especially in the context of whatever television surrounded the trailer, the characters took a while to even parse, as I recall.

Parting shot: Christ. What did we as a people do to deserve this webpage?

Twitchfilm says that Pan's Labyrinth is getting a wider release, so you all don't have to worry about seeking out the one theatre within 100 miles of you that's showing it.
I'd also like to say that I'm glad that my movie-jabbering voice (while annoying and spastic, let's not kid ourselves) is not annoying in the same way that that guy's is.

Fun Henry Jenkins article that, apart from the agenda he's after, gave me some useful information on how bollywood deals with guy-friend relationships. Also, the term 'homosocial', which I intend to use way too much. Maybe now we can, globally, finally get over the fear of displaying any sort of affection towards friends or emotions warmer than irritable tolerance. Enough of the poor suckers who aren't even allowed to touch another guy unless he's just been shot in the neck, lest they TOTALLY LOOK GAY. It's emotionally stunting and annoying.

And, I guess to balance that out, a pretty nsfw art project.