Sunday, August 31, 2014
Calling all Larry J. Ables to the cliff-edge for annual waste disposal...
Larry J Ables posted a "Review" Of Ozzy Osbourne's upcoming DVD set MEMOIRS OF A MADMAN that makes absolutely NO F***ING SENSE!!! He says it is the ultimate collection of Ozzy's music videos and concert footage. I can only hope that he meant "the best" instead of "the ultimate", but regardless, that's not what he said. He said ULTIMATE. A person can go on their computer and make their own "best" Ozzy collection, videos/clips or songs or both/all. When you add the label Ultimate to something just b/c someone else made it for you all prettied up and boxed, what kind of message does that send to your fellow man? What kind of message do your kids get out of that? That you can just throw words out like they mean anything, "ultimate", "God/god", "Love", "Hate", "evil"...those are heavy words if you actually know what they mean. If you disagree, then you obviously have no respect for your or anyone else's life and you're the kind of person who would commit manslaughter and have no need to cope with it b/c it wouldn't bother you that you took someone's life for reasons that could have been prevented had you been doing what you do the way you're supposed to do it (in the case of vehicular manslaughter, that would be driving...). And for all those "types" of people that may be but are probably not reading this, please join Larry J. Ables and take a walk off your nearest high rise cliff.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
YOU'VE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE, HAVE YOU??
According to Blu-ray.com, the blu ray transfer of Gregg Araki's MYSTERIOUS SKIN is a POS.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mysterious-Skin-Blu-ray/94027/#Review
Just take a gander at the "Mysterious Skin Blu Ray, Video quality" notes; there are numerous reasons to stick to DVD. But Blu ray is better. It just is.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mysterious-Skin-Blu-ray/94027/#Review
Just take a gander at the "Mysterious Skin Blu Ray, Video quality" notes; there are numerous reasons to stick to DVD. But Blu ray is better. It just is.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
The Rabbit Hole Of Perversion
Stephen King had some fire in him when he first started writing. He kept that fire alive for awhile, but when he felt the need to publish 3 novels a year - THE TOMMYKNOCKERS, MISERY and THE EYES OF THE DRAGON all came out in 1987 - his masterworks became scarcer and scarcer. Now he's trying to regain that groove that kept his fans interested prior to his car crash injuries from 15 years ago. None of those aforementioned books are worth reading. FIRESTARTER (1981) is not worth reading. None of them are classics, nor are they "sleepers". They are pulp, submitted to the publisher to make a quick buck and bought by a public who is addicted to the hollow promise of amazement. How can one read that prior years' IT, and find anything worthwhile in THE TOMMYKNOCKERS, much less MISERY, which is basically Stephen King relating his fears that stem from him doing book tours (more "wow, it's like I know the guy! I should write him a letter and invite him over for coffee and show him I'm not like that lady...").
Stephen King has never had any business as a screenwriter. PET SEMATARY wasn't terrible, a story that good and that close to King's heart can't easily be a total trainwreck, but it would have been a MUCH better movie had a professional screenwriter been given the opportunity to adapt it to the screen. Much of the dialogue turned out corny, like the scene when Dale Metcalf's character is telling his wife off about lying to their daughter. The best example of this kind of buttheadedness was when he adapted THE SHINING (1977) into a TV movie in 1996. What the heck was he thinking? First of all, yes, the SFX were finally available to more faithfully adapt the book than Stanley Kubrick did in 1980. Two things of note: they were still very expensive and they were even more expensive to do properly. If you wanted a stupid cartoon for 2 year olds, CGI was still expensive to use. If you wanted dinosaurs realistic enough to terrify a grown man, you're talking the kind of money that Stephen King's fans and "Stephen King movie" fans combined are not numerous enough to make worth spending. Whereas JURASSIC PARK (1993) was a warm-hearted movie, the way Steven Speilberg makes warm hearted movies (even though it was still a horror movie of sorts...), THE SHINING is a deep dark dreary analysis of a family trying to grow closer only to be torn apart for good. And it's wrapped up in the form of a ghastly haunted house movie.
Someone on IMDB put it this way:
"As for Stephen King movie adaptations... sigh... TV is NOT the medium for his work! He is a blood and gore, swear and sex kinda writer, stuff that cant be on TV! It just makes ZERO sense to try and make it work!!!!! It loses so much weight and force when you edit them down for TV... just my opinions...[by TinaJosh, IMDB member since December 2010]
The TV adaptation of IT worked surprisingly well given how deep and dark the book was, not only as a monster story, but also the depictions of sexual abuse, sexual liberation, kids being kids, warts and all, homosexuality, etc. The TV adaptation is very weak compared to the book. It's clearly an adaptation of a story that was written by someone much more "into it" than the people that wrote the teleplay. So, although you're missing the sense of authenticity (the "I was there" of it all; and it did come from King's imagination, which stands to reason he was present at the events as they unfolded...), you still get 75% of the meat from the story. THE STAND was an okay book, not "okay enough" to warrant a six hour TV movie. Especially since the final product looked like a cheesy cheap sci-fi TV show akin to XENA: THE WARRIROR PRINCESS or BABYLON 5. And STORM OF THE CENTURY had no story. And yet it was 6 hours long. How do these things even happen?
If Stephen King makes it back to the publishing world with a truly good book in the vein of 'SALEM'S LOT, PET SEMATARY or IT, it'll be after 30 or 40 books of mediocrity and he will be forever pegged as the man who lost half his brain and continued making money off his name, and in turn ruined it. He's coming ever closer to writing a book that is worth reading. It's been bubbling under the surface. That book named after JFK's assassination date, and FULL DARK NO STARS gave me hope that he'd regained his prowess. DUMA KEY was pretty good, although I've yet to seriously dive into it, since there's so many other authors that I haven't read, including God himself (The Bible), but one thing of note is that he wrote that seemingly basing the opening parts of it on his experiences with re-habilitation/physical therapy, which makes sense, it's good for him to get that off his chest and it's good for readers who may be going through something similar to have that "I know, I know" support, but that alone does not prove he's gotten his groove back. Most of his stories are not re-imaginings of moments in his life, like THE DEAD ZONE, PET SEMATARY and DUMA KEY are. So when I see Stephen King's got a new book out, I don't assume that's what it is. I assume it's some story he wrote in the middle of the night while he couldn't sleep and turned it into his publisher so he could have yet more money. I can't tell you if JUST AFTER SUNSET was on par with NIGHT SHIFT, his first collection of short stories, b/c the first several sentences consisted of goblegook that is intelligible if you know how to read Mainelatin and is extremely off putting to those who understand the value of not trying to re-create English as a written language. If people insist on saying "warsh" when there's no "r" in wash, good for them, keep the traditions of your heritage alive if you insist, but when you write "warsh" instead of "wash", it seems like somebody should have told you to either stay in school or that you don't deserve to be published. I know Stephen King knows how to write. Someone who hasn't read SALEM'S LOT or IT may think Stephen King is trying to be some kind of weird post-modernist. But what do I know? The all heralded William Faulkner made his name golden doing the same thing...
I used to read Stephen King all the time. THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDEN was a total waste of time, I didn't finish THE TOMMYKNOCKERS after the first 200 pages showed precious little in way of story progression, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes in annoyance at this one passage I read in BAG OF BONES that just struck me as if a high school kid were trying to be clever...don't remember the exact wording...it was a sentence in the book that was meant to convey that the narrator was receiving fellatio from his wife. Admittedly, I trudged through SKELETON CREW in high school, as many of the stories had nothing to them, even though I praised it at the time, and just kind of "forgot" my opinion of the lesser stories. INSOMNIA is, quite truly, liberal propaganda, a great story yes, but so obviously told from the perspective of someone who does not understand humans unless they are Democrats. DOLORES CLAIBORNE features the title character in the opening pages of the story debating with herself openly amongst police officers weather to start telling the story from the beginning or the end. Seriously? And she "compromises" by starting the story in the middle. Nobody except David Lynch and his disciples tells stories from the end OR the middle! And what kind of 60 year old Maine islander who isn't a pro- writer, or aspiring to be, wants to emulate David Lynch? ROADWORK I tried recently reading for the first time, very tangled up wording, I read he was trying to be "literary" when he wrote that book b/c he often got made fun of by those types, or something along those lines, idk...but if that's true, it shows. The idea of sentences having a meaning and the meaning being part of something bigger seems to escape some of these "esteemed" writers. Nathaniel Hawthorne devoted 1 full page describing a door in the all-heralded THE SCARLET LETTER. Not a "special kind" of door mind you - just a freakin' door! Ian McEwen spent at least one paragraph describing a water fountain (!!!) in one of the pages of ATONEMENT, and while he was describing it, he used very obtuse sentence structure and obscure wording. And the aforementioned William Faulkner writes sentences upon sentences that mean absolutely nothing. His fans relish in this. I don't know everything. I don't claim to know everything. I don't think to myself "I know everything". When something doesn't make sense TO ME, I try to make it make sense. I try to figure out what piece of the puzzle I'm missing. I feel like someone has played a trick on me when I find out there's no puzzle piece missing except that which the author intentionally excluded from his book or maybe just forgot to include[?]. And the parts of these books that isn't meaningless in a lot of cases is a bunch of philosophy and pondering about things that I would either be thinking about anyway, or nitpicking about history and the meaning of some small sub-detail that I don't know anything about in the first place. Usually, I can read the description for a book or documentary, spanning one or two pages, and find enough info to mull over for a couple+ days. These mammoth nonfiction books that talk about these important issues are a slightly less waste of trees. How much does one need to be hit in the head with in order to take an issue seriously? I guess most people don't give a damn unless they spent x amount of time reading about something that forces them to in turn spend x amount of time thinking about that same something, which makes it a little harder (but still entirely possible) to forget about. These non fiction books dealing with real issues are largely pointless. They either offer some nitwits opinion on a matter (i.e.: Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD and HOPE: A TRAGEDY), or they document in dull detail a bunch of uneventful events. These "avid readers" and "movie buffs" crack me up. There's only so much time a grown human being can spend watching movies before they end up re-watching the same stuff or end up promoting mediocrity. And there's only so many books that are worth $20++. Oh, well. What would the economy be without over-indulgence? If people cared about their own well being, the food industry would collapse, and Steven Soderbergh would be asking The Salvation Army for food (although he's made a few good movies, none that are mainstream enough to support him financially for every day of his life).
Stephen King has never had any business as a screenwriter. PET SEMATARY wasn't terrible, a story that good and that close to King's heart can't easily be a total trainwreck, but it would have been a MUCH better movie had a professional screenwriter been given the opportunity to adapt it to the screen. Much of the dialogue turned out corny, like the scene when Dale Metcalf's character is telling his wife off about lying to their daughter. The best example of this kind of buttheadedness was when he adapted THE SHINING (1977) into a TV movie in 1996. What the heck was he thinking? First of all, yes, the SFX were finally available to more faithfully adapt the book than Stanley Kubrick did in 1980. Two things of note: they were still very expensive and they were even more expensive to do properly. If you wanted a stupid cartoon for 2 year olds, CGI was still expensive to use. If you wanted dinosaurs realistic enough to terrify a grown man, you're talking the kind of money that Stephen King's fans and "Stephen King movie" fans combined are not numerous enough to make worth spending. Whereas JURASSIC PARK (1993) was a warm-hearted movie, the way Steven Speilberg makes warm hearted movies (even though it was still a horror movie of sorts...), THE SHINING is a deep dark dreary analysis of a family trying to grow closer only to be torn apart for good. And it's wrapped up in the form of a ghastly haunted house movie.
Someone on IMDB put it this way:
"As for Stephen King movie adaptations... sigh... TV is NOT the medium for his work! He is a blood and gore, swear and sex kinda writer, stuff that cant be on TV! It just makes ZERO sense to try and make it work!!!!! It loses so much weight and force when you edit them down for TV... just my opinions...[by TinaJosh, IMDB member since December 2010]
The TV adaptation of IT worked surprisingly well given how deep and dark the book was, not only as a monster story, but also the depictions of sexual abuse, sexual liberation, kids being kids, warts and all, homosexuality, etc. The TV adaptation is very weak compared to the book. It's clearly an adaptation of a story that was written by someone much more "into it" than the people that wrote the teleplay. So, although you're missing the sense of authenticity (the "I was there" of it all; and it did come from King's imagination, which stands to reason he was present at the events as they unfolded...), you still get 75% of the meat from the story. THE STAND was an okay book, not "okay enough" to warrant a six hour TV movie. Especially since the final product looked like a cheesy cheap sci-fi TV show akin to XENA: THE WARRIROR PRINCESS or BABYLON 5. And STORM OF THE CENTURY had no story. And yet it was 6 hours long. How do these things even happen?
If Stephen King makes it back to the publishing world with a truly good book in the vein of 'SALEM'S LOT, PET SEMATARY or IT, it'll be after 30 or 40 books of mediocrity and he will be forever pegged as the man who lost half his brain and continued making money off his name, and in turn ruined it. He's coming ever closer to writing a book that is worth reading. It's been bubbling under the surface. That book named after JFK's assassination date, and FULL DARK NO STARS gave me hope that he'd regained his prowess. DUMA KEY was pretty good, although I've yet to seriously dive into it, since there's so many other authors that I haven't read, including God himself (The Bible), but one thing of note is that he wrote that seemingly basing the opening parts of it on his experiences with re-habilitation/physical therapy, which makes sense, it's good for him to get that off his chest and it's good for readers who may be going through something similar to have that "I know, I know" support, but that alone does not prove he's gotten his groove back. Most of his stories are not re-imaginings of moments in his life, like THE DEAD ZONE, PET SEMATARY and DUMA KEY are. So when I see Stephen King's got a new book out, I don't assume that's what it is. I assume it's some story he wrote in the middle of the night while he couldn't sleep and turned it into his publisher so he could have yet more money. I can't tell you if JUST AFTER SUNSET was on par with NIGHT SHIFT, his first collection of short stories, b/c the first several sentences consisted of goblegook that is intelligible if you know how to read Mainelatin and is extremely off putting to those who understand the value of not trying to re-create English as a written language. If people insist on saying "warsh" when there's no "r" in wash, good for them, keep the traditions of your heritage alive if you insist, but when you write "warsh" instead of "wash", it seems like somebody should have told you to either stay in school or that you don't deserve to be published. I know Stephen King knows how to write. Someone who hasn't read SALEM'S LOT or IT may think Stephen King is trying to be some kind of weird post-modernist. But what do I know? The all heralded William Faulkner made his name golden doing the same thing...
I used to read Stephen King all the time. THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDEN was a total waste of time, I didn't finish THE TOMMYKNOCKERS after the first 200 pages showed precious little in way of story progression, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes in annoyance at this one passage I read in BAG OF BONES that just struck me as if a high school kid were trying to be clever...don't remember the exact wording...it was a sentence in the book that was meant to convey that the narrator was receiving fellatio from his wife. Admittedly, I trudged through SKELETON CREW in high school, as many of the stories had nothing to them, even though I praised it at the time, and just kind of "forgot" my opinion of the lesser stories. INSOMNIA is, quite truly, liberal propaganda, a great story yes, but so obviously told from the perspective of someone who does not understand humans unless they are Democrats. DOLORES CLAIBORNE features the title character in the opening pages of the story debating with herself openly amongst police officers weather to start telling the story from the beginning or the end. Seriously? And she "compromises" by starting the story in the middle. Nobody except David Lynch and his disciples tells stories from the end OR the middle! And what kind of 60 year old Maine islander who isn't a pro- writer, or aspiring to be, wants to emulate David Lynch? ROADWORK I tried recently reading for the first time, very tangled up wording, I read he was trying to be "literary" when he wrote that book b/c he often got made fun of by those types, or something along those lines, idk...but if that's true, it shows. The idea of sentences having a meaning and the meaning being part of something bigger seems to escape some of these "esteemed" writers. Nathaniel Hawthorne devoted 1 full page describing a door in the all-heralded THE SCARLET LETTER. Not a "special kind" of door mind you - just a freakin' door! Ian McEwen spent at least one paragraph describing a water fountain (!!!) in one of the pages of ATONEMENT, and while he was describing it, he used very obtuse sentence structure and obscure wording. And the aforementioned William Faulkner writes sentences upon sentences that mean absolutely nothing. His fans relish in this. I don't know everything. I don't claim to know everything. I don't think to myself "I know everything". When something doesn't make sense TO ME, I try to make it make sense. I try to figure out what piece of the puzzle I'm missing. I feel like someone has played a trick on me when I find out there's no puzzle piece missing except that which the author intentionally excluded from his book or maybe just forgot to include[?]. And the parts of these books that isn't meaningless in a lot of cases is a bunch of philosophy and pondering about things that I would either be thinking about anyway, or nitpicking about history and the meaning of some small sub-detail that I don't know anything about in the first place. Usually, I can read the description for a book or documentary, spanning one or two pages, and find enough info to mull over for a couple+ days. These mammoth nonfiction books that talk about these important issues are a slightly less waste of trees. How much does one need to be hit in the head with in order to take an issue seriously? I guess most people don't give a damn unless they spent x amount of time reading about something that forces them to in turn spend x amount of time thinking about that same something, which makes it a little harder (but still entirely possible) to forget about. These non fiction books dealing with real issues are largely pointless. They either offer some nitwits opinion on a matter (i.e.: Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD and HOPE: A TRAGEDY), or they document in dull detail a bunch of uneventful events. These "avid readers" and "movie buffs" crack me up. There's only so much time a grown human being can spend watching movies before they end up re-watching the same stuff or end up promoting mediocrity. And there's only so many books that are worth $20++. Oh, well. What would the economy be without over-indulgence? If people cared about their own well being, the food industry would collapse, and Steven Soderbergh would be asking The Salvation Army for food (although he's made a few good movies, none that are mainstream enough to support him financially for every day of his life).
Marshmallows are our friends!
[image courtesy Amazon]
FOR SALE AT LAST
Buy yours here (if you want):
http://www.amazon.com/Marshmallow-Fun-2510-GhostBusters-Blaster/dp/B00JRGVWV4/ref=sr_1_12?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1408563453&sr=1-12&keywords=ghostbusters
wee-haaw!!! Now I Just need to find the rumored Stay Puft Marshmallows made by Marshmallow Fun Co. to be released in conjunction with this item.
Lemme say it again: WEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!!!!
FOR SALE AT LAST
Buy yours here (if you want):
http://www.amazon.com/Marshmallow-Fun-2510-GhostBusters-Blaster/dp/B00JRGVWV4/ref=sr_1_12?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1408563453&sr=1-12&keywords=ghostbusters
wee-haaw!!! Now I Just need to find the rumored Stay Puft Marshmallows made by Marshmallow Fun Co. to be released in conjunction with this item.
Lemme say it again: WEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!!!!
The Dark Art of Crime
Martin Scorsese struck me as a protestor of crime until I found out that he chose to participate in directing a movie based on a book by a criminal, that movie being THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013). I mean, maybe I need to repeat that - the movie is a translation of a book written by a criminal. This person, this criminal, wrote a book. And Martin Scorsese chose to turn it into a movie? I realize somebody else probably would have directed it if he hadn't, but it's not like Martin Scorsese is hard up for money. He gets paid ridiculous sums of money for every movie he makes before it hits the theaters (largely the reason why they usually don't turn a profit), so, really, the guy could retire and it wouldn't kill him. His mansion or NYC condo should already be paid off, and he should have plenty for food and enough for recreation. SHUTTER ISLAND (2011) struck me as staggeringly low-key for a Scorsese film, maybe he wanted to shake things up a bit? I don't know. Leonardo DiCaprio claimed the film doesn't "condone" the criminal's activity. That doesn't change the fact that it's based on a book by said criminal. If Satan ever published a book, the most disgusting, depressing book ever written, someone might feel compelled to make a movie based on it I'm sure. And they'd be using the same logic Scorsese probably uses to defend making a movie based on The Wolf's book.
FYI, I haven't seen the movie. If you've seen this movie and find anything I said to be false or incorrect, LMK and if all you have to say is "you're wrong" without explanation of any kind, hopefully you know how useless you are as a human being and the pleasure you derive from my desire to rip out your entrails is sufficient for thou.
FYI, I haven't seen the movie. If you've seen this movie and find anything I said to be false or incorrect, LMK and if all you have to say is "you're wrong" without explanation of any kind, hopefully you know how useless you are as a human being and the pleasure you derive from my desire to rip out your entrails is sufficient for thou.
Monday, August 18, 2014
scene selection
BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) - Terrorists locate and attempt to kill Doc, McFly makes sparks fly into fire in mall parking lot...mall parking lots are cool, fyi. They're even cooler frozen in the 1980's. ("If you want Pepsi, you gotta pay for it".)
BATMAN (1989) - Mirror. MIRROR! "You see what I have to work with here...."
& "It's me. Sugar bumps."
BEETLEJUICE (1988) - the Geffen logo w/ Danny Elfman's score slowly beginning...DRUM.DRUM...duDUduDUDUDU...
CASPER (1995) - Dan Aykroyd cameo.
CLOCKERS (1995) - Opening credits featuring a sad homage to the lives lost in the name of gangs.
GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) - I tried to think of the most harmless thing...you know what I mean...
THE GOLDEN CHILD (1986) - Sardo Numpspa (sp???) transforms into the beast that can only be defeated by the Ajante dagger.
JURASSIC PARK (1993) - The dude doing whatever the heck with the cages, then gets dragged into one of 'em by a vicious Velociraptor(sp???) [opening scene]
nowhere (1997) - theatrical trailer, found on VHS copies of David Cronenberg's CRASH (1996) and other New Line Cinema releases of the same time frame. You can request cultcine.com to include it with your order of nowhere (1997).
For movies full of one continuous flowing moodiness, I recommend BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999) and THE LAST UNICORN (1982). For 80's nostalgia marathons, GHOSTBUSTERS, GHOSTBUSTERS II and SHORT CIRCUIT are musts (for me anyway).
BATMAN
BEETLEJUICE
BRINGING OUT THE DEAD
CLOCKERS
E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
GHOSTBUSTERS
GHOSTBUSTERS II
JURASSIC PARK
THE LAST UNICORN
NOWHERE
SHORT CIRCUIT
These I either own or will own (one day, I swear!) for their repeat-viewing-ability. Most movies these days suck, the ones that don't are rare, and are usually great moments, but generally wear very quickly when replication of said moments is attempted. I wouldn't mind buying them, but keeping them? For what reason?
Those films are:
THE BEAVER
THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY
THE DEPARTED
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER
MYSTERIOUS SKIN
SHORT TERM 12
THE SPECTACULAR NOW
SUPER
and possible others, nothing else is coming to mind at the moment...
BATMAN (1989) - Mirror. MIRROR! "You see what I have to work with here...."
& "It's me. Sugar bumps."
BEETLEJUICE (1988) - the Geffen logo w/ Danny Elfman's score slowly beginning...DRUM.DRUM...duDUduDUDUDU...
CASPER (1995) - Dan Aykroyd cameo.
CLOCKERS (1995) - Opening credits featuring a sad homage to the lives lost in the name of gangs.
GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) - I tried to think of the most harmless thing...you know what I mean...
THE GOLDEN CHILD (1986) - Sardo Numpspa (sp???) transforms into the beast that can only be defeated by the Ajante dagger.
JURASSIC PARK (1993) - The dude doing whatever the heck with the cages, then gets dragged into one of 'em by a vicious Velociraptor(sp???) [opening scene]
nowhere (1997) - theatrical trailer, found on VHS copies of David Cronenberg's CRASH (1996) and other New Line Cinema releases of the same time frame. You can request cultcine.com to include it with your order of nowhere (1997).
For movies full of one continuous flowing moodiness, I recommend BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999) and THE LAST UNICORN (1982). For 80's nostalgia marathons, GHOSTBUSTERS, GHOSTBUSTERS II and SHORT CIRCUIT are musts (for me anyway).
BATMAN
BEETLEJUICE
BRINGING OUT THE DEAD
CLOCKERS
E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
GHOSTBUSTERS
GHOSTBUSTERS II
JURASSIC PARK
THE LAST UNICORN
NOWHERE
SHORT CIRCUIT
These I either own or will own (one day, I swear!) for their repeat-viewing-ability. Most movies these days suck, the ones that don't are rare, and are usually great moments, but generally wear very quickly when replication of said moments is attempted. I wouldn't mind buying them, but keeping them? For what reason?
Those films are:
THE BEAVER
THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY
THE DEPARTED
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER
MYSTERIOUS SKIN
SHORT TERM 12
THE SPECTACULAR NOW
SUPER
and possible others, nothing else is coming to mind at the moment...
Widescreen cover-art?
SHORT CIRCUIT (1986) is being re-released on Blu ray for reasons that have not been (yet?) made clear.
The "cover-art" that Amazon has up for the item looks more like a screenshot of the movie than anything that anyone would consider being cover-art...the width is that of a still, and the picture of the back cover-art is not that width (regular rectangle...). Plus, the design just looks weird.
I recently ordered the movie on basic DVD from Sears.com and ended up with the same thing I was trying to avoid by choosing the basic DVD over the "deluxe" or "special" (can't remember) edition DVD that came out around 2008 -- a really dump picture standing in my home(!!!). Seriously, if you're gonna mock the movie that's being bought why even bother with the business of cover-art? It's got Number 5 (aka Johnny 5) doing a Saturday Night Fever - era John Travolta impression, while standing, alone, on what appears to be some kind of pile of rocks, not unlike Mac from MAC & ME (1988)'s home planet. Seriously! - who disco dances when nobody's around and the weather is so hot, you're seeing fuscha(sp???) break out and the ground beneath you is rocky like a hurricane?!!!
The "cover-art" that Amazon has up for the item looks more like a screenshot of the movie than anything that anyone would consider being cover-art...the width is that of a still, and the picture of the back cover-art is not that width (regular rectangle...). Plus, the design just looks weird.
I recently ordered the movie on basic DVD from Sears.com and ended up with the same thing I was trying to avoid by choosing the basic DVD over the "deluxe" or "special" (can't remember) edition DVD that came out around 2008 -- a really dump picture standing in my home(!!!). Seriously, if you're gonna mock the movie that's being bought why even bother with the business of cover-art? It's got Number 5 (aka Johnny 5) doing a Saturday Night Fever - era John Travolta impression, while standing, alone, on what appears to be some kind of pile of rocks, not unlike Mac from MAC & ME (1988)'s home planet. Seriously! - who disco dances when nobody's around and the weather is so hot, you're seeing fuscha(sp???) break out and the ground beneath you is rocky like a hurricane?!!!
For the visualizationally impaired and/or those who don't know what the heck I'm talking about b/c you aren't big enough of a fan to keep track of every re-issue of this movie that comes out,
above is taken from Amazon, although it seems to be a UK pressing, evident by the PG-logo in the right hand corner (if the triangular PG logo isn't there, that means the image source has been modified and I'll have to edit this post.....), it's still the same exact cover-art otherwise.
Here's the screenshot posing as cover-art I mentioned, as well -
Yeah, now does that scream "front cover" material to any of you? (Yeah, like I'm talking to anyone other than you, right?)....
Here's the glorious original cover, which is essentially a re-sizing of the 1996 VHS cover-art, which was essentially a re-coloring of the 1986 VHS cover-art:
A sad reality is it's amazing they kept this classic cover-art on the shelves as long as they did. A lot of the early DVD pressings did simply re-size the VHS cover-arts, but were shortly after re-issued with inferior cover-art. Take John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987) of Wes Craven's THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991) for instance. In the case of GHOSTBUSTERS (1984), there's never been a cover-art worthy of the franchise on DVD. The 2009 blu ray release came close, however...the original black background w/ no-ghost insignia front and center was the best. The 1994 VHS re-issue was cool, b/c it had stark white lettering with kind of a botanical-ish font, declaring "BILL MURRAY DAN AYKROYD, SIGOURNEY WEAVER" and beneath that it said "GHOSTBUSTERS", with the no-ghost insignia nestled firmly inside of it, and the big whopper no-ghost insignia below it. The font sizing was different for the 1985 VHS, which called for the same wording and font to be put under the no-ghost sign instead of above it, and the "main credits" were also on the early VHS cassette front cover, which meant the no ghost insignia wasn't as big....you may not notice these things, but unless you spend more hours looking at some screen projecting your copy of the movie than having the box-art of your copy of the movie standing in your den, I declare the movie industry is forcing trash upon you (and I) and owning trash is not acceptable. If you have trash on your floor or on your book shelf, find someone who considers it treasure and give/sell it to him or her or throw it away!!! Satan has been given the power to meddle into our daily lives, but we don't have to let him win!!!!!
above is taken from Amazon, although it seems to be a UK pressing, evident by the PG-logo in the right hand corner (if the triangular PG logo isn't there, that means the image source has been modified and I'll have to edit this post.....), it's still the same exact cover-art otherwise.
Here's the screenshot posing as cover-art I mentioned, as well -
Yeah, now does that scream "front cover" material to any of you? (Yeah, like I'm talking to anyone other than you, right?)....Here's the glorious original cover, which is essentially a re-sizing of the 1996 VHS cover-art, which was essentially a re-coloring of the 1986 VHS cover-art:
A sad reality is it's amazing they kept this classic cover-art on the shelves as long as they did. A lot of the early DVD pressings did simply re-size the VHS cover-arts, but were shortly after re-issued with inferior cover-art. Take John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987) of Wes Craven's THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (1991) for instance. In the case of GHOSTBUSTERS (1984), there's never been a cover-art worthy of the franchise on DVD. The 2009 blu ray release came close, however...the original black background w/ no-ghost insignia front and center was the best. The 1994 VHS re-issue was cool, b/c it had stark white lettering with kind of a botanical-ish font, declaring "BILL MURRAY DAN AYKROYD, SIGOURNEY WEAVER" and beneath that it said "GHOSTBUSTERS", with the no-ghost insignia nestled firmly inside of it, and the big whopper no-ghost insignia below it. The font sizing was different for the 1985 VHS, which called for the same wording and font to be put under the no-ghost sign instead of above it, and the "main credits" were also on the early VHS cassette front cover, which meant the no ghost insignia wasn't as big....you may not notice these things, but unless you spend more hours looking at some screen projecting your copy of the movie than having the box-art of your copy of the movie standing in your den, I declare the movie industry is forcing trash upon you (and I) and owning trash is not acceptable. If you have trash on your floor or on your book shelf, find someone who considers it treasure and give/sell it to him or her or throw it away!!! Satan has been given the power to meddle into our daily lives, but we don't have to let him win!!!!!
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
My life in movies; my DVD/BD collection if I had money to burn!
- The Addam's Family
- The Addam's Family Values
- A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
- Babe (1995)
- The Baby (1973)
- Back To The Future
- Basket Case
- Beetlejuice
- Being There
- The Breakfast Club
- Bringing Out The Dead
- Candyman (1992)
- Casper (1995)
- Clockers
- A Clockwork Orange
- The Dark Knight Trilogy
- Dolls (1987)
- Dolores Claiborne
- End Of Days
- E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
- The Exorcist
- Fight Club
- (500) Days Of Summer
- Forrest Gump
- Ghostbusters 1 & 2
- The Godfather
- The Golden Child
- The Graduate
- The Green Mile
- Heathers
- Hellraiser
- Jurassic Park
- The Last Unicorn
- Liar Liar
- L.I.E.
- Mannequin (1987)
- M*A*S*H
- The Mind Snatchers
- Mrs. Doubtfire
- Mysterious Skin
- My Girl 1 & 2 (1991/1994)
- nowhere (1997)
- Paperhouse
- Prince Of Darkness (1987)
- Rain Man
- Requiem For A Dream
- A River Runs Through It
- Short Circuit
- Singles (1992)
- Taxi Driver (1976)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
- Three To Tango
- To Kill A Mockingbird
- 12 Angry Men (1957)
- UHF
- The Underneath (1994)
- What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
I might be forgetting a large handful....pls don't hate me if I re-post an edited version of this?
Thursday, August 7, 2014
BETWEEN THE BLURRED AND ME...
I do wonder...who keeps auto Google+ing my posts? Seconds after I post something, I see it's got a +up or whatever that's called(?). Is Google Inc. doing that so pathetic saps like myself feel less lonely or do I have a REAL LIVE stalker??
I could probably look this up, but, please, WILL the real slim shady PLEASE STAND Up (if you exist...one can hope...)?!
Yeah...I'm not desperate for a friend am I? NOOOOOOOOOO...
I could probably look this up, but, please, WILL the real slim shady PLEASE STAND Up (if you exist...one can hope...)?!
Yeah...I'm not desperate for a friend am I? NOOOOOOOOOO...
As if you didn't already know...GHOSTBUSTERS II soundtrack re-issue coming Sept 9
Boy, talk about a botched offering.
On Our Own - great song.
Flesh N' Blood - who can argue with a bit of Boingo?
Supernatural, The Promised Land et al - not in the movie, but not a lot of songs were...you gotta give people their money's worth right? Or at least let people think they're getting their money's worth...
MIA: the breezy piano music largely heard during scenes including Sigourney Weaver as Dana Barrett. Not to mention everything else Randy Edelmen composed for the movie. Also, while Howard Huntsbury's remake of Jackie Gleason's "Higher and Higher" IS included, it's not the same as it was in the movie b/c they secluded the tape-cut(?) intro(?) thingy that precedes the "main" cut of the song (watch GHOSTBUSTERS II again if you're confused - you hear that bout of sound coming out of your speakers PRIOR to the Statue Of Liberty's torch lighting? THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE CD!!!).
The GB2 OST is already avail. digitally, as of sometime earlier this year I guess...the digital version is the same botched offering as has always been available.
Technically, I can't say if the GB2 OST that's set to be re-released on vinyl and CD on Sept 9th is the same as the digital version, but given the lack of thought put into the soundtrack the first time around, and the lack of thought put into a million other things the music industry and every other industry has had a hand in, it's hard to find it worthwhile to hold my breath in anticipation...I might buy it anyway...I'm not pre-ordering it unless it becomes apparent that it's got a different cover than the original CD and cassette copies I've already owned in years passed -- the soundtrack isn't horrible, it's just botched, which is *NOT GOOD* (IMO?).
On Our Own - great song.
Flesh N' Blood - who can argue with a bit of Boingo?
Supernatural, The Promised Land et al - not in the movie, but not a lot of songs were...you gotta give people their money's worth right? Or at least let people think they're getting their money's worth...
MIA: the breezy piano music largely heard during scenes including Sigourney Weaver as Dana Barrett. Not to mention everything else Randy Edelmen composed for the movie. Also, while Howard Huntsbury's remake of Jackie Gleason's "Higher and Higher" IS included, it's not the same as it was in the movie b/c they secluded the tape-cut(?) intro(?) thingy that precedes the "main" cut of the song (watch GHOSTBUSTERS II again if you're confused - you hear that bout of sound coming out of your speakers PRIOR to the Statue Of Liberty's torch lighting? THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE CD!!!).
The GB2 OST is already avail. digitally, as of sometime earlier this year I guess...the digital version is the same botched offering as has always been available.
Technically, I can't say if the GB2 OST that's set to be re-released on vinyl and CD on Sept 9th is the same as the digital version, but given the lack of thought put into the soundtrack the first time around, and the lack of thought put into a million other things the music industry and every other industry has had a hand in, it's hard to find it worthwhile to hold my breath in anticipation...I might buy it anyway...I'm not pre-ordering it unless it becomes apparent that it's got a different cover than the original CD and cassette copies I've already owned in years passed -- the soundtrack isn't horrible, it's just botched, which is *NOT GOOD* (IMO?).
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Heck hath no fury like a person hearing about GHOSTBUSTERS 3(R)
I found a companion to GhostbustersNews.com for people who don't find news regarding Ghostbusters 3 "vomit inducing":
http://ghostbustersiii.blogspot.com/
I don't know anything for a stone cold fact, but I cannot imagine that anyone with an open perspective can actually favor the British version of the GHOSTBUSTERS logo. I can understand someone being philosophically opposed to the finalized logo that Columbia Pictures came up with, being British and not wanting to see their beloved creation modified for any reason whatsoever, especially by a U.S. citizen of all humanity! But if you take National Pride and politics out of the equation, the Columbia Pictures design just looks better. Find one U.S. citizen who wasn't raised in Britain and isn't dyslexic who disagrees and I'll shut up.
The logo seen on the banner of the above URL looks preposterous. I don't know if that's intended as mockery, or if the website owner is British and resents the fact that Columbia Pictures didn't reverse the logo for the GB2 merchandise that was sold over there...
Ghostbusters III with an all female cast? Um...I have nothing against that concept, but I do hope they're not doing this as some kind of male fantasy fulfillment, with bare legs and the obligatory lesbian kiss. The idea of women carrying large amounts of weight isn't unrealistic, per se, but the majority of Hollywood actresses seem a little too lacking in skin, not to mention muscle, to realistically carry a proton pack. But more than one person has admirably suggested casting unknowns, since there's no obvious choices for casting in the project. But who exactly counts as "unknown"? Ben Stiller was rejected by 20th Century Fox when the director proposed he star in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (1998) because he wasn't well known enough. He had starred in FLIRTING WITH DISASTER in 1996, a very good movie, maybe not a movie **EVERYBODY** saw, but certainly enough people saw it to where a studio producer worth his salt would know to let Ben Stiller have his day in the sun. Eh, idk...the idea of casting "big names" in movies is so stupid. I don't know where people get the idea that an actor has anything to do with a movie's success. Yes, you need talent. Some movies DEMAND it. But the actor doesn't make the movie what it is. The heart and soul of a movie is almost always the ideas, the expression of those ideas...obviously, a good screenplay can be ruined by bad actors. But the same can be said with bad cinematography, bad lighting, bad set design, bad costuming, you name it. You can have 0MPH wind, a high end Sony camera resting firmly on a stand, on level ground, and film Meryl Streep reading lines with Dustin Hoffman from KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979). It's not the same as watching KRAMER VS. KRAMER.
Anyway...totally derailed my train of thought by talking my ass off about Ben Stiller being or not being "unknown" circa 1997/early 1998...yeah...
I think I'm gonna forgo GHOSTBUSTERS I & II on blu. I already have GHOSTBUSTERS on digital @ Amazon Instant Video. I can buy GHOSTBUSTERS II for $9.99 @ same. The BD set is $23.95 w/ S&H and nothing seems worth buying with it to make it eligible for free s&h. I have nine mp3s in my AmazonMP3 shopping cart totaling $10.02 (Wow!). Four of those 9 are from DAYDREAM FOREVER, which I was prepared to buy in full on CD for a little over $15. And there's nothing from THROUGH ART WE ARE ALL EQUALS that stands out. I guess I could buy that in its entirety on mp3, less waste. So, with all this moving to digital, what ever will I receive in the mail from Amazon LLC? Not much telling...I probably should order that Carhartt J140 thingy...not immediately though, I don't think I'll have enough in Sept....can't remember why off hand though...
http://ghostbustersiii.blogspot.com/
I don't know anything for a stone cold fact, but I cannot imagine that anyone with an open perspective can actually favor the British version of the GHOSTBUSTERS logo. I can understand someone being philosophically opposed to the finalized logo that Columbia Pictures came up with, being British and not wanting to see their beloved creation modified for any reason whatsoever, especially by a U.S. citizen of all humanity! But if you take National Pride and politics out of the equation, the Columbia Pictures design just looks better. Find one U.S. citizen who wasn't raised in Britain and isn't dyslexic who disagrees and I'll shut up.
The logo seen on the banner of the above URL looks preposterous. I don't know if that's intended as mockery, or if the website owner is British and resents the fact that Columbia Pictures didn't reverse the logo for the GB2 merchandise that was sold over there...
Ghostbusters III with an all female cast? Um...I have nothing against that concept, but I do hope they're not doing this as some kind of male fantasy fulfillment, with bare legs and the obligatory lesbian kiss. The idea of women carrying large amounts of weight isn't unrealistic, per se, but the majority of Hollywood actresses seem a little too lacking in skin, not to mention muscle, to realistically carry a proton pack. But more than one person has admirably suggested casting unknowns, since there's no obvious choices for casting in the project. But who exactly counts as "unknown"? Ben Stiller was rejected by 20th Century Fox when the director proposed he star in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (1998) because he wasn't well known enough. He had starred in FLIRTING WITH DISASTER in 1996, a very good movie, maybe not a movie **EVERYBODY** saw, but certainly enough people saw it to where a studio producer worth his salt would know to let Ben Stiller have his day in the sun. Eh, idk...the idea of casting "big names" in movies is so stupid. I don't know where people get the idea that an actor has anything to do with a movie's success. Yes, you need talent. Some movies DEMAND it. But the actor doesn't make the movie what it is. The heart and soul of a movie is almost always the ideas, the expression of those ideas...obviously, a good screenplay can be ruined by bad actors. But the same can be said with bad cinematography, bad lighting, bad set design, bad costuming, you name it. You can have 0MPH wind, a high end Sony camera resting firmly on a stand, on level ground, and film Meryl Streep reading lines with Dustin Hoffman from KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979). It's not the same as watching KRAMER VS. KRAMER.
Anyway...totally derailed my train of thought by talking my ass off about Ben Stiller being or not being "unknown" circa 1997/early 1998...yeah...
I think I'm gonna forgo GHOSTBUSTERS I & II on blu. I already have GHOSTBUSTERS on digital @ Amazon Instant Video. I can buy GHOSTBUSTERS II for $9.99 @ same. The BD set is $23.95 w/ S&H and nothing seems worth buying with it to make it eligible for free s&h. I have nine mp3s in my AmazonMP3 shopping cart totaling $10.02 (Wow!). Four of those 9 are from DAYDREAM FOREVER, which I was prepared to buy in full on CD for a little over $15. And there's nothing from THROUGH ART WE ARE ALL EQUALS that stands out. I guess I could buy that in its entirety on mp3, less waste. So, with all this moving to digital, what ever will I receive in the mail from Amazon LLC? Not much telling...I probably should order that Carhartt J140 thingy...not immediately though, I don't think I'll have enough in Sept....can't remember why off hand though...
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Listing The Skeletons @Closet!
I feel the hope of a nerdy chuckle when I think of owning BEETLEJUICE and CASPER on DVD or BD. Beetlejuice, while a good movie, is of particular interest to me because the priest that attempts to wed Beetlejuice and Lydia looks A LOT like the butler from the front cover of SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET: THE BEST OF OINGO BOINGO
And CASPER is almost like a spin-off of GHOSTBUSTERS...it features a cameo of Dan Aykroyd as Ray Stantz, all decked in uniform w/ proton pack & NEUTRONA(googlestopit!) blaster.
Ah,,,,so much shiny diamondness dangling affront my face, waiting for me to grab it...when one is low on money, it's easy to realize the shallowness of this way of living. Not to easy when you're able to bounce from spectacle to spectacle...a book titled SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE discusses this; and it was written in the '40's (say wha?)
THE HEART OF ART/THE ART OF HEART [music/movies]
my tops:
I bought Nirvana - Nevermind and Mayday Parade - A Lesson In Romantics late last month, as I reported a few or so days ago...Nevermind looks cool on my cd rack...A Lesson In Romantics is starting to annoy me. I keep feeling tempted to put it in my BD player and listen to it, overtly tolerating the opening "Jamie All Over", but finding myself trudging through "Black Cat" and just going through the motions with "When I Get Home You're So Dead" (track #3). Rrg...
It's been...THREE! days since I "settled" on a combination of items to order with GHOSTBUSTERS 1 & 2 BD set - I chose The Chain Gang Of 1974's DAYDREAM FOREVER and Slaves' THROUGH ART WE ARE EQUALS. I need to learn to keep my desire for art and my desire to go to Heaven separate. I don't spend enough time worshipping God. I don't love God, as far as I know...maybe I do, but if so, I'm not aware of any evidence of this. I feel indifferent I guess...idk...I don't understand God. I may not understand my mom, either, sometimes, but my lack of understanding my mom isn't any more than my lack of understanding myself - why this, why that? Nobody knows why anything. But I don't remember not knowing me. I may not know how to explain myself to people, I may not have all the bits and pieces analyzed for the president to look over, but I know me. I know me b/c I live inside me. I am inside me. To go outside of myself would require my body to function without a brain. I don't understand how other people can feel any good will come from encouraging me to "reach out and get to know more people" What people? People all have friends, they're own social group. What do I say to people I don't know? Nobody cares about me. Nobody wants to know how I feel. Where do I find people who might even pretend to? I go outside all the time. I walk to and from video stores and grocery stores, etc....I don't even see anybody walking 75%+ of the time. The fellow pedestrians that do exist from time to time...they don't mean anything to me. And I'm impatient. A growth in my connection to God will still take at least a couple years to develop, all the while this friend I've made hypothetically speaking may not even be a Christian...which could be a good thing if I succeed in steering him toward the light. But why would I do that? The only reason I'm trying to be a Christian is b/c I don't want to go to Hell.
But anyway. My time is vast and I've nothing to do with it except listen to music. The Christian Rock out there is mostly boring. Regular alternative and mainstream rock is also mostly boring, but I know my way around it better, and can find music that I like based on other music I already like, going to Amazon and finding recommendations, which admittedly are mostly useless, but sometimes I do find something worthwhile scouring through pages upon pages of 'em...
Anyway, I'm sick of THROUGH ART WE ARE EQUALS, and I'm getting there w/ DAYDREAM FOREVER. Rrrg......
And CASPER is almost like a spin-off of GHOSTBUSTERS...it features a cameo of Dan Aykroyd as Ray Stantz, all decked in uniform w/ proton pack & NEUTRONA(googlestopit!) blaster.
Ah,,,,so much shiny diamondness dangling affront my face, waiting for me to grab it...when one is low on money, it's easy to realize the shallowness of this way of living. Not to easy when you're able to bounce from spectacle to spectacle...a book titled SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE discusses this; and it was written in the '40's (say wha?)
THE HEART OF ART/THE ART OF HEART [music/movies]
my tops:
- American Football - s/t
- Chevelle - Vena Sera
- Phil Collins - Both Sides
- Genesis - s/t
- Genesis - Duke
- Genesis - Invisible Touch
- Genesis - Live/The Way We Walk Vol. 1: The Shorts
- Genesis - Live/The Way We Walk Vol. 2: The Longs
- Hidden In Plain View - Resolution
- Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows
- Idlewild - The Remote Part
- Oingo Boingo - Nothing To Fear
- Oingo Boingo - Skeletons In The Closet: The Best Of
- Trespassers William - Different Stars
- Trespassers William - Having
- Various - Teaching Mrs. Tingle OST
- Batman
- Bringing Out The Dead
- Clockers
- Forrest Gump
- Ghostbusters
- Ghostbusters II
- Gremlins
- Home Alone
- The Last Unicorn
- Less Than Zero
- My Girl (1991)
- Mysterious Skin
- Requiem For A Dream
- Taxi Driver (1976)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
I bought Nirvana - Nevermind and Mayday Parade - A Lesson In Romantics late last month, as I reported a few or so days ago...Nevermind looks cool on my cd rack...A Lesson In Romantics is starting to annoy me. I keep feeling tempted to put it in my BD player and listen to it, overtly tolerating the opening "Jamie All Over", but finding myself trudging through "Black Cat" and just going through the motions with "When I Get Home You're So Dead" (track #3). Rrg...
It's been...THREE! days since I "settled" on a combination of items to order with GHOSTBUSTERS 1 & 2 BD set - I chose The Chain Gang Of 1974's DAYDREAM FOREVER and Slaves' THROUGH ART WE ARE EQUALS. I need to learn to keep my desire for art and my desire to go to Heaven separate. I don't spend enough time worshipping God. I don't love God, as far as I know...maybe I do, but if so, I'm not aware of any evidence of this. I feel indifferent I guess...idk...I don't understand God. I may not understand my mom, either, sometimes, but my lack of understanding my mom isn't any more than my lack of understanding myself - why this, why that? Nobody knows why anything. But I don't remember not knowing me. I may not know how to explain myself to people, I may not have all the bits and pieces analyzed for the president to look over, but I know me. I know me b/c I live inside me. I am inside me. To go outside of myself would require my body to function without a brain. I don't understand how other people can feel any good will come from encouraging me to "reach out and get to know more people" What people? People all have friends, they're own social group. What do I say to people I don't know? Nobody cares about me. Nobody wants to know how I feel. Where do I find people who might even pretend to? I go outside all the time. I walk to and from video stores and grocery stores, etc....I don't even see anybody walking 75%+ of the time. The fellow pedestrians that do exist from time to time...they don't mean anything to me. And I'm impatient. A growth in my connection to God will still take at least a couple years to develop, all the while this friend I've made hypothetically speaking may not even be a Christian...which could be a good thing if I succeed in steering him toward the light. But why would I do that? The only reason I'm trying to be a Christian is b/c I don't want to go to Hell.
But anyway. My time is vast and I've nothing to do with it except listen to music. The Christian Rock out there is mostly boring. Regular alternative and mainstream rock is also mostly boring, but I know my way around it better, and can find music that I like based on other music I already like, going to Amazon and finding recommendations, which admittedly are mostly useless, but sometimes I do find something worthwhile scouring through pages upon pages of 'em...
Anyway, I'm sick of THROUGH ART WE ARE EQUALS, and I'm getting there w/ DAYDREAM FOREVER. Rrrg......
Saturday, August 2, 2014
yep. Just as lame as I remember...
Listening to Mayday Parade's "special edition" of MONSTERS IN THE CLOSET (2013/2014). Just as lame as I had remembered thinking it was. It's not horrible, just lacks the power of A LESSON IN ROMANTICS. ANYWHERE BUT HERE was also good, I got sick of the mechanical peppiness of it after awhile. ALIR is still good, I actually appreciate it more now than I did when I first bought it, one of my later day purchases from Pmac Music locally [Yo, Eric, schweeip! (that's the sound of spitting....not sure if that was clear...]
anyway.
"Black Cat" is a song I philosophically oppose. I am reminded of all the pettiness in this world that revolves around "HOLLYWOOD!", and people's uninformed world view that turns actors into celebrities. And the song revolves around the act of filmmaking...which is basically the song saying "here I am writing this song about you", because movies are part music, and the ones that aren't nobody watches anyway. From "Ghostbusters", to "Gone With The Wind" to "Avatar", music is THERE. Of course, that's also why I think "Your Song" by Elton John is downright preposterous. The entire song does not say a single thing. It just says he's written a song. WTH??? Nonetheless, it's Elton John's biggest hit, just as The Beatle's "Paperback Writer" is one of theirs'...yeah, I guess people would rather they write their own song (You can TRyyy!! AND FAIL!! Hahahah...."yeah, but still, it's nice to fantasize.....") than pay someone to actually write one for them...on the plus side, all these songs do have a melody that actually was written...and there's no "melody within the melody", although if there was, it would be what I call an extraordinarily interesting piece of music, unless it was a melody someone else wrote combined with an original melody...but I'm not morally opposed to remaking a song...just as long as the remake offers something the original did not.
But anyway...if "Black Cat" opened A LESSON IN ROMANTICS, I'd probably still not have heard the best songs on the album. "Jamie All Over" is classic emopop though, and just demands the listener to bear with it while "Black Cat" goes by...or you can skip the song, but I find that screws up the flow of the album. There's a reason why none of the songs on A LESSON IN ROMANTICS are Top 40 hits. The reason is this: the 11 songs that comprise A LESSON IN ROMANTICS are not individual pieces of songwriting - the entire album is one big song. If you skip to track #7 ("Walk On Water Or Drown"), the impact is severely lessoned and it gets old quick. Which I guess is OK if you want to wait and be bored while another semi-great song is finding its' way to you...
Anyway...my mom interrupted me during the writing of this song, so I'm not listening to the CD anymore. I shouldn't say "CD", it's an ALBUM. Music album is what it is. I was streaming it on Sony Music Unlimited. I got to hear Johnny Craig's new project Slaves' debut THROUGH ART WE ARE EQUALS, every bit as good if not better than Emarosa's self titled album from 2010. I don't appreciate his sacrilegious lyrics though. One of the song titles is "There Is Only One God And His Name Is Death". What the heck is that about? Maybe he's just trying to tease ppl, idk...there's this one Christian band called Oh, Sleeper who distinguish themselves by doing stuff like that, getting people to think deeper...
Anyway.
That's a sign of stupidity right? Well, BEH!
Yeah, that's right you better run, I showed you.! (sorry, I need to take my medicine...)
Um...damn it!
anyway.
"Black Cat" is a song I philosophically oppose. I am reminded of all the pettiness in this world that revolves around "HOLLYWOOD!", and people's uninformed world view that turns actors into celebrities. And the song revolves around the act of filmmaking...which is basically the song saying "here I am writing this song about you", because movies are part music, and the ones that aren't nobody watches anyway. From "Ghostbusters", to "Gone With The Wind" to "Avatar", music is THERE. Of course, that's also why I think "Your Song" by Elton John is downright preposterous. The entire song does not say a single thing. It just says he's written a song. WTH??? Nonetheless, it's Elton John's biggest hit, just as The Beatle's "Paperback Writer" is one of theirs'...yeah, I guess people would rather they write their own song (You can TRyyy!! AND FAIL!! Hahahah...."yeah, but still, it's nice to fantasize.....") than pay someone to actually write one for them...on the plus side, all these songs do have a melody that actually was written...and there's no "melody within the melody", although if there was, it would be what I call an extraordinarily interesting piece of music, unless it was a melody someone else wrote combined with an original melody...but I'm not morally opposed to remaking a song...just as long as the remake offers something the original did not.
But anyway...if "Black Cat" opened A LESSON IN ROMANTICS, I'd probably still not have heard the best songs on the album. "Jamie All Over" is classic emopop though, and just demands the listener to bear with it while "Black Cat" goes by...or you can skip the song, but I find that screws up the flow of the album. There's a reason why none of the songs on A LESSON IN ROMANTICS are Top 40 hits. The reason is this: the 11 songs that comprise A LESSON IN ROMANTICS are not individual pieces of songwriting - the entire album is one big song. If you skip to track #7 ("Walk On Water Or Drown"), the impact is severely lessoned and it gets old quick. Which I guess is OK if you want to wait and be bored while another semi-great song is finding its' way to you...
Anyway...my mom interrupted me during the writing of this song, so I'm not listening to the CD anymore. I shouldn't say "CD", it's an ALBUM. Music album is what it is. I was streaming it on Sony Music Unlimited. I got to hear Johnny Craig's new project Slaves' debut THROUGH ART WE ARE EQUALS, every bit as good if not better than Emarosa's self titled album from 2010. I don't appreciate his sacrilegious lyrics though. One of the song titles is "There Is Only One God And His Name Is Death". What the heck is that about? Maybe he's just trying to tease ppl, idk...there's this one Christian band called Oh, Sleeper who distinguish themselves by doing stuff like that, getting people to think deeper...
Anyway.
That's a sign of stupidity right? Well, BEH!
Yeah, that's right you better run, I showed you.! (sorry, I need to take my medicine...)
Um...damn it!
LOOK! ee!
Ye, look at these gnarly posters from yore!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aag/main?ie=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfilled=&isCBA=&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&orderID=&seller=A33V5U2WKFMVLU
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aag/main?ie=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfilled=&isCBA=&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&orderID=&seller=A33V5U2WKFMVLU
Friday, August 1, 2014
[insert title of a Pink Floyd song]
I got MO-NEY today. There's currently $91 in my account. Yay! Some of it I will need to spend soon-ish-y, but so far I've $48 to spend on something undetermined. Hmm.........for some crazy combination of reasons, I had figured I had just $15 to blow. Whow...hmm....
I think I finally settled on pre-ordering GHOSTBUSTERS 1 & 2 [the digibook blu ray pack]. I know it'll be cheaper at Target or Wal[k off a cliff]-Mart/Best[not]Buy, if the price at Amazon doesn't lower by $5 or $10, but oh well. I been shopping at Target as much as I possibly can and WalMart and BestBuy are, as many already know, tumors that need to go into remission or transform. I will not feed the fire any more than I absolutely have to.
Pre-ordered the GB1&2 set yesterday. It's still hanging in.
I was about to send $20 to my sis, for all she's done and probably will do for me in the future...not much, but she and I agree it's a level amount. I usually send it Dwolla, but Dwolla asked for a PIN. Huh? I vaugly remember setting up a pin. I don't remember what it was though.
Yeah...here I am thieves, come and get me! Uh...please Bank, keep my money safe (haha!).
I think that's all for now...
'til next time.
~JC
I think I finally settled on pre-ordering GHOSTBUSTERS 1 & 2 [the digibook blu ray pack]. I know it'll be cheaper at Target or Wal[k off a cliff]-Mart/Best[not]Buy, if the price at Amazon doesn't lower by $5 or $10, but oh well. I been shopping at Target as much as I possibly can and WalMart and BestBuy are, as many already know, tumors that need to go into remission or transform. I will not feed the fire any more than I absolutely have to.
Pre-ordered the GB1&2 set yesterday. It's still hanging in.
I was about to send $20 to my sis, for all she's done and probably will do for me in the future...not much, but she and I agree it's a level amount. I usually send it Dwolla, but Dwolla asked for a PIN. Huh? I vaugly remember setting up a pin. I don't remember what it was though.
Yeah...here I am thieves, come and get me! Uh...please Bank, keep my money safe (haha!).
I think that's all for now...
'til next time.
~JC
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