September is it?

It's proving very hard for me to believe this is September.  Being blasted by our second heat wave in a month has left me sweaty, uncomfortable and miserable with no where to run to and nothing to do.  Not having money is the worst thing in the world people... I'm not resourceful enough to live without it like some people manage.

So I'm unable to escape this bastard heat that is smothering everybody in New England.  At this point I'm begging for the hurricane that is currently near the Carolina coast to hit us.  A lot of rain would do a lot of good.  I might be able to sleep at night without being drenched in my own sticky sweat.  Oh how nice that would be to have.  Plus it'll let me bust out my jackets and hats which I think make me look my best, which is still pretty bad.

I'm done being a pirate.  It's bad to get games, movies and music that way.  If I'm not willing to pay for it I don't think I should be stealing it.  Not that I'm admitting to it of course!  I'm just saying that were I ever to have pirated pricey things I would now be reconsidering it.  So to speak.

It looks like we'll be moving again in a month.  Ashes was able to find a job babysitting some autistic kids that pays decently enough.  I'm of the opinion that if I actually move down to Massachusetts I'll have a much easier time getting a job.  Who really knows, though, since I've been at the job search for over half a year without any sliver of good luck.

COME ON YOU HURRICANE!  I need some relief from this torturous weak of heat.  I can't do anything when I feel so damn miserable.  What little ambition and energy I have is completely sucked out of me and I'm left a gross, smelly shell of a human spread out on a bed barely clinging to consciousness.  I've spent the day watching Golden Girls, one of Ashes' foolish baby shows, Hot Fuzz, and now some Japanese martial arts movie.  I played Uncharted Waters for a bit.  That's my entire day so far!  All my efforts at self improvement have flown out the window in these last few weeks.  Either a change of scenery or a change of weather will get me going I think.  I think.

I really need to do a post about Japanese movies because there's a certain over the top element in all of them that makes them fun to watch.  Even crap fests like Yo-Yo Girl Cop had a goofy x-factor that made it worth the watch.  I'm watching High-Kick-Girl right now and it's incredibly stupid but at the same time fun to watch.  That's the thing about J-movies.  If a movie shouldn't be taken too seriously than it presents itself as something that shouldn't be taken too seriously.  That's one of the things about American movies that I hate, a shitty movie taking itself too seriously.  It's painful to watch something like that but not when it comes to J-cinema.


Thank you for being a friend!  You're a pal and a confidant!

Golden Eyes Upon the Silver Screen

Recently I've had the opportunity to watch several movies for the first time. I'm not an avid movie goer to be honest. Even more odd is my addiction to pop culture which very often includes referencing movies. So it's with great pleasure that I indulge my movie senses on a regular basis. Surprisingly I usually have the patience to wait until movies are released onto DVD, but sometimes I actually go to the theater to catch it on the big screen.

Tuesday's are dollar movie night at the cheap seats in Bangor, you see. They manage to show some fairly recent movies. Let me ask you, who the hell wouldn't take advantage of this value if the chance was there and boredom was king? Us, actually. When we finally remember it's Tuesday before the final showing and there's something worth seeing then it's off to the scrubby little theater.

The other day we went to see a movie in the theater for the first time in several months. It was worth it too, because it was a movie that I had been wanting to see since it came out at Christmas. It didn't disappoint either. I'll talk about it right after this when I get to the shortlist of movies. Which brings me to...

SHORTLIST OF RECENT MOVIE VIEWINGS v1.0
So here's a list of a few movies I've watched lately. I'd say more here, but it's 1:30 in the morning and I find myself caring less and less for this post. SO here's a quick rundown of the movies.

Sherlock Holmes - This is the movie I was talking about in the last post. It's a pretty damn good movie. Guy Ritchie redeems himself to a level he hasn't been at since Snatch. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law make a great, if nontraditional, pairing as Holmes and Watson. Downey's performance is reminiscent of what Depp tried doing in Pirates of the Caribbean. If you're watching carefully (read: at all) and are a fan of 90s wrestling then you probably recognized Kurrgan as the giant Frenchman. Yup, obscure references booyah! This movie left the identity of Moriarty open for a big casting in the sequel while featuring him as a background player in the main events of the film. Great stuff.

Zombieland - This movie was a whole new kind of awesome. This was the best zombie movie since Shaun of the Dead with which it is unsurprisingly most often compared. All of the characters are extremely likable and have some real depth. They aren't just survivors, they're real people. Oh and Bill Murray cameo for the fucking win! That came out of nowhere and clobbered me in the head with awesomeness. It's quirky and original. Zombieland is as ultra satisfying as a movie can get.

I'm A Cyborg But That's Okay - Insane and bouncing off the wall is the best way to describe this Korean movie. It's directed by the same guy that was in charge of the classic Oldboy and exhibits the same sort of style to a degree. It's about a girl who thinks she's a cyborg and is sent to a mental institution. From there it gets really, really, really weird. In a good way. Sometimes it's hard to tell the reality from the mental delusions of the cyborg girl. Crazy stuff.

Ponyo - Okay I had actually seen this in the theater but that isn't going to stop me from talking about it here. It was just released on DVD a few weeks back and I picked it up first day. Why? It's a Hayao Miyazaki film is why! Everything that he attaches his name to is almost certainly pure gold. Ponyo was no different. The film is targeted towards a much younger audience then some of his other films. It's closer to Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro than it is to Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. That doesn't mean that the movie is immature or childish at all. Miyazaki shows the world through the eyes of a child and conveys that brilliantly. Ponyo is an innocent and beautiful movie. Spectacular visuals bombard your eyes throughout the film. It has all the trademarks of any Ghibli film and is accessible by any fan of his older movies.

I'm going to call it good there because I'm losing focus. Laters!

Pictures in Motion

A question arose lately in my life.  It's a question that has plagued me for years, and the answer is ever-changing.  That question is this, what is my favorite movie.  This is a hard question for somebody like me to answer.  I never have solid opinions on anything.  My ideas on a given topic change as rapidly as the weather, or as quickly as a slut gets love stains on her clothing/face.  I remember my early 2000s list included many films that were relatively new at that time.  Teenagers, can't see beyond their own present into the past.  Though few older films would make the list, I'm fairly confident that my list is no longer restricted just to recent movies.  I used to rate on the "quality" of the movie, however pointlessly I defined those guidelines.

I think I could easily define a list of my ten favorite movies.  I've stopped trying to judge movies by anything other than how much I enjoy them.  This list does include a large nostalgia factor in some of the movies.

Here's a list of my ten favorite movies of all time, because I think it's important that I get this out of my head. The list is in no particular order.  Ordering these movies would require me to rewatch every one of them and determine which one is marginally better than the other.  I think that I can watch these movies whenever and still get a lot of enjoyment out of the experience is all that matters.  So I don't have a favorite.  I do have a lot of candidiates, but no winner.

• Shaun of the Dead


• Fight Club


• Back to the Future


• Spirited Away


• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade


• Pulp Fiction


• The Last Samurai


• The Matrix


• American History X


• The Shawshank Redemption