C'est Non Un Blog

“Hey look, it’s that guy.”

“What guy?”

“You know…that guy. The one that used to show up here all the time.”

“Brad?”

“No, idiot…Ben. Remember him?”

“Was he the one with the goatee?”

“Still thinking Brad.”

“I swear he had a goatee!”

“He never had a…ugh. Listen that’s Ben. He used to post here fairly regularly. Remember that? He would tell us boring details of his sad little life or he would review movies that no one else would ever see. Ringing any bells?”

“Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaah. That loser. I remember him.

…

Didn’t he have a goatee?”

——

So I’m back, folks! It’s been a while, huh? I know, I know, I should have kept up contact with you, but honestly I’ve been really busy. Since the last guy left at work it has pretty much been just the four of us trying to hold down the store, which means six day weeks and lots of overtime. A 49 hour week just sucks ass, and when you factor into that number the amount of time it takes me to get to work (about an hour) and lunch breaks, that about a 64 hours a week devoted to Bose. Perhaps now you can understand why I wasn’t rushing to sit down and write for you people. I’m not your little helper monkey, dancing on the table! Dance monkey, DANCE!

Eh hem. Anyway, we finally hired a new full timer, which will help us out a lot, but he kind of scared the crap out of us last week. He had almost completed his training when all the sudden he has all of these problems at home. Some crack ho beat up his disable mom, the state took away his niece and nephew that he has custody over, and now the niece is saying that they beat her for no apparent reason. He thinks he needs to work closer to home so that he can get custody of the kids back and quits. Watch as our hearts drop as the first week of pure 40-hour scheduling flushes down the toilet. It’s gotten so bad that at times I forget what even one day off is like, much less two in a freakin’ row.

Luckily we were able to convince him that working at Bose would be a lot better than working at Home Depot, because even though we’re 25 minutes away you’re still getting paid like 6-7 bucks more an hour here. So he found a way to get child services to look after the kids five days a week, and even though that means we always have to work late, that’s better than always having to work overtime. Believe you me.

Other than these weird personal problems the new guy seems like he’ll be a good edition to the team, since he already seems really comfortable working with customers and he seems to pick up product info pretty quick, which is a definite plus with this job.

So what’s been up with me lately? We mostly when I’m not working I’m messing around with my Lifestyle system or with my iPod, trying to get the most out of those pricey, yet awesome, pieces of electronics. When I’m not watching a movie you can usually find me in my room transfering my CD collection into MP3 form. I’ve been at this for a while, and only just recently passed the halfway point on the 40GB hard drive. Sweet.

On my days off I either try to catch a new movie in the theater or hang out with Harry from home. The other week we happened to go to the Hooters in Albany, which was a pretty interesting experience. First time for me. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the quality of girl they had there. They were for the most part attractive, yes, but more like “I wonder what happened to that girl in High School” attractive than, I don’t know, strip club/swimsuit model attractive. (I honestly don’t have any idea what exactly I was expecting.) Anyway, it was still an interesting experience. We had fun, checked out the girls, and each downed a pitcher of beer. Brian was way used to doing that, I was doing all right, but god, was Harry piss ant drunk. Like it was his first time drunk. It was pretty funny. Man, what an amateur.

That’s all for now. I’ll try to update this a little more often that it has been lately, now that I’m working some regular hours again. Until next time, folks!

The other day it is dead as hell because it’s an hour until closing, so Jeremy and I are just doing what little people watching there is out the front window. All the sudden I hear Jeremy say, “That dude’s driving away with his coffee on his roof!”, and sure enough he was, so I ran up to the window to get a closer look. Just as I get to the window I see the guy swing his car around into the opposite direction lane, and as he completes the turn the coffee starts to tip over. It’s at that moment that we notice that the guy has a sun roof in his car. The coffee just goes tumbling in. But just as soon as we both shout, “That guy’s coffee just fell IN the car!” the guy actually CATCHES the coffee midair with his right hand while using the left to complete the turn. He then just drove off like normal. Jeremy and I were floored. We don’t know if he planned it that way or if he was just that good or what.

It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

A quick little word to you loyal readers before I got to work…it’s so hard to write now because of work. I mean really, after working for 8 hours and then driving an hour home, getting in at 8:15 only to eat something before you have to go to bed, do you really want to write for a blog? Well, you want to, but can you really? I’m too lazy. It’s hard man, very hard.

The other reason for not writing is that I’ve been too busy setting up all of my new things, which include hooking the Lifestyle 35 up in the basement (which sounds so fucking SWEET), hooking my system that was in the basement in my bedroom, and oh, hooking up the iPod that I got on a whim the other day for my car. I’m just the electronics junky lately, ain’t I?

Anyway, like I said I have to get ready to go to work now. Put on my pants and whatnot. Just kidding. My pants are on. But my shirt’s not. Ha! Gotcha!

Last Saturday I got probably the most wasted I’ve ever been, at least the most wasted I’ve been in a long, long time. I went to the birthday party of someone I barely know because she used to work at Bose (before I got there) and everyone at work wanted me to go. I didn’t really think I was going to go, and really didn’t make a decision until about two hours before closing that night. At that point I could really use a beer, and I figured why not? You can always leave if it’s not cool.

So I get there and basically know no one, except for the few people there I actually work with. You know what keeps you busy so you don’t have to talk when you don’t know what to say to someone you don’t even know? That’s right, alcohol. I got started on the fruity tropical drinks pretty early (the theme of the party was luau). So I did that, loosened myself up a little, had a little fun with all the other crazy people.

Then my friend pulls me and another one of my coworkers aside to the parked cars to go smoke some weed. So I smoke up, get pretty toasted, and I’m enjoying myself even more. We go chill out with everyone else for a while, and then go back to the parking area to smoke again.

This is where the trouble starts. I take some pretty big lungfuls and start the coughing, which right there is an instant indication that I’m going to get fucked tonight. Sure enough, within a half-hour reality has pretty much changed for me.

Now I’ve gotten drunk before, and I’ve gotten really high before, but I’ve never really done the two at the same time before. I’ve had like a beer while high, and a toke while drunk, but never anything substantial. Not like this. I’ve gone from completely functional to comatose in like thirty minutes.

Here’s what it was like: It was like every moment was like two steps forward and one step back, or like a record skipping. Ben time did not sync up with normal time in the slightest. An hour felt more like three hours. In the background was playing Andre 3000’s new OutKast disk, and each song felt like an epic jam. It took all I could muster to look normal. Not that I had to try hard, everyone was pretty fucked up that night. But the entire time I was doing this little twitchy dance thing, where if anyone was actually looking at my legs they would think I was on coke or something. I was pretty much dancing from foot to foot with like two little knee jerks in between. Eating was an event that took one’s utmost attention, because it took seemingly forever to chew something because of the effects of everything combined with the fact that my mouth was bone dry. Everything I had was put into not looking weird, not looking twitchy, and especially not choking, which would look REALLY bad. To put it bluntly, I was fucked up to the nth degree.

Then sometime after midnight, maybe around one, it all wears off. I feel (relatively) normal. So instead of going over to my boss’ place to sleep like I was suppose to, guess what I do? That’s right, I drive my ass home.

Reasons why this is not a good idea: A) the whole being really fucked up thing, B) the fact that it is already so late that by the time I got home I would just have to get ready to go back to work again, and C) the fact that I have NO idea where I am. I followed someone to the party, and although I was given easy directions back to the main road there was no way in my present state I was going to find my way back, in the pitch black night nonetheless. But I follow one of my coworkers out, and he gets me to where I need to be. But…

More reasons why this is not a good idea: D) it took me an hour to get home. When messed up, an hour long drive isn’t exactly the first thing you should be doing. E) on the way home, we come across an accident in the road. I swear to God, we get to this hill and you can see a line of emergency vehicles going up it. You couldn’t see what happened, but what you could see was a car on fire. If it wasn’t for my friend leading me home I would have been there all night. Scared the ever living crap out of me, which leads me to F) the fact that not one but two deer ran out in front of my car. If God was trying to tell me to be careful and that I shouldn’t be driving, boy was I listening.

So I get home around 2:30 and kind of half sleep, half feel like I have to vomit for the rest of the night. I swear to God, I felt like I was rolling around in a giant Bose speaker all night long. Either a 321 or a 301, I’m not sure. And at 7:30, after maybe 3 hours of sleep I have to get back up to go back to work.

I think the drive into work was probably more dangerous than the drive home that night, if only because I was having a hell of a time keeping my eyes open. But I got there, and felt duly like shit. But I wasn’t the only one. Everyone had gotten fucked up that night, and between the four of us I think we had like a total of 10 hours of sleep under our belts. But we made it through the day, thank God. I was still messed up for a while after that.

Which leads me to my next story, which is that that night, the night after the big party, Jesse had gone to the Phish concert. He knew that he wouldn’t be feeling good that next morning, so he and I traded shifts so that he wouldn’t have to come in early and I could get out early Wednesday and Thursday. A little back-story: just a few days earlier Jesse had put in his two weeks notice. Also, Jesse has a little problem with authority and/or doing anything to completion. So Wednesday afternoon he’s like “I got to get out of here. I’m gone,” and then starts doing the whole “it was nice working with you” thing. I’m like, “uh, OK” until it dawns on me that him leaving totally fucks up the deal we made. So I remind him of that and tell him to pretty much stop being a putz. But for the rest of the afternoon he keeps saying the same thing over and over, making like he’s out of there. I swore up to the moment I walked out that he was going to jet.

Sure enough, next morning he doesn’t show up. He fucks me out of my hours off that he promised me, he fucks my manager out of her day off, and he fucks Jeremy out of his vacation, because now he has to come in on the weekend. What a dick he is. On top of that he still has my Lady Snowblood DVD, which despite being one of my favorite movies right now is also one of the most expensive ones I own at 25 dollars. I’ve yet to see it back, which is really pissing me off. I’ll hound him to hell and back until I get that DVD back. What a bitch he is.

So now we really need people to work at Bose. With only four of us on staff now, I’m working a lot of 6 day weeks in the near future and a lot of 48 hour weeks. At least the overtime will be nice. I’m looking at making a lot of money in July, with overtime added to all the bonus’s we’re getting. Good thing, because it’s not like I’m spending any less money.

Speaking of which, my LS35 still hasn’t come in. I’m sad. I have fantasies of it, and so want to hook that badboy up. I’ve got a stack of CDs and DVDs I’m just dying to try out on it. Hopefully it will come Monday or Tuesday so that I can hook it up Wednesday on my day off. Man it is going to be so bitching.

I’ve become a music guru lately. 115 CDs I’ve already bought this year. Frighteningly, I’ve also bought almost as many DVDs. But CDs are the big thing now. Armed with my Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums issue and some great deals at BMG I now have something like 100 out of the 500. Man I love music. Personal favorites right now are the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. I love that punk, underground, garage band type sound. Talking Heads are also a current favorite.

None of that compares to getting the new Sasha CD today though. I didn’t think much about it when I got it. For the most part dance music pretty much sucks now, and nothing really sounds as cool as all the trance and house stuff I listened to when I started to get into it around 2000. So I preordered the new Sasha disk not because I was really looking forward to it, but because it was from Global Underground and the first Sasha mix in like four years. Big mistake. By about half way through the second song I turned the volume way up, turned the lights out and just melted into the music. AMAZING. Everything I first fell in love with is in this disk. This is just about the most perfect DJ mix album ever made. That’s mainly because it isn’t really a DJ mix, but a DJ mix REmix album. He took apart every track on the album and reconstructed it, and then melted everything together seamlessly. It’s like floating on clouds with waves of sound washing over you. Just amazing. Sasha, where the hell have you been all of these years?

Just to give you an idea of what Sasha means to the world of dance music, back in the sixties in London you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing “Clapton is God” written on a wall. In the mid-nineties you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing “Sasha is God” written everywhere.

And he is.

None of you know what I’m talking about, but have you noticed how opening a toy nowadays automatically qualifies you for a job of breaking into Fort Knox? I mean, I swear to God it is next to impossible to open these damn things. I guess the toy makers figure that anyone that would buy what I buy is just going to keep it in the box anyway to accrue value, so you might as well make sure it has a snug fit.

First you have got to get the inner layer out of the box. That in itself can sometime be a chore. Then you have to get a million of these little metal twist-tie thingies off, which are usually covered over with tape that has the most amazing adhesive in the world, in that it does not want to let go of cardboard. Once you get all of that done you just have to pull the toy out of its cocoon, which is much easier said than done. Those twist-tie things are all curled up because of the endless twirling they had to endure and thus won’t fit through the tiny cardboard holes they stick through.

Once you actually have the toy in your hands the next tricky task at hand is to make the damn thing stand up. For some reason these things were designed with the wonkiest internal physics and the bottom of their feet look like they were sanded flat by a drunk, seasick sailor. If you actually get them to stand up without the slightest tremor in the earth tipping it over, give yourself a hand because you’ve done the impossible.

The actual toys in question are the new Batman line designed by Jim Lee’s Hush drawings. Man, they are frickin’ sweet. Finally a cool Batman toy I can call my own. I’ve waited years for this thing to come out. He looks a lot like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns Batman, only not as pudgy. This is one of the final pieces of my holy grail of toys (which the ones I have so far are: Batman, Alien, Predator, Alien Queen, Spike and Faye from Bebop, Homer Simpson, and Marv from Sin City.)

Series One came with Batman, Joker, Poison Ivy, Huntress, and Hush, who I know nothing about, but he still looks pretty cool, so I got him with the rest of the set with no regrets. All the sculpts are awesome. I’m actually now thinking of getting the Series Two now because they look so cool (I think that set has Superman, Nightwing, Catwoman (who I MUST have) the Riddler and some fifth figure that I haven’t figured out yet (probably Robin)).

Granted I have nowhere to put these, I have The Bride and Go-Go Kill Bill figures coming and I’m considering getting a shit load of Alien vs. Predator toys, just because you know, they’re made by MacFarlane Toys and they are FRICKIN’ ALIEN VS. PREDATOR. I already have an Alien and a Predator, plus the Alien Queen, but goddamn it why not have more? It would be so cool to just have an army of them running around. They make enough of them too. At least 18 now by my count. Isn’t that insane? What the hell is going on over at MacFarlane Toys? There is going to be a Hicks toy too. Why no Ripley, I have no idea. Do I need these new toys? No. Can I afford these new toys? No. Am I going to break down and buy them at the last minute? Probably. I’m a very sad man.

——

In more serious news, going to Dan’s wake was a surreal experience. This was the first wake I’ve been to where I wasn’t direct family, the first wake I’ve gone to of a friend of mine and also the first wake I’ve been to of someone younger than me. The whole thing just freaked me out, not in the usual way but in a very subconscious and surreal way. Every once and a while I’ll notice it bothering me, but I can never pinpoint why. It just comes up at weird times.

I totally didn’t recognize Ben Koziol at the wake. He’s taller now, much older looking and his hairline is starting to recede. The voice is still the same. Man, I haven’t seen him in a long time. Ms. Koziol didn’t recognize me, which is to be expected I guess, but she still seemed a little frazzled. Understandably though.

——

I did some killer sales today. I’m pretty proud of myself.

We really need new employees at Bose though. Another full timer just put in his two weeks. After he’s gone we’ll only have four staff members, three management and me. Somehow in three months I’ve gone from a part timer to a store veteran. It’s insane.

So if you need a job, please let me know. We pay well.

For the first time I’m working seven days in a row, starting today. This is not going to be fun. On the plus side, now that Jesse is leaving soon I’ll be able to work nine days in a row. Yea!

——

Bose uses this check checking agency (honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to put it) that will run a background check on a check and then insure it so that Bose can cash it immediately instead of waiting for it to clear. This agency sucks though. They won’t clear anyone’s freakin’ check.

The reason I’m telling you this is because the other day I got a call at work telling me that I had a Code 3 on my check for the Lifestyle 35 and they wouldn’t clear it. They wanted to know what I wanted to do. I called up the agency at ask why the check wouldn’t clear, because I knew that I had enough money because I had just made a big deposit in my account. Well they couldn’t tell me shit about shit, simply stating that it was one of four reasons that it didn’t clear. Well geez, if I had to guess why it didn’t clear those are probably the first four reasons I would think up. That didn’t tell me shit. The lady I was talking to was useless too, so my phone call to them was pretty much pointless.

I pretty much just called the guy back and told him to hold onto the check until it cleared on its own. I’m not too disappointed about this because I was pretty sure they were just going to do this on their own anyway, but damn was it annoying that it all went down that way. I mean, I want my Lifestyle now! I’m getting scared; I’m actually starting to have fantasies about speaker placement now.

The Samurai Trilogy (I: Musashi Miyamoto, II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple, III: Duel at Ganryu Island)

(A-)

The interesting thing about this series is that it is less about great action sequences (although it does have them) than about a man’s spiritual journey. In the first film an angry brute of a youth (played by Mifune) joins the local civil war in the hopes of becoming a samurai, but his very nature alienates him from his village until they track him down like an animal. He’s all brawn and no soul, driven to be a samurai but unaware of what that even means. A priest finally takes pity on him and starts him on his way to training to being a samurai by pretty much locking him away in a tower with a bunch of books.

In the second film he comes out of his training as Musashi Miyamoto, but he still is having trouble curbing his impulses. In this film he must learn that true strength doesn’t come from muscles but by contemplation and restraint. This is definitely the most violent of the three films, in that it starts with a fight against a samurai who uses a chain and sickle and ends with Musashi fighting off 80 samurai. What’s interesting about his journey is that as he becomes more stoic the people he is fighting become more like bandits, echoes his former life.

In the final film Musashi is trying to complete his voyage into the life of a samurai, and actually rejects violence to the point of only wanting to be a farmer, a complete turn around from the teen of the first film. Violence comes to him though when bandits raid the village, and the film ends with a dual with a rival samurai who wants nothing other than to say he beat the great Musashi. The final dual is fantastic, easily the best part of the trilogy. Here Musashi fights an equal in skill, and it is only the spiritual transformation that he has made over the course of the three films that makes him triumphant in the end.

The films aren’t all fighting though. Most of the trilogy is actually an epic composed of several well drawn characters, most important of them being the two caught in the love triangle of sorts, the two women fighting for Musashi’s affections. One, Akemi, lusts after him since she sees him as the only real man around her who hasn’t taken advantage of her, and the other, poor Otsu, being the true love of Musashi’s life but unable to partake in his life because of his dedication to the life of the samurai. It’s great stuff, and very entertaining to watch.

——Mannaja: A Man Called Blade——

(B)

This is a decent spaghetti Western, if an uninspired one. The film is pretty good, but it doesn’t really have any memorable scenes to differentiate it from any of the other westerns of the same type. Mannaja is an expert with the hatchet and tries to take out a greedy owner of a silver mine and his even greedier right hand man by playing both sides against the middle, which ultimately blows up in his face. There’s a cool scene in the beginning where he takes down a man with his hatchet in a swamp and another scene later on where he is tortured by being buried up to his head with matches holding his eyes open at noon to burn out his eyes, but otherwise this is pretty standard stuff.

——Troy——

(B-)

While having some pretty impressive set pieces this film is pretty much a “so what” kind of movie, with frequent bad acting coming from the stellar cast brought on from an over dramatic script. Every line is built up like a tagline to put in the trailer, which distracts from the real drama at hand which should have been taken verbatim from Homer. Unsurprisingly the movie is at its best the closer it sticks to the Illiad. When it goes off into original screenplay land, like the scenes where the silent slave girl from Homer becomes a major character, the film suffers. It could have been really good (the cast was definitely good enough) but as is it is just bland summer filler with a few good scenes to keep you happy.

——Zatoichi——

(A)

Any samurai picture that ends in a big Shinto tap dance number has got something special going for it, and Zatoichi is one of those films. It has its own style that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and is extremely entertaining, with serious subplots converging with absurd situations in a completely seamless manner. Zatoichi is an old blind wandering masseur, who also just happens to be an expert swordsman. He comes in contact with a gambling addict and two geisha siblings out to get revenge and somehow through all of their stories manages to find the mysterious gang boss of the town. Blood falls like rain and there is violence galore all throughout. Plus that Shinto tap dance number I mentioned above. Definitely worth seeing this one.

——Shrek 2——

(A-)

This is one of those rare sequels that manages to be just as entertaining as the first, even if it does take a little while to get going. The opening feels a little bit like a stalled car as the film tries to refresh your memory as to what happened in the last movie while moving the plot of this film along at the same time. It’s not until Puss in Boots shows up that the movie really takes off. But when it takes off, oh does it go. The movie is wall to wall funny with plenty of wry social and cultural commentary thrown in with the fart jokes. The use of pop culture songs is even better integrated into the story of the film than the last one was. My personal favorite character was the fairy godmother, gleefully twisting the fairy tale stereotypes into a modern business sense and an overprotectiveness of her son, Prince Charming. Good stuff.

——The General——

(A-)

While this Buster Keaton comedy did have a wealth of excellent sight gags it did feel way too long, which is a quality that especially in a silent comedy doesn’t bode well for the overall impression of the film. This movie feels as long as the Civil War. Thankfully it’s pretty funny, but I feel like most of the beginning could have been cut to make more room for that funny.

——Casualties of War——

(B)

I don’t really feel like this movie breaks any new ground in the Vietnam War film genre, but with that said it is a pretty gripping story told well enough about Sean Penn going crazy in the bush and abducting a woman from her home to rape her. My one fault with the film lies in the fact that it too often sympathizes with Michael J. Fox’s character’s plight and doesn’t spend enough time dissecting what would drive an otherwise normal guy to commit such atrocities. The behavior is explained without any real understanding, which is a shame because otherwise a great movie could have been made here.

——Run Man Run——

(A)

This is easily one of the best spaghetti Westerns I’ve seen and definitely the funniest. The film starts out with an average Joe grifter sneaking into a house to steal some food. He manages to steal some food right off the dinning room table without anyone knowing, and confidently walks out the front door only to walk right into the middle of a firing squad execution. That’s pretty much the tone of the whole film, as the main character always happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with hilarious and sometimes gruesome results. At stake are the Mexican revolution and a king’s ransom of gold. I won’t tell you any more than that because you really should see this movie for yourself. It’s hilarious and a damn good Western.

——Two Champions of Death——

(B-)

A member of the Shaolin school goes out to get revenge for the killing of a student by the Wu-Tang school. The dastardly Wu-Tang school then comes back and plays cheap, trying to eradicate the Shaolin school. Fortunately for the Shaolin guy, he meets another Shaolin guy and they go out playing fair and kill a whole bunch of Wu-Tang guys (hence the two champions of death), which only pisses the Wu-Tang off more. They finally pull in all of these kung fu masters to play cheap and everyone dies. The action is pretty good, but not excellent. An average Chang Cheh Shaw Brothers flick.

——Challenge of the Masters——

(B+)

This is a pretty decent Gordon Liu flick where the good guy actually learns restraint and doesn’t kill the bad guy, but instead offers mercy and “wins over their heart”. This movie also has the coolest game ever, which is to stick these batons in firecrackers, shoot them up in the air, and then have teams of the kung fu schools fight over who can get the most batons when they fall to the ground. Not really a film I’d recommend to anyone to watch, but a quality flick nonetheless.

——The Flying Guillotine——

(D)

Nowhere near as cool as Master of the Flying Guillotine, instead this flick focuses on a group of assassins trained with the Flying Guillotine to kill for the Manchus. One of the assassins doesn’t like his job and splits, causing the rest of them to come after him. The fights are weak, the story lame, and the film seems to drag on and on despite the fact that it has flying guillotines. Stay away from this one.

——The Last Samurai——

(B+)

Ken Wantanabe=awesome. Well, actually all of the Japanese cast is awesome. Tom Cruise=sucks. Well, actually all of the American cast sucks. That’s pretty true for the rest of the movie too. Everything Japanese about it is fucking sweet, every American cliché that sneaks in weakens the film. The ending makes me want to tear my hair out, but God bless that ninja fight. God bless you ninja bastards.

——The Day After Tomorrow——

(B+)

OK, I realize that letter grade is a little high. First of all, drop that grade down a letter if you are watching it on video, and drop it once for every time you see it more than the first one. Drop it down two grades if you don’t like disaster flicks.

There, that said, I enjoyed myself immensely. I was able to ignore the huge gaps in logic, the bad acting, and the fact that the plot seems eerily similar to Independence Day (substitute aliens for freak weather and its pretty much the same script) and was able to enjoy a pretty cool little disaster flick. The tornadoes in Cali were bitchin’ and the super storm in NYC was pretty cool too. I think mostly I liked the movie because it made me think about how bitchin’ (in the “please don’t ever let that ever happen” kind of way) a super storm of that magnitude would really be. What I didn’t like was the fact that in a movie called “The Day After Tomorrow” it never really dealt with what would happen to everyone after the storm had died down. I mean, when I first saw the trailer and saw those people snowshoeing into NYC I thought the movie would be dealing with people trying to survive in the second Ice Age. Nope, none of that. There should seriously be a sequel to this movie, “The Week After Tomorrow”.

——Compañeros——

(A-)

Franco Nero is a Swedish arms dealer, Tomas Millan is a Mexican bandit, and Jack Palance is a marijuana-crazed sadist with only one hand, obsessed with his falcon and with killing Nero (who crucified Palance so that the only way he could get down was to have that pet falcon eat his hand)(yeah, you read all of that right). Millan and Nero are the unlikely duo who “team up” to find hidden gold by kidnapping a revolutionary professor. A little slow in a few parts, but otherwise this is a fantastic spaghetti western, among the best. Must see.

——Myra Breckinridge——

(F)

Very possibly the worst movie ever made. SOOO BAD. Raquel Welch plays a transsexual trying to change the world by raping being a woman who rapes a man. Other than that scene, which is pretty surreal in its own right, the rest of the movie is horrible. Bad acting. Bad script that becomes aimless at quite a few points. Pointless direction. So incredibly crappy.

——Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban——

(A-)

This is easily the best movie of the year so far (except for Kill Bill Vol. 2, but we’ll just ignore that for a moment for the sake of argument), which is saying a lot considering how much I truly hated Chris Columbus’s dreadful first two installments of the series. This movie is what the first two should have been. No longer does the film seem like a book on tape; this is a real movie. The writing is tight and focused, the direction is colorful, darker and inspired, and the young actors have finally grown into their characters. They can act, who knew? The actor who plays Harry has especially grown. In the first two films he seemed lost and confused. In this movie he IS Harry, angry teenager incarnate.

Instead of making every amazing thing into a spectacle like Chris Columbus did, Alfonso Cuarón subdues that spectacle, which of course makes everything even more amazing. It definitely helps anyway. This movie is just about perfect. If it weren’t for the seemingly rushed ending this movie would get a perfect A.

——The Cooler——

(A-)

This is a great little movie from last year with some great character work, both on the side of the writer and on the sides of the amazing actors involved. William H. Macy is a man so unlucky that he can actually cool down a hot table just by walking by it. He’s employed by Baldwin, who is a ruthless old school Vegas man who will do just about anything to keep control of his casino from the corporate bigwigs who want to Disneyfy it like the rest of the new Vegas. He has one problem though, Macy has actually found love, which has totally swung his luck around. The actress who plays the cocktail waitress he falls in love with is just brilliant, as is the rest of the cast, but her performance in particular stood out for me. A very good love story, recommended.

——In America——

(A)

This is one of those movies that should be so sentimental that it is horrible, but thankfully it’s one of those very few films that manages to avoid that and just be damn good. I’m so sorry I missed this movie last year when it was in theaters, because it’s really damn good. The story revolves around an Irish immigrant family that moves to NYC after the death of their toddler son. Most of the story should be hokey, but damn it if the two young actresses that play the daughters aren’t just brilliant actors, and damn charming ones at that. Their innocent point of view helps keep what could be a really depressing movie quite light and joyful. This is a great, great movie, one of the best movies that came out last year. Highly Recommended.

——Pickup on South Street——

(A)

There is a certain authenticity to old pulp film noir movies that I find mostly lacking in the films I’ve seen, which is really disappointing to me because I really want to love noir. It was with this movie that I found out what exactly that authenticity is that I usually find lacking. Just about all noir is plot driven, but this film is all about the characters, about making them as gritty and as real as possible. And it works. Not only does the film have all of the stylized noir elements that I love, but the characters and the actors chosen to play them are so spot on that the two elements fit together seamlessly. What a great movie. Highly recommended.

——Tokyo Eyes——

(B-)

This movie is only really interesting in that it is a Japanese movie in Japan with all Japanese actors, and yet it is directed by a Frenchman. You can kind of tell too, in that there are all of these little touches and odes to French cinema, things you wouldn’t find uncommon in a Breathless or Band of Outsiders. Things like how the camera lingers as teens flirt and talk about nothing at all, or how two lovers run up and down a train platform. Things like that.

The story is about a killer who doesn’t actually kill anyone, or even shoot them for that matter. When he finds someone being rude or disrespectful he puts on a fake pair of glasses and acts like he is going to shoot them and then intentionally misses so that they later become better people (a lot like that scene in Fight Club). A girl becomes intrigued by him and they slowly fall in love. Not a movie that’s anything special, but it’s pretty interesting and worth your time if ever you find it.

——Woyzeck——

(B-)

The first two thirds of this movie are kind of crappy, in that half of the time I really had no idea what exactly was going on or why everyone was acting so weird. The story is about a soldier who is being experimented on and tormented by his superiors so that he’ll slowly go crazy so that they can observe the results. Meanwhile Woyzeck’s wife is being unfaithful to him. That’s the part of the story that makes this movie not a total waste of time, since when Woyzeck finds out, that’s when the movie really picks up. Kinski’s acting in this section is just spectacular, as his madness turns into homicidal rage.

But the truly standout scene of the movie is the scene where Woyzeck kills his wife. Herzog filled the sequence in one take and in slow motion, and I’ll be damned if Kinski doesn’t give the most powerful performance of any actor I’ve ever seen here. The number of real emotions that pass across his face is just amazing. Not surprisingly it says in the booklet that came with the DVD that Kinski was never the same after filming this movie. He was so into the character that he actually went mad (or at least madder than he already was). And it shows. The end sequence is extremely startling, and on its own it gets an A+.

——Fathom——

(C-)

This Raquel Welch movie is horrible, but in a very hilarious “Am I suppose to believe this shit?” sort of way. Welch plays a sky-diving dental assistant (I’m sure this must have made more sense back in the sixties) who gets entangled in a search for a rare Chinese artifact by three different groups, none of whom are who they seem to be. Meanwhile Raquel Welch changes outfits every five minutes or so, sometimes even midway through a conversation. Nowhere is it explained where she gets all of her clothes. This is such a goofy spy spoof (or…something) that I really don’t know which bizarre parts to try and explain to you. Instead you should just see the madness for yourself.

——City of God——

(A)

This is another one of the best films of last year. Just amazing. Everything about this movie is good; the writing, the cinematography, the direction, the acting…everything. I love how the story is told through this non-linear, quick chapter-like flashback sort of way, where whenever a new character or situation is introduced a title comes up on screen and the scene zooms back in time to show how things got to where they are now. The direction is just kinetic and keeps your attention every second of the film. It’s like if a Brazilian Tarantino made the Godfather, just brilliant entertaining and gripping stuff.

——The Chronicles of Riddick——

(D)

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking going to see this. Within like 30 minutes I was ready to get up and leave. The only thing that kept me in my seat was the knowledge that I stupidly paid 7.25 to see the damn thing. The movie just contradicts itself time and time again in favor of a “good” action sequence. For instance, let me ask the following questions: On a planet with no vegetation whatsoever, covered with molten rock, where does the fresh air come from? When it has already been established that on this planet that when the sun comes up the temperature hits 700 degrees (a point only made more clear by the wall of fire that follows the sun’s rays), why is it that if your name is Riddick you can just stand in the shade and you’ll be OK? Stupid shit like that, all the frickin’ time. The costumes are beyond stupid, the acting is horrendous, and the script was under thought out by some teenage boy type mind. Instead of watching Vin Diesel pummel someone, you’ll probably be like me and just think, “What the hell is Judy Dench doing in this movie?”

——Robocop——

(A)

Greatest…frickin…movie…ever. “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.” God bless you, ultra-violent acutely aware social satire master Paul Verhoven.

Yeah, I know, I haven’t been posting again. You know how it goes. You work. You come home. You watch crappy summer reality TV programming, because it’s new. You try to take a chunk out of the giant stack of unwatched DVDs you have sitting next to your computer, all the while making an even larger number of reviews you have to write (the Monday Movie Review is coming back soon, I promise!). Time to fill you in on what’s up in my world though.

I made a new purchase. Wait, I should clarify. I make a new frickin’ purchase every day. Take today for instance. I bought Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and got 9 new BMG CDs in the mail. This is different though. This is hardcore spending. Hopefully it will actually slow down my spending to a responsible degree too, in a great act of irony.

Folks, I give you the Lifestyle 35:

http://www.bose.com/controller;jsessionid=AOnAMssuQB1Y2zVWcW3DS470Db2jkVlaeGCK9U9hHwGzS2ELiXjh!-435246463?event=VIEW_PRODUCT_PAGE_EVENT&product=ls35_dvd_index&linksource=dropdown_txt_ls35&pageName=/index_2.jsp

I wasn’t going to buy anything off of the Spring Employee Sale because I figured I couldn’t really afford anything on there anyway. But then I really wanted 5.1 sound. The Freestyle is nice, but it’s not 5.1. And our systems kick ass. I should know, I try to sell them everyday. So then one day I notice the price drop on the Lifestyle 18 at the same time I look at our 18 Months financing sign. I do a little math and figure out that for 80 bucks a month I could have a LS18.

So I ask my coworkers, “Should I get a LS18?” Of course they say yes, but with a little hesitation, knowing I have like no money saved up. Then my manager mentions the fact that I could get the LS35 for LESS money than the LS18 with the employee sale. The Employee price is actually more than half what the store price is. The only thing: I can’t use my financing. At this point I’m sold though. I HAVE to have it. I go to my parents with a brilliant scheme. I pay for half of it up front, borrow the other half from my folks and pay them back in installments. Amazingly it goes over pretty well. Saturday I buy my system.

This thing is KICK ASS. I can’t wait to get it in the mail (I order it from corporate, they ship it when the check clears). What about the Freestyle, you say? The sweetest computer speakers you ever did see. My house is going to be kicking.

——

In sadder news, my mom told me that Dan Koziol died in a car crash Sunday night. He was driving with a guy who was loaded and driving 80 mph. He crashed the car, they died on impact, and their bodies were burned up in the fire. Dan was a cool guy. We’re going to miss him.

Sorry about the lack of excitement over here at C’est Non Un Blog. I’ve really been slacking off lately in the posting department. It’s not easy though when you’re not even in the house most of five days out of the week.

The other day when I was driving home I stopped at the intersection in front of Bennington College and waited for some cars to pass. Coming out of Bennington College were a guy and girl on bikes. So after all of the traffic passes the two bikers and myself pass the road.

Just as I’m about all the way across the street I just take a glance to my side to see the guy totally completely flip the rear end of his bike over his head not five feet away from me. He must have hit a rock or a pothole or something. The guy rolls into the ditch and jumps up quickly, doing the whole brushing the pain off thing you do when you fall off your bike. He didn’t look hurt at all. Honestly it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I almost drove my car off the road, I was laughing so hard. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I had a dream last night that I was driving around in a vending machine. Analyze THAT Freud!

There have been some freak thunderstorms rolling around here lately. Much worse than anything I can remember (more proof of global warming!). Sunday I woke up around 2AM and it was BAD outside. I seriously thought the house was going to get hit. Of course it didn’t help that I had been watching Season Four of the Sopranos earlier that day, and had been having a Sopranos related dream when I woke up. Thinking you are going to get wacked with lightning is not a pleasant feeling, I tell you what.

This is the last week my friend Dave is going to be working at Bose, which really sucks because he’s seriously my best friend there. He’s awesome. It’s going to suck working without him. Hopefully we’ll hang out outside of work after he’s done here, and not just never see each other again.

What’s really going to suck is if another person quits like he is saying he’s going to. Then there would only be four of us working, which means no vacation time EVER. That would just blow. We better get hiring. It’s tough though, because there are like no appropriate applicants in the Manchester area. You either move away, are rich, or are a moron.

I’m starting to get that feeling now. That feeling that when I finally get my credit card bill I’m going to shit a brick. Can I really be blamed for loving music and movies though? Can I?

Why don’t I have a helper monkey? I mean, really!

On any given day, it will probably be true that my feet really hurt.

Should I be bothered by the fact that in the past week I’ve emailed maybe half of all the people I know and I haven’t gotten a single email back? Just wondering what’s going on…