I remember not seeing Tron as a child, even when it came out on VHS and we had to rent a VCR with our videos because we lived in the dark ages. Even then I understood that most realities were not going to live up to my imagination of them. I'm too afraid to watch it now because there is no way it is not going to look hokey to my overstimulated post-Avatar-Ativan eye. I am filmically superstitious. The ideas of the thing in my head is more precious than whatever the reality is and why ruin a good thing?
Now that they're making a new Tron, I remain superstitious as ever with a 90% surety I will not be seeing this one as well. I am enjoying the supremely overreaching Disney cross-promotion though. I never understand how these loss leaders actually work. A $600 Threeasfour bag is not going to change my general disdain for The Wizards of Waverly Place. But this Tron Legacy/Opening Ceremony collaboration is what would happen if Zara decided to do Jil Sander and Pierre Hardy instead of Chloé and Céline. I kind of love it.
See? Good right? There are not enough neoprene dresses in the world, I say.
Sorry to keep going on about it, but I have seriously been experiencing the brain drains lately. The only thing I can focus on is a new collaboration that will be completed in several weeks if all goes according to plan. It is the only thing I can hunker down and sit for long periods thinking about. I hate being coy about it but I'm keepin' it like a secret until it's all done.
I tried watching Mesrine tonight but my brain kept saying this. I don't have any patience for subtítulos anymore. What is wrong with me? I'm not down for a French gangster flick? It's like I don't even recognize myself anymore.
M. Mesrine obviously can't compete.
I am however totally engrossed with a Bette Davis biography I picked up at the dollar store. FOR. A. DOLLAR. Did you know she went on a date with Henry Fonda before they both were famous? She kept his calling card because she was a New Yankee Hoarder. People used to have cards with just their name on them to give to people, like they were living in a civilization. Can you believe? Incredible.
This is a 8x10 of Joanie doctored by Bette among her personal papers that were donated to Boston University. Incredible.
It's sort of like that argument about having not seen Evil Dead II yet. If I just ruined the film for you, it wasn't on your actual to-do list. When were you going to get around to it? Next Halloween?
I wish the quality of this video were better because I am having a serious Jones for the full on Rolston color explosion right now. If you had a subscription to Us Magazine before it became Us Weekly you'd know what I was talking about.
I like how the 90s version of the 60s, the 90s version of Fosse, and the 90s version of a Minelli musical all reside in this video. Even the 90s version En Vogue resides within it because they've become the Lady Temptations with a bunch of new members I've never seen before and who are younger than the group itself. This is your OG En Vogue.
My feeling is, you can't be one of the Temps and not have at least been born in the 60s. I feel crazy for even having to make that statement. So to see some En Vogue member who probably wasn't even old enough to have been considered age appropriate for the Destiny's Child upheaval (circa 1999-2000) is distressing to my old oves (that's short for ovaries). It's like old balls but for ladies.
I like revisiting old movies with costumes from even older times. One of my favorite old movies doing an even older time is The Gene Krupa Story starring Sal Mineo and a strain of ganj that is apparently as desperate making as heroin. The costumes are laughably bad, extras look like they showed up after school and were escorted directly onto set. There is a lot of Mad Men season 1 style clothing boppin' around all that swing music. It's pretty great if you adjust your expections and boy did I. Give it a try. You might like it too.
Words cannot express how much I want to see this. But like everything I like, I have to shit on it first. I'm not sure if that's some pathological desire to keep others from wanting it or assuaging my own guilt about wanting it. Probably both!
I went and saw Easy A yesterday and this was one of the previews for it. I feel that some of my excitement stems from the fact that the internet doesn't understand statistical outliers. There are about 6 of my statistical outliers all crammed into this film. The internet did not present this to me in any form before seeing it on a 40 foot screen. It was so nice to be organically introduced to something in this age of everything-as-soon-as-it-is-available. Viral marketing be damned, I like an old school surprise and to be reminded that the internet doesn't know everything about me.
At any rate, in the movie Stanley Tucci essentially played Nigel as Emma Stone's dad. He's sadly fallen into some gay Hollywood sidekick mobius strip of casting. There were an awful lot of jokes about being a confused bisexual for a teen movie. None of them were funny. The whole movie wasn't funny? Emma Stone is better than that movie? Stanley Tucci is definitely better than this movie. Having the Vans Warped Tour redo all the songs from every John Hughes movie you ever loved does not get the beneficent blessing from Sir John Hughes up in heaven either. Having some generic indie folk duo that went to college with Zach Braff on your soundtrack doing a Thompson Twins cover is a total boner massacre to one of my formative filmic fantasies. All I'm left with is an angry inch. But back to my point, Stanley Tucci needs to broaden his range or he'll forever be known as the toothless George Sanders of the early 21st century. Think more Big Night and less, "I'm redoing my kitchen." Maybe it's not his fault? Wait, did you see The Lovely Bones? Nice wig dude.
Ok, I love Cher movies. Name one you don't love. And while I don't actively listen to Christina Aguilera or own any of her albums I do appreciate her pipes. I love that someone else is in charge of her make up application for a good solid 90 minutes too. They dial back the spackle to the "Genie in a Bottle" days. She looks a decade younger. Hello 1999!
If those three weren't enough reason to see this movie, Alan Cumming pops up reminding us of his Cabaret revival days too. Kristen Bell must have a voice double because there's no way anyone who saw this or this thought she could stand up to Xtina, three plus years at Tisch or not, bitch please. I love you Veronica! The whole thing is directed by an Antin that is neither a hair dresser nor a Pussycat Doll. I know it looks a little too McG-y but it is modern burlesque, it's supposed to look over the top, right? No one is doing fucked up retro perv like Fosse these days, everything looks like a plastic playboy pictoral so when there are a bunch of things that you love involved and only a couple that you actively hate, a girl has got to take what she can get.
I'll pretty much see any ballet film. Twice. But this is "hot garbage," as I used to say in 9th grade. I'll watch Center Stage for the umpteenth time on television with commercials before I ever see this crapsterpiece. Can we just get Natalie Portman married and preggers so she can get her full-time philanthropy on? Bitch cannot act! It is ok just to be pretty and marry well. It worked for Phoebe Cates.
In related news, the internet is full of mind altering substances I never knew I wanted.
This has to be some meta joke. Ian Curtis with Moira Shearer? Really? I am short circuiting over here from the power surge in my brain box. This is like heroin to me. It cannot miss a vein.
Did anyone see that awful Burroughs biopic with Courtney Love as his common-law wife he shot in the face? Even though this has the evolution of men aging instead of evolving happily through my bone zone, I still don't want to see it. David Strathairn is 60-plus with that incredible everlasting John Forsythe shock of hair that demands Brylcreem and I still want to hit it. Plus Jon Hamm being Don Draper being a beatnik lawyer and I still don't want to see it. Is Franco tanking my interest by trying to be everything to everyone?
I am pretty sure I've lost my ability to remain hopeful in that things that have a bunch of flavors I already like because they generally don't create a visual salad I want to eat (Poor metaphor!). The fact that James Franco won't get my ass in a seat but David Strathairn might, is indication enough that I need to start pledging to NPR. I am old balls over here.
The real point is that there was never going to be a better Ginsberg than David Cross in I'm Not There. I know that he's supposed to be pre-beard AG but you're seriously asking us to believe that the same guy who played James Dean in the TNT Original made for TV movie James Dean can also do Ginsberg?
Where's our Walter Matthau? James Franco is the best you could do? While I'm on the subject, can we give Seth Rogen a vacation? Talk about making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. That kid is a square peg being shoehorned into every round hole Hollywood has to offer (unintentional double entendre!). That kid is always going to be schlubby and perma-stoned. Why make him lose 60 lbs and take a normal human laugh class at the Santa Monica Learning Annex? Why take away his bankable traits just have him star in a summer action blockbuster? Then, simultaneously take a good looking actor and have them play a weird looking dude. God, talk about nerd fantasy fulfillment. It's like Kevin Smith popping up in all his movies for more than a cameo. Egalitarianism in Hollywood is a bummer. Now every leading man is an ugo. Congrats assholes.
Here's my million dollar Hollywood idea. If this ever should happen consider this shit copyrighted as of right now. John Slattery as Dashiell Hammett. Like a remake of Julia but from the dude's side. There aren't enough stories told from the dude's perspective. I kid, I kid, didn't y'all see Reds? Hollywood had its floating ribs removed years ago.
Are we excited about this? There's a lot of bedding. It sort of feels like a Pottery Barn commercial? I think owning ovaries obliges me to see this but I'm not counting down the days.
This Spike Jonze short film is also available for viewing. It's good like Where The Wild Things Are but I always feel duped by modern sentimentality. I like it as it's evoking a feeling but it's totally useless five minutes later. It tells me nothing about who I am and what I really want. It doesn't even open up the conversation about such things, there is nothing for my brain to chew on. Afterwards I feel like I ate the whole pint of ice cream just to soothe an imaginary hunger. I hate the empty calories of Generation X/Y films.
We're a generational sect of thumbsuckers who are perma-nostalgic. The problem with our nostalgia is that we're just nostalgic for other good times, we aren't nostalgic because we're living through a collective harsh like the Great Depression or Vietnam. The reason the 60s were so productive is due to all the depression babies hustling towards the future because their past sucked so hard. We're not running away from anything (except growing up) and still, couldn't possibly want more.
One could argue for Iraq: Part Deux as a modern equivalent to Vietnam but our generation's war is socioeconomically segregated. There is no mandatory conscription to level the field and politically motivate the kids. It affects a limited population that more than likely isn't stoked on seeing Spike Jonze and Sofia Coppola movies. There isn't a lot of Venn diagram crossover for Sofia Coppola film fans and soldiers in Kabul, I am assuming. She makes films for people who are just like her or people who aspire to be like her. Où est l'égalité, Sofia? I am your key demographic and I am turned off. If I am turned off, then who the hell is still turned on by this?
Which brings up yet another issue I have with Sofia's films. There's a very strong "beautiful sad girl" bent to all of them that is pretty boring. Still going strong with that theme four films in! Pretty (and most often rich) girls are unsatisfied too. How do we plumb those depths yet again? Why are women (possibly just daughters of famous out-to-pasture directors) given such praise for a continued parade of shallow moving magazine editorials? Why aren't we asking more of her, would we have treated Tarantino's fourth feature with such delicacy and reverence? I dunno, you can't have it both ways. You can't be down with the cause and critical of women at the same time. We all gotta like each other's garbage and support each other's bullshit, right? I mean, shit you've already got my eleven dollars Sofia, how about you put a little fucking stretch in your game?
