RIP Amy Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011)

Amy Winehouse's "Love is a Losing Game" had just started playing on my iPod, in a mix that I was preparing about my recent departure from Oxford, when I read that she was dead.  Her songs were musically very rich and often quite fun.  She blended many disparate different musical styles into a melange and fired it in the crucible of deep soul.  Plus she had a knack for an amusing turn of phrase.  

Public Service Announcement

Starting this afternoon, I will be without the Internet for several days while moving to Georgia.  Please wish us well and appeal to whatever Higher Power(s) you may recognize that my wife does not abandon me at an isolated rest stop along the way.

M

Link

Blogging Harry Potter: Harry Potter vs Jane Eyre (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part One)

I finally watched the penultimate chapter in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part One, (directed by David Yates).  It was a Harry Potter movie: there is some inept, magical bumbling, some righteous indignation, and the growing presence of evil.

The night before watching Deathly Hallows, I watched Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson, 1943), with Orson Wells and Joan Fontaine.  Harry has a few, superficial similarities to the plucky, gothic heroine: they both were orphans, brought up by cruel relatives, including an overweight, obnoxious cousin, and  both were forced to live under the stairs.



Jane Eyre and Harry Potter were also had submissive relationships; Jane had Rochester in what was a very strange relationship: The more he abused and humiliated her, the stronger her love for him grew.  Much the same with Harry and Professor Snape.  Alright, that last one was a stretch, but  all poor Alan Rickman (about $11 million poor) did in this film was walk dramatically, with his giant cape flowing behind him so I felt he needed a mention.

Not surprisingly, in Harry's darkest moments, when Ron deserts him and Hermiogne, he tries to bird dog Ron's girl.  This reveals a remarkable lack of character in the seriously flawed hero that Harry would be.  Harry Potter has always been just a boy, dependant on the people around him to protect him, shelter him and make his decisions for him.  He may have extreme powers, but he lacks the knowledge of them until he gets into a bad position.  Even magical screw-up Ron does more than Harry just by leaving the group when the going gets too rough for him.  All Harry does is whine, complain and so on.  At least Jane enjoyed her submission.

So far, in his story, Harry has been proven that it is better to be lucky instead of good; and at the end of Deathly Hallows, part One, that luck seems to have turned against him.

(aargh!  Too much work and not enough sleep;  I made a huge error when I published this yesterday, falsely naming Jane Eyre's beau Heathcliff.  Heathcliff,  of course is from Wuthering Heights, which I also watched prior to writing this post.)

Super 8

I am in the process of transitioning from one house to another, 800 miles away, so my output is going to be even more sporadic.

It is good that we saw  Super 8 last night.  Even there there were some little screw ups, the filmmakers did a fantastic job creating my life as a middle school student in 1979.  The fact that the action in takes place in south eastern Ohio, where my Dad was from, made it a bigger trip down memory lane.

They even recreated my fantasy first kiss; with a girl zombie.

As for the movie, it was pretty good even though a little predictable.  Think Stand by Me and ET had a baby.

Time to get to work.

Insomniac Theater Presents: What Amber Heard

Wednesday, June 1, 2011 01:31:27 PM


SPOILERS AHEAD!

Self Portrait of a three-year-old

Last night my three-year-old granddaughter and I recently watched 101 Dalmatians, after which she spent the next two hours running around the house yelling "15 puppies! 15 puppies!" It is amazing that she has so much energy after only three hours, 45 minutes sleep, two spoonfuls of strawberry yogurt, a package of cheese and crackers and half a gallon of milk, consumed in 8 ounce increments.

She sleeps in our bedroom and often slips into our bed and is prone to peer over my shoulder and ask, "What are you watching Pop-pop?" I have had to move my late night viewing to what used to be the office and is now discarded toy storage.

During a particularly sleepless night, I watched a double feature, 2006's All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Jonathan Levine's first feature length film as a director and veteren filmmaker John Carpenter's 2010 The Ward.  I didn't realize it but I was in for a night of Amber Heard, a new (to me) scream queen.

Amber Heard was Mandy Lane and Kristen.

Insomniac Theater Presents: Miike Madness

Monday, May 9, 2011 10:22:00 AM

Recently, a friend returned my DVD of 2001's twisted love story Audition.  Audition was my first exposure to the to the world of Takashi Miike; I had ordered it on Amazon (pre-release!) on impulse, based entirely on the blurbs. I watched it once, then put it in the cabinet with my rusty nails, hand grenades, dirty syringes of smack, Rush Limbaugh tirades, everything that tastes good and other unhealthy things and forgot about it.

I don't know what possessed my to take it out and share it with Steve; perhaps the perverse image of him watching it in his lovely, suburban living room replete with high def tv and the assorted bric-a-brac of normal family life contrasted with the white knuckle horror of the final act was too much for me to pass up. He returned it with clenched teeth and a “don't ever do that to me again” look on his face.

Updates from the cellar

Olivia and I just finished watching a colorized Night of the Living Dead; I guess she has gotten over our Takashi Miike fest (post coming soon).  NOLD is still the scariest movie I have ever seen.

Last week I watched Audition and Ichi the Killer and have never enjoyed being repulsed so much.  I also saw the latest Harry Potter film, but haven't found much to say about it.

Problems of Leisure

Last night I saw a commercial for X-Box  that used the Gang of Four song, "Natural's Not In It," from their 1979 debut album, Entertainment. The song is a fairly straightforward rant against consumerism, the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts, (Wikipedia). Even though the commercial only features the funky, grinding guitar break and no lyrics, which mock  society's attempt to find fulfillment by acquiring the newest pleasure toys.  By definition, this attempt to stay abreast is a never ending (or winnable) battle because the objective will always remain out of reach.

The problem of leisure

What to do for pleasure

Ideal love a new purchase

A market of the senses

Dream of the perfect life

Economic circumstances

Insomniac Theater Presents: Grindhouse and Exploitation Treasures

Tuesday, April 26, 2011 08:20:16 AM

This morning Gilligan at Retrospace, the best blog for looking at the world of my childhood, published another fantastic post called 1970s Grindhouse:  You Can't Go Home Again.  In between the newspaper ads for horror and sexploitation double and triple features, he speculates on the demise the genre and reasons why it has not experienced the renaissance many thought it would.  

“ So, with Machete, Piranha 3D, and Drive Angry tanking at the box office, can anyone out there deny that the public at large does not want this kind of smut? Don't blame Hollywood. When it's offered in the theaters, no one goes to see it.  It's a sad example of how you may want things to be as they were, but you can never go home again.”

Heavy Rotation on my iPod: The Who, Live at Leeds

I opened a door into my past when I wrote about The Kids are All Right, the 2010 tale of lesbian love, lust and infidelity in sunny California.  While Juliane Moore has herself quick one while she's away, I found myself missing the music I listened to and loved when I was a teen-ager