Yakuza's Law

Movie was made in the 60's. Trailer is OUT OF FUCKING CONTROL.

The Calamari Wrestler

From the same director of Executive Koala. This is the touching story of a wrestling giant squid.

Executive Koala

"Tamura is an average divorced salaryman in Japan - and also a man-sized, suit-and-tie wearing, upright-walking koala bear. Though not a human being, he's a successful businessman with ventures overseas who refuses to play office politics. He hopes to marry his girlfriend, Yoko, and raise a child. His visions are of an ordinary life with an ordinary company until his ordinary retirement. But when his girlfriend turns up dead one morning, the police finger the Executive Koala as their prime suspect. Temura runs from Detective Ono and fights to prove his innocence. Tamura wants to know why there are gaps in his memory. Is he a murderer? Does he have multiple personalities? And what does his bartender (the frog) and his boss (the rabbit) know about the two-hundred year old terrifying secret behind the EXECUTIVE KOALA?"

Salvador Dali, Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney

The MoMA has an exhibition on view, Dali: Painting and Film, which is more entertaining than you'd expect.

I've never really been that taken by Dali's paintings although I can most certainly appreciate surrealist ideas and work. The causes for my disinterest in his paintings are unknown. The possibilities for this include overexposure, general distaste in the way the paintings look or the one of the very things his work is lauded for: striking visualization of dreams. The images and motifs in his paintings don't reflect anything I've ever seen in my dreams and perhaps that creates an automatic disconnect in me as a viewer. The opposite rings true for me with his film work. Let's not turn this into the analysis of my dreams, though.

Vanguard Films outsourced work to Dali to assist in the creation of the dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound". Hitchcock felt that dreams on film had pretty much just been portrayed by blurriness. He wanted Dali to bust that shit up:


Dali thought Walt Disney was a "great" surrealist. Here's a little bit from a Dali/Disney collaboration that never finished, "Destino". Disney animators completed the project in 2003. I can't tell if what I find online is part of the original or later-completed work. Here's a clip, nonetheless:

"You're a Bush, Act Like One!"

Oliver Stone's "W" is going to be this year's "The Passion of the Christ" when it comes to the promise of unintentional comedy. There have been grumblings about the timing of this film's release date being right around election day (Lionsgate's site just mentions Fall 2008 whereas I have read the possibility of either October 17 or October 31 - my query to the studio hasn't been answered) but from a "strike while the iron's hot" perspective, you can't ask for this to come at a better time. The President is simply scorching right now and perhaps from a studio perspective, this film can't come out soon enough. The guy didn't even take the short flight to go to his own party's convention. Whether he was welcome or not is besides the point. His presence in itself is widely considered to be so radioactive that there are certainly more than a few Republicans that were relieved that he didn't make the trip to Minnesota. It's not a hard call, but I rate George W. Bush, both the fictitious account of him played by Josh Brolin and the real Bush, as a "strong buy" if you want solid returns on your comedic investments.

W. Trailer


Self-Deprecating

Hall of Fame Nominee: Thomas Ian Griffith as Terry Silver in Karate Kid, Part III

This guy is hilarious. Best part, his initial stifled laugh at 0:08.

The Bicycle Thief

It is not very smart to lock your bicycle only through the front wheel.

I just watched Vittorio De Sica's film, Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief), last night. A classic film which follows a father and his son around Rome as they desperately search for his stolen bicycle, which he needs in order to earn a living.

Having your bicycle stolen causes a very specific type of anguish. Anyone who's ever had a bicycle stolen can relate. I just came across this NY Times article, published yesterday, about the King of all bicycle thieves. He ran a used bike shop in Toronto and accumulated 2,865 stolen bicycles. One man refers to him as "the most hated man in Toronto."

photo credit: Greg Jagiello

7.25, No Camera, Zidane & This Other Life

The past 3 days, I've watched a 5-minute, 16-second clip from the sports documentary/art piece "Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait" over 20 times. What I saw dazzled me. But what I heard has
inspired me. The song playing throughout is "7.25" by Mogwai. I've spent 99 cents to buy this song off of iTunes (a rarity since I still prefer buying cd's but I couldn't wait) and if I've watched the clip over 20 times, I've listened to the song over 100. Despite not having seen the entire film, I've been motivated to make a highly-selective, minimally-invasive, photographic pseudo-documentary of my everyday. For obvious reasons, I can't say whether this project will be in the same vein as "Zidane" or not, but all I know is that I don't own a digital camera. I'm going to have to borrow, buy or steal one.

I waited for a car to come pick me up to drive me home for few minutes after work tonight (12:15 am, or 50 minutes ago). I was just looking at cars and buses coming down Lexington Avenue. All I wanted to do was take out my camera phone and snap away. I didn't think about how original the images were going to be, or the poor quality they were going to be presented in, I just wanted to record those images. That feeling was truth. That temporary absence of restrictive feelings and abundant questioning made me understand just how much self-doubt we all live in. Arguably, some live more socially constrained lives than others but we all exist within these boundaries. Different situations, different masks. I don't care if they're self-imposed or not.

I thought of what my life looks like in the morning now that I live alone and nobody can see me. Or what my walk to the subway must look like. What do I focus on? What breaks that focus every now and then? Maybe my friends want to see what my apartment looks like when I don't know they're coming over. Who cares? This project will answer just a few of these questions and maybe more will come about because of this. I'm not promising unfettered access into my life. I'm not an artist. I'm certainly not a photographer. I just want to see what a few days look like to me.

This could be interesting or it could be a load of self-absorbed garbage.

There are times when I really don't know who I am.

I promise a funny post will be coming soon.