Monday, January 29, 2007

The Bloody Munchkin's Media Consumption

Watched - Don't even get me started on this movie. I mean, I wanted to kill Madonna's character in this, just out and outright strangle her for her selfishness and utter self absorbtion. I didn't catch the first half of the movie, but the last half didn't intentionally make her out as a beholden bitch, but that's how she came across. She abandon's her friendship for Benjiman Bratt's character, blames her best friend for forcing that upon her, then he sues for custody of what he thought was his biological son, finds out, rather cruelly that it was not his son, which means she had lied to him about his involvement in the conception of what he thought was his son. There were just several moves, up to and including the trial that were just utterly mean, which made me question the point of the movie to begin with. I mean the performances were great, but story and plot itself seemed sort of sadistic and sad. Wouldn't reccomend it.

Watched - Liked it, but it was effing too long. You had the set up, the punchline and that's where it should've ended, but instead it went on for another 15-20 minutes trying to make its point, which was what, exactly? The Uma, Meryl friendship had absolutely no pay off, and the end of the relationship had no pay off either. The movie just couldn't figure itself out and I in turn couldn't figure it out. And one other thing... Bryan Greenberg was pretty cute, but, o.k., so he's the same age as me, and I'm supposed to believe he's 23 in the movie? Given, the movie was shot in 2004 and released in 2005, but still, that puts him at 26, 25 at the least... and you make him 23? Ooooookay. It's just odd is all.

Watched - Good. Really good. Hard to take at times, but utterly interesting and gripping. Del Toro holds nothing back, both visually and in the story telling and it ultimately pays off. I totally recommend it. Not much else I can say really...

Listening To - Everyone must own The Cold War Kids album Robbers and Cowards. So good, so textured, such an interesting narrative. I don't know of many bands out there that would create a song about laundry and sing said song with as much conviction as they have.

Anxiously Awaiting Release Of - I must get this album in my grubby little fingers. I must have eet now!!! I love Silent Alarm. Some of the songs on that album were so haunting that I'd keeping thinking about them after I listened to them. I can't wait for this album. The song getting radio play is really good.

Reading - I'm about halfway through and I'm hooked. The characters are very layered and lived in. The story itself is gripping, part horror, part character-based drama, part folk-tale. My only nitpick is that the author seems to rely on his little trick of only partly revealing the action in one chapter and the expositioning the same action later on in the next chapter. I get that he doesn't want to play the cards all at once as far as the action is concerned, but so far he happens to rely on telling and not showing a little too heavily. Still, a good satisfying read so far. Can I just say that I love Mrs. Laracy? I'm assuming all her backstory is going to lead to something, what I'm not sure yet, but she's gotten such an interesting, textured life that I could just immerse myself in it. It's my very limited opinion that we don't focus in on the narrative of our grandmother's and the women that came before them enough. Sure, their stories are littered throughout some literary works, but I don't think we've heard their voices, their stories enough either in books, on T.V. or in the movies.

I sometimes forget how much I love to read. Sometimes I'll read a string of books back to back, four or five at a time, and then I'll go for a long time without reading a single thing. Fighting Nun commented on this, something about TV getting in the way or something? That my affinity for bad MTV shows is deterring me from loftier pursuits? I have no idea what he's talking about.

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