5 Favorite Things of the Week of February 22nd

1. George Steinbrenner on Seinfeld

Larry David’s depiction of George Steinbrenner never fails to be hilarious. He’s a side character that sits behind a desk with his back to the camera 95% of the time, but ever line he has is “Gold, Jerry, Gold”. The ultimate Steinbrenner episode involves George sleeping under his desk at work and Jerry calling in bomb threats to the Yankees. But what might be even better are these deleted scenes where the real George Steinbrenner appears. Why this was cut I have no idea, the Elaine rant is perfect.

2. Wendy and Lucy

The first I heard of this movie was when I stumbled across this trailer. The film is about a girl traveling to Alaska to take a well paying job. Along the way she runs into obstacles that threaten her journey. The trailer is stark and at times almost scary.

3. The Great Gatsby

High society social groups aren’t something that I’m normally interested in but this book is the exception. Fitzgerald’s command of the English language is unbelievable. Every word is perfectly chosen to create phrases and sentences that are nearly impossible to duplicate.

“Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something-an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was incommunicable forever.”

4. Childe Hassam

Hassam was an American impressionist painter who worked in the late 19th. Early 20th century. His work speaks for itself. One of my favorite paintings, Avenue in the Rain, recently showed up in the oval office.

5. PumpkinRot









Pumpkinrot.blogspot.com is a blog by someone that loves Halloween and understands it perfectly. It’s updated all year with pictures of the author’s awesome creations and other finds. He does an awesome yard haunt every year in addition to scarecrows like Johnny Appleseed up above.

The Passing of Two Greats...

Within the past two weeks artist, Andrew Wyeth, and writer, John Updike, both died. Wyeth on January the 16th and Updike on January the 27th. Both were accomplished and brought a unique characteristic to each of their respective fields.

Wyeth was born in 1917, right in the midst of Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp, and the adolescence of modern art. But Wyeth looked to the past, using tempera as his medium (which dates back to before the Renaissance). His paintings are rendered in incredible detail. Each blade of grass is painted individually, lace curtains blowing in the breeze look perfectly light and airy. Most of his paintings have the somber, contemplative feel of fall and winter. His work, Christina's World, usually hangs in a claustophobic room next to the Surrealism section in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Hopefully he will get the recognition he truly deserves.

Updike was probably America's greatest living writer. He had a special gift for writing where every single work seems carefully chosen to create the perfect phrase. He was also very academic. He was incredibly knowledgable about the arts, writing several books worth of commentaries on American art. His novel, The Centaur, is somewhat autobiographical telling the story of a boy and his father living near Reading, Pennsylvania. He ingeniously intertwines this story with stories from Greek mythology, creating an amazing book. But that's just one of his many works.

With Wyeth hailing from the Philadelphia area and Updike growing up near Reading; Pennsylvania, let alone America and the world, has lost two its greatest figures in the arts.

Who the...

Everybody knows that a fairy tale starts out 'once upon a time'. But a truck driver's tale starts out 'you ain't gonna believe this shit'.

-Teri Horton

Teri Horton is a 73 year old former truck driver who may just have a fifty million dollar plus painting. She bought it in a thrift store for the bargain price of five dollars. After a series of fortunate events Teri discovered that her bargain basement find maybe the work of the abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock, who is responsible for such works as Autumn Rhythm (below).

"Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?" is the story of Teri's quest to have her treasure validated by the art community, a project she's been working on for over 10 years. We quickly discover that Teri isn't after the money. She's after something more important...respect. A series of interviews with art aficionados show just how superficial, ridiculous, and just plain cruel members of the art community can be. However, Teri is an everywoman or man who doesn't take no for an answer. Scenes of her hanging out at the local VFW show that she really is a common person who is up against a completely different group of people who have a reputation for looking down their noses at other people. Teri enlists the help of a forensic scientist to help her verify the authenticity of her painting. Using some very CSI like techniques, this man finds some interesting evidence that could make or break the painting. But you'll have to watch this movie for yourself, and make your own conclusion.

On Friday night, a comedian died in New York.

I can not wait for The Dark Knight, but I think Watchmen has tied up the top spot. Every bit of information that comes out about Watchmen so far has been nothing short of amazing, including the above picture. The graphic novel is incredibly dense and visually stunning. There is an attention to detail in that book that makes it unrivaled in my opinion. The background of every frame is loaded with references to other events in the book and from the pics of the set it looks like that detail has been carried on to the movie. I was leery of Zack Snyder directing at first, but from what's been released so far it looks like he's done one hell of a job. From his previous work on Dawn of the Dead and 300, I have no doubt that he can pull off the visual aspects of Watchmen. I think he took some crap for 300 because it wasn't the greatest story, but it seemed like he was just trying to keep the movie very close to the graphic novel. A lot of the scenes from that movie are taken from the graphic novel verbatim. If he does keeps that close connection with Watchmen then I don't think there is anything to worry about.

Damn, I thought that was closer.

After weeks...months...years of waiting, a new Indiana Jones trailer debuted on Thursday. Who would have thought that after 19 years the khaki clad, bullwhip toting, fedora wearing, treasure hunting ladies' man would be back. So how does he look after going missing for almost two decades? Not too shabby.

The trailer shows that eventhough he may be older, he's still the same old Indy. He's still getting chased through ancient temples and fighting bad guys (but this time its the Soviets, not the Nazis). The trailer gives us a look back on Indy's past adventures, shows some quick clips of action scenes (including Mayan? warriors), and hits us with some quick one liners. However, theres no real clues as to the plot. But being a teaser trailer, I wouldn't expect that much anyway.

The only real clue in the trailer is the shot of a box marked "Roswell 1947", furthering the idea that this installment will deal with aliens and maybe even link to Spielberg's Close Encounter. This seems a little far fetched but, personally, I like it. I think we saw enough of the middle east and surrounding area in the first three movies. It will be interesting to see what happens in South America this time around. There are enough theories about aliens interacting with ancient civilizations to make this idea interesting and not completely out of nowhere. And if it does connect to Close Encounters, even better. Connecting two seemingly unrelated movies is genius in my book. Sure there is a huge potential for failure, but Lucas and Spielberg have been working on this movie long enough that it should be good. They took their time, rejecting and rewriting scripts over and over again. I have faith in them.

Some of the most interesting scenes in the trailer take place in the government warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was stored at the end of Raiders. Are the Soviets just looking for something relating the the Crystal Skulls or is the Ark involved? Every Indy movie begins with him searching for an artifact that has nothing to do with the main plot of the movie. Perhaps in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that artifact is the Ark.

Last, but not least is the cast. Of course there's Mr. Ford, but there's also Cate Blanchett as some sort of Soviet leader. It seemed a little unusual to me at first, but from what I've seen she looks amazing. Then there's Shia LaBeouf, or as I still think of him, Louis Stevens. Is he Indy's long lost kid or just an accidental sidekick? But most interesting of all is Karen Allen's return as Marion Ravenwood. Surprisingly, she recieved almost no screen time in the trailer, but she is the person that I most want to see. How could you not like her? Marion is basically the female version of Indy. She was the only woman in the trilogy that had any real substance. And who could forget when she dominated that guy in the drinking contest?

Anyway, after 19 long years, I'm glad Indiana has returned. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens on May 22.

An original horror movie and Silent Bob joins the Army?

I've been interested in this movie since I first heard about it, yet somehow I missed the release of the trailer. What first peaked my interest was that this movie is constantly being associated with Pulp Fiction. But from what I've heard it's only because it's told as four stories that are intertwined. It's pretty discouraging to think that few people have really used nonlinear story telling to its full extent since Tarantino's masterpiece. Although there was the Nolan brother's genius Memento, but that's getting off topic, I'll get back to those guys later. The atmosphere of Trick 'r Treat looks brillant. Why haven't more movies taken advantage of the Halloween atmosphere. Horror movies these days focus too much on blood and gore and not enough on supernatural stories. But this movie looks like it's trying it break out of that mode with what appears to be vampires, ghosts, and other crazy stuff. The use of Jack-o-Lanterns reminds me of the original Halloween with that pumpkin from the opening credits. The first scene in the trailer with Anna Paquin walking through the woods is set up beautifully with the dark blue-grey road and the occasional orange of a glowing pumpkin that really makes the background pop. My favorite part of the trailer is what seems to be refered to as "the School Bus Masacre". The faded orange light with those old masks is perfect, it almost has a Donnie Darko feel (I really am going to try and stop refering to that movie). The design of the movie looks very unique. Kind of like a toned down Tim Burton. And I don't know what's going on with that ghost thing that chases the old guy but it looks good. Too bad it's a whole year until next Halloween.

I came across something else interesting this week. After viewing the Southland Tales trailer many, many times I was sure Kevin Smith was not in it. Then I saw Mr. Smith's new myspace pic. And sure enough he was in the trailer all along.

It looks like he's playing some sort of old general or something. Weird yet awesome.

Finally, back to the indomitable Nolan brothers. Comingsoon.net had a small post about The Dark Knight. Apparently Bats' new suit is going to have some kind of sonar that turns the eyes of the mask white when turned on. This is small, insignificant some might say, BUT it's getting closer to the comic book Batman. I can only hope that the new suit is going to be the classic grey fabric or at least thin armor. If Morgan Freeman can make a fabric that can hold its shape when an electric current is run through it, why can't he invent a bulletproof fabric? Also, the Dark Knight candle seems to be getting dimmer. There isn't supposed to be anything major till December, but could the Joker have a Halloween trick or treat in mind (I know that was lame, but I couldn't help it.)? And by the way I love this marketing campaign, viral sites seem to be the new thing and I'm liking it. And the Jack-o-Lantern looks like the one in The Long Halloween, one of the best graphic Batman novels around. I can only hope that The Dark Knight picks up on some of the story lines.

Far more futuristic than they originally predicted.

Around last Christmas I heard about this new movie, Southland Tales, that Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) was making. An IMDB check showed the date of the movie as 2006, but I could find no information about an actual release. So I figured that it was lost in production somewhere and forgot about it. Boy was I wrong.

The trailer came out about a month ago and after first seeing it I was confused, amazed, and kind of disturbed all at the same time. I really wasn't sure if I would ever want to see it. But after watching it some more I have to said that I'm pretty excited to see it. The story takes place in the near future after America has been hit by a nuclear attack. This leads the government to beef up the patriot act so that it can basically follow anyone it wants. The rest of the story I'm no so sure of. Supposedly there's also something about creating power generators that run on the ocean's tide, which in turn screws up the ocean currents, disrupts Earth's orbit, which of course creates a rift in the space-time continuum. Of course. And I thought Donnie Darko was strange (yet awesome). But the craziest part of this movie might be the cast, which includes: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, John Lovitz, Amy Poehler, Cheri Oteri, and Kevin Smith, just to name a few. That is easily the most random cast I can possibly think of.

With corny dialogue, over dramatic acting, and the Rock's Mr. Burn's like finger tapping it looks like Kelly is making a satire. A satire of what? No idea. That's a lot to judge from just a trailer, but it's just my initial impression of it. I can't imagine where he came up with a plot like this. But then again Kelly supposedly did write an adaptation of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which never got made. If Kelly's a Vonnegut fan that explains a lot. A story this weird could have come right out of one of his novels. Even Donnie Darko was Vonnegutish, especially due to the fact that nothing at all was explained in the movie. I know I should stop comparing Southland Tales to Donnie Darko, but how could you not? There is no other movie that fits into this category of science fiction. It's almost as if it was meant just to create meaning through a mood rather than letting you in on what was happening. But no matter what I will be awaiting the release of Southland Tales.