Miscellaneous Debris
Saturday, July 22, 2006
First, I was supposed to see Dead Meadow last night here in B’ton, but missed it due to a sudden torrent of activity and, partially, because I wasted two hours seeing this. Why I keep giving this guy a chance is beyond me, but Ladywater or whatever was his worst yet, beating even the repugnant Signs and the deadly boring Village. Anyway.Second, in response to this NYT article about the disappearance of record stores, Sasha Frere-Jones issued an open call for personal tales of clerk smarminess of the highest order, with no High Fidelity-ing around, please. A lot of smart EMP types took him up, and some of my favorites included those from Mr. Barthel (here), Mr. Robbins (here), Mr. Perpetua (here), Mr. Considine and Ms. Shepherd (here), and, right before the deadline when he allowed the unwashed amateur in to sweep up after the party, um, me (here).
Third, some new-ness you should check out under the heading of music, then blog, then mp3: Lovely Party (via), which is all duded up with elegant Flash-y schematics and assorted hoo-ha, but not nearly enough to disguise some impeccable taste in musique. Check out Tree Wave’s “May Banners.”
Fourth, apropos of absolutely nothing, this is hands-down the greatest NBA dunk ever by a guy not named Jordan, Kemp, Wilkins or Carter.
You actually saw that movie?
That dunk was ridiculous… but I’ll find a better one.
White guy! That dunk is pretty sick. And by “sick” I mean dope. By “dope” I mean really cool.
It looks like “Lady” is going to wind up with his smallest opening BO since before The Sixth Sense when he was a nobody. What a dick.
Eric, I have to stop you there. I haven’t seen Lady in the Water and don’t really plan on running out there to see it.
But I can’t let everyone always dig into The Village.
Here’s the problem. Everyone seems to think that Shyamalan wants to really get us with a twist and so when they figured out the obvious twist in The Village early on, they get all pissy with the movie. But if you don’t spend the entire movie trying to outguess the director, then it’s fantastic.
Rewatch the movie (and I’m serious) and look at what it says about humanity and original sin. Look at what it says about America and the Puritans, about ethnic sects.
Maybe I grew up too close to the Amish and the bizarre melange that is Pennsylvania, but I thought this movie was fantastic and beautiful.
I thought William Hurt was amazing particularly.
I’ve had this fight numerous times. Sure, Shyamalan has been overhyped, but I think people are too ready to jump all over him and don’t give him the same chance…
He really does need to drop his “horror” schtick and just make beautiful movies.