Sunday, October 31, 2010

Lykke Li - Get Some

Lykke Li - Get Some: "Lykke Li - Get Some"

I'm fascinated by where people are from, where they've been and where they want to be.

I'd like to do a road trip across America one day. But I'm definitely not done with the west coast. I'd like to see Seattle, Portland, Mt. Shasta, some freakin' Redwoods since I didn't do that either time I was in San Francisco... and I'd also like to go further South than Long Beach.

I need to win some money.

Recently Watched: The Messenger

This film has some really great scenes. Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster play soldiers who are members of the casualty notification team (they deliver the message that a soldier has died to the next of kin.) In delivering this message the soldiers are under certain orders to act professionally, never hug or make contact with the next of kin. They also must come unannounced and may only speak with the next of kin, which in one situation gets a little tricky. The messages were filmed mostly in one shot which created a strong sense of reality. I was fascinated by the tension in every delivery.

As someone who is strongly apposed to war and training people to kill I liked the depiction of human vs soldier.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Recently Watched:

(SPOILER)

Sometimes when movies are extremely depressing I find it hard to like them. Revolutionary Road is one of those movies. The performances are great, but the giving up on your dreams storyline bummed me out...not to mention in the end things pan out in the worst way possible. DEATH. The fight scenes were some of the most intense that I've seen. I liked Leonardo's emotional scenes much better than his emotional scenes in Inception (not that I didn't like his performance in Inception!) I think it's worth watching, but I'm warning you it's a downer.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Recently Read

This book was hilariously funny. "Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!" was my favorite piece. It was written in the form of a letter from a deranged woman whose husband got a foreign woman pregnant while he was in the army. The adult child of the husband is delivered to the doorstep and the woman's observations/judgements of her new "daughter" are ridiculously smart, dark and funny. It reminded me of Jon Stewart's Hanson fan club letters in his book "Naked Pictures of Famous People."


Recently Watched


The Social Network is about Mark Zuckerberg. I don't care what anyone else is saying about how it's about relationships and greed...well ok..it's a bit about that...but it's mainly a character study of Mark Zuckerberg. I've seen interviews with Zuckerberg and I think that Jesse Eisenberg gave an amazing performance. He really captured Zuckerbergs disconnect.

While I found the backstory of how Facebook came about interesting it always bothers me when something is based on a true story and you aren't sure where the writer/director/actors took liberties.