Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks. Population: You

Since it first aired when I was but a young pup, I managed to miss David Lynch and Mark Frost‘s Twin Peaks, which was pretty much the forerunner for each drama and mystery television series now playing. By bringing a feature film director’s mentality to the small screen, story and cinematography don’t actually have to be shite! The acting, on the other hand…

So I watched the pilot and its only two seasons in episodic order, along with the prequel (and kind of sequel) film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. I’ll get into details here, so don’t be upset if I pop your pop culture spoiler bubble. Exactly what is the statute of limitations for speaking freely on a piece of media? The series finished in 1992, so it should be fair game by now.

Jack Bauer Vampire Power Hour

During times of work avoidance, I decided to catch up on the latest season of Fox’s 24, otherwise known as JBPH. For four seasons, I had watched each episode in sequence with baited breath, but the fifth series really left a foul taste in my mouf. So much so, that I dropped the show altogether in favour of Firefly and BBC’s The Office re-run love. I’ve read about enough raves about season six of 24 that I decided to take in the two-night four hour premier. The following opinion takes place for your viewing.

Daddy’s On Vacation

Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, I was able to view Terry Gilliam’s Tideland before it was publicly released to theatres in North America. My general opinion is that it’s miles better than the turdicle The Brothers Grimm. I can recognize why there were distribution problems with Tideland, since the characters, dialog, and awkward scenes are on the fringe for the typical “indie”-type Hollywood movie. The plot is back to the same Gilliam themes of creative imagination contrasted with sterile, rational reality. Wide-angled, tilted camera shots used throughout the film and isolated, sometimes incoherent, territory covered by a child actor are some of the bits that will turn viewers off. He can’t use drug-use as a reason for the disorienting camera-work used in pretty much every shot in the film. I’m pretty tolerate of obscure work, but I had to take at least one break when viewing for the first time.

I would definitely rank it below his European and American trilogies since the attitudes conveyed by the characters (especially the protagonist) aren’t universal and the narrative is not as epic or visually rich as in past work. Gilliam’s interviews from the past few years have been biting remarks aimed at Hollywood preventing creative stories with new points of view, but some points of view are just not very enjoyable to watch. Given that, I don’t think it makes this film not worth watching.

There’s no way Tideland will be successful at the box office. Not only is it opening in the US to a small number of theatres, it’s not even a movie that can be successful through word of mouth. The themes are deviant, the characters’ frame of mind are unorthodox and many scenes are socially uncomfortable. Even with international box office and DVD sales, I doubt it would even reach black. Terry has even gone so far as to use America’s urban environments to publicly self-promote Tideland. None of this bodes well as I would love Gilliam to revisit past glories.

Either way, you can view the Tideland trailer and wait until it comes out on DVD, which it should very soon in Europe, I would imagine. Even more anticipated from me is Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain that comes out in less than two weeks. You can read a Wired article for its making-of, but beware there are spoilers about the ending contained, which I wished the journalist warned. Another flick coming out at the end of this year is David Lynch’s Inland Empire and from what I read about it, he’ll be going back to Eraserhead-esque abstract roots. Pants.

Still Waiting For the Punchline

Time for the monthly update of nihilism. Nobody flocks in droves to read my non-existent drivel.

On Friday, September 22, I attended a screening of Brothers of the Head as part of the Atlantic Film Fest. It was directed by the writer/director team that also made 2002′s Lost in La Mancha, a documentary on Terry Gilliam’s catastrophic attempt to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Have I mentioned how much I love Gilliam? Time Bandits-onward are all brilliant pieces of filmmaking, with a common theme of the creative, irrational imagination versus the hegemonic forces of conformity. Speaking of, when will his 2005 flick, Tideland, get a proper theatrical release in Canada? Stream of consciousness paragraphing.

So, Brothers is a story centred on Siamese twin teenage boys that are sold off to a promoter and turned into a punk band. However, it is shot in a mockumentary-style, but without the mocking… which completely throws the audience for a loop. According to contemporary film-goers vernacular, the term mockumentary has been falsely equivocated with “fake documentary”, which doesn’t necessarily entail the whole concept of mocking. I read multiple sources claiming this film as such, so of course I walk in expecting a This is Spinal Tap knock-off, which was a miscalculated assumption. The whole time it felt like I was waiting for the one-liner of sarcastic, ad-libbed tomfoolery. Filming is done with handheld cameras, however the point-of-view isn’t necessarily at the documentary standard eye-level. Included are abstract nightmare sequences which were made more interesting since I had partaken just before entering the theatre. For sound, it has a lo-fi aesthetic with a constant reference of the subtle white noises caused by circulating vinyl. The live music sequences are not dubbed over with studio musicians – these actors are playing in all their purposeful, discordant glory. In summary, Brothers of the Head is punk as fuck. Too bad I find punk so dull.

Moving Picture Shows

Here’s a list of short reviews/comments of films I’ve seen in the last two months. I had posted these comments on a music forum I frequent; thinking content was bereft on here, might as well copy’n'paste.

Sarah Silverman is Hotness + Dumb and Dumberer Breakdown

Oops, I haven’t updated in exactly 2 months. Well I guess it didn’t help that Alkali went down so there was no domain to visit. So everyone’s favourite Chinese-American gave me some web space and for the first time arioch I setup a proper script to update with. I’m finally out of my 1996 method of manually writing the HTML and uploading through FTP when I wished to add to my journal. I still have to figure out an easy way to import all my updates dating back to 2000. I really don’t think adding each post manually and then backdating individually them would be worth the effort.

I guess I can start with my whereabouts of last semester. I started with five courses and ended with three. BSc in out of the picture and BA is back in! My marks were as follows:

Yes, the above table indicates that I almost failed first year biology. On the final exam I didn’t know anything when it came to the last couple weeks in the course so in the short answer section I was filling in the answer spaces with quotes from The Simpson’s and pleads for the marker to pass me. If I make them laugh maybe they’ll love me.

I flew back to NS in late December, did the family thing, spent way too much time on holidays as usual (I didn’t fly back until Jan. 9th). I also had to suffer the wrath of dial-up Internet. *shakes fist*

During that time I managed to read No Logo and in my opinion, a quarter of its length should have been cut. There was so much repetition and tangents that lead nowhere that sometimes reading was frustrating. Why didn’t she put the case studies on Nike, McDonald’s, etc. at the start of the book so you don’t have to read the same examples hundreds of times in other chapters? It was a decent read although the culture presented in the last half or so of the book is pretty much irrelevant in 2004. I also started reading Nineteen Eighty-Four but I only got about 1/3 way through it on my plane ride back. The only other Orwell I’ve read was Animal Farm in grade 10 (11?) English class where I disliked it simply out of principle that it was forced on you along with the interpretations the teacher would dictate to his humble servants students.

While I was home I really had nothing to do except watching really poor movies on satellite TV. Amongst the trash was Dumb and Dumberer. Sweet Jesus, I think my hatred for Hollywood’s teet sucking ways has increased ten-fold. While the two main actors played the characters well, the writing was abysmal. Most of the jokes were stolen directly from the original with a very small fraction of the funny included. These moments I’ll spoil below:

• Original: Lloyd and Harry play tag in the van resulting in “The Gas Man” yelling, “GUYS! GUYS!”.
  Sequel: Lloyd’s dream sequence where Harry’s mother and the token hot chick in the movie are squabbling over Lloyd until here interrupts with, “GIRLS! GIRLS!”
• Original: Lloyd and Harry play tag in the van resulting in “The Gas Man” interrupting.
  Sequel: Lloyd and Harry play tag in a convenience store until the clerk interrupts.
• Original: Lloyd has a sexual fantasy dream sequence about Mary “Sampsonite”.
  Sequel: Lloyd has a sexual fantasy dream sequence about a bunch of chicks in bikinis.
• Original: Harry has a bathroom scene where he evacuates every ounce of waste in his body.
  Sequel: Harry has a bathroom scene where a melted chocolate bar ends up getting spread all over himself and the walls. This was actually the only part of the movie I laughed at – where Bob Saget walks in yelling, “There’s shit EVERYWHERE!“. But the source of the humour was already done in Half-Baked.

  Marijuana is not a drug. I used to suck dick for coke. Now that’s an addiction. You ever suck some dick for marijuana?

  It’s only funny because the quote is coming out of Bob Saget’s mouth!

• Original: Harry exclaims, “Check out the ass on that!” to which Lloyd quips, “yeah, he must work out”.
  Sequel: Harry exclaims, “I can’t she’s wearing those [short and tight] shorts” to which Lloyd quips, “yeah, last time I wore shorts like that I got beat up”.
• Original: “Funny” vehicle: moped.
  Sequel: “Funny” vehicle: short bus.
• Original: Lloyd and Harry have a falling out and Lloyd trades the van in for a moped to which Harry has a diatribe on the stupidity of his actions, finalizing his rant with, “… and completely redeeming yourself!”.
  Sequel: Lloyd and Harry have a falling out and Lloyd steals a polar bear Harry enjoyed at a local museum, bring it to his house where the same fucking situation happens.

The list of “more than just similarities” continues. Avoid this shite at all costs. In happier news, I watched Garden State and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle yesterday both get my thumbs up. Well worth a rental.

In other entertainment, the new season of Jack Bauer Power Hour has started and yet again I’m glued to my monitor television set for every episode. During the holidays I also watched some re-runs of Lost so now I have two television shows I actually watch. Although I don’t know how many times they can milk the scene of somebody walking alone in the woods to hear some noise outside their field-of-vision. Oh, my sister and her husband also bought me season two of The Office on DVD. I’ve already seen many of the episodes but its absolutely worth owning it – just for the “mix of Flashdance and MC Hammer”. Mr. Toad!

In early January Canada also won gold at the World Junior Hockey Championships. So being Canadian, I have to cheer… and stuff. In related yet complete unrelated news, my intramural hockey team also played and won our first game of the semester Tuesday with a 6-2 score. I likely played my worst game in months because I had to play defense with the absence of our best defenseman (and player) that isn’t playing semester. It’s also possible I’ll be stuck on defense for the rest of the semester because nobody else wants to go back AND some our worst skaters are already on D, which won’t bode well once we start playing well-skating teams… like who we’re playing next week. I believe they beat us 8-1 three months ago.

In music news, I Mother Earth‘s vocalist Brian Byrne now has demos of his solo material online. It’s “country-ish” but I’m really enjoying some of the tunes, especially “Arizona”. I believe he’s still shopping it around to record labels and plays the odd show in Ontario. I’m going to make an update later about my most listened to albums of 2004, but I don’t feel like compiling that at the moment. I’ll just procrastinate like I do about everything else. For instance, I’ve been meaning to switch university programs for 4 years now yet it still hasn’t been done…

Python Presenter App

Here’s a new screen capture of my little presentation thingamajigger. Yes, I realize the “word” presention is in there. Right now I’m redesigning the settings GUI so it’s all in one tabbed dialog rather than in a bunch of separate dialogs. I hope to get that all completed by tomorrow and then I’ll move on to figuring out a couple silly bugs that are only happening in Linux. They’re caused by bugs in the version of Qt included with Redhat 7.0 (I think 3.0.4?) so I’ll have to find some work around.

This evening, I also watched David Lynch’s Eraserhead for the first time. Like most people’s reaction to the film… what the fuck? I saw Mulholland Dr. and Lost Highway, so I expected something non-linear and generally odd. What I saw was beyond my expectations. I’ll have to watch it a couple more times to even attempt to gather an understanding. Not like Lynch’s films are understandable. The soundtrack was also terrific. It made me feel so content.

Monkley Monkley

There’s the television. It’s all right there – all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We’re not productive anymore. We don’t make things anymore. It’s all automated. What are we *for* then? We’re consumers, Jim. Yeah. Okay, okay. Buy a lot of stuff, you’re a good citizen. But if you don’t buy a lot of stuff, if you don’t, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally *ill*. Fact, Jim, fact – if you don’t buy things – toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, servo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers and…