Category Archives: Movies

Free Netflix for Macs

By hugh | Published: January 8, 2009

It’s the conduit of civilzation.

Posted in Movies | Leave a comment

The Biggest Pussy

By hugh | Published: January 5, 2009

Over at hulu, you can see all of The Missouri Breaks with a few commercials for free. Besides being one of Marlon Brando’s most peculiar and inspired performances, it is a parable for how certain idiots view the idea of honor. The moral ambiguities of so many iconic 70s movies could probably do as well. [...]

Also posted in TV, Celebrities | Leave a comment

Battle in Heaven

By hugh | Published: December 15, 2008

Battle in Heaven was the first film that made me examine the Rotten Tomatoes community. Watching it, I was astonished (!) that this film ever got made because: Reygadas had to get “20″ permits to shoot with the military unfurling the Mexican flag He probably had to get another 10 to shoot at the Cathedral [...]

Posted in Movies | Tagged , | Leave a comment

You Need These Details

By hugh | Published: November 27, 2008

I watched a series of low-budget indie movies in which the details made the movie. In Bruges had a sweet hotel proprietor and a movie within the movie and the amazing city of Bruges; The Visitor featured the djembe drum as well as dastardly true-to-life detention system; Red Road‘s main plot device was the surveillance [...]

Posted in Movies | Leave a comment

Olde New York(e)

By hugh | Published: November 16, 2008

I enjoy watching old movies shot in New York partly to see how much of it has changed and how much is still familiar. These are from Port of New York (1949) which is to the second season of The Wire, as Blue’s Clues is to A Scanner Darkly. There’s a long scene shot in [...]

Also posted in Photography | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Wingnuttery of An Actor as President

By hugh | Published: October 16, 2008

I’m watching HBO’s production of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. As others have noted, it would’ve been better if HBO had spent at least a season’s worth of Deadwood-style TV time on it instead of making it a 2.2 hour movie. Given its Hollywood drawbacks (pass the bombast please), we can still consolingly absorb [...]

Also posted in Politics | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I’m Not There (but I’m Free)

By hugh | Published: October 8, 2008

Be careful of shrinks. If you say the wrong thing (or the right thing depending on your point of view), they will call the cops and put you in the psych ward. There really are shrinks out there who view their job the same way an asshole cop does: whatever it takes to keep the [...]

Also posted in Music, Politics, TV, Celebrities, Writing, Blogging | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Religulous Sarah Palin

By hugh | Published: September 30, 2008

I’m listening to Terry Gross interview Bill Maher and Larry Charles (director of Borat) about the movie Religulous. While I haven’t seen it yet, I think I’ve heard enough to talk about it. Maher picks off low-lying fruit by singling out fundamentalist elements of religion but it needs to be done as it is the [...]

Also posted in Politics, Radio | Tagged , | 1 Comment

A Supposedly Good Book I’ll Finish Someday

By hugh | Published: September 17, 2008

Walk this way I’m pretty sad David Foster Wallace is dead. I first became aware of his writing when “Shipping Out” was published in Harper’s in the mid 90s (later the lead essay in “A Supposedly Fun Thing…”). Besides giving me reason to never go on a cruise ship, he helped me be comfortable with [...]

Also posted in General Pop Culture | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Joy Division, Control

By hugh | Published: September 4, 2008

Way, way after the fact: Control, the 2007 Ian Curtis biopic shot by Anton Corbijn (who does not have an official myspace page) is a wonderful film though it was hard to march on with it. The music has been important to me ever since I first heard it. A year after the Curtis story ended [...]

Also posted in Music | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

By hugh | Published: August 20, 2008

A Michael Jackson/Johnny Cash moment in Walk Hard I didn’t think all that much of Walk the Line, The Ray Charles Story, La Bamba, Sweet Dreams, The Doors Movie, or even Sid and Nancy. All took their subject matters too seriously to a fault cramming all the iconic cliches of legendary music careers into Hollywood [...]

Also posted in Music | Tagged | Leave a comment

Amplification

By hugh | Published: August 14, 2008

Can’t wrap my 3D fence around it I’ve been rehearsing the Crimson Grail with over 200 guitarists and these massive guitar orchestra composers never seem to learn anything from each other. The score is in letter sequences that don’t follow one another. Solution: Provide a score that explains the parts in between your cues. Granted, [...]

Also posted in Music, Politics, Writing, Blogging | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment