NIN

This is for my Husband. He tried it, he liked it.

Thirst

"Thirst," directed by Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy) won the special jury prize at Cannes. Go Korean Vampires!! It looks like a Korean version of "The Thorn Birds," except with more blood.

Outer Dark

Outer Dark is the second novel by Cormac McCarthy. It is a 242 page trip through hell, or to hell, I can't decide which. Both really. The story is set in Appalachia. I love Appalachia stories. I don't know why. Never been there, don't really want to go. Past life thing? Or just too much VC Andrews in my formative years?

Anyway, Outer Dark is the story of Culla and Rinthy Holme, an impoverished, incestuous brother and sister team who go on separate journeys of damnation and redemption. Rinthy is searching for their child that Culla left to die in the woods. Culla, although he says he is searching for his sister, is really trying to escape his sin. Along the way the siblings are shadowed by three mysterious and dangerous strangers. In other words, this is not beach reading.

The following passage is part of the reason I love McCarthy. "What did ye give?" she said. "I'll make it up to ye. Whatever ye give. And that nurse fee." The tinker jerked his arm away. He leaned his face toward her. "Give," he said. "I give a lifetime wanderin in a country where I was despised. Can you give that? I give forty years strapped in front of a cart like a mule till I couldn't stand straight to be hanged. I've got not soul one in this world save a old halfcrazy sister that nobody never would have liked they never would me. I been rocked and shot at and whipped and kicked and dogbit from one end of this state to the other and you cain't pay that back. You ain't got nothin to pay it with. Them accounts is in blood and they ain't nothin in this world to pay em out with."

And more typical of McCarthy: She had begun to keen softly into her hands. The tinker could hear it a long way down the road. He could hear it far over the cold and smoking fields of autumn, his pans knelling in the night like buoys on some dim and barren coast, and he could hear it fading and hear it die lost as the cry of seabirds in the vast and salt black solitudes they keep.

I wish I could write like that. Instead I tend to resort to swearing and overuse of the word "dude." McCarthy is a terrifying and beautiful writer, and I love, love, love him so for it.

NIN. Or, if you like looking at the back of people's heads you will love this post.

All behold the magic and glory that is Trent Reznor.

So the Hubby and I went to see Nine Inch Nails last night and it was AWESOME, of course, as usual.


They played a very stripped down set, without the usual visual shenanigans, and it was still incredible. They sounded great, probably the best we have ever heard them.



This was our view, not so bad. The first time I saw them my view was obscured by the 10 people laying on top of me due to a tragic mosh pit accident. That was the first and last time I was in the pit for Nine Inch Nails. I can say during this show I was not stepped on, kicked, or groped once.


Look at this bald guy in front of us!! Look at the highlights on the Soccer mom. Seeing this band is very different now than it was 13 years ago.

Of course I am totally past it now myself, so who am I to talk? Tom Morello's new band, "Street Sweeper Social Club" opened, and they were great as well. We were very happy when NIN went on before Jane's Addiction. We didn't stay. How can you follow Trent Reznor? Sorry Jane's Addiction fans: nothing against them, but I am getting old and the chance to get home in time to watch "The Soup" was too enticing.

Starring Michael Ironside (A Terminator Review)

Just got back from two days at the parents house. I took my Mother, who only likes Jane Austin films and "Twilight," to see "Terminator: Salvation." She wanted to see it, I swear!! As you know, the preview for this gave me the night sweats. I was so excited to see it! The first two Terminator films were very, very important to my development as a film nerd. I saw "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" 7 times in the theatre. We will not discuss the third film here. It doesn't exist in the cannon of my mind.

There are many things to love about "Terminator: Salvation," and many things to go "meh" about. First of all the action sequences are INCREDIBLE (Director of Wolverine: Go see this film. This is how you do it.) McG, who I do not hate despite "Charlies Angels" (I admit both films are a guilty pleasure) knows how to blow shit up. And when he blows shit up it has meaning; it's not just noise like Michael Bay (more on the fucking Transformers trailer later.) The pace is relentless. The special effects are top notch. Every penny is obviously up there on the screen. Good job McG.

Second, there are a lot of nods and shout outs to the previous films, which is great for fans. I loved every one. Yes, "I'll be back" is thrown in there.

The best thing about "Terminator: Salvation" is the man on the right. Sam Worthington, who plays Marcus Wright, is the real star of this movie. Bale is great, but his role is relatively small. Marcus Wright is the emotional center of this film. When I read that Bale initially was considering playing the Wright role it made sense. Bale would have been good but Worthington is a revelation. Sam Worthington is going to be a big, big star. Not only is he in Cameron's "Avatar," but he is also in the remake of "Clash of the Titans." Where did this guy come from and where has he been hiding? (Plus: he is really, really cute. Not that his cuteness plays any part in my assessment of his abilities.)

And why did no one tell me Michael Ironside is in this flick? I LOVE this Actor. When I saw his name come up in the credits I knew that the movie would not be total shit. Ironside gets blown up. That is not a spoiler since he dies horribly in every film.

OK, the "meh" part. The characters, with the exception of Marcus Wright, are not well developed, including Connor. Where McG is great at action, he needs a little work on the emotional elements. Every big "emotional" scene falls flat, including the meeting between Connor and his Father. McG lacks the "gravitas" of James Cameron. Yes, I think Cameron usually goes over the top with this, but some is better than none.

A final thought: Quite a bit of the action takes place in the "future" San Francisco. Skynet operates from there. I found it fascinating that Starfleet also operates from there. One city, two very different futures. Now, I must go to bed before I don my Princess Leia outfit and play " World of WarCraft" or some shit like that. I swear to god I can nerd out so damn fast...

Take that Martyrs..

God, everyone has their panties in a bunch over Lars von Trier's "Antichrist." Really, it wouldn't be Cannes if people were not walking out of films and reporters were getting in shouting matches. Three words: Explicit Sexual Gore. And, I assume, William Dafoe is naked. Sign me up. The film was just purchased by IFC so we will get a chance to see it. Check out old Eberts article: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/05/a_devils_advocate_for_antichri.html

And here is the trailer again, in case you forgot..

The Burrowers

1879. The Dakota Territories. A young Irishman comes across a gruesome scene: A family slaughtered. Another family missing. The young man, named Coffey, assembles a rag-tag crew to find his missing fiancee. It is race against time and character development. Really, this movie was a big disappointment. The director, JT Petty, has a great concept. A species, unknown to the white man, that poisons its prey, rendering it paralyzed but awake. Said prey (the fiancee and anyone else unfortunate enough to cross its path) is then buried and allowed to rot, so that the "blood becomes thick and the organs soft." Prey is then eaten: alive! How could you go wrong? And its a Western! A Western/monster/horror hybrid! But wrong it goes. The main problem is with the characters. I just didn't care about them. The bad guy wasn't bad enough, I wanted the good guy to get eaten, and the others (including Clancy Brown and William Mapother, two genre favorites) are wasted. Petty takes a Jaws/Descent attitude to the Monster itself. You see bits and pieces of it, but never the whole thing until the end. And they look like giant sperm with grasshopper legs. Throw in a quasi-environmental message, and you lost me. 3 things I liked about this film: #1: the line "There is something scratching inside her." #2 Doug Hutchison, whom I loved since he played Tooms in X-files, plays a bad-ass. #3 Serious and unexpected head-trauma about 1/2 way through. I mean "Irreversible" level head trauma.

So to summarize, great concept, so-so execution, but bravo for bringing back the Western/monster/horror film! And Thank You, JT Petty, for casting Dough Hutchison. He needs to be in more movies. He is great and he looks like my friend Steve. Also, shame on you for killing not one but two horses (in the film, I am sure you would never hurt a real horse,) but Thank You for letting Tom Cruise's cousin be eaten alive.