The duet version with Norah Jones is so much better than the original … gets a little messy / screechy after the three minute mark, but they reign it back in. I’m a big fan of harmonizing.
Movies Watched -- Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
103 minute running time … bit of a weird one, reminds me of other pointless (I don’t mean that in a bad way, you know, “existentialist”) movies from the late 60s, early 70s like Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider .. pretty boy James Taylor as the Driver … goofy Warren Oates, who will always have a place in my heart for starring in Charles Willeford’s (my favorite writer) Cockfighter, as G.T.O. Loved Laurie Bird, the pretty hippie chick, who looked like a young Mia Farrow. (Bird killed herself at age 26 and was also in the above-mentioned Cockfighter … she was also in Annie Hall.)
Lots of good music in this one (though the music rights were apparently a reason this movie wasn’t released for decades), and Harry Dean Stanton as a gay cowboy made me laugh. You can see why it’s a cult movie, but it certainly doesn’t get a green-go.
I feel good; I can take it all the way
I Cheated On You With Myself
… and it felt so good. Ain’t that the truth. Noé singing i cheated on u. She’s French but grew up in Hong Kong and now lives in Los Angeles.. I dig the song and her sound.
Movies Watched -- Life Is Sweet (1990)
103 minute running time … Mike Leigh movie so that means we’re dealing with working-class nitwit Brits and life is anything but sweet. I just couldn’t get into it … one memorable sex scene involving a naked teenage girl with hairy armpits who is covered in chocolate sauce, but that’s about it…
Bulimic twins a good band name
Movies Watched -- Bottle Rocket (1996)
91 minute running time … Wes Anderson’s first movie … introducing? Luke and Owen Wilson to the world. They did have this laconic Texan way of talking that was weird and sort of charming (Melissa Villaseñor’s imitation is brilliant) … cutesy but pointless Wes Anderson stuff from before he perfected the formula … I wasn’t thrilled (though Rushmore is one of my Top 500 movies of all time).
Rita Kempley got it right when she wrote: “Bottle Rocket … gets by on quirky charm and slacker chic— but just barely … aptly named for cheaply made fireworks that tend to fizzle instead of explode.”
A whole generation “incapable of independent action.” Ouch, says this Gen-Xer.
Falling for the motel maid
Movies Watched -- Minding the Gap (2018)
93 minute running time … a documentary filmed over many years about three boys who lived in Rockford, IL and rode skateboards … the filmmaker, Bing Liu, used a lot of early footage that he had shot when they were in their middle teens … Zack is a pretty white boy and talented skater … Keire is a charming black boy and very talented skater … Bing is ethnically Chinese and mostly behind the camera … all three kids are sort of on the edge of poverty, sort of clinging to middle class respectability, I found the class aspect interesting. They were also all “abused” in the sense that they were beaten by their fathers, in Bing’s case, by his white step-father. Making the movie was a form of therapy for Bing, I guess.
One thing that wasn’t really focused on was their drug use … Zack and Keire sounded like potheads, I assume they both smoked a lot of weed whereas Bing didn’t, and Bing went on to become a filmmaker whereas Zack and Keire are living more marginal existences. Anyway, it was sort of interesting (a Criterion release after all) and had some great skateboarding footage. I didn’t hate it.
Babies having babies
Let Me Take Away the Pain
Redinho is a producer like Mark Ronson, I guess … Joel Culpepper on vocals. I dig it.
What Forced Liquidation Looks Like
My scanner was dinging for all these, but I only short things that go up … there’s no challenge in shorting stuff that just goes down down down. It’s all about the challenge for me (this is sarcasm). DISCA, GSX, IQ, VIAC, and VIPS … click any chart to enlarge it.
Movies Watched -- The Cakemaker (2017)
105 minute running time … this was a very quiet, sweet, gentle movie … well done, I enjoyed it … a homosexual love story, but it gets complicated … this was a John Farr reco and I thank him for it; I would have never heard about this movie without him … yes, the story was a little contrived, or far-fetched, but it doesn’t matter, it gets a coveted green-go from me. Love, tragedy, loss, grief, loneliness, and… love again?
SPOILERS: Oren’s mother knew that her son was gay and that Thomas was his lover, but she kept his secret. She put a lid on it.
You have to make it warm….
Movies Watched -- Magic Mike XXL (2015)
115 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … this inexplicably was in my queue (ah, I think I was supposed to see the original and this was a sequel) … male strippers, simulated sex shows, etc., this is a culture that I am not familiar with … White Chocolate, er, Channing Tatum, can dance though … note that the gorgeous Matt Bomer (who is gay), from season three of The Sinner, was one of the strippers … anyway, just a weird one. I guess if you’re interested in the world of male strippers and can stand non-stop swearing and general crudity and dumbness, then you might want to see it.
Rex hated it: “Feeble attempts at plot or character revelation are laughable. There is no climax. Magic Mike XXL just fades to black….“
Never Heard of her…