28.11.06

The year's top cinema... It's been a subtle progression, from auditory to visual, but where I once ranked albums as the year closed -- as recently as 2000, or 2002 if you want to get technical -- but now, it's Hollywood that drives me. Film in general, really. So, I offer my top 20 for twenty aught six.

01. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada ... So be it that this was authentically, officially released in '05; this still makes the top of my '06 chart. Why, precisely? I saw it at one of the local "arthouses" in March of the past year, when Three Burials received its Milwaukee release. Beyond that, this debut from Tommy Lee Jones (as director) is the starkest evocation of Cervantes's opus, Don Quijote. The desolate South Texas borderland mirrors perfectly the Manchego terrain that the hero, astride Rocinante, roamed, while the personages of rancher (Jones) & border-guard (Barry Watson), in the effort to give the first man's immigrant laborer friend a proper burial in his Mexican hometown, are doubles for Quijote & Sancho. This film could not be more perfect. Another bold stroke from writer Guillermo Arriaga, who has taken nigh all the flack for the less-than-stellar Babel, even though it is Gonzalez Inarriatu who has yet to achieve a notable film sans Arriaga & cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. But, in the end, Three Burials becomes much of for what that other film aimed. Funny, innit?

02. An Inconvenient Truth

03. Stranger than Fiction

04. Moartea Domnului Lazarescu ... Another film a year or more removed from its authentic release, I saw this in its limited Milwaukee cinema debut at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's cinema in late October, & it surprised me how true to the details of Romanian urban life it is. From Lazarescu's neighbours, who assume that the cardiac episode he faces is actually just an hallucination brought on by drink, to the cool disregard of the educated staff at the several hospitals to which the medics take the patient, this film is superb.

05. Inside Man

06. The Last King of Scotland ... What to say, other than Academy favorite for best actor? Forrest Whitaker incarnates the late dictator Idi Amin as both benevolent ascendant to the presidency & rash "royal" in the succeeding years. The events surrounding the dictator might be rooted in conjecture more than fact, as well, but they only heighten one's growing awareness of the wooly & often bloody epoch that was the 1970s.

07. Little Miss Sunshine

08. Blood Diamond

09. Driving Lessons

10. Monster House ... I confess ignorance of the mid-nineties cartooning of Rob Schrab, though I knew the name from the interest of friends & their friends in his work. With that, I must admit I was a bit flabbergasted that the manic pacing & slapstick humour I was expecting in this Spielberg-produced feature was not there. This is an evenly paced kid's movies, but not unlike the better fare of animated comedy thru the years -- in particular, the Lebowski-cribbed "Powerpuff Girls" episode that I saw whilst in Romania -- it has enough adult shadings to keep the parents as well as the children rapt.

11. The Departed

12. Casino Royale

13. Lucky Number Slevin

14. Jonestown: The Tragedy of People's Temple ... Another offering inspired by the raucous & uncertain seventies epoch, this documentary left me quite well informed of not just "the Kool-aid", but what drove so many to fly several thousand miles, to an unpeopled jungle. It would appear that the congregants of People's Temple were of the greatest of intentions, and committed to the spirit of the homilies (sorry, I was raised Catholic; but, I know that Protestants give 'sermons') of the Rev. Jim Jones, but the roiling cauldron of the minister's psyche, when away from the pulpit, sabotaged their aims. & yes, that is grave understatement. Possibly the most powerful film I saw this year.

15. The Science of Sleep

16. Half-nelson

17. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby ... This is where the hipster elite lose me. While any that Judd Apatow is golden, apparently it does not apply to this feature. The charicatures are too broad, the sentiment (especially toward the end) too gooey -- plus, its lead is a former featured player on Saturday Night Live (& we know THOSE people have never made a good film!). Pshaw, to that, I say. I enjoyed this considerably. Sublime performances by the heir to Ricky Bobby's race-team ownership & the heir's wife, plus a credible performance from Sacha Baron Cohen & softer touches from Michael Clarke Duncan & John C. Reilly than we are used to, & Ferrell's turn as a man stuck between the South's colourful but unlettered past & its checkered & heavily-capitalized future becomes perchance the best counter to the ascendance of the Texified GOP. Oh, & it's funny. & it has Amy Adams reprise the mesmerizing performance of Tawny Kitaen, from that Whitesnake video.

18. Miami Vice

19. Babel

20. Thank You for Smoking

20.11.06

I can't get laid,... con't'd

from A. J.
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9:02 pm (1½ hours ago)
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Tim Melvin ,Ryan Schreiber

date
Nov 20, 2006 9:02 PM

subject
Re: I turn to you...

mailed-by
gmail.com

UPDATE!

Actually, though, the exclamation mark is wholly unnecessary, as the news is not so good.

Selah.

As to the progress (lack thereof) I have to report that I delivered a greeting to her as my shift started on Friday -- around eight pm -- saying, merely, "ey!" She responded with an "hello", but realizing the speaker (or so I have to think) she turned away. Didn't say anything to me the rest of the nite, & as she left for home (or the club) & I sat across from her path out of the breakroom -- I was on my break, but without malice aforethought, i.e. I had no expectation she'd be coming 'round (in fact, I was fifteen mins. into my break at her entry, with two other of the security staff), she quite purposefully (again, I have to think) looked anywhere but in the direction of my person.

So, bad luck. My radar -- well, the 3% of it that tilted to "does she have an interest in me? maybe" -- proved incorrect. Again. (Fortunately, I made no unmistakable effort to pursue her. So, embarassment at shooting out of my league averted, at least.)

... But, wait, there's more.

I'm at work yesterday, again readying for my late-eve break -- I was closing-shift usher, so not taking it 'til after all theatres, lavatories, & lounge-spaces were cleared of debris -- & ordering my pizza, when the assistent manager (Jessica, age 23, undergrad at UW-Milwaukee) for concessions asked me, "You can remember the number '313', no?"

It puzzled me at first. I figured, somehow, it was related to her counts, the candy-cart or drink-cups, prolly, & she wanted me to keep the number in mind since she didn't have afore her pen & paper with which to record their number.

Then again, I've never been asked to keep a count in my head -- & I've worked there two years.

Further, 313 is the employee i.d. for the female security staff that was giving me a weird vibe -- weird because it's south of normal for a female to show interest, any interest, even just social, in me -- so, yeah....

This whole scenario might have gotten quite a bit more sinister.

(I feel like I might be in an M. Night Shyamalan film!)

I mean, does the management of the theatre, et. al., have a betting line on me, when they can get me to crack & act as if faux female entreaties are true, thus embarassing myself?

But, yes, I would loller at this, as an impartial observer. As I am the object of this joke, though, I have to say, I would like to know if that is what it is... & I would like to have it over with, the punch-line gotten to, quite soon.

Quote Kool Keith, "I ain't the Elephant Man; what gives?"

-- ajs