Currently browsing 'film'
Breaking the Matrix
My breaking the matrix… well it’s a lot of things, but right now the challenge seems to take its example in salsa and performance. It scares me silly, and I push myself, but shy away more. I retreat at the thought of watchful expectation, but also hold high expectations.
It’s good to know though that this matrix exists and you have to transcend it. I’m chugging along, even though I seek an immediate transcendental moment. And I’m brave enough to tackle the salsa congress with just, what? 6 months under my salsa spandex belt?
What’s your breaking the matrix?
Endangered species- local movie theaters
For better or for worse, we’ve lost a lot of our local movie theaters. In its last days Metro theater had cheap prices, peeling art deco decor, nasty seats, and I think only two movie rooms. But I didn’t have to trek on a subway or bus to see a movie. I could take a neighborhood stroll. I believe Metro is now land marked, so it’s in this odd limbo world of what to do with it. I hold my breath walking under that awning. It looks ready to fall flat down and squash you like a pancake out of anger for its decrepit state.
There are benefits to going to a mega theater- nowadays we want good sound and good images to entertain us, less so the storylines. And cleanliness is always nice. But loosing local places seems like one more step towards our cities becoming more like the affluent suburbs.
Bruce Leroy Dances Here Now
This post is completely dedicated to Roc Belushi of Harlem Hubris. He’s got one funny-ass blog on pretty much everything in the headlines, uncensored. Roc’s mind is a cool place to be in. His readers say he is a magnet for star-sightings, and he has some mean-ass commentary on them. He often graces me with his celebrity name knowledge because I am mostly clueless. Roc! Miss our lessons!
So of course I didn’t know who C-mixto and this big nerdy looking guy were fussing about in Cielo last night when the big guy kept exclaiming, “Yo! It’s Leroy! It’s Leroy!”
Bruce Leroy (Taimak) of the cult classic, The Last Dragon was taking in the beats of Alex Pearce and Cielo last night in NYC. C-mixto said Roc would appreciate a post on it. Him and his crew seemed way cool and I respect that he got down to the beats too.
You can also see him get down with Janet in her abstinence promoting video, “Let’s Wait Awhile”
To refresh your Last Dragon Memory, check out the fight scene:
Does the story change the act?
I was watching “Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones” (again) a few nights ago on Spike TV, blogging between the uninteresting fight scenes, eyes glued when the screen flashed with the evolving love story of Anakin and Padmé and warring rage of young man Anakin. By the end of the Star Wars prequels I was left with a haunting dilemma that I want to ask you readers about. We were introduced to Darth Vader as a full blown Sith, destroyer of planets, merciless killer, the Jungian shadow of the omnipotent patriarch. Darth Vader was a dark mystery. Human? Barely if at all, with his respirator and dark side powers. But in the prequels there is no Darth Vader yet (until the last scene). There is a story of a young man of impoverished background, fatherless, then motherless, and at one with a deep, soul-felt love that he soon looses too. The story of Vader is Anakin, a man who loved so deeply and so troubled by an intense connection to the force, he became an Angel of Death. Does the story change the act? – continue reading …
Beam me back to Earth, young Scottie
Roc Belushi asked me to give some words on the new Star Trek movie. Unlike when the Matrix came out, I did not declare the day a national holiday, take off from work and go alone to preserve the holiness of the experience. I didn’t feel this way because of what I saw in the trailer. Because odysseys sometimes take us to outerspace, here’s what I gots to say about the new Star Trek movie. It was an enjoyable movie experience overall, but irritating nevertheless. I really think I am saying it was enjoyable because everyone who saw it says they loved it. Here was the most enjoyable moment for me, and it was over quick. I’m not sure if there are many girls that get aroused at the sound of the Enterprise’s distinguishable “pulse” chirp, that tell-tale sign that you’re on the original bridge of the Enterprise. I won’t take the puritan Trekkie route (Lord, they filled the theater Saturday night) in this critique, but my excitement ended there. Beam me back to Earth, young Scottie – continue reading …
Drifter-Andarilho
No disrespect to the Brazilian director Cao Guimarães, but Drifter will cause you to more than drift. Watch the damn trailer and you’ll understand. It might seriously constitute subliminal torture and drive you mad. MoMA showed this flick last July, and trying to be good New Yorkers and actually patron our artistic institutions on occasion, me, Cy, sis, and Brown strolled into its theater a rainy Sunday afternoon. The film is listed as 80 minutes long, but I warn you: it will lock you into its maddening loop for eternity. Words cannot describe the audacity of this film to test the boundaries of what constitutes abstract thought and what is insanity. In fact, hardly a word is uttered, because you are simply watching; watching the heat rise from the highway asphalt road that the camera has been focused on for the last 20 minutes, watching the homeless man and his pushcart talk to coconuts (I actually don’t remember who he talked to, perhaps it was the air), watching NOTHING happen. 10 minutes in, a handful left the theater, NOTHING being such a bore. 20 minutes in, half the theater left was asleep, including Cy, who was the one who dragged us there. By 25 minutes only about 8 people remained, Cy defiant that this was a brilliant work of art after we nudged him awake. We bid him adieu, barely able to contain our laughter at the latitude of what constitutes a narrative, and had a hot cocoa across the street, until Cy emerged from Moma, proud and satiated that he had participated in something transcendental.
The film haunts us still.
Did you see Drifter, and if so, how did you fare? Have any equivalents?
P.S. It’s a trilogy!
