The Pop Culture Addict’s Blog

My favorite NY film fest is going on right now! The New York Asian Film Festival 2010 is playing at NY Film Society and Japan Society.

I guess I will go chronologically. Well let me say my favorite movie and then go in order viewed because I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen.

Ip Man 2
Ip Man was my favorite movie from the fest last year. Donnie Yen embodies this wing chung master, famously Bruce Lee’s teacher, with grace, strength and incredible technique. Donnie Yen is best known from Iron Monkey. He is a star. Ip Man 2 has these over-acting British bad guys vilified like you’ve never seen. It is over the top and unnecessary but the audience knew it was building up to the most needed Ip Man/Donnie Yen kickass moment. There are so many excellent fight scenes expertly choreographed and at times executed by the great Sammo Hung.

NOTE: I will wait until the fest is over before finishing this post. But I wanted to prove that I am still here!

What I’ve seen so far:

Cow
Crazy Racer
Kung Fu Chefs
Bodyguards and Assassins w/Development Hell
Boys on the Run
Annyong Yumika
Confessions
Little Big Soldier
Secret Reunion
Symbol
Red Cliff Uncut

I took time off from the fest to see a play and a non-Asian movie:

Shakespeare in the Park: The Winter’s Tale
Twilight Saga: Eclipse

I also saw Knight and Day before the fest started.

I am excited that Man Shops Globe Season 2 has started!

So to be continued…

Tweet This Post 

I had the best intentions to go to Film Forum to see the restored print of Breathless this weekend but I’ll have to do it during the week before it closes. But I had a fun week.

Conan O’Brien: The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour
First I went to see Conan at Radio City.

The whole experience was fun. It was a self-selected crowd all a-tingle with excitement.

I waffled on getting a shirt but then I learned part of the proceeds were going to charity which mitigated it for me. I like how my experimental picture came out of my shirt:

Even the opening act was fun and funny contrary to my expectations: Reggie Watts. So that set the mood properly. Then Andy Richter’s voice came on to introduce Conan. Basically, the show was tailor-made to entertain fans of the show. He took his favorite bits and fan favorites and showcased them. He threw in a couple of songs – On the Road Again, The Weight (as an encore) but no Hunk of Burning Love (I missed that). The band (everyone except Max) played through songs rather than just segues. I loved seeing Andy again. You cannot see a blessed thing in this picture but I took it when Conan came on stage in a purple suit worn by Eddie Murphy in Raw. Andy is standing next to him. My view was better than the picture suggests. My camera was not the highest quality. But I wanted to capture the moment. I caught the purpleness of it at least.

Conan made geographically topical comments and jokes about being back in NYC and so close to Rockefeller Center. There was great warmth in the air. He and his crew seemed to be there to show gratitude to the fans and were genuine in their desire to entertain. I had read reviews of the show so I knew there would be an appearance by Triumph via pre-recorded video. The notorious bear got a makeover into a panda. The Walker, Texas Ranger lever was re-named to something and still evoked the biggest laughs. This is when his guest stars came out. Let me think. Maybe they started beforehand. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart did a silly but boisterous skit involving a dance-off. Vampire Weekend performed a song with Conan playing along. Bill Hader, John Krasinski and Paul Rudd all got to pull the lever. Conan showed his favorite clip of a tiny Haley Joel Osment on Walker, Texas Ranger. It was all very satisfying.

Splice
I had already planned on seeing Splice this weekend but then while I was waiting in line for Conan, I got a free pass. Score! If you don’t know, Splice is about two geneticists played by the very hip Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody who create a creature mixing 10 kinds of animals with human DNA. The trailer suggests it might be horror film but it turned out to be pretty straight-forward sort of Michael Crichton-ish. The science isn’t terribly outlandish. I mean, many cinematic and fictional liberties are taken for entertainment value but it follows a natural development of relationship with the creature. I haven’t seen Adrien Brody in a while and had forgotten how engaging he is on screen. Plus, he got the coolest wardrobe and he wore it well. Sarah Polley seems to have been focusing on her directing career recently. But it was nice to see her again. Some of the creations reminded me of eXistenZ which Sarah Polley was also in but it didn’t quite reach the brilliance of David Cronenberg. Still, it was an entertaining movie. It was more of a sci-fi thriller than horror movie. The main genetically spliced creation was eerily embodied by the the child actor and adult actor who played it. As an audience member, I formed a relationship with it/her as the scientists did on screen. It got a bit outrageous at the end. Also, the plot twists were fun but fairly easy to see from afar. I don’t need to be endlessly surprised so that wasn’t necessarily a negative. Overall, it was a decent watch.

Get Him to the Greek
I got a kick out of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Russell Brand is pretty funny during his late night appearances. Also, I saw his stand up once and found him funny. He has an interesting approach that teeters on the edge but he seems to have a good sense of what’s funny and is always willing to make fun of himself. On the dvd extras of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, they talked about how good Russell Brand’s improv skills were and also showed clips of him riffing. So I saw promise in the idea of a movie that focused on his character, Aldous Snow. The trailer is pretty funny. But it made me wonder if it was one of the trailers where the funniest bits are squeezed into those 3 minutes while the rest of the movie is just so-so. My expectations were tempered so I was pleasantly surprised by the relative substance of the movie. I mean, it’s not particularly deep but I laughed a lot and would watch it again.

Toy Story 3
I’m so excited to see Toy Story 3 but it doesn’t open until June 18th. I have hope for The A-Team which opens this week.

Tweet This Post 

The Messenger
I had wanted to see The Messenger in the theater but it didn’t play for very long. Or I just missed the window of opportunity. Anyway, I watched it on dvd. I had already expected Woody Harrelson to be good. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Ben Foster. No, that’s not true. I was worried that he was going to be over-the-top and play a character like his 3:10 to Yuma/Hostage ones. But actually, he demonstrated restraint and believability in The Messenger. I didn’t dislike his acting in those other movies but I felt like he had more range than that and was wondering if he’d take other types of roles. Anyway, I’d been meaning to watch The Messenger since it came out but knowing the subject matter, it’s about two soldiers assigned to notifying next of kin about their loved ones’ deaths, I was waiting for the right time. Memorial Day seemed like a fitting time. It certainly lived up to my expectations. It’s thoughtful, it’s well-acted, the story is respectful and well-crafted. It’s a full movie that shows these characters dealing with enormously difficult situations. I also really appreciated the documentary that’s on the special features called Notification. It seems like it would be hard to watch but it was touching and interesting as it shows interviews with family members who have had the experience of being notified and soldiers who have had the experience of having to notify next of kins and providing the follow up assistance to families. I highly recommend the movie. I learned from the extras is that only the last story/notification was based on a true story the filmmakers had read about. The others ones were fictional accounts. Also, yes, they had the support of the military and they received positive feedback from soldiers and vets. Oren Moverman said he had not spoken to the ones who didn’t like the movie so he didn’t have their feedback to share.

Ossos
My fellow Pop Culture Addicts gifted me with Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa saying they had heard they were good movies but had not seen them yet. I had not heard of Pedro Costa or the movies but was intrigued. Criterion typically doesn’t put effort into packaging movies that haven’t been lauded for some reason or another. So, I started at the beginning and watched the first of the trio, Ossos. It means “bones” in Portugese. Fountainhas is the area of Lisbon in which the characters live and the movies take place for the most part. It is an impoverished area of Lisbon. The movies are present-day but they seem period because poverty never seems contemporary. What I noticed first was that every image was striking, beautiful almost. It’s a series of beautiful images. Is that enough to make a movie? It took 30 minutes before I was grabbed by the story which starts as soon as the movie begins but doesn’t quite reach the point where I care until this scene in the hospital with the young father falling flat on his face on the floor. But at this point in the movie, I had to go back to the beginning and fastforward through it all to re-watch it to make sure I had caught everything. It is about a young mother who comes out of the hospital, picked up by her friend, abandoned by her boyfriend. The boyfriend/father is introduced even before the mother. He enters the scene and is destitute, desperate, yet seemingly paternal until you see what he does and and asks for in terms of help. The deadpan feel of the movie made me think of Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, etc.) and Takeshi Kitano (Sonatine for one). As I’ve read about Pedro Costa, I’ve learned he’s compared to Robert Bresson who was a photographer at first before becoming a filmmaker. He was known for his pared down scenes with actors conveying the emotion of the scene and environment in the starkest of ways. Yes, that is what Ossos is like, bare, stark, minimalistic. BUT, the colors are rich. The images are deliberately framed and cinematic. Very Truffaut. Stark but beautiful to look at. I actually spaced out while watching it because I became hypnotized or something by the slow, deliberate pace. As I said earlier, at that 30 minute mark, I was shocked into motion and actually went back to the beginning and fastforwarded through all of the images to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I hadn’t but it’s put together in such a such a way that when something actually happens, it gives you pause and makes you question whether you just saw something happen or if it was a mirage. I will watch the next movie sometime in the future. I did notice that Pedro Costa made Ossos a very reasonable 97 minutes but the next two movies become increasingly longer. 157 minutes is a long time to watch a painting-like movie. So what am I saying in this review? I’m glad I watched Ossos. It showed me a world I didn’t know about and would have never seen otherwise. It shows these characters moving through their lives trying to make ends meet, trying to care for themselves and others. It also made me think about Hunger which is a very visual experience of a movie. I’ve said of Hunger that it is a movie I recommend but I will never watch it again because it was so gut-wrenching. I would watch Ossos again because while the story matter is bleak, there is still a distance from the pain of the characters. So I could see it again to look at the angles and study the performances. Hunger just took it out of me. It was so up-close and visceral.

All Together Now
I am sure I’ve mentioned the Beatles/Cirque du Soleil documentary All Together Now before because I watched it a while back but I watched it again recently and had to comment on it. What a fantastic documentary. I am a Beatles fan but I wouldn’t say I am a Cirque du Soleil fan. I appreciate the artistry of the individuals in the troupe and performances. But it’s just not to my taste. Too New Age-y. However, Love is the one show I actively want to see. I think it’s closed in Vegas now but if it every comes to NYC, I will go. I already got the album the second it was available. Let me find my review of that.

This album, Love, is fantastic! Forget the Grey Album, this album has the Beatles mixed with…the Beatles. Love it! And it is mixed by George Martin, who, with his Beatles’ credentials, had access to recordings of versions of Fab Four songs previously unheard by the public. He worked on it with his son Giles. I admit I’ve had my doubts about Cirque du Soleil being my cup of tea. I saw one show awhile back and was impressed by their acrobatics but wasn’t quite feeling the new age vibe. I was agreeing with the Simpsons rendition of Cirque du Soleil, if you remember that or was it on South Park – both had parodies. But this show, Love, looks great. I saw a special on the premiere on E!, and it was very moving because Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Cynthia Lennon, her son Julian Lennon, Olivia Harrison, son Dhani and George Martin were in attendance. Also, I saw, and maybe you did too, Cirque du Soleil performing a scene from Love on the Tonight Show. It actually looked really good. Right now it is only playing in Vegas.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that, according to the liner notes, George Martin and son mixed together 135 songs into 26 tracks. So cool.

24
So 24 is over. I watched it from the first jaw-dropping episode in Season 1 till the middle of Season 8. Then I felt compelled to watch the series finale. I know I missed a lot of hard decisions, violent scenes and political tragedies. But I’m glad I made the effort to watch the last 2 hours of the show. I think I stopped watching 24 this season because I felt like my tv plate was full and it was getting to be hard to take the strife of Jack Bauer’s existence. Why was it so hard? After all these years, why did people still doubt his analyses of difficult situations? Why did people still not trust in Chloe O’Brian when she has proven time and time again that she is always the smartest and most capable person in the room? But it all came together in the finale. People’s loyalties remained true, especially Jack and Chloe’s. I was shocked to see where Cherry Jones’ President Taylor had found herself. But she did the right thing in the end. And there is definitely room left for the promised 24 movie to be filmed in London sometime in the near future.

Lost
I wrote about Lost last week before I saw the series finale. It was very divisive at the end of the season. Fellow Lost fans were either on board or completely turned off. A fellow Pop Culture Addict said she watched the finale with a group of 10 and 8 of them hated it. I was satisfied by how it ended. I’m still processing it but as I think about it, I find interesting things to think about. I just read how Jorge Garcia’s little dog Nunu was hit fatally by a car yesterday. So sad. Along with many other Lost fans, I really got to know Nunu as the third podcaster in Geronimo Jack’s Beard. So sad but I think Nunu was loved and had a great life.

Treme/Justified
Treme and Justified keep going strong. Party Down is also holding up. I see that a handful of my shows are starting soon: True Blood, Burn Notice, Leverage, White Collar and Eureka. My Boys is coming back too. So I’m looking forward to all of those.

Tweet This Post 

Today, on the day of the Lost series finale, I’m brimming with anticipation and ready to give in to my feelings of nostalgia for the show.

Flashback
Aug 12, 2004
As you may or may not know, I am very into Felicity. And I enjoy Alias as well (but not as much as I love watching Felicity). So I am greatly anticipating JJ Abrams new show “Lost.”

I know I will have to wait a couple of months to see it. But I keep hearing about it and it just gets my tv senses all a-tingling.

AICN describes Lost as: “ABC’s new scifi castaway adventure from “Alias” mastermind J.J. Abrams. As with “Alias,” Abrams himself wrote and directed the pilot.”

Basically, a plane crashes on an island and 48 people survive. It’s like if Gilligan’s Island meets Alfred Hitchcock meets Twilight Zone (I think).

So this is what excites me (again my info is from AICN):
Some of the characters include:
1) “Charlie (former hobbit Dominic Monaghan) is as close as we get to a Ginger. He plays bass in a once-famous rock band called Driveshaft and, like many on the island, harbors a dark secret;
2) Claire (Emilie DeRaven, who was pregnant with Max Evans’ alien baby on Roswell) is a very pregnant girl concerned about the health of her unborn child;
and
3) Jin (the ubiquitous Daniel Dae Kim, a semi-regular since 2001 on everything from Angel to 24 to Enterprise to Miss Match to ER).” [He was good in Angel].

And aside from JJ Abrams, another key writer will be: “David Fury who has written more teleplays set in the Buffiverse than anyone else, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Joss Whedon. Favorites include Fear, Itself and Life Serial.”

Please, I need something to fill the Buffy/Angel void!

Sep 22, 2004
I cannot believe this show is on at 8pm!!! It just seems like a 10pm show for sure. I would not let any kids watch it. It is not appropriate for many.

Really, I love the work of JJ Abrams – I just got Felicity Season 3 on dvd and can’t wait to watch it again and revel in the extras. So I think if you’re up for it, Lost is going to be a good show – but only for a mature audience.

I like how Dominic Monaghan and Emilie de Ravin are speaking in their natural voices (and accents – as they sound to us Americans). It reminded me of Steven Soderbergh’s reasoning about why he wanted Catherine Zeta-Jones to speak in her natural voice in Traffic. He said actors and actresses already have so much they are focusing on, he just didn’t want keeping an American accent to detract from any of it. I really would’ve liked Emilie de Ravin to have been allowed to speak in her natural voice on Roswell. It would’ve made it more interesting. Oh well.

So I was totally thinking about Jurassic Park while I was watching Lost. I wonder how it will unfold.

Oct 7, 2004
Here’s an excerpt of an interview with Damon Lindelof aka JJ Abrams writing partner on Lost at aintitcool.com.

http://aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18582

AICN: How did you come to team with J.J.? Why do you guys need each other?

DL: Suffice to say, it was Lloyd Braun (then head of ABC) who came to J.J. with the series concept of “Plane Crashes on Island” in late January of this year. J.J. was INSANE at the time so he said the only way he could even think about getting involved would be to bring in another writer to spitball. I’d been an ALIAS addict for almost three years at this point and had been pushing my agents (and anyone who’d listen) just to get a meeting with J.J.. Ultimately, it was Heather Kadin (an incredibly bright woman who defies the term “network executive) who pitched ME as the person to sit down with J.J. on this concept.
It’s sort of a long story, but it’s a short one, too — We met the next day. Had an amazing three hour meeting. Saw the same show — a character-based MYSTERY/ADVENTURE concept. Working closely together, we banged out a detailed outline over the next few days, turned it over to ABC and crossed our fingers. As this was the VERY end of “development season,” there’d be no time to write a script before we started pre-production. That Saturday morning (four days after our first meeting), ABC greenlit “Lost.”
Eleven weeks later, we delivered the cut and mastered pilot.

You’ll have to ask J.J. why he needs me (hell — I’m still asking MYSELF that), but as to why I need him? Come on. …the guy’s a frigging genius.

AICN: What do you suppose inspired Heather Kadin to champion you? Perhaps some hot spec script with your name on the title page?

DL: I suspect Heather suggested me because I’d been hounding her to put me in a room with J.J. for two years and she wanted me to shut the hell up. Aside from whatever rep I gleaned from my five years on TV staffs prior to this, my “calling card” writing sample has always been a little one-act play I wrote entitled “Ollie Klublershturf vs. The Nazis” — a time-travel comedy that people seemed to dig.

There was also an early New York Times article. Let me find a good excerpt:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/arts/television/10lost.html

Nov 13, 2004
November 10, 2004
How ‘Lost’ Careered Into Being a Hit Show
By JOE RHODES
…
“We were writing audition scenes because we hadn’t had time to finish the actual script,” Mr. Abrams said.

But as actors came in to audition, something fascinating happened, he recalled. “They would inspire us to take characters in a direction that we wouldn’t have come up with on our own,” he said.

The result was a radical reimagining of some of the original characters. Charlie, the burned-out English rocker played by Dominic Monaghan, was originally envisioned as a middle-aged businessman with a drug problem. Sawyer, the troublesome American played by Josh Holloway, was going to be a New Zealander. And Jack, the heroic (so far) spinal surgeon played by Matthew Fox, was going to be much older. And since he was also meant to die in the first episode, a one-shot appearance, high-priced movie stars like Michael Keaton and Aaron Eckhardt were being considered for the part.

Some well-known actors not usually associated with prime-time television, Ms. Webster said, were attracted by Mr. Abrams’s reputation and intrigued by the nontraditional premise, which is how they managed to get Mr. Monaghan, a hot property after playing Merry Brandybuck in the “Lord of the Rings” films; Naveen Andrews, best known for his performance as Lt. Kip Singh in “The English Patient”; and Harold Perrineau, coming off his appearance as Link in “The Matrix” trilogy and critical raves for his stage performance in “Top Dog/Underdog.”

The cast also includes Terry O’Quinn, a frequent “Alias” guest star, as the philosopher-hunter Locke, and Jorge Garcia, whom Mr. Abrams and Ms. Webster happened to see on an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” the night before his audition, as the imperturbably mellow Hurley.

….

The Lost Generation is Born
I can’t remember who said it, but I think of it often: you have your whole life to write your first novel and then a year to write your follow-up. I think of David Chase coming up with the The Sopranos Season 1. He wrote it conceiving it as a feature length movie. So he had everything worked out exactly how he wanted: the arcs, the character development, the resolutions. So as a premiere season, it is a perfect season of television. Then it became a success and he had to come up with season 2. The entire series shines but I think David Chase definitely felt the pressure and certainly got criticism from fans and others who felt let down when Season 2 started off. So I think this idea can be applied to the premiere season of Lost. A lot of time was put in the development of the first season. Then, the executive producers (JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse) have all said that while they had a good idea of the endgame, they didn’t know how much time they had to develop their characters and storylines. So Season 2 started and the end of Lost was up in the air. How long were we going to be with these characters? How much time did they have to reveal the mysteries of the island? The pilot of Lost is one of the best pilots. It grabbed me instantly. I wanted to know more about everything I saw.

Flashforward
Yes, the moment of truth was in the Season 3 finale when we all suddenly realized it was Jack’s flash-FORWARD not flashback. Yowza! They made it off the island. And it wasn’t going too well in the future.

Nonetheless, while brilliance ensued. I have to say that I still got into the intrigue of Seasons 2 & 3 up until then. We really got to know the characters and what shaped their personalities and what life choices they made before the island. We also got to know the Others. So then there was the game-changing season 4 full of flashforwards.

Then the amazing decision to go back 30 years to have our Losties join the Dharma Initiative hit us. No flashing whatsoever last season. Sawyer was always a favorite, bad decisions and all. Then we got to see the leader and lover inside him. I’m sure Josh Holloway enjoyed playing a different side of the con man he had cultivated until then.

Sideways
That brings us to flash-sideways in the current and final season. Tonight, we will learn how the sideways world and the island world mesh together. There are characters who are alive in the sideways world who are no longer on the island. What does this mean? There are characters who haven’t crossed paths yet in the sideways world. We will finally see Juliet and Sawyer/James Ford make their dutch coffee date. I will definitely need tissues to wipe away the tears during that scene. We will learn the fate of the remaining candidates. We will find out Jack’s baby-mama. Many think it’s Juliet. I had been thinking it was Julie Bowen’s character but it just occurred to me that David’s piano concert at the museum is the perfect locale for a love connection to take place between Detective Sawyer and Dr. Juliet. Yes, that makes total sense.

So here are some of my thoughts of what I’d like to see happen:
I envision a Superfriends/Justice League existence for Jack and the remaining candidates. I think that Jack could induct them all into island guardianship like how Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended. Buffy inducted all of the potential slayers at the same time to increase their power and chance of survival. I was thinking of how they might couple up so they aren’t terribly lonely and also they may create some island babies. I was thinking maybe Sawyer and Kate can have a different kind of relationship while Hurley and Claire can also get together. Jack will have to be alone. Also, in the future, like how J.K. Rowlings ended Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we can flash to the future when all of the Lostie kids have connected and have some sort of off-island island guardianship society. This society would include grown up Ji Yeon Kwon, Aaron Austen-Littleton, Charlie Hume, a very tall big brother to all Walt, Alex Rousseau and David Shepherd.

Lost-phoria
So I was trying to think what I was feeling today. It’s lost-phoria, a feeling of anticipation to have my mind blown by a kick-ass finale mixed with knowledge that Lost will linger in my thoughts long after it’s over and that I will feel the gap in my pop culture existence after the martini shot.

Integrated Existence aka Life Post-Lost
I can’t really speak to this yet. So let’s put a pin in it for now.

MacGruber
I suspected that MacGruber would be juvenile and puerile. But I had hopes that it might be clever like the South Park movie. It had a few laughs but for the most part, it was really inane! I still get a chuckle out of the SNL MacGruber skit when he says, “Oh, I’m racist,” when he’s trying to decide whether to cut the yellow wire, the black wire or the red wire but he calls them by different ethnicities.

Tweet This Post 

Metropolis
I watched Fritz Lang’s Metropolis on dvd and thought it was interesting but not necessarily gripping. When I learned that a newly restored version was playing at Film Forum, I got excited. It was well-worth the effort. The Argentinian film archivist Paula Felix-Didier who discovered the missing footage of METROPOLIS spoke beforehand. She said she worked with others based on leads she had discovered about an original copy of the movie existing in Argentina. It reminded me of every time I read Pride and Prejudice when I realize that human nature and hierarchy of wants and needs have not changed since the beginning of our existence on this planet. Metropolis is about a father and son relationship, class distinctions, cyborgs, lost love all in 1927. I’ve seen silent movies with live music which is always fantastic and with soundtracks. This one was very full and fitting. It was restored with the original score from 1927. I found it a highly satisfying cinematic experience.

A Brand New Life
I made it to the last day of the Tribeca Film Festival. I wasn’t planning on attending but then some fellow Pop Culture Addicts said they were going to see A Brand New Life. I read the description and it sounded like something that could be watchable. I liked the way the POV was through the little girl. That was uniquely impressive. Of course, the story of a girl left at an orphanage by her own father because he can’t afford to keep her is not exactly uplifting. But through the sadness, the story of how the girl develops awareness and relationships with the other kids, etc. is captivating. It seemed like it might be autobiographical. I couldn’t say for sure but it seemed like the filmmaker might’ve been telling her story at least in part.

Ondine
I didn’t see Ondine at the Tribeca Film Festival but it debuted there. A couple of Pop Culture Addicts saw it there and recommended it. I watched it on-demand. It’s an Irish film by Neil Jordan about a fisherman played by Colin Ferrell who catches a woman in his net one day. That’s how the movie opens. It turns out the man has a sick daughter he is trying to maintain a good relationship with and life and livelihood he is struggling to manage. The woman is mysteriously played by the comely Polish actress Alicja Bachleda. The daughter is sweetly and precociously portrayed by Alison Barry. Colin Ferrell does a nicely under-stated job on par with his excellent In Bruges performance. Chris Doyle of Wong Kar-Wai notoriety (In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express, Ashes of Time, to name a few) films the beautiful locale and story lusciously. Neil Jordan gives the audience a warm, magical story. I’m glad I watched it.

Looking for Eric
When I think of Ken Loach, I think of the gut-wrenching but striking My Name is Joe. Very memorable. I heard The Wind That Shakes the Barley was good but I didn’t get to it in the theater. I’ll have to watch it in another format. I didn’t have Looking for Eric high on my list. It was “of interest” but I when I got a chance to see it early for free as a member of IFC Center, I gladly took advantage of the opportunity. Looking For Eric is an intimate, quirky movie about a guy named Eric who is down-trodden by his own life. His ex, his step-kids, his own kid, his job, they all weigh heavily on him. He derives comfort from his fandom of Manchester United and in particular Eric Cantona. Eric Cantona is a producer and actor in this film. He plays the figment of himself in Eric’s life, giving him support, advice and companionship. The real soccer footage is fun and impressive to watch. His fiery personality is only referred to peripherally. I think as he was a producer, he chose to focus on the highlights of his career vs the low points. Anyway, I could’ve used subtitles to help me with the Manchester accent and the French accent. Still, it was a different type of hero-worship, getting-it-together movie. I think Eric Cantona fans will enjoy it as will Ken Loach fans who will be surprised by the relative lightness of the story. Eric’s friends lend a levity and sweetness to the tale.

Friday Night Lights
Just a moment to welcome the return of the great Friday Night Lights. It’s heart-breaking to see Matt Saracen, my favorite character, floating around town delivering pizzas. I know his character will be leaving soon. I know his send-off will be heart-warming and worthy of the weight of his character arc. I hope that Tim Riggins’ life picks up. I just love the core of the show, Coach Taylor and Tami Taylor. She is so smooth as she straddles being the hated principal of the home of the Dillon Panthers and secret supporter of the underdog East Dillon Lions. “Hey y’all,” she says before she out-manipulates the manipulating father of JD McCoy. And poor Buddy Garrity wanting to shift to the East but having to fake support for the Panthers. Genius story-telling with engulfing characters and storylines. It has changed how I approach Friday night!

We the Kings: Smile Kids
I was making a playlist for a fellow PCA when I accidentally dl’d the entire We the Kings album Smile Kid. I only meant to dl Heaven Can Wait. It was a happy accident. I like that single Heaven Can Wait and was pleasantly surprised to like the entire album. I would’ve never thought to get it. I’ve only gone through it once so far but I look forward to many more listenings.

Keane: Night Train
One of my favorite bands is Keane. From the moment I heard Everybody’s Changing, I was smitten. So I was thrilled to see they have a new album: Night Train. I just dl’d it so I don’t have any reactions yet other than sheer anticipation for lovely new music.

Tweet This Post