thedwork

and, again, if you're of a certain age and went through a heavy rock and roll period (whether you're still down or not), this movie was quite a beautiful thing imo: one hilarious scene after another, w/ the ever underrated and spot-on Joan Cusack giving an excellent and hilarious supporting turn...

not the best movie, but this scene/tune is classic:

nice tune, nice arrangement:

great idea for a thread! 1st film that came to mind for me was Bullets Over Broadway. for me, easily Woody's funniest film. but it also deals w/ some interesting ideas as well and ends up being rather deep while never being less than absolutely hilarious! and even w/ his roles in Hurlyburly and Bronx Tale, for me this is still the best Chazz Palmitteri performance. the role of a lifetime... the setup: the beginning of how it plays out: too many great things in this movie to even try to start naming them. watch it!

i'm basically the same. disliked many. but truly, deeply hated? only one: A Hole In My Heart. my short review: The most relentlessly nihilistic, intentionally disturbing wannabe art-house vomit ever made. So totally devoid of humanity it should be erased from history. The impression is that the film was intentionally made to worsen the viewer's life to somehow even the playing field of all human existence out of some sort of morally relativistic sense of justice. It doesn't. Whether the film-maker had this intention or not makes no difference. The end result is inhumane garbage. The act of creating suffering or pain for another person doesn't guarantee any kind of revelation on the part of the one enduring the pain. I understand the value of shock. I understand our need for art to wake people up. I agree that our world is often relentlessly harsh. But no matter how noble the intentions, this film makes things worse. Shit on shit.

back when i thought i had what it takes: apologies for the relative lame audio/video quality. the band did an excellent job i think...

as usual i don't know what the fuck alocispepralugar is posting about, and i'm pretty certain by this point that that's how he/she likes it. as for the rest of the hand wringing - it's a fucking state lottery. it's a fucking dollar a week. nobody is becoming poor 'cuz they play a couple bucks a week to try to hit the mega millions. and you guys do understand that people actually win that thing every once in a while, right? people don't become/stay poor because they blow a couple bucks here and a couple bucks there a week. they're poor because they make hundreds of dollars less per week on their paychecks than most other folks. getting/staying poor due to buying your morning cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts a couple times a week instead of making it at home is a myth wealthy people spin - and folks who are doing ok buy that myth. it makes the well off feel good that the poor are that way 'cuz they buy a lottery ticket once a week or their coffee at Dunkin Donuts every once in a while, and not because of the huge disparity between their weekly incomes. also - in my experience, only people who have ever truly had money worries will understand what i've written above. the others, as they read this part of the post, have a deer-in-the-headlights glaze over their eyes and they don't know why. folks who have enough money not to worry about financial ruin being around the corner will not be able to relate to it. be glad if you're in the camp that can't comprehend...

And he makes a damn good zombie too! oh yeah! forgot about that one. great scene...

continued (last one, promise...): Lost In Translation (greatness...) Bill Murray is the fucking man. amen...

continued: and the Rushmore scene that had me laughing so hard the first time i saw it i actually physically hurt myself: The Royal Tennenbaums Broken Flowers Get Low (good, not great) Moonrise Kingdom (so excited... ) and this, as an example of just generally why i (and i dare say most of us) LOVE Bill Murray so:

had to split up a long post into a few 'cuz i guess you can only have 2 "media files" in a single post. continued: Rushmore!!! (in my personal top 10 favorite films of all-time. for me, as close to perfect as any movie i've experienced. endlessly beautiful.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8YbjyBQzI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA622OwgHCA

Lost In Translation and Broken Flowers? The 'Lolita' scene in Broken Flowers is funny. I like watching the characters he plays kind of drift through life while things just seem to 'happen' to him. Talk about nonchalant ok - i'll play: Where The Buffalo Roam Tootsie Ghostbusters Ed Wood Groundhog Day Kingpin!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GGt0T-gZ8Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG1T05cu0xA

Roger Ebert: Groundhog Day is a film that finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is. Certainly I underrated it in my original review; I enjoyed it so easily that I was seduced into cheerful moderation. But there are a few films, and this is one of them, that burrow into our memories and become reference points. When you find yourself needing the phrase This is like "Groundhog Day" to explain how you feel, a movie has accomplished something. and the incomparable Anthony Lane: Why is Groundhog Day so peculiarly satisfying? Harold Ramis's direction is nothing special, yet there is a beautiful, lip-smacking efficiency in the way that a great idea is touched off and followed to its conclusion. One question dogs it every step of the way: is this heaven or hell? Given Phil's chance, would we whittle our life to perfection, or turn crazy on the treadmill? The film is haunted by boredom, not least by the fact that Phil can never die of it. But he didn't exactly lead a firecracker existence beforehand, and one could argue that Phil stands for all the weary, work-scuffed heroes of cinema; the Chaplin of Modern Times, arms still tightening an invisible nut from hours on the assembly-line, would know just how he felt. Phil could only be played by Bill Murray, of course, our highest judge of the quick and the deadpan. From Stripes to Ghostbusters, the expression on that flat disc of a face has said, 'This isn't happening to me'. Well, now it really isn't. Nothing is happening to him, over and over again... Groundhog Day may be scatty and fragmented, yet in some way the fragments revolve like a mobile. No other medium could have taken this daft plot and lent it such weird purity; Phil sees his life in the way that we watch a favourite film, returning with pleasure to its untouched state, yet noticing new pleasures every time... Phil is like a director filming his own experience, brushing up old hat and getting it just right. You never want it to end, although for his sake you know that it must. Such blessed release was never granted to his distant cousins, the old grouch of Krapp's Last Tape or the Winnie of Happy Days. Beckett showed us a kind of sorry-go-round, a looptape of distress on which his characters stoically spun. It takes a major Hollywood studio to show us the other side of the coin, and come up with good silly reasons to seize the day. Some things never change.

I hate the 2 Wes Anderson movies I've seen (that one & Life Aquatic) i also really liked Darjeeling, Tennenbaums, and to a lesser extent Aquatic. Rushmore is an all-time favorite of mine. just totally forever classic and beautiful. but i can understand not being a Wes Anderson "fan." he's somewhat hyper-stylized and extremely idiosyncratic so it's kind of a "love it or hate it" situation w/ him i guess. kinda like Baz Lurmann. over the top, ya know? but i definitely count myself as an Anderson fan. big time. i'll be seeing Moonrise Kingdom within the next week or so now Groundhog Day... that's another matter entirely...

speechless. mind-boggling. cannot comprehend. brain shutting down. losing power...

Aha! gotchya. by the way, i'm John as well. i always said there are too many Johns...

Really John? Really? I don't think Ferrell wrote most of his sketches, sorry. There have been writing teams from the start. i was worried that my post might not have been clear, and you've confirmed my mistake. or maybe your sarcasm toward me was as unclear as my sarcasm toward JETman? ouch... i was trying to be kind in a toned down sarcastic way. i didn't just wanna come out and say, "Uhhh... You have no idea what you're talking about." yes, of course, it's pretty well known to folks who are interested in this stuff that SNL was written (i assume is still written...) by a team of writers. i've read the awesome oral history of SNL (anyone remotely interested should just go buy it), i've recently posted here a few times on how much i love Studio 60. that series gives you a good idea how sketch comedy programs generally, and SNL specifically work. sure, performers would pitch characters to writers or maybe general situations, but there's still a division of labor between writers and players. if players write their own material for a sketch it's the exception for sure, not the rule. i thought you trusted me jazzbo?

d'ya hear the one about the guy who bent over to tie his shoe?

i'd say if you're thinking about watching Spanglish in its entirety, you should hold off on watching this scene here. but for folks who might just wanna a peak at something Sandler has done that is more "dramatic" and well done, this may be the best scene to check out. out of context you miss a little bit, but not much. his relationship w/ his wife informs his reaction to the apology he receives in this scene, and his reference to what has happened earlier w/ his own daughter are the two things that build to aspects of this scene. but an astute watcher will get the gist from the scene alone. it's well written and performed. the movie as a whole, while having a generally light tone, deals w/ some more serious issues in its own 'light' manner: parenthood, culture/language clashes, personal relationships (romantic and familial), class issues, etc... excellent film and here's maybe the best scene: wow. i'm speechless... really? that's how SNL has worked from the beginning? the players write their own material? i wasn't aware of that...

that's about right fasstrack. however, Punch-Drunk Love is a masterpiece and for that piece of work alone he is someone i'm glad is around. there's no getting around it. Sandler was perfect for that and that is basically due to P.T. Anderson being a genius and writing for Sandler the way Ellington wrote for specific players in his orchestra. so even though it was almost entirely Anderson's vision that made that film what it is, you gotta give it up to Sandler for not letting him down and having that "je ne sais quoi" to begin with and for steppin' up when he got handed the script/job. he's said in interviews that he was scared and almost didn't go through with it because he knew how heavy Anderson was/is. Anderson illuminated in Sandler what others could only refer to as "je ne sais quoi" without being able to articulate it clearly. plus, Sandler brought something to the table there as well. it can't be denied. he has an interesting mix of innocence, shyness, lack of confidence, kindness, and a suppressed explosive rage that Anderson recognized, exploited, and ran with. can't say enough good things about Punch-Drunk Love. of course very much looking forward to The Master... and you mention not knowing what Spanglish is on to. i'd say rent and watch it. you'll be glad you did. excellent dramedy. it's not Citizen Kane and it's not trying to be. but it takes that same interesting mix of Sandler characteristics i listed above and uses them well. plus, the rest of the cast is great, particularly the young woman who plays Sandler's daughter in the film. warm, funny, sad. plus it's by the guy who wrote and directed As Good As It Gets and Broadcast News. he knows how to cast a film correctly... all that being said, yeah... most of Sandler's movie suck. oh well. it's pretty easy to tell which ones are the ones you can pass on without losing any sleep - like That's My Boy

i don't have HBO either. but, amazingly, i watched the pilot monday morning FOR FREE on HBO.com. all i had to do was sign up at the site. nothing besides an email address was asked for and BAM - i was in and watching the pilot. over many years i have been continually impressed w/ many aspects of HBO. don't know if they will be doing it for the other episodes (very possibly not... ), but i was still impressed that they're putting it up there. check it out, and check it out soon. it's all too possible that they will take it off shortly.

just watched the pilot episode of Sorkin's new program Newsroom on HBO. i've really enjoyed (loved some...) a lot of Sorkin's stuff in the past so i was very much looking forward to this. and for me, it didn't disappoint... much. we'll see how it goes. it felt a bit uneven to me compared to Sorkin's best stuff. i'm in the minority, but my favorite Sorkin tv program so far is Studio 60 and there were many parallels between the two pilot episodes of that show and this one. imo, Newsroom's pilot doesn't touch Studio 60's. but that bar is too high to realistically think you can get to every time out. not the best Sorkin so far and i have an unfortunate feeling that because of the premise, it'll be very difficult to move forward in a serialized fashion. we'll see. but imo not so great Sorkin is still better than nearly everything else on tv, so it's totally worth watching. Studio 60 meets Broadcast News. good times...

i've posted a few times here about how much i love this guy's playing (Small's Live thread, my recent BFT...), and i noticed there didn't seem to be a thread in this section for him. i think there should be! just received a solo piano recording from him a few days ago titled Variations. in very short order it has become my favorite solo piano recording. the only thing i can think of to compare it to for recommendation's sake would be Corea's Children's Songs. but the similarities between the two are generally only on the surface. some similarities could be seen between this and Beirach's solo recordings but those are generally surface similarities as well. on top of the great music, the recording has excellent sound quality. checked through the rest of this label's releases and it looks like i'll be making more purchases from them. Variations page at the label's site is here: Hays Solo Piano there are decent sized sound clips there for every track

He's fantastic, but his playing with Pelt is more conservative than with his own trio. His trio set from the Village Vanguard is available for download or streaming from NPR, so I plan on giving that a listen. hey justin. that link you provided didn't go to where i think you wanted it to go. others who are interested try here: Still available for download as of this posting i just downloaded it and am looking forward to listening. great trio... unfortunately the Bill McHenry quartet set at The Vanguard that is listed on the same page is not available for download. bummer. would love to have that...