I am legend. Well, maybe I'm just hearsay

This is a quick hit blog, because I have not been keeping you all informed of all the rumors, gossip, and general happenings of my life. Or just observances in general.

RIP: The Crocodile Cafe! Up and closed it's doors overnight a few days ago. I saw a lot of great shows at the Croc through the years (The Wrens, Local H, Black Mountain, are a few that pop into mind) and I'm terribly sorry to see this Seattle staple eating up by the Man.

I'm sure it was the Man. Probably the same Man who killed that block of Pine where the Cha Cha was.

Fat Tiger had a wonderful December first Thursday. I don't have time to recount the evening, but I had a lot of great conversations, and the mood was just delightful. Now if I can only figure out a way to kick out my psycho-neighbor all will be grand down there. That's a long story-but if for some reason I go missing, send the cops to 619 western to speak to Eddie.

The holiday show of that same weekend was a lot more low-key, but nice as well. I even sold some work.

Okay, this blog is beginning to sound like I'm just telling ya'll what happened to me over the last few weeks, but in a general and uninteresting way. SO let me just get on to the reviews and I'll try to come back with better stories in later blogs.

I am Legend - Many of you know about my love for all things apocalyptic, so you wont be surprised that I caught this flick on opening night. It's good. The first 2/3 are especially interesting. Some parts of the film, especially later on, needed to be dealt with differently, but without giving too much away, I was pretty impressed and enjoyed the movie. I was disappointed with some rather poorly integrated CGI shots though. What ever happened to movie make-up? 3 Molos

Speaking of Apocalyptic stories...with the success of No country for Old Men, do you think Hollywood will tackle Cormac McCarthy's The Road soon? That could be amazing. And depressing as hell.

The Golden Compass - I was also entertained by this film and I must note that I have not read the books. I was entertained in the way that any fantasy spectacle that any amount of money and effort goes into is always fun fair. It's really not a well done movie at all. The story is disjointed, the film has a lot of rough cuts and hints at a lot of story that I'm sure was fleshed out in the books but we get the very short version of. It was a cartoon. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a cartoon. So I didn't mind it so much. But I could see how the story might actually be interesting, on film, if handled with cojones. I guess they were too afraid of offending too many people so didn't excite anyone. 2 Molos

Spoiler Alert: In the Golden Compass...there is a Polar Bear fight scene when one bear knocks off the jaw of another! Talk about random delightful and absurd fun...I mean i didn't know if I should laugh or cheer. Really, though, they needed to have a spray of blood go spurting, that would have sold it for all those kiddies out there watching this silliness.

The Third Man - Netflixed this classic film, and yes it is good. Orsen Welles has this magic when he appears on screen that is mesmerizing. The movie, overall, is quite interesting and fun, and keeping in mind it's history and such, certainly a classic. I really liked it when the lead got snubbed at the end by the girl. 4 Molos

Sorry folks, all for now.

Top 10 Flicks that I have seen, 2007:
1. No Country for Old Men
2. Grindhouse
3. Superbad
4. Eastern Promises
5. Before the Devil Knows You are Dead
6. American Gangster
7. Zodiac
8. 300
9. I am Legend
10. The Host

Top Musical releases that I have heard, 2007:
1. Radiohead In Rainbows
2. Kings of Leon Because of the Times
3. The White Stripes Icky Thump
4. LCD Sound System Sound of Silver
5. Imperial Teen The Hair, the TV, the Baby, the Band
6. Silversun Pickups Carnavas
7. Busdriver Road Kill Overcoat
8. Interpol Our Love to Admire
9. The Arcade Fire Neon Bible
10. Grinderman Grinderman
11. Explosions in the Sky All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
12. Two Gallants Two Gallants
13. The Cave Singers Invitation Songs
14. Albert Hammond Jr. Yours To Keep
15. Film School Hideout
16. Talib Kweli Eardrum
17. Devandra Banhart Smoke Rolls Down Thunder Canyon

listing to one side, or the other

Oh it snowed on Saturday and I was delighted. Lovely big, soft flakes downtown Seattle. I love the snow, I love it almost as much as I love puppies. I often wish I lived in a town with real winters. Of course if I got a real winter, then I'd get a scorching summer as well, and I really dont want that.

I suppose I should just shoot for the dream-make enough money to winter in Montana, say near Whitefish, Summer in the Northwest, and spend Spring and Fall in NYC. With, of course, various vacations across the globe. Is that so much to ask?

So it snowed, then, of course, turned to rain a few hour later, and washed all the fun away. And now there is flooding and landslides and it's raining in my studio building and things seem to be perfectly PNW winter. Wet and gloomy. But cheer up dear readers, there is always fun to have, like preview I saw just the other day...

Sly Stallone is releasing "Rambo" 4. I am terribly amused. This comes on the heels of last year's Rocky Balboa. So, as he seems to be establishing a trend here, I expect next year for Stallone to release another sequel from one of his big 80s hits. Which gets me thinking...what would I most like to see...

Top Films Stallone Should do a Sequel for Release in 2009:

1. Over the Top (greatest movie about arm wrestling ever)

2. Death Race 2000 (reprising his role as Machine Gun Joe Vitero)

3. Cobra

4. Cliffhanger

5. Demolition Man

6. Tango & Cash

Okay, well, maybe he's fresh out of money making sequels afterall. You know, Stallone, for all his cartoony acting through the years, was actually excellent in the movie Cop Land. That film is very well done. (the first 2 Rockys and Rambo: First Blood are also excellent and surprisingly smart pictures-for the record)

Dear Reader,

Let me take a moment to apologise for the sheer length of this blog.

Film Reviews: (as always, reviews are 1-5 Molos, 1 being something like Howard the Duck, 5 being Radiohead's OK Computer)

I started watching Inland Empire the other day and had to shut it off after 10 minutes. Lynch has become a caricature of himself. Unlike highly stylized directors like say Cronenberg who have further developed and changed their style through the years, Lynch is getting worse-or he's the same. It gets old if you don't take it someplace new. 1 Molo

This is the common trap that artists always have to deal with, staying both fresh, and commercially successful. Many fall into repeating themselves over and over. Repetition for the sake of exploring a particular idea can be a great thing, but for the sake of "everyone likes it", is one of the most dangerous forms of selling out. Basquiat wrestled with some of that before his early death. Contemporary artists like Deborah Butterfield (found in many museum collections-the horses) milk their one successful idea to the bone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Butterfield

I despise that and I also have a great fear of falling into the same trap myself.

Lynch is doing it. I though he might break out after he did that film about the guy on the lawnmower that was a straight picture...but now he's back repeating himself. On the other hand, maybe the movie was brilliant, after all I couldn't stomach it past the opening bit.

The Arts Reviews:

I have spent now about 2 months with Patricia Piccinnini and her show, Hug. In the short I'd say the show is somewhat entertaining fluff. She has created a silly future of genetic engineering gone wild (literally and figuratively) with these hybrid creatures running amok and interacting with people in various eerie but harmless ways. Patricia is a good example of one of the things that I have trouble with in a lot of contemporary art. She brings up some basic themes: endangered species, genetic engineering, environmentalism in general, but simply plays with the themes and does not say anything at all with the work. It's just simply entertaining.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm perfectly fine with art as being simply entertainment. I know full well that many people take simply as entertainment. But what gets me, what is so difficult to swallow with a show like Patricias is all the diatribe about it...all the wall text, all the curatorial bullshit, and even much of what she says herself...simply declaring that you are interested in say environmentalism and that you want to save the world does not make the work mean anything.

Let the work speak for itself, and let the public and the academics come to their own conclusions.

The Printed Word:

I finished David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster not long ago. The book is a collection of essays over the last 10 years on wide ranging subjects such as John McCain's presidential run last time around to the porn industry. I can't say that the book was overly impressive. DFW is a great writer, and he has a knack for really describing the whole nasty American consumer culture-ness and general absurdity of things, but the essays rarely intrigued me. However they are full of insights on their individual subjects, which I suppose was their initial purpose. He's at his best with the McCain press tour piece, which shares a lot of insight about that whole scene...probably more than you'd like to know. 2.5 Molos

Joan Didion wrote a painful book about the death of her husband and near-death of her daughter called The Year of Magical Thinking a few years back. The book is an easy and very sad read. It's simplicity and honesty is hard to not let get to you a little bit, even with the idea of this story being so...almost self exploitative. It's dangerous, right...to write these stories that are first person accounts of the tragedies of your life. It can be so overwrought, so whiny....so uninspired. Joan's book, though, avoids all the usual trappings of such an undertaking. It's strong, interesting, and insightful even. And it reads like she had to write it. To if not work through her grief, to at least document it, for further study perhaps. 4 Molos

Top 10 Flicks that I have seen, 2007:

1. No Country for Old Men

2. Grindhouse

3. Superbad

4. Eastern Promises

5. Before the Devil Knows You are Dead

6. American Gangster

7. Zodiac

8. 300

9. The Host

10. Shoot 'em Up

Top Musical releases that I have heard, 2007:

1. Radiohead In Rainbows

2. Kings of Leon Because of the Times

3. The White Stripes Icky Thump

4. LCD Sound System Sound of Silver

5. Imperial Teen The Hair, the TV, the Baby, the Band

6. Silversun Pickups Carnavas

7. Busdriver Road Kill Overcoat

8. Interpol Our Love to Admire

9. The Arcade Fire Neon Bible

10. Grinderman Grinderman

11. Explosions in the Sky All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone

12. Two Gallants Two Gallants

13. The Cave Singers Invitation Songs

14. Albert Hammond Jr. Yours To Keep

15. Film School Hideout

16. Talib Kweli Eardrum

17. Devandra Banhart Smoke Rolls Down Thunder Canyon