We’re back, and very much in beta form. I don’t even know if the feed is still valid. So if somehow you manage to hear this, enjoy.
Last week I had one of those inspired needs to watch several films of the same actor.
It all started after watching Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut Synecdoche, New York.
I fucking loved the movie, and it left me with a compulsive need to keep watching Philip Seymour Hoffman movies.
Next up was Doubt, a movie I had sitting at home for ages, and just never got around to watching it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see it, it’s just one of those ones that I always thought I had to be in the right frame of mind to watch.
And true to Hoffman standard, the movie was brilliant.
In perfectly cast roles, the three leads gave stellar performances (especially Amy Adams, who I have a new-found respect for after watching her in Junebug), and in my opinion, the movie should have won Best Picture at this year’s Oscars.
But it didn’t stop there, I just kept going.
Boogie Nights, Almost Famous, The Big Lebowski, Mission Impossible 3, Happiness, Magnolia, The 25th Hour and Capote to name a few.
But I still have to watch The Savages, which I hear is brilliant.
The guy is awesome and in every role, no matter how minor, he seems to steal each scene he’s in.
I love the fact that whenever a director needs someone to play a creep, pervert, pedophile or loser, Hoffman is the first guy they turn to.
In Synecdoche, New York, Hoffman plays hypochondriac, theatre director Caden Cotard (creep), who…
I really have no idea of how to summarise this movie, so I’m going to cheat, and just insert this link to the summary posted on IMDB. It’s pretty long but that’s as good as it can get. You really just have to go and see for yourself.
As with all Kaufman scripts, the line between brilliance and lunacy are hard to perceive.
It really is a case of Alice and the rabbit hole. As Caden becomes more and more involved in his own creation, he (and the audience) begins to lose track of what’s fact and what’s fiction.
It’s kind of like Kaufman has handed us a jigsaw puzzle and forced us to make sense of it all. And while some audience members will fit certain pieces together better than others, in the end, there are still plenty of them missing and other pieces that have been thrown in the box, which don’t actually fit at all.
It is a strange balance, which in my head seemed to work, but for others just seemed ridiculous and confusing.
The film features an incredibly likable and extremely talented female cast, including Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emily Watson and Dianne Wiest.
Hope Davis tops the lot, with her brilliant role as Caden’s therapist; and whilst her character seemed to make no real sense at all, she seemed entirely essential.
And little known actor, Tom Noonan does well to keep up with Hoffman, playing the actor, playing the actor, playing Hoffman’s character (try and get your head around that one!).
All in all, I encourage people to check this one out. Not only for your own interest, but more so, so that someone can explain to me what happened.
What the fuck was with the burning house?
3.5/5
Hi! How’s it going?
So hey – John Hodgman did the correspondent’s dinner and it was, predictably enough, awesome. Damn theat Hodgman, with his boring tendency to be consistently hilarious!
There’s something sublime about talking Star Trek and Dungeons and Dragons and Conan the Barbarian to a president of the United States. And then calling him a nerd and a wingnut. And getting him to make the Vulcan “Live long and prosper” hand. And schooling him in the various brands of hobbits. And calling him the Quisatz Haderach…
… and asking the him a three-part question about the culture of the fictional world of Arrakis. The answers are “Shai Hulud”, “Thumper” and “The Water of Life”, by the way.
For those of you who already knew this – hello nerds. 
How good is Obama? He’s switched on, good-humoured and clearly a huge geek even though he pretends not to know who Crom is. He also pretends to be a God-botherer, but hey – you gotta make a few PR sacrifices to be POTUS.
And, just ’cause Obama is awesome, here’s link to the musical registrar of the American experience, Tom Waits, singing Chocolate Jesus.
Is it music that makes the scene or the scene that makes the song more memorable?
After watching The Watchmen in all its splendor several weeks ago, I was really impressed by Zak Snyder’s weird and equally wonderful soundtrack.
It was packed full of familiar classics and covers from the late 70’s and 80’s, including Jimi Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower, Dylan’s The Times They Are Changing, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, Simon and Garfunkle’s The Sound of Silence and the bizarre inclusion of Nena’s 99 Luftballons.
In the following weeks, I stumbled across the suburb indie The Wackness, with its equally appealing soundtrack full of urban beats. For those with a fondness for hip-hop, I strongly recommend you check it out. Highlights include Can I Kick It? – A Tribe Called Quest, Flava In Ya Ear – Craig Mack and The World Is Yours – Nas.
My final boost of inspiration came from watching the classic Good Morning Vietnam and I began to compile a list of the most memorable movie songs ever.
Now, this ended up being a lot harder than I first expected, so what started off as 10 was soon 20, then 25 and is now 30 songs. To make my choices easier, I prioritised in the order of good song, good movie, good moment and good artist.
I’m still not 100% sure that this would be my ultimate list, but I honestly couldn’t think about it any more. In my opinion it’s pretty damn good, and makes a great play list even if you’re not into movies.
I know that there are probably millions that I have forgotten, but I figured you guys would tell me what I’ve missed.
So without further ado, and in no specific order – The 30 Greatest Movie Songs Ever
For the last two weeks I’ve used my iPhone as my primary communications tool, for both web and phone. Here’s how it performed:
And finally, after 3 hours of “No Service”, this was one of many missed SMS’s to come through:
Here’s the chat i had with John Cho the day after the Star Trek premiere. We discuss Star Trek (obviously), George Takei, Simon Pegg, and Harold and Kumar. Many thanks to John for basically holding my hand through the interview and telling me not to be nervous, the guy was a fucking champ.
I apologise for the crappy audio quality.
Okay. Ages ago, I gave some love to Stan Winston. Because he was awesome. And most folks don’t know who he was.
Now, I want to give it up for Ben Burtt, sound designer nonpareil. Because most folks don’t know who he is.
This is the guy who invented R2D2’s beeps and Wall-E’s interminable cuteness. He made TIE fighters scream like Tusken Raiders, made Darth Vader asthmatic before he was cartoonishly stupid, put klaxons and bells into spaceships exploding… used WW2 aircraft engines for the Millenium Falcon.
My favourite story about Ben concerns Raiders of the Lost Ark. Story goes that he saw the rushes for the opening South America sequence and was stumped on the sound to put on the Forrestal’s skull turning towards Indy… what would be creepy enough? What would sound real?
Next morning, he found the answer in his breakfast; more specifically in a boiled egg. The cracking sound of breaking the shell of a boiled egg – that’s Forrestal’s skull saying “hi” to Indy.
How awesome is that?
The CIA got you pushing too many pencils?
Fuck. Times ten. Firstly because our fearless leader saw Trek in Sydney at the premier, without me, and got to meet John Cho and Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine and Jaybrams… and secondly because that muthafrakker took @Warlach with him. I will kill these men. Physcially kill them.
This is no crime, because they’re already dead to me.
Even more egregious is that I was going to write a long post about Ben Burtt, off my own bat, and what happens? Ben did the sound design on Trek. And these Wells boys gave him love on the podcast, before I got to.
And now our fearless leader’s getting Pegg stories from Harold.
I’m gonna post about Burtt anyway, but I’m living in the shadow now, aren’t I?
Physically.
Kill.
Message ends.
A no spoiler fireside chat about Star Trek with @Warlach. Stay Tuned for chats with John Cho and Karl Urban, and a look behind the scenes of the PR Machine of film marketing..
A spoileriffic review will be released with the film.
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