Surveying the Battlefield...

"My dad says I'M the crazy one..." – The Blueberry, October 1, 2016

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Refilling the Flagon of Chuckles (or at Least an Extra Tall Improv Glass)...

Image
One of these days, my wife Jen and I will see Patton Oswalt live at the end of a tour, when he has buffed his latest material to a crystalline sheen and stropped each and every punchline to its ultimate razor sharpness. He will be recording (or close to recording) his latest cable special or album, in a hall specially selected for its visual and audial excellence, and it will be a truly memorable night of comedy for us.

But until then, I love watching Patton Oswalt in workshop mode. Last night was our fourth time seeing him onstage in any setting, and our second seeing him onstage at the Irvine Improv (in the old theatre and now in the brand new design, which is much improved, though Patton did riff on how dwarfed he was in the larger, deeper stage layout. [The other two times we saw him live were at the Tenacious D and Friends – Stand with Haiti Benefit at the Wiltern in 2010, where he did a short set amongst many other acts, and at the inaugural Festival Supreme in 2013, where we mis…
Read more

Before We Take Off...

Image
When I woke up this morning at 4 a.m., after ignoring the usual rowdy and largely misplaced New Year’s celebrating of my neighbors the night before, I had the first half-dozen hours of the day mapped out already. Thanks to my steady adherence to my film-watching mission of the last six months – The 46x60 or So Project – I found myself due for early hour meetings with a blustery Rod Steiger carrying his version of Napoleon toward his fate, Alan Arkin essaying the role of the most caring but devastatingly lonely deaf-mute in film history, and a venomous transsexual with Rex Reed’s mind inside Raquel Welch’s body, bent on not only sadistically trashing thousands of years of male-female archetypes, but taking modern Hollywood out with him/her as well.

I didn’t plan on watching Waterloo (1970), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968) or the infamous flop Myra Breckinridge (also 1970) this morning. It just happened that they were the next ones on my Netflix queue, and so… here we are. I have now…
Read more

The Monster's on the Loose!!! Non-Chaney, Pt. 2: Werewolves Along the Wall

Image
Just a few short years ago, a visit from an old chum from back home found myself and my wife (then merely my longtime girlfriend) visiting the Pasadena Antique Mall at a mostly hoity-toity retail area in Southern California. Pasadena was not a very familiar area to us; in fact, it was my first time there, and so I tackled the fresh spot in my usual way: checking out any antique, record, comic book, or book stores I might happen to cross on my wanderings that afternoon.

Entering what seemed like just any old antique store's book section to me, I discovered an overly well-kept if not crowded place. Its trappings appealed to me greatly, and all that needed to happen was a memorable purchase to seal my love for the location in my heart forever. About two minutes into the visit, it happened. After seeing a nice collection of antique Big Little Books on a shelf that nearly had my wallet saying, "Everything I have, please!", I took a sidelong glance at a table featuring various …
Read more

Guillermo Del Toro: At Home with Monsters at LACMA 2016, Pt. 2

Image
[Note: To read Part 1 of this post, please click here.]
As I mentioned last time, the primary focus of the Guillermo del Toro exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (aka LACMA) that we attended yesterday (Oct. 26, 2016) was naturally on the films and artwork of Mr. Del Toro himself. With the massive collection of props, costumes, storyboards, sketches, and fully realized figures representing his monsters and characters on display, how could it not be so?

But the secondary – though equally as important – focus was on his influences, a great many of which (if not the vast majority) also happen to be my influences as well, but Del Toro filters them through his quite remarkable talent and attention to detail that a high percentage of the time produces hauntingly memorable cinematic art for the world. Me, I just take those same influences and go, "Wow, that monster was pretty cool."

As before, much of the artwork and collection is to be found (normally, when they aren…
Read more

Ignoring the Ignoramus...

Image
I have watched one presidential inauguration in my life, and that was Obama's in 2008. It doesn't matter who I voted for in previous elections nor their outcome, public ceremonies and rituals doused in tradition generally fill me with a combination of ennui and coldness. I don't care whether we agree or not on his record, or how you feel about him as a person, I was onboard with Obama in a way that I hadn't been in years and I genuinely felt that for the first time in my reachable memory that mankind was finally figuring a way out of the dark ages.

So, the fact that I will not be watching one second – nor even a multitude of seconds – of the inauguration today is unremarkable in itself. I don't normally watch or even care about these rituals. I understand they seem to be important to show all Americans "the peaceful transition of power" and the strength of our Constitutional grounds and all that. I know they are happening and I don't need to bear witne…
Read more

Parallax