My New Obsession

Poetry has always been important to me. It keeps me within the right side of the line between sanity and insanity. When they say "misery loves company", there's no better company for your misery than a poet's ode to their own pain. And when something amazing happens, you think to yourself "There are no words", but maybe YOU have no words, but a poet would have ten different ways to say "There are no words."

For words to be constructed so that they have rhyme* AND reason is just nothing short of magic. The way some poems are made, you would think that these words were invented eons ago just for that moment when a poet would put them together. And for the rest of us who read them or hear them, it's like, "wow. now i understand."

I've been obsessed with watching Def Poetry clips on YouTube. Some people can't stand slam, saying that it's just rap without the DJ and samples, but fuck 'em, they're just uncultured fogies living in the Middle Ages. Shakespeare was awesome, but what I love about Slam is that beneath the flashy beats and the syncopation of just the DELIVERY itself, it's all mostly simple words just put together in a way that no one else every thought of.

Gemini "Poetic Bloodline"




*I realize, of course, that words don't have to rhyme in order to become a poem, but whatever, I'm writing this, you can write your own shit.

Finally! The trailer for the 2009 movie adaptation of WATCHMEN. The pairing up of Zack Snyder's direction with graphic novels seem to be an awesome combination so far, so it's difficult to not be excited about this movie. Add to that the fact that ""WATCHMEN" is the only graphic novel to be on TIME's 100 best books EVER, the killer website and the almost elitist marketing treatment (there hasn't really been much bruhaha about this movie so far. It's all very "If yah know about it then you must be special") I can almost forgive them for not including Gerard Butler in the cast as was originally planned.



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I can't speak in great lengths about "The Dark Knight" yet because so many people still have yet to watch it. What I can say is that I've seen a lot of movies Heath Ledger made in his short life, and I have said a few times that he was cute and I did think that he delivered well enough performances in the past so much so that I don't feel a need to comment on it, but after watching "Batman", well, all I can say is, now I am truly mourning the loss of such a great talent. The man didn't just act in this movie, he brought an element of danger to the character of the Joker that was so ominous and so... Eerie. Like his presence alone meant that the end was near. Maybe it's the fact that he's deceased in real life and that all played out so suddenly and yet so publicly, I don't know and I'll never know. The last thing I'll say is that after seeing Heath Ledger's final performance in Batman, knowing that we'll never see a follow up to that performance makes me almost want to cry.

More movies to look out for....

This list is different from the first one I posted because these aren't big Hollywood films, but instead, amazingly written and directed passion projects. Most of which were submitted to Cannes and won at various Film festivals around the world.

ANAMORPH stars Willem Defoe as a cop investigating a serial killer who uses his victims as subjects for his Anamorphic paintings. Anamorphosis, for those of you who don't know, is a style of painting first created by the Chinese then brought to Italy during the Baroque period where images appear as 3d when viewed with a mirror or at certain angles and perspectives. If the movie stays true to the trailer, there's a new Hannibal Lecter in town. Only, he isn't really EATING his victims more than actually immortalizing them in his macabre but very artistic, gothic art.

 

DIMINISHED CAPACITY. Starring Matthew Broderick as a former Newspaper Editor downgraded to the comic strip detail after suffering a serious concussion, who goes back home to help out his almost senile uncle, played by Alan Alda, who's about to lose his home, along with the rest of his, um..."facilities". After the discovery of a very valuable baseball card amidst the junk his uncle keeps in his home, Broderick and Alda travel to Chicago to find a buyer for this "Almost Mint-Mint" card.



MISTER LONELY. Diego Luna stars as a Michael Jackson impersonator who moves to a commune where everyone is a copy of someone else. Ran by Marilyn Monroe, along with her husband Charlie Chaplin and their daughter Shirley Temple, the commune builds a world for themselves. Sounds like a comedy, sure, but the story (again, this is based on what I've seen in the trailer) seems to be beautiful and heartbreaking. Can't wait to see this one. Plus, you know...it's DIEGO LUNA!!!



CALIFORNIA DREAMING is not set in California. It isn't even set in the US. It's comedy of Shakespearean proportions set in a small Romanian village. A small group of soldiers find themselves stranded in this little, nowhere town, where they're only too happy to stay and romance the village ladies. That is, until trouble starts up.



a better trailer can be found here

MAN IN THE CHAIR. For anyone who's ever wanted to make movies. MAN IN THE CHAIR is a story about a teen misfit who enlists the help of a bitter, old Hollywood has-been to make a movie for entry into a high school competition. The movie poses the tag line "It's never too late to change your life story" so I'm guessing this movie will be funny at times, poignant all throughout. And while these days I like to veer away from the "it's never too late" genre of movies, this one looks too good to pass up. WAAAAY too good to pass up. "The man in the chair can never be a guesser."



NEAL CASSADY. Ka-chug-ka-chug-ka-chug. The trailer plays like the writing of the Beat generation. Ka-chug-ka-chug. Legend has it that Neal Cassady died from hypothermia after counting railroad ties for days on foot. He was the perfect anti-hero of the time. He not only rode the bus, he DROVE the bus. He didn't just walk on the wild side, the song was about him. He was Dean Moriarty. And if you don't know any of these references (I would faint if someone called them obscure. For shame!!!) pick up a copy of Kerouac's "On The Road". Listen to a couple of Lou Reed records. Watch this short video. Then the trailer...