Update

Ok, so here's what has been happening these past weeks:
It's done--I've finished my Master's thesis!! So if you ever wondered just how the events of September 11, 2001 influenced the mainstream Hollywood film, drop me a line.
Right after I handed in my thesis, we went on a 2-week camping trip to the beautiful Côte d'Argent (again). Lots of sun, more surfing. Got myself a great board, too--a 7'4" funboard, nicely shaped, extremely light yet with sufficient buoyancy, it's a perfect match!
And finally, I'm no longer a Twen! But I must say, standing on this side of 30, I don't feel a day older than 29! (Well, maybe two days older! ;-)
The next thing will be my final exams at the end of September, and after that--who knows! All I can say is, there's a lot of options. We'll see.

The Art of Heckling

- That was wonderful!
- Bravo!
- I loved that!
- Ah, that was great!
- Well, it was pretty good.
- Well, it wasn't bad ...
- Uh, there were parts of it that weren't very good though.
- It could have been a lot better.
- I didn't really like it.
- It was pretty terrible.
- It was bad.
- It was awful!
- It was terrible!
- Take 'em away!
- Bah, boo!
- Boo!

Well, these guys are professionals, but most of the times hecklers seem to be pretty dumb. So what is a comedian to do?
Here's the late great Bill Hicks' reaction:



Somebody should show this clip to Fozzie Bear so that he could give those old farts something to laugh about.
So tearing the heckler a new one on stage is one plan of action, but someone finally came through with that other idea George offers in the 5th season episode The Fire on Seinfeld when Jerry gets heckled: "You should go to her office and heckle her." Yes! Bring the battle back to the heckler!
Which is why I desperately want to see this film.
Alas, it will never show in Germany, I'm sure.

UPDATE 17Aug07: The Bill Hicks video I used disappeared from YouTube, so I embedded an alternative link.

300 Morons

I really tried to come up with a sharp and snappy analysis of Zack Snyder's film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, 300. But I just can't. It's just that the movie is so... dumb. It's just not worth it. I will say this: the aesthetics of the film are interesting. All that super slomo and the stylized colors are sort of neat. Also, there's, like, one location shot in the film (says IMDb), the rest is all blue/green screen. It would be interesting to spend a day at a set of such a movie. 300 blokes in Speedos prancing around in front of a giant blue screen, pretending to heroically fight off the non-existent hordes of invading Persians...

Day Night Day Night

Just watched the trailer for Day Night Day Night--that promises to be a spectacular film! Nice to see that people can take the terrorist narrative to a whole new level other than your stereotypical Bruce Willis flick.

Wait, there's more!

I just remembered: Parts of the story of the aforementioned movie take place in Guantanamo! (Pre-9/11, obviously.) Am I the only one absolutely baffled by the thin layer of irony that connects a fiction film loosely based on a real event and real characters with a political reality that increasingly seems to be written by a terrible screenwriter, rejected, rewritten by an ignorant studio exec, and finally pushed back for a direct-to-video B-movie release?

"You Can't Handle the Truth!"

I've been following the case of the fired US attorneys pretty closely over the last few weeks, but this was new to me:
apparently, among the fired is David C. Iglesias from New Mexico who also happens to be the real life military attorney who is portrayed by Tom Cruise in the 1992 movie A Few Good Men.
[This info comes from today's Süddeutsche Zeitung, page 2, and is confirmed here.]


So here's my idea for a sequel:
In Attorneygate - Good Men Are Rare These Days Cause They're All Blown to Smithereens in Iraq, Iglesias (Tom Cruise) is fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (Cuba Gooding Jr.*--don't worry, he can pull it off; he might not have a Mexican background, but his name is Cuba--that's close enough) who was in turn clandestinely ordered to do so by profoundly amoral President George Dubbya Bush (Jack Nicholson) while Valerie Plame (Demi Moore) and Joseph C. Wilson (Kevin Pollak) are being shot in the face stabbed in the back by Evil Overlord Dick Cheney (who would have to play himself because seriously--nobody can portray supreme evil like The Dark Lord himself).
Aaaah, popular culture and politics--what a combination!
*If Cuba is busy shooting yet another useless tearjerker bullshit movie, get Donald Trump to play Gonzales--he'll do anything for money, he's a prick and he'll get the "YOU'RE FIRED!!!" scene just right!

The Fountain

I still don't know where this blog is going, but some of it is going to be on film. So here's a my suggestion for a must-see flick: Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. This movie is an absolute masterpiece, high up on my top 5 list! I don't think it's for everybody, with its slightly esoteric/SciFi allusions, but cineastically and visually, it's an outstanding movie. Following his first two major flics, Pi and Requiem for a Dream, Mr. Aronofsky has now shown that he is one director to be reckoned with.

Go watch it--it's good stuff!

PS: Aronofsky's films also tend to have spectacular accompanying websites--check 'em out here, here and here.