i think this pretty much embodies "too cute to live".
:: update ::
ok, i actually teared up.
http://www.movieweb.com/video/VIgIckggZbS8jl
ok, i actually teared up.
http://www.movieweb.com/video/VIgIckggZbS8jl
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
greg mortenson's school for kids want to read good and wanna learn to do other stuff good too
a good story in the hands of a shitty writer is as much of a waste as good wine is on someone like me. c.i.p. is david oliver relin, who wrote three cups of tea on the life work of greg mortenson, a good (great) guy suffering from a terminal case of white-man-must-save-the-world syndrome. it's a life that's traversed the himalayas, k2, remote pakistani villages and the minefields of american philanthropism. but under relin's "iowa writers' workshop/forty-national award"-winning pen, mortenson's work is rendered a lump excruciating cheese. on the other hand, you have a cocky bullshitter like michael lewis so immensely talented that he actually makes the world of bond trading actual seem like a jungle of mutant assholes. okay okay maybe that's not such a stretch of the imagination, but...in the war of wordsmithery, lewis wins. talk about the perfect career switch.
exhibition 1
win: "they had accepted their lot and, like the peasants in a breughel pastoral scene, were content to celebrate the simple pleasures of life." (lewis)
ha ha nice snarky art history reference thrown in there.
fail: "a shard of california sun gleamed in the stuffed monkey's scuffed plastic eyes before mortenson padlocked the house." (relin)
yeah, okay, seriously? what is this, a sixth grade adjective exercise? how many descriptive qualifiers do you think a sentence should have?
exhibition 2
win: "i was as helpless as the female victim of an arranged marriage who, upon first seeing the horrible visage of her chosen mate, shrieks in vain." (lewis)
ha ha, he's talking about being being selected for the equities department! followed by:
poured a few whiskeys into you, waited until the moon rose over the canyons of wall street, and positioned the circle line in view of the stock exchange."
fail: "the belief rippling around him was strong. it was powerful enough to convert a gas station into a holy place. who knew what other wonders of trasformation lay ahead."
this in reference to muslims turning to mecca to pray. a caltex gas sign happened to be in the line of vision, and david oliver relin takes the opportunity to wax poetic on the visually transformative powers of faith and religion and self-delusion.
exhibition 3
EPIC FAIL: "the pakistani military tried flying in bulldozers on a russian mi-17 heavy-lifting helicopter, but the inaugural flight, trying to maneuver through the high winds and narrow gorge, clipped a cliff and crashed into the indus, killing all nine aboard."
okay, SERIOUSLY? you went to iowa writers' workshop and you shit out a grammatically mangled sentence like this in a bestselling biography? a flight cannot maneuver through high winds, and cannot clip a cliff, nor can it crash into a river, you know why? flight is an action noun. it's not actually something tangible. but hey, you know what, a HELICOPTER, like the one you mention in the first part of the sentence, can crash into a cliff. subject-object confusion much? go back to writing school, bitch!
exhibition 1
win: "they had accepted their lot and, like the peasants in a breughel pastoral scene, were content to celebrate the simple pleasures of life." (lewis)
ha ha nice snarky art history reference thrown in there.
fail: "a shard of california sun gleamed in the stuffed monkey's scuffed plastic eyes before mortenson padlocked the house." (relin)
yeah, okay, seriously? what is this, a sixth grade adjective exercise? how many descriptive qualifiers do you think a sentence should have?
exhibition 2
win: "i was as helpless as the female victim of an arranged marriage who, upon first seeing the horrible visage of her chosen mate, shrieks in vain." (lewis)
ha ha, he's talking about being being selected for the equities department! followed by:
poured a few whiskeys into you, waited until the moon rose over the canyons of wall street, and positioned the circle line in view of the stock exchange."
fail: "the belief rippling around him was strong. it was powerful enough to convert a gas station into a holy place. who knew what other wonders of trasformation lay ahead."
this in reference to muslims turning to mecca to pray. a caltex gas sign happened to be in the line of vision, and david oliver relin takes the opportunity to wax poetic on the visually transformative powers of faith and religion and self-delusion.
exhibition 3
EPIC FAIL: "the pakistani military tried flying in bulldozers on a russian mi-17 heavy-lifting helicopter, but the inaugural flight, trying to maneuver through the high winds and narrow gorge, clipped a cliff and crashed into the indus, killing all nine aboard."
okay, SERIOUSLY? you went to iowa writers' workshop and you shit out a grammatically mangled sentence like this in a bestselling biography? a flight cannot maneuver through high winds, and cannot clip a cliff, nor can it crash into a river, you know why? flight is an action noun. it's not actually something tangible. but hey, you know what, a HELICOPTER, like the one you mention in the first part of the sentence, can crash into a cliff. subject-object confusion much? go back to writing school, bitch!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
WOAHHHHHWOOWOAHHH WATCHMENNNNNNNNN
a lot of eye candy, a lot of gratuitous violence. great attention to detail.
characters:
edgar jacobi/moloch: omg the yoda ears were fantastique. fantastique!!
edward blake: i thought he was rd jr in the trailer. i wish he had been played by rd jr. i guess there was a height requirement.
silk spectre/sally jupiter: carla gugino! you are so beautiful!
silk spectre ii/laurie: d- on the acting, but those were some great prom-worthy fake eyelashes there. m.a.c. or shu uemura?
dan dreiberg/nite owl ii: patrick wilson. you are so fabulously awkward. you are so awkward in every role you play and i love it. i was expecting to find some seamless mormon underpants beneath that owlish uniform. ahh...nerd love.
dr. manhattan: wait, was he even in the movie? i thought he was a key character....
adrian veidt/ozymandias: EPIC. FAIL. WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO CAST A BRITISH FOOL WHO LOOKS LIKE A SHRUNKEN STEVE BUSCEMI AND WHO HAS AN OBVIOUS SPEECH IMPEDIMENT AND SEVERE ACCENT AMBIVALENCE TO PLAY THE MASTERMIND OF THE MOVIE. NO SERIOUSLY WHO CAST HIM. WHO THE FUCK CASTED THIS ASSCLOWN. THIS IS OZYMANDIAS MANG. LIKE. MAN CAN CATCH A FUCKING BULLET IN HIS HAND, CANNOT AFFORD A HAIRSTYLIST.
rorschach: "I'm not locked in here with you! You're locked in here with ME!" can i just say. BAD. ASS. the biggest win of the movie. jackie earle haley, pitch-fucking-perfect. rorschach was perfectly realized in this movie, everything from voice, delivery, to that fucking....amazing mask. pretty much ameliorated the fact ozymandias was an utter fail.
other stuff:
- i actually appreciate that the squid and the nuclear holocaust was flattened into one issue. besides the fact that the squid and nuclear bombs served the same purpose, would have had similar effects, and thus were mutually redundant, i never really liked the idea of humanity being decimated by telepathic pulses emitted via giant vagina with tentacles (not testicles).
- while reading the book the thought occurred to me, but it wasnt until i saw doc manhattan on screen that it really hit me how limited human communication is, and how a being like doc manhattan, for whom time is irrelevant, is constrained by something as rudimentary as grammar from being able to express his experience of time and space.
- at some point i realized this was really a movie for folks who had read the book. and at that point, i think some things that were never explicitly stated in the book should have remained that way. there was no point bludgeoning everyone over the head with it.
- again, adrain veidt: total fail. matthew goode is a shrimpy little motherfucker and adrian veidt is a motherfucking beast. i'm really disappointed there wasnt that tv segment of ozymandias doing turns on the high bar. really disappointed.
- zac snyder is a sly bastard.
- what kind of message is this movie sending out about women? i dont even want to get into the dialectics of it all. what sort of fucked up stockholm syndrome is inured with the blake-jupiter reveal? pregnant vietanmese woman gets shot? lesbian superhero gets shot? nuclear was isnt the only thing dated with watchmen.
- veidt's scientist lackeys were amazingly ethnically realistic: a team composed half of white scientists and half of east asian scientists led by a south (most likely indian) scientist.
- from imdb:
Snyder:"Worst case scenario - Alan puts the movie on his DVD player on a cold Sunday in London and watches and says, 'Yeah, that doesn't suck too bad.'"
Moore: "That's the worst case scenario? I think he's underestimated what the worst case scenario would be... that's never going to happen in my DVD player in 'London' [Moore very famously lives in Northampton]. I'm never going to watch this fucking thing."
- TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER WOWOOOAOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
------------------
but really. all i have to say is - WHEN ARE THEY COMING OUT WITH THE WILD C.A.T.S. MOVIE, BITTTTCCCCCCHHHHHHHH??!???!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?
Monday, March 2, 2009
failbetter
so everyone was making a huge ruckus over this craigslist post i put up a week ago on my gchat status:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/lax/979427049.html
Date: 2009-01-03, 9:20PM PST
You: Asian, young(ish), cute, petite, left-of-center, cosmopolitan.
Me: The Asian guy you would never dream of giving a second glance.
Hi! I’m so sad that you were offended by my very presence at your favorite boutique coffee shop. Seriously, I was just there to do some work and maybe a bit of reading – I didn’t mean to draw attention to the fact that you too, are also Asian. I was just looking for a quiet place to sit, and the seat by you just happened to be open. It’s not like peed all over you, put my arm around your shoulder, and screamed to all the other patrons in a heavy Chinese accent, “She mine! You all stay away!”
After I sat down and pulled out Said’s Orientalism (no joke), you, in all of your ignorant glory, proceeded to loudly flirt with the nearest non-Asian man with a pulse to dissuade any romantic overtures from me. Lady, I already know you only date white guys; you don’t even have to open your mouth.
Ever since Chad took you out back in high school and made you the envy of all homecoming, you’ve understood the magical power of white boys. Your parents balked until they saw how well Chet treated you and made you so so so happy. You tell yourself you don’t see color lines, and that you’re ending racism by only dating white guys – and you give yourself a little pat on the back every night before dreaming of waking up with beautiful blonde hair. You’ve even thrown in a black guy or two, just to get back at daddy. Asian guys? Like, gag me with a spoon!
Hey, I applaud you. You’re totally progressive. Never mind all that bukakke stuff Jeremy keeps wanting to do (I wonder where he gets these ideas?). No need to worry about Scotty’s browser history pointing to asianteensluts.com. Totally normal! What red-blooded American man doesn’t want to bang a Japanese high school girl?
Honestly, if I were in your stilettos, I’d do the same thing. If white girls were all over me ‘cause of my nice, smooth skin, my mad computer skills and wispy peach fuzz, I’d ride that white stallion to all glory.
But since I’m 6’2”, 200 lbs. with 4% body fat and a PhD, I guess I’ll have to settle for one of our more racist Asian sistahs.
phil had posted it up on angryasianman and i thought it was ok funny, definitely not the best one i had ever seen, written without a lot of finesse and style. anyway, here's something that i think is infinitely more awesome, written by my should-have-been lover don lee:
http://www.failbetter.com/13/LeeAbercrombie.php
Abercrombie & Fitch
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/lax/979427049.html
To the Asian Girl Whom I offended with my Asian-ness - m4w
Date: 2009-01-03, 9:20PM PST
You: Asian, young(ish), cute, petite, left-of-center, cosmopolitan.
Me: The Asian guy you would never dream of giving a second glance.
Hi! I’m so sad that you were offended by my very presence at your favorite boutique coffee shop. Seriously, I was just there to do some work and maybe a bit of reading – I didn’t mean to draw attention to the fact that you too, are also Asian. I was just looking for a quiet place to sit, and the seat by you just happened to be open. It’s not like peed all over you, put my arm around your shoulder, and screamed to all the other patrons in a heavy Chinese accent, “She mine! You all stay away!”
After I sat down and pulled out Said’s Orientalism (no joke), you, in all of your ignorant glory, proceeded to loudly flirt with the nearest non-Asian man with a pulse to dissuade any romantic overtures from me. Lady, I already know you only date white guys; you don’t even have to open your mouth.
Ever since Chad took you out back in high school and made you the envy of all homecoming, you’ve understood the magical power of white boys. Your parents balked until they saw how well Chet treated you and made you so so so happy. You tell yourself you don’t see color lines, and that you’re ending racism by only dating white guys – and you give yourself a little pat on the back every night before dreaming of waking up with beautiful blonde hair. You’ve even thrown in a black guy or two, just to get back at daddy. Asian guys? Like, gag me with a spoon!
Hey, I applaud you. You’re totally progressive. Never mind all that bukakke stuff Jeremy keeps wanting to do (I wonder where he gets these ideas?). No need to worry about Scotty’s browser history pointing to asianteensluts.com. Totally normal! What red-blooded American man doesn’t want to bang a Japanese high school girl?
Honestly, if I were in your stilettos, I’d do the same thing. If white girls were all over me ‘cause of my nice, smooth skin, my mad computer skills and wispy peach fuzz, I’d ride that white stallion to all glory.
But since I’m 6’2”, 200 lbs. with 4% body fat and a PhD, I guess I’ll have to settle for one of our more racist Asian sistahs.
phil had posted it up on angryasianman and i thought it was ok funny, definitely not the best one i had ever seen, written without a lot of finesse and style. anyway, here's something that i think is infinitely more awesome, written by my should-have-been lover don lee:
http://www.failbetter.com/13/LeeAbercrombie.php
Abercrombie & Fitch
It's a problem. She only goes out with white guys, he only goes out with blondes. It's the familiar case of Asians believing in their own bad press: they're geeks with small weenies, they're wallflowers with little mystery. Yet with age, they've become curious—perhaps they've been too harsh and narrow-minded all these years—and they accept the date that's been arranged for them by their parents. The date goes all right. Nothing to write home about, but not so terrible, not onerous enough to preclude another dinner. They get drunk and end up on her living room floor, yanking clothes off. Fucking-A, you're huge, she says, and she discards her coolie hat and slaps him so hard, his slanty left eye immediately begins to welt. Fucking-A, you're sick, he says, sinking his bucktoothed mouth into her neck—sallow, tasty—loving it.
HAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK THIS IS THE GREATEST SHIT EVER???? ok probably just me. it's ten thousand times funnier. man don lee is the shit. i loves it. LOVES IT!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
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