movies

Tonight I saw The X-Files: I Want To Believe. I’m not going to spoil it. I am going to see it again next week with a friend whose friendship was, in the early days, built on the show and will probably have more to say after that. I liked it. I really did. It wasn’t spectacular like The Dark Knight, but it was quiet and atmospheric and even a wee bit thought-provoking. Gillian Anderson writ large is still breathtaking (though I often temporarily fixate on the cuteness that is her uneven blinking) and as in most of my favorite episodes of the show, she is the frosting keeping the gingerbread house upright. I might also add that in my world–the one where the show ended with “Je Souhaite”–this movie drops in quite nicely.

I’ve learned over the years that having low expectations of Chris Carter is best. I think I had pretty high expectations of the flick despite my best intentions. Not bad, CC. Not too bad.

Gillian Anderson is just adorkable. I sometimes forget this, but with all the press around the new X-Files movie, she’s everywhere. I’m enough of a dork that her televised appearances are on my Google calendar. Really.

Last night she was on Leno. I was not home, and I didn’t TiVo. Nevermind that, though, because that’s why we have YouTube. I do love that I watch her live like this and I’m always on the verge of fear of what’s going to pop out of her mouth. She skirts a bit toward the British accent in there, which I also think is adorable…but I have so much adoration for her anyhow, that I’m a terrible barometer.

Read this article from Salon which does a pretty good job of explaining my love of Scully (and by extension, Gillian herself). Though I’d take Scully over Gillian if I got to choose. But if I didn’t get to choose, I’d take either. I’m not stupid.

Even though Sarah gave me a partially used container of sugar and a bike frame (which I forgot to take) instead of the X-Files prop she has, I have to wave to her here. I was glad to get your (by proxy) text from Barstow. Drive safely and I hope the cats can poop in the box while the car is moving. We miss you already! Git yerserlf a job now!

Firstly, if you lag even more than me, you must stop what you are doing and you must go see The Dark Knight. It was awesome. Spectacular. Having just watched Heath Ledger chew the screen, spit it out, and make me beg for more, I implore you to put yourself through the experience as well. Goddamn that was good stuff.

In other news:

• Fuck bike theives!
• Joss Whedon is brilliant! And no, that’s not a link to Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.
• Then there’s my Friday night which I’m so looking forward to.

And the rest!
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Here are more of ‘em:

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Before you die. Because seeing movies after you die is more complicated than just using Netflix. I’ll work on it for my own afterlife…but for now, see ‘em pre-deathification. This list is really 1001 movies, so it’s going to be behind a “more” tag. I’ve made the ones I’ve seen bold and stuff that is (already) in my Netflix cue is italicized.

Spoiler alert?! I’ve seen 249 of the movies, which is not quite 25%. It’s true that I’ve never seen The Shawshank Redemption. Or Meet The Parents. I have seen a lot of the random ones because I was a film student. I think I own about 10% of them. I was going to mark those too, but it was a lot of work. I have to ease back into this blogging thing!

(Broken into many posts because of a bug.)

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That is clearly a lie. But apparently “I don’t read” is a popular response to one’s favorite books on Facebook. (While I may have succumbed to MySpace, I cannot cross over into even more life-sucking time on Facebook.) Check out the interesting data collected by Virgil in regards to what books smart people read. Ok, no. It’s what books people with high SAT scores on Facebook read. I’m fascinated. If you haven’t already seen it, I present to you: Books that make you dumb.

I don’t know Virgil, but I like him. What’s not to like? Geek, cute, interested in books. FTW!

I suppose it’s interesting to note that my favorite books aren’t on the list. Hmmm. I’m off the scale, one way or another. I wish I remembered my exact SAT score. I do know that I scored more than 100 points higher on the non-math side…

For the record, some of my favorite books are:

• A Song Of Ice and Fire (series) by George R.R. Martin
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
• Declare by Tim Powers

In completely un-related news, did y’all see Cloverfield? I’ve heard that I’d like it, but that since Blair Witch’s camera movement made me nauseous, I might not make it through a theater showing of this flick. If you did see it and you liked the music, you can grab Rob’s party mix from Cloverfield.

I just recently posted about the brilliance of Netflix and the fact that they recommend movies for me in (apparently) the same way my friends recommend movies. But this one? I will enjoy an Eddie Izzard concert film becuase I liked a British Holy Grail farce, an Italian neo-realist film, and a samurai movie?

During a trip to Japan in 1994, I was shopping in a giant record store in Tokyo called The Wave. While I was there, I bought a CD because I liked the cover.

Sometimes I’m just that shallow. Turns out that the CD was even better sounding than it was good looking and my happy aural relationship with The Frames began. Finding some of their music in the States has been difficult prior to a few years ago, but I purchased Burn the Maps last year and grooved along happily.

About two weeks ago the universe conspired to bring The Frames and their frontman, Glen Hansard, back into my life. I’d noticed that the top choice on my Netflix home page was Once. I didn’t look beyond the pop-up description and kind of ignored it. Then I received an email from my friend Jess. Usually we send novella-length emails back and forth, but this was a short burst from her…basically saying “I saw this movie, I loved it, and you will too.” Guess what movie it was. (Jess and I also happened to be reading the exact same book at the same time too. Whoa.)

I rented it. I loved it. Watched it three times. Bought the DVD and the soundtrack. I am officially hooked. (For those keeping score at home, please note that though the DVD and CD use the same photo for the cover, Glen and Mar have been Photoshopped together to be holding hands on the DVD. Hmmm.)

So thanks to Jess and Netflix I have a new movie I love, which I can pimp out to my friends.

Bryan and I are sick. This is the first time in more than six years that we’ve been sick together. Usually one of us is healthy enough to take care of the other for the first few days of the hacking. Now we’re both sick and it’s stupid.

The last two months have been…busy. Which just translates into “too lazy to blog.” In addition to the illness, I’ve got three days off this week so I’ll be working behind the scenes here trying to get a good theme up and running (including making the gallery work again–which might mean just dropping the dollars for a SmugMug account) and getting a few enhancements up.

What have I been up to?

• Sandy organizes my life.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been making what was otherwise a dreary writer’s strike better.
• Watched a lot of movies recently. Highlights include Death Proof and the semi-related documentary Double Dare, Brief Encounter, and Samurai Fiction.