Look out! He's got a knife!

I just noticed something

One of my pillowcases is missing. Guess it was filled up with dvds and games.

This reinforces my idea that it was idiot kids. I hope they're shitting their pants right now waiting for the cops to knock on their door.

We got fucking burgled

Yes we really really did. Boy do I wish I had contents insurance now.

Among the things they stole are some pretty rare DVDs on mine, so if you see any of these for sale second-hand around Wellington (cahs convertors, slow boat, real groovy, whereever) then PLEASE let me know immediately at throatsprockets@paradise.net.nz because a/ it means I'll be able to recover them as stolen goods and b/ we'll be able to catch the motherfuckers.

- Almost Famous: the bootleg edition
- Citizen Kane, region 1, in a cardboard box
- Jackie Brown, region 1, in a cardboard box
- Chimes At Midnight, Spanish version - INCREDIBLY rare, titled "Campanadas a medianoche" (I doubt anyone else in the country has a copy of this) - it has a G-rated sticker on there which wasn't on it when I bought it
- Touch of Evil, region 1
- Ghost Dog, region 1 edition
- Hellboy - director's cut - this is more rare than usual because it also has the THEATRICAL cut in the box, which it wasn't sold with
- Paranoia Agent, 4 dvd set (it doesn't come in a 4 dvd box & part 4 only came out this week)
- Millenium Actress, region 1 edition (not available locally)
- Venus In Furs, Blue Underground edition (bright yellow cover)
- Hammer Horror double-feature of The Devil Rides Out and Rasputin the Mad Monk
- Bedazzled - the original version starring Peter Cook & Dudley Moore
- Pink Flamingoes & Female Trouble double feature - region 1
- Hairspray & Pecker double feature - region 1
- Serial Mom - region 1
- Re-Animator millenium edition
- Dagon, region 1

Most of the other stuff (Vanilla Sky, Chasing Amy, Reservoir Dogs, Game of Death, Fist of Fury, The Big Boss, Enter the Dragon, Way of the Dragon, I'm not too sure what else) is common as muck, although if you see them TOGETHER that's a different story. But most of the other titles are unusual and so if you see them second-hand there's at least an 80% chance that it's my copy, ad for a couple of them it's a 99.9% chance.

The PS2 games Project Zero and Beyond Good And Evil aren't very common either.

Right now I'm thinking of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction talking about the guy who keyed his car: "It would be worth him doing it, to catch him doing it."

Paranoia Agent

I've just finished watching an anime series called Paranoia Agent. I am not a fan of anime, as almost everything that people have recommended to me has left me unimpressed. I tried Akira, Ninja Scroll, Ghost In the Shell, Legend of the Overfiend, Cowboy Bebop... At best I was amused by the pretty pictures but unmoved by the stories and characters; at worst I was utterly repelled. (Cowboy Bebop has great music, though.)

The two big exceptions are the films of Hayao Miyazaki & Satoshi Kon. (I also loved a short called Voices Of A Distant Star, but that seemed to be very much a one-off.) Miyazaki probably qualifies as one of the world's greatest living filmmakers. Kon is a fairly new filmmaker but his storytelling style and aesthetic sense appeal to me very much, and he directed this entire series based on his own stories.

Satoshi Kon previously made three features: Perfect Blue (the first anime movie I really liked), Millenium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers. He has claimed that the series was initiated because he wanted a forum for ideas that he didn't have room for in his series. While there are episodes of Paranoia Agent that do seem to be derived from each movie, for the most part this series is its own beast. This is appropriate for his career as those first three movies, while unmistakably the work of the same filmmaker, are radically different in tone, content and genre from one another: the first is a vicious psychological thriller, the second is a lush romantic fantasy, and the third is a charming Christmas story that's thankfully free of syrupy sentiment.

But on to Paranoia Agent. I don't really know how weird these things usually get but Paranoia Agent is pretty fucking weird. The basic premise is that a kid on rollerblades is skating around Tokyo beaning people with a golden baseball bat. All the victims are connected in some way, and all are under heavy levels of stress and seem weirdly relieved after Shonen Bat (as he's called - or "Lil' Slugger" in the lame English dub I briefly sampled) gives them the bash.

Each episode focuses on a different character, and it's not clear at first what the connection between everything is. The show manages to be funny, disturbing, cutesy, scary, satirical, intelligent, and goofy - often all in one episode. Some parts are parodies of anime conventions I recognise, and some seem to parody conventions I don't recognise.

It's very much of a piece with Satoshi Kon's other work, even aside from the episodes that reference Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers explicitly.

There's a total of thirteen 24-minute episodes (spread a bit too thin over 4 dvds), and the final disc just came out here yesterday. I enjoyed every single episode, although there were definite highlights. I preferred the dark and disturbing parts to the cutesy and funny parts, but I think this was partly just personal taste and partly that I didn't get all the jokes.

The animation (although limited in detail) covers just about every different anime style I've seen. The realistic-ish style of Perfect Blue dominates, but the range of styles is sometimes dizzying. It's always pointed - sometimes it seems to be straight parody, but more often the different styles reflect different mental states. Any of Satoshi Kon's movies could conceivably be made in live-action, but I would argue that they could not be as effective in that medium.

All in all I loved it, although it really didn't inspire me to seek out more anime. I'll definitely continue following Satoshi Kon's career though - he is unquestionably my kind of filmmaker, in any genre.

Bedazzled on dvd!

Oh man, I've been trying to find another copy of this movie for about a decade! I saw it as a kid and loved it, and I'm a huge fan of Pete & Dud so I'm willing to bet I'll like it even more now.

When the remake came out, I thought to myself "What a fucking stupid idea, but at least it'll probably result in the original being released on dvd." And sure enough, a mere five years later, here it is!

The Unauthorized History of New Zealand

My god, did anyone else see this?

"By 1879, the orgies had begun to get out of control," over a drawing of a cat with a dynamite plunger.

"The very source of teenage sex - the Hutt Valley"

The "One Tree Dildo" cartoon.

Very classy!

The Wind

Aw man, I finally caved in and bought Warren Zevon's final album, The Wind - the one he made when he heard he had terminal cancer. Right now he's singing the only cover on the album, Knockin' On Heaven's Door. It's pretty devastating - I've been a fan of Warren for over half my life, and his romantic/cynical outlook is close enough to mine.

This is a really great album. I knew it would be, not just because Warren was a first-rate songwriter and performer but because I saw a detailed documentary about the making of it on tv last year.

Warren rocks out more than usual on this album, and as you would expect he refuses to dwell on maudlin and self-pitying aspects. Being an album about dying made by a man who knew he was dying it's obviously very self-absobed, but it's got the requisite self-criticism and cynicism. Warren's voice is shaky and he's clearly out of breath a lot (lung cancer will do that I guess), but the emotion shines through stronger than anything he's done since Hindu Love Gods.

Amazing album - MOR rock, megastar guests, and all.

The Adventures of Neutered-Man!

I've got you now, Orgazmo!

Meme your head!

Meme your mother humping head!

OK, meant to do this days ago. This meme is copied from Suraya's blog because hey, it's the Rules.

Comment on this post and I will reply with the following:

If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal.

Malaysian vomit dueling

I keep intending to do something more coherent with this blog. Mostly I think of turning it into some kind of review archive, probably for cult & horror movies and hip-hop & country music. I just haven't been bothered.

Reading Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (thanks Janet, promise I'll give it back one day) has helped me work out how the rewrite of my novel will go. I should probably finish the first draft before worrying too much about that though.

Watched all three movie adaptations of Ernest Hemingway's short story The Killers this week. They were all good.

The first is a film noir classic, directed by German expatriot Robert Siodmak in 1946. It's probably the best looking noir film I've seen. It dispenses with the entire story in the first ten minutes, and the bulk of the movie "explains" the background to the story. The start is easily the best part, and is almost word-perfect to the story, but the rest of the movie is pretty great too. Burt Lancaster is brilliant in his first role, and Ava Gardner is as slinky and feline a femme fatale as there ever was. Edmond O'Brien, usually a very good actor, unfortunately plays a role that should have gone to Bogart. The whole movie looks superb, with deep dark shadows galore, and is as doom-haunted as you'd ever want.

The second is a 19 minute student film co-directed by the great Andrei Tarkovsky. Supposedly it was the first film made in the USSR based on American source material. It's even more faithful than the start of the Siodmak film, apart from being in Russian and subtitled. It doesn't really hint at the heights Tarkovsky was to climb, but it's pretty great anyway.

The third is the 1964 version - intended for TV but deemed to violent - directed by Don Siegel. This version barely touches on Hemingway, focuses a lot more on the killers themselves than the Siodmak version (they're played superbly by tough guys Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager), and replaces Lancaster's big dumb boxer with John Cassavetes as a race car driver. Most importantly, the thoroughly nasty villain is Ronald Reagan! (I'm a huge fan of Cassavetes, but I've never liked him more than when he's punching Reagan in the face.) Siegel, who's unfairly been labeled as a fascist for directing Dirty Harry, pulled off a major coup here because Reagan steadfastly refused to play villains throughout his career and this turned out to be his final role (two years later he was Governor of California - hmmm look who's there now). Angie Dickinson plays the Ava Gardner equivalent and while she's a lot less sexy, she's also nastier and more fun. The movie itself is trashy and cheap-looking, but also exciting, fast-moving, and vastly entertaining - as you'd expect from the very talented Siegel.

Things That Make You Go "Ew"

What scares you? What scares me? Let's talk about the scenes in movies that squick us out. Not the big splashy gore, like Daniela Doria literally puking her guts out in The Gates Of Hell or Timothy Balme making lawnmower/zombie stew in Braindead. The things that actually get to you, and stay with you.

Here's a short list from me. What have you got?

1/ Star Trek 2: The Wrath Of Khan. If you've seen the movie you know that I'm talking about the scene where Khan puts a hideous slug-like monster into Chekov's ear to control his brain. I almost went through the back of my chair reacting to this. Yurgle!

2/ Hannibal. In a gore-splatter movie full of graphic disembowellings, people being eaten alive by pigs, and guys eating their own brains, the bit that nearly made me puke was a relatively non-gory scene of a pickpocket bleeding to death after being stabbed in the groin. Ow!

3/ Hellraiser. Another gore epic. People being skinned alive and torns apart by hooks did not bother me a bit. Larry hurting his hand by accidentally gouging it on a rusty nail made my eyes water.

4/ Pink Floyd: The Wall. Bob Geldof is shaving his chest near his nipple. Cut to blood splashing in the water. Did he slice it off? We never find out, but the very idea of it grossed me out.

5/ I'm giving up here, because I think this list peaked at number 1. Star Trek would be a great series if it focused on scenes like this, rather than a sterile and boring view of the future where everyone is an utter nob.

Bang your head!

Bang your mother-fucking head!

Just saw Serenity

For those who don't know, it's the movie continuation of Firefly. MAJOR kudos to Jenni for getting me in.

See this movie. I mean, watch the tv show first, but see the goddamned movie. (I say that as someone who loathes and despises more than 99% of franchise sci-fi. Keep that sterile Star Trek rubbish the fuck away from me. Firefly is a western, it just happens to be set in space.)

One thing, though. If anyone tries to tell you ANYTHING about the movie, stop at nothing to prevent them. Kill without hesitation if they persist. Let nothing stop you from seeing this movie without spoilers.

Bring your knowledge of the tv series and NOTHING else. Resist all urge to read up on it.

This movie has real impact. Two words could spoil it all.

That's all.

Probably won?

Probably. Who th' fuck knows?

John Tamihere is gone. Yeaaaah.

Winston lost his seat. Loser.

Green will hopefully get a Special Vote boost.

Don Brash will hopefully go the way of Geoffrey Palmer.

Everyone where I was misheard the Labour supporters' chant of "Three More Years!" as "We Want Head!"

Now hopefully there'll be some peace & quiet while all those goddamned noisy politicians bury their heads in each others' arses for two weeks making deals.

Howl

Bad day. Bad week. (Work only.)

Supposed to be drinking & WTFing tonight, then drinking & Electioning tomorrow night, also doing stuff during the day tomorrow.

Not enough energy. Flag tonight. Seven bands? Sounds too much like hard work.

Admittedly, like new Idle Faction songs very much. But still. NEED REST.

Aaaoooooo!

Robert Wise died

Robert Wise directed The Sound of Music, a movie that sets my teeth on edge.

However!

He also directed The Haunting, one of the 5 or 6 scariest movies ever made. He worked on a number of the brilliant Val Lewton horror movies of the '40s. He edited Orson Welles's first two movies, Citizen Kane (brilliantly), and The Magnificent Ambersons (he was the one they got to butcher it).

He also directed The Day The Earth Stood Still - perhaps the best science fiction movie of the 1950s; and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

R.I.P. Mr. Wise, aged 91.

Maori bashing

I guess we've all seen the photos of the defaced Maori party billboards, right? Heard the saga of the 16 year old boy who was allegedly paid $180 to deface them by John Tamihere, then "kidnapped" by Maori Party and forced to clean up the mess he had made. It sounds badly handled by everyone concerned, to me.

Did anyone else hear John Tamihere on Morning Report?

He claimed that what he'd done was a good thing, because the boy now has $180 in his pocket, and that it's better than him sitting around on his arse like other Maori.

Nice one, John. Let's encourage Maori kids to become vandals. I hope this twat is gone from parliament by next week.

"Someone's stickin' a red-hot poker up our ass and I want to know whose name is on the handle."

Last night I saw Reservoir Dogs for the first time in almost a decade.

It is still very, very good. Despite knowing everything that was going to happen - right down still remembering huge chunks of dialogue verbatim - I was on the edge of my seat throughout. What a movie!

The acting still holds up brilliantly, except for Quentin Tarantino himself, but his role is pretty much over by the time the opening credits role. Tim Roth is probably the best, as he's got to cover the most ground; Chris Penn is probably the least-best (apart from QT, as mentioned) but he's still real good, much better than usual, though his best ever performance was in Abel Ferrara's under-rated gangster melodrama The Funeral.

One thing that was shocking to me this time which wasn't previously was the use of the word "nigger" by all those white guys - they came across as kinda racist (the characters, not the movie-makers; remember that these are stone-cold killers and not exactly role models).

Seeing it in 'scope for the first time since '93 meant that I could see a lot of bits of acting business - especially from Tim Roth - going on in the corners of the screen.

This being a special edition dvd, I finally got to see the infamous "ear cutting-off" scene in all its glory. I can now see why they didn't use it. The usual claim is that it was somehow "more powerful" not to show it because of the power of suggestion, yadda yadda yadda.

KNB did the FX for Reservoir Dogs, and supposedly they gave Tarantino a cut rate in exchange for him writing From Dusk 'Til Dawn cheap based on their outline. If that's true, Tarantino got ripped off majorly on the deal.

Upon seeing the scene, it's obvious that the reason they didn't show it is because it looks like someone is using a plastic razor to pry a lump of gum off the side of someone else's head. It looks astonishingly fake. If Tom Savini had been given the job people would have puked; KNB just weren't up to the task.

But yeah. GREAT MOVIE. Well worth $15.

Party vote Green

At this stage, a vote for Labour is almost a vote for National.

4.9% Green = no Labour-lead government.

Think about these things:
* Employment Contracts Act - back to the bad old days
* Nuclear Free New Zealand - "gone by lunchtime"
* Winston Peters could be kingmaker

Look at how Don Brash behaves under pressure. Imagine him in a closed-door meeting with the Big Boys from other countries, as our official representative. Imagine the kind of pressure they'd put on him.

Can you trust this man to do ANYTHING in our country's interests when powerful people from other nations are putting the screws on him?

Mortal Kombat!!!!!

Don Brash vs. Tony Blair. FIGHT! Tony Blair Wins!
Don Brash vs. George W. Bush. FIGHT! George W. Bush Wins!
Don Brash vs. John Howard. FIGHT! John Howard Wins! FATALITY!

By the way...

...who's this cnut calling themselves Warehi who's decided to tag the two posts where I express admiration for Dr. Pita Sharples with dodgy accusations?

I'll ignore the "being an "academic" and never having been in the real world" stuff as being irrelevant bullshit, but the "wife beater" comments are pretty low.

Warehi, whoever you are, please fill us all in on exactly what your basis for this accusation is? I can find nothing that backs it up whatsoever which makes me suspect that it is nothing more than a malicious lie.

I expect I'll never hear from you even if you are reading this, as you're no doubt hiding with the other yellow-bellies in Coward's Corner. An appropriate place for someone who likes to make defamatory statements from the relative safety of the comments in someone else's blog.

14 Sep Update: I contacted the person whose email was used as reference for this, and informed them that someone was using their handle to make potentially defamatory statements. My suspicion was correct: the person making the comments is NOT the person behind the email address.

Am I Evil?

I now have 2 (ii) yes count 'em TWO people reporting to me. Mu ha ha ha ha! The evil of management.

My employers also decided to recognise my achievements in monetary form. So two and a half weeks from now, the jelly babies are on me!

In other news: even for an Australian movie, Dogs In Space is strange and grungy. I liked it, Michael Hutcheson and all.

Last Words of Hunter S. Thompson - his suicide note

"No More Games. No More bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun – for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax – This won't hurt."

Leaders final debate

Well that was cool.

Pita Sharples looked like a champ. Winston Peters was hilarious. Rodney Hide grasped at straws. Helen Clark was a bit fucking smug. Jeanette Fitzsimons stuck to her guns. Peter Dunne is a fucken idiot. Don Brash is looking more naive every day. Jim Anderton didn't do too bad, actually.

Winston Peters and Jim Anderton each smacked Don up good. Jim's "If Don got five hundred thousand from the Exclusive Brethren for voting for the Prostitution Law Reform bill, I should have got a million for voting against it!" was evn-bettered by Winston's "Why were you meeting, a month out from the election, with people who do not vote?"

I was actually curious to hear what Winston had to say about testing the Maori seats via MMP, but he blathered on too long and got cut off. Every now and again that cnut has a good idea. And I was REALLY curious about what he was starting to say to Mark Sainsbury when they went to break.

Pita Sharples is the closest to "a boss I'd like to have" out of the people on the stage. I like his style, and he communicated Maori policy in the clearest way we've seen to date.

Don Brash seems lost a lot of the time, as evidenced by him losing his bottle over Anderton's crack. (Er... yeah.) I actually think National would have a better chance with Gerry Brownlee as leader.

Jeanette Fitzsimons had a great bit about being sick of everyone campaigning to people's wallets, and how there are more important things than a few extra dollars in your pocket after tax.

Rodney Hide was pretty funny, and leapt at every opportunity. Sadly for his party, it made him look desperate.

Peter Dunne is happy to jump into bed with whoever's got the big package, and while I think that's appalling, at least he's an honest slut.

Not that any of it matters to me, 'cause there's no way I'd vote for any of those motherfuckers except Green or Maori, and I'm still not too sure about Maori (despite my admiration for Pita).

Voting logic

Here's my unbalanced and partisan opinion.

Labour cannot be trusted. They have proved it time & time again.

National CAN be trusted - to fuck things up. Remember the 1990s? (Shit, remember Muldoon?)

Act are dead. Good thing too.

Maori I'm unsure of - Pita Sharples is very much on to it, but Turiana Turia is a flake.

New Zealand First are Winston fuckin' Peters's party. Say no more.

VOTE GREEN. It's the only way, unless you're a cnut.

If you're registered in Wellington Central, vote Labour for the electorate vote (unless you're stupid enough to want that idiot ex-shoesalesman as your representative), but VOTE GREEN FOR THE PARTY VOTE.

National Radio unbalanced?

Flattie Scott sent me this link about Sean Plunket being suspended from National Radio's Morning Report after a "confrontational" interview with Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

National Radio have been accused many times of having an anti-National bias. I heard the interview in question, and while I thought it was kinda arse, it wasn't that much different from the way that Plunket usually interviews Don Brash.

I wonder if the real issue is that Plunket unreasonably tried to savage someone from a political party who wouldn't cut Nat Radio's funding, for a change?

After writing that I checked nzpundit.com to see if that was their theory - and yes it is! Finger me as a right-wing think-alike.

They also provided this handy link to a mp3 of the interview.

Update:
Listening to it again, yeah I do think that Plunket was kinda harsh on Fitzsimons and kinda easy on Brownlee, but no more than he's been harsh on Don Brash and then easy on Helen Clark in the past. It's just Sean Plunket being Sean Plunket.

Unless he was already in the poo for doing this kind of thing in the past, and this was him finally getting his slap on the wrist, then this all seems a bit suspect.

Wah

If I crash & burn in the next week or so... sorry in advance. Stress levels are beginning to increase already.

Don't worry folks, New Orleans is *better* now

At least, that's what Barbara Bush seems to think.

Meanwhile there's a lot of talk around the web about how Kanye West should keep his nigger mouth shut because blacks are genetically programmed to be criminals and George W. Bush is a non-rascist humanitarian who became President to help people.

America will fall within my lifetime under the weight of its population's stupidity; first California will slide into the ocean, not from an earthquake, but from the weight of all those obese fuckwads chewing on McDonalds and pretending it's healthy because they're having a limp salad instead of fries.

White = citizen, black = criminal

Calm before the storm

Today is my co-worker's last day, and we have no replacement. EEK! Looks like I'm in trouble. After six months of struggle, we finally got things up to speed with 2 fully-trained staff and 1 temp. Now we're down to 1 + 1 for the forseeable future.

*shriek of the mutilated*

Non-white girls are cuter, don't you think?

A day for boring posts

I forgot to do that thing I was going to do for Martin. Sorry dude, tonight for sure.

I posted a while ago about this. I did not follow morgue's advice, yet the problem went away anyhow. C'est l'amour.

Kanye West is good for something after all

Thanks to Jack for posting this link. I'm not a big fan of Kanye West - I usually think he's an arrogant prick - but this is good stuff.

Work drinks usually suck

I usually don't go to work drinks. Last Friday, I did.

It was really good. Three work acquaintances are now definitely work friends. Nice! (And I notice that Sina didn't come to work today. Is she still drunk, or is she embarrassed? Time will tell!)

Yeah yeah, banal entry. I promise more ranting and swearing later.

Serenity preview scandal?

I was told by someone who queued for Serenity that there was a major case of queue-jumping going on.

Supposedly right when the doors opened, someone arrived and asked to see the manager, and bought up almost the entire screening (I was told "All by 45 seats") before any of the people who'd been waiting for hours could get a look in. Supposedly the manager than refused to see any of the people who'd been waiting to hear their complaints.

Can anyone confirm or deny this story?

New Orleans fame tracker

Poppy Z. Brite and Fats Domino are now accounted for & safe... But Allan Toussaint is still missing. Is Eddie Bo okay? What about the Meters and the Neville Brothers... okay I don't care so much about Aaron Neville, but is Art missing?

LOL

Look it up

Review: Dust Devil diary

As mentioned in the previous post, Richard Stanley's production diary for Dust Devil is online here.

I read it last night. It is indeed more interesting than the movie - it's also scarier, and it casts a lot of light on the genesis of the film (it made me wish the movie was better, or at least closer to the true events that inspired it). It's quite lengthy, but well worth your time.

I need to watch the movie again with this thing fresh in my mind - I reckon I'll enjoy it even more now. I'm thinking now that Richard Stanley is a better prose writer than filmmaker.