Thursday, January 22, 2009

Ram, Bam, Silverman

  • Random Pop Culture:
    • Forgot a couple of things last night. First off, I went Monday to see The Wrestler, the Darren Aronofsky film starring Oscar-nominees Mickey Rourke (a lock winner for Best Actor) and Marisa Tomei. I've heaped praise on Wall-E all year, calling it better than Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button. I still think that it will shake out as the most influential movie of 2008. However, The Wrestler is the best movie of the year. There is only one word to describe it: devastating. I've written about the wrestling documentary Beyond The Mat before and The Wrestler uses a lot of the same camera techniques and touches on a lot of the same themes. In fact, as depressing as Aronofsky's film is, it's even more so if you've seen the real life footage from the documentary. It shows you how true The Wrestler actually is. I seriously felt like I just wanted to cry throughout the whole movie. I know that doesn't sound like great motivation to see it, but it's worth it. The camera work is great, the acting is superb, the story is compelling. I'm ticked that Wall-E didn't get a Best Picture nod (does The Reader actually have any chance?), but I'm shocked that The Wrestler, which at 98% had the highest Rotten Tomatoes rating of any Oscar contender, was snubbed.
    • I also left out one big Lost thought. Do you think that the whispers heard on the island are the voices of people jumping around in time? Faraday said that nobody could hear Sawyer and the gang, so it makes sense. And speaking of Daniel, was he the same age back in the Dharma time or, as a co-worker posited today, was he simply there because he was jumping around in time? What does that then say about Richard?
    • You give me Estrada or Nada?, Erik Estrada dancing, a collie with a top hat, and a bunch of Jewish jokes, and I'll watch your show any time.
    • Is Izzie Stevens actually dying? Please say yes! Also, now that Bailey freaked out and tried to break the rules, how many of the remaining doctors would actually still be employed in a real hospital? Are we really down to just Derek Shepherd?
  • Random Hatred And/Or Love:
    • The hits just keep on coming. I was hanging out with a friend tonight who is fairly conservative. We were talking about the inauguration and about Obama's actions in his first day or two. My friend told me, unsolicited, that while he's been proud of a lot of things in his life, he can finally say that he's proud to be an American.
    • Still not in a hating mood. Yet.
  • Video Of The Day:
    • Well, it aired a couple of days ago. But the Hitler line kills me!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, your last couple posts have included things that have really annoyed me, but I'm trying to ignore them by focusing on a different topic...have you seen the "news" that the John Williams piece heard at the inauguration wasn't performed live? Personally, I think all the people who seem to be trying to make a big deal about it must never have played a musical instrument. While I didn't think of the possibility they weren't playing live, I did wonder at their willingness to play outdoors in such cold weather. I assumed Perlman and Ma in particular would have such expensive and fragile (for lack of a better word) instruments that it was surprising they were playing in such cold weather. I really liked the piece, though. What did you think? Were you able to hear it on the Mall?

Josh said...

I wasn't surprised and I don't think it's a big deal. Nobody thinks they're Milli Vanilli or Ashlee Simpson. I heard it and thought it sounded nice. People were talking so it was hard to focus though, plus everyone just wanted to get to the oath and the speech. I want to watch the whole ceremony at some point on TV (my mom is burning it to DVD for me).