The Hot Club
Someone painted the doors to the HC men's stall purple. Purple! Royal Flush!
Wendy's is running an ad for its hamburgers with a version of the Stones' Satisfaction. It sounds like Benny Benassi's version. Obasie sent me the video clip. Benassi's video has women in bikini tops and Daisy Duke shorts powering various men's tools.
Jim McCabe of the Globe (11/250 must be reading Sportzine and especially the Hot Club section. He did a story on Patriot kicker Adam Vinatieri entitled 'Foot joy'. Do I get royalties?
Does Foot Joy get to sue for nickname infringement?
Joking Joe said he was watching Stacked with Pamela Anderson. A woman was talking about how it used to be much easier - meet an old guy with bucks, stay with him a while, he dies and then you inherit his money. But now that there is Viagra, you actually have to work for your money.
Peter, the Marketing Man, said corporations are complaining to him about today's young workers. Seems that they lack 'critical thinking'. Peter says the bottom line is that they don't read enough.
Peter was saying how much he dislikes the writing of Jim Donaldson in the Pro Jo. I told Pete that I consider Donaldson the Buddy Hackett of sports writing. Donaldson isn't happy unless he's attacking someone and ridiculing him or her. Peter said he prefers to read about the human condition. I said Donaldson makes fun of the humans and their human condition.
Foot Joy said he has a cousin who weighs 400 pounds. He has told the cousin that he doesn't want to be a pallbearer for him. Foot Joy said that's what cranes are for.
FJ said he watched Sunday's Sports Reporters on ESPN and all the reporters, who were black, defended Terrell Owens. I said Owens' actions are indefensible.
We were talking about great multi-talents. Foot Joy mentioned Jackie Gleason. I brought up Steve Allen, the man who started the Tonight show. Foot Joy said it was interesting that we brought up those two men. Jackie Gleason's wife in The Honeymooners was played by Audrey Meadows. And in real life, Steve Allen was married to Jayne Meadows, Audrey's sister.
MOVIE REVIEWS - SIN CITY (2005)
Sin City is an enticing entry from director Robert Rodriguez and writer Frank Miller who is generously given a co-director credit. Miller wrote the graphic novels (actually they are comics available thru Dark Horse Comics) on which Sin City is based. And somehow Quentin Tarantino got a 'special guest director' credit. Whatever that means. Did Quentin direct one scene? Or did he supply some other input?
Sin City is really a place called Basin City, a fictional place that is not of this earth. The tales told of that city try to emulate Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Like that movie, Sin City is episodic, violent and quirky. But where Pulp Fiction's locale and characters had substance, Sin City has only style. It has the look down but not the flesh and blood that made us like the Pulp characters and their settings.
Both movies have quite a cast of characters and share having Bruce Willis. But it is there that the similarity ends. While Sin City also has Michael Madsen (another Tarantino favorite), Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro, Rutger Hauer, Elijah Wood, Rosario Dawson (not related to me), Jessica Alba and Brittany Murphy, none of them is human. They are all just props in episodes that usually involve acting out some form of revenge.
And while I've never read any of Frank Miller's 'graphic novels', the visuals here come off more like cartoon cels, the characters overblown and overwrought. These creatures come from a strange city that is more alien universe than the slick streets of Pulp Fiction. As a result, it's hard to get interested in the denizens of Sin City. They don't mean anything to us. After all the special effects and the digital enhancements are done, we are left with celluloid ciphers that signify nothing. Too bad, as Victoria said, it could have been so much more.
HIGH TENSION (2003)
This is a French movie by Alexandre Aja who directed and wrote it with Gregory Levasseur. Early word of mouth on it was quite good. Aja and Levasseur must have seen a lot of slasher movies because this entry fills its quotient of blood and grisly deaths. And the picture stays interesting for a while.
It's about two college girlfriends, Marie and Alexia who go to the French countryside home of Alexia's parents. They need to get away to the quiet rural surroundings to study for college exams. What goes on after they arrive will be left untold, as I don't like to give away plot elements. But what occurs is typical of many slice and dice films.
And then things change when a strange twist is introduced. At first you go along with it, but then you start to question the use of this conceit. It reminded me of The Life and Death of David Gale. That movie also had a plot twist that eventually undermines the whole structure of the movie.
So it is here in High Tension. The twist provokes questions that have no good answers. Like a house with unstable underpinnings, the movie collapses. The plot ramifications have not been well thought out by Aja and Levasseur. As a result, we're left with a movie that fails because of itself.
Wendy's is running an ad for its hamburgers with a version of the Stones' Satisfaction. It sounds like Benny Benassi's version. Obasie sent me the video clip. Benassi's video has women in bikini tops and Daisy Duke shorts powering various men's tools.
Jim McCabe of the Globe (11/250 must be reading Sportzine and especially the Hot Club section. He did a story on Patriot kicker Adam Vinatieri entitled 'Foot joy'. Do I get royalties?
Does Foot Joy get to sue for nickname infringement?
Joking Joe said he was watching Stacked with Pamela Anderson. A woman was talking about how it used to be much easier - meet an old guy with bucks, stay with him a while, he dies and then you inherit his money. But now that there is Viagra, you actually have to work for your money.
Peter, the Marketing Man, said corporations are complaining to him about today's young workers. Seems that they lack 'critical thinking'. Peter says the bottom line is that they don't read enough.
Peter was saying how much he dislikes the writing of Jim Donaldson in the Pro Jo. I told Pete that I consider Donaldson the Buddy Hackett of sports writing. Donaldson isn't happy unless he's attacking someone and ridiculing him or her. Peter said he prefers to read about the human condition. I said Donaldson makes fun of the humans and their human condition.
Foot Joy said he has a cousin who weighs 400 pounds. He has told the cousin that he doesn't want to be a pallbearer for him. Foot Joy said that's what cranes are for.
FJ said he watched Sunday's Sports Reporters on ESPN and all the reporters, who were black, defended Terrell Owens. I said Owens' actions are indefensible.
We were talking about great multi-talents. Foot Joy mentioned Jackie Gleason. I brought up Steve Allen, the man who started the Tonight show. Foot Joy said it was interesting that we brought up those two men. Jackie Gleason's wife in The Honeymooners was played by Audrey Meadows. And in real life, Steve Allen was married to Jayne Meadows, Audrey's sister.
MOVIE REVIEWS - SIN CITY (2005)
Sin City is an enticing entry from director Robert Rodriguez and writer Frank Miller who is generously given a co-director credit. Miller wrote the graphic novels (actually they are comics available thru Dark Horse Comics) on which Sin City is based. And somehow Quentin Tarantino got a 'special guest director' credit. Whatever that means. Did Quentin direct one scene? Or did he supply some other input?
Sin City is really a place called Basin City, a fictional place that is not of this earth. The tales told of that city try to emulate Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Like that movie, Sin City is episodic, violent and quirky. But where Pulp Fiction's locale and characters had substance, Sin City has only style. It has the look down but not the flesh and blood that made us like the Pulp characters and their settings.
Both movies have quite a cast of characters and share having Bruce Willis. But it is there that the similarity ends. While Sin City also has Michael Madsen (another Tarantino favorite), Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro, Rutger Hauer, Elijah Wood, Rosario Dawson (not related to me), Jessica Alba and Brittany Murphy, none of them is human. They are all just props in episodes that usually involve acting out some form of revenge.
And while I've never read any of Frank Miller's 'graphic novels', the visuals here come off more like cartoon cels, the characters overblown and overwrought. These creatures come from a strange city that is more alien universe than the slick streets of Pulp Fiction. As a result, it's hard to get interested in the denizens of Sin City. They don't mean anything to us. After all the special effects and the digital enhancements are done, we are left with celluloid ciphers that signify nothing. Too bad, as Victoria said, it could have been so much more.
HIGH TENSION (2003)
This is a French movie by Alexandre Aja who directed and wrote it with Gregory Levasseur. Early word of mouth on it was quite good. Aja and Levasseur must have seen a lot of slasher movies because this entry fills its quotient of blood and grisly deaths. And the picture stays interesting for a while.
It's about two college girlfriends, Marie and Alexia who go to the French countryside home of Alexia's parents. They need to get away to the quiet rural surroundings to study for college exams. What goes on after they arrive will be left untold, as I don't like to give away plot elements. But what occurs is typical of many slice and dice films.
And then things change when a strange twist is introduced. At first you go along with it, but then you start to question the use of this conceit. It reminded me of The Life and Death of David Gale. That movie also had a plot twist that eventually undermines the whole structure of the movie.
So it is here in High Tension. The twist provokes questions that have no good answers. Like a house with unstable underpinnings, the movie collapses. The plot ramifications have not been well thought out by Aja and Levasseur. As a result, we're left with a movie that fails because of itself.
posted by jdawson59 at 3:33 PM
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