Since his brilliant but oh-so-of-its-time satire Generation X, Douglas Coupland has embarked on various endeavours, some interesting, some baffling, some just sort-of dull. But now it seems he has come up with the basis for what looks to be a truly crazy television show- starring Alan Thicke. Bring this to America, please!
The “advance” price for tickets used to be a nice deal you could get for hitting the box office early- and by proxy, letting bar owners know what the take was looking like, staffing needs should be, and if additional promotion was necessary. These days, the “advance” price is an offset, though not usually at par, to the hefty “convenience fees” charged by any advance-selling agency, even, increasingly, the box offices themselves. It’s not that I object, exactly- there is something ingenious and ballsy about selling something in advance at a higher cost to someone else that would be worth less if sold day-of (or obviously not at all). For this reason it seems as though venues or shows with higher risk factors would do well to mitigate this discrepancy with a greater advance discount. Geez, maybe all Tonic needed was a lot more people buying in before it was too late. So to speak.
AMC will be running a “Best Movie Marathon” on February 23- showing all 5 Best Picture Oscar noms and throwing in a large popcorn and unlimited refills on pop. (Oh, and a “collectible pass”). By the time you actually get to No Country for Old Men, the last of the bunch, you should be so caffeinated, hyped on sugar, hydrogenated, and generally ready for action that you will have no problem agreeing with the vast number of critics (and laypersons like myself) who found it superlative. Or else, you will just need some Tums.
If you want the cookies, you will have to go to that Reeler party.
For no apparent reason, the movies I can remember seeing in 2007, in the order I recall enjoying them. For brevity’s sake, I have left off repertory cinema- and probably a bunch of things I might as well have forgotten anyhow.
1. No Country For Old Men
2. There Will Be Blood (this could be 1, it seems to depend on the time of day)
3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
4. Ratatouille
5. 4 Months 3 Weeks & 2 Days
6. My Winnipeg
7. I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
8. Still Life
9. Margot at the Wedding
10. The Wind that Shakes the Barley
11. Michael Clayton
12. Tears of the Black Tiger
13. The Bourne Ultimatum
14. I’m Not There
15. No End in Sight
16. Paprika
17. Persepolis
18. Control
19. The Lives of Others
20. The Bothersome Man
21. Darjeeling Limited
22. Away from Her
23. The King of Kong
24. American Gangster
25. Stellet Licht
26. Billy the Kid
27. Lust, Caution
28. Manufactured Landscapes
29. The Golden Compass
30. The Great World of Sound
31. God Grew Tired of Us
32. Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwriitten
33. The Simpsons Movie
34. Live Free or Die Hard
35. Happiness
36. Flight of the Red Balloon
37. Secret Sunshine
38. Air Guitar Nation
39. The Cats of Mirikitani
40. My Kid Could Paint That
41. Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
42. Rescue Dawn
43. The Host
44. Congorama
45. I Just Didn’t Do It
46. Volver
47. Pan’s Labyrinth
48. Day Night Day Night
49. Once
50. Election
51. Crazy Love
52. The Protagonist
53. Belle Toujours
54. Sicko
55. Shoot ‘Em Up
56. Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix
57. Tuli
58. Fracture
59. In the City of Sylvia
60. What the Sun Has Seen
61. War
62. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
63. Undoing
I can’t imagine why you’d be shopping this time of year, but if you are, PayPal is giving you 20% back in cash for purchases made using their services at the following eMerchants: Barnes & Noble, Blue Nile, Dell, EastBay Sports, ebags.com, Electronic Arts, eToys, Guess, GbyGuess, HP, Newegg.com, Overstock.com, Ralph Lauren, Ritz Camera, Wolf Camera, Boaters World, eAngler, OuterBank Outfitters, Camera World, Photo Alley, ShopAtShark, InsanitySauce, Sharper Image, Sierra Trading Post, Skymall, Smartbargains, and Toys R Us.
It’s only up to $50 back, but it’s still a nice little bonus.
Chris Anderson at The Long Tail on the new economy of free stuff: is it free, isn’t it great, and where do I get my $10 plane ticket to Glasgow?
The legal system may be bringing more freedom to Asia- yet another surprise from the Lust, Caution juggernaut.
Meanwhile, the law is getting a little less free in Canada, at least for those who were happily downloading music from P2P networks (and apparently buying some too) with no regulation at all. Could this be related to the new tax on “legal” downloads? Hmm…
In 1991, I nearly had my ears blown out by the double bill of J. Mascis and My Bloody Valentine at the auditorium at UNC-Chapel Hill, shortly before the disintegration of the shoegazing supergroup. Hell has finally frozen over and MBV is playing UK dates next summer- in theory, anyhow. What the hell, I’ve always wanted to see a show is Glasgow.
Thanks to Time Out New York, I’m aware of the Great American God-Out, which suggests that one spend today behaving as though there were no god. According to the organizer, this is not an excuse to murder small babies (though it’s not clear if that’s forbidden) but rather a chance to “dine with…dance with… and get to know [Atheists].”
TONY took the opportunity to ask some locals what they might do on a day without God. The President of the Catholic League, Bill Donahue, explains, “I’d give my debating nemesis Christopher Hitchens a call and we’d go drinking. And then the very next day I’d demand equal treatment and demand that he go to mass with me.” Which does demand the question- are atheists willing to pony up for a god-in?
Oh, dear.
Closing the deal becomes impossible because of what’s in the way: a mainstream media that depicts women as either porn stars, frigid bitches or neutered saints.
The Globe & Mail (sexy! hip!) features an article about what movies have the most realistic depictions of sex. Hint: the winner involves singing, transvestites, and a sex counselor who has never had an orgasm. Apparently they have not seen Lust, Caution yet.
Aside from hangin’ with my Canadian homies and viewing the fine productions of our land (or at least one) the highlight of TIFF may have been a drunken (is there any other kind) conversation with legendary Aussie cinematographer Chris Doyle (and only one lovely young Asian lady friend). From Twitch, news about his new directorial endeavour.
It occurred to me that if I had to vote today (or, say, Tuesday) for a presidential candidate, I would have no idea with whom to throw my lot. Not that this is a new sensation, but now, now there is the internet to tell me which prospective president is perfect for me, all by taking a simple quiz. And after that it tells me which character I am on Lost. Fabulous!
When I took the quiz, I was amused/horrified to learn my “ideal” candidate was in fact Mike Gravel. Not only a maniac but someone with whom I suspect I have profound differences, though it’s pretty cool that “Mike” is short for “Maurice”. Also, I do like gravel, except when wearing sandals. It’s crunchy.
Finally got around to watching Idiocracy, the Mike Judge live action indictment of the stupidity and lameness of American culture- or more specifically, the segment of American culture that primarily makes up the fan base of Mr. Judge’s other projects. As you may recall, the movie was unceremoniously dumped by its distributor, 20th Century Fox, who evidently had concluded that despite a fairly high-profile indie star (Luke Wilson), the director of more than one hit cult shows, and a film that could save the world from its FHM future, they were probably going to lose more money from an ad campaign and print run than they were going to be repaid with box office. Either that or the dis on Fox News didn’t go over very well- but hey, at least they made it to the 26th century!
You would think they could have made it work, considering some of the other things they did release. The one problem with the film as I see it, aside from not being very funny quite frequently, is that it rests on the premise that the whole world degenerates into an Entertainment Tonight/Playboy Channel/Ultimate Fighting universe because everyone is very stupid. And while the satirical juice stings the eye when he envisions scientists being too busy to solve real problems because they are working on hair loss and erection solutions, the sad fact is that it does seem to take some smart people to come up with a lot of the stupidist things we deal with now. There would be no spam if not for smart computer people figuring out how to outmaneuver my increasingly-inadequate filters. The writers and editors of Cosmo, Maxim et al are not, I image, ‘challenged’, despite the content of their magazines (In Touch, however, may be a different story). The question that goes unanswered (probably because it is either too obvious or unanswerable) is why do people love this stupid stuff? Why do people love being stupid, celebrate it, condemn, maim and murder those who don’t embrace stupidity too?
But in the end, who doesn’t want a donut and money and someone to perform unnatural sex acts upon them and just throw all the garbage out the window? Mmm, donuts.
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