Oh hi, ROOM post?

            So I’m back in the New York Groove after spending the previous week down south in Landenburg, PA, a guest of the Andrew M. L. Parrish family while serving as a member of the cast and crew on the set of Infinity Fence. I was in on the “cast” side of things this time. Playing some dude named Mitch. Good times. Not why we’re here though. Not directly, though it certainly plays a part.

            I can tell you this. This week-long Jamboree had left me tired. Running on no sleep, no real sleep. Bad week for resting.

            Finally slept on Thursday and for most of the day Friday. Woke up lost and alone. Wanted nothing more than to go home. Back down to PA. Yardley this time, no more L- Burg.  Not to be not yet.

            No. I had plans!

            But in the meantime I had nothing. And after a week of being surrounded by people, friends and “co-workers” I was suddenly in withdrawal and the hours of solitude on Bergen (my Brooklyn residence) were just bout ready to burst the bubble that is my closely guarded, but shrilly fortified sanity.

            Go home, Clome, Go home.

            No, not yet. I had plans.

            Fuck.

            But what to do untill the plans.

            Vikings baby, Vikings. I would go see Severed Ways the new viking flick playing in-explicably at the Angelika.  Of course I wouldn’t, though in the long run. I had to take the detour through Washington Square Park to check in on Nic Cage and make sure everything was going alright with The Sorceror’s Apprentice. Of course he was fine and nowhere to be seen, but Sam Song was around and needed some help with his reel.  Sam the man Song would be seeing the Room with me later and would keep me from seeing Severed Ways presently.

            The Room? What’s that? Oh yeah that’s where the plans come in.

            March 20, 2009. Midnight screening of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room at Village East Cinemas. Tickets already purchased, by good friend BLAYK CITY.  Bit of a trade-off I got him into Watchmen via my purchase of his ticket. He did likewise for me for The Room.

            The Room?  First found out about this recent cult phenom from my brother Jeff (Currently on sabbatical downunder).  Where did he find out about it? I’d rather not say.

            The Room is one of those spectacular spectacles of badness currently catching a ride on the wave of irony. Current zeitgeist of bad movie love. Type thing, whatever.  It’s been playing at midnight once a month for six(?) years out in L.A. (out in?)  My brother bought it on DVD at the start of the year and I caught it luckily before he left for Australia, taking it(DVD) with him.

            Anyway the thing is godawful, but amazingly so, with performances that cannot be contained by the simple title of bad acting. (six months of rehearsal to hone these performances.) With the amazing and heart-breaking chemistry of Tommy Wiseau at the heart of it all.

            So I get there later than I usually would for such an event. And after suffering an ice cream disaster at the corner of Virgin and Mr. Softie I could barely handle the disastrous long line awaiting me. But luckily Blayk City was there already. A lady-friend from back home was there with him.

            “He’s here.”

            “Who?”

            “Tommy’s here.”

            Oh dear god, Tommy Wiseau was here at the theater. Now what the hell. I should have been expecting this. This has got to be the first screening of The Room on the East Coast. Of course Tommy’s here.

            Well now I just felt bad about the whole thing. I mean this movie is bad.

 

UNFINISHED SHIT@!!!! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGYhLcOpB4I

 

 

I fell asleep. Writing this with some Roman Epic on in the background. I couldn’t keep doing this by myself.

Who Poops the Poopmen?

“Let the old men tell the story. Let the legend grow and grow…”

A few minutes ago it ceased being March 6, 2009.  

On this day one hundred and seventy-three years ago, the battle of the Alamo just ended and so even though I should be throwing back my new netflix DVD rental (Friday the 13th part 3, natch!{of course its not in 3D, killjoy}), out of some obscure and utterly inane sense of obligation, I’m watching the final twenty minutes of John Wayne’s The Alamo for the umpteenth time. 

It’s only now dawning on me that I have Disney’s Davy Crockett on DVD as well. Maybe later. 

“How can you measure men? How can you measure courage and human dignity?” – John Wayne, behind the scenes.

Hurm Thirteen days to glory. Next friday is March 13. Friday the 13th. This past february had a Friday the 13th. Horror remake Friday the Thirteenth came out on that friday. Numbers? Meaning? Stick that in your pipe and choke.

“I’m going to tell you something Flaka and I want you to listen tight….you’re dead as a beaver hat” – John Wayne, slightly out of context.

___

Caught the Watchmen at the theater last night.  Guess I’ve been waiting for that one for a better part of the year. You could argue I’d been waiting for that one for nine years. I read the book nine years ago. But I was never too crazed about the movie adaptation. Didn’t really need it. If it came along, I’d take it. Hell I might even get my fur riled up a bit. Get a whiff of that ass. Climb right in.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the theater. I heard that a certain bro (not a bro of mine. Not yet?) has decided that he’s going to make a picture. Gonna make a picture out of that Watchmen book I read. 

Bro in question – ZACH…SNYDER… In the immortal words of Ansanelli “Oooh Shit!”

Yeah So I had issues with this dude. 300 Spertains was one of the most emotionally intense filmgoing experiences I’ve ever had. I mean that one aimed right for the heart and took no prisoners. Youch Youch Youch. 

i.e. I didn’t like it very much and I thought it was pretty offensive.

So I was kinda worried about what this bro was up to. 

Saw those trailers. Got kind of cautious, but it kind of looked alright…Liked that aanisquatsi shit.

Anyway, blah, blerh, blah. Let’s get the to the point.

3/6/09   12:00 AM to 2:somethingcloseto3 AM

It’s one of those things I wished I hadn’t seen. I didn’t need to see that. 

Somewhere in there. Somewhere on Mars while Silk Spectre was looking at me with those vapid vacant eyes, I realized I have no interest in making films ever again. I don’t want any of these people to see anything I’ve done, because they’ve also seen this. Don’t worry about it.

There’s this one really wild 3D moment in there. Dr. Crudup was on the TV with Kopple and just like in the magazine the film cuts between him in the studio and Owl-man and Silky out in some alley getting harassed by some gang. Liked the costumes on the gang, hated the faces. Snyder has no idea what makes someone look cool or real or cinematic. Back to the 3D moment. So this hot chick sticks pulls this dude’s arm straight and of course its done in that absurd speed-ramp, not sure if its slow or fast motion shooting style, which turns everything into a computerized dance and destroys anything that’s real. So she pulls this dude’s arm straight. Elbow center of the frame. She hits that shit so hard. The blood and the bone head straight for your face. 

Maybe the one good thing I have to say about Snyder is that he makes violence uncomfortable again. Not because he’s particularly talented with the portrayal of violence on the screen. I mean he’s definitely talented at perfecting his own style, but personally I find nothing appealing or interesting within this style. His action has no emotion, no intensity, no story. Every battle in 300 looked and FELT the same. Every moment of violence in Watchmen stands apart from the narrative, but every moment of violence feels like every  other moment of violence. 

Snyder can’t deal with the acting. And although I have no great favorites among this cast and feel that there was nothing particularly nice about Mr. Earle Haley’s performance I will say that I think they were all cheated by their director, cause I have never seen any of them this bad. It’s like Snyder only shot one take and always took the worst one.  And hell most of the Carla Gugino movies I’ve seen have been directed by Bob Rodriguez, tough competition when it comes to not knowing what to do with actors. (Damn, Snyder owes Bobby a big debt anyway. If it wasn’t for that Sin City thing, 300 never would have come to pass.) 

Loved the Leonard Cohen Sex Scene, But hasn’t Zach seen Shrek 1? Even if it was some WainWright cover, you can’t use a song that Dreamworks already appropriated for that offensive ogre crap. 

Opening credits? Best of the last ten years, I saw someone say. What movie in 99 had really great opening credits, first of all? Second – Zach’s Tableaus were interesting, but again destroyed by his continued failure in the world of casting people who look like they belong in a film. I bet all of these actors look exactly like they do on their headshots. So glossy, so pretty. So fucking fake. And they ruin everything. Also the song which at first seems like a cool choice, quickly feels kind of heavy-handed. 

Really “appreciated” the Zapruder recreation. And fine here’s a concession. The actor cast as Kennedy, looks great. Wish this hadn’t have been spoiled for me. I would have liked it more as a surprise, because it did not live up to expectations. 

The end was bad. Ozymandias’s new altered plan doesn’t really hold up in the long run. How can the world unite against an unbeatable foe? Dr. Manhattan…the superman(god) exists and he is American. IS AMERICAN. An american attacks half the world? The Americans created Dr. Manhattan.  This should have created just another world of war and hate. But I didn’t really care about that at that point.

God even Frank Langella could have done a better Nixon than the goofbag. 

The Good? Manhattan’s origin was fantastic. Felt alive and real on its own while successfully capturing the essence of a great story. Some of the scenes right after this one. Kind of alright.

 

 

*Some claim that these films are stunning. stunning. 

Sorry about all that, but I just don’t have the organize to energize rigt now. energyu tu organize. ?

Good luck,

Clomezone out