I Don't Need A Blade Shamus, I Just Have To Squawk

Yesterday would have been Audrey Hepburn's 77th birthday, which is reason enough to open the post with this picture.

I've fallen into a kind, tumbling routine, where I'm going from class, which doesn't really matter anymore, to filming, but between rain and a hundred thousand immigrants marching, my filming schedule has gotten so screwed up that I'm editing and filming at the same time, which I think is giving me an ulcer. Do people still have ulcers? I'm sure it's a serious thing, but I always just think of Oscar Madison or Trapper John, the only people I've known with ulcers. And yes, I've reached that point where I consider 70's sitcoms characters personal acquaintances. I've also hit that point where I've given up on human contact, and the days where I don't have any work to do, I just hide in a movie theater. I've become a mole person. I saw 'Silent Hill' last week. I didn't really want to, it was just there. It was just two hours of Rhada Mitchell (who, along with Sean Bean, just can't seem to find that right movie) screaming through a lot of fog and ash, then a siren sounds and people who are burning alive, or have giant metal pyramids on their heads come out and try and dance at her. Serve her if you will. That part is actually kind of fun, just for the sheer what the fuckedness of it all, but when ever the movie stops and tries to tell a story, the woman next to me who peppered the screening with commentary like "Damn, he ripped that lady in half" became more amusing. Because, he did, in fact, rip that lady in half.

I followed that up by walking north to the Loews to see Greengrass' 'United 93' ('Stick It' sadly, had sold out). I saw 'Bloody Sunday' at the Triplex four years ago, on a Sunday in the small theater, basically by myself. I flashed back to how great that was as the girls in the front row started doing some, inexplicable dance/dare routine, much to the amusement of the frat pack seated in the third row. I also realized that I was sitting next to a date, one where the guy felt the need to comment to the lady throughout the picture, "Oh, see that's the plane that's going to go into the towers". It wasn't as if there was going to be some twist at the end, it wasn't a Shyamalan picture. She knows that. You know how I know she knows that? Because she lived through it just like everyone else in the theater, you fucking idiot. He had a pretty nice outfit on though, which was probably enough to get him a second date. The movie itself? Incredibly well done, well acted, and Greengrass knows exactly how to use the audiences feelings against them, but without pushing into anything that would resemble sentimentality. It literally felt like a roller-coaster at the end, I was left shaking a bit, glad I had put myself through that, even though I had no idea why. It also made me miss Aaron Brown.

I saw 'Brick' again the next day, mainly because I had missed the start time for Hard Candy, so I killed two hours till the next showtime ('Brick', by the way, still terrific). And, as upsetting as 'United 93' was, I think 'Hard Candy' was even more upsetting. From the the sickly sweet innocence and the saddening probability of the whole opening sequence, to the whole cat and mouse game that it goes into from there, and then just everything that had to do with reproductive organs just made me really uncomfortable. Especially that last part. With the penis. It's a testament to Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson (who's resemblance to Will Arnett made me laugh at some scenes where I really shouldn't have) that the movie isn't deathly boring. It reminded me a lot of 'Phone Booth', just this time Kiefer Sutherland is replaced with a fourteen year old girl. Which is much scarier than it sounds.

I also had a fun audience experience here, where the kids in the back were playing a variation on the 'Penis' game, but instead of shouting 'penis' louder and louder, they were shouting "Has anyone seen my eye-patch?". I think they were doing it in pirate voices, but I might have added that part in my memory. I couldn't figure out why this would be so amusing until the woman two rows ahead of me turned around to give them the stink eye. I say eye, because, of course, she was wearing an eye-patch. The simplest explanation is always right in front of you.

A Note On Trailers:
Despite it's silly title, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, looks incredibly good. I think it's the best teaser trailer since the Garden State teaser two years ago, where you really have no idea what the movie is about, but you just want to see it. And, I know that An Inconvenient Truth deals with important issues that need to be taken seriously, but if you put out a trailer so full of itself as this one, you're just asking to be made fun of. I'm cereal.