February 18, 2007 by kirkjobsluder.

Lady in the Water

Laura loved it. I thought it fell somewhere in the middle as far as movies go. I didn’t think in was so bad as to justify the hate heaped on it. But it didn’t enchant me either.

Charade

This is on my list of movies that I have to see once a year. Audry Hepburn, Carey Grant, and an excellent supporting cast in a movie that combines great banter with a parody of Alfred Hitchcock.

Frank Zappa: Baby Snakes

“A movie about people who do stuff that is not normal.” I don’t usually do concert videos. Chunks of the film include surreal clay animation by artist Bruce Bickford. An even more surreal moment comes near the start when you see a tiny animated Zappa, standing on a film editing device watching Bickford’s animated films. Bickford’s art uses clay to morph figures from castles to faces and back again, and the interviews with Bickford and shots of Zappa conducting the soundtrack.

However, most of the film focuses on two back-to-back concerts in New York City which highlights Zappa’s diverse musical styles from satirical humor pieces, spoken-word performance art, complex instrumentals, backstage goofing around, and audience participation. At the height of the concert, he invites select members of the audience on-stage to reenact his feud with Warner Brothers, and engage in a dance competition to a composition with a constantly shifting meter.

While it’s all in good fun, it’s not for the easily offended. The movie left me longing for a bit more Bickford, and it drags at points in spite of Zappa’s incredible on-stage showmanship. If you are not already a fan of his music, you probably should skip this one.

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February 5, 2007 by kirkjobsluder.

Sometimes I find lazy spam unintentionally funny:

%TO_CC_DEFAULT_HANDLER
Subject: %SUBJECT
Sender: "%FROM_NAME" <%FROM_EMAIL>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Date: %CURRENT_DATE_TIME

%MESSAGE_BODY

Ok, that’s really effective.

Meanwhile, I’m a Mac lover and love this Mac-hating rant.

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December 21, 2006 by kirkjobsluder.

Up the escalator I went. This is a massive gleaming escalator - it takes you up two stories, just to give you an idea. You are encased in a long gleaming white-tile tube - and plastered on the walls are pictures of furry brown bears - and also repetitive (like cult-brainwashing repetitive) advertisements for Charmin, the company that obviously foot the bill for this G-rated poop magnet in Times Square. (Maybe parents with little kids think pooping is cute, and maybe they feel the need to make going to the bathroom akin to a trip to Disneyworld … but I’m an adult and I was strictly creeped out by the potty-training YAY FOR YOUR BODILY FUNCTIONS ambience of this entire place.) However, there was something highly amusing about it as well The escalator was packed with people. We all were being carried, passively, to the 2nd floor - where the toilets were, I guess. And I regressed. I became an 8 year old emotionally, giggling at everybody around me, because I was thinking, “hee hee, you have to poop! hee hee you have to pee!” It was my own version of Everybody Poops. I found it hilarious. I resented the brainwashing influence but I still found it hilarious.

Blogger Sheila O’Malley visits Charmin’s mega-bathroom in Times Square.

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