dreamlog #25

In this dream, it was implied that I was still a teenager. I had a job at a supermarket and after work I have to ride my bike home, but the supermarket is on top of a mountain and to ride home, I have to coast my bike down a steep incline. The ride is seemingly unending with me riding through different terrains such as snow, deserts, rocky desolation, forests and even a few alien landscapes or two, all downhill.

I reached a house in the forest in which I instinctively knew was a half way point. I have a prearranged deal with the owners of the house to exchange bicycle tires on each trip, because by this point of the journey, they are shredded. While waiting for my tires to be changed, the woman of the house, who usually talks to me, is ignoring me because on the last trip, she had asked me to marry her daughter but I had politely rebuffed the offer owning to the fact that in this dream I am still 15 years old. An uncomfortable silence hangs heavy in the air…

jareddriskill

Film History #3: Rashomon

This week in the film history cinema syllabus is Japnese cinema. Thankfully, the professor neglected to mention Godzilla monster films and those awful-in-every-way-possible anime movies (Sorry folks, I despise anime) in his lecture and decided to focus solely on the work of Akira Kurosawa. Which wasn’t a bad thing to do seeing how his work had influneced all the better American western films of the late 1950’s and 1960’s. (e.g. The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars.) Let’s not forget that the first Star Wars was heavily influenced by the film The Hidden Fortress.

Which leads us to this week’s film, Rashomon. The film that brought Akira Kurosawa and Japanese cinema to the forefront of the world stage. Also like the other films so far in this film history class, was a film that I had read about and always wanted to see. Everyone knows the premise of Rashomon where a priest, a woodcutter and a bystander are taking shelter in the ruined city gate of the city of Rashomon during a rainstorm where they recall a trial where a bandit attacked and raped the wife of an samurai, who is then murdered by the bandit. Each person’s version of the story, as told in flashbacks via testimony during the trial differs from the other. The group of men in the framing device sequence are confused about which story is the truth, until that is the woodcutter finally admits that he had witnessed the whole murder in secret.

I have to admit that the bandit, as played by Toshiro Mifune, has to be one of the most charismatic actors to ever have graced a movie screen even though he had some moments where he looked sorta like the modern day comedic actor Jason Lee. (I’m just calling it how I see it, folks!)

I was totally freaked out by the actress who played the medium who summoned the spirit of the dead samurai she really looked like she was possessed and the echoy voice over of the actor who played the samurai more than helped to give serious weight to this eerie effect.

I was severely disappointed, however, with the last scene of the film with the abandoned baby and the three men from the framing device. It just seemed so forced and contrived to me.

next week on the syllabus: Hollywood in the 1950’s and Singing In The Rain.

jareddriskill

random item tuesdays

1. Owning an ipod now means I can now subscribe to podcasts. Of course, being 5 years behind the times, it means 
I have no clue on to what podcasts to subscribe to. So I, your favorite blog writer, am now taking a huge risk and leaving the task of choosing what podcasts to subscribe to up to you, my faithful reading several!

I’m leaving the content of my ipod up to you. It’s simple really all you have to do is to shoot me off an comment to this  website or a personal e-mail to an e-mail account I have set up for this purpose: jareddriskill@yahoo.com and you try to sell me on your favorite podcast. Write a brief description of the podcast and pertinent subscription info and if you sell me hard enough, I will subscribe to the podcast of your choice. I’m leaving it up to you to expand my horizons. So you better get cracking!

2. There will be one exception to the above contest, “Sunday Night Safran” starring John Safran and Father Bob. John Safran is an Australian quasi socio-political prankster who was the host of the brilliant Australian docu-comedy tv series John Safran vs God, and John’ Safran’s Music Jamboree. And Father Bob is a cranky catholic priest who was first paired with John Safran during a Religion Road Test Segment on John Safran vs God. You’d think that these two total opposites would make for bad radio/podcasting but they have the greatest comedic chemistry since the characters Jim Branning and Patrick Trueman first teamed up on BBC’s Eastenders.

3. Jesus I don’t know why, but for the past three or four days, I have been seeing dish towels laying on the sidewalk, the side of the freeway, side alleys and what have you. What the fuck is up with that?

jareddriskill

super furry animals “hey venus!”

Super Furry Animals/ Hey Venus! (expanded edition)/ Itunes/2007

Wow, this is my first review of an album that I purchased off itunes. This is the start of an new era for your favorite blog writer. (Of course when I say “new era,” it means that I am five or so years behind the current trends, so bear with me here folks.)

Super Furry Animals is an difficult band to describe, normally, with their music genre blender musical style but, for the first time ever, SFA has recorded an album that you can play to a friend when they inevitably ask you: “What does Super Furry Animals sound like?” I hate to say that “Hey Venus!” sounds like a typical SFA album, because that implies that the band has somehow lost their creative edge. “Hey Venus!” is still a genre defying album, but it on the same token, it’s not quite as ground breaking as “Rings Around The World.”

I suppose I am trying to say is that “Hey Venus!” would make a great ’gateway’ album for people in the future who want to check the band out, but who are not quite sure where in the bands massive back catalogue to start their music listening journey. Well, now here you go curious music fans of the future, enjoy!

I also normally like to look at all the album artwork and read the lyric sheet while I listen to an album (I strongly feel that looking at the album artwork and reading the lyric sheet is an important part of the music listening experience) but the cover to “Hey Venus!,” or at least what was downloaded along with the songs from itunes, just looked like a poorly rendered psychedelic eyesore, so that maybe purchasing this album as a download was probably for the best.

The expanded edition from itunes includes the excellent music video for the song “Run Away” and a vaguely interesting short “the making of…” documentary.

jareddriskill

my telephone always rings

Ah-ha! I have been wanting to work a Fun Boy Three reference on this blog for the longest time and now here we are. 

Yesterday I recieved not one, not, two, but three ( three!) phone calls out of the blue from people that I know. At the risk of sounding like a total social outcast, but if you are among my faithful reading several you would assume this already, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the last time when someone had called me just because they had some wild hair up their ass to talk to me. What was all that about? There’s not a rumor going around that I have a terminal disease, is there? 

Usually when someone calls me it’s because they are returning a message that I left or they dialed the wrong number by mistake. Whoa! I don’t know if I can handle all this sudden social acceptance! Do I have to get a t-shirt made that says “Look at me! I’m socially acceptable!” or something? Do I have to wear it walking around in public with my thumbs in my belt loops, my chest is puffed out and a shit eating grin that only a simpleton would have on my face?

You know, it’s always just when I get used and settled with the idea of living the rest of my life as a, ah,  social pariah when something like this happens and knocks me for a loop.

jareddriskill

week 4

There will be no The Best Of The Best of Soul Train review this week because WGN played an movie in the time slot that The Best of Soul Train usually airs, but WGN were hellbent on showing that insipid American Idol Rewind after the movie though. This is not a good sign. Either The Best Of soul train has been moved to a new time slot, or that WGN has given up on the show in light of Soul Train’s recent distribution troubles.

Also I have receieved a few e-mails from some of my faithful reading several this past week about a rumor going around  about there being a new Soul Train series that is to be hosted by Damon Wayans with a theme song by The Black Eye Peas that is supposed to debut this month. This is the first I have ever heard of it and that it would be safe for me to assume that this is an internet hoax of some sort.

Hopefully there will be some good Soul Train news coming in the next few weeks. Until then, love, peace and SOUL!

jareddriskil

dreamlog #24

I dreamt I met back up with a kid I knew back in junior high school, Mark Williamson. Neverminding the fact that we haven’t seen or spoken to each other in 15-16 years, he wanted me to take turns with him driving to Albany, New York so he can visit some distant relatives. I refused to help him because I don’t know anyone in Albany, New York (much less having never been there in person in real life) and mainly because Mark acted sort of like an asshole towards me back in the day.

Payback is a bitch.

jaredriskill

Film History #2: bicycle thief

I know last week I said that the syllabus read that this weeks movie was called “Bicycle Thieves,” but the subtitle of this Italian neorealist film said “Bicycle Thief.” Hmm. I have always heard this film being referred to as “Bicycle Thief,” but my film history professor insists on calling it “Bicycle Thieves.” Which could be an appropriate title for this film, but it also spoils the dramatic climax. So “Bicycle Thief ” it is.

Having eerie similarities of that of modern day Iraq, though without the US military occupation and a radical militant insurgency, post WW2 Italy was bleak desolate place with little or no hope with it crippling combination of high unemployment, crushing poverty and third world conditions. The Bicycle Theif  follows the exploits of the Ricci family, particularly the father, Antonio and son, Bruno, whose very survival depends on Antonio owning a bicycle, which as the title of this film implies, is stolen while Antonio is at work one day pasting up posters of Rita Hayworth (?) around the city of Rome and the subsequent quest by Antonio and Bruno to recover the bicycle.

The plot sounds trival and insignificant to the viewer (and indeed to any other secondary character in the film) but to the Ricci family, recovering the bicycle is a matter of life and death. Once you realize this fact, however, the viewer becomes drawn into the plot and secretly desires for the precious bicycle to be recovered.

Normally, I usually discount movies for having children in leading roles, but the young lad who played the son, Bruno,  was probably the best child actor like ever. To misquote that infamous Bill Clinton line, his performance made me “feel the Ricci’s family pain.”

Which, incidentally, was the thrust behind Italian Neorealism cinema: to discuss and cover realistic social issues that faced post WW2 Italy. The end scene of “Bicycle Thief” really drove the social issue point home with a brokenhearted Antonio and Bruno blending in with the exiting crowd from a Modena football game. The Ricci’s  world-shattering problem seemingly being considered as nothing but insignificant to other people in the crowd, who themselves, no doubtly, have world shattering problems of their own.

Wow. Bravo!

next week on the syllabus: Japanese Cinema and Rashomon!

jareddriskill

random item tuesdays

1. I know that I was bitching about the schizophrenic winter weather here in Virginia last week but as some of you have personally informed me that winter weather is schizophrenic just about everywhere. I suppose I can blame the fact that there isn’t a such thing as stable winter weather on global warming. Or it’s just that winter weather has always been sort of schizophrenic and I was never cognisant of this fact until recently.

2. I heard someone exclaim this weekend that it was “colder than a witch’s tit outside.” Which is weird because I have also heard the expression that “it’s hotter than a witch’s tit outside.”

So which is it then? (By “it,” I mean the average temperature of a witch’s tit?) Is it usually hot or is it usually cold?

Or is one tit is hot and the other cold simultaneously? If so, which tit is the hot one and which tit is the cold one? Does the side of the body where the tit is either hot or cold a constant amongst witches? If so, who did the research on the matter?

Or does the temperature of the witches tits vary amongst the season? Say cold for winter or hot during the summer. Or am I just thinking about this subject WAY too much?

3. I think this could be the workings of a great stand up comedy bit though, don’t you?

the 80gb ipod classic

Sorry for a lack of a post yetserday because I finally broke down, joined modern civilization and bought myself an ipod. Yeah, yeah I know, I’m the last hold out. I have to admit that I do enjoy the idea of being able to carry my entire cd collection with me as I go for my daily walks and more imporantly, as I drive to work and my internship.

Being a quasi reviewer, here’s a list of my minor compliants about the device:

1. I hate the lack of a super quick fast forward. I have a couple of audiobooks ( BBC radioshows, actually. They are classified as audiobooks on itunes for some reason.) on my ipod and it takes forever to find the last place I was listening too.

2. When you upload your cd collection to the ipod, and when you download the album artwork from itunes, some of the album artwork is incorrect. In a couple cases, the album title or band name is wrong.

3. Those earbud earphones suck, they are uncomfortable and physically hurt my ears when I insert them. However this isssue is sloved by plugging my regular headphones into the device.

4. This maybe an issue that revovles around the fact that I use my own regular headphones or I just may be deaf as a bat, it seems that you have to crank the volume on the ipod way up to hear anything at a normal volume. Shame on you if you set the volume below 3/4 of the way up.