thorney's blog

i loved these movies 2000-09 #2

I usually know what's up on my way into any movie; if I haven't seen the trailer, I've at least read the synopsis, know who's in it, wrote it, directed it, something. I don't like surprises, I don't like to be uninformed, I don't like to be blindsided. But at Sundance sometimes you get swept up by the buzz. People are constantly asking you what you've seen; you do the same in the hopes of finding The One, the festival's crowning achievement that time will doubtless prove irrelevant and overblown, but hey the air is thin in Utah; you lose your head.

That's how I ended up in utter shit like Teeth and Haute Tension, though sometimes it resulted in mild joys like Hustle and Flow. And this one time it brought the jackpot—it's how I found the jewel of 2006, Once. I had NO IDEA what it was, seriously. I only knew it was Irish and people were talking about it. Didn't know it was a musical, didn't know it had been shot handheld and mostly guerilla-style, didn't know it was an indelible love story, didn't know it would refuse the happy ending.

It took me awhile to settle into the shooting style, and truthfully it's one of those movies where you spend the first hour wondering if it's started yet, but then this happened (you can't YT the single scene anymore, but you know which one I mean):

ONCE: Falling Slowly

Once went onto become a worldwide phenomenon, culminating in an Oscar win for Best Song. It was an honour for me to be caught in that buzz.

i loved these movies 2000-09 #1

When it comes to the best films in life, all your technological innovations, whiz-bang camera placement or social relevance don't mean shit. People can respect something like There Will Be Blood, but they don't love it, and they don't watch it more than once. Rewatchability is huge for me, writing is also huge, but the biggest is acting. There's not a computer in the world that can render the kind of performances wrought by Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo in You Can Count on Me, or enough visual flair to punch you in the heart like the simply shot duet of "Falling Slowly" in Once. You can have your auteurs, your Issue Films and your revolutionary CGI—I'll stick with feeling, the only thing we've got when the credits roll.

This movie changed my life.

a film by miranda july

badiversary

It’s been a year since Kate, a few weeks less for my sleepless winter, which began shortly after she died. The night I recorded this, ironically, I was being kept awake by a party next door, the alley between the buildings full of smokers and yelling kids and, inevitably, the police.

Once silence finally fell, I pushed the window up—it was unseasonably warm for March. Alone in the house sometime after 2am, I wrote and recorded this in two takes, one for each part, digital reverb cranked, in the dark. It never felt like it had a purpose other than to be representative of my momentary sadness, an indulgence not meant for other ears. Yet on this anniversary, I’ve decided to re-indulge, just for today.

From december 8

The Charisma Vortex

blurgh

[WGA]

Other depressing graphs [here].

in praise of the friday night lights season 4 title screen

There are not many shows' credits sequences I bother watching; only the first episode of a new season to see if pictures have been updated (hello, Mariska) or if anyone has been bumped from supporting to full-time player or things like that.

But this season of Friday Night Lights is the exception. Check this shit:

FNL title

That's the closing shot of season 3, when the show's fate was undecided (it was ultimately re-upped for two seasons). Coach Taylor had been ousted as the head coach of the Panthers and offered a job running the East Dillon Lions. The school, in a shit part of town, hadn't even had a football team in years. This was Coach's first look at the field, decrepit and scrubby. It would've worked as a series finale, but it's worked even better as a season finale, with Coach struggling to rebuild from the bottom while his wife remains at the rival school and is fast becoming an unpopular principal.

But all of that is incidental, because using this shot as the closer for the credits is—besides a great representation of FNL's stellar camerawork—a perfect deployment of symbolism. It represents everything this show is about: struggle, working-class America, family, dreams and hope. I loved it then, and I feel lucky to be able see it every week this season.

perfect records

how, after 20 years, does dick wolf not get it?

The only remaining cast member on the ninth season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent will be newbie Jeff Goldblum.

4 of these things are not like the other

As much as I loved Julianne Nicholson's Wheeler, they never gave her much to do and Logan had never been able to keep a partner on this series, so her decision not to return after having her second child sucks, but is reasonable.

But for the show to clear out Erbe, D'Onofrio and Bogosian is just fucking bonkers. CI, like SVU, gets its ratings from characters, unlike original recipe L&O, which switches people up all the time and no one cares. (It's also the lowest-rated of the franchise. INTERESTING.)

D'Onofrio, for his part, spent this truncated season phoning it in anyway and can go back to support roles in indie films, but I fear for Erbe, whose Eames is so, so good, but she's played her so long she might not be able to recover. Bogosian, of course, has a whole ’nother career.

What a disaster.

"if you can make it there...well, you probably can't"

NEW YORK A subway debacle had made us edgy. We went to Starbucks because that's what you do in every town but mine—and also in mine, but I refuse—and we were headed back to the god damn subway when I heard a TINKtinktink and felt something bounce against my foot. I looked down.

"Did someone just throw a rusty nail at me?"

It skittered to a stop, four inches long, bent and dusty brick red. A tetanus shot to the face if I'd been three seconds earlier. (Scratch that: death from infection. Like I could afford a medical emergency in the US. To quote Ben Lee: "Ship my body home.")

We looked up. A pigeon sat above a doorway. Logical conclusion: the bird kicked or dropped it.

It felt like a sign.

It feels like a sign.

On the plane from Newark the next day I cried for an hour. It was a small plane and it was mortifying. I had a beer at one in the afternoon. It cost $5USD. Birthday beer. I've been saying I don't care about turning 30, but my subconscious feels differently, apparently. Or else it was just the fallout from 10 days of running around, working on three different things at once, too many people, strange beds and no privacy. The final third of the trip encompassed six states and three provinces in four days.

I'm talking about this in case I fucking freak out. Or get stabbed in the eye by something falling from the sky. Warned.

i met miranda july before you even knew her name

MIRANDA

And she had a terrible handshake, which is a thing with me. But she is really, really thin. Like double-digits thin. So, on account of her movie changing my life, I have given her the only Handshake Pass I will ever hand out. Because everything Miranda July does is incredible.

I also talked to her on the phone, her 1,234th interview for Me and You, and at the end I said "Please keep making movies" and it took her aback, because Miranda July is also humble.

I just found out she's going to be at TIFF, which makes for two Heroes (the other is Diablo Cody) I have to look out for. And that's TWO issues of Bust I have to tow around. Bust is terrible.

What a month.

Diablo

what i did on my summer vacation

- Got a new job in the same place as my old job, part-time
- Played too many shows in New Brunswick, still the worst province
- Finally got new glasses, eight months after breaking them
- Went to, but didn't end up testifying in, court
- Watched the first three seasons of Law & Order: Criminal Intent
- http://www.myspace.com/dancemovie