Author Archives: jpjscribe

monday night movie…The Man Who Wasn’t There…

prepping for Burn After Reading, tonight’s selection is, in my opinion, their best work…although Miller’s Crossing is still my favorite…

(clicking makes it grow)

of the 150+ movies in my collection, 5 of them are Coen Bros movies…second only to my collection of Steven Soderbergh movies…i may have to do a month of Soderbergh…

anyway…i love this movie…sometimes i just turn off the television and listen to it play on the stereo…one of the rare cases of good voice over…

this one has the Coen Bros and all their best tricks…done to perfection…taut storytelling…hilarious dialogue…beautiful cinematography…meticulous set design…it helps that this movie is the best use of billy bob thornton’s hangdog face…it helps that this is the best performance james gandolfini has done in a motion picture…it helps that this was my first exposure to scarlett jo…

yeah, i love this movie…

random sunday musings…

in my wanderings today…i ran into Craig, owner of ism gallery…when i was a barista over at Armazem coffee house…the precursor to Hooked on Colfax…Craig and i used to talk about his gallery…the ongoing development on the block…art…girls…

anyway…

we caught up a bit with each other, and he mentioned that he was written up this year in westword…which was mostly positive…and for an art gallery in Denver, a positive notice in the westword is good for business…the thing i can’t help but be amused by is that they describe him as a…”budding artist”…

here’s Craig…42 years old…business owner…painting for most of his adult life…and he’s “budding”…sorry, but this is the kind of shit that makes professional critics sound like fools…to say the least…no respect for a lifetime of study and work…whatev…

i can’t wait to be a “budding writer”…

also, went to see Traitor last night…now that we have a new enemy hollywood seems to be hitting it’s stride with mature, entertaining espionage stories…see it…you might like it…

just finished The Shack…i read this book because it’s about a man who undergoes a spiritual awakening of extraordinary circumstance…call it research…

i bought copies of this book and gave them to my friends…to see what their reactions might be…that was in may…it seems i’m the first one to finish…

i can’t say i liked this book…i didn’t hate it either…this book is meant to be a message…so i had to overlook some of the hacky parts…because it’s a parable…or is that allegory…doesn’t matter…the book is meant to teach…or preach…again, doesn’t matter…as a piece of fiction i thought it was poor…at best…as a religious tract…it was as entertaining as a religious tract can be…

oh and Mad Men…oh boy…

NYC movie week wrap up…

new york has been on my mind all week…and not just for the obvious reason…thank you Mad Men…also this week’s monday night movie…Roger Dodger…and to a lesser extent, Elegy…you just can’t make Canada look like NYC…and tonight…Joshua…

first up…Mad Men…

great episode…I suspected Don was gonna have to pay for his dalliances, and it looks like the shit storm has come to town…what will our man Don Draper do now…I can’t wait…

and then we have Roger…

this is my fourth or fifth viewing of this one…i’ve come to see it differently since 2002…i first saw this as a descendant of honest movies about the darker side of american manhood…think jack nicholson in Carnal Knowledge…not roger…roger swanson is what passes for an alpha male at the opening of the 21st century…a silver tongued, sharp eyed word shyster…an ad man…he probably thinks he’s a modern Don Draper…roger couldn’t carry Don Draper’s piss in his shoes…it takes his 16 year old nephew nick…played with a perfect balance of innocence and worldliness by jesse eisenberg…to show roger just how pathetic his life is…

still a good entertainment…and the opening dialogue is brilliant bullshit…but this one may have to come off of my shelf…

saw this one last weekend…and Penelope Cruz is having a great year…first vicky cristina…and now this…she’s not only gorgeous to look at in this movie…and in a completely different way than VCB…she delivers this movie’s heart…she’s more than just eye candy…

problem is, i didn’t buy Toronto…Vancouver…or is it Montreal…as NYC…i never do…producers would be better off ponying up the dough and filming the real thing…if a creepy small budget movie like Joshua can pull it off…surely a movie with Ben Kingsley, Dennis Hopper, the aformentioned Ms. Cruz…and Patricia Clarkson…Best Supporting Actress, anyone…can afford to shoot on location…

this one just popped up in my queue…creepy and tense, i wanted to see it last year, but ms scribe doesn’t like the scary…oh well…a great way to spend an hour and 45 minutes…if you can ignore a gap in logic or two…i won’t give too much away except to say they could easily call this movie…Dexter: The Beginning…

that is all…