So many of the theaters from my childhood are gone. It's a bit depressing sometimes, whenever I go into some of my old Queens neighborhoods, like Jackson Heights, Flushing or Bayside and see what used to be a movie theater but is now a supermarket, or a drugstore, or worse, nothing at all. The Jackson is one of the few that's still standing...
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters...I associate arcades with high school, especially my freshman and sophomore years. Penn Station in Manhattan used to have two good ones that I went to after school. I never went to the famous one on Mott Street in Chinatown that often. I'm not sure why; I just never went that far downtown much. The one I went to the most was the one at the Roosevelt Avenue subway station. I'd take the 7 train there from the city, go downstairs, hang out there for an hour or so, and then take the bus home. It was a dark, kinda scuzzy place that tended to attract some weird characters, but that never bothered me, as long as I could play my games. I even dated a girl who I met there once... but that's another story...
...Rabbit Hole is about a couple in mourning over their dead child, who was hit by a speeding car. I don't think people realize how much damage speeding cars do. According to the Centers for Disease Control, motor vehicle injuries are the biggest cause of death for children in the US. I want you to stop and think about that for a minute. Cars kill kids more than any disease. How does that happen?...
...Follow is a character study, carried by [Salli Richardson-Whitfield]'s sterling performance as Maye. Throughout the course of the day, friends, strangers, relations and lovers move in and out of Maye's life, all of them reflecting in some manner on her relationship with Amanda. This movie doesn't wallow in grief and misery, however...
...Eventually, though, I realized that I wanted my characters to look more
like the ones in the comics. So I put more of an effort into my drawing,
and I figured that the only way to get my work to look like the comics
was to practice copying the images in them. I could've traced them, but I
thought it was more important to copy them by eye - and the one I
remember doing it the most with was Uncanny X-Men...
...At its heart, The Captains
is about acting. We, the audience, don't get to see how truly difficult
television acting can be - the long hours on the set, the challenge (in
this particular case) of wrapping one's tongue around complex and
near-incomprehensible technobabble... the toll it takes on one's outside relationships. Shatner
and his fellow thespians discuss all this and more here, and it's
extremely enlightening...
...Your Facebook
updates have done a great job at describing all the wonders you've seen
and the friends you've made these past few months, but seeing the Camino
amidst the Spanish countryside, on a big screen, is something else.
[Emilio] Estevez and his cinematographer do a solid job of conveying the verdant
hills, the winding roads, and the rustic villages along the path. I
realize there's more than one route to reach Santiago de Compostela, so I
don't know for sure if the places captured in this movie correspond
directly to the things you've seen, but surely it's in the same spirit....
...Homophobia cuts across all racial and social lines, but I've found it particularly distressing when it comes from the black community.
You'd think we of all people would know what oppression and
discrimination in this country is like. So to see a film that portrays a
young black lesbian with as much sensitivity and compassion as this
does is encouraging. Of course, director Dee Rees is herself a black lesbian, so that's hardly surprising...
...I missed about the first ten minutes or so of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo because of an unusual incident that happened to me on my way to the theater. I was coming from a different direction than last time
(this was only my second time at the Main Street), through a
neighborhood I'm unfamiliar with, and as a result, I got lost. I asked a
bus driver for directions and he set me back on the right path, but as I
was walking down a residential street, I saw an old lady standing out
the door to her house with an arm outstretched in my general direction. I
couldn't tell for sure, but it sounded like she was saying something.
Then I realized she was calling for help!...
...You've taken film
classes, you've studied the work of the great directors of film
history, you've refined and reworked your screenplay over and over with
the help of friends and teachers and you've got a solid cast and crew.
You believe you've got what it takes to become the next Spielberg or
Scorsese. Then along comes some guy who makes a horrible, horrible film
by every stretch of the imagination - one that, against all logic,
becomes a cult hit. How would that make you feel?...