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I want my giant furry coat!

So I was watching XXX: State of the Union tonight, and Mena came downstairs:

Ben: I think they killed Gibbons!
Mena: Oh, really?
Ben: Yeah, and they killed Xander Cage, too!
Mena: ...
Ben: And do you know where? In Bora Bora! It's so sad! He was just on vacation, & so happy!
Mena: ...
Ben: I'm really, really sad about this.
Mena: I'm sensing a post.

I was somewhat disappointed with XXX: State of the Union. I really do love Ice Cube, & there are a fair number of clever references both to the first movie & to other movies, but really: there's no replacing Vin Diesel, is there?

That giant fur coat, that lovable irreverence, that snowboarding down the avalanche scene, &c. So good!

"They look like good strong hands, don't they?"

Oh, sigh, The NeverEnding Story always makes me so sad.

This was my favorite movie in the whole world when I was younger.

"Ladies, let me tell you about myself..."

I was looking at my last.fm weekly charts today [1], and it struck me that one of the things I love most about last.fm is that, by recording what I'm listening to, it's essentially a recorder of my moods. Like a lot of people (I assume?), I tend to listen to music that reinforces my moods, so my list of recently played tracks on last.fm tends to be very indicative of how I'm feeling. [2]

& so I'm reminded of this quote from High Fidelity:

I like being able to see how I got from Deep Purple to Howlin' Wolf in twenty-five moves ... If I want to play, say, Blue by Joni Mitchell [3], I have to remember that I bought it for someone in the autumn of 1983, and thought better of giving it to her, for reasons I don't really want to go into. Well, you don't know any of that, so you're knackered, really, aren't you? You'd have to ask me to dig it out for you, and for some reason I find this enormously comforting.

From Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, p. 55.

And, yes, so: I could tell you how I got from ABBA: Gold & Pet Sounds—two of the saddest pop albums ever—to the bitter & confessional nastiness of The Afghan Whigs' Gentlemen, to the Dusty-esque resignedness of Cat Power's The Greatest. In four days!

But I don't really need to, because my last.fm profile says it all.

[1] As I am wont to do, periodically.

[2] And of course, it strikes me that my blog can do much the same thing, on a less granular scale—which is, of course, one of the things I love most about it. To whit: this post and this post, both from this week.

[3] Though, I have to say, I prefer the example in the movie, which was Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide."

Nick Hornby does seem to have some sort of weird Joni Mitchell thing, doesn't he? (c.f. also About a Boy, which has loads of Joni Mitchell references.)

"She asked me if we could be friends..."

So, I recorded Sign o' the Times on our TiVo this past weekend, and ever since I've been trying to figure out how to get it off of the TiVo. As in, off of the TiVo, and onto a DVD or my (Mac) laptop.

But so BTW, before I delve into the tech stuff, a brief aside that's worthy of the main post, as opposed to a footnote: Sign o' the Times is so fucking awesome. And it's not really easily available on DVD, which is just totally lame.

Favorite things about Sign o' the Times:

• When, during "Hot Thing," Prince slides across the stage under Cat Glover's legs, and rips off her skirt with his teeth. (Or, I guess, almost—he actually appears to grab it with his hand, then transfer it to between his teeth. Yes, I've now watched this part too many times in the writing of this post.) But still: how awesome is Prince!


• This movie is just so brilliantly directed. The cuts & closeups are as good as a music video, which is pretty incredible with what appears to be concert footage. [1]


• This is a really great mini-review of the movie. Of course, it would be, as the author wrote a book on the subject.
  


• "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man". Best. Song. EVAR.

So, all of that said: We only have Macs around the house (around 6 of them now that we've amassed, but quantity doesn't help, in this case), so we can't use TiVoToGo. And really, what I most want is just to be able to burn this to a DVD, so I can watch it over & over again. It seems so simple: it's a file, made of bits, on a hard drive on (what is basically) a Linux box, that is on our fucking network. Why can't I just mount the box and copy the file to my laptop, then play it? [2]

So finally, from a comment on this post, I figured out part of the answer:

Open up a web browser and go to https://(the ip address of your tivo)/nowplaying/index.html and login as tivo with a password of your media access code (from the Tivo view settings screen) It will let you access a website where you can download the *.tivo files of your shows.

Yay! Now I have the .tivo file, though I can't actually do anything with it without a PC with TiVo ToGo.

And yet somehow, just the idea of having this file on my own hard drive makes me feel so much more secure!

Prince: you're safe now.

[1] Of course, it's not actually concert footage, which is the reason it looks so good. It turns out it's a lot easier when you reshoot the entire movie at your own studio!

[2] This is a rhetorical question.

Oh shit! It's a recursive footnote explosion.

You know what I hate about Spanglish? [1]

Everything, except for [2].

[1] There's only one thing that I like about Spanglish. [2]

[2] Paz Vega, c.f. [1].

You broke my heart.

SPOILER ALERT. Or something. It's in bullet number one, if you actually care about Top Model.

• Wow, Lisa [1]. I'm actually surprised, but not so much, because she was really starting to bug me lots in recent weeks. And frankly, I considered myself a pretty big supporter of Lisa. Every time Mena would say, "Ben likes her, but he's an idiot," [2] I'd say, "But she takes such great pictures!" But then it just stopped mattering, because she was so annoying.


• I've been listening a lot to the Dios (Malos) album, which is unexpectedly one of my favorite albums of this year. Going in, I didn't have any reference points or comparisons for it [3], which lack of baggage may be part of the reason why I'm enjoying it so much. But it's this great fun pop music, sort of sad, sort of relaxing in a druggy way, but at the same time—maybe even inexplicably—happiness-creating.


• I am, admittedly, a little bit obsessed with The Godfather: Part II. It's a fucking long movie, and usually, even a 90-minute movie is too much of a commitment for me. And not only that, but it's a really, really depressing movie. I mean, you know this, I'm sure, having watched it (right?), but it's really depressing! That look on Michael's face at the end? It kills me, every time, but I just can't stop watching it.

[1] Who, I think, I liked better with dark hair. But that's just me.

[2] This is a total exaggeration.

[3] Except for the really obvious ones, which don't really affect me that much, because I'm not a big fan of either the Beach Boys or Neil Young.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

So, I'm a Keira Knightly fan, and all, but um, yeah. I'm not so sure about this new Pride and Prejudice.

Maybe it's just the forced zaniness of the trailer, or maybe it's that stupid narration starring the ubiquitous trailer voice. Here's a sample: "the story of a modern woman... who discovered the one person she cannot stand is the one man she may not be able to resist."

Oh, fuck no! You do not reduce Pride and Prejudice to a fucking one-liner.

Or, maybe, you do, but seriously, it isn't that. If anything, it's the first line of the book. But then again, that might sound odd & pretentious, from the mouth of the ubiquitous narrator.

Anyway, give me the BBC miniseries production any day.

Just like mama used to do

Apparently, my liberal use of fuck/fucking/etc in my blog has shocked at least one Frenchman. Only 60,656,177 more to go! [1]

But speaking of vulgarity, Mena & I saw The Aristocrats last night and loved it. Going in I wasn't actually expecting that much, partly because the joke in and of itself just isn't that funny. But now I realize I was missing the point—there were a number of funny versions of the joke in the movie, but what was funniest, of course, was just hearing the improvisation & the performances themselves.

Some favorite parts:

• Mario Cantone's Liza Minelli impersonation, complete with that crazy wide-eyed look.


• Kevin Pollack's Christopher Walken impersonation.


• How everyone kept making fun of Gallagher.

[1] As of July 2005.

"I'm married! I'm beautiful!": A Scientific Proof for Saturday Night

Observations:

1. Muriel's Wedding is a really depressing movie. Though, to be more specific, it has a lot of really depressing scenes, but in the end, it's actually moderately uplifting & hopeful.


2. As a general rule, any ABBA song can be both depressing and uplifting, but in a certain context, even Dancing Queen is depressing (this may be a corollary of #1, actually).


3. Contrast that to the Go Betweens' 16 Lovers Lane, which is an incredible, incredible album, but is actually depressing all the way through.


4. Hey, it's Saturday night!

Conclusion:

Saturday nights are good for sitting around, watching depressing movies, and listening to depressing music.

Q.E.D.

Breaking update: Counterpoint!

Watching Brain Candy is a much better way to spend Saturday night! "That's not a gift! You freakin' stoled it!" Best movie ever.

New conclusion:

Brain Candy is the Gleemonex for any Saturday night.

Bidi Bidi Bom Bom

Sunday mornings are for remembering how much you love "Selena"! (Usually in heavy rotation on TBS, but today in commercial-free glory on HBO.)

Favorite scenes:

• When the bus breaks down at the side of the road, and the guys are in awe to meet "Salinas" ("Anything for Salinas!").


• All of the concert montages, but especially the one after Selena and Chris are married and Abraham has accepted him into the family.


• When Selena and her friend are in LA before the Grammys, shopping for a dress, and her fans mob her after the nasty store owner dismisses them as not being able to afford a dress.

Such a great but sad story.