Bandwagon: Boarded

I'm tired of waiting. I'm ready to see it already!



With all the great critical reception, it's in danger of receiving a serious backlash. As wonderful as No Country For Old Men was, some modern movie goers have been disappointed by it, particular at the lack of a guns-and-glory ending. Blood appears to be even further from modern expectations as Country, but this has not discouraged me in the least. I'm too stoked at the gorgeous cinematography, the bleakness of setting, the ruthlessness of characters and Daniel Day-Lewis's uncanny channeling of John Huston.

It needs to get here already!

The Enzian

Plans for the Florida Film Festival continues.

Tickets are already in hand thanks to my lovely wife and, as of yesterday, I have now secured lodgings at the Best Western in Winter Park. It has served as the festival's headquarters in the past and will do so again this year, so I thought it the best choice. It also is only a block away from the Regal theater where many of the films will be playing, so it's definitely convenient.

Of course, the other major venue for the festival is the Enzian Theater; a quirky independent non-profit that shows art house cinema. When I first read about it, I imagined something similar to the San Marco here in Jax, which is a great restored Art Deco theater built in 1938. Imagine my surprise when I went looking for a picture.

Uh, that's a house.

Please don't misunderstand me. I don't mean to criticize it, but it's a bit of a shock. Also, I have to wonder what the Festival is going to be like here. It's not a high-capacity venue (at 230 seats, it's half the size of the modest San Marco), and it might take some serious queuing. Still, it would worth the wait if I could see a nice film in an environment like this:

Sweet.

Doing our profession proud

I can't begrudge him the prizes, though. Pretty sweet:

NEW YORK - A Manhattan librarian emerged as a champion couch potato after three rivals gave in to sleep deprivation or nature's call.

Stan Friedman won the ESPN Zone Ultimate Couch Potato Competition, which began Tuesday morning at the ESPN Zone restaurant in Times Square. The event ended Wednesday afternoon after more than 29 grueling hours of continuous sports viewing — mainly college football bowl games and endless highlights loops.

The four participants, sitting in recliners in front of a dozen 42-inch high-definition plasma televisions and a couple of 14-foot HD projection TVs, could order unlimited food and drinks, but they weren't allowed to go to sleep or leave their recliners except for restroom breaks once every eight hours.

Friedman, a research librarian whose favorite sport is baseball, was declared the victor when runner-up Nate Lopez ran to the bathroom before the allotted break time.

He won a $5,000 prize package including a huge TV, a cozy recliner and a trophy with a potato on it.

"I have a 350-square-foot apartment, so I don't know what I'll do with the TV," he said Thursday. "But I'll make room for the recliner."

Hey! Comrade in arms! Send that big-ass TV down here!

Never Again ... again

I'm looking through hotel reviews today, which is always a dicey prospect. The great thing about the Internet and sites like TripAdvisor is the feedback you can get from past guests. The bad thing is how often many of them will vary greatly on just one hotel. You're forced decide whether the good reviewers were just extremely forgiving or if the bad reviewers have a major stick up their ass about everything.


One hotel I came across had an even split of three outstanding reviews and three hell-on-earth reviews. But I had to laugh at the last one, as perhaps this guy simply does just love to complain. How else to explain his going there twice.

He'll be your Huckleberry

I'm just lovin' the GOP race. All these suburban, insulated rich Republicans freaking out over the backwoods background of Huckabee. This bit from the NYT pretty much sums it all up:

It’s okay to have faux rubes, a la Bush senior and his pork rinds, or George W. and his Midland malapropisms. But when something that looks like the real thing comes along, the Republican royalists get apoplectic. They were appalled at the recent YouTube debate because it looked like a parody of one faction of their party – complete with Bible-waving wackos, trigger-happy gun nuts and Confederate-flag enthusiasts.

It puts me in mind of some conservatives like political cartoonist Ed Gamble who love to portray the Democratic party as consisting of nothing but Hollywood celebrities, hippies and anarchists. Truth be told, not only are there plenty of mainstream Democrats, but there are also plenty of wackos in the Republican party that folks like Gamble never touch.

As much as conservatives bitch about "Political Correctness", it cuts both ways. And in that sense, it's more politically correct to take swipes at environmentalists than evangelists.

Giancarlo Esposito Quote of the Month: January 2008

What an interesting cat you are, Giancarlo Esposito.

Last year, with Delroy Lindo, I started and finished with Spike Lee films. And so it would appear I'm about to repeat that trend. Do the Right Thing was my first exposure to Giancarlo. I saw a clip on TV of him getting freaked out over a scuffed Nike (which seemed aporpriate, give that his character's name was "Buggin' Out"). The scuffer-in-question is a white bicyclist named Clifton (John Savage), who has recently moved into the neighborhood.

Buggin' Out: You almost knocked me down, man. the word is "excuse me."

Clifton: Ah, excuse me, I'm sorry.

Buggin' Out: Not only did ya knock me down, you stepped on my brand-new white Air Jordan's I just bought, and that's all you can say is "excuse me"?

Clifton: What, are you serious?

Buggin' Out: Yeah, I'm serious, I'll f*ck you up quick two times.

Punchy: Two times.

Buggin' Out: Who told you to step on my sneakers, who told you to walk on my side of the block, who told you to be in my neighborhood?

Clifton: I own this brownstone.

Buggin' Out: Who told you to buy a brownstone on my block, in my neighborhood, on my side of the street? Yo, what you wanna live in a Black neighborhood for, anyway? Man, motherf*ck gentrification.