Author: Joel M.

NEWER BLOG!

Well, I have an even brand newer blog nowadays than before. It’s been a fair few months since I posted here, and I’ve no doubt that most of my friends haven’t visited this one in decades, let alone years. However, for the sake of those passersby who happen upon my site and instantly fall head-over-heels for its savvy wit and eloquence, here is the link to the continuing online adventures of Joel:

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEW(ER) BLOG ADDRESS!

Adios!

New Blog!

In case any of you frequenters who have found this site unchanged for over a month but have yet still not bothered to read the actual post below the silly title quote here is some information:

I have a new blog! Seriously! Come over and read the many posts that I have already logged on it. It is far more personal and great for me to work on. Thanks Blogger, we’ve had a good run.

~Joel

“A Palantír is a dangerous tool Saruman, you never know who may be WATCHING”

Hey guess what? I just finished the preliminary design of my new blog and it is online as you may have guess from the link! Now, there is still a great deal to be done with it, but for the time being you can look at it and see how it looks. It is rather sparse at the moment, I’m hoping to get good pictures for the links on the sidebar, a la Justin’s Expression blog. I’m totally redesigning my homepage as well and will have new drivel to show you guys. In the meantime I’m porting my archives IN THEIR ENTIRETY from blogspot to my new blog. So, be forewarned that the archives are as they have always been, unchanged. Don’t go reading them unless you want to be regaled with crazy stories of Joel’s life documented online since October 2002.

Perhaps one more post will show up here before I abandon the infernal seeing stone.

Adios!

More SCRIPT for you

…here is more that has come:

LESTER

Man… I can’t believe we’re in the middle of this.

BO

What do you mean? We both signed our (cool Ving Rhames cussing) names to the contract… we’re bound.

LESTER

Always a man of your word-

A TAPPING noise is heard on LESTER’S window. He closes his eyes and turns around to face the source. The MAN carrying the semiautomatic weapon is standing outside. LESTER rolls down the window.

LESTER

Can I help you?

MAN

Very funny. You ready?

BO takes his cigarette out and douses it on the windshield.

LESTER

(after a short pause)

Yeah. I’m ready.

BO shoulders a small black bag and opens his door to get out of the VAN.

MAN

Whoa whoa whoa- where do you think you’re going?

BO walks around the back of the VAN to face the MAN. BO stops and stares at the MAN intently.

LESTER

He’s ready too.

The MAN relaxes and returns his attention to LESTER.

MAN

Alright. Get your bags, you’re following me to the drop point, after that you’ll be on your own.

BO

Hey!

MAN

(incredulously)

Yes?

BO

Just who do you think you are?

MAN

Excuse me?

BO pulls a gun from his bag… not pointing it anywhere in particular. The MAN becomes alarmed, he doesn’t seem so self-assured anymore.

LESTER

Bo, what the hell are you doing man?

BO

I am asking the man a question, ‘who does he think he is’, huh? Just who do you think you are anyway?

BO cocks the gun. The MAN raises his weapon at BO, frightened. LESTER pulls his gun out in a flash and points it at the MAN.

LESTER

(anxious and furious)

Bo, what are you doing?

BO

Drop your weapon.

LESTER

(turns his gaze to Bo)

Who… me or this guy?

BO

Drop your weapon!

The MAN slowly crouches to the ground to set down his machine gun. He is visibly shaken.

BO

Now stand back up, hands in the air. Slowly!

LESTER

Do as he says- Bo what the hell are you saying?

BO

He’s not our man.

The MAN gathers his wits for a split second and grips his boot, pulling a small revolver from it and firing into BO’s chest. BO goes down like a ton of bricks. Almost in a knee-jerk reaction LESTER pulls his trigger and shoots the MAN in the head. LESTER stand shaking for a few seconds, staring at the MAN’s still crumpled body on the ground. Then he snaps out of it and runs over to BO.

LESTER tries in vain to get BO to respond.

The camera now shoots backward slowly and then gains speed as it exits the parking garage and flies back through the many different locations the film takes place in, moving backward in rapid fire motion seemingly unbroken. It finally snaps back into real time in the past, where BO RICHARDS stands in a white suit by the side of a private in-ground pool. It is a sunny gorgeous L.A. day and he is paying a visit to the mansion of his good pal CALVIN WORTHER.

more someday…

Shrebardaboga Bugg

Like that? I like the way it sounds rolling off of my tongue. It is my spiritual war cry.

But no seriously, I have been up to lots lately and have neglected to blog much about it, since of course I’m no longer on Spring Break. Even though it is spring this morning I woke up and found it to be a wonderful 19 degrees faranheit and I wanted to lay down in my bed and not go anywhere… well okay that is every morning almost.

I managed to catch a super mega late screening of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film whose title is lifted from a quote by Alexander Pope. From the get go you can tell that Charlie Kaufman is an avid reader. He peppers his script with such well-crafted dialogue and references, you know that he must be a book worm. Aside from the solidly creative writing of this film, there is the pandemonium of rapid fire mesmerizingly edited camera work and direction of Michel Gondry. After watching Human Nature I have concluded that Gondry must have been bored or uninspired when he directed that features, because Eternal Sunshine is eighty million times more insanely creative. Jim Carrey is always entertaining, and for a change he takes on a meek role, one that is more dramatic and perhaps more true to the real life character of Jim than any other role he has had thus far. Kate Winslet is kind of weird and scary at first, but really cool by the end of the film. All of the supporting cast does a solid job, with Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood being my favorites. Though the worldview of the film leaves much to be desired morally and spiritually, the idea of opening up and being self-sacrificial… the message that love isn’t one big glossy Hollywood paradise forever and really has its tough excrusiatingly painful moments it well conveyed. So here is an example where fidelity seems to have a tangible value, where two people hit it off and then fall out totally but still can say to each other that they are happy together, and that they can forgive. That is a little slice of real love; that is a good message.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

lead acting: 8/10

supporting acting: 7/10

story: 9/10

directing: 8/10

production design/value: 8/10

overall score: 8.0

Also I managed to see The Salton Sea, directed by big man D.J. Caruso and starring big man Val Kilmer. But the real ‘big man’ credit of this flick goes out to Vincent D’Onofrio, for his sweaty, fat, wheezing, drawling performance as Pooh Bear. As Justin pointed out, it is quite a transformation to see this guy who has played Orson Welles in Ed Wood, a futuristic detective in Imposter, a lawyer on Law and Order:CI, a alien bug wearing a human skin in Men In Black, and a reverend in The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys. Kilmer as always is enjoyable and Peter Sarsgaard is also in this film, which is really cool. I want to see Shattered Glass really badly now, it comes out very very soon I believe.

The Salton Sea

lead acting: 8/10

supporting acting: 7/10

story: 8/10

directing: 8/10

production design/value: 8/10

overall score: 7.8

a SCRIPT instead of a blog

Here is the beginning of a script:

Cast of Characters:

FESTER PRONG – think Danny Aiello

BO RICHARDS – think Ving Rhames

LESTER TWILL – think Peter Sarsgard

OLEANDER SCHELL – think Alison Lohman

JULIANNE HARP – think Catherine Zeta Jones

CANDICE MACPHEARSON – think Daryl Hannah

INT. – AN ’86 CHEVY ASTRO VAN – NIGHT

An old, blue, rusted CHEVY ASTRO VAN sits parked in a dimly yellow lit underground PARKING GARAGE. Sitting inside in the driver seat is LESTER TWILL and in the passenger seat is BO RICHARDS.

BO

You want a cigarette?

LESTER

(gives BO a look)

No. You know I don’t smoke.

BO

Just thought I’d ask.

LESTER

Look… just because you think I’m in the last hours of my life doesn’t mean that I’m just going to go bottoms up and start now.

BO

(halfheartedly pulls a cig out for himself)

I didn’t say you were in your last hours of life, I just think we stand as much chance pulling this off as a snowflake has of making it up Satan’s nostril.

LESTER

Well we don’t have a choice now do we?

CUT TO: A man is approaching the VAN, he carries a semiautomatic weapon.

BO

Gotta do what the man says you gotta do.

more to come…

It’s in the brain…?

Look at the skulls of the people around you, there’s all kinds of crazy stuff going on inside their brains. What’s with that, anyhow? That’s just wild if you ask me. So many faces, and behind those faces a massive conglomeration of nerves processing (as I learnt from Jeremy) more than 144,000 thoughts in a single day. Is that where we reside? Behind our faces, in an organ, with little synapses going off all of the time?

It seems to me that there is something more at work than the firing electrical charges of our minds. Where do our minds exists anyhow? I just love the description in the book Flatland, about how the residents of Flatland were 2D, and they couldn’t see what was inside of one another. But then a strange shape appeared and disappeared among them and they began to argue about what it was and where it came from. Suppose there is some ‘shape’ beyond ours here in the 3rd dimension? What would it look like, can it see inside of us? Sounds suspiciously like a description of God to me.

Just thinking and rambling in the middle of the day.

~joel

Rob Reiner, Richard Linklater, Michel Gondry

So I have watched a slew of films in the past few days, and now I must continue my custom of talking about EACH AND EVERY ONE of them.

I watched Stand By Me, an amazing film, on Sunday. Rob Reiner directed this film, an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “The Body”. Stephen King has written a gazillion stories it seems: Carrie, The Shining, Misery, The Dead Zone, The Shawshank Redemption, Thinner, The Green Mile, Apt Pupil, Hearts In Atlantis, Dreamcatcher, Secret Window, the list goes on. And they’ve all been made into movies! However, Stand By Me is unique in the fact that it is (loosely) based upon Stephen King’s childhood growing up in 1950’s Maine. Narrated by Richard Dreyfuss and featuring such famed celebrities as Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Cory Feldman, Keifer Sutherland and Jerry O’Connell, this film was amazing in the performances that it eked out of the four main kids who take up better than 90% of the screen time. And the shots are sustained. The cuts a few, and the takes are long. And these kids nail it, every time. River Phoenix is especially good. He died in the Fall 7 years later from drug-induced heart failure, dying on the same day that Federico Fellini died. He died outside of a club in Los Angeles, The Viper Club, owned by Johnny Depp. Wil Wheaton, as you all know, was Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG. He is the focal character of the story, essentially a young fictional Stephen King. Cory Feldman is good in his role as a kind of crazy/kind of emotional kid. They all smoke cigarettes in the film. Jerry O’Connel you may know turned up later in such films as Scream 2 and Kangaroo Jack.

Stand By Me

lead acting: 9/10

supporting acting: 9/10

story: 8/10

directing: 7/10

production design/value: 9/10

overall score: 8.2

Before Sunrise was an eye-opener for me. I realized that both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were in a small portion of Waking Life, having a very similar conversation and bringing up some of the same philosophical ideas as they did there. BS (haha, look, I made Before Sunrise into a funny acronym!) was basically a film about two people who randomly decide to spend a day together in Vienna. Hawke is an American guy traveling Europe just to see it, Delpy is a French student bound for Paris. They hit it off on the train for a few minutes and then arrive at Ethan’s exit point, at which he puts down the headphones, gets up quietly and inconspicuously as the title theme begins to swell and we see smoke rise from the tape player in the side of his chair where he just recieved his secret mission details. No, that’s Mission: Impossible. In this film there are no explosions, no special effects, no sweeping vistas of otherworldly landscapes, no award winning performances, no real story or plot or anything for that matter. Just the two of them, talking and finding out about each other and wandering around the streets of a very pretty Austrian city.

Before Sunrise

lead acting: 7/10

supporting acting (there literally was NONE): 7/10

story: 7/10

directing: 7/10

production design/value: 7/10

overall score: 7.0

Charlie Kaufman is a talented screen writer and so it stands to reason that right off the bat, I loved Human Nature. The beginning is really the beginning of the end, with each of the three main characters telling their version of the story to somebody. It really is rather humorous to see Tim Robbins explaining his position, because of the condition that he’s in. It’s a distinct Kaufman twist. Rhys Ifans, Patricia Arquette and Miranda Otto provide the core cast for this film, which is equal parts hilarious social and moral commentary, and a sad, serious look at the human condition. Also, I totally disagree with the philosophy of the film, which is starkly humanistic and practically devoid of conventional logic. The premise is rather strong, the actors are great, the dialogue is witty, and the construction and direction is very well executed. But the way in which this story pans out and the things that happen become a little more outrageous, a little more absurd, and a little more obscene as the film goes on. Until, at the end, you find yourself (by which I mean: I found myself) really not esteeming this film as being all that great. However, a great portion of the film is really cool, offbeat and very creative. But there is plenty to dislike. Watch it if you desire, but I will say this: the film’s focal premise rests a great deal upon the sex act and the impulses that go along with it.

Human Nature

lead acting: 7/10

supporting acting: 7/10

story: 7/10

directing: 8/10

production design/value: 8/10

overall score: 7.4

EXPLETIVE it!

I don’t know how many of my blog readers listen to the radio (the sickly wasteland of Top 40 radio, that is). Because… for a few weeks now… that little upstart Eamon has had his amazingly popular song F**k it (I Don’t Want You Back) riding the crest of the charts. And then something totally amazing happened. The studios released the EXPLETIVE song again with a girl doing the vocals. The song is about a crappy idiotic relationship he ‘had’ rather than ‘shared’ with a girl. The girl singing is his ex-girlfriend. Except for the lyrics and person singing them, nothing- absolutely nothing is different in this EXPLETIVE song. It’s the top requested song on Kiss FM. Good gaul, what the EXPLETIVE is wrong with America’s youth? It gets better: Eamon essentially punkd America when it was revealed a few days back that (of course duh) the girl singing wasn’t his ex. It was all set up to make money and be a publicity stunt. Whoop-dee-doo. The EXPLETIVE song is still EXPLETIVE popular on the radio. And now guess what? They released it again… EXPLETIVE AGAIN! They released the song as a pseudo-remixed combination of both him and the girl again singing the same song. I heard it just last night and almost had an aneurism. The wastland our culture is so depraved that it makes a three times multiplied hit out of a song that just uses EXPLETIVE every other word and contains the same subject matter of 90% of all pop songs ever written: spoiled love. This is why Christians need to LEAD in the music industry, in the film industry, in the television industry. Stop imitating the sick culture that glorifies anything stupid, vapid, shallow and offensive. Let’s LEAD this doomed sickly wretched culture by totally undermining the moral-less existence of our peers. God works in may ways, and why not through the powerful means of the entertainment industry.