The Limits of Control

Ebert totally dissed the new Jim Jarmusch movie, The Limits of Control. I still want to see it, but I'm sorry it's getting such bad reviews. I really liked that last Jarmusch movie with Bill Murray, Broken Flowers.

Death Proof

I watched Tarantino's Death Proof again. It's a really weird movie. It's both poorly done and incredibly calculated. All the sloppiness is actually intentional and the editing is incredibly weird. The characters and dialogue feel like a 70s Marvel comic, and Tarantino almost self-parodies the characters by creating two groups of woman who are initially indistinguishable cliches. Ultraviolent with laughable plot twists, and Kurt Russell alternates between creepy psychopath and pathetic geezer. Overall, I like it - even with all of Tarantino's fetishes. Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction may be the only thing I like better by him. And it's infinitely better than the other Grindhouse movie, Planet Terror. I initially saw them together in theaters, which makes for a too long movie experience. Death Proof on its own is just right.

6 Things

Here's six things I liked in the past week. The Big Sleep has an overcomplicated confusing plot but brilliant sets and actors. Kind of like a David Lynch movie if he'd been working in the 40s. Dark Passage is my favorite Bogart movie so far. It may just be the shooting locations because every two minutes I was thinking, "I know exactly where that is in San Francisco!" and unlike many cities, SF still looks very similar to how it looked 60 years ago. I think the story and actors are also pretty amazing. Key Largo is also awesome, more Bogart and Bacall, but also with Edward G. Robinson, whose ominousness as a villain completely overshadows the antagonists in the other films. I've been binging on Bogart (and now Bacall) and finally see his greatness.

Then the new Pet Shop Boys, a Jam compilation, and a breathing program by Andrew Weil, one of my favorite health authors. All goodish.

INSOMNIA!!!

A sickness slowly climbed upon me as I returned to work. I think I'm off work again from this Tuesday till March 2 so maybe I can recover. But it's hard to sleep when you're nose is plugged up. I think I'm kind of sick of this country too. I have about four months left and I probably would abandon ship if I didn't get bonus pay, a pension refund, my apartment deposit, and a plane ticket home at the end of the contract. So I'll stick it out.

You all saw Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman, right?


I've heard some people say it was all a hoax for the documentary Casey Affleck is making about Phoenix's transition to rap, and other people say he's drugged out and needs help. My theory is that the whole hip-hop transition thing is semi-orchestrated a la Borat for the documentary, but that to really immerse himself in the role he actually believes it himself and may be on some kind of drugs to flesh out the role, and that he won't even realize he's acting till he comes out of it at the screening of the documentary and he'll snap back to something like his former self like someone coming out of hypnosis.

I don't think Letterman was "in on it" and believe he was genuinely annoyed by Phoenix. But who knows, eh.

I watched Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It. Starts out kind of weak by about halfway through I began to like the actors and thought it finished nice. Good music and atmosphere. I like the version with Laurence Olivier better though, even though Olivier didn't direct it.

I tried to find a torrent of the soundtrack but could only find another Patrick Doyle OST: 1998's Great Expectations. It's a good soundtrack too.

I think I will try sleep again now.

The Wrestler

I watched The Wrestler, which isn't what I expected it to be. More naturalistic than Aronofsky's other films, it still held my attention even though it has a lot of obvious wrestling scenes. It avoids the obvious payoffs and has an ambiguous ending. I don't know if it's a great film, but it's a very good film. If Aronofsky keeps going like this he'll have a very diverses oeuvre in ten years.

Also: Marisa Tomei plays a stripper and she's looking hella fine.

By the way, I love that I can download a DVD-quality copy of The Wrestler before it even has wide release in the US.

2009

This year on New Year's eve I became my dad and went to bed before midnight, sleeping through the festivities with earplugs and a headache. And I felt at peace and warm and glad that I didn't go into Seoul or any crowd anywhere. The last week has been rather insane anyways in so many ways, and sometimes I wish I used this blog to record my personal life (I typed 4 pages in my journal yesterday) - basically I'm living at least four lives that I don't allow to intersect.

Before going to sleep I watched Tropic Thunder, which has some really great nuanced humor and Vietnam war cliches to the max... but has kind of a predictable structure that lumbers a bit at times. Still, I like it. And I didn't even recognize Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise at first! That's kind of impressive.

Think I have to go to the English bookstore in Itaewon in a day or two to get supplies for my English program. I haven't done any planning. The truth is out... I'm a horrible teacher. Well, I am when I don't have a plan. When I do, I'm OK.

I once heard someone compare Itaewon (the foreigner neighborhood in Seoul) to Mos Eisley in the first Star Wars, and that's kind of accurate. Everything feels stupider, gaudier, grosser, louder, drunker. Too many cultures in too small a space - too much American military - too many prostitute bars - too much English and too many people speaking broken English.

But there's an English bookstore there so I go from time to time.

You know, as much as there are times when I truly enjoy Korea, I was probably ready to leave after two or three months. It's been great for me financially, and my living situation is pretty sweet, but unless I'm fluent in the language (which ain't gonna happen) I'll always be this waygook (foreigner) here. Even if I spoke perfect Korean I would be that outsider, because Korea is all about homogeneity. I watched Korean TV (a rare occasion for me) tonight and I saw more clearly than ever how much Korean fashion is all about uniforms. You have your work clothes, your casual clothes, your formal casual clothes, your sports clothes, your hiking clothes, your very formal clothes etc, and you know within one second of looking at someone what they are doing based on their clothes. All art and dance has a factory quality to it. It's all about togetherness, group spirit, no boundary between corporation and government.

Seriously, the US has some huge corporations, but it has a lot of huge corporations and a lot of medium-sized corporations and a lot of small corporations. In Korea you have a few big corporations. Period. And they own the baseball teams, the department stores, the manufacturing, everything! And nobody has any problem with that. In fact, they like it. Because it's not just SK Telecom, the evil corporation that has mutant sex with the government... it's SK Telecom, the company five of your friends and family work for.

A Korean friend of mine was looking for a job. I told him if I was a Korean citizen I'd start my own business because there are so many opportunities for goods and services not available in Korea, so many needs of foreigners that aren't being meet, so much room for innovation. I told him a few of my ideas just about getting better English teachers, for instance, and he agreed that they made sense. I asked him if he would like to start his own business - wouldn't that be great, I asked? "No!" he shook his head.

To strike out alone? To leave the security of the vast corporate group? Koreans have such independent tendencies beaten out of them at an early age. I was on the subway once talking with a Korean-American teacher from California. An old man said something to my friend in Korean. "What did he say?" I asked.

"He said to shut up," he said.

Yes, a stranger told us not to talk on the subway! We ignored him, of course, but that's very typically Korean.

Okay, I don't mean to sound cranky. This is the type of entry I usually write and don't post. But I haven't posted much lately.

I don't think I'm homesick, because I don't feel any great desire to be back in America, but I would like to go to some other places now. I think I'm just bad at staying anywhere for too long.

There Will Be Ice

There was ice hanging from the bus stop yesterday. As the weather gets colder I think I'll be staying in more and catching up on movies. I finally watched There Will Be Blood. For some reason I thought I'd be very disappointed - it has a long running time and P.T. Anderson can't really do movies about the "olden days", can he?

The movie feels hella Kubrick to me, and I love Kubrick. So much minutiae and orchestration. Amazing. The only thing that confused me a little was the twin thing with Paul and Eli. It felt unnecessary - probably something from Upton Sinclair's book.

I don't think I've seen any movies in theaters since last December. I was supposed to see There Will Be Blood in theaters (I'm amazed at how accurately I predicted films I would like - I've seen all on that list except Youth Without Youth, which got lukewarm reviews).

Here's Ebert's best of 2008 list, but Iron Man's on there so don't take it too seriously.

One Might Indeed Ponder the Imponderables of Time and Space

Skeletal Lamping is an album that initially disappointed me. I went back to it recently and haven't stopped playing it and have to say I've completely reversed. In a year in which I've barely listened to any vocal albums (mainly I play classical), Skeletal Lamping fascinates me with its packed impressionistic blurbs that could easily expand into 10 albums. Not so much a concept album as hypercompression - it's either one long song or 50 little songs. Kevin Barnes tries to pull off a Ziggy Stardust with his "Georgie Fruit" character, but it never fully emerges as a separate identity and most of the time I think that's just a defense mechanism for all the diary-like thoughts composing the lyrics, words that move between the mythical and the mundane. And a lot of it's pretentious and sophomoric - the major themes are drugs and having sex with fans, but that's not too far off the last few albums (Hissing Fauna and The Sunlandic Twins are much more accessible, however). That being said, I embrace the lyrics as they are and thoroughly soak in the album's schizophrenic mood shifts. Of Montreal have come a long way since the folky rock of Cherry Peel, and they're one of my favorite bands.

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Iron Man has sharp bantering, a fast story, and memorable characters. But it's still just a superhero story for kids, disposable. I doubt I'd ever be compelled to watch it again.

What I would rather see, as soon as we invent a time machine, is sending an Iron Man DVD (and DVD player) back in time to 1930s era Charlie Chaplin and having him remake Iron Man with 1930s technology. That would be far more interesting than Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man (or Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin).

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I had to use Excel yesterday and I never use Excel. God, what a shitty counterintuitive ugly piece of software.

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Sunday I went to Suwon where the Hwaseong fortress has a wall about 4 miles long that stretches around the city and I walked all of it. It's like an abridged version of the Great Wall of China. My camera batteries were dead but here's an internet photo.

But it wasn't snowing and was actually beautiful weather. People say Seoul-area has smog but it's not bad in fall and actually incredibly clear some days. It also hasn't really snowed yet. It started to snow one day but then melted and it's been okay since. But later this week that might change.

A Plethora of Filmgasm

Well, I haven't really blogged lately so let's do it! It's been very cold and I've run out of money till my paycheck Tuesday so what better reason to stay inside and blog?

First, let's post a few videos.

Here's Bush getting dissed by his political homies. It is indeed kind of sad.


Here's some ants. I told you they were cool.

I watched most of that documentary and there's some amazing cinematography.


And via John ("Don Juan") Glomer comes the trailer for The Wrestler, the new Darren Aronofsky film with Mickey Rourke.

Kind of fruity theme song but I like Aronofsky and Rourke.


Here's a hilarious Japanese ESL video I found.


Which led to this monstrosity.



I haven't watched a movie in forever. Here are my candidates for something to watch this weekend: Iron Man, Dark Knight, Get Smart, or Tropic Thunder. You tell me what's best.

Alright, I'll blog more tomorrow or something.

Atom Age Vampire

I'm behind on my class prep but somehow I ended up looking at a trailer for a Vincent Price version of Confessions of an English Opium Eater (they take out the word "English") that doesn't look anything like the De Quincey book, and then I followed a link to this trailer.



Glomer, go watch Atom Age Vampire and tell me if it socks your rocks.

I'm Not There

I finally watched I'm Not There, the quasi-pseudo-faux documentary of a bunch of alternate universe Bob Dylans.

If you don't really know Bob Dylan's life and work it won't make a lot of sense. If you do know Bob Dylan well it rehashes his most famous incidents in multifarious dreamy styles.

Either way it's really long, and generally boring.

Oddments

I feel like blogging but don't have much to blog about.

A lot of things happen in the next week. A friend of mine from the US is arriving to live in Incheon, pretty close to me. A girl I met in June who went to Europe for six weeks will be returning on the 20th. My school starts the regular semester and all the teachers and students return. All Star Superman #12 is released, concluding one of the best Superman stories ever told. I get a paycheck that I really need - I paid $2000 on my student loan and kind of overreached myself, but that debt's down to $2300 and should have it paid by October 10th! Plus a "celebrity" commenter at Ninja-tek ("kev") celebrates his birthday.

While I'm living in "the Asia" I'd like to go see a martial arts competition (like The Karate Kid).

Miya is going to Japan this week and wanted me to go with her - I might've but I had work to do. I'm tempted to travel beyond Korea in my year here since I'll have the vacation time. But the time off is in winter and I'll probably want to get away from these northern countries then. Odds are I'll just stay in Korea till next June and save my money, doing big travel in the aftermath.

I'm showing Pee-wee's Big Adventure to my kids at school. I was looking for a recent picture of Paul Reubens and did a google image search. My co-teacher saw the pictures of him being arrested and asked what he did. "Uh..." I said. "I... forget."

The Ulm-blog

I haven't yet linked to John Glomer's new, new blog (forget the old new blog - that shit's for pussies):
http://www.addictivethoughts.com/

Those in the "inner circle" call it the Glom-blog.

John, I hope my massive blog readership doesn't overwhelm the tubes and wires of your site.

"The Dark Knight" Review - REAL THIS TIME! **SPOILERS**

Last night I dreamt I saw The Dark Knight. Here's my review.

For the latest version of Batman, the dark knight battles not one but three villains: the Joker, the Penguin, and the Riddler. Dialogue is minimal; in fact, I don't remember anyone talking in the whole film. Christian Bale was virtually unrecognizable. He looks so old now, and I don't know why they decided to give him a skinhead look.

The climactic scene came when Batman met the three villains in a swamp. Batman pressed a remote control, the Batmobile fired something at his antagonists, and they succumbed. There wasn't much conflict, and absolutely no hand-to-hand fighting. WEAK!

So honestly, I don't see what all the big hoo-ha is about. People talk about Heath Ledger's tragic final performance blah blah blah... but I don't even remember it!

I'm just glad the film didn't drag on like so many Hollywood epics these days. I don't think it could've been more than a few minutes, all told.

So I'll be the first one to say it: The Dark Knight: THUMBS DOWN!!!

Itaewon & Gangnam

Today I went to Itaewon. I've only been there once before, when I first visited Korea in December. After spending most of my time in Bucheon, anytime I head into the big city I feel like I'm trippin balzac. It's like I've forgotten there are other people besides Koreans. Going to Itaewon, the foreigner neighborhood in Seoul, is even more overkill. It's an international slice, but a very biased slice. A lot of the people look military, and even the older white women - you know they're military wives.

Interspersed among the military (mainly whites and blacks) you find Indians. I saw some Indian restaurants that I've got to try. I'm starting to forget things like Indian food.

But then you walk a little off the beaten track and suddenly there's a fucking mosque! WTF? Nothing looks more out of place in Korea. Also some Russian restaurants and other shit. I found the English bookstore "What the Book?" and bought a used Bill Peet book for my classes: The Caboose Who Got Loose.

But before I went to Itaewon I was in Gangnam and got . . .



Mexican food! Fuck yeah!

I had trouble finding Dos Tacos at first. Then I asked a white guy and he and his girlfriend went there with me. He was a Canadian, she was Korean, and I love that us being English teachers is enough commonality to hang out in Korea. I feel like I lose my uniqueness when I venture into Seoul, but it's still fun. The burrito and horchata were quite good - I've had better, definitely, but it was pretty good considering the distance from Mexico.

I also bought Korean condoms today, banana flavored:

"Ausung is not only for you, but also for the one most care. Ausung goes along with your responsibility, love, and pleasure. For our beautiful sex."

Everywhere I see horrible English like this. Yes, and it also says "concoms" on the packaging. Hmm.

Right next to the condoms was a bottle of liquid that looked like lube. I bought it, but when I got home and smelled it I'm not so sure. It smells like lighter fluid or something. I don't think I want it near my genitalia until I have it translated.

After spending a few days locked up doing heavy writing, it was good to tutor this morning then get out of the house. I want to go to Seoul at least two or three times this week. I'll try to post pictures.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I was thinking of movies that would probably be made in the next few years. For superheroes I thought, "The Flash" - there's never been a good Flash movie made. And for remakes I thought, "The A-Team" - that's begging to be adapted to film.

Then I looked on imdb and, of course, they're both in production. We're at the point where everything is converted into every medium and remade and recycled until it's soylent green all the way down.

Thank God.

The Night of the Hunter

I'm on vacation the next two weeks and my body decided now would be a great time to get a cold. Ugh.

Last night I watched The Night of the Hunter. The IMDB has it at #158, and I'm dumbfounded as to why this is. This movie's so boring! It's got Shelley Winters as a mother who gets killed by an evil stepfather, and she would reprise this role in Lolita.



What I hated most about this movie was the weird Christian ending. And the child actors. Horrible performances all around.

The other day I also watched Ricky Gervais' "Animals" - a standup comedy performance. It's uneven and has several weak points, but when it's good it's hilarious.

Review of "The Dark Knight" (by popular demand) **SPOILERS**

I have not seen it.

Humor Me

I watched the first season of Mr. Show and I didn't really like it. Weak sketches, however much I like seeing David Cross act. I probably won't watch the rest of the series.

Also saw Harold and Kumar 2 finally (waited for a DVD rip) - certainly not as good as the first, but watchable.

More humor! Recommend something!

3 Things I've Learned About Moving & 3 Movie Reviews

3 Things I've Learned About Moving

1. It always takes longer to pack than you think.
2. You always have more shit than you think.
3. You never have as much room in your luggage/boxes/moving van as you thought.

But because I'm familiar with these rules I did okay this time.


3 Movie Reviews

Juno - crap
Dan in Real Life - crap
Superbad - pretty good


Alright San Francisco, good bye, I'll never see you again!

(until I come back in a few days to do some paperwork)

Burn After Reading

Wow, another Coen Bros. movie already, set for September release!! With Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, and John Malkovich.