Me and Orson Welles, Richard Linklater.

Fun, interesting movie. Who knew Zac Efron could actually act?

??

Drinking While Driving by Raymond Carver

It's August and I have not
Read a book in six months
except something called The Retreat from Moscow
by Caulaincourt
Nevertheless, I am happy
Riding in a car with my brother
and drinking from a pint of Old Crow.
We do not have any place in mind to go,
we are just driving.
If I closed my eyes for a minute
I would be lost, yet
I could gladly lie down and sleep forever
beside this road
My brother nudges me.
Any minute now, something will happen.

That poem is a good one, but to be fair, Carver is recognized as being much better at prose than poetry.

Rushmore, what do you dislike about The Departed?

Yeah. Damn.



There's a difference between prose and poetry?

Sorry, Rushmore. I didn't know Carver wrote poetry too (though I suppose I should have expected that he would).

That poem is god-awful. I would rate Bukowski as a better poet than Carver, though not by much. To be clear, I regard Carver as a genius in terms of his short-story writing and not his poetry.

This also inspired a couple characters in the Star Wars movies.

Just watched The Garden, a wonderful documentary about a fight between Latino farmers at an urban garden in south central Los Angeles and the property owner/political system. I watch a lot of documentaries. This one is special.

It is true that Carver is recognized predominantly as a short story writer. I wanted to illustrate that there is a sort of free verse poetry which, while not as technically (or even aesthetically) impressive as others, is still recognized as having value. Being that Carver was a "genius" (an assessment with which I definitely agree), the fact that he would produce a similarly crafted poem should go at least a little ways toward validating the form.

For what it's worth, I have always preferred the prose of both Carver and Bukowski over their poetry. When I first read Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and Other Tales of Ordinary Madness like thirty years ago, I was immediately hooked on Bukowski. I was sorry when he stopped focusing on short stories.

As for Carver, I continue to read his stories over and over, with the occasional foray into his Ultramarine to revisit the poems from time to time.

yeah i didnt like the end, i thought it was overacted a bit by everyone and was not very well set up.

The Town



What a manipulative piece of trash. It takes a real piece of work to give you the only ending that makes sense and still manage to disappoint you.

This film pulls out all the tricks to make you care about the bad guy. The opening scene, a brief but tightly shot bank robbery, lets you know Doug MacRay, played by Ben Affleck, isn't just a hardened criminal pulling off a big heist. He's been doing this for a long time because he's so damn good at it.

But oh, he isn't all that bad. He hangs out at the Boys and Girls Club. He moans because the city he steals from doesn't fork over enough dough to ice over the Boys and Girls Club's ice skating rink. That makes him a good guy. You don't think so? What about his rule that he doesn't ever kill anybody? Or his clever omission that the only reason he can say he doesn't kill people is because so far no one he's shot has been unlucky enough to die? I half-expected to see a scene where we find out he's really stealing all of this money to pay for his dying mother's outrageous medical bills.

The filmmakers also give him a cliched desire to escape the criminal lifestyle. But you see, he can't, because life keeps kicking him as soon as he's up. People value his ability to pull off heists too much to ever let him walk away. The only way that dog is going to stop hunting is when he's dead. He isn't really a bad guy. His hand has been forced.

Don Draper, retired advertising genius now living out his years as an embittered FBI agent, has some shining moments, but they're too little to satisfy scenes that imply this guy is a master at manipulating people. He corners people close to Doug MacRay, and you'd think that squeezing those people would put Doug in difficult situations where he must deal both with the betrayal of his closest confidants as well as the consequences of now being directly confronted by the FBI. But no sooner are those seeds planted than we're on to another thrilling bank robbery, another tense escape, and only backwards logic to force those betrayals to have connected consequence.

And oh, the love story, more implausible than, dare I say it, Twilight. Removing any genuine feelings for Claire, I can understand Doug's underlying motivation to keep seeing her. He wants to make sure if there is any heat from the stupid decision to take her as a hostage in the opening scene. This doesn't have to be justified by anything but a continued power trip. But let's throw some affection on top, because what guy could care about getting the local Bostonians a proper skating rink and NOT care about this gorgeous girl?

But it is beyond me why Claire hooks up with Doug. It's beyond me why, when the heat starts to catch up with Doug, she stops to consider what she should do. Is there even a decision? And it's beyond me why she makes her eventual decision, a choice I hope you'll agree is groan-worthy.

Where this film really shines is the cinematography and action sequences. Boston is a cesspool, but this film makes it look beautiful. The robberies and getaways are edge of your seat tense, and perhaps would have been even more riveting if I'd cared about the people involved.

This is a good film to put into Affleck's repertoire, and I think a good number of people, probably you, will enjoy it despite its failings. It has enough strong points that I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next. I just won't look forward to seeing this one again.

Nice review. Bummer to hear it isn't all that great, especially since I have seen it compared to Heat, which I think truly is great, and I'd love more crime/heist flicks anywhere near that good.

Next to Heat, it is probably the best crime/heist movie I've seen in quite some time. I hate putting these addendums up after scathing reviews, but I really did enjoy it. I just had a bunch of problems with the film that will probably keep me from watching it again, whereas I have seen Heat enough times to lose count.

Edit: Okay, I'll say this. If for no other reason, watching this movie will make you realize why Heat is so damn good.

Aaaaand thank the lord Heat is on Netflix instant. Busto is now seriously craving that film!

Worth owning IMO. Good extras too.

I actually shanked a copy from Netflix in the good old days by claiming it as lost, but then I actually lost it. Karma, imo.

Heh, that's taking the long way home. There are better ways to do it than that.

Good review, Busto. I'd agree on all fronts, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I mean I get excited for some movies, and I can't imagine how excited I would have been when Heat came out, if I hadn't have been so young. What a good movie.

Well, we can't all be hardened criminals.

Stealing a movie about crime isn't a crime. It's a meta-dialogue with the filmmakers themselves.

I saw Busto's pic of the Town and stopped reading the thread there. Argh.

I am only like halfway through with the book. I am liking it a lot so far. If the movie remains half faithful to the book then I'm pretty sure I'll really enjoy this movie. Plus, ya know, I've been on my knees blowing it for a couple weeks now.

In particular, I like the dialogue in the book. I wouldn't be surprised if you elitists* found it pathetic, but it seems pretty realistic to me. I am enjoying it a lot.

Seeing it tomorrow!

The movie is really silly but entertaining enough.

Solo, take your neighbor with you. Let him know you have been practicing.