Children Of Men

Wow. This is the second new movie this year with a graphic birth scene (Apocalypto being one, The Nativity Story not being one). Children of Men is certainly a hell of a movie. Director Alfonso Cuaron shows off, but it's in a good sort of way; for example, when some blood splashes on the camera lens he leaves it there for you to look through for the next few minutes as if only to prove that no tricks were involved, it was all one long shot. This is one of the best representations of a worldwide apocalypse ever filmed, and it is rightfully being compared to Blade Runner, though Clive Owen's character is not a comic book character like Harrison Ford's was. He's an average, ordinary yokel (who says fuck a lot) who gets tangled up in a web of betrayal when the first baby born to the world in 18 years comes to an illegal immigrant who is part of a revolutionary movement against the British government. What a plot, and Michael Caine smokes a lot of pot. How can you lose?

Dear Bitches,

The year has come to a close so without further ado let me share the highlights with you.

This year I don't have any Sears' photos of my girlfriend and me all dressed up and smiling because she ran off with some dorkface from the Millennium Park glass block sculpture one of those pairs of puckered lips that blows water on the kids a pair of puckered lips that didn't have the guts to face me to tower there in the glass blocks glowing and blowing to tell me like a man that he had been banging my babe so if you wait until summer you might see my ex's face scrunched up next to his in Millennium Park both of them blowing water out of their holes onto the kids but you won't see her next to me in any more Sears' photos I can guarantee you that.

All in all, 2006 was a pretty lame year for movies. But right now I don't have much to bitch about, because the recently released movies have been, for the most part, good ones. Let's take a look anyway, bitches.

The Good Shepherd

There has been a lot of talk comparing The Good Shepherd to The Godfather. Okay. The Good Shepherd is a good movie. However, The Godfather is a great movie. Perhaps the buzz is referring to the plot itself. In The Good Shepherd, the CIA is portrayed as sort of a government mafia, within which the rules dictate that even loved ones must be sacrificed if they betray the trust (can you say kiss Alfredo in Godfather II). And I guess some of the Skull and Bones scenes of The Good Shepherd can be compared to the lavish wedding scenes in the original Godfather. But most likely it is simply the fact that Robert De Niro (of Godfather II) serves as Director, and that won't let The Good Shepherd stand as a creation of its own. I'm confident that The Good Shepherd is a good movie mainly because it clocks in at nearly three hours and Matt Damon remains quiet and stone faced through just about every minute of it, yet I didn't lose interest. The plot itself is severely muddled, however, which is what makes The Good Shepherd less than a great movie. Of course, it is an espionage "thriller" (or drama to be more precise), so the facts aren't necessarily meant to be on the surface. But too often I found myself not understanding what motivated the characters to do what they were doing. And by the end I was totally confused about who was who and who was real and who was not. I understand the need for mystery in a movie about how its characters can't trust each other, but just a pinch of clarity wouldn't hurt things either. Days after seeing it I found myself reflecting and thinking oh, yeah, I think I get it now, or maybe not.

What sucks is when the one hitter is clogged and you're standing there in the bathroom with the fire from your Bic lighter burning your thumb as you try to suck on the metal tube with no success but you try and you try because sometimes it suddenly gives in and a bunch of tar and ash takes off like a bullet to your tonsils giving you a sore throat but this time you just suck and suck until your chest hurts so you take the cotton off the ends of a Q-tip and try to push it through like a lollipop stick but this impacts the resin more and now you have a piece of Q-tip stuck up there too so you search your entire apartment cursing because you're a writer and who has ever heard of a writer without a metal paperclip so you take the ink tube out of your Bic pen and try to stick that up in there but it is simply too large and meanwhile you haven't noticed that during all the desperate searching the wood box has tipped over and your pot is now spilled on the bathroom floor and it is contaminated with dust and mildew and pubic hairs and suddenly you remember that you once had a paperclip a long long time ago at your old apartment so you drag all the cardboard boxes out of the closet and start searching and damn if you don't find it in the Stoli box sealed by duct tape in a plastic zip lock bag with the staples and thumb tacks a nice strong silver paperclip that you unbend so that it becomes a somewhat straight metal wire and clenching your teeth and with some wrist action you manage to push the black sticky goo out of your one hitter and then you notice your shit is spilled all over the place

.
Casino Royale

I wouldn't say Daniel Craig is the best James Bond ever, but he certainly is a different one. A buff body and brute force replace sly wit and tricky gadgets. Unfortunately, a big chunk of this movie has been borrowed from other movies. For example, the airport chase scene will remind you of Die Hard 2, and the big action sequence at the beginning of the movie is nearly exactly, shot for shot, duplicated from a French movie called District B13. Furthermore, the villain who weeps blood is obfuscated by the fact that he is only working for a higher up villain. We never quite know who the bad guy is. The opening credits are the most artistic part of the film, but I'd still recommend this tribute to hand to hand combat to 007 and action fans alike; it's not a total waste of time.

The Departed

Not quite Goodfellas but pretty close. A real guy movie, lots of violence, acting over the top, everyone gets murdered by the end of the movie. I saw it twice already, which I very rarely do, so that's saying something. It was better the first time, a little long a boring the second time. Also, before seeing it I saw the original Asian version called Infernal Affairs, and it's nearly exactly the same plot except for the ending. Though I understood Martin's remake a lot better and thought of it as a much more superior film in general.

The Prestige

Scarlett Johanson's pouty lips just weren't enough to keep this long, boring movie afloat for two hours. Long, drawn out drama obscures the mystery and supernatural elements here, and I think having recently seen The Illusionist, which is a much better film about nearly the same theme, I just wasn't blown away by The Prestige.

I really needed a drink.

The problem with Roscoe Village is that all the liquor stores close early. If I want a drink after eleven I have to go to one of the yuppie bars. Why would I want to pay five bucks plus tip for a pint when I can get a six-pack of Schlitz for three and a quarter? Why would I want to sit in a row listening to a bunch of stupid fucking hogs yackyackyacking on their cell phones anyway? How come only the poor neighborhoods have liquor stores that stay open until two in the morning? I thought about writing a letter to Daley.

Yeah, I really needed a drink.

You see, I spent the entire day watching mama.com go up seventy percent in value. Whoopee! Unfortunately, I had my money tied up in a real dog of a penny stock and I couldn't sell off due to some stupid rule called free riding. In a nutshell, I was as fucked as a cow in heat at el encierro de la Fiesta de San Fermin. I was sitting on the edge of the tub trimming my pubes with a buzzing black razor when Sirus finally spoke. Sirus had been hiding under the sink in the bathroom cabinet for several weeks and before this he hadn't uttered so much as a squeak.

I'm hunched here in my bathrobe at my desk in front of a screen of streaming quotes, holding this poetry book in my hands. I keep attempting to plunge right in, turning to some random page to read it, but I can't get inspired about it. The television is beautiful; it is paused on a scene from Capcom's Okami. Maybe I should continue where I left off. Or maybe I should turn off the Playstation and turn it back on again, reload it at a previous save point, when I had a bunch of yen and my life-force wasn't deleted. Ah, the tough decisions one has to make in life. There is a bowl on the floor next to my left foot, and ramen noodle residue is clinging to its sides like a sad face and a question mark. I know when I get up I'll step on it, making the big silver spoon fly, but I don't bother to pick it up. I bought these dark blue slippers at Target but they don't have any backsides to them, so I am spreading my toes to keep them on my feet.

I'm getting sick and tired of Sirus' silent treatment.

As you probably know, Sirus lives in the cabinet beneath my bathroom sink. It's not my fault. He was simply getting too large to carry around like that. I had to wear him like a backpack at one point.

To think, he was born out of my earlobe. Well, maybe it wasn't technically the earlobe. Now that I've been on TV I have to be careful about what I say; I have to be ever so accurate. Everyone is watching and people love to take things out of context. Okay. It was actually a big lump in the greasy nook behind my ear. That lump was there for weeks and it was hurting, so I finally took it between my thumb and index finger and squeezed it and out popped Sirus within a squirt of blood and pus. As I was dabbing my ear with a ball of toilet paper, Sirus squirmed there on my right shoulder like a tiny boiled shrimp, sort of like a maggot with human facial features.

Last year around this time my girlfriend of five years tried to get me to slug her, so she'd have an excuse for her whoring around while I stayed home and did her dishes. If she got me to slug her, you see, she could claim she was leaving me because I abused her. No, I didn't slug her. Instead, I took her to Great America. Instead, I gave her a going away party, celebrated the fact that she was dumping me, congratulated her on her decision to run a thousand miles away. Instead, I gave her a baseball cap that said "San Francisco" with her name custom written on the backside; I gave her a tie-died shirt that said "Freedom". It was the hardest thing I have ever pulled off, but I remained a perfect gentleman.