chrryblssmninja

I didn't get to watch internationals today, but...

HAT TRICK FOR KLOSE
FINALLY
I ALWAYS BELIEVED
GOOD THING I DIDN'T SEE IT
OR I MIGHT HAVE CRIED

German NT tied 3 - 3 with Finland. Oh well. At least it wasn't a loss. AND KLOSE FINALLY SCORED AGAIN

AND OOH OOH
THEO HAT TRICK FOR ENGLAND

France won their game. phew. But with England getting better, I'm becoming scared that the thing I said about "France being the new England" might be coming true

- - -
via lost_tv:
Lost S4 bloopers!
I think these are just promo ones, because it promotes the DVD and Blu-ray sets at the end.

and fans of Team Awesome (Desmond and Sayid), there's one clip you should not miss
Lol Captain Gault is funny

speaking of that captain:
Ex-Lost thesp Grant Bowler -- he played the swarthy freighter captain who was shot and killed in last May's finale -- is dropping anchor at Ugly Betty.
source

are y'all okay with casting spoilers? I won't say what the characters do, just who's playing them. Nothing plot-wise has come out about them yet, so as long as you just scan and not click on the link, you should be fine.

And, the two new people joining the cast of Lost are...
Zuleikha Robinson
(Rome, The Lone Gunmen, New Amsterdam)
she was also the awesome princess in Hidalgo who got to ride off into the desert sun yay

the second person, along with some Freighter Four stuff, and help with name pronunciation
Saïd Taghmaoui! That's an odd pic of him in that EW link.

he was Saïd in La Haine! (THE WORLD IS OURS!)
he was also The Iraqi torturer in Three Kings. The one who asked why America messed up Michael Jackson.
he was also in Vantage Point with Matthew Fox. My mom just saw the ad in a DVD and I pointed him out.
It'd be cool if he kept his French accent for this role.
More and more movies with two Lost people in them. Like, I knew Michael Emerson was in Saw, but I forgot that Ken Leung played the detective there

lol both of the new people were in Hidalgo.
I was really iffy about these characters when their descriptions came out, but the casting looks awesome, so now I'm kind of excited whee

La Haine -related sidenote: the director went on to a disappointing career, making Gothika and currently complaining about what Fox did to his newest, Babylon A.D. He's not the only director complaining about Fox.

seriously, if I could, I would give him my imaginary dream pet project Battle Royale miniseries to direct. La Haine impressed me that much, with how he handled teenage/twenty-something characters and created a very kinetic movie.

Back to Lost:
via gossy16: Ana-Lucia to return for one episode
as long as it's a useful appearance, I'm okay.

Dan Faraday fans might want to check out this filming report

ooh look at this casting call:
There's Solanga, a Filipino male in his 50s, who's the village doctor in a small rural community. He has some vices, but also has some medical skills. And he speaks "relatively good English with an accent."
yay a Filipino character! They didn't do too well with the half-Puerto Rican (well actresses. Ana and Nikki. Not sure about the characters' ethnicities, though Ana-Lucia was probably either Mexican or Salvadoran.)
Come on, one of my ethnic halves has got to have some good rep on this show

- - -

very interesting thoughts about film noir.
Starts back in the Renaissance, with chiaroscuro, and traces influences through German Expressionism and pulp fiction.

And Peter Lorre is in two of the pictures used yay
those "French guys" the article mentioned coined the term "film noir" in the 1960s, just in case you're confused.

I found out that the site Movie Zeal recently finished its film noir month. I really like their choices.

from the article for Rififi, directed by Jules Dassin (my fave film from him is Night and the City though)
"In any language, Dassin seemed to have a knack for directing actors playing bad people so that you could sympathize with them."
-Without compromising their badness.

found this via linkage: Jean-Luc Godard said, "At the time, Rififi fooled some people. Today, it can’t hold a candle to [Jacques Becker’s 1954] Touchez pas au Grisbi, which paved the way for it, let alone [Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1956] Bob le Flambeur, which it paved the way for.”
psh I was so bored with Touchez pas au Grisbi I stopped watching after 20 minutes. I haven't gotten to Bob le Flambeur yet, though, and I do like Melville, and I know that it's because of Rififi that he had to delay making Le Cercle Rouge until 1970.

okay I'll stop rambling.

finally, via cleolinda: Guillermo del Toro to probably direct every other horror movie in the next ten years.
I can't wait to see what he does with At the Mountains of Madness. We need a good, big Lovecraft movie.

I've posted about this before, but good things stand repeating.

Why Cinema Insomnia is the perfect thing to watch Saturday at midnight:


Go ahead. Click the pic.

Today they showed Invasion of the Neptune Men again. It's a Japanese movie from 1961: "Clumsy invaders from Neptune are thwarted by hero Space Chief and a nondescript group of microshort-wearing Japanese kids." Those kids are dubbed with a strong Brookyln accent in the English version. :D
But no! The wonders don't cease there! Look at the marvelous translation!
Kid 1: "The thermometer is rising!"
Kid 2: "It is! It’s going up!"

The following dialogue isn't exact, but it's very close. I laughed so hard while trying to memorize it that I forgot...

Scientist 1: "Temperatures are rising all over the world!"
Scientist 2: "Europe too!"

You might have seen it on MST3K. 'tis an interesting cousin to Prince of Space. You can watch it on Youtube.

Cinema Insomnia also let me see one of my favorite actors, Peter Lorre, be awesomely cool in My Favorite Brunette. Given that he was stereotyped as the snivelling sidekick/mad scientist -something perpetuated in Warner Brothers cartoons (starting at 2:45) and even in Horton Hatches the Egg (starts at 6:45, lasts ten seconds). He was even the inspiration for Ren in Ren & Stimpy!
But, in My Favorite Brunette, while he is still the sidekick, he's all dressed tight in black and throws knives and goes all ninja and (starting at 2:38)he might get a light kick from Bob Hope...and he is later found guilty...but you don’t see him caught! No, you see him with knife, cooly disposing of evidence and SO getting away with it. You're only told later that he got caught. But the image remains in the mind. HA.
Hey, that's better for his character than when he gets beat up by Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon. -hmph-

And how can I forget Starcrash! "You are about to be hurled throught the blackness of a hundred million nights..." You got the hurling part right. I've posted about it before - It’s like Star Wars. But Italian. And with mini!fros. And bondage gear. And David Hasselhoff. Watch his lightsaber battle.

But the best part of Cinema Insomnia are the old ads (the movie trailers are fantastic too!). I always enjoy singing along to Let’s All Go To The Lobby. For more food happy to be eaten, check out this ad. It made me stare in horror the first time I watched it. Because...it's the sausage...putting mustard and ketchup on itself...sliding itself into the open bun...with a chirpy smile...IT'S SUICIDAL!!!

yeah. It's 3 AM. I should go sleep now.

Right now (It's 12:45 AM when I start this) I’m watching Bob Hope in My Favorite Brunette, the featured B-movie misunderstood film on Cinema Insomnia. Among the evil henchmen are Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. Lon Chaney Jr. looks a lot like his dad, while Peter Lorre was all cool throwing knives and catching them and his voice and stance are all stronger than usual and the way he says “shut up!” wheeeeeee
Stop calling him “dwarf“ and “gremlin,” Bob Hope. Ha, you were beaten by The Lorre. Ha.

So many things have happened this past week. The Mooninites shut down Boston. A tornado hit central Florida, floods devastated Indonesia, and then there were ( the soccer riots in Sicily… )

( Okay, I need to post something brighter about soccer. Like something about Lionel Messi. )

Watched The Third Man. It’s as skewed as its camera angles, and I like it. It’s cut pretty fast for something from 1949. Music blares too much, but I like how movies like this stick to the plot and just let the themes seep out where they will. No obvious Silent Symbolic Moment of OhMyGoshEventofUniversalSignifanceDon‘tYouSee? here.

Dr. Who comes to PBS in Spring 2007. Now I can see what all the yay is about.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is following me. Two years ago, I went to the San Jose main library and he was nearby, giving a speech at Cinequest. On Monday, he was in Fremont. I live in Fremont. Later this week, he was in Berkeley, introducing the new Alternative Energy program. I go to school in Berkeley.
My theory: He really is a Terminator, but he hasn’t turned good like in the movies. I play some role of significance in the future! It took him two years to find me again, but I think he’s closing in. Aaaaaaaaack

I taped Supernatural, and haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet. So no spoiler please thank you. But I finally got Civil War issue #2 today. I knew about the end, but…oh my gosh. I so need to finish this…and House of M (just need issues 7 and 8!)…and start Infinite Crisis…

--In Physics and Music class, there was one device that used tones to blast gas onto a line of flames. The wave pattern of each tone would show in how the flames settled. Very cool.
--Over the past few days I’ve heard Polysics, weird soundtracks, theme songs by Puffy Amiyumi (their best work, methinks) and the crazy cool end theme of Sakura Wars- all on the car radio. It’s fun, being in the range of four college stations.
--Oh, and I read about the “vaudeville steam punk band” called The Cassettes. They’re pretty cool.
--Saw Paolo Nutini perform on Conan, and…dear, look up. Hiding your face is collapsing your sweet Scottish voice, and it doesn’t help that you’re slightly slurring. But you still sound authentic, and your songs are not my style but I still like them. Just look up more next time, okay?

I ride BART every weekday to school. 45 minutes from Fremont to Berkeley and back. Wasn’t there when there was a shooting at the Hayward station, but even if I was on board we would have ridden past it anyway. But the next day, I was in an angry fit and took the wrong train. Just before the underwater tunnel, I realized I was going to San Francisco. Oh my dearie me. But I dealt with it. Got to class twenty minutes late, but my Japanese teacher took attendance even later, so…-phew-

( Heroes )
And Studio 60 has the ability to create awesome characters and then undermine the awesomeness of those characters at every third turn. That’s all I’ll say.
Oh, and there are smart reality shows (Spy! What about Spy!). Rare, but every genre/medium has the chance for goodness. So, Sorkin, stop writing in your smug little anti-reality comments. You can make good stuff; don’t poison it.

I read an interview in Lost Magazine with Terry O’Quinn (Locke), Adewale Akinnouye-Adbaje (Mr. Eko), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond). Cool guys, all of them. Yay Lost is coming back

Whilst wandering in the “woods” of the Berkeley campus, a squirrel started following me. On his back, sometimes covered by his tail, was…oh my gosh it was white and red and someone ripped out the fur or something in a neat rectangle shape is the white and red what’s under the fur oh no!

Sorry for the length. Next post is full of links and memes, so that will be long too…I’m sorry! So much to tell! The “experts” say that LJ breeds egomaniacs, but if I can’t have you all over to hang out and talk, then I might as well be an egomaniac and post like crazy!

I revamped my profile! It’s really more listy and talky than I’d like, but it gets the job done. Sometime later, I want to squeeze those lists onto image banners that'll look all nice and pretty.

If you like chocolate, you must read this: Expensive chocolate..exposed! Dude, food fraud is so not cool.
I like how they put a link to Scharffen Berger when referring to companies that actually make their own chocolate. And the actual Dallas Food article is extremely informative. And they had a link to Chloe’s website! She’s this big time chocolate connoisseur that I’ve read about before, and now I know her website…
In other food news: Nooooo!!!

And now for the long talky post, just the events of yesterday and today:
( dreams, a party, free food and Peter Lorre )

The next batch of (mostly soccer) icons will come soon. But if you didn’t catch it before, I posted 40 Lost icons here on Christmas Eve. I tried some cool effects with these icons, hope you like them.