Joe's Blög

Just watched this movie…really good! It seems Gary Oldman is getting lots of raves for this one…but it’s funny. He’s almost the least memorable charachter in the film (in a film with John Hurt, Colin Firth, and that guy from Rock n Rolla and Sherlock Holmes – among others). He’s the one charachter that never loses it. Never raises his voice. Never gets angry. I guess maybe that’s to his credit.
Anyways, brit cold war spy film (I guess one could say). If you’re in a quiet mood for an espionage talky film (it’s not an action movie) you will probably like this!

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I’m loving my sky!
I watched “Gandhi” yesterday. 3 hours and it just flew by. I had never seen it before. I do have a vague recollection of it being in the theatres in 1981? or so…Didn’t watch it then, but must have either seen it in the theatre or heard someone talking about it when I was 7 years old.

I also watched a movie called “Partition” last week. Never heard of it, but it was on, so I watched and enjoyed it. Not bad. About the splitting up of India and Pakistan in 1947. There’s a lot of history there that I don’t know about. I shall probably have to find a book or two…

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so last week when I was in Pisa I noticed that there is some music festival going on this weekend…The Skatalites are doing a show tomorrow night (early 60′s ska group), so I googled something about pisa concerts today and I see that Gogol Bordello are doing a show NEXT WEEK!!!!

This excites me to no end. I was trying to think of the last time I was this excited to see a band that I know and I figure it was either Frank Black or Modest Mouse in 2007…anyway I’m really psyched to go to their show next weekend (and I’ll probably make it down for the Skatalites tomorrow).

so I may have said this before but I only ever heard of Gogol Bordello after seeing “Everything is Illuminated”. It’s a great movie and it co-stars Eugene Hutz (who is the singer of the band). I may have to follow up by watching the movie again this weekend…coincidentally one of the three books I bought in Germany is another by Jonathan Saffron Foer, who is the author of Everything is illuminated….

anyways (x2) here’s a few clips of Gogol Bordello.
As usual mind the volume between clips…

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David Lynch movies are just about perfect to put on during naptime. Inland Empire came up the other night. I have that movie but I think I only ever watched about 10 minutes of it.
Today I made it to about the 1 hour mark before falling asleep.

My reaction to every Lynch movie ever: ummmm….what….

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So today I watched 7 pounds with Wil Smith…well…that’s a cryer.

When a girl drops something like “I’m all alone here”. Is this the opposite of when a girl drops a “My boyfriend and I blah blah blah…”. Is the “alone” thing intentionally dropped to tell you she has no boyfriend? Mystery deepens…

I was listening to the Avett Brothers (bluegrass) all day Friday and Saturday and now I’m listening to El-P (hardcore trip-rap-I don’t know what)…
I’m curious what the neighbours think?

I did meet the neighbours. They don’t speak english, but we tried. This is so different from Germany. Trying harder now…

We get Wednesday off here…another one of those european mystery holidays.

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In my continuing effort to learn Italian I watched the movie ‘Delicatessen’ in Italian with english subtitles…It’s a French movie from the early 90′s, and I really really liked it.
So far the Italian isn’t really sticking yet…

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Elvis (as played by Bruce Campbell in Bubba Ho-Tep): “The two key words for tonight are ,,caution” and ,,flammable”.

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I was at a house party last night talking to Seattle in the corner (the only yanks at the party – were were probably talking about Mexican food at the time cuz that’s all Pete and I ever talk about – and I just realized I have two american friends, not just one like I mentioned a few days ago)….Mexico comes up and says ‘oh look…it’s the oppressors corner’…
My response was ‘remember the alamo’…which is possibly my greatest comeback ever It was all I could think of and that was probably only because earlier in the day I was attempting to compare Russia’s ‘defense’ of South Ossetia to the American’s ‘defense’ of the free state of texas…
here’s an article titled ‘Looking for the next South Ossetia’
http://www.slate.com/id/2198292/

Georgia does border Turkei…I was wrong on that one…

I downloaded some Flogging Molly yesterday. I used to listen to them in the States, but got bored and when I started listening to the Pogues again I couldn’t go back to Flogging Molly, but after a long break from hearing them I really like them again…

Watched a movie called “the proposition” and it might be the best western I’ve ever seen. It takes place in Australia an the feeling of desolation shown in that movie is so much more sweeping than I’ve seen in anything up to this point. Credit the Australian landscape and the Aussie, Irish and brit actors. Great performances. Great scenery. Well shot!

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Watched “The Departed” today. really liked it…had low expectations I guess because the last person who I asked about it gave a bad review, but I think it’s easily my favourite Scorsese movie. Everything he’s ever done has gotten such great press but I have always been disappointed by his flicks…this one however was actually deserving of whatever praise was bestowed…more conventional story than his other movies so maybe that was the difference for me…also nice use of the music in editing…

I called someone a cliché this week…which now that I’ve thought about it is probably one of the biggest insults you can give…however I didn’t mean it as an insult (meant more as a light hearted exaggeration)…after all who am I to decide what a cliché is? Unless I am one as well which would give me all kinds of credibility in calling other people one…

Read for a couple hours so far today…Finished “Fortress of Solitude”. Was just OK…only cried once and it was near the middle of the book….what kind of book peaks in the middle 4 pages??? sheesh!!!

This was the type of book Scorsese could make a movie out of…an overly ambitious character drama going through the long boring days of wanna be criminals.

…and in the end nothing really happens.

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For Phil and Kat who doubted me…jerks!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Swank
In September 1997, Swank was cast as single mother Carly Reynolds on Beverly Hills, 90210. She was initially promised it would be a two-year role, but saw her character written out after 16 episodes in January 1998. Swank later said that she was devastated at being cut from the show, thinking, “If I’m not good enough for 90210, I’m not good enough for anything.”

…as you can probably guess this was all prompted by a discussion of Peter Cetera (he sang for Chicago right?) and what happened in Karate kid III…that was the one where Mr Miyagi had the bonsai shop right?
no I’m not actually going to do any research on this one

I got slagged a bit from both parents this weekend…;)  though I can’t answer why they keep reading this page…
Must mean they still love me

also watched Dodgeball and Anchorman this weekend….
I now believe I am a mix of Brick from anchorman

Brick Tamland: I love… carpet.
[pause]
Brick Tamland: I love… desk.
Ron Burgundy: Brick, are you just looking at things in the office and saying that you love them?
Brick Tamland: I love lamp.
Ron Burgundy: Do you really love the lamp, or are you just saying it because you saw it?
Brick Tamland: I love lamp. I love lamp.

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Brick Tamland: I’m Brick Tamland. People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks. Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48 and am what some people call mentally retarded.

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and Peter La Fleur from Dodgeball:

Kate Veatch: For instance, do you realize you haven’t collected any membership fees in 13 months?
Peter La Fleur: Hmmm…
Kate Veatch: I’m curious, is it strictly apathy, or do you really not have a goal in life?
Peter La Fleur: I found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don’t have one, then you are never disappointed. And I gotta tell ya… it feels phenomenal.
Kate Veatch: Well I guess that makes sense, in a really sad way.
Peter La Fleur: Sad? You want to know what’s sad? Six grown men playing dodgeball.

One is a competent weatherman who is otherwise a social retard, and the other is an over confident slacker…I like to alternate between the two in short bursts.

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