This Is All I Want to Do Anymore

That's a picture of me reading a book. This is actually me, that's what I look like. I love my outrageous hair! That's my favorite shirt, too. It looks like it says "Over..." something. I don't know, "Over the Moon About Reading?" That's probably what it says, all right! Ha ha ha. Literally!

Because the paucity of content 'round here lately is because I read SO much, you guys. I think that's why. I am focused on it, and it is really all I want to do anymore. I don't eat, I don't sleep. I'm on quite a roll, reading-wise, and I've apparently chosen to not tell you about any of it. But I will say that right now I'm reading Mockingbird by Walter Tevis, because for quite a number of years, and from a variety of people, I've heard it's excellent. So that's what I'm doing. I bet there'll be content here again someday, and in the meantime maybe you could look at pornography. Barring that, you could find a website that encourages you to take an overly literal stance on movie plots and what you perceive to be their failings.

TALK TO YOU AGAIN SOON GUYS!

Oh, By the Way...

Oh, hello everybody. So, like, I have screeners coming my way over the course of August's waning days, and also other, more different screeners coming in September. The acceptance into my possession of these screeners obligates me -- obligates me happily, I hasten to add -- to post, or "write", about them, but I have to say that outside of them shits, there will be no other posting on this, The Kind of Face You Hate, my personal blog, where I record my dreams and hopes and desires and wishes and heart's songs, until October. In the next paragraph, I will reveal the reason for this.

The reason for this is because in October, as some of you may know, I will begin The Kind of Face You Slash, my annual, 31-day-long collection of scholarly essays on the subject of horror fiction. Last year I was able to get ahead of the game a little bit, with some posts written early and whatnot, but this year the plan is to get even more ahead of the game by writing even more early posts. And I have so much reading to do, you guys! So time being of the essence and everything, and all that, etc. You get where I'm going with this. So if the news of an upcoming paucity of new material on The Kind of Face You Hate fills you with an unnameable terror, well fuck you, I'm not your doctor. Just hold on for a few week's for shit's sake. Jesus H. Christ.

A Zombie Fighting a Shark

Look, it's a zombie, and it's fighting a shark. Shit, I know you've all seen this movie. I'm real tired, you guys.

My Typical Wednesday Movie Night

I'm actually not pictured. I was asked to go out for cigarettes and Taco Bell. No clue what they're watching here. They wouldn't tell me. I also asked if I could get a picture with them all, watching our next movie, since it was my home, but they said no, and then left. I ended up watching Hobo With a Shotgun by myself. Maybe they're not my real friends.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff!

Alternate title: Hang In There!

Expressionism

Apparently, I Have a Blog

And I have been neglecting it! Well, this break was planned, just not announced, but with October and everything like that there, I figured I needed to not write anything for a little while. Plus I was away, because my life is not spent chained to my computer like the rest of you. I was in New Orleans just a few days ago, and I saw a table of radicals at a book fair selling (or perhaps offering up to be stolen) signs that said "Kill Your Xbox". Oh, indeed! Indeed! TEAR IT DOWN!!! TEAR IT ALL DOWN!!!!

So anyway, probably this weekend is when something that is ostensibly worth reading might once more make an appearance. I'm not dead or anything.

Breaktime

Welp...yeah. Listen, I'm beat. And frankly, I have privately felt pretty down about this blog for several weeks now. This is not me fishing for compliments, either -- I am, for the most part, genuinely disappointed in the work I've been doing here for at least the last couple of months. I've felt burnt out and tired and stressed about it, the last of which strikes me as a particularly ridiculous state of affairs. There's no reason for that. I have enough to worry about without a goddamn blog adding to the pile. But I'm not happy with the work, and I have to assume I'm not the only one. If the urge to refute this is strong in you, please don't -- I'm not looking for reassurance. I know how it's been lately.

So here's what I'll do. I shall take a break, you see. And more than likely, it won't even be much of a break. I can't take a month off -- oh, wouldn't that be delightful! -- because I have Criterion discs coming that I will need to write up, so that's a few posts right there, and I have Tony Dayoub's blogathon, mentioned in yesterday's post, in which I still fully plan to take part. Beyond that, who knows? Maybe between now and October, something will just strike me, and I'll want to write it. That "want" is important, though, as it implies some sort of creative drive, rather than the banging out of a few panicky paragraphs so nobody thinks I got murdered or anything.

Then, of course, there's October. That shit's still on like Missile Command or...Adventure? Neither of those really rhyme, do they? Well, I got news for you: neither does Donkey Kong, but everyone acts like it does. Anyway, remember Adventure? When you were this little square that had to push a sword in front of you and killed ducks, or dragons, and collected keys? And the big secret room that you spent hours finding offered up nothing more than copyright and design information? Man, was that ever worth the effort.

But yeah, so October's still happening. And as you may know, that's an every day thing, so building up a nice head of steam is a good idea. Better to enter that month raring to get back to it, rather than thinking "Fuck me and fuck my stupid blog, goddamn you all to hell." Which, I assure you, is exactly what I think roughly three times a day right now. Plus, October requires a great deal of preparation as far as the reading goes, and it would be awfully nice to get ahead of the game. So many reasons to take a break, so few not to.

So it's breaktime here at The Kind of Face You Hate headquarters. As I said, I will be posting periodically this month, but not too, too often. Come October, boy, that'll be a whole different story. Thank you, and good day.

How Many Days Has it Been Since My Last Post?

Several!

I'm aware of this. Sorry. Hey, but I really liked Battle: Los Angeles, and everybody who didn't can go screw.

Quiet Time

When I find myself overwhelmed with as many time consuming obligations as I currently do, I'm reminded of something Cathy Guisewhite once said: "Ack! Chocolate! Boys! Ack!" And then she raised a finger into the air and made circular motions. Indeed, Cathy, indeed.

It is not my intention to provide a list of the things that are keeping me from posting at the pace and in the manner, and about the things, I would prefer, and anyway you're going to know about the vast majority of them pretty soon because most of them actually are blog-related. It's insane to me that suddenly I have actual obligations related to this site, apart from the neurotic ones I've taken upon myself. Now when I consider the things I have to write about in order to keep up my end of certain bargains, it's almost as if I'm getting paid to do this. Except that in a very real, financial sense, I'm not. Also, speaking of obligations, but not ones pertaining to the blog, Infinite Jest is super long, and lots of times there aren't even any paragraph breaks.

This is all to say that things will probably be light around here for a few days, until the weekend, which tends to be my MO lately, because I apparently prefer to post on days when nobody's going to read shit on the internet. But several things in the pipeline, boy do I feel busy, how can a single girl like me juggle relationships and a career in the big city, my friends are like my sisters. See you later.

A Bird of Rarest-Spun Heaven Metal

.
That's how I'll be flying to New York tomorrow. I think that's what those things are called, but anyway, yes, off to New York I go until Sunday, so things'll be quiet around here until at least Monday, if not Tuesday (or Wednesday). Feel free to poke around the archives in my absence and laugh at my many errors and occasionally jaw-dropping overuse of parentheses.

Also, the first post upon my return will, I hope, feature a new look for The Kind of Face You Hate. I'm actually perfectly happy with the current look, but I'm told by my old pal and confidant Greg Ferrara that my recent and deeply infuriating formatting problems might stem from the fact that I'm using an old template or something. Being the kind of fellow he is, he offered his kind assistance to me, a computer illiterate (basically, anyhow), and since he already designed my banner, I said sure. AND THEN I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! But I plan to, and Greg, if you're out there, sorry I haven't contacted you, but we'll do this thing soon. Thanks again!

And thank you all very much (in my head, I said that like Dean Learner) for your patronage or whatever reading blogs is called. I shall see you all anon.

Carla Gugino Only Wants One Thing...

. ...and that's for me to get back to blogging! Soon, honey britches...soon.

Sketches: A Rumination, Part Two

.
It's difficult for me to say what, exactly, I'm hoping to say in the following self-portrait (number two in a series). Still, I do believe that this is a reasonable illustration of how the world views me -- not how I view myself, please remember, although, actually, there's not much difference, if I'm being honest.

Anyway, it's just sex, America -- try and loosen up for once! Also, you can't even say I'm racist, because almost all of the major female hair colors are represented.

Finally, I'd like to dedicate this post to my wife.

Irons

When you have a blog, and you plan to maintain it indefinitely -- you don't treat it as a goofy lark, in other words -- and you further wind up putting out feelers to various groups in the hopes of gaining a reputation as a kind of unpaid professional, once those feelers are out and you begin receiving some sort of positive response, it becomes easy to neglect your actual blog. Which is sort of ironic, or self-defeating, or a form of rationalization. One of those, anyway. Because if you change "putting out feelers" to "having several irons in the fire", as I shall now do, you have my current situation, which is this: I have several irons in the fire. I'm pleased to have stated that so neatly.

So, I'm sorry that I've been neglecting the blog lately. I feel genuinely bad and nervous any time I do that, for neurotic and self-absorbed reasons that needn't concern you, but there's the potential for a very good payoff in the both semi-distant and not-so-distant future. In the meantime, I have movies to watch, and it is my hope that some sort of regular posting will resume this very week. Tension, excitement, laziness, sandwich-cravings: all these are currently at war within me. Something has to give. The center cannot hold. Many are strong at the broken places. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. I'm not locked up in here with you, you're locked up in here with me. You know, all that stuff.

But since I don't wish to leave you today with nothing for your time, here's something, which I hope is not old news to you, but may be. You guys know who Albert Brooks is, right? And how he doesn't seem to make movies anymore, and even though his last couple have been disappointing his absence is still a source of great sadness? Well! Have I got news for you! In May of this year, Brooks is publishing a science fiction novel, called 2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America. I know, I just about shit my pants, too. In a brief article for the New York Times (published last July, so, like I say, possibly old news for you people), Brooks describes the novel this way:

“I can’t not put humor in a book,” Mr. Brooks said. But, repeating a line he said to a friend recently, he added, “I don’t want to be the one to break it to you, but the future ain’t that funny.”

As St. Martin’s described the book in an e-mail message, “2030” takes place at a time when “a population that has finally been freed from the scourge of cancer is dramatically aging, sparking resentment against the ‘olds’ and leading to a nation so hamstrung by entitlements and debt that its only way out are solutions heretofore unthinkable.”

Mr. Brooks, 62, said the novel addresses the generational dynamics among roughly “a dozen major characters,” and deals in part with feelings he has experienced as he has watched the younger ranks come up behind him.

“We took to the streets for the Vietnam War,” he said. “But there’s other reasons that kids should take to the streets. They just haven’t gotten there yet. And from what I’m reading, with the iPhone 6, they won’t have to.”

So it'll be funny, but he's actually serious. I think on the list of things anybody might have expected from Albert Brooks at this point in his career, writing a humorous, yet serious-minded, science fiction novel would count as "Not Listed". I must say, I'm delighted, excited, wary, and craving a sandwich. May can't come soon enough.

Restless

.

I'm feeling particularly restless and uncreative and unthoughtful, and all sorts of other words that make sense but probably don't exist -- this should explain why not so much in the way of posts lately. It's aggrevating, to be honest, because I don't feel distant from the blog, like I don't care, but simply empty of things to say.

.

Ah well, who cares. My loss is your gain, though, because ordinarily when I wrote a post, a post that includes pictures, I dictate what kind of pictures you're going to look at. But tonight, since I have nothing else to offer, I'm going to let you pick which picture, out of a choice of two, you'd rather gaze upon. So: would you like to look at this picture of Amy Adams from Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day:

.

...or this picture of Ernest Borgnine from The Devil's Rain:

The choice is yours entirely. I make no judgments, and don't even care to know your selection. It's your life, and you must find happiness where available. But -- and I probably should have said this before -- you can only look at one of them. Make your choice, and then look at that picture, and only that picture. This isn't a charity.

Remember, Remember, the End of November

.
Boy, this has really been a thin month around here, hasn't it? What is this, only my sixth post? I can't remember the last time I've been so unproductive with this blog, and if anybody's sad about that, allow me to apologize. I don't really know what the deal is, but I suppose October took more out of me than usual.
.
To add insult to injury, this post isn't going to be worth dogshit, either. I'm only popping in now to say "Oops!" and "I'm sorry!" and "Things will be better next month!" Hopefully, anyway. I should think they'd almost have to be, so I'm trying to stay positive. If nothing else, I'll be itching to post about Black Swan and True Grit when I see them in December, which is two posts locked down, right off the bat. Already things are looking better.
.
But I'm afraid that's really it for November. Obviously, I'm going to be tied up with family-type deals through the weekend, and while there's an off chance that I might spark on something to write about before the month is over, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. So let's just call November a wash, and start fresh on December 1st. Until then, have a great Thanksgiving, everybody.
.
PS - Exit Through the Gift Shop sucked. This has been a review.

Slumped

With certain life-y type situations, and moments, and what have yous, looming, I've found myself rather distracted away from not only writing on, but even thinking about, this here blog. I hasten to add, for any of you who are currently clutching at your pearls, that the life stuff that I'm referring to is nothing to get all worked up about, but as it involves surgery you can perhaps understand why my mind is elsewhere.

So that's where my head is -- or, as they say nowadays, that's where my head is located at. I just haven't felt particularly energized to write much lately, because all of my thoughts have been at least tangentially connected to getting through Wednesday, at which point I will begin two and a half weeks of work-free, medically enforced, lying around and doing nothing. It's not out of the question that, between now and then, I might actually write an actual post about something somebody might care to read, but if I don't, this is why. Similarly, after Wednesday, even though I'll be in recovery mode, I will also have a lot of free time. Mind you, I plan on reading a shitload of books and watching a pantload of movies, but one would think that all of that might inspire me, or fire a spark, or bestow upon me wings of song, so for all I know this brief lull will only preface a great blogging inferno, by which I mean the good kind of inferno. On the other hand, during at least a portion of my recovery, I will be fucked out of my shit on some mad-ass painkillers, or such is my most fervent hope. Should that turn out to be the case, I may not have it in me to post much, and if I do, please brace yourselves.

But whatever happens, this post that you are now reading is only a head's up for anybody who cares to know why the next four, five, or six days could be light on posts around here. Again, nothing to be concerned about (I have a hernia, if you must know), but it's a big enough deal to consume too much of my thinking right now. But really, don't be shocked if I post something here before Wednesday. But also don't be shocked if I don't.

Do You Like What You See?

And then BLAM! I'm being controlled by Satan. So to the list of things I would be useless during -- which already include quests for treasure in the Amazon and anything that would require me to become an astronaut -- you can now add 18th Century occult/Satanic-type situations involving pretty blonde ladies. I still think I'd be okay if me and a small group of friends found a bag of money, unless I suddenly turned greedy or one of my friends betrayed me. Barring either of those occurrences, though, I think I could swing it.

A Real Life Abbott & Costello Routine

Names and occupation have been changed, but aside from that I had this exact conversation at work today.

- - - - - - - -

ME: Generic City Program Office, can I help you?

WOMAN: Can I get a number for the Generic City Program Office?

ME: This is a Generic City Program Office, but there's more than one. Who are you looking for specifically?

WOMAN (OS, to MAN): He says there's more than one. Who are you looking for specifically? [inaudible] [to ME] I need to talk to someone at the Generic City Program Office.

ME: This is the Generic City Program Office, but there are different ones.

WOMAN: Hold on.

[MAN comes to phone]

MAN: I'm calling for my friend who needs to know who his Generic Program Person is.

ME: What's his name?

MAN: Ben.

ME: What's his last name?

MAN: Oh, I don't know. I just know him as Ben.

[Long pause.]

ME: Then I can't help you. There are different Generic City Program Offices, and without your friend's last name, I can't help you. You need to find out his last name, or find out which specific office you need.

MAN: I just need the number to the Generic City Program Office.

ME: This is a Generic City Program Office, but there is more than one.

MAN: Then just give me your number. I'll have him call you.

ME: ...But you just called me.

MAN: Fine. [Click]

[Exeunt]

Resolutions?? Feh!!

So remember how on January 3rd of 2009 I, among numerous other film bloggers, put together a list of film-related New Year's resolutions? And how I was supposed to do, or complete, or not do, as the situation warranted, all of them before all the calendars of the world flipped over to 2010? I wonder how that turned out! Did I, in fact, stick to each and every one of my resolutions? Did I, indeed, stick to any of them? Perhaps now would be a good time to run through that list, one resolution at a time, and find out was has transpired over the past almost whole year...

Resolution #1 - I will watch both Satantango and Our Hitler this year.

Now, did I watch Bela Tarr's 33 hour, or whatever, long masterpiece? I did not. BUT! Did I watch Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's surrealist, psychadelic and kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria of German fascist history?? Also no. For all I know, Our Hitler is the furthest thing from psychadelic, surrealist, or the rest of it. I didn't watch any of it. I never even got disc one from Netflix. Disc one of either film. I didn't even try this one. I thought about it once or twice. I'd think, "Shit, it's only September. I got about four months to watch roughly a day's worth of movies. I got this one. In the bag!" More fool me. We're off to a bad start.

Resolution #2 - I will see more films in the theater this year.

If I only saw three or four movies in the theater in 2008, then yes, I squeaked this one through. Otherwise, I think I matched my record low. This one, frankly, embarrasses me, but I really only go to see films in the theater that I really want to see, and many of those don't hit my town. Plus we have an XBox now, so...

Resolution #3 - I will clean out my DVR.

I did not clean out my DVR. To be honest, this one was never going to happen anyway. The best I could have hoped for was to make a tiny dent in the thing, and that I accomplished, in a sense. I did watch Kenji Mizoguchi's The 47 Ronin, which I consider a major victory. I'd had all four hours of that thing in my DVR for well over a year, and one long weekend I knocked it out. Of course, I filled it back up with other movies, most of which I haven't watched (though some I have, so the tiny dent remains), but the main goal is to watch the oldest stuff. And The 47 Ronin (which, for the record, I liked well enough, but I probably won't be buying the action figures) took up a lot of room, having been aired on IFC or Sundance in two parts. In that same vein, I still have parts one through three of Peter Greenaway's The Tulse Luper Suitcases floating around in the DVR. And if I'm being really honest with myself, like I sit myself down in a chair, spin another chair around backwards so I can fold my arms over the back and look myself straight in the eyes, I'd say to myself, "You are never going to watch all three parts of The Tulse Luper Suitcases. You should just delete them and free up the space. For Christ's sake, have you ever seen a Peter Greenaway movie?? Why don't you just put a gun in your mouth now!?"

So that's if I was honest with myself. But they're not available on DVD!! This is the only way I can ever see them! And what if they're really good and don't give me a giant motherfucking headache!? Because, you see, I'm of two minds about this.

Resolution #4 - I will watch more of the films I bought on DVD sight unseen.

I haven't done so badly with this one, actually. Of the examples I offered in the original resolutions post, I have watched Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, The Grissom Gang, Lisa and the Devil, Songs from the Second Floor, Army of Shadows and part one of the Pusher trilogy. I've also watched any number of second-rate horror films, and Performance (I'd rather watch the second-rate horror films again, by the way), Combat Shock, and a host of others. And all I resolved to do was "watch more" of them. So, yeah! Check this one off, bitches.

Resolution #5 - I will educate myself on the films of Max Ophuls.

Eh. Sort of, but not really. I finally saw The Earrings of Madame de..., and it was, as you probably know, brilliant. But that's as far as I've gone with this one. If anyone wants to give me advice regarding which Ophuls to check out next, drop a comment, and I shall heed it.

Resolution #6 - I will continue to give chances to Godard and Antonioni.

Godard, yes. Antonioni, no. And I still don't like Godard, other than Band of Outsiders and bits of Breathless, but that didn't stop me from picking up the Criterion of Pierrot le Fou, and I also have First Name: Carmen and Passion sitting in a white sleeve with "Netflix" on it lying around here somewhere. I bet I'll get around to it. Antonioni can just cool it for now. My interests lie elsewhere right now.

Resolution #7 - I will choose one month during which the only films I watch will be film noir.

This one was just stupid. I was never going to do this. I was flailing around, trying to come up with resolutions. I've watched a giant bagful of film noirs (films noir? Crime films?) this year -- The Sniper, The Lineup, The Big Steal, Crime Wave, Decoy, Mystery Street, The Racket, and so on -- so why put the pressure on myself to cram it all into one month? You're being a jackass, Bill. Quit being such a jackass.

Resolution #8 - I will invent a film-related meme.

Nope. I didn't even come close to this. Although it occurs to me that film-blog-type memes, after what appeared to be a never-ending flurry of them in late 2008, into early 2009, just sort of stopped. I guess everybody got fed up with them, and were getting annoyed because somebody tagged them, and then they felt obligated to take part, and who wants to write about dancers anyway?? So skipping this one was probably for the best.

Resolution #9*- I will...um...make a... or no! I'll write a book about...how movies can sometimes...if, you know, if, or I mean unless we watch them with...with, ah, more sophisticated eyes, then we, as a nation -- indeed, as a people -- will...as a people we will...ah...most likely, what will happen is...

Now that one I did.

--------------------------------------

Okay, well, clearly, that was a roaring success. I'm very proud of myself, and of all of you. Fresh content for the new year is fast approaching, so be on the lookout for whatever that turns out to be.



*Number nine....number nine...number nine...