Important Stuff

+ Final weekend of The Big Bad Musical is upon us. It's been a fun and interesting experience. I hope we get a nice audience. This past Friday's show I absolutely killed it, then Saturday I tanked it. Saturday's performance was being taped of course. That's live theatre. Not sure what's next on the horizon for me acting-wise. I know I want to concentrate on getting my play "Chasing Ghosts" produced before year's end, so whatever capacity it's going to take for me to make that happen whether I have to produce, direct & design it, acting in it, whatever then that's what I have to do. I also think that since the whole stand-up thing dried up last year when I moved back out of Austin and couldn't just drive down to some open mic night after a few too many Zeigen Bachs, that I would like to take some improv classes with hopes of meeting some like minded people to start a troupe with for live performances as well as some comedy short films that I've been tinkering with for a while now.

+Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band have announced thier Spring U.S. tour dates. They are playing Austin, Texas on April 5th. That's just two days before my birthday, so HINT HINT. 'Nuff said.

+ So I finally caught Slumdog Millionaire this past weekend and dare I say “overrated”. I know it’s the little engine that could and probably will this awards season, but I was kind of under whelmed by the picture. That’s not to say that I disliked it. The performances by the children were impeccable and the story has all the hallmarks of a classic Dickensian tale, but there was just a level of disconnect that I couldn’t get past. Although I can certainly understand why people are big fans of the film, it’s not like Little Miss Sunshine where I am just flabbergasted by all the lauds and praise. Overall I think Slumdog Millionaire had more potential and failed to deliver on it.

+ Super Bowl Sunday is bearing down on us and it’s been relatively hype-free. I guess there are bigger and better things for people to have focused on this past two weeks. Which makes me think of a quote I read in Peter King’s SI.com column – “We have a black President, the Arizona Cardinals are in the Super Bowl and someone safely landed a plane in the Hudson River,” yeah it’s been a crazy and eventful start to the year. I don’t really have a rooting interest in either team. Especially when you consider that they both beat the Dallas Cowboys this year.

The Steelers rivalry with the Cowboys is not what is was in 1970s before I was born and I like Coach Tomlin, but considering that Pittsburg did just win the Super Bowl at the end of the 2005 season and the Cardinals are a franchise that have the second longest championship drought, 61 years, behind the 100 years of the baseball Chicago Cubs, I guess I have to go with the underdogs Cardinals. My prediction: “There Will Be Points” - Arizona 42, Pittsburg 31. Larry Fitzgerald is named the MVP with about 10 grabs for over 150 in yardage in a few TDs if not more, capping off a season which has seen him grow into the best receiver in the NFL. Kurt Warner would also likely ride off into the sunset and retire with his Hall of Fame credentials even more intact.


+ Compiling a list of the worst movies of 2008 is easier than I thought and there’s a lot of stuff you’d expect to see on such a list that I haven’t even bothered seeing. So with the recent misfortune of watching another bad Mark Walhberg flick here is my current list of the 15 worst movies of 2008(in no particular order): One Missed Call, The Eye, Max Payne, The Happening, Quarantine, Jumper, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Doomsday, 10,000 B.C., Vantage Point, Prom Night, Made of Honor, Fool’s Gold, Untraceable, Shutter.

I implore you to avoid these films but if you do watch then don’t say that you were not warned. And while I play catch-up on all the Oscar contenders. Let me shift gears and offer up a list of some of my favorite movies of 2008 that you might not have seen but I highly recommend. Now not all of these films are technically 2008 releases but they are recent and something I did see in the last year: The Bank Job (Yes Jason Statham can do more than just kick and growl), In Bruges (a profound and profoundly funny crime film), Man on Wire (a real life fairy-tale), Cassandra’s Dream (another dip into the dark side of Woody Allen), Bella (a heart-wrenching story about how one person can change your life) , Bigger Stronger Faster: Side Effects of the American Dream (wonderful documentary about steroid culture), Appaloosa (a straight-up old fashion western), Grace is Gone (John Cusak is brilliant as a grieving father who has trouble breaking the news to his two daughters of their mother’s death in the Iraq war), Young @ Heart (a lovely documentary about a thriving and inspiring group of senior citizens).

+ I’m not really doing the New Year’s resolution thing this, never really have done it, except for the many, many times I’ve tried to read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. I guess I’ll give it another shot this year, but who knows. As much reading I do, I always try to keep forcing myself to read even more and I wanted to mention the best book I read in all of 2008, which coincidentally was written by the same author who wrote my favorite novel of 2007 as well. Robert Bolano is the writer I speak of and the novels and The Savage Detectives and 2666 respectively.

I picked up Detectives in ’07 on the recommendation of the cutest “in that bookish/nerdy kind of way” Book People employee who shall remain nameless because she still has a boyfriend. Anyway, we had bonded over our love of Don Quixote and other gems of Spanish culture and literature. So she turned me onto Bolano, the hard living Chilean who died tragically in 2003, but left one hell of a legacy. Detectives chronicles a fictional late 1970s Mexico City where multiple protagonists are involved in a poetry movement. It’s a seductive and strange work, while the next and unfortunately final Bolano novel 2666 is a massive (around 900 pages) and haunting tale about hundreds of mysterious unsolved murders of women in the border towns of Northern Mexico and the many investigations of the social, political and moral realms that could be responsible. Not a light summer read by any means but if you loved David Fincher’s criminally overlooked 2007 film Zodiac, you’ll probably love 2666.

I would be remiss without mentioning the fantastic work of Natasha Wimmer, who translated both of Bolano’s novels into English so that uno language minds like myself can still read and enjoy such great things.

Until next time the bloggcony is closed.

"Bitch may be the new Black, but Black is the new President, Bitch!"