mis
Mood:  accident prone
Now Playing: "Last Night I Dreamt Of A Bagel"

"And so-and-so produces mediocre theatre!" -- David Wenham

Here's a summary of my Mediocre Theatre Weekend:

1. "Bug". I went to see a regional theatre production of this on Saturday. The story, which takes place in a motel room, involves sexually-transmitted paranoia, blood, self-mutilation, insanity, blood, drugs, blood, blood, and tiny insects implanted by the Army. The play was performed by nude actors who, at the end, douse themselves with gasoline and drop a match. On the way out, I overheard one patron mutter "Well, they won't be making a musical out of THAT one."

2. "The Brothers Grimm". OK, I have loads of respect for Terry Gilliam, who's done some brilliant work in the past, but this was a real mishmash that lacked soul, focus, and direction. A few stunning visuals, bland dialogue, not much in the way of plot. It felt like Gilliam's usual flights of tall-tale creativity were being restrained by budget and commercial restrictions. Did "Lost in La Mancha" break him? I hope not. Heath Ledger was good as the socially maladjusted, introvert brother.

3. "The Simpsons", which used to be one of the funniest things on television. Last night's season premiere was even lamer than the Australian episode (still considered the gold standard of horrid, shark-jumping Simpsons shows). The narrative had something to do with Homer paying off Mafia debts by allowing Fat Tony to shoot a porn video in his house, which caused Marge to leave and join up with a Save the Manatees organization. I didn't laugh once. Not even a wan chuckle. This was followed by.......

4. "The War At Home". Worst.Show.Ever. DO NOT WATCH THIS. The remote was lost somewhere in the couch and I was mesmerized by its sheer awfulness. No stereotype was too crude, no potty humor too lame to shoehorn into the dialogue. The basic plot: Blue-collar dad's world is under assault by modernity. His daughter is dating....gasp!...a black guy. His son.....gasp!....is ambiguously gay. His wife....gasp!....used to go out with black people and...gasp!....smoke cigarettes. Whoever wrote this show clearly hasn't been outside in a long, long time.

I found myself thinking, "They cancelled Firefly for this?"

make_it_stop
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Vicki Sue Robinson has left the building.
I guess there's no need to keep putting my name on these Sacred Grove blog entries anymore, since PrincessFaz is no longer co-adminning this site. In fact, it might be better to post these anonymously, and then walk away quickly and pretend I had nothing to do with them. *tum de dum de dum*

***

Now, here's an interesting coincidence. Two of the top-grossing movies in the U.S. this summer were remakes of the very two movies that scared me most as a kid:

1. War of the Worlds
2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Let's just keep going with this trend. How about a remake of "The Day After"? And while we're at it, why not redo "Squirm" (in which a hick town is terrorized by man-eating earthworms that come out of the faucets). And that traffic-safety film they showed us in elementary school, where the girl slips on a snowbank and gets run over by a bus.

Yes indeedy, there's some lucrative box-office potential there, deep in the catalog of Childhood Traumas. In the meantime, I'll be hiding under the couch with a baseball bat.

make_it_stop
Mood:  suave

Australian Parliament Lifts Ban On Saying 'Mate'

CANBERRA (AFP) - Officials in Australia's parliament have been forced on Friday to rescind a decision to bar the building's security guards from addressing visitors as "mate" after the move sparked a nationwide uproar.

The row erupted after the Parliamentary Services Department issued a notice to security guards during a routine meeting Thursday reminding them of the need to be courteous to people they encounter at Parliament House in Canberra.

"(Security) officers are requested to treat any visitor to Parliament House with respect and courtesy and not address them as 'mate' or use similar colloquialisms," the notice read.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Would this directive have applied to Murray Whelan?

2. So does that mean "foreign running-dog lackey" is no longer an acceptable colloquial greeting? How about "dingo-face"?

3. Exactly how many seconds should the forehead remain kowtowed to the ground?

4. Don't people have better things to worry about?

MIS
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: dolphin noises
You know what this blog needs?

Some pictures.


This guy is Nathan Fillion, aka Captain Malcom Reynolds of "Firefly". Some say he resembles David Wenham.

"Firefly" was a short-lived series on FOX (very short-lived...it was cancelled in the middle of its first season). Now, normally I avoid the science fiction/space opera genre. My eyes glaze over when polyester-shirted characters start babbling about phasmotronic multiplexers and ionic disturbances in Sector 7XX-Gamma-N. However, "Firefly" is different. It's a space western, set in a distant future when Earth-That-Was is no longer habitable, and humanity has been forced to migrate to distant, terraformed planets. The culture is a mishmash of Chinese and Old West frontier, supported by strong characters, bluegrass music, and hilariously sarcastic dialogue. I can't recommend it highly enough.

The reason this is being posted today: gratuitous eye candy Serenity, the "Firefly" movie, is coming out next month. If you're a Buffy or Angel fan, go check it out.


And finally, this is my new personal motto:

MIS
Mood:  special
Now Playing: Tony Rice's bluegrass mosh pit

Why won't Tom Cruise stop talking?

make_it_stop
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: footsie
I grew up being a hoarder and at my parents' place my bedroom is still chock-a-block with stuff I must toss out. -- David Wenham, In Style magazine


So, after 23 years in the same house, my mom got remarried recently (to my dad) (very long story) and is moving to warmer climes. That means hauling tons of junk out of the crawl space in my old bedroom, and deciding what to do with it. Old T-shirts. Bad art. A milk crate full of vinyl LPs. The wooden leg I wore as Long John Silver in our school play. (arr!) It's appalling, the rate at which stuff accumulates.

The records got put out for sale at my mom's yard sale, in the hellish 97-degree oven of our driveway, where they could bake to a fine warp under the June sun. I figured there wouldn't be many takers, so I priced them at 5 for $1. Come to find out, there are a LOT of people who collect "vinyl" now. Apparently, it's all the rage among teenagers. At 9 am sharp, the bargain hunters descended like locusts and began elbowing each other out of the way, fighting to get at the crate.

Having not gone through the records first, I discovered afterwards that I had been sitting on a veritable treasure hoard: The Traveling Wilburies Volume 1 (worth $40 on eBay). Dr. Demento's Greatest Hits ($20). A rare Frank Zappa album that would have fetched $100 on the open market. My mom's neighbor's dog-sitter snapped them up for 60 cents, with a wild glint in her eye.

Oh well. I look at it this way: the records weren't worth anything to me. They were just sitting there in the crawl space, neglected and quietly gathering dust. How often do you get a chance to make someone insanely happy for 60 cents?

make_it_stop
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Madison's Head v. Marbury's Rock
*administers CPR to ailing blog*

So, this past weekend I rented "Don't Look Now", because it's been mentioned in several David interviews as one of his favorites. I'd never seen it before. It was quite good. It's a suspense/horror film, set in Venice, which here looks bleak, crumbly, and depressing. The city is literally sinking into the water (presumably in sympathy with Donald Sutherland's downward spiral), and there's a lot of repeated motifs - swirling water, breaking glass, the color red - and beautiful transitions. Without giving the ending away, it makes you realize that life can be seen as a series of fragmented vignettes that don't really make sense until the moment of your death. Only then do all the shards come together meaningfully, and then it's too late. (As Kierkegaard put it, "Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backwards").

In keeping with this theme of backwardness, I also happened to rent "Memento", starring Guy Pearce. Pearce, Pearce, Pearce....I couldn't figure out where I'd heard that name recently. It drove me nuts throughout the entire movie. Finally, this morning, I remembered that he'll be appearing in "The Proposition" with David. Duh!! I've since tattooed that fact onto my forearm, so I won't forget when I wake up in some seedy motel room tomorrow. Curse this lousy short-term memory. My train of thought keeps stopping right in the middle of a sent

MIS: Routine grove maintenance
Mood:  smelly
Now Playing: The Lakers vs. The Nuggets
Ack, I feel guilty...it's been nearly six months since I last ventured into the Sacred Grove. I'm debating whether to keep this feature going or not. *swats passing tumbleweed*

What the heck kind of a mood is "smelly"?

pFaz
Mood:  smelly
Now Playing: There's Always Tomorrow
Helloooooo out there!........Hmmmm, is this thing on??? Just poppping by to visit and thought I'd blog...I need to watch some DAvid to help me get over the illness that is going on around me...

PFazzzz
Mood:  special
Now Playing: Somethings Got to Give, the Stress of Xmas....
Whats this??? No post since the Hobbit report?/ Shame on you....:)

LOVE the EE and all the new Faramir stuff!!!