two sentence movie reviews...

hanna - a friend hyped this as a european style "arty" action movie. about as arty as x-men origins: wolverine. C.

battle: los angeles - preview looked really good, kinda like district 9 part II. mad formulaic though, best suited for 12 y/o boys. C-.

bridesmaids - in contrast, this moving looked dumb on previews. ended up being the best female lead comedy i can remember, a movie worthy of it's apatowish heritage. A.

the illusionist - not the ed norton vehicle that was overshadowed by the prestige, but rather the latest by french animator chomet. no triplets of belleville, but still a touching portrait. B+.

lincoln lawyer - kind of like a slightly inferior version of the gosling / hopkins vehicle fracture from a couple years ago. just keep livin', mcconaughey. B-.

More AP Euro

This question is from a test bank I use...

46. Which of the following was not an example of “grunge” music?
a. Snoop Doggy Dogg
b. Nirvana
c. P earl Jam
d. Sonic Youth
e. all were “grunge”
ANSWER: a (p. 957)

My favorite answer is (e).

I also like the fact that only one of the bands is actually a "grunge" band.

History

This picture, of a prominent world leader, is in one of the textbooks I use in my European History class.

Lil' Q:

folks, sorry for the slow moving times on this dying enterprise of a blog. in any event, wanted to call people's attention to PC's elder spawn's appearance on the front page of the banner-herald on sunday. here is the pic. pretty cool.

RIP, Nate Dogg:

godspeed, good sir.

happy friday, folks.

Trish Keenan

Trish Keenan, lead singer of Broadcast, died about a month ago as you might have heard. Besides putting out a handful of albums (three of which, Work and Non Work, The Noise Made By People, and Tender Buttons garner A+ status in my book), Broadcast put on two of the best shows I have ever seen, both in East Atlanta. I just bought their most recent effort, Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, which is just as weird (and great) as it sounds. Below are some reasons to be sad you missed them:

Flash a Stop Sign

I have lived in the U.S. on and off for the last 8 years and I think I can say that my English language skills have definitely improved. However, a recent incident ("Your dog is such a cute little vermin!") reminded me that there is still some work to be done. It also inspired me to write down the top 5 mishaps of intercultural misunderstandings and incidents in which I found myself lost in translation or otherwise confused:


#1 First Visit to the Grocery Store

One of my all time high moments in the category lost in translation happened on my second day in Athens in August 2002.

My first time in the U.S., I was not only struggling with the language but also with the Southern accent. What's now music in my ears was then pure horror. Everything was a challenge even a simple visit to the grocery store.

I took the bus from Baxter to BiLo on South Milledge. I got my groceries, proceeded to the check out, and swiped my card. The guy at the register asked me "Debit or Credit?". All I understand is "credit" and I reply "yes". The guy annoyed: "Yes, what!?" My confusion grows reciprocal to length of the line behind me. What is debit? After some back and forth I asked him to hold my stuff, left, got cash out of an ATM, came back and paid. My roommate later explained "debit" and I never went back.

On a side note, I carried my 4 big bags back home from South Milledge to Baxter Street (in August). Half way, a random guy in a car asks me whether I need help. Sweating like Mother Teresa in an all men's sauna, I kindly declined in shame and pretended, that my place is right around the corner. It was not...


#2 First Thanksgiving

The family of a now very good friend invited me to come to Atlanta for my first Thanksgiving Holiday after running the Atlanta Half Marathon. I truly had a great time and it could not have been a better experience of one of the best American traditions. To me it was clear that I needed to show my heartfelt gratitude upon leaving, which I did by uttering: "Thank you so much for your hostility." It wasn't until the Thanksgiving the following year that I was told about the mishap and the existence of the word "hospitality."


#3 Flash a Stop Sign

At some point your friends stop correcting your mistakes. That's the only explanation I have for getting away with using the phrase "Flash a stop sign." in sentences like "Oops, i think I just flashed a stop sign" or "I saw a guy today flashing a red light at the intersection downtown" for years.

Half a year ago Stef mentioned that I should not use the word "flash" in this context. "You should use "run" instead." Apparently she was always wondering what I am talking about. My mind was racing trying to figure out who of the people that don't know me too well could have mistaken me for a total creep for uttering the words.


#4 Eisels

I am a new employee at the Agora store in Athens, horrified about every customer coming into the door because my English is still not what it should be for
excellent customer service. But i need this job desperately and try to give my best. A Woman enters the store. "Hi there, do you have eisels?" Me: "Sorry ma'am, we don't sell animals."


#5 New York Road Trip

I'm driving my 1993 Mazda Protege up the highway to NYC breathing the smell of the open road. I am finally enjoying being part of the American way of live and total mobility after numerous previous eye opening trips in Greyhound Buses. I was enjoying myself so much that I first didn't realize the police car approaching from the back with its signal lights on.

I wasn't anywhere near Autobahn speed but thought to myself that I must have been speeding. The police car approaches, I pull over to the shoulder of the Freeway and stop. Instead of enjoying the American dream, I now try concentrating on what my friends told me to do in situations like these in order to not get shot. The cop car stops right in front of me behind a stalled car. The police officer gets out and walks over to me: "Can I help you young man?" Now I am totally confused. Why would he ask that right after pulling me over?

"Well officer, you pulled me over but I am not sure for what. I don't think I was speeding." "No see son, if I wanted to pull you over, I would have driven and stopped right BEHIND you. I was just gonna check on the stalled car right up there." The level of embarrassment I instantly experienced is indescribable. Knowing that I would be the laughingstock in some random highway police station in the middle of Virginia for quite a while didn't make it any better.

There are more stories than that (Huevos will always (mis)remember a lost in translation moment at the entry of the law library) and I'll try to write them down in the weeks to come.

K

cable cars...

this lady is BUGGIN' OUT:

Colbert's "Sell-Out Off":

this was a pretty top notch feature by colbert, who i become more and more convinced is a genius. good the whole way, but relevant portion picks up at about 4:20.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
MeTunes - Grammy Vote - Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney & Ezra Koenig<a>
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> Video Archive

i think VW kinda sucks, and i don't really know BK's stuff, but i give both bands points for taking part.

Top 5 Flicks of 2010:

my personal top 5...

1. A Prophet - expressed my appreciation for this masterpiece previously. as i said then, it joins shawshank and cool hand luke in the upper echelon of prison flicks (zig, i still haven't seen le trou but i might get it from netflix this week). anyway, this movie has a couple seriously raw scenes. on the whole, i think it's a great depiction of the brutality / yet delicacy involved in navigating human power structure.
2. Black Swan - had read mixed reviews, and honestly went in expecting to be underwhelmed. but this flick is fantastic. the closing 20 min or so (the opening night) is dizzying and beautiful. aronofsky's best film to date.
3. Inception - commented on this briefly in comment to HC's post. conversations trying to decipher what was really going on in this one were pretty common for a few weeks there. as i indicated, i think i agree with this piece that HC forwarded me. regardless of various possible levels of reality, this was a true "edge of the seat" thriller for me. succeeded in reality bending in a way that the similar shutter island failed. i was totally zoned in on this flick from start to finish, as was the whole opening weekend audience.
4. The Social Network - a very enjoyable (and "topical") film. well written, well acted. eisenberg may be around for a while.
5. The Fighter - have never seen christian bale play such a funny and magnetic character. he was funny in american psycho i guess, but this character showed range for a great actor whose only flaw is that he seems like he maybe takes himself too seriously. wahlberg was also great, as was amy adams. similar to #1, it joins exclusive company as a top 3 boxing movie (obviously the other two being rocky and raging bull).

honorable mention:
true grit, cyrus, i am love.

overrated/disappointing list:
avatar, alice in wonderland, greenberg.


your top fives?

BBQ

From Phillip's, one of my favorite BBQ spots in LA. My other favorite is called Big Mista's.

Yeah

Black Christmas. Tomorrow night on TCM. Thanks to Reno for introducing me to this in the first place.

the prez:

wow folks. just went a full calendar month without a post on here. that's pretty ridiculous. is it time to shut this thing down? i guess we should keep it around, even if it pretty much goes dormant. i don't know.


in any event, lots of opinions going around about our president. some people think these congressional elections spelled his end. others think that it will spur him to move in a more moderate direction promote bipartisanship. i for one think he's seemed super moderate the whole time he's been in office, so i'm not sure what this movement would entail. anyway, some "progressive bloggers" and such have been suggesting there should be a primary challenge against obama. that is such bullshit. first, do you think there's somebody more electable in the democratic party? howard dean? come on. second, obama is still awesome. clinton was in a similar bind after two years, and he ended up just fine (other than the blowjob thing). third, this guy makes some really good points. the most relevant to this discussion is that obama losing in the 2012 dem primary would be a GREAT way to alienate minority voters... maybe forever? the other point regarding why he can't be more "fiery" is an interesting point as well.

question: i know all of us / our limited readership are left leaning. that said, does anyone reading this believe there would be a "Tea Party" if obama was white? if a white dem president had done every single thing exactly the same, would the TP exist? i feel very confident in saying no.


coming soon...top 5 movies of the year list. get yours ready.

Gene Simmons is Big Cat's role model:

Slightly more information on the shooting of a knife wielding man

This weekend this happened. The deceased is a former client of mine (more frequently rep'd by other attorneys in the office) and former client of Huevos's outfit. The article gets the gist of the story. As you can see by the comments, it provokes one of two very standard responses: 1. of course the cop shot the guy and it was the right thing to do (the vast majority of commenters) or 2. cop was too quick on the trigger when other avenues of resolving the situation may have existed. So here's the little more info

The deceased was essentially and old drunk (one of his former lawyers said "anyo cop whose afraid of sam needs to find another line of work") but one who would often ramp up the stakes of the usual drunken brawling, including the agg assault where he was found guilty of a misdemeanor just a couple weeks ago. Most of his cases involved some combination of alcohol and seemingly excessive agression. But he never seriously injured anybody. On the other hand, Al Sharpton's not going to roll into the ATH to protest the tragic loss of his innocent life.

The officer has frequently worked patrolling public housing areas, admittedly hard work. However, he consistently pushes the envelope (to put it mildly) of what is/is not a legal search. More importantly, he has always been someone who escalates situations, taking situations that may be tense and making them more tense. Cops are frequently in tense situations, and they either escalte or de-escalate them. This guy consistently does the former. The shooting of the dog that is mentioned (not the one where he is injured, which seems fairly reasonable) actually involved a friend of my co-worker. In that case, it is undisputed that the dog weighed 30 pounds. The owners (my co-workers friend) say the dog slipped out by pushiing on a screen door and was a totally non-agressive dog. In any event, the truth is a 30 lb dog (half the size of my own medium sized dogs) can be dealt with in about nine different ways short of killing it. So shooting the 30 lb dog seems extremely dicey.

So in the end, whoever's right and whoever's wrong, it's really about the least surprising situation possible. It was Sam being Sam and Lou being Lou, and the odds are they were both moving inevitably towards this moment or one like it.

"The Black Hulk Hogan":

so this dude is running for governor of new york:



hero.

law school:

i don't hate my job. not that i enjoy getting up the morning, but it's a decent gig as far as these things go. but a lot of lawyers truly do hate their existence. but i digress. in any event, here's a pretty apt video that comes to us courtesy of HC:

Springsteen Arena Rock & Funk Dance Party with special guest DJ Johnny 99

Mr. Ben Makin & I will be DJing together for the 1st time at Little Kings Saturday night starting around 10:30 pm. It's gonna be a Bruce Springsteen dance party with lots of fun elements thrown in. Will we see you there?

dark secrets:

thanks to Z for clueing me into this magnificent jewel.

the new season of eastbound and down starts a week from sunday. cannot wait.

btw, it's always sunny is back as of last night. funniest two shows on tv.