Dogtown and Z-boys (2002) - Good Good Good Good - This is a documentary about a moment in time and place, the rebirth in skateboarding during the 70's spearheaded by the Zephyr team based in Venice, CA, aka Dogtown, and the personalities who made it happen. Filled with great skating footage and fond rememberances, it does a good job telling the story from many perspectives. It broght back many fond memories of the early days of skateboarding: searching for new places, learning new moves, scraping up my knees. Good fun.
posted by Greg 2:54 PM
The surrealist painter Matta died on Saturday at age 91. He was one of my favorites, and a chance to see his paintings is always something to be appreciated. Follow the link for many examples.
Hey, do you want to go to a "tony" party in Santa Monica on Thursday night? Mick Fleetwood is gonna be there. Here's the scoop: Somehow a curator got ahold of one of the postcards for my art show, and she liked the image and wanted to use some of my art for this show she's curating at Hum Music in Santa Monica. The only unsold work besides a few portraits was the one on the postcard, "Continental California Sci-Fi Metropolis," so that's the only one that's gonna be in it. There are three other artist's who's stuff will be up too. Oh yeah, BT, Minibar, and Money Mark are going to be performing. I've seen Minibar before and they're quite good. Hum Music is a recording studio and production company which does music for commercials and has a broadcast booth on-site. They also put out CD's of "emerging artists" and that's what this release party is for. I've been told that Mick Fleetwood is supposed to come, and that it should be real swanky. Plus it's free. Anyway, it's an rsvp thing, so if anyone wants to go, give me a call or email me, sooner than later. It's located in Santa Monica near Lincoln and Colorado and goes from 7-11, this Thursday the 21st. Valet parking available. I'll be there at least for a little while for sure, and hopefully we'll figure out a way to sneak Sean and Molli in too.
posted by Greg 11:21 AM
This is the the Rowena Resovoir, located at Hyperion and Rowena, just a few blocks from our house. We often take walks around it, like this morning. All this is just cosmetic, the real resovoir is an underground concrete tank. It's real pretty.
Silent Movie (1976) - Good Good Good - This is a bold experiment of a movie: a film with no spoken dialog. This is Mel Brook's tribute to the great slapstick masters, and once you get into the pace of it, it's a lot of fun. (It's also good for putting you to sleep. We had to watch it in shifts because it put Molli to sleep about five times.) My favorite part is when an exterminator truck with a four foot fly on top gets into a crash and the fly flies through the air, landing at a nearby resturant in Henny Youngman's soup. Of course the dialog card reads, "Hey waiter, there's a fly in my soup." If you appreciate that kind of thing, you'll like this movie.
posted by Greg 9:54 AM
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Clockstoppers (2002) - Good Good Good - This is a pretty good sci-fi/spy movie starring teenagers. It's not quite up to the level of Spy Kids or Big Fat Liar, but it moves along good and has a good premise. It centers around a watch that speeds up the user so fast that it's like he has stopped time. In the hands of some clever teenagers, many hijinks ensue, until the evil scientists start chasing them trying to get it back. It combines humor and action and doesn't take itself too seriously.
posted by Greg 3:25 PM
I'm a month behind in my movie reviews, so I'm going to try to catch up here. I haven't been to the theater, but I have managed to see a few on dvd or TV. I've also posted a link to an explanation of my personal rating system.
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - Good Good Good Good - I saw this in the theater and enjoyed it but had a hard time following it. I liked it much better the second time around. We watched this the night Molli went into labor, so it will always have a special place in my heart. In fact, I've started reading the book myself and am also reading my boy "The Two Towers" out loud in anticipation of the next movie.
Edge of Darkness (1943) - Good Good Good Good Good -This was by far the best movie I've seen in the last month. Set in a small fishing village in Norway 2 years after the Nazi's have taken over, it tells the story of the town's decision to risk their lives in rebellion against the invaders. Directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Errol Flynn, it's an exciting and heart wrenching story about a group of people who are willing to risk everything to fight for what's right. It includes several nasty Nazi's, a traitor who realizes the error of his ways, a traitor who doesn't realize this and pays for it, a Polish woman who's attempt to work with the Nazi's ends badly, and a pacifist preacher who turns into a killer. Well shot and acted, it's an incredibly moving piece of work which makes you forget it was made as propoganda.
High Noon (1952) - Good Good Good Good - In a way this movie is similar to Edge of Darkness, except that in this one the town refuses fight for what's right and leaves it up to Gary Cooper.
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2002) - Good Good - This is a strange and beautiful French movie. It's about French society, the church, martial arts, science, revolution, and the hunt for a terrible beast. It's a bit long but fun to watch even if you're not quite sure what's going on.
Windtalkers (2002) - eh - I like John Woo and was looking forward to this film, but it really doesn't work too well. It had it's moments, but there was definately something that didn't click.
Yesterday, Chris and Hilary brought over their great kids Justus and Eliza to meet Sean. They're a great family and were full of good advice and encouragement.
Don and Jen also stopped by with a super cool little piano for Sean. Thanks guys!
Today we gave Sean his first real bath, and then got back to what we do best: adoration!
