Mr Cat Dog

Haha, I love musicals but I'm not versed in them by any stretch. The oldies like The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, West Side Story and Funny Girl are all great, and newer ones like Dreamgirls and Chicago are stunners, but I haven't seen much to be called one. I've had a mind to watch that Lars von Trier feature for quite a while now though (along with Breaking the Waves and Dogville among others) but I've always put it off for something else. I probably might not ever be in a mood for a Lars von Trier film tbh, especially after Melancholia (hoooooo boy...)

I had Block Exams a few weeks ago, then had to prep for a Semester Exam week two weeks later. It's been a hellish month of page-flipping and memorizing. x_x Think I averaged 3-4 hours of sleep per night for the past two weeks. Back to attending the regular lectures now but I caught a bacterial infection just yesterday. The shits don't stop :|

Maps to the Stars was sort of where its both banal and cutthroat, the former feeding into the latter, with a vileness and magic that bubbles constantly as the film runs. It pushes Hollywood into its most horrifying form; hateful, plastic, hateful, traitorous. It's also so hysterical, but more in a sick, schadenfreude kind of way (see: every J. Moore scene). I definitely can see why people would hate it though. It's stylized in such a distinct way; the tone, dialogue, music, etc. if you don't like it 10 minutes in, you probably wouldn't like the rest.

I'm a sucker for musicals! One other musical that I loved from last year was Into the Woods which cranked out some fantastic musical numbers and a charming cast and CRAZY visuals, but Jersey Boys has the advantage of Clint Eastwood's classicist yet easy-breezy direction, a testosterone-injected rise-and-fall story, and a timely form of acting among its stellar cast. One of last year's truest and most deeply-felt and passionate biographies. It's main criticism I think is how boring it is, but it never seemed boring to me!

It's very hard to write about Jauja and why it was so stunning to me, so I'll forego that for now so you can watch it without pretense, but it's anything but conventional!

Broad City had probably one of the funniest first seasons of any comedy I've watched. Ilana and Abbi and Hannibal Buress are comedy Gods. Think I'll check out Kimmy Schmidt first though. Reckon I need a dose of Ellie Kemper now.

Yo! Really sorry for the late reply, had a brutally long, sleepless week of exams, but am back now :3

Yes! I haven't checked out the new season yet but I'm considering watching Girls first, rather than, say, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or Broad City, since I've been craving some seriously witty and pessimistic TV as of late. Is Ray and Shoshanna getting some good material this time round? They're the best, funniest parts of the show to me, hahah.

And ey! I'm padlocking 2014, after 51 films (reached my goal of 50, the surplus being Miss Julie, which I thought I had good hunch for but apparently was too exorbitant and loud for me). I STILL haven't seen Inherent Vice, Foxcatcher, Timbuktu, and Mommy, among others, but I'll forego those for now to post this:

1-5 : Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Jauja, Edge of Tomorrow, Stations of the Cross
6-10 : Maps to the Stars, Jersey Boys, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, American Sniper, A Most Violent Year
11-15 : Buzzard, Goodbye to Language 3D, Obvious Child, Journey to the West (Xi You), Selma

and...

51 : Lilting

Yeah, it's a mixed bag, but they've all brought me to a greater appreciation and understanding, as well as a richer insight, into the medium. Cinematic conventions and radicalism done well, as well as sheer dramatic absurdity, and even those that prove the fecundity of ideas permeating the box office, they're all there in some capacity and I love 'em all. Total opposites to Lilting, probably the most maudlin, most tame film I saw from last year. On to 2015 :)

heh. Well damn that's... argh, I'm jealous haha. For some reason though I am not all that surprised about the lack of stage presence although I feel like a lot of stuff from Hospice is pretty delicate. Dunno if they played much from Burst Apart and Familiars though - I imagine the former would at least have some stuff for them to play about with on stage.

legitimately
do one.

When did you see them live though?! And in all seriousness, why didn't you like Hospice (or like it least, anyway)?

Aiming for early June.

It's a really cool place. I felt like I was at home within a matter of days, I'm hoping stay there for a very long time.

god sake jon

i can see how not knowing which threads i am viewing is a severe loss to you

haha why do you need to stalk me?

almost definitely :)

Oh yeah, and I know you're still keeping in touch with TV and the Emmys so check this out if you haven't yet: http://tvline.com/2015/02/20/emmy-awards-rule-changes-comedy-drama-half-hour/

You got 70-something-percent right, that's great I guess? Am bit iffy with the Birdman win when there's Boyhood, Grand Budapest and American Sniper contending but it's whatever. It's a good film! Dat cinematography! Though that screenplay win is pretty irksome (should have gone to Grand Budapest). And that John Travolta portion. Christ on sale.

Also, you should really be updating your blog more. Maybe put the reviews you make on Letterboxd into some sort of Week in Review thing on your Wordpress? I would definitely read it; I love the way you write. Its bookmark would so perfectly sit next to some other film blogs I subscribe to. ;)

Eyyy, your rating for Kumiko is making me feel sad. Is it that bad? A Fargo "meta spin-off" thing starring Kikuchi was sounding so great to me.

yeah i imagine the rym charts are practically identical. never understood the love for pulp fiction mysef either, as good as it is.

nice. I miss London, but I love Brighton so am looking forward to that. We should get together with Adri again some time.

It's cool, you aren't alone.

I remember you and now I feel old.

hey. yeah im familiar with letterbox'd but mostly use rateyourmusic for music and film.

i'm back in the UK, currently in Falmouth but soon to be in Brighton. hbu?

yeah I thought I was ready for it )': I'll probably watch The Seventh Seal sometime soon. I feel like there's definitely something in Persona that I just wasn't picking up on that first time, so someday. maybe I will love it eventually.

oopsies I forgot to respond. man when I went to see Inherent Vice there were like 5 other people in the audience and it was opening weekend. they were all 50+ too. the voiceovers were great. Josh Brolin was fucking hilarious in it, the scene where he's eating the chocolate covered banana in the car made me lose my shit and I don't even know why. and the end when he dumped the tray of weed into his mouth was also quite priceless. and did it really make you interested in the book? if anything it turned me off completely from it, I feel like that kind of meandering in a book would be totally uninteresting. and this is from someone whose favorite novel is Infinite Jest. (I'm not sure what that actually means, but I guess it implies I'm not averse to meandering in books? IJ has zero plot and I still love it. maybe I just need to dislodge my head from my ass)

jesus christ seeing that with a live score sounds really, really cool. I loved Under the Skin the first time I saw it, but the second time a lot of the things that I found really interesting or Clever or Well-Done just kind of felt... hokey. or something. the only scene that affected me like it did the first time was the scene where you see the guy, like, pop. that still fucks me up. and everything after the deformed guy I didn't really enjoy as much, but the ending is really, really cool. and I was less wowed by the cinematography. so maybe I should have just not watched it again and stayed impressed by it.

anywho, I watched Persona yesterday, and I didn't like it much. honestly, I think I was expecting something totally off-the-rails, and I think I hyped it up too much going in. my favorite scenes were the beginning and end and the part in the middle where the film reel like, explodes. everything else felt KIND OF disposable and I found Bibi Andersson's character deeply annoying. but I did some reading up on it after and I think I missed a fair bit. I'll have to watch again at some point.

Ah right, skipped over the date. Sharing a space with St. Vincent is a life goal of mine, and I reckon I'll be able to check her out if she plays at Singapore again next year with Laneway Festival. Lucky-ass Londoners.

Okayyyy. I'll just be here listening to Black Messiah on repeat. I'm actually crazy on The Soulquarians right now. Been listening to a lot of Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, Common, J Dilla and The Roots in the past week, and it's been like perpetual zen every day. Pretty cool feeling, would highly recommend it.

BOOOO *throws greasy movie popcorn at Cat* Tell me 'bout them later, ya scum.

Make sure you're standing front-and-center when Annie plays Krokodil. She does a crowd surf and you can briefly graze your hand on her angel-skin if you're lucky.