Rosemary Stretch.

For any of you Baltimore readers out there...

John Walker of Hide and Creep fame (he played "Agent F") will be performing with his band, Rosemary Stretch, at Dangerously Delicious Pies tomorrow night.


I haven't had the opportunity to see Rosemary Stretch live, but I dig the heck out of their recorded stuff. Break a leg, John!

Big bag of Hurt.

I'm finally getting around to watching The Hurt Locker. It's great, but I'm having trouble imagining what the screenplay must have looked like. I mean, this thing is all about the acting and the editing. And the directing, of course. It reminds me of one of my favorite John Carpenter quotes: "If the writer thinks he's an auteur, then let him thread up his screenplay in a projector and we'll take a look at it."


I used to complain that Hurt director Kathryn Bigelow was overrated. I mean, Point Break? Whatevs.

I hope that Ms. Bigelow will accept my apology for ever doubting her. She's the real deal.

Blood and sand.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand is looking to be Gladiator via 300, with a little Deadwood pay-cable profanity thrown in for good measure. The show recently premiered on Starz, and the first episode is already available to watch instantly on Netflix. Netflix, starting at only $8.99 per month, is one of the best entertainment deals out there. (Plus, they stream Hide and Creep!)


When you add Netflix to all the free programming available online these days (like Hulu and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim), I'm wondering if I should drop DishNetwork and just watch all my TV via the interwebs.

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Speaking of watching TV via the interwebs: XBMC.

Andrew and I briefly discuss (one of) the Asylum's problems.

Also... tambourine sticks!

The Ole Tavern.

Delicate Cutters, one of the bands I drum for, had a road gig on Saturday, traveling to Jackson, Mississippi, to play the Ole Tavern on George Street. As far as indie rock clubs go, I gotta say the Tavern is top-notch. On arriving, we were treated to a fantastic dinner (I had an excellent burger on sourdough toast, and bandleader Janet raved about the fried green tomatoes). The staff was friendly and professional, the stage sound was suitably rockin', and the audience was enthusiastic.


Many thanks to the Tavern for having us and to headliners Wooden Finger for sharing the stage with us. Check out the Tavern's Facebook page, and drop in for some eats and a beer the next time you're in Jackson.

Speaking of music, LoudQuietLoud is a very good documentary about the Pixies, a very awesome band. And you can watch it on Hulu right now for free.

Lost found.

Thanks to Netflix and Roku, I'm almost caught up on Lost.

The Decade in Review (#1).

Two years after the Academy gave a Best Picture Oscar to one of my least favorite films of the 2000s (Crash, the Paul Hack Haggis one, not the David Cronenberg one), they sort of redeemed themselves by giving the Best Picture Oscar to 2007's No Country for Old Men, an honest-to-goodness great movie. It's actually my favorite movie of that year, even better than Pixar's excellent Ratatouille, and my pick for Motion Picture of the Decade.

No Country is one of the Coen Brothers' best films. Considering they're the guys responsible for Miller's Crossing and The Big Lebowski, that's saying something. I remember first hearing about No Country, and that it didn't feature the wicked humor of other Coen flicks. On watching the movie for myself, I was relieved to find that this was not the case.


Don't get me wrong. No Country is a bleak, bleak movie. It is also often funny as hell. Disclaimer: I do have a pretty black sense of humor.

As with most Coen Brothers movies, No Country is almost impossibly well staged and edited. Roger Deakins, frequent Coen cinematographer, turns in some beautiful work here--2007 was a heck of a year for Deakins, as he also shot The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The plot, about an unstoppable hit man on a mission to recover a big pile of stolen drug money, is lean and tense. At the same time, it utilizes an unusual structure, a fact you probably won't realize until the movie is almost over (hint: that guy you think is the main character might not be the main character).

I opined a few days ago that last decade was a pretty rough time for most folks. Though it's set in 1980, No Country gets across the mood of the 2000s better than any other movie I know of. Just watch the movie's last scene with Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), where he tells his wife about a dream he had. I don't want to spoil the scene by quoting all of Bell's lines. But, damn, I sure know how he feels.

Honorable Mention: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Another Oscar gripe: The Academy gave the 2003 Best Picture award to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Sure, King is pretty good. But did anybody see Master and Commander from that year? A ripping yarn about an 1800s naval captain (Russell Crowe) and his crew, Master and Commander should have been a blockbuster and started a franchise. Unfortunately for fans of epic cinema, it didn't work out that way. Thank goodness for DVD.

The Decade in Review (#2).

Films about filmmaking get a bad rap. Maybe it's because the people making these movies are often beginners. They don't have a lot of life experience, so they figure they'll do a film about filmmaking. Unfortunately, they don't really have any filmmaking experience, either.

David Mamet has filmmaking experience to spare. He'd been working in Hollywood nearly twenty years by the time he wrote and directed his film about filmmaking, State and Main (2000). And, if the characters and situations in State and Main are any indication, Mamet's days in the business have been interesting, to say the least.


The plot is simple enough. A big Hollywood production company comes to a small town to make a movie. Also, since its Mamet, you can count on a con or two. Though the motivation for the biggest con is a lot more good-natured than in most of Mamet's work.

But the real joy of State and Main is the dialog. Mamet's dialog is always excellent, and he outdoes himself here. Line for line, this may be his best screenplay. And that screenplay is served by one of Mamet's best casts, an ensemble led by William H. Macy (as the experienced director), Philip Seymour Hoffman (as the first-time screenwriter), and Alec Baldwin (as the horn-dog superstar actor).

I am tempted to start quoting my favorite lines from the movie, but, if you've already seen State and Main, you undoubtedly already have favorites of your own. If you haven't seen it... well, I wouldn't want to spoil any of it.

Honorable Mention: The Way of the Gun

Another movie about filmmaking from 2000. But The Way of the Gun is a lot more metaphorical. In fact, I didn't realize the filmmaking subtext until I listened to the DVD commentary track from writer/director Christopher McQuarrie (who also wrote The Usual Suspects). Gun is also pretty quotable, and its plot is twisty as hell. Mamet would be proud.

Tomorrow: "Call it, friend-o."