All I Smell is CHOCOLATE!!

I think I've talked about the snack cube before. We have someone out of town who's sitting there today. It's also a team members birthday so we have chocolate cookies and cupcakes which would usually go in the snack cube, but Miss Thang from Dallas wants to avoid temptation.

So they're in my cube.

You'll all still love me when I'm fat, right?

***PS 5 minutes later -- an old guy just strolled by, looked over the food smacked his lips and spit actually flew out of his mouth and down onto his chin as he grabbed a cupcake. Shutter!!
(Fruedian slip, I first typed CUBcake)

AND this one because it is silly...

When I seen this I knew I had to post it!

Babel (or as I like to call it, blah, blah, blah)

In this great big world we're all alone and desperate for human touch. Even our most prevelant means of communication, speech, isn't able to convey that deep desire and help us accieve the connection we're looking for and blah blah blah.

If this wins Best Picture it will be for the same reason Crash won last year (although Crash is a much better movie, watch that instead). Something about the majority of academy voters crammed into that strange LA valley makes their brains receptive to this unnessicarly complicated story as all other awards ceremonies this year have proven. Not that it's a bad movie, it is an interesting, well performed, directed, and edited commentary on all of the ideas addressed above but you still walk away feeling a little bit confused as to why certain things were included to apparently enhance the story telling.

Babel presents the concept that no matter how innocent/young we may be, we all carry the pain of the scars of the world around us. What is actually a fairly simple and thought provoking plot is convoluted by some skipping around timeline issues, and that fact that pretty much the only reason the action is on three different contitnents is to enhance the concept of seperation between people who are essentially all same and that almost makes the execution feel gimmicky. It basically always feels like the film is trying to tackle too much at once, which just leads to confusion. Which I suppose is ironic in a movie about confusion caused by miscommunication, but not something you want to do to an audience.

I DID enjoy the concept of the Japanese daughter (whose personal scarring comes from witnessing her mother's gun inflicted suicide and now flashes her poonani at any passing stranger as a means find comfort) being deaf. For what ever reason, that aspect of dealing with communication spoke to me (no pun intended) more than the "look we're everywhere" stuff. And as the story unravels there seemed to be more and more situations that were implausible but written with the assumption that "it's just so weird it has to have happened."

I kind of wish I had made the effort to seen this one in the theater simply because, on my computer, I kept thinking I'd accidentally turned off my subtitle option and then messed around with it. I'm assuming in the theater there's a lot that's tranlated and a lot left open for an English speaking audiences interpretation. But I got nervous that perhaps I had shut off ALL subtitles in my fiddling, so I'd switch them on again and then EVERYTHING was subtitled.

There are some excellent moments when people's emotions are shot to incredible heights as a result of dealing with communication issues. In that respect the movie keeps with that theme quite well. But then you have the 10 minute Rolling on E sequence with the deaf Japanese girl that kind of made me long for the fast paced trippy secquences in Moulin Rouge! which related just as much information about 10 times faster.

The main reason to see this movie is the performances. Particularly Adriana Barraza as a Mexican nanny who has lived in America for 16 years and raised Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett's children since birth. Put in an impossible situation when Brad Pitt forces her to take care of the kids (when his sister in law isn't able to show up for some reason that's never explained) when she was supposed to go to her son's wedding in Mexico, she makes the choice to bring her two families together. Since Brad Pitt is a continent away, she decides to have her nephew drive her down for the day and then cart her and the ninos back. Of course there's issues getting back into America and her nephew jumps the border with the car, driving them out to the middle of nowhere and shoving them out into the desert. This fairly implausible plot devise aside, her performance as a mother, a woman, a caregiver, and a terrified immigrant meld together in a plotline that has far more heart than the other two stories.

I believed all the other performances and agree that Brad Pitt should probably have recieved more awards buzz than he's gotten. His performance was just as moving as Rinko Kikuchi as the deaf daughter and I just regret that HE wasn't the one flashing his junk all over the place. And this will get me crap from my friends who make fun of my appriciation for older guys but, Brad Pitt with gray hair and a beard...LORD...mmmm.

Other than the subtitle issue I mentioned above, this is probably a rental. Worth seeing but only after checking out Crash, 21 Grams, and Syriana. This really is a good movie, I know I've been tearing it down. But if it wins best picture on Monday, I'm going to be kind of bummed. And it will only have happened because people like to be artsy and think if they're walking away from something confused, that must mean it was REALLY good.

Everyone Just Wants to be Loved (Even Obsessed Judi Dench)

Any time an opening shot fades up to the pulsing strings of Phillip Glass, I know I'm always in for a thought provoking and often slightly upsetting piece of cinema, and Notes on a Scandal is no exception. With an EXCELLENT script based on the novel pre-titled "What Was She Thinking," we are presented a world viewed by the embittered, lonely, catty as Oscar Wilde, and self described "battle axe," Barbara Covett (mmmm name symbolism is fun). The events are relayed with running commentary from her piercing diary, a device which could easily become tiresome but instead adds another level of thought, humor, and ultimately pain to story.

The leading women give great depth to two characters who could easily be simply two dimensional. Cate Blanchet is Sheba, the young, idealistic intellectual who hopes to inspire her students if for no other reason than to find meaning in her life beyond her slightly stale marriage and two children. Judi Dench, as described above, is a loner with a scary secret. When she falls in love she falls HARD. And she's so deprived of human contact it takes merely normal friendliness to get her heart pumping. And, as with other classic characters who haven't been properly socialized, her idea of love is quickly perverted into territorial obsession.

The pacing of events is quite impressive. You're sucked into Sheba and Barbara's friendship and (if you haven't seen any trailers or read reviews of the movie) are as blindsided as Barabara when confronted with Sheba's affair with a 15 year old student that's been ongoing for weeks already. While the story takes appropriate times to pause over the family/relationship importance of the holiday season that's nessicary, things happen at a rate that is appropriate but not dragging, which is a problem so many dramatic movies have in common.

Unfortunately this aspect of the script is what keeps it from being a perfect movie. Barabara is forced to put down her sick cat and flees to Sheba for comfort. As she approaches their house, Sheba and her family are pulling out in the station wagon to attend a school play starring her 12 year old, downs syndrome affected son. Of course this is an excellent opportunity to show the crisis of Sheba's having to choose and an effective way to provoke Barabara's jealous rage to spiral her into the next act, but after 10 minutes of seeing how Barabara had become a part of the family, there's unexpected outbursts from Sheba's daughter and husband who have both suddenly become quite sick of Barabara for no apparent reason. Perhaps there's a cut scene or two that will be on the dvd, and polarizing the two out of three loves in Sheba's life is always the best option to move the story along, but...there it is.

When we left the theater, I was the only one of my group who actually felt sympathy for Judi Dench. That doesn't mean I excused the way she manipulates Sheba into her underground lair, but I could follow the thought process. Perhaps it's another issue preventing it from being a perfect movie that prevents people from relating to Babs. Or perhaps it's Dame Dench's performance that relays such intimidating power and craziness that no one wants to fuck with her.

This is the second movie I've seen Judi Dench in a gay role. The first is the Shipping News with Kevin Spacey. She always chooses roles of women who have loved once and because of either pain or societal attitudes, or both, have never made the effort to love again. I'm sure it's more a nod to her choice of characters with depth rather than a concerted effort to assist the gay rights movement, but I just thought it was worth noting. You go girl!

As someone with a soft spot for films about love and obsession (see Vertigo and Sunset Boulevard in my top ten list), this one definitely hit the mark. The camera repeatedly captures the age on Barabara's face as if to assist in counting the years she's been alone and searching for the soulmate she thinks she's found in Sheba. Her claw-like hands yearn to caress Sheba's snow white skin but everyone knows they never will.

This is a film about the tragedies we bring on ourselves out of a desperation that we may we may never feel the depth of emotion, tenderness, and life we might find with someone new. For all those movies promoting the regret felt toward untaken risks, this one presents what could happen when we take a risk our desires have perverted into one worth taking. But, then again, who can ever say no to love?

And look below. How could you NOT let that 15 year old destroy your career and family life?!

Kind of Funny But Kind of Sad

I'm sure this won't be the last multiple forward e-mail chain that's gonna get posted, but let's have a big hand for the first.

HURRAY!

Bush Bumper Stickers

1. Bush: End of an Error

2. That's OK, I Wasn't Using My Civil Liberties Anyway

3. Let's Fix Democracy in this Country First

4. If You Want a Nation Ruled By Religion, Move to Iran

5. Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.

6. If You Can Read This, You're Not Our President

7. Of Course It Hurts: You're Getting Screwed by an Elephant

8. Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?

9. George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight

10. Impeachment: It's Not Just for Blow Jobs Anymore

11. America: One Nation, Under Surveillance

12. They Call Him "W" So He Can Spell It

13. Whose God Do You Kill For?

14. Jail to the Chief

15. No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade Iraq?

16. Bush: God's Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap

17. Bad President! No Banana.

18. We Need a President Who's Fluent In At Least One Language

19. We're Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them

20. Is It Vietnam Yet?

21. Bush Doesn't Care About White People, Either

22. Where Are We Going? And Why Are We In This Handbasket?

23. You Elected Him. You Deserve Him.

24. Dubya, Your Dad Shoulda Pulled Out, Too

25. When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46

26. Pray For Impeachment

27. The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century

28. What Part of "Bush Lied" Don't You Understand?

29. One Nation Under Clod

30. 2004: Embarrassed 2005: Horrified 2006: Terrified

31. Bush Never Exhaled

32. At Least Nixon Resigned

Ew NPR...just...ew...

So apparently when I get my butt over to Australia to do the tour of all the locations from such classics as Muriel's Wedding, and Adventures of Pricsilla Queen of the Desert, I'll be sucking on these bad boys.

MUSK FLAVOURED LIFE SAVERS.

Blech.

One person described them as licking a stick of ladies deoderant. I'll take that and a bottle of vegimite please.

MARDI GRAS!

SHOW US YOUR TITS!!!

Or whatever it is you've got to whip out for the RDR boys.

No, seriously, matty@razzledazzleradio.com for nudie pics. Come on you guys...it's either this or xtube, and I reached the end of that last weekend.

In the true sense of mardi gras excitement I'm drunk at my desk
*falls over*

Ohmygodimsodrunk. Where's my underwear...fuuuuuck....Howard? Howard?
uuuhhhhhhhh.

Suga-pie. Suga-pie.

My Weekend

Nice relaxing weekend. Edited the show. Helped with sound on La Faux. Went out to the Cuff Saturday night. Spent the night at the bf's. Caught up on my Family Guy DVDs, then moved on to Simpsons season 9. Got myself a Wii people!! And (to my shame), it's still not hooked up. I'm just trying to get through the pile of DVD sets I recieved for Xmas and my birthday which I've been putting off. So much play time to be had.

And by play time I mean...

When I was taking a break from the computer stuff, especially on Sunday, it was soooo a lazy day that I just wanted to turn on TBS and watch them loop When Harry Met Sally over and over. I love days like that. Mmmm relaxing.

Happy Three Day Weekend!

VD (and I don't mean syphilus)

Whether you've got someone around or not, take time out today to enjoy love. When in doubt, I remember that food always loves me.

Mmmm chocolate cake.

Personally doing beer and pizza at my place tonight with G.

Told Jerimy to have at least a PG rated Valentine's Day. Cause we live in a world where it's silly to ask for miracles.

But for each and everyone one of you, hope all your Valentine Days are X rated!!

I FOUND IT!

I think I've talked about this PSA on the show before. Even if I haven't, ENJOY!

I'm So Damn SICK of This War!

And to be honest I'm a little tired of World War II. I realize it was probably the biggest thing to happen worldwide since the creation of the film medium but...more Little Miss Sunshine's less Schindler's List/Pearl Harbor/Saving Private Ryan's/etc.

That said, Letters from Iwo Jima is an AMAZING movie and a serious contendor for the Best Picture Oscar this year (although I haven't seen Babel and The Departed yet).

Visually we're told all we need to know in the first 60 seconds. Everything is bleak, desaturated, and desolate. Except for the browns and olives of uniforms and the ocassional foliage, the only color we see is the ocasional shot of the blue sky. Which is normally a washed out white, or not visible at all as so much of the movie takes place in caves. As the story evolves so do the visuals. The last hour is spent virtually on a moonscape, where there's nothing familiar or living but these soldiers who are trapped in this strange land. There's also a great use of shadow which means that same last hour of the movie is spent with at least a third of the screen in pitch blackness.

It's a movie about symbols. Which seems to be the theme in common with it's companion piece, Flags of Our Fathers, which I haven't seen yet. The characters are forced to defend this desolate wasteland where even the water is poison because an unseen/uncontrolable power (the Emperor) demands it. And because of their perception of honor, they die. I don't know enough history to know the importance of Iwo Jima from a strategic stand point. Toward the end of the movie there was discussion about how if Iwo Jima fell, Japan would fall and it seemed to imply that was because of the proximity to the Japanese islands. But even establishing that, this group of humans is defending a piece of shit land because another group of humans want the piece of shit land because in the grand scheme of things it MEANS something.

When I took Chinese Film at Evergreen we often discussed how so many Chinese films took place pre-communist revolution to comment on life post-communist revolution without being censored. Film is a visual metaphor, and the use of allagory is alive and well. So many movies coming out now address the terror of a military regime where people die at the whim of a madman for a grand cause that ultimately is ridiculous/worthless. And I'm as heart sick about it as I'm just plain tired of it. Much like the AIDS epidemic, it's something that's constantly there which causes endless suffer, and I'm goddamned sick of it. But it's not something that can be ignored.

I'm all over the board right now but the point is, this movie, like every good movie, establishes universal truths. The fact that it's entirely in Japanese emphasizes that rather than alienates English speaking audiences. It shows that with all the differences, we're all the same. We're all tired of fighting. We all have mothers who worry about us. And we all try to do what's right because it is right.

Why is that so hard to understand?

I'll Be Your Dentist/ And I Enjoyed the Career That I Picked...

Came in late to work today because I went to my new dentist for a cleaning. Check out next Wednesday's show for the fun details but the thing that got me the most was the 18 (no joke) X-rays they had to take since I'm a new patient.

18?

Really?

I don't even think I have 18 teeth? Damn that year I spent in the pro hockey league.

Something to make us all Happy!

Found this through This Boy Elroy who I found from our listener Kalvin.

Spread the good news everyone!!

Feeling Better

Hey there, thanks for bearing through Moody Matty the other day.

ALL BETTER NOW!!

Tonight I'm going to see Oscar nominated "Letters to Iwo Jima." I'll keep you posted!

CHING CHONG BING BONG, Y'ALLS!

Ever Have One of Those Nights...

Where you just want to listen to sad music and massage that damaged heart til tears come. Or don't.

Wallow wallow wallow.

Is there irony in the fact that this is how I feel when I DON'T drink?

Sorry, I'll bring the funny later...

Congrats to Kate! I'm really proud of you!!

Guess it's Cookies For Me Today...blech

I guess I'm a lucky boy that I've reached the age of 26 and never had a truly awful salad but the one I put together for myself at the bar downstairs qualifies. Blech. I think it was my own unfortunate combination of crap and no dressing. I tried choking it down but...not happening. Gag. That's a BAD SALAD! BAD!!

Oh well. Gotta get some sort of sustinance. Snack machine here I come.

It's ok, I hit the gym tomorrow...

Matty's New Cheap HIV Test

Not that you can get any cheaper than the free tests Planned Parenthood
provides, but I've figured out this new way to ensure you have a solid immune system without getting stuck by a needle.

First, surround yourself with sick people. Watch them cough and sneeze and basically fill the air with germies.

If you want to be really extreme, let one lick you.

Let a couple of days go by. If you don't get sick, your immune system works. HURRAY!

I've been participating in this test for the past few days in my cubicle at work. So far, all signs point to healthy.

Though I do need a cough drop. Dun Dun Dun! Not funny? Hmmm...

Seriously, if you are moved to do anything to help the HIV + community, please check out this link http://seattlevaccines.org/volunteer_opportunities.html

I Need a Hug After This Movie

Having read the book a few years ago, and hearing all the buzz around Forrest Whitaker's performance, I was looking forward to seeing this movie. The anticipation was definitely merited. But man...dictator's are MEAN and CRAZY!

Not only is Forrest Whitaker amazing as this large intimidating figure, from an acting standpoint he doesn't have a single scene where he doesn't have to hit about 5 different seriously intense and polar opposite emotions in the space of like 2 minutes. Of course it's this polarity spinning on an axis of paranoia that makes these type of people so terrifying in real life, and so hard to represent on stage or film. The movie ends with footage of the real Idi Amin and, as powerful as Whitaker was, I'd be ten times more afraid to see the real person barrelling down on me in a rage that replaced his good humored smile from mere seconds before.

It's also worth mentioning Gillian Anderson's performance in the small role of a British doctor's wife. I'd like to see David Duchovney be able to find himself a role that he could perform so well as to not even be recognizable by audience members.

The intensity of this movie comes through not only in the performances but the directing style. Shot to mimic the fast zooms and jerky pans found in both 70's jounralism and films, it gives a complete sense of unease coupled with a feeling of being right there that handheld camerawork may have once acchieved in the 90's but now is far too over used. The storyline builds in a way that you know something really bad is going to happen (and is probably already happening) but as you see it through the eyes of this fictional doctor whom Amin kept so close, you have no evidence of the destruction until it's too late.

Having read the book a few years back, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of differences eventwise but the highlights are similiar and both are compelling and suck you in, making it hard to turn away.

I was planning on seeing Blood Diamond immideately after the movie.

I decided going home and mindlessly surfing the internet was about all I had left in me.

**** (out of 4 *)