Apocalypse now Redux

I’m 39 years old and I just saw Apocalypse Now for the first time. I’ve not seen the original version, but I guess it was about 30 minutes shorter. I can’t imagine that. It seemed a perfect length.
And I don’t wanna pile on and agree with a million critics, BUT…It was a really good movie. One of the best in my recent memory.

Once Upon a Time in the West

I watched “Once Upon a Time in the West” last night. Somehow I heard someone talking about it on a podcast recently. I’m not sure if I had ever seen the movie, but I kept hearing good things.
It was great! I kept having flashbacks to all the westerns they used to show on KPTV 12 as a child. I may have seen an edited version of it long long ago (in Coos Bay), but as far as westerns go it was pretty good. I still think I like “The Proposition” better. My Italian mates don’t agree with me, but I assume maybe that’s cuz they weren’t raised on westerns the way americans are/were.

Tinker. Tailor. Soldier. Spy.

Just watched this movie…really good! It seems Gary Oldman is getting lots of raves for this one…but it’s funny. He’s almost the least memorable charachter in the film (in a film with John Hurt, Colin Firth, and that guy from Rock n Rolla and Sherlock Holmes – among others). He’s the one charachter that never loses it. Never raises his voice. Never gets angry. I guess maybe that’s to his credit.
Anyways, brit cold war spy film (I guess one could say). If you’re in a quiet mood for an espionage talky film (it’s not an action movie) you will probably like this!

movies…

I’m loving my sky!
I watched “Gandhi” yesterday. 3 hours and it just flew by. I had never seen it before. I do have a vague recollection of it being in the theatres in 1981? or so…Didn’t watch it then, but must have either seen it in the theatre or heard someone talking about it when I was 7 years old.

I also watched a movie called “Partition” last week. Never heard of it, but it was on, so I watched and enjoyed it. Not bad. About the splitting up of India and Pakistan in 1947. There’s a lot of history there that I don’t know about. I shall probably have to find a book or two…

Pisa is not New York…

so last week when I was in Pisa I noticed that there is some music festival going on this weekend…The Skatalites are doing a show tomorrow night (early 60’s ska group), so I googled something about pisa concerts today and I see that Gogol Bordello are doing a show NEXT WEEK!!!!

This excites me to no end. I was trying to think of the last time I was this excited to see a band that I know and I figure it was either Frank Black or Modest Mouse in 2007…anyway I’m really psyched to go to their show next weekend (and I’ll probably make it down for the Skatalites tomorrow).

so I may have said this before but I only ever heard of Gogol Bordello after seeing “Everything is Illuminated”. It’s a great movie and it co-stars Eugene Hutz (who is the singer of the band). I may have to follow up by watching the movie again this weekend…coincidentally one of the three books I bought in Germany is another by Jonathan Saffron Foer, who is the author of Everything is illuminated….

anyways (x2) here’s a few clips of Gogol Bordello.
As usual mind the volume between clips…

Movies to sleep too…

David Lynch movies are just about perfect to put on during naptime. Inland Empire came up the other night. I have that movie but I think I only ever watched about 10 minutes of it.
Today I made it to about the 1 hour mark before falling asleep.

My reaction to every Lynch movie ever: ummmm….what….

today…

So today I watched 7 pounds with Wil Smith…well…that’s a cryer.

When a girl drops something like “I’m all alone here”. Is this the opposite of when a girl drops a “My boyfriend and I blah blah blah…”. Is the “alone” thing intentionally dropped to tell you she has no boyfriend? Mystery deepens…

I was listening to the Avett Brothers (bluegrass) all day Friday and Saturday and now I’m listening to El-P (hardcore trip-rap-I don’t know what)…
I’m curious what the neighbours think?

I did meet the neighbours. They don’t speak english, but we tried. This is so different from Germany. Trying harder now… 😉

We get Wednesday off here…another one of those european mystery holidays.

What’s the name of that one French actor…

In my continuing effort to learn Italian I watched the movie ‘Delicatessen’ in Italian with english subtitles…It’s a French movie from the early 90’s, and I really really liked it.
So far the Italian isn’t really sticking yet…

Great quote

Elvis (as played by Bruce Campbell in Bubba Ho-Tep): “The two key words for tonight are ,,caution” and ,,flammable”.

it’s the oppressors corner

I was at a house party last night talking to Seattle in the corner (the only yanks at the party – were were probably talking about Mexican food at the time cuz that’s all Pete and I ever talk about – and I just realized I have two american friends, not just one like I mentioned a few days ago)….Mexico comes up and says ‘oh look…it’s the oppressors corner’…
My response was ‘remember the alamo’…which is possibly my greatest comeback ever 🙂 It was all I could think of and that was probably only because earlier in the day I was attempting to compare Russia’s ‘defense’ of South Ossetia to the American’s ‘defense’ of the free state of texas…
here’s an article titled ‘Looking for the next South Ossetia’
http://www.slate.com/id/2198292/

Georgia does border Turkei…I was wrong on that one…

I downloaded some Flogging Molly yesterday. I used to listen to them in the States, but got bored and when I started listening to the Pogues again I couldn’t go back to Flogging Molly, but after a long break from hearing them I really like them again…

Watched a movie called “the proposition” and it might be the best western I’ve ever seen. It takes place in Australia an the feeling of desolation shown in that movie is so much more sweeping than I’ve seen in anything up to this point. Credit the Australian landscape and the Aussie, Irish and brit actors. Great performances. Great scenery. Well shot!

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