Too good to pass up.

Well, at least one person won't be seeing Avatar.

I'm somewhere else.

So today I can be found over at Craig's blog Puntabulous. This will mark my second guest appearance over there this month. The first appearance happened while I was out of town, hence the lack of mention.

Basically, a description of today's guest post can be boiled down to me acting as a total dweeb. Head over and enjoy.

Ph3ar my dweebiness.

ingergay ogersray

Starting at the 1:38 mark , I have absolutely no idea how she managed to pull it off. I would have broken down crying if I had to try to learn this version of the lyrics.

Simplicity Itself

Amazing how sometimes the simplest thing can provide such pleasure.

Sad Trombone

NYFF!

And the list is up. I already see about 15 I'm going to get a ticket for...maybe 4 or 5 others. Ah...so many choices.....


OPENING NIGHT
Wild Grass / Les herbes folles
Alain Resnais, France, 2009; 113m
The venerable Alan Resnais creates an exquisite human comedy of manners, mystery and romance with some of France's - and our - favorite actors: Sabine Azéma, André Dussollier, Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Almaric. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

CENTERPIECE
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Lee Daniels, USA, 2009; 109m
Precious is sixteen and living a miserable life. But she uses all the emotional energy she possesses to turn her life around. Director Lee Daniel's audacious tale features unforgettable performances by Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. A Lionsgate release.

CLOSING NIGHT
Broken Embraces / Los abrazos rotos
Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 2009; 128m
Almodóvar's newest masterwork is a candy-colored emotional roller that barrels from comedy to romance to melodrama to the darker haunts of film noir and stars his muse, Penélope Cruz, in a multilayered story of a man who loses his sight and the love of his life. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

36 Views of Saint-Loup Peak / 36 Vues Du Pic Saint Loup
Jacques Rivette, France, 2009, 84m
The legendary Jacques Rivette returns with an elegiac look at the final days of a small-time traveling circus.

Antichrist
Lars von Trier, Denmark, 2009, 109m
Surely to be one of the year's most discussed films, Lars von Trier's latest chronicles a couple's efforts to find their love again after a tragic loss, only to unleash hidden monsters lurking in their souls. An IFC Films release.

The Art of the Steal
Don Argott, USA, 2009, 101m
Bound to be controversial, this intriguing account of the travails of the legendary Barnes collection of art masterworks and the foundation set up to protect it raises vital questions about public vs. private "ownership" of art.

Bluebeard / La Barbe Bleue
Catherine Breillat, France, 2009, 78m
Two sisters reading Charles Perrault's 17th century tale of perhaps the first "serial killer" becomes a meditation on the enduring fascination with a character who has served as inspiration for countless novels, plays and films.

Crossroads of Youth / Cheongchun's Sipjaro
An Jong-hwa, Korea, 1934, 73m
The oldest surviving Korean film, this recently-rediscovered masterwork will be presented with live musical accompaniment as well as a benshi (offscreen narrator).

Eccentricities of a Blonde
Manoel de Olivera, Portugal/France, 2009, 64m
One hundred years young, director Manoel de Oliveira returns with another gem: a wry, moving tale of a pure if frustrated love adapted from a novel by Eça de Queiroz.

Everyone Else / Alle Anderen
Maren Ade, Germany, 2009, 119m
The ups and downs, joys and jealousies, frustrations and fulfillments of a young couple on a summer holiday provides the premise for this brilliant meditation on modern coupling.

Ghost Town
Zhao Dayong, China, 2008, 180m
A revealing, one-of-a-kind look at China far away from the glittering urban skylines, this portrait of a contemporary rural community in China offers extraordinary insights into everything from the role of religion to gender relationships to the place of social deviants.

Hadewijch
Bruno Dumont, France, 2009, 105m
A young woman searches for an absolute experience of faith-and in the process grows increasingly distant from the world around her.

Independencia
Raya Martin, Philippines, 2009, 77m
Maverick director Raya Martin offers a kind of alternative history of the Philippines and its struggle for nationhood in this stylized tale of a mother and son hiding in the mountains after the US takeover of the islands.

Inferno / L'Enfer
Serge Bromberg, France, 2009, 100m
A film buff's delight, Serge Bromberg film resurrects the surviving footage of Clouzot's aborted, experimental film L'Enfer, revealing a slightly mad but beguiling project that will always remain one of cinema's great "what ifs."

Kanikosen
Sabu, Japan, 2009, 109m
Kaniskosen is a highly stylized, stirring, manga-flavored update of a classic Japanese political novel, with labor unrest aboard a crab canning ship evolving into a cry of a younger generation aching to break the bonds of conformity.

Lebanon
Samuel Maoz, Israel, 2009, 92m
Debut director Samuel Maoz takes us inside an Israeli tank and the emotions of its crew during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Life During Wartime
Todd Solondz, USA, 2009, 96m
Preparing for his bar-mitzvah, a young man must deal with his divorced mother's prospective fiancé as well as rumors that his own father is not really dead.

Min Yé
Souleymane Cissé, Mali/France, 2009, 135m
A work of startling originality, Souleymane Cisse's first film in over a decade insightfully and incisively chronicles the dissolution of an upper-middle class African marriage.

Mother/ Maedo
Bong Joon-ho, South Korea, 2009, 128m
Convinced that her son has been wrongly accused of murder, a widow throws herself body and soul into proving his innocence. Kim Hye-ja in the title role gives perhaps the performance of the year.

Ne Change Rien
Pedro Costa, France/Portugal, 2009, 103m
A shimmering valentine, Costa's latest is less a portrait than a kind of visual homage, to the artistry of actor and singer Jeanne Balibar.

Police Adjective / Politist, adj.
Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania, 2009, 115m
Discovering a teenager with hashish, a young policeman hesitates about turning him in. But his supervisor has other ideas in this beautifully acted, provocative modern morality play. An IFC Films release.

Room and a Half / Poltory Komnaty Ili Sentimentalnoe Puteshtvie Na Rodinu
Andrey Khrzhanovsky, Russia, 2009, 131m
Former animator Andrey Khrzhanovsky combines scripted scenes, archival footage, several types of animation, and surrealist flights of fancy to create this stirring portrait of poet Josef Brodsky and the postwar Soviet cultural scene. A Seagull Films release.

Sweetgrass
Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, USA, 2009, 105m
This breathtaking chronicle follows an ever-surprising group of modern-day cowboys as they lead an enormous herd of sheep up and then down the slopes of the Beartooth Mountains in Montana on their way to market.

Sweet Rush / Tatarak
Andrzej Wajda, Poland/France, 2009, 85m
Celebrated master Andrzej Wajda returns with a bold, experimental work that juxtaposes a story about a terminally doctor's wife rediscovering romance thanks with a heart-rending monologue written and performed by actress Krystyna Janda about the death of her husband.

To Die Like a Man / Morrer Como Um Homen
Joao Pedro Rodrigues, Portugal, 2009,138m
This touching, finely-etched portrait follows Tonia, a veteran drag performer confronting younger competition and her boyfriend's demands that she undergo a sex change.

Vincere
Marco Bellocchio, Italy, 2009, 129m
Mussolini's "secret" marriage to Ida Dalser, afterwards completely denied by Il Duce, along with the son born from the relationship, becomes the springboard for this visually ravishing meditation on the fascist manipulation of history. An IFC Films release.

White Material
Claire Denis, France, 2009, 100m
A handful of Europeans try to make sense of-and survive-the chaos happening all around them in an African country torn apart by civil war.

The White Ribbon / Das weisse band
Michael Haneke, Austria/France, 2009, 144m
The Palme d'Or winner at this year's Cannes Film Festival, this is a starkly beautiful meditation on the consequences of violence-physical, emotional, spiritual-in a northern German town on the eve of World War I. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

The Wizard of Oz
Victor Fleming, 1939, USA, 103m
The 70th Anniversary of the timeless classic, presented in a spectacular newly-restored edition makes the film a new experience even for those who practically have it memorized. A Warner Bros. release

I'm Outta Here! (in 48 hours)

I'm turning in a day early here. Heading down to Atlantic City, NJ on Friday for a 1 night stopover, then onto Ocean City, NJ for a family vacation. A family vacation that now also includes my sister's in-laws, their daughter, their other daughter and her husband and a couple they know. I think the peace and quiet may be in somewhat short supply. At least I won't look as Casper the Friendly Ghostish when I get back.

See everyone on August 10th!

American Idiocy--Bikini Edition

Bikini Carjacker

Thank goodness she didn't have a gun on her, there's only one place I can think of where she could have concealed it, and that's just nasty.

Gasp!

This....got an official DVD release? Yay! I loved this show. Watched it every time Nickelodeon showed it on "The Third Eye". Now I can retire my crappy bootleg version. And why is it every time I buy some bootlegged curio at a convention, it shows up on DVD later? I'm looking at you, "Voyagers".

Besides that, this was a fabulously creepy British sci-fi series from the late 1970's. It's about a scientist father (Professor Brake) who, along with his son (Matthew), moves to the town of Milbury to study an ancient circle of stones there. The stones were rumored to have some sort of power, and as the father studies them, he and his son realize that all is not right in the town. Person by person, the townspeople are turning into "Happy Ones". Death and mystery ensue.

Can Professor Brake and Matthew discover the secret of the stones and save the townspeople before becoming "Happy Ones" themselves? You'll have to either buy the DVD, or ask me to make you a copy off the set I own to find out.

P.S. Ooooooh. "The Tomorrow People" on DVD also? My day is made. All's that left is for the USA to put out a version of the blog's namesake "Into the Labyrinth."

A Place To Vent

Customers Suck

I worked retail for 14 years. All at Blockbuster Video. Generally, most days were quite pleasant. I was usually able to defuse most situations pretty quickly. However, there were times when all one could do was shake with anger after a customer left. Luckily, I found the above outlet. Customers Suck. It's a website devoted to retail workers, teachers, IT people, whoever, telling their stories about the sucky customers that make it harder to get through the day.

Even though it's been 4 years since I've been in retail, I still enjoy heading over there to see what others have to put up with. It makes me feel a little better knowing I'm not dealing with customers like that anymore. The best stories, of course, are the ones where the customer gets pwned.

So if anyone reading this has a job where you deal with the horrible public, head on
over, create an account, click on forums and share your stories. It feels good to get them off your chest, and the others posters will offer sympathy.

(Someday, I'll share some of the more interesting characters I met while working at Blockbuster.)

10%

Yay! I finally got my 10 percent key chain from Weight Watchers! I actually earned it a few weeks ago, but the stellar employees there had a little trouble realizing that 10% of 200lbs is 20lbs and not 25lbs. Oh well. I have it now. That leaves only about 13 lbs to go before I reach my goal. After that, I guess it will be my personality that repels the guys I am attracted to.

Time to celebrate. Bananas with Hershey's Chocolate Syrup! (Lite syrup, of course)

Reasons for Dorkitude #23: Large Animal Statues

For some reason, I can't resist posing in front of large statues of animals.

The Answer

Sorry all.....the answer to The Man was.....SCHRANK

It was John F. Schrank that shot President Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee.

The Story:

The Bull Moose
Cattle Rancher, Commissioner of Police. Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York. He was also the youngest president in American history, rising to sudden and unexpected power at the age of 42 when President McKinley was assassinated.

Roosevelt is most famous today for two things: the 'teddy bear', which is named after the man himself, and his dream project, the Panama Canal.

A canal across Central America had been a dream of travellers, exporters and explorers since the early 16th century. Roosevelt, a sometime explorer himself, certainly knew the cachet that such a project held. Before the canal, a ship sailing from the Atlantic to Pacific had to sail around the very dangerous Cape Horn, at the very southern tip of South America.

It took ten years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and cost hundreds of lives, but Roosevelt's army completed the impossible: The Panama Canal, linking the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, opened officially on August 15, 1914, and American troops have never left 'the Free Republic' of Panama since.

Roosevelt declined the opportunity to run for a third term, nominating his friend William Taft, to represent his party. He was later convinced, however, to run against Taft, even though he had to form a new third party, the National Progressive Party, in order to do so. The party was more often called The Bull Moose Party, because Roosevelt, when once asked whether he was in shape enough for another campaign, remarked that he was 'fit as a bull moose.'

The campaign was one of the most bitter and dark in American political history, with Roosevelt fighting more against his 'old friend' Taft than either of them fought against their common enemy, Woodrow Wilson.

But it could be said that Roosevelt's vision protected him in more ways than one. It was in Milwaukee, at the height of the campaign, when he was hit by a gunshot from a barkeeper named John Schrank.



The Barkeep
John F. Schrank, born in Bavaria, came to America at the age of 13. His parents died soon after, and Schrank came to work for his uncle, a New York tavern owner and landlord. Upon their deaths, Schrank's aunt and uncle left him these valuable properties, from which it was expected he could live a quiet and peaceful life. But Schrank was heartbroken, having now lost not only his second set of 'parents', but his first and only girlfriend, in a ferry accident in New York's East River.

Schrank sold the properties, and drifted around the East Coast for years. He became profoundly religious, and a fluent Bible scholar whose debating skills were well-known around his neighborhood's watering holes and public parks. He wrote spare and vivid poetry. He spent a great deal of time walking around city streets at night. He caused no documented trouble.

It is unclear when his interest in domestic politics so flared that he would attempt to kill Roosevelt. It is known that he was a staunch opponent (to say the least) of a sitting President's ability to seek a third term in office.

He claimed, later, that he had nothing against the man himself, and he did not intend to kill 'the citizen Roosevelt', but rather 'Roosevelt, the third termer.' He claimed to have shot Roosevelt as a warning to other third termers, and claimed further that it was the ghost of President McKinley that told him to perform the act.

It didn't take long for Schrank to be declared insane. The doctors that examined him reported that the man was suffering from 'insane delusions, grandiose in character.'

While millions of Americans wanted him executed, Schrank lived on in a mental hospital. He died there, many years later.

The Bullet
Schrank's bullet, which struck very close to Roosevelt's heart on that cold Milwaukee night, was deflected by the glasses case in his pocket and lodged itself 'harmlessly' in his ample chest. It may also have been cushioned somewhat by the speech that Roosevelt was carrying, neatly folded, in the same breast pocket.

Roosevelt went on to deliver that very speech, that very night, before visiting the hospital to have the bullet removed. As it turned out, the bullet was lodged in his fourth rib, and doctors decided to treat the wound and leave the bullet in place. It remained there for the rest of Roosevelt's life.

His vision couldn't save him twice, though. His third-party split the political right, and he collected only 4,118,571 votes, compared to Woodrow Wilson's 6,296,547. (Taft placed third with 3,486,720).

Retiring from politics, Roosevelt led two expeditions into the Amazon jungle in 1913 and 1914, returning only when he succumbed to malaria.

In 1919, though he was weakened by his sickness, deaf in one ear and blind in one eye (he lost it while boxing at the White House), he was still widely rumored to be planning another run for the Presidency. He didn't live long enough to make any such announcement, however.

Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth president of the United States and the protagonist of everyone's favorite palindrome, died unexpectedly of complications resulting from a blood clot in his heart, on January 6, 1919.

©Rod Bruinooge

WATCH THIS NOW

Treevenge

The less I say about this masterpiece, the more you will enjoy it. Go to the site, start it, make it full screen and enjoy. Best short film I've ever seen. Also NSFW, no nudity though.

1916-2009

I've spent many an hour at the Museum of Television and Radio watching old broadcasts of his. I have vague memories of Cronkite growing up; I was only 8 when he retired from CBS news. Still, as a lover of pop culture, it's always sad to see one of the greats go.

The Man

Puzzle today. Explanation later. Can anyone solve?

5:3 The Man

Find the question above, and the answer will follow. Begin.

(The picture can be embiggened by clicking on it.)

I will hunt these people down.

As I've previously stated, I am a child of adoption. No clue who my birth father is, but I do enjoy wondering from time to time. Somehow, I managed to combine this line of thinking with my love of game shows and have concluded that Jim Perry would make a great father. (Hmm....I should do a rundown soon of my favorite shows/hosts...see how my thoughts match up with the other 93% of people who read this blog for 0-5 seconds a day.)

Anyhoo, imagine my horror when I came across this clip on You Tube. I do not appreciate anybody dissing on my imaginary father. I can only hope that whoever these people are, they suffered greatly after committing this slight.

$1400

That's what I need right now. Maybe I should set up one of those web sites pleading people for money. There's always a few who seem to respond to requests like that.

Avoided!

Back in NY in one piece thanks to the crew of American Airlines. Posting of random crap to resume.

Up, Up and Away

Off to Pasadena, CA this weekend for a visit with the grandfather. I shall return next Tuesday. May all have a great weekend!

Man, would I love to be there right now.