Overexposed Thoughts and Festival Updates

So they've released the schedule of films they're showing at SXSW this year. Pretty hot shit. What pops out the most for me is The Comedians of Comedy tour movie (in the Documentary section), and nearly every movie in the Spotlight catagory (esp. Old Boy -- must see this movie soon, Layer Cake and Palindromes), The Aristocrats, and Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic. All I can do is hope next year will be as good, for I will be there, yes, by hook or by crook.

If you're in NYC right now you can check out Old Boy and a few other great flicks this week at the Film Comment Selects series.



Miike's IZO [if you haven't already, check out the trailer on the sidebar--vampires AND samurais!] is playing there as well as a couple of hard to find Sam Fuller films. Really, if you can (on Wed, Feb 9th), you could make me extreamly jealous by going down to the Walter Reade Theater and catching the 9pm showing of Old Boy. I doubt you could possibly be disappointed.

Speaking of disappointed, what the fuck is up with this praise for Napoleon Dynamite and Garden State? I saw Garden State a few weeks ago and am pretty much over the bad taste that left me with. Basically, felt it tried too hard with it's indie rock posturing and blatant ooh-look-at-me quirkiness. And Natalie Portman's was a perfect example of a role written by a guy who needs help writting a real woman's role and not just his imagination's idea of a perfect girl. But anyway, Napoleon Dynamite, while I laughed at moments, the more I think about it, the more this one bugs me even more. I want to know, what exactly people liked about this movie? Ok, there was some decent writing/dialogue, and one good actor (the dude who played Kip). Aaand...? I'm sorry but the movie is hollow, at least Garden State had some honest (if cheesy) moments/feelings in it. Napoleon Dynamite reminded me of Todd Solondz making a slapstick comedy over the weekend. There's about 5 funny ideas in the movie, and you know what, they're all in the 5 minute original short movie that's included on the dvd. And what about the ending that got slapped on after the movie was already out for a month? A funny dance. I'd have to be pretty fucking stoned to be happy about spending 10 bucks to see a movie who's plot wraps up with a fucking funny dance. You know what? Starsky & Hutch had a funny dance in it too and was a lame spin-off with even less in the original ideas department--but I have to say I enjoyed that more than watching a one-note lead character sleepwalk around Utah in vintage clothing connecting together a bunch of catch phrases. The movie came off to me as the definition of all style/no substance. Somebody explain what it is they saw in this, please?

Oh, and there's a hell of a lot more Levitra Couches spotted across the country (click on the pic). But this whole thing is starting to seem a bit off to me. This couch was supposedly found here in Boston...



That tree in the background certainly isn't saying Boston to me, and was this going on five six months ago, otherwise those leaves on the ground just don't add up--looks like anywhere but the northeast to me.

But something's going on and I like Vince from Calgary's explanation, "Clearly these couches were crying out for help as they'd been discarded because they were no longer firm. They needed the wonder drug to reaffirm their place in their former households. They're crying out for help, man! Oh, the humanity!"