Click images for desktop size: "New York City Madness" by Tim Melideo I think the main reason I hate grocery shopping isn't just the money. Its the enforced reminder that I'm no longer perfect.

Finished watching "Valley Of Elah". I still tend to watch movies in chapters, putting them down to resume later. Only the really great movies can hold my attention for a full 90 minutes. They have to be unworldly to keep me interested for two whole hours. Longer than that and I figure the filmmakers don't know how to go about telling their story. (Their are a few exceptions, just a few).
"Valley Of Elah": It was a pretty turgid mess. Obvious, pretentious and meandering.
Susan Sarandon gave one of the most vapid empty performances I've ever seen. It was staggering in the way she conveyed nothing and gave no depth to any part of her character. It wasn't so much that like all these characters were made of card board but hers she played like it was a stiff pice of saran wrap.
They were giving Charlize Therzon plenty of face time and all she could do was be boring, obvious and a anti-illustration of of everything the heavy handed direction was preaching about (as regards women). It was an unrestrained performance that paid no dividends.
In spite of all this, or maybe because of it, Tommy Lee Jones gave one of the most memorable performances in movie history. He was brilliant. The only talent Paul Haggis (director/writer - "Crash") showed was in not getting in his way.
Jones has always been good, sometimes remarkable, but he's never had a showcase where he could keep such a high level going. The character, as written, was pretty much a stupid mess with no foundation or real sense. Jones forgot about it and gave the character an inner monologue that never falters. He doesn't burn or smolder he simply exists and lives.
The genius of his performance is in keeping himself shuttered but still letting us, the audience, know that the thoughts dreams and anguish burn inside of him. The character lies to his friends, but with no tools other than his face and voice he lies convincingly and lets us know exactly why he is lying. It is always human and always true to the person he is.

Click images for desktop size: "Anime" by Mota Jones takes a hunk of creepy cardboard and creates a human being out of it. I've seen the other performances nominated. I expect Jones won't win the Oscar which would be a shame, but not a sin.
At least he'll get more work.

For some reason Jones performance got me to drifting thoughts about great movies that had no acting ability, where the filmmakers had told there story so well and convincingly that lesser talented actors contributed instead of distracting from the story.
Probably the best horror film ever made was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". It had everything. Bright sunlight and dripping oozing cadavers. It shocked and it horrified and still does today. Every minus became a plus. Bad acting somehow made the characters seem more real. It made them not laughable but identifiable.
Even Marilyn Burns high pitched screaming throughout (normally an aggravating feature of grind house horror) seemed to be a keening note in a drum and bass line of depravity.
The cheap Fuji stock and daedo lighting kit that were so unimpressive in other grind house flics added the surreal quality of a home movie to the story. It was such an impressive connotation of reality that it became a cliche, an effect strived for less effectively in "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield".
In Texas Chainsaw the blazing sunshine and the unexpected dances in light and darkness made the arcane rooms of savage sculpture and cannibal art seem too close and easy to touch. Like you'd accepted an invitation to that creepy kids house because he had some cool comics to trade and you walked into the ultimate joke and were more stunned that he didn't mind the sense of savage filth than you were by the filth itself.
In that one movie Tobe Hooper took over from George Romero as the new clear eyed sober voice of unspeakable nightmares. Or so it seemed.
And then what happened
The only people still working are Director Tobe Hooper and cinematographer Daniel Pearl.
Kim Henkel, the writer, has his name attached to things, but its only as an attachment. Like he keeps taking co-producer credit and money for all those Chainsaw remakes and sequels.
Marilyn Burns who seemed ready to rear her bloody laughing head into the same B Movie status as Lianna Quigley does cameos.
Ed Neal, the wine stained hitchhiker with a straight razor has gotten work doing Japanese TV shows and other sorts of day player bits.

Click images for desktop size: "Purple Rain" Daniel Pearl found Chainsaw was nothing more than an intro to Hollywood. A note from your mom to a successful producer she dated in High School.
He worked hard. I met him when he was DP on a Pia Zadora music video. He wouldn't even talk about Chainsaw except with heavy anger. He shot "Alien vs Predator 2: Requiem".
Hooper followed up Chainsaw with a Hollywood movie, "Eaten Alive".
It proved that Neville Brand could act as creepy as he looked. It also managed to forever my long standing crush and desire for the once beautiful Carolyn Jones (Morticia, come back to me!!).
It looked like almost any other cheapo horror film, but it could also be read as a talent looking to learn the Hollywood system, the crews, and the actors. If you had a kind heart and great hopes.
Next up for Hooper was "Poltergeist". Big money, big cast, Steven Speilberg producing. It could have been something and then it wasn't. It was just another ghost story with glitzy production values and the start of CGI.
Plenty of sequels and then the TV series. People made a lot of money but the audience looking for something more were jilted.
After that Hooper spent his time making the worst kind of slumming fodder, "Funhouse", a remake of Abel Ferrara's "The Toolbox Murders", all weak and watery stuff that wouldn't wake up a patron in any grind house theater.
Its sad and only proves that sometimes inspiration and madness only strike once.

When I first decided to keep a personal web site it was to force me to spend some time each day to reconsider and think about what I was doing and where I'd gone and why.
It was intended to force me to become human again.
There were the other perks I've mentioned previously. It still serves that purpose. It makes me reflect instead of hurtling head on. (Hurtling is what I think I'm best at.)
For a guy who finds it hard to read emails longer than 4 mails and is a master of writing one line responses all these words perplex. I like it broken up with the pictures. I spend more time choosing, editing the pictures than the words.

Click images for desktop size: "Aladdin" by Maxfield Parrish ecto, the tool I use for laying out and posting to this site, is up to Beta 33! This one has seemed a huge step backwards. Its addressing some of those crazy things for other people but forgetting about guys like me.
It does odd things with images. So that I have to re-upload them via ftp. Which is just annoying and not that big a deal.
What is a big deal is that its not being true WYSIWYG at present. MarsEdit, a competitor, has taken the clue from some of the innovations in ecto and now does some of the tasks better! Regrettably it doesn't do everything that ecto does and does somethings important to me far worse.

My friend has gone on a job interview today. I'm pleased. Its a lot easier to suffer and complain at a job that stresses you than endure the grief of being judged by someone you might dislike.
People can get used to anything. Its hard to ignore inertia and get moving. I'm proud that she's trying.