Wednesday, March 15, 2006

while tom tries to get jiggy widdat, by his mistress plan, i am trying to get jello widdat and i have no monster plan. tho my favorite character from sesame street was cookie monster as host alistair cookie of monsterpiece theater. that now is getting yr monster on.

check out michael farrell's new blog, it promises to be brilliant. and feast yr eyes on eileen tabios's new poetry review zine, hopping with the good stuff.

and in a bit of self-promotion you'll find a bit of a review of the reading i did last week here, the march 9 entry.

and by all means avoid the thriller black sunday. i just watched it with some friends tonight and laughed my way thru its goofy dialogue and lopsided pacing. about a palestinian terrorist cell called black september, its members plot to bump off all 80,000 attendees at the superbowl by using the goodyear blimp to launch thousands of darts armed with plastic explosives. politically prescient sure but the bad acting and horrid photography makes this film a test of stamina to sit thru. i saw it, where else, at the drive-in when i was a kid, and it bored me to near-weeping. the movie has not aged well.

2 Comments:

At 11:17 AM, Blogger dfb said...

there is so much to love in black sunday – it’s one of the first “terrorist in us” movies and it’s got robert shaw – i love robert shaw, it got bruce dern playing a prototype tim mcveigh – and the german chick - she was in marathon man, as red brigade on loan - i love this movie – the super bowl – sure it has it’s faults – bits are stolen from day of the jackal – but the blimp – that’s so cool and it fucking super bowl (this is was stolen for some stupid tom clancy movie (sum of all fear – but they did blow up the super bowl in that one – but everyone felt sad). Richard – your missing out on this – i even read the book – which is fun – classic “terrorist in us” cinema

 
At 9:49 PM, Blogger richard lopez said...

agreed about robert shaw, but as leading man, he can't carry the film as a ruthless israeli assassin. dern was the best part, playing his psycho self about to split at the seams perfectly. i'm afraid i don't know anything about the german woman, the leader of the terrorist cell. but she was simply one of the worst actresses i've ever seen. the pacing by frankenheimer was lugubrious, and the photography had this bleached, yet filthy, quality.

did i enjoy the movie in hindsight. yep, but would i buy the disc and watch it again. nope. the plot was way ahead of its time, a terrorist attack on american soil, and the fact there were no good guys, even shaw, who was a govt. hired gun.

i like the blimp too, but unfortunately the production didn't seem to have enough money for a real spectacular finale. i wanted the camera to pull back and give me some scale of the blimp lowering into the coliseum.

my friend, who wanted to watch the film, just finished the book, and said recomended it as great thriller. the ending in the novel, i understand, is a downer, where the principals get blowed up. in the movie, shaw becomes superman and survives his ordeal.

the best thing about the movie is dern. shaw would've made an excellent sidekick, or heavy, but the woman was simply not believable enough to be so smart and ruthless. hell, i have less of a problem thinking uma thurman, in kill bill vol. i, can beat the shit out of a guy right after recovering from a coma, then i do watching this german-arab terrorist kill toward archieving her goals.

 

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