In Brief...

Steve's friend Marsha used to be a personal assistant to Robert DeNiro and, as such, she gets free passes to the Tribeca Film Festival each year. Which she apparently never uses. So Steve convinced her to let he and I use the passes. We picked them up yesterday and saw Julie Delpy's film 2 Days in Paris, which I thought was very fast and funny. I enjoyed it a lot.

This morning I checked out Ed Burn's most recent effort Purple Violets, a less-than-stellar film. Ironically, I thought Delpy's film felt very "New York", with it's fast-paced editing and breezy chatter, whereas Burns, a born New Yorker, delivered a slow, plodding film that got caught up in too many cliches. Note to self and other filmmakers: I hate seeing "artists" in films talking about their roles as "artists" and how they have to sell out to survive. It's an old idea now. I have a lot of friends who are painters and writers and "artists" and we don't sit around and talk about the nature of art and how we must get back to the true essence of the creative force within. Well...not all the time anyway.

I was set to see two more films tonight, but this afternoon Marsha called my brother and said her sister was in town and she wanted to use the passes this weekend after all.

So I only got to see two films! And they were both romantic comedies about people in their early-mid 30s, having life/relationship issues. There were a few horror movies I wanted to check out and a couple of comedies, but alas, no such luck.

I have a big fascination with making lists. I like to make lists of things I've done or plan to do, books I've read or plan to read, music I've bought or plan to buy, movies I've seen or plan to see, etc. Last night I stumbled upon a site, that is all about that. It's called All Consuming and it allows me to keep track of all the crap I consume! I've added a little "Currently Consuming" section to the right of this blog, and I've just begun to catalog the many book, movies, cds I've consumed. It's a great time-waster for a big dork like myself.

I thought this story about the Iraqi Parliament's plans to take the summer off was just hysterical. I don't know, for all the talk of democracy failing over there, it appears that they grasped a fundamental aspect of American politics: the strong aversion to work.

I am for some reason really bothered by these little signs on the doors at Burger King that read: Buh-Bye!, then ask, You out? Thanks for stopping by! I hate when corporations try to be all hip and NOW and try to talk to people in street vernacular. I know that is so very 90's of me, but c'mon...if Burger King does want me to have it my way, can you please NOT remind me of David Spade's remotely humorous stewardess character on Saturday Night Live. I just ate.

While checking out some reviews on imdb, I discovered the next William S. Burroughs. His use of the English language is very unique and creative. Reminded me of the cut-up technique. At first I was put off by lines like "some people may have avoided watching this movie due to it's short footage but this movie changes the chronicles of many people's unchangeable thoughts over the footage of a movie", but after trying for a few minutes to figure out what exactly this guy was talking about, I decided that he was a Dadaist toying with the nature of language, quite possibly a genius, and none of us layfolk will ever understand the enigma of Evren Buyruk.