Deaf Dumb and Blind Boy

I'm not blind or deaf, but I am a mute (dumb.) More or less mute. My throat has reached the peak of intense pain. So I'm hoping this means that I will magically fall asleep for the first time tonight and wake up tomorrow 100% better for Rob Ealer's birthday party at the Sexional. But that's about as likely to happen as for me to find a woman who isn't insane to date in the next few months. Just not gonna happen.

So here is my voice. Blogger.

As I have been laid up the past few days, I have watched a lot of old favorites and some new tricks. So here are my reviews of the new guys.

Walk the Line- Most overrated film of 2005. Wow. I didn't think it could be that boring. Yes, Joaquin phoenix is a good actor and did a good job of singing and playing all of Johnny Cash's ultra hard songs to play(yes that's sarcasm), but he made Johnny Cash seem like a boring person who was just a drug addict who was obsessed with June Carter. I mean, yeah, how many stories of fame breaking homes and making the star a junkie have we seen. The film was paced really slow as well. Also, what was with the casting of the other stars?! I mean, the guy who played Jerry lee Lewis? And Elvis? And Wille Fucking Nelson?! They looked terrible. I know thats a small factor, but they barely had lines, just get look-a-likes for Godsake! Anyway, rent Ray if you want a better story. I guess because he was blind it makes his character more interesting, but Walk the Line was good for one thing--the music. So I'd rather listen to Live at Folsom for 2 hours that sit through that again.
Also, the relationship with the father was boring but could have been much more interesting. Especially since his dad was too busy searching for John Connor and not caring about John Cash the whole damn time.


Hustle and Flow- I didn't expect to like this movie as much as I did. Now here is a similar kind of movie except it goes in reverse. Terrence Howard plays a pimp trying to change his life (kind of a mid-life-crisis.) He decides he wants to try his ways at being a rapper after he sees someone from his hometown of Memphis making it big (played by Ludacris... and I never gave him any credit, but he's not a bad actor.) The story follows as D-Jay writes, records and tries to hustle his mix-tape. There's a lot that happens that I won't say as to not give it away, but the movie is really intense and well played out. All the characters, even the prostitues, are well fleshed out and intriguing (unlike the real-life people in Walk the Line) and great performances are played by all (esp Howard who deserves the nomination) and Anthony Anderson who plays the producer and old friend of D-Jay. I highly reccomend this film to anyone who hasn't given it a chance. It was really great and enjoyable. And the hip-hop songs are all sung or rapped or whatever you want to call it by Howard. If PSH wasn't so damn good in Capote and garunteed victory, I'd say that Howard would deserve it after him.

Tonight I will either watch North Country or Junebug. Not sure.



Also, I have brought back from the dead a great video game. XIII. Originally I could only play the multi-player because the disc was scratched real bad when I bought it from Wow (fuckers) and it was highly addictive. The game is set up like a graphic novel so the graphics are 3-D yet more comic booky then your average shooter. In the back of my mono riddled brain, I vaguely remembered being able to play past the point because I tried to clean it up at Wow. And yes, I did. So now its ON! I've been playing the past two days like whoa and am now stuck in this really hard part. It sucks because when you die, you don't come back to the beginning of the level with ful health, you come back to the check-point with whatever health you last had. For me, it was 25 and I was in a spot with a shit load of gaurds. So I'm going to have to whip out some mad skills to move on to the next level. That will probably occupy most of my night until dinner comes. It'll be fun, so that's pretty cool. Until then, I'm gonna listen to the new Secret Machines album Stev is creaming over and see what all the hype is. If I know my band well enough, they won't dissapoint.

Which brings me to my final point. I realized a lot of my fav bands have manifested themselves from a compiliation I bought a while back in like 2002 called "Yes New York." I bought it for the Interpol and Strokes song that was on it and hoped that maybe there would be some other redeeming tracks. And then I found about 6 other bands that I now love and have passed along the way to others (and I take full credit in this for most of you suckers who listen to some of these bands.) On that chompy was The Fever, Secret Machines, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, The Rapture and the Rogers Sisters are all awesome and have a few albums to their names since this comp. Kudos to them. Secret Machines and The Fever have new ones this year. I'm not sure about the others, but who knows. They might come a'rollin.

That's all I got for now.