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I Write Like.

jake — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:43:39 +0000

I wouldn’t think this is very accurate, but what can you do, get the howling fantods or something? Is it bad to want a random “i write like” website to say you write more like Flaubert than David Foster Wallace? I think this probably just counts the number of times “like” shows up in your writing. 0-5, Flaubert. 6-15, Dan Brown. 16-198, James Joyce. 199+, David Foster Wallace. What do you think?

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

True Blood: Bad Blood (Season 3, Ep. 1; 2010)

jake — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:23:07 +0000

Season 3 opens with the apparent fact that everyone from Bill to Eric to Sam to blah have done tons of abdominal exercises between the time Sookie ran into the bathroom to mull her future at the end of Season 2 and the time she ran out of bathroom to discover Bill had abandoned her. The recap was enough to remind me of how god-awful tired I became of this show with all that black-oil eyeball business at the end of season two, but things started out okay here. The vampires are more interesting. And now, werewolves too? Oh brother.

Here is a video:
Oh Sookie.

A completely awesome sidebar.

jake — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:30:35 +0000

While googling, I actually managed to come across my post of Total Recall, somewhat randomly. And I have to admit, it is totally completely awesome that my magic Related Posts calculator is suggesting that if you enjoyed Total Recall, you might enjoy The Dead. And oh my god, if you enjoyed The Dead — YES: Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild.

James Joyce: I am so sorry. It isn’t me.

Rescue Me: DNA (2004)

jake — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 02:43:16 +0000

Isn’t it a little too soon to have Tommy’s youngest daughter in a car accident? With all the requisite “walk away Tommy” and dudes holding him back while he rages scenes, this must have been a Sweeps week or something. Nevertheless, the writing righted the ship a little afterwards, since this was used as a sort of deus ex machina between Tommy and his wife, and led to some good conversations about blame and responsibility. Is it just me or is this gaggle of ghosts following Tommy around kind of stupid? I was a little disappointed to see the writing group PTSD thing not followed up – that could have been pretty funny. The young kid (probie?) was getting stalked by a guy he saved in a fire, who eventually proposed a three way with his wife, and I’m surprised there wasn’t more about doing a three way with two girls versus one of two guys. Maybe there’ll be a funny scene about docking.

Humpday (2009)

jake — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 19:09:50 +0000

Humpday is a film about straight dudes for straight dudes and its topic is the anxiety straight dudes feel about gay dudes. Two college buddies reunite – one has been a drifter, an artist, has hip hats that have cooler stories than anything he’s done; the other has built a life, has a home, a family. One envies the freedom. The other envies the security and stability. At a pretentious party (really, no other word for it), they get caught up in a discussion about an upcoming art-film low-budget porn festival coming up called Humpday. They come upon the idea of that two straight dudes doing full on gay sex in front of a camera will not only be an incredible Art Project, but will redefine their own respective selves in important ways. Drifter dude will finish something, instead of just giving up like he always does. Stable dude will prove he still has spontaneity in his life, and he also seems to be acting out on a hint of bisexuality in his past, where he rented a bunch of videos that a cute guy at the rental store suggested (a 12 part series on architecture, or some such – he hated the first, but kept returning!) – so is he gay, and he’s just gone down this road to stability and family because it was the easiest, instead of examining what he really feels he needs and wants? They get a seedy hotel room, and the funniest scene is when they kiss and then it all falls apart. They ask themselves: What is it we’re really doing here? And for what purpose? They don’t have any answers, other than that it wasn’t what it should have been to begin with. It gives the film a kind of deflated feeling in the end, and it’s partially due to the fact that there’s no gay perspective. Their take on masculinity seems to come down to: dudes don’t do dudes. And do they really decide they’re failures because they can’t go through with it? Drifter dude re-drifts, but we don’t know what happens to stable dude. Does he return home to his wife, who has confided to cheating on him when he insists on going through with the straight-gay porn? A lot of reviews have suggested that this film offers a good perspective of masculinity, but to me it offers a measured take on homophobia. Very little of what these two gents encounter in the lame scene that caps this film is about sexuality. They can talk about being raw and carnal all they want, but when you’re watching them clutch their pillows and talk about failure, they’re not talking about Art anymore.

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

jake — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:44:20 +0000

Alice in Wonderland was pretty trashy, and so continues Tim Burton’s slide into creating things to look at but not much else. Sweeney Todd worked pretty well for me on the whole (apart from H.B.C.’s singing – it’s still ringing in my ears), but Alice in Wonderland returns to the spectacle without girders. Granted, I think this film would be a lot more enjoyable in 2D – the 3D here gave me an insane headache and I constantly was aware of the technology, whereas with Avatar I at least had the feeling I was seeing something new (irony!). Johnny Depp acts weird in weird make-up again, and everything around him looks great. Actually, after trashing Helena for Sweeney, I have to say she’s fantastic here, as the petulant over-browing evil Red Queen. And then there’s a big fight at the end, and hooray, the flighty weird White Queen rules again and the Jabberwock on Frabjous Day has been slain. With all the news lately about Alice being such a success that it’s justifying raised ticket prices for 3D movies, I can only hope that this technology dies a sudden and unmelodious death. Keep it to the IMAX theaters for things that were made for it, because when they magically process it into 3D after the fact, it looks like shit. (My company paid for my ticket – NYC charges upwards of 18$ for a single movie ticket to a 3D movie. Are you insane? Wait a couple months, buy it on Blu-Ray (it’ll look better and your floors won’t be sticky*), and then sell it afterward. Or rent it from Netflix. There is absolutely no excuse for charging such exorbitant ticket prices.

*no judgments

Rescue Me: Kansas (2004)

jake — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:02:24 +0000

Rescue Me‘s central support system for Tommy Gavin is that of his family, and his wife is drifting away from him, saying he is no longer connected to reality. His children are growing up, etc. The wife wants to move away, to get out of the neighborhood of firefighters, where 9/11 has had a huge impact on the kids, the wives, the other firefighters. It all sounds fairly cliche, but Tommy’s attempts to hold onto the last thread of his family are brazen and amusing: outright bribing his children for information about the man their mother is dating, rooting through his car while he’s inside having dinner, etc. Another example of the crumbling support system that surrounds these characters lies in Lieutenant Lou’s poetry. It’s completely awful, but he’s expressing himself and when his wife finds out her firefighter husband has been writing poetry, she wishes he had been looking at porn. When he pleads with her to read it before he brings it into a PTSD group, let’s just say she never learned the sandwich technique employed in MFA classrooms around the nation.

Rescue Me: Gay (2004)

jake — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:26:24 +0000

Rescue Me‘s theme this week is gayness in all aspects of the firefighters lives. Tommy sees gays everywhere – his cousin’s widow is being a little too intimate with a woman, there’s a “geek” vs. “gay” diatribe about Tommy’s godson, and some hilarious moments with Sean and Mike, the two youngest firefighters in the house, who try to teach the rest of the house about metrosexuality. The chief’s big problem with the retired firefighter who came out and proceeded to out a number of the firefighters who died on 9/11 presents the show with a homophobic rhetoric that originates in the characters: they simply cannot fathom a gay firefighter where they can’t even get to a place in their head where “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a possibility. He sits in a gay bar waiting to confront the firefighter for hours and doesn’t even realize where he is. A more typical episode of television, where everyone has their threads in the plot and they all interweave. One thing that impresses me about Rescue Me is its very difficult to pin where the commercials are. The scripts have an even tempered feel to them and there’s not a constant rising of tension to keep someone seated through the commercial break. If anything, there’s a quiet moment before the slightly longer fade-to-black and then when it comes back, it drops you into a fire or something elevated. It works much better when separated out from that teaser, act i-a, act i-b, act 2-a, act 2-b formula that so many other shows are devoted to in total.

Rescue Me: Guts (2004)

jake — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:02:18 +0000

Rescue Me showed up on the queue under the mistaken impression that it was the firefighter show that filmed its headquarters in the Badge Building. Turns out that was a show from 1999 called Third Watch. This, rather, is a post-9/11 acerbic take on firefighters. It isn’t necessarily directly about PTSD, though it’s obvious a number of them are suffering, but it seems more because their respective support systems are corrupt and selfish. The central theme seems to be one where firefighters refute the Hero complex and that they’re only able to not be completely self-destructive when they’re in fires (not “at work”, as it shows that a large part of a firefighter’s day is about sitting around waiting for something to happen). Tommy Gavin, 14 months sober, begins seeing ghosts from his past – his cousin who died on 9/11, a girl with a kitten, so he falls off the wagon. It’s a good show – funny, and not quite as centered on the past as I thought it was going to be. I’m sure there’s a central scene coming up where they address 9/11 en masse, but it really does seem rooted in characters. Worth checking out on Netflix streaming, if you’re looking for something.

Fishing with John: Dennis Hopper (1991)

jake — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:26:49 +0000

The final two episodes of Fishing with John feature Dennis Hopper, and they go together to Thailand in search of a Giant Squid. It must be said the music in Fishing with John is quite excellent, and to be expected given John Lurie’s position with lounging lizards. It becomes apparent that the Giant Squid is also hunting the fishermen. Hunt or be hunted, they must pursue it deeper into the bosom of Thailand. They find an ancient tribe that apparently holds the giant squid in high esteem, and take some time to eat in a remote village. Dennis Hopper orders an Iced Smoothie beverage, but is disheartened to find that it has blended ice in it. He sends it back, asking only for fruit. The smoothie is delivered, and the men continue their expedition for the squid by stealing the ancient tribe’s boat, but the squid has a large eye and hypnotises them.

See all the Fishing with John posts.