Welcome to the Art archives. The posts are listed in chronological order. Click the post title to read more.
![2009_it_might_get_loud_002[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/2009_it_might_get_loud_0021.jpg "2009_it_might_get_loud_002[1]")
Jack White > Jimmy Page > The Edge
Documentaries With Conflict > Those Without (which is why this one is an interesting failure.)
Also not sure why they chose The Edge — his style is without doubt different than the other two, but during the jam session he just looks lost. Jack White astounds.
Rating: 5/10
![ballast03[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ballast031.jpg "ballast03[1]")
This one has me conflicted. It’s beautiful. It’s stark. It’s well acted by a cast of Alabama locals that basically improvised the script. The hand-held cameras do an unbelievable job of masking how much work must have gone into every shot. It’s sad. It’s so sad that it hits me RIGHT THERE.
Add up all of those and you’ll get a movie that I’ll love. A movie that I’ll rave about and tell you to watch. A movie I’ll sit through again just because the Blu-Ray copy looks so DAMN good for an indie film.
And then I’ll tell you that I won’t recommend this movie to you. That I found myself just a little too bored for too much of this film. Curious of where it was going but finding myself uncaring about where it could have ended up. I didn’t predict any endings. I didn’t call out any characters as “changed” or “fixed” or “better.” I just watched it. And it ended. And that was that. I went about my day much like the characters must have. And therein lies the problem: it was just too much like real life. Sure, Ebert loved it. Sure, critics raved about it. Sure, it wasn’t at all about MY life… but it was about real life and the way we all spend so much time finding ways to struggle. And, in the end, it was so beautiful, and so sad, and so “life-like” that I just wanted to get back to life. Take from that what you will.
Ballast, 2009
5/10 (but as close to a perfect 5/10 as you will ever find.)
![lars-and-the-real-girl-upcoming-movies-581795_500_332[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/lars-and-the-real-girl-upcoming-movies-581795_500_3321.jpg "lars-and-the-real-girl-upcoming-movies-581795_500_332[1]")
Nisan was wandering aimlessly around the crowded exhibition hall when he suddenly found himself staring into Nemutan’s bright blue eyes. In the beginning, they were just friends. Then, when Nisan got his driver’s license a few months later, he invited Nemutan for a ride around town in his beat-up Toyota. [...] Now, after three years together, they are virtually inseparable. “I’ve experienced so many amazing things because of her,” Nisan told me, rubbing Nemutan’s leg warmly. “She has really changed my life.” [...]
Nemutan is a teenager and wears a little blue bikini and gold ribbons in her hair. Nisan knows she’s not real, but that hasn’t stopped him from loving her just the same. “Of course she’s my girlfriend,” he said, widening his eyes as if shocked by the question. “I have real feelings for her.” [...]
He treats her the way any decent man would treat a girlfriend — he takes her out on the weekends to sing karaoke or take purikura, photo-booth pictures imprinted on a sheet of tiny stickers. In the few hours we spent together, I watched him position her gently in the restaurant booth and later in the back seat of his car, making sure to keep her upright and not to touch her private parts. [...] He knows it’s weird for a grown man to be so obsessed with a video-game character, but he just can’t imagine life without Nemutan. “When I die, I want to be buried with her in my arms.” [...]
Nisan is part of a thriving subculture of men and women in Japan who indulge in real relationships with imaginary characters. These 2-D lovers, as they are called, are a subset of otaku culture— the obsessive fandom that has surrounded anime, manga and video games in Japan in the last decade. It’s impossible to say exactly what portion of otaku are 2-D lovers, because the distinction between the two can be blurry. Like most otaku, the majority of 2-D lovers go to work, pay rent, hang out with friends (some are even married). Unlike most otaku, though, they have real romantic feelings for their toys. The less extreme might have a hidden collection of figurines based on anime characters that they go on “dates” with during off hours. A more serious 2-D lover, like Nisan, actually believes that a lumpy pillow with a drawing of a prepubescent anime character on it is his girlfriend.
Toru Honda, a 40-year-old man with a boyishly round face and puppy-dog eyes, has written half a dozen books advocating the 2-D lifestyle. [...] “Pure love is completely gone in the real world,” Honda wrote. “As long as you train your imagination, a 2-D relationship is much more passionate than a 3-D one.”
![18_lilzac_lg[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/18_lilzac_lg1.jpg "18_lilzac_lg[1]")
“It’s crazy how you can go from being Joe Blow,” West begins his rap, “to everybody on your dick—no homo.” No homo, to those unfamiliar with the term, is a phrase added to statements in order to rid them of possible homosexual double-entendre. (“You’ve got beautiful balls,” you tell your friend at the bocce game—”no homo.”) [...]The term’s appearance in hip-hop coincided with the rise of the so-called “down-low brother,” a closeted black figure often demonized as a disease-spreading boogeyman, invisible by definition and thus potentially, frightfully, everywhere. Saying “no homo” might have started as a way for rappers to acknowledge and distance themselves from the down-low phenomenon. As the phrase has spread, many have decried no homo as depressingly retrograde, a pigheaded “That’s what she said” for homophobes. But the term functions in a more complicated way than a simple slur. [...]
Often, no homo appears not just as a disclaimer but as a punch line, a See what I did there? that flaunts one’s cleverness. “Just shot a video with R. Kelly, but no homo though,” Lil Wayne rapped in 2007. In this line—a sly nod to both a music video co-starring Wayne and Kelly and to the R&B singer’s alleged sex tape—no homo isn’t an afterthought; it’s the keystone that holds the whole joke together. A funny side effect here is that the no homo vogue doubtless encourages rappers not only to scrutinize everything they say for trace gayness, but to actively think up gay double-entendres just so that they can cap them off with no homo kickers.
Probably one of the best movies I have seen so far this year. Yes, it’s about baseball. No, that doesn’t make it any less beautiful, touching or genuine. It’s shot really well by the pair that made Half Nelson. It has a breakout performance from a former dominican baseball player that has never acted before. It was a summer night well spent.
It even gets bonus points for making you think the emotional climax was going to be a montage with the Buckley cover of Hallelujah. I laughed when it flipped it on me.
Rating: 9.5/10
“Newly born panda cub in the zoo, Thailand Chiang Mai, is expected to attract a bunch of tourists.
It decided to take advantage of the defenders of elephants. Zoo staff arranged this event to remind the Thais, who are fans yarymi pandas that an elephant – a symbol of their country, and these animals need attention and care.”
We drink Jim Beam. RSS Feed.
![Married-With-Children-tv-01[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Married-With-Children-tv-011.jpg "Married-With-Children-tv-01[1]")
![david_faustino_20090226[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/david_faustino_200902261.jpg "david_faustino_20090226[1]")
![ed-oneill-modern-family-abc[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/ed-oneill-modern-family-abc1.jpg "ed-oneill-modern-family-abc[1]")
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![anarchy1[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/anarchy11.jpg "anarchy1[1]")
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![musicforweb2[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/musicforweb21.gif "musicforweb2[1]")
![26phenom-500[1]](http://www.sarcastigate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/26phenom-5001-231x300.jpg "26phenom-500[1]")
July 16th, 2010
Sarcastigate at the Cinema: Inception.
Inception is great. It will make a billion dollars. Chris Nolan is going to have an even blanker check for the next film that he writes/directs and it showcases that he can, in fact, still write. I enjoyed it greatly and will watch it again when it comes out on BluRay. There are some major problems with it (or at least things that irritated me), though.
- It’s dumbed down. Following in the footsteps of other big-dollar, mainstream, intellectual, recursive thrillers, Nolan takes some short cuts. I watched the film once, late at night, and it all made painfully perfect sense. The characters spend a lot of time explaining things to each other that would be criminally obvious for anyone in their shoes. The explanation is clearly exclusively for the audiences benefit. Ellen Pages character serves as an extremely laughable outsider and an excuse to hold the audiences hand even tighter. There may be better precedent for this but the 2004 film Primer serves as a better example in how to challenge the audience through recursion interference (see also Solaris, Following, and even portions of the Matrix series.) Nolan didn’t have to take it to Primer extremes but he also didn’t have to rewrite this down to an elementary level. As a result, I’m not sure it merits the chronic rewatching that other recursive thrillers have leveraged into cultural phenomenons. But it will make a billion dollars.
- Skiing/shooting action scene. Has this ever been done well? Ever? Did Nolan think he could pull it off? As soon as I saw them near the skis I absolutely cringed. The only thing saving this entire ”level” is that they didn’t have Ellen Page strap on a snowboard. I thought for sure it was headed that way. Ouch. Truly awful.
- The effects. Some of them were incredible. Some of them were downright cheesy, though. CGI has come a long way since the Matrix but I still don’t think that this movie is going to age very well. In 20 years it’s going to look like a cartoon. I think it’s fine to be ambitious with your screenwriting but don’t assume you can build worlds from scratch.
- The heavy handedness of Leo’s familial faithfulness. Come on… give me a break…. the only thing driving him was his love for his kids and his wife? He’s really just a big softie that enjoys the game of experimenting in other peoples brains? Buhgaw.
You want to know all the good about the movie? Read another review. They are all covering it pretty well and I agree that the good stuff in this movie is REALLY good. The score is phenomenal (and Nolan didn’t allow the composer to see the movie before he scored it!!), the sound amazing. The cinematography and the set design are astounding. The fight scenes are (mostly) brilliant. Leo is going to be up for many awards. Did I mention that this movie will make a billion dollars? It will. You’ll love it.
My last prediction, though: Contrary to what so many critics are trumpeting this week… this will be nowhere near the best picture nominees come 2011. It just doesn’t have the legs.
Rating: 8/10
Postscript: The lucky gal I was watching this movie with was dozing on and off throughout the movie. It wasn’t because the movie was boring, it’s because it was LATE. While I was watching the movie I was actually thinking about how unnerving it would be to half sleep through… to wake up and feel like you hadn’t really missed anything (or had you?) I can’t imagine that experience. I wonder if it was pleasant or terrifying?