From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V2 #235 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Saturday, July 6 2002 Volume 02 : Number 235 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] movies: Fight Club (I want you to e-mail me as hard as you can) ["West Moran" ] [loud-fans] Just in case you hadn't heard... ["Andrew Hamlin" ] [loud-fans] baltimore ballet? [Dana Paoli ] [loud-fans] more movie talk ["jer fairall" ] Re: [loud-fans] baltimore ballet? [Sue Trowbridge ] Re: [loud-fans] more movie talk ["Andrew Hamlin" ] Re: [loud-fans] more movie talk [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 00:15:25 -0700 From: "West Moran" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] movies: Fight Club (I want you to e-mail me as hard as you can) > > As for FIGHT CLUB, the DVD extras are > > boffo, but I bought it because I loved the film. And if you're avoiding > > FIGHT CLUB deliberately > > I think I might like it, but I've been wary because violent movies make me > tense and squirm uncomfortably. It was raved about and described as > "Couplandesque" on the Coupland list when it came out, but I dunno. Nobody > ever described the film's violence levels. Just how violent is it? Is it > violent in an elegant Hitchcockian way, where it is left to the imagination, > or is it in your face blood n' guts? From what I've heard about the film's > themes, I think I'd like it, but I am a wuss, admittedly, when it comes to > butt kickin'. Here is a partial list of violent scenes in "Fight Club" from www.screenit.com, a website that is pretty useful if you are looking for information about these kinds of things. (It is supposedly for parents who are concerned about the content of movies their children might be watching.) Parenthetical comments are my own. Jack has a fantasy of a midair collision where we see an airplane's cabin destroyed and people and seats being sucked out of what's left. (This is not overtly gross, but it is realistic, intense, and harrowing.) Outside a bar, Tyler tells Jack that he wants Jack to hit him as hard as he can. After some reluctance, Jack slugs him in the ear. In response, Tyler punches him in the gut and the two then get into a fight with both throwing punches. (No blood, just two dopes hitting each other.) We see another fight in the bar's basement that includes severe blows to the participants' bodies. Another fight occurs with more severe blows and throwing bodies to the ground as Jack fights another man. That man takes Jack's head and then repeatedly slams it against the hard floor (resulting in a lot of blood). Tyler kisses/licks Jack's hand (to make it wet) and then pours lye on it, creating a chemical burn. Jack tries to get free as the solution burns and bubbles on his skin, but Tyler won't let him go and even slaps him several times while trying to prove his point. (This is pretty nasty, but again, more intense and harrowing than gory.) The bar owner and his thug (who's carrying a handgun) come into the fight club to kick them out. The owner then proceeds to beat up Tyler (who enjoys it) by repeatedly and severely punching and kicking him. (This one is pretty bad, but it's the masochistic aspect of the beating that makes it so disturbing.) To intimidate his boss, Jack starts punching and flailing himself across his boss' office (and breaking a glass coffee table and some shelving units with his body in the process). (Also pretty bad, but also kind of funny in a bizarro way.) Jack fights a new member of the fight club and then really starts to pummel him on the floor with severe blows and lots of blood. (Probably the single most unpleasant moment of the film; even other characters are seen recoiling in disgust. This scene is also perhaps the strongest evidence that "Fight Club" is not in any way about glorifying violence; if a movie can manipulate an audience into enjoying one guy sadistically beating another guy -- Sonny mertilizing Carlo in "The Godfather" springs to mind -- then this scene is its polar opposite.) Tyler purposefully drives down the wrong side of the road and into oncoming traffic to prove his lack of fear and scare the others with him. He then drives faster and without holding onto the steering wheel, causing the car to crash into another car that's pulled over to the side. As a result, both roll over an embankment, injuring everyone inside. (Have I mentioned intense and harrowing?) An explosion sets free a large corporate logo ball that then crashes into a coffee shop. As the perpetrators run away, we see a cop shooting at them (and he hits one in the head -- the impact isn't seen, although we do see the gory aftermath). (It's the gory aftermath that's hard to take -- one brief shot, but one's all you need. Yick.) There is other bloody stuff, but it involves some important plot points that I would rather not reveal. All in all, elegantly Hitchcockian it ain't. "Fight Club" isn't wall-to-wall violence, but what is there will doubtless propel the squeamish out of their seats for a breath of fresh air. Rosebud was Gwyneth Paltrow's head, West. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 07:53:53 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] movies: Fight Club (I want you to e-mail me as hard as you can) At 12:15 AM 7/5/2002 -0700, West Moran wrote: >Here is a partial list of violent scenes in "Fight Club" from >www.screenit.com, a website that is pretty useful if you are looking for >information about these kinds of things. (It is supposedly for parents who >are concerned about the content of movies their children might be watching.) >Parenthetical comments are my own. > > >Jack has a fantasy of a midair collision where we see an airplane's cabin >destroyed and people and seats being sucked out of what's left. (This is >not overtly gross, but it is realistic, intense, and harrowing.) As these descriptions and Wes' comments say, the film is pretty darn violent, though always in service of the story rather than NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET-gratuitous. But FWIW, my youngest sister, who usually cannot stand violence of any sort, loved the movie. But the real reason I'm responding is that I hate it when people, like this screenit.com author, identify Ed Norton's character as "Jack." Ed's character isn't identified by name until near the very end of the film, and he sure ain't Jack! Yeah, he starts saying "I am Jack's smirking revenge" and stuff like that, but only after reading that kiddie medical article that says "I am Jack's removed appendix" and such like. But I have seen reviewer after reviewer call him "Jack." At least the credits and IMDB identify Ed as "Narrator" instead... later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 08:59:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] movies: Fight Club (I want you to e-mail me as hard as you can) On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Miles Goosens wrote: > But FWIW, my youngest sister, who usually cannot stand violence of any > sort, loved the movie. Yeah, I can stand violence, but gratuitous violence tends to at least annoy me, and I loved Fight Club. > But the real reason I'm responding is that I hate it when people, like > this screenit.com author, identify Ed Norton's character as "Jack." Me too! I have heard he's called that in the script, though. If so, AAAARGH! a ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 11:20:33 -0400 From: "John Sharples" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] movies: The Nightmare Before (During?) Matrix Mark: >Whatever happened to Elizabeth Daily? (I know...do a google >search... No, actually that would be: http://us.imdb.com/ ...and for music: http://www.allmusic.com/ And hell, you might as well have my favorite free porn site while I'm at it: http://www.voyeurweb.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 11:05:51 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] movies: Comments >I'm with you there. I'd like to know what it is about Andy's brain >chemistry that allows him to not only tolerate the un-MSTed, but to >actually seek it out. On second thought, I don't want to know. Probably helps that I saw it without the robots first. Still, even after a few rounds with the robots, I much prefer it the other way. Heck, you can't see Torgo's feet on MST3K! ROYAL TENENBAUMS, two words: hysteroid and arid. Gene Hackman's a national treasure, admittedly, but for (half?) your money I suggest watching NIGHT MOVES (again?). Wondering how a whole state can have no 4th fireworks whatsoever (at least we got the big shows over here), Andy During the '42 season, the first since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, some writers accused Ted of dodging the draft when he refused to give up his exempt III-A status as sole provider for his mother. Hardly any of baseball's front line talent enlisted during that season, but Williams got most of the heat because he got hottest under the collar about it. Yet Williams turned out to be baseball's longest-serving military warrior, missing three full seasons (1943-45) during World War II and most of the 1952 and '53 seasons when the Korean War was going on. Trained as a Navy fighter pilot and slated for combat in the South Pacific in '45, Japan surrendered before he could see action. Seven years later, at age 33, his reserve unit was recalled to active duty with the Marines and he flew 39 missions over the Korean mainland. On Feb. 19, 1953, flying low on a bombing run far above the 38th parallel, Williams' F-9 Panther was hit by small arms fire and started leaking hydraulic fluid. With his plane shaking badly (he didn't know it was also on fire), his control panel lit up with warning lights, and his radio dead, Williams followed a fellow pilot back to base, flying without hydraulics and wrestling his stick all the way. Approaching the landing field, an on-board explosion blew off one of the wheel doors and Williams was forced to land his crippled jet at 225 miles-an-hour and on one wheel. When the F-9 finally came to a stop at the end of the runway after skidding over 2,000 feet, Williams walked away from the burning wreck as firemen hosed it down with foam. Fortunate but enraged, he reacted to nearly auguring in as if he had just popped out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth -- he yanked off his helmet and slammed it to the ground. "Ted Williams was what John Wayne would have liked us to think he was," said sportswriter Robert Lipsyte. "Williams was so big, and handsome, and laconic, and direct, and unafraid in that uniquely American cowboy way. To me he epitomized the sense of the athlete as gunslinger." [--Mike Meserole, from http://msn.espn.go.com/classic/obit/williams_ted_obit.html . Ted Williams, arguably the greatest hitter major league baseball has ever known, died this morning in Crystal River, Florida, at the age of 83.] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 14:06:45 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: [loud-fans] Just in case you hadn't heard... New email for me at long last. zoom@muppetlabs.com until further notice. Many thanks again to those who helped make the transition! Somebody turned on the lights, Andy "Lord Buckley is a secret thing that people pass under the table. You ask writers who they think is the best writer and they all mention someone above them. Gradually you get up at the top, and you get to Samuel Beckett and not many people have read him. But a lot of people have been influenced by Beckett. I think the same was true of Lord Buckley. There were a lot of people influenced by Lord Buckley who have never heard his material." - --Ken Kesey, from http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2002/06/26/buckley/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 16:17:26 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] Go-Betweens Good news for Go-Betweens fans (and I know we have a few here): _Send Me a Lullabye_, _Before Hollywood_, and _Spring Hill Fair_ are being reissued by Jetset Records in the US (my copies list Circus Records as a co-releasing label - not sure where they're located). They're getting treatment similar to the Costello reissues: a second disc of contemporary, generally unreleased tracks accompanies each title. The other good news, for those of you want to check out the band at low cost, is that my copies of these titles have become redundant. I'll give away one per person to the first responses. Rank which titles you'd most like, so if you're the second respondent for one title but the first for another, I'll know. Don't clutter the list with this, please. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous...got me? __Captain Beefheart__ np: a bunch of Elephant 6 MP3s ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 19:32:25 -0400 From: Dana Paoli Subject: [loud-fans] baltimore ballet? A Game Theory boot currently listed on eBay here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=891832067 Anyone know anything about it? - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 20:27:49 -0400 From: "jer fairall" Subject: [loud-fans] more movie talk Has anyone seen PUMPKIN, the new Christina Ricci movie? I ask because Ebert's review (***1/2 out of 4) made it sound so weird that I have no idea at all of what kind of film to expect. It won't open here for a few weeks anyway, but I'm curious to hear some opinions on it. And since someone else mentioned it recently, I agree that Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN is a must-see. Easily my favorite 2002 film so far. Jer, who hated THE MATRIX and FIGHT CLUB and didn't think all that much of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON either. np: K's Choice, ALMOST HAPPY (my other CDs are feeling very neglected these days) Will antibiotics work in 20 years? End the misuse of Antibiotics: http://www.care2.com/go/z/1425 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 22:36:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Sue Trowbridge Subject: Re: [loud-fans] baltimore ballet? On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, Dana Paoli wrote: > A Game Theory boot currently listed on eBay here: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=891832067 > > Anyone know anything about it? Yes, we have it, though I don't remember where it came from. Joe made a really nice cover for it. People, I implore you: if you are thinking of buying this & supporting a bootlegger (it's currently up to $17.50), please e-mail me off-list and I will make a copy for you for the cost of the CD-R's and postage, probably no more than a couple bucks. I'll even make the artwork available on the web. I reserve the right to set up a tree if I get more than, say, six requests. Also, please note that I have pointed out many times to Scott that there are Game Theory bootlegs for sale on eBay and the procedures to remove them, and he has never done anything about it, so I feel that means I have his tacit approval to give this away for free. People who have already bought the LF live CD may find that they get prompter service ;) Hey, Scott *does* get royalties on *that*! - --Sue ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 21:32:27 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] more movie talk >Has anyone seen PUMPKIN, the new Christina Ricci movie? I ask because Ebert's review >(***1/2 out of 4) made it sound so weird that I have no idea at all of what kind of film to expect. >It won't open here for a few weeks anyway, but I'm curious to hear some opinions on it. Caught most of it at the festival; afraid I found it excruciating. >And since someone else mentioned it recently, I agree that Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN is a >must-see. Easily my favorite 2002 film so far. Will have to tune in that one. I highly encourage all to see THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS, though, probably my favorite 2002 film so far. >Jer, who hated THE MATRIX and FIGHT CLUB and didn't think all that much of CROUCHING >TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON either. "Two out of three ain't bad..." Wondering how a body could not like CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON--wait, we've done that one before... Andy "Killer of Sheep respects the mundane aspects of black American life, even when it isn't flattering or superficially exciting. Burnett trusts that circumstances that define an impoverished American existence can be the source of drama. He's richly aware like the playwrights of the Negro Ensemble Company and the 1960s black arts movement but is committed to a realist, rather than theatrical, aesthetic. He knows that by showing the disappointment of men and women who attempt to sustain their relationships in the midst of social despair doesn't simply portray them as miserable but presents the flipside--their intense, humane desiring. This imperative makes Killer of Sheep a landmark achievement. Burnett updated Italian Neorealism's special style of humanism from the midcentury and found the ambition and failures particular to the century's end. That's why, seen today, Killer of Sheep strikes one as a still-relevant, primal expression of American experience." - --Armond White on Charles Burnett's KILLER OF SHEEP (still, 25 years on, unavailable for home viewing), from http://us.imdb.com/AList/killer ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 23:59:01 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] more movie talk On Fri, 5 Jul 2002, jer fairall wrote: > Has anyone seen PUMPKIN, the new Christina Ricci movie? Mmm...I'd probably enjoy 5 hours of a camera focused on Christina Ricci, even if she were just doing nothing. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::[clever or pithy quote]:: __[source of quote]__ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2002 01:37:25 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: [loud-fans] courtesy of the murmurs.com (including typos) Down with Wilco, cancelled 02:38 AM/07-06-2002 The story of Wilcos Ynakee Hotel Foxtrot is practical industry legend: Last year, Reprise, a division of Warner Bros. dropped the band when it determined Yankee wasnt commercial enough, only to have Warner subsidiary Nonesuch sign Wilco and release the CD to raves and big sales. So youd think no one would make that mistake again. But now Hollywodd Records has dumped Down With Wilco, a project by the alt-country band and the Minus 5, who include R.E.M.s Peter Buck and the Young Fresh Fellows Scott McCaughey. Its probably Wilcos fault. Were damaged goods, says frontman Jeff Tweedy. The trouble began when Mammoth, the indie set to release Down, was shuttered in May and sister label Hollywood (both are owned by Disney) took over marketing and publicity. Hollywood soon scuttled several mammoth releases including Down With Wilco, while keeping discs from Los Lobos and alt-rockers A. Down With Wilco isnt the sort of album thats going to chart high, says Rob Seidenberg, Mammoths ex-prez. Its great music that will require real attention in terms of publicity and marketing. Says Tweed: I love this record. I have the same feeling about it that I had about Yankee. I hope it ends up somewhere where people are excited about it. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 23:44:21 -0700 From: "West Moran" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Down With Wilco, Indeed > Down with Wilco, cancelled 02:38 AM/07-06-2002 > > The story of Wilcos Ynakee Hotel Foxtrot is practical industry > legend: > Last year, Reprise, a division of Warner Bros. dropped the band when > it determined Yankee wasnt commercial enough, only to have Warner > subsidiary Nonesuch sign Wilco and release the CD to raves and big > sales. So youd think no one would make that mistake again. > > But now Hollywodd Records has dumped Down With Wilco, a project by > the alt-country band and the Minus 5, who include R.E.M.s Peter Buck > and the Young Fresh Fellows Scott McCaughey. Its probably Wilcos > fault. Were damaged goods, says frontman Jeff Tweedy. > > The trouble began when Mammoth, the indie set to release Down, was > shuttered in May and sister label Hollywood (both are owned by > Disney) took over marketing and publicity. Hollywood soon scuttled > several mammoth releases including Down With Wilco, while keeping > discs from Los Lobos and alt-rockers A. > > Down With Wilco isnt the sort of album thats going to chart high, > says Rob Seidenberg, Mammoths ex-prez. Its great music that will > require real attention in terms of publicity and marketing. Says > Tweed: I love this record. I have the same feeling about it that I > had > about Yankee. I hope it ends up somewhere where people are excited > about it. By coincidence, I just read this very same story in the issue of Entertainment Weekly that arrived in the mail today. What rotten luck! I heard that a Wilco documentary is in the works; now I'm betting that it won't find distribution. You know, I've been very happy with 125 Records product lately. Perhaps they'd be interested in picking up the album. Let the war against music end, West. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 02:56:40 -0400 From: "glenn mcdonald" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] more movie talk Jer asked: > Has anyone seen PUMPKIN, the new Christina Ricci movie? I saw it this afternoon, also basically on the strength of Ebert's review, and although I can kind of see how he got what he got out of it, I thought it never really decided what it wanted to be, and wasn't actually very successful at anything. Ebert made it seem like a manic black comedy, but I thought it moved way too slow, and in many places the "comedy" felt to me like it kind of really wanted to be a tear-jerker but it chickened out. Your Ricci time would be much better spent staying home and watching _The Opposite of Sex_ again, in my opinion. Andy added: ? I highly encourage all to see THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS I second this, or at least one-and-a-halfth it. The missing half is because I couldn't totally shake the idea that it's Jody Foster's _Donnie Darko_, and it just isn't in the same league. I haven't seen anything I thought was Very Good since _Y Tu Mama Tambien_, and only four others all year (_Donnie Darko_, _No Such Thing_, _What Time Is It There?_ and _Kissing Jessica Stein_). glenn ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V2 #235 *******************************