Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

Ghost on the Highway: A Portrait of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club will be screening this coming Thursday and Friday at SF’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

I was fortunate to make contact with the filmmaker, Kurt Voss, in the latter stages of editing in time to include a few of my photographs of Pierce and the Gun Club in the movie.

Yerba Buena’s Film Schedule

Here is a list published by Box Office Mojo of the top 20 box office leading feature films released over the past 365 days. PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST took the number 1 spot with it’s box office total gross income of over $417 million.

At least half of the top 20 films are heavily CG animated or visual effects movies, including THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (2), HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (3), CARS (4), X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (5) and KING KONG (6).

Also well represented in the top 20 are comedies such as TALLADEGA NIGHTS (11), CLICK (12), THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (15) and SCARY MOVIE 4 (19).

It’s interesting to note the profit margins. Computer animated CHICKEN LITTLE (13) reportedly took $150 Million to make and grossed $135 Million, so it actually lost money. The horror comedy SCARY MOVIE 4 was made for only $45 Million and captured $90 Million. Doubling your investment and having fun while doing it sounds like a good thing to me.

Half a century ago, on August 11, 1956, an Oldsmobile convertible driven by Jackson Pollock, who was drunk, hit a tree in the Springs, killing the artist and a passenger.

– Peter Schjeldahl, “American Abstract”, The New Yorker

This is an excellent write up on the power of Pollock and the film by Ed Harris is also mentioned. Pollock, the movie is enough to make any drinker swear off the bottle… at least for a few days.

Liquids can be dangerous, as yesterday was a red terror alert day, for fear liquids and gels might be used to assemble terrorist bombs on trans Atlantic air travel.

This Mister Borat dude is one crazy TV reporter man from Kazakhstan in this fall’s movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. See the funny video trailer online here.

It’s hard to know Sacha Baron Cohen‘s true identity: Borat, Ali G, or what? He also is the voice of King Julien in Madagascar and the upcoming Madagascar 2.

See The War Tapes Trailer

Thanks to high quality low cost digital video cameras, documentaries can be shot by many people in many locations, such as Iraq war footage recorded by soldiers. This is media made by soldiers, not the media. No media bias. Reality, believe it or not.

The War Tapes. Read review by The Daily Kos. Read background story by S.F. Chronicle and the S.F. Chronicle movie review.

On November 8, 2004 Fallujah, there was an attack on the city of Fallujah, Iraq which has been documented and available on DVD (see below). The video and subject matter is a disturbing history lesson.

There has been considerable blog buzz that current military operations in the Iraq city of Ramadi is a redux of the destruction and collateral damage done in Fallujah.

Additional video from Iraq can be seen at Alive In Baghdad.

P.S. Related video clip distributed on Google Video:

The Hidden Massacre of Fallujah

Description: This is the terrible testimony given by Jeff Englehart, veteran of the war in Iraq. “I have seen women and children burnt bodies – the former U.S. soldier added – phosphorus explodes and it creates a cloud. Whoever is within 150 mt is dead.” Some witnesses have seen a rainfall of burning substances of different colors that were burning people when hit and even those who were not hit had problems breathing”, told us Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji, director of the center for human rights studies in Fallujah.

More videos, go to video.google.com

OK, I accept that for awhile now the USA has been a country on steroids, no matter how much in denial we might be about it. Look no further than the rise of Rockstar, Red Bull and Monster energy drinks. A nation of pumped up mutants worshiping bigger pumped up mutants.

So, it is no surprise that the mini-mutants must check out the top professional mutants in X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Setting a Memorial Day Weekend record of $120 Million X-Men 3 has some mutant legs. Here’s what our mutant reviewers have to say:

“OMG X3 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

*falls over, dies of the absolute awesomeness of the movie and the anticipation for the next one*” – gooshgoo

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“And Angel. Oh Angel – he who only had 5 lines. I was expecting much, much more from this movie. I was expecting a love triangle damnit! Between Iceman/Kitty/Angel. And what did we get? Angel…just there, almost useless. An even softer Iceman. Kitty was fine, I did like her. Especially her scene with Juggernaut.

And the ending! This really can’t be the last in the trilogy. Damnit, I hate open endings.

Hate to compare but MI:3 was so much better than X-Men: The Last Stand. And I don’t *even* like Tom “Cuckoo” Cruise.” – _generik

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“in other news.. I have seen the greatest. fucking. movie. ever.

And that is X-Men 3. I KID YOU NOT. This movie will change your life. Or at least, it did mine. It was so much different than the first two. If anyone of you other nerds out there have read the comic books, it’s more like them. It was dark, and a shit load of people died. Yeah, I mean died. As in, not in the soap-opera way in which they magically come back to life. I mean, they’re dead as a damn door nail. You’ll see.

YOU’LL ALL SEE.” – Cogitation

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“To rant a tiny bit more… what was up with the love triangle sub-plot and the lesson it teaches? If your boyfriend is attracted to someone who posesses an attribute you don’t… get it fixed and he’ll love you again! I know there was some attempt to say that she did it for herself, but that’s not at all how it appeared when all was said and done.” – daemonwolf

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“Just about every acting job by the mutant bad guys sucked. The throw away mutant characters were lame and felt just like “filler”.

But I was surprised at the language in the movie. There were a few “shits” at least one “bullshit” a couple “bitches” and one “Dickhead” — and THAT is where I sort of have a problem with the movie.” – Yirmumah

You see? People do have minds of their own!

One of the best things about The Da Vinci Code book and now movie, is that it stirs up a lot of thought and talk, and not necessarily both.

Here are my favorite weekend reviews from the blogosphere:

“Not the worst movie that I have ever seen, but it’s no Deuce Bigalo either! I would give it amybe a 4 or 5out of 10 rating.” – blog of kenny on MySpace.com

“The movie’s going too fast….Teabing skipped the part about the knife and that extra hand.” – blog of Liyana at MySpace.com.

“Was doing fine with it ’til i showed up at church today and guess what the sermon was over???? i almost walked out.. that’s my rant for now.” – Myspace blog of Steven

“The Da Vinci Code (subtitled “A Carpenter Humped a Prostitute)…seriously, is everyone stuck on this crap or what? This movie is gonna become the Napoleon Dynamite of paranoid God fearing types…” – MySpace blog of Jason

“Went to see the Da Vinci code with amy and had breakfast at ihop. Breakfast was awesome, the movie, not so much.” – MySpace blog of Clyde,

These entries were all found by running a tag search on Technorati, so it is really a surprise to see the heavy rankings of so many Myspace.com blogs. This is a new disruption within the blogosphere!