Lost…and I don’t mean the show
I apologize for the interruption in service; something that remains unidentified attacked the database server (it may have been one of the comments, although that explanation doesn’t quite add up), and the site went down for 36 hours.The hosting company did a system restore, but had to go back to January 15 for an uncorrupted version, and because I tend to compose most shorter entries right in the blog window, I don’t have that material backed up, so…that’s that, pretty much.Some days you’re the hydrant who is too lazy to open a Word file; some days you’re the dog.Today I’m the hydrant.
Anyway, sorry about that.If you want to talk about Punch-Drunk Love, homemade bon-bons, Edwards and Rudy, or anything else I posted about in the last couple of three weeks, you can do so here.BUT PLEASE RUN A VIRUS SCAN FIRST.(Hee.)
On a brighter note, some links!Not that anyone cares (even I don’t care that much), but my weecap of the latest RW/RR Challenge is up here.Also, last day to vote in Edward Copeland’s best/worst Best Actor ballot.
Tags: curmudgeoning movies sites TV
One of the other blogs I read fairly regularly was also knocked off-line by what they describe as a “comment-spam attack.” Spam vendors and/or hackers suck.
Maybe it was that, then. It was a regular commenter, too, and I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t queueing where I told it to, and then…dark night of the Nation.
So, regular commenter whose nom contains the word “hope,” you may want to run a virus program/defrag.
I had come here to fawn about your RW/RR recap when the site was down so I’m glad you mentioned it. This line killed me: “Tyler interviews that the money means more to him because he wants to go to grad school, which oh my fucking goddamn God just take loans like EVERYONE ELSE ON EARTH you little shit.”
I think it killed me so much because it reminded of one of my favorite Soprano’s lines from Tony: “I’m the mutherfucking fucking one ya gotta worry about.”
Glad to see you’re back up!
ruh-roh…somebody broke the blog! Glad to see you’re back up…me no likey the “dark night of the Nation.”
Hey, you know what would be funny? If the TN store had those little car stickers that are just ovals w/country abbreviations…but they would say “TN” and be red with yellow letters. Like we’re all proud supporters/citizens in the nation of Tomato.
Anyone?
Crap! I kept meaning to come and note down the undereye concealer suggestions, and never got around to it.
Glad you’re back up.
Sars, if you can, you might wanna look at upgrading your wordpress install. You’re running 2.1, which appears to have any number of vulnerabilities and exploits. Current version is 2.3.2.
I thought maybe you hadn’t paid your bill…
And I really wanted to weigh in on the candidate situation. So here goes.
I really liked John Edwards, although I was quite impressed with Bill Richardson. But it was obvious that Clinton and Obama had managed to get their movie/TV-star personae solidly implanted in the media brain, so I wasn’t surprised when Richardson, and then Edwards, dropped out of the race.
If Bill Clinton hadn’t stuck his foot in it big-time, I might have gone with Hillary. But I was really turned off. I voted for Obama in the Moveon poll yesterday. And then, last night, heard Michelle Obama give a campaign speech in Wilmington, Delaware, on C-Span, and I am hooked.
So is my partner, who is a Vietnam vet and pro-choice and very energy savvy, but also much to the right of John McCain on immigration.
Like one of the previous commenters on this subject, I remember the Kennedy era very well. My father was on the committee to elect JFK in the Bronx, and at age 14, I worked the phones at the Democratic party headquarters housed in the old Concourse Plaza Hotel in the Bronx, getting out the vote. In those days we tore up a telephone book and divvied up the pages.
The first time I got to vote, it was a choice between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. Bleccch. I haven’t been involved in a political campaign since.
But next Saturday I’m going to the Democratic Caucus here in Washington State and dip my toes in the water.
The google cache can help you find lost posts, if you care… Here’s the one about Punch Drunk Love.
I am dismayed by the negative tone the Clintons have taken recently. I guess I’m naive, because I thought they were better than that. Just once, I would like to vote in an election that didn’t require me to choose between the lesser of two evils. I know, the sky isn’t acutally blue in my world, is it?
Welcome back! I promise my virus scan is up to snuff. :-) We missed you!
Just wanted to comment on your Punch Drunk Love post…I think it’s awsome you mentioned Wes Anderson, because I think you’d be hard-pressed to find two directors more opposing in style and talent (particuarly with the same surname). You did mention Wes Anderson’s characters as behaving like “normal” people. I’d say if normal peple acted like that I would’ve put a gun to my head out of boredom a long time ago. I imagine that every time Wes yells “Cut!”, he says, “Jason, Bill, you need to dial it down. Your voices have modulation and inflection. Now let’s try it again. with even less emotional life. And for God’s sake, lower the stakes!”
Conversely, if normal people behaved like PT Anderson characters, the whole world would be locked in a perpetual cycle of the weeping and the gnashing of teeth and the rending of clothes. The difference in my opinion, is that PT’s world is absolutely riveting. And while I completely agree that Punch Drunk is all frosting and no cake, to say Magnolia and Boogie Nights had no depth or message is just wrong. AND IT MAKES ME VERY ANGRY!! LOOK!! FROGS!!
I have to comment about P.T. Anderson too. Because I love him. And not because he’s pretentious (I’m the first to admit he is), but because his movies speak to me on some sort of dream-like subconscious level. And at some point, that’s what movies are all about. I’m sure he does not intend his movies to be realistic– to reflect certain aspects of real life, sure, but not be realistic. Because they are more like dreams than anything else, and then you fall into film theory “film as a window vs. film as a frame” type crap (something like that, I’ve been out of school too long to remember), and really it’s just a preference of what you’re looking for when you go see a movie. And I understand that he’s not going to hit everyone the way he hits me. But I get really mad when people want movies to be realistic. Some movies are intended to be “true” in that way, but the whole purpose of movies is to escape into something else. No one accuses David Lynch of not being realistic because they understand he’s not trying to be. Maybe PT’s world looks too much like real life to mark the distinction. And I’m probably just repeating what Ryan said above (@Ryan: I love MAGNOLIA too. It’s you and me against the world, baby).
I’ve just gotten sad about people not “getting” THERE WILL BE BLOOD, because it seems like a lot of them are looking for something that was never intended to be there. I heard an NPR radio host say she didn’t like it because she goes to the movies to relax. Who watches the trailer for this movie and thinks, “Oh, that’ll be relaxing.” I mean, really.
Thank goodness you’re back – this was a rough end of the week for me without you. And I remember loving Punk Drunk Love, but then I mostly liked it for those color-y things he did, rather than any character….director-y stuff.
It’s late and I have a yoga-induced headache. Just glad to have you back is all!
So, so happy TN is back! It was a rough few days at work without being able to hit the site a few times a day. And I really hope it wasn’t somehow one of my comments that shut the board down!
I’m still divided on Obama and Hillary. On the one hand, I think Hillary has a lot more experience, but for some reason, she really turns me off. I can’t decide if it’s the negative tone she and Bill have lately or the fact that she is so calculating and seems to mow down anyone in her path without a second thought (which, I know you probably have to do that to succeed in politics, but she seems to take it to another level). Obama is not without his faults and may not have as much experience, but I get such a sense of hope with him. I feel like he could do a lot of good in office. I would be ok with either one winning, but I think Obama would excite me the most.
Huh, I guess I’m going with Obama.
Nooooo! What was the bon bon recipe? Had it been posted? Noooo!
What was the name of that online store with the comfy PJ bottoms? They had some really cute sweaters, but now all I can remember is that it started with a “B.” Help?
I think mine was one of the last comments before the site went down. I really hope I didn’t break your blog! I wasn’t commenting from a place hiving with viruses – as far as I know. Glad to see you up and running again.
Here’s the bonbon recipe, if anyone still cares. They were delicious. :)
(it’s copied directly from the book, sorry if some instructions seem really twee)
2 tablespoons butter
1/8 teaspoon vanilla
10 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
3/4 cup chopped nuts
1. Take butter out the the refrigerator. Let it get soft.
2. mash the butter with a spoon. Keep mashing it. It will look like whipped cream.
3. Mix the vanilla in one drop at a time.
4. Add the sugar to the butter and vanilla mixture. Add it slowly, one spoonful at a time. Mix and mix and mix some more.
5. Add the chopped nuts a few nuts at a time. Mix and mix and mix some more.
6. Take a large pinch of the mixture with your fingers. Roll it in a ball. Take another, make another. And another. Make twelve balls in all. Put all the balls on a plate that is lined with wax paper.
7. Put the plate with the candy balls in the refrigerator. Let them get hard.
8. If you want to, you can pour melted sweetened chocolate over these candies. Then they will really be bon-bon. That is French for good-good.
9. Eat.
Bon, I’m glad you found it!! It sounds yummay! I used to make something similar but with peanut butter in place of chopped nuts. TDF.
@MizShrew – the site is Boden :)
@Jenny – I’m going with Obama as well. And for the first time in almost 30 years of voting, I’m going to declare a party so that I can vote in the primaries. This race is just too close for comfort, and I want a say in who the final candidate is come November. Yes, Obama lacks experience, but I believe he’s intelligent enough to surround himself with experienced people. I also think he has a chance to bring this country together, while the Clintons will just divide us further.
Punch Drunk Love is the only PT Anderson movie I’ve seen, and, based on that experience, probably the only PT Anderson movie I ever WILL see. Hated it on a visceral level, I think for all the same reasons you did, Sars. Each time a new quirk or oddity was introduced, I felt like: “And I should care about this, why?” A co-worker was saying he was excited to see There Will Be Blood, and when I explained why I didn’t plan to see it, he mentioned all the raves that Daniel Day-Lewis had gotten. To which I could only respond by saying, yeah, well, he got raves (deservedly) for Gangs of New York, too, and man did I think that was a terrible movie, too.
I enjoyed Magnolia more than you did, Sars, but I figure “What if everyone sang Aimee Mann songs, and then there were frogs?!” is as accurate a summary as I’ve seen. Haven’t seen Punch Drunk Love, mostly because it just doesn’t seem like my kind of thing. At least with Magnolia, I could see there were some good performances under the layers of unlikelihood. (Love Julianne Moore.)
@Georgia: I can go you one better; not only did I think Gangs of New York a terrible movie, I thought Daniel Day-Lewis was terrible in it. I thought his performance was over-the-top, self-indulgent, cartoonish crap. I don’t understand why the movie in general, and he in particular, wasn’t panned. I can tell you I’ll be staying far, far away from There Will Be Blood.
@Georgia & Sandman – I also hated Gangs of New York. And Sandman, I also thought DDL was overhyped in it. As he was in Age of Innocence. And The Crucible. And Last of the Mohicans (though I may be the only one who dislikes this one). The guy likes literary adapts, apparently, and I’m not sure he’s at his best in them. Maybe it’s me, because going into an adaptation film I have so many pre-conceived ideas of a character & an actor may develop his characterization in a completely different way, so I’ll hate on the actor rather than the film. Whatever…my own opinion matters most to me, anyway :)
OTOH, I liked him a LOT in In the Name of the Father. And he was good in My Left Foot, in a Diving Bell kind of way – it’s got to be hard as an actor & non-paralyzed human to overcome the basic instincts to gesticulate when talking, to turn the head when someone’s speaking, to move anything as an instinctive reaction, and just sit. Basically I think his Irish stuff is great, and most everything else gets stuck under the Acting.