Super Fans
Posted by: j_john
Josh and I hit another Blazers game last night 
--this time they faced the now Alonzo Mourning-less New Jersey Nets (whom I last saw play in their home arena about 17 years ago). The Rose Garden was noticeably lacking a lot of fans, but the ones that were there seemed to make a good amount of noise (including upper-level huge college contingent yelling, cheering and swearing). Mr. Berezin and I found some roster sheets and studied up on the potential match-ups, and were soon surprised to see 2nd year Qyntel Woods start in place of veteran Rasheed Wallace.
We had great seats this time and it was rad to get into the game in an entirely different atmosphere than can be found in the nosebleed section. There was an awesome beer-lady with a mohawk, Blaze ate a whole turkey, Z-Bo and Damon were amazing yet again, and the Blazers won! Just in case we missed anything, Josh took notes. Next week I'll be going to the Pacers game...
Happy Thanksgaming
Posted by: j_john
Had a great time in Arizona the past few days, the 
highlight being a 4-hour "City Slicker" horseback ride in the desert. Hopefully the folks with digital cameras will hook me up with some photos, since we all looked pretty awesome/stupid out there.
I also got to spend some quality time with the relatives, especially when I showed my 12-year old cousin my GBA SP--he wasn't so impressed with Boktai, but we went deep on Wario Ware, Inc..
Night Games
Posted by: j_john
Fun Friday Night started out with a trip to the
Rose Garden along with Blazers superfan Josh Berezin.
The Houston Rockets were in town, so it was a good time to check out the progress Yao Ming is making, especially now that his team has shiny new uniforms. Lots of cute asian girls in attendance as well...oh, and the Blazers won. Go Z-Bo! (Check out what he has to say about video games.) I took a rare photo with my T610, at least you can kind of tell what it is.
The good times continued with four-player Mario Kart action on my new TV. Quite frantic and fast paced, it should prove to be a multi-player mainstain in my lineup. Now, if I could only find some decent competition...
Palme D'Boring
Posted by: j_john
Despite repeated encouragement I have yet to use this 
blog forum to fully express my opinions on a recently viewed film. However, I now feel compelled to declare my dislike for Gus Van Sant's latest film Elephant...
Beginning with a promising and seemingly realistic look at the lives of random high-school students, "Elephant" (I'm thinking this title refers to "that thing in the next room no-one wants to talk about", but I dunno) eventually frustrated me with its lack of depth. Running a scant 80 minutes, we never get to see what our characters are truly about, instead they became stereotypes of "nerd", "jock", "skater", "popular girl with bulemia", etc.
I do like what Van Sant has to say about how he didn't want to provide answers to anything, because they would immediately negate any other possibilities, but is it too much to ask for a bit more character development? Not to mention that the school where it takes place is about as populated as a WNBA game. This is the film that won the Best Director and Palme d'Or awards at Cannes? Perhaps those foreign dudes were impressed at the stark look of the film, and didn't care about (or didn't understand) the lack of realism. I liked Gerry a bit more than this one, but I'm beginning to lose interest in Van Sant's vision.
Formulaic French Filmmaking
Posted by: j_john
Last night at the theatre Dan (new projectionist) and I were talking about 
the new film Gothika-our conversation began with our joint assessment of its potential to be completely terrible, based on the stupid premise and our mutual dislike for Halle Berry. When I mentioned that I was curious to see why Mathieu Kassovitz,famous French actor (Amelie) and director (Hate) would choose to direct this kind of film, Dan seemed surprised as well.
I then remembered a film that Kassovitz made called The Crimson Rivers, which was basically his attempt at creating a Hollywood-style thriller starring Jean Reno and his good friend Vincent Cassel.
This film was quite a disspointment considering the names behind it--instead of being a unique foreign persepective on an old genre, they were trying to copy a style that should have been left alone. Listening to the director's commentary I cringed when Kassovitz gushes about how successful he was at tackling this type of film (which must have been how he obtained the director's chair for Gothika). I suppose it could be "fun" to try something different, but after the breakthrough of Hate it's dissapointing to see a director inevitably make the switch to this kind of forgettable filmmaking.
Let the Hipsters Laugh
Posted by: j_john
There was a big crowd at the theatre last night for the Jackpot Recordssponsored free showing of the new David Cross DVD Let America Laugh. I guess it makes sense that everyone came to see a comedy video yet much more innovative fare like the previously mentioned Director's Label showing gets only a handful of people.
The director of the project, Lance Bangs, was there, and it was nice for him to have such a large audience, but I could have done without all the hipsters sneaking in and then leaving their cans of PBR for me to pick up.
At least those Jackpot Records guys are totally rad dudes...
Redesigning My Life
Posted by: j_john
Welcome to my new world. I'm loving my new NES-inspired design that Curt and Mike hooked me up with, and I just added some new electronics to
make my movie viewing and video-game playing more enjoyable.
In other news, to make sure I don't totally get hooked-in to my new electronics setup, I'm currently making a mix CD for someone to use in their yoga class. YOGA!
Old school side talkin'
Posted by: j_john
Don't know if I'll ever make it to the esteemed pages of Totally Sidetalkin', but hopefully Tommy Vercetti would be proud.
All Is Full of New Stuff
Posted by: j_john
I'm pretty excited about the new addition to my Bjork collection currently hanging on the wall behind me. After Tuesday night's Jackpot Records-sponsored event (where they showed highlights of three inovative music-video directors) at the theatre, I found a bunch of leftover promotional posters! Looking through them I was rewarded when I came across the Chris Cunningham (his Aphex Twin videos are terribly amazing) one, so I rolled it up and dropped the rest of them off at the downtown Jackpot store yesterday.
This was a pretty strange strategy for me--I get a new poster and I can feel good about returning the box to Jackpot. I'm planning on buying the DVDs that were being shown on Tuesday and will make sure to share the joy of groundbreaking music videos.
