I like other stuff Richard Linklater’s done, but I was disappointed by this. I kept wishing Ethan Hawke would shut his mouth so I could enjoy the movie. His portrayal of Jesse brought new meaning to the word smarmy. Julie Delpy was convincing, which only made Ethan that much more annoying.
There’s better movies where people sit around and talk about life, love, fear, death, etc. I was thinking through the whole movie that this was the French New Wave gone yuppie.

I’ve read 3 or 4 other Murakami novels. “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” is by far my favorite, but I liked “South of the Border” a lot. It is familiar territory for Murakami, but as Bill Turner mentioned, it’s refreshingly realistic, i.e. no pseudo-mystical elements or events. Besides, liking Murakami means you have to like middle-aged male narrators vaguely unsatisfied with their generally happy existence who are into jazz and women that like to disappear, etc, etc. The translation is a bit bland, but it does the job.

This is like several hours of MTV rap videos compressed into a movie timespan and given a “plot.” It’s just an excuse to throw sex and violence on the screen and get people to pay $8 for it. There’s a part of me that thinks Tony Scott had to be brilliant to create something this grandiosely craptacular, but then I remember the scene where Domino gives a lap dance to an astoundingly ugly gangsta to save the team. Celluloid shlock.

Well, maybe Planetary ranks with it, but I haven’t read all of that. This and Garth Ennis’s Preacher were the best comics out there while they were being published. There is so much humor and brilliant inventiveness on every page of Transmetropolitan that you have to love it. And Patrick Stewart says that Spider Jerusalem is his idol. Long live Magical Truth-saying Bastard Spidey!

I would definitely recommend this to someone about to travel along with something that taught basic grammar. I was kind of skeptical about this, but I got it out of the library anyway and I was surprised at how much I learned. I feel like I could get around in a Spanish-speaking country with what I learned from this.
It isn’t perfect. It consists of Michel Thomas teaching a male and female student and guiding them as they make mistakes and things. The male student is particularly annoying. I almost feel bad for him. I would have preferred for him to cover more subjects and vocabulary rather than repeating things, because you can always listen to the CDs again.
If you’re taking a trip and you want to get up to speed relatively quickly, this is a good place to start, though learning some grammar would be a big help in addition. I don’t know how much it costs, but my library had it and it was well worth my time to listen to it.

bathysphere is right on.

If you read this and liked it, but weren’t thrilled, get the other books. Around issue 10 things start to get much more interesting.

This was a bit mismarketed. Was this the actual name in Japan? I think the director was trying to use some of Tarantino’s ideas and I think he was successful. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s worth watching, especially if you are into Kurosawa, etc. It’s a modern samurai movie that acknowledges its influences and attempts to move beyond them.

I had heard the name Devendra Banhart before, but I just pictured some indy emo kid with a weird name. This is really good. It reminds me of Nick Drake, but with Latin influences and Bob Dylan strangeness. His other albums are great, too.

The end of this album gets a little strange and very different from some of their other stuff, but this album is definitely worth listening to if you are into Lightning Bolt. And if you aren’t into Lightning Bolt, what the hell is wrong with you? Start listening now!