Hey all, I have a new cell number.

847-602-2508

If you did not join my pointless Facebook group, please send me your number here because I don't have anyone's numbers!

He was found in his Manhattan apartment, dead of an aparent drug overdose.  Man, that fucking sucks.  I really liked the guy as an actor.

Looks like his awesomely insane-looking turn as Joker in this Summer's Dark Knight will be his swan song.  Fucking A...

Holy shit, I just bought 25 DVDs at Hollywood Video (the one in Highland) for $90.  They're closing down in 10 days and trying to get rid of as much as they can.  Go while the getting's good!

Some are shitty movies (all the Asylum stuff) I'd never pay full price for, but there are some gems in this haul.  Here's what I scored:

13 Tzameti
Striking Range
Confetti
Cerberus
Deathwatch
Beast of Bray Road
Dracula's Curse
Death Valley: Revenge of Bloody Bill
Intacto
Read My Lips (Vincent Cassel!)
Gunslinger's Revenge (Bowie Western!)
Calvaire
Demonic (Savini!)
Frankenstein Reborn
Jolly Roger
Big Nothing (Pegg!)
Diggers (Rudd!)
Fay Grimm
The Prodigy
Wedding Party
Russian Specialist
Way of the Vampire
.45 (Milla!)
Night Junkies
Played (Vinnie Jones!)

I was like a kid in a candy store! I probably won't even watch most of these...

There's a fucking Ninja bandit on the loose in Staten Island.  He's struck at least 16 times, and no one can catch him.  He was stabbed with a steak knife by a dude and slipped away with the handle wedged in his chest!

Staten Island Ninja Bandit article

In honor of classic author Natsume Soseki's brilliant and surreal collection of short stories (based on his own dreams), which I'm currently reading (I have the movie - 100 years in the making - on order), I decided to turn my own dreams into short stories for you guys to enjoy (or maybe not).  I just finished typing up the first one, which is an honest-to-goodness dream that I had last night.  I thought it was so uniquely odd that I had to do something with it.  Please share your thoughts.  If you hate it, that's cool.  I definitely tried to make it more "literary" as opposed to just writing a couple sentences and being done with it.  I kept Soseki's famous opening line ("This is the dream..."), because it sounds so good.  I focused more on the little details that I remembered.  I didn't really proofread it, so it might be rough.  I wanted to get a first draft out there before I went to bed.  So without further adieu, here is...

The First Night

This is the dream that I dreamed.

In my hands I held a newborn baby.
Whether it was a boy or girl, I could not tell,
because the baby had the appearance of a clay sculpture.
Its body was smooth and gelatinous; its features
formless.  Deep, dark holes formed where its eyes
would normally be.  It made familiar baby sounds from
an unfamiliar-looking mouth.  It terrified me, but I
continued to hold it as it was my own.

Some time later, I sat the baby down on a chair.
In the blink of an eye, the baby rolled off the chair
and landed softly on the ground with a light thump.
It made no sound, nor did it move.

I picked the baby up, not knowing what to do.
It had long hairs attached to it, which I assumed
came from the dirty floor.  Seemingly my own hairs, I
began plucking them off the baby's slippery body, but they
would not come off easily.  The hairs had actually
grown out of the baby, but as I realized this I had
already pulled them out from the root.  They at least
appeared to be human hairs.

I threw the hairs on the floor, and before I knew it,
the baby's body had begun reacting.  From the pores of
the removed hairs, soft black fur sprouted.  As the
baby's body quickly metamorphosed, dark velvety fur
covered it entirely, and I could see that it had
transformed into a newborn penguin.

Flippers took the place of arms.  Webbed feet replaced
toes.  An orange and black beak grew out of the spot
where the baby's undefined mouth had been.  Big black
eyes popped into place, and a small tail sprung from
its backside.  Its dark plumage sparkled under the
lamplight.

I held it in my arms.  The baby was much more
accommodating than before, chirping happily as I pat its
head.  I put it down on the floor and it cheerfully
waddled around the living room, letting out sporadic
chirps that told me it was probably hungry.

I decided to walk to the kitchen to get the baby
some fresh fish to eat.  Its chirping had stopped,
but I could still hear it rustling around.  When I
got back to the living room, the baby penguin was
gone.  Instead, a cute brown baby rabbit was sitting
on the carpet.  I remembered that I had left the back
door open because the weather was so nice that day. 
The baby rabbit twitched its nose at me and hopped
away through the back yard.  I could not catch it.

Decided to switch up my layout.  Cool, huh?

I also added a couple of video clips of Japanese master guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei doing his thing, and they totally rock.

Yeah, I've had the Hong Kong DVD since last year.

But it's still relevant.  Not because it's the best action movie in the last 5 years, but because it's getting a limited US theatrical run before it hits DVD later this year.  Also, the UK is getting it in theaters THIS WEEK, and they've launched a website to promote it.

http://www.exiledmovie.co.uk/

The trailer on the site is great.  It doesn't give anything away, but it shows off the amazing Spaghetti-western style cinematography, the incredible score by Guy Zerafa (who was supposed to send me a copy, but it looks like it's actually going to get a CD released at some point), and the amazingly awesome, fucking balls-THROUGH-the-wall gunfights - which reinvent the fucking wheel (I kid you not) on what gunfights can be.

Yes, this is essential action viewing.  If you're in the UK, I urge you to see this in theaters.  Might be harder to do so in the US, but god dammit, buy the DVD when it comes out.

Thank me later.

I've just passed the 2,000 DVD mark!

I don't know if I should celebrate or end it all.

It's a coming of age story about two grown men who've been living the easy life thanks to their Father (Mom died many years ago), who's a mineral water company mogul. The Father, played by Akira Takarada (I think that's his name), is a great character. Takarada is fantastic, from his mannerisms to his odd way of almost dancing around to the way he mixes in very good English in his speech. Well, Dad wants to retire in order to work on his autobiography, so he leaves the company to his two sons, Toraji - who's older, but seems more immature - and Haiji, the younger son who's trying to find his place in the world (he spent like 15 years in Finland). The two sons are played by musicians Tsuyoshi Domoto (Toraji) and Taichi Kokubun (Haiji). They do a great job in the film as well.

What struck me most about the film is its visual style. It's very bright and vivid, and very surreal at times. For a feature debut from writer/director Shogo Yabuuchi, I was really impressed with his work. In a way, at times it reminded me of Survive Style 5. Not the story or anything, but the way it looked. The music is damn good too.

Fantastipo is full of very quirky situations. For one, no one seems to do any work at the mineral water company (called Armadillo, for reasons I won't divulge). Dad struts around the building with an entourage of tennis-playing young girls, rackets in hand. Armadillo's commercials are frequently shown. A party is thrown where Dad struts his stuff some more before announcing his sons as successors. Dad attends an author's panel, the author having written a trilogy of books about "Second-Son Syndrome."

Toraji becomes President and Haiji becomes the VP, but they still seem to do what they did before. Toraji spends most of his time in the lobby, where a giant table sports plastic trees and animals that he sits and arranges. At one point, the staff "toasts" with plastic giraffes. Animals are a big motif. There's a pilot friend of Dad's who's probably less than five feet tall, who's daughter gets a PR management job at the company and starts a thing (if you can call it that) with Haiji. She's never without a parakeet on her shoulder, tied to a pin on her shirt. Haiji often has the same dream of him falling. Toraji introduces his Brother to a club called "Mommy Farm," where he dances with a caucasian woman meant as a way, I guess, to sooth the pain of not having a Mother of his own. "Daddy Farm" appears later. Did I mention that the family has a pet called Tom? It's a strange-looking beastie (re: guy in suit) that Dad scored off a Hong Kong gangster, and that's all the explanation you're going to get for this carnivorous-looking vegetarian monster.

All the while, the story goes back (to the future), where Haiji and Toraji are writing a song about the previous 18 months, called "Fantastipo." The title alludes to a feeling Haiji had before he was forced to face the truth. The film ends by showing the recording studio being on an island populated by real-life versions of the plastic animals Toraji had so much fun playing with, before the duo perform the song they've spent the entire movie working on, amongst the stars and planets.

I don't know what it all meant, but it gave me a nice, pleasant feeling inside. In the end, Fantastipo's about father/son bonding, accepting loss and facing your fears, and how growing up can be a difficult thing for some people. Sure, the film could've used about 10-15 minutes trimmed; the pace drags a little after the initial half hour, until you realize that this thing is not going to be a typical viewing experience.

Definitely recommended. By me, at least.