Late night writing, morning running, DEAD RINGERS (21) and INSOMNIA (47)

I'm switching up my schedule. Where in the past (read: last week) I'd wake up "early" and attempt to pound through my trifecta of blogging, then slog through another five and a half hours at the coffee shop, and then come home fairly spent and try to motivate myself to run, now I'm flip-flopping. I'm going to write at night. I'm going to eschew a little bit of my all-to-frequent boozing, so I can pound out three separate posts for three separate blogs (sometimes more) and have them nascent, glistening and ready for your perusal by the crack of dawn. This allows me more time in the morning to get up, dick around my room, and then badger myself/guilt-trip myself in to throwing on my running shorts and heading out in to the frosty cold morning. There's a few reasons for this:

1. I enjoy writing and nearly despise running. Thus, motivating myself to come home and write (basically sitting in a chair near a television) compared to motivating myself to run (the sweating, the cold, the shortness of breath) is, well, no comparison at all. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, the change will increase the amount of times I run over the course of the week, bettering my actual running ability, thus, making my morning runs a pleasure, rather than the grueling shit shows they currently are.

2. There's far less people running at 9 in the morning and this is great for two other reasons. First, people are stupid and when there's lot of them together, they manage to clog the roads like brain-damaged sheep, this infuriates me and I hate running mad. Secondly, I think I run funny. The ex-girlfriend always said I was being vain, but every once in a while she'd let a comment slip about my "floppy bird arms" or my "fruity prance run" and the self-conscious running thoughts would crop up again. I always assume that every person I run past is checking me out, mocking my labored breathing, scoffing at my wobbly knees and bright red face. In the morning there's less of these pestering ooglers and the majority of them are equally odd in running style. I'm a strange man, you don't have to tell me this.

3. Hell, it's kind of nice to get up and get exercising. To get that blood pumping, the adrenaline flowing, so I can be awake, alert, and enthusiastic for a day of mind-numbingly steaming milk for a bunch of mouth-breathing soccer moms. Seriously, it helps.

So, hopefully, whatever time you wake in the morning, there will be a Criterion Quest entry waiting for your eager little eyes. Again, I say hopefully.

With Salo (17) out of the way, all of these Criterion films are shining like beautiful gems in a dirt strewn alleyway. I mean Dead Ringers (21) is a crazy, gory, at times disturbing film, but it's like sipping tea with your favorite stuffed animals compared to the shit-chomping horrors of Salo (17). The film, by one of my favorite directors David Cronenberg (you probably know him from more recent mainstream successes like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises), follows the slow, strange degradation of two very successful plastic surgeon twins who share, well, waaaaaaay too much. Seriously Jeremy Irons, playing both twins, is swapping ladies and lives like it's the norm, but sadly, one of them kind of becomes a wedge in the twins special bond and everything goes to shit. A lot of strange surgical utensils are purchased, a lot of drugs are done, and everything ends up extremely messy. It's a great film for those who like their flicks a little weirder than normal.

Insomnia (47) is a Norwegian film that was actually remade by the Batman himself, Christopher Nolan. While both films are extremely well made films, I enjoyed the Norwegian Insomnia (47) a little bit more. The film stars "that guy" Stellen Skarsgaard as a cop with a shady past who has to travel to Northern Sweden (where the sun never goes down) to solve a murder. Turns out Skaarsgard's cop is a bit amoral, to say the least, and the glaring white light of The Great North prevents him entirely from sleeping. This of course begins to push him closer and closer to the edge and an unfortunate shooting, everything starts to unravel. I love this film because I love the way the unyielding light seems to never give Skarsgaards character a chance to hide from his many many sins. The sun is always there, always pushing him to hide his tracks, to dig himself deeper in to the shit, 'cause everything is exposed. Skarsgaard is remarkably creepy in the film, and I can't really remember where I ever started thinking of him as a "likeable" actor. A great, stylistic modern piece of filmmaking.

Wednesday: Summertime (22) & Black Orpheus (48)