Halloween beats me down, THE RED SHOES (44) and SAMURAI I (14)

Alright, it was Halloween this weekend, a few highlights/lowlights:

1. My brother asking me if my beer gut was a "pillow stuffed under my shirt". It was not.

2. Dressing up like the mustached brother from The Darjeeling Limited. This included: hair straightening and the grossest mustache ever shaved on to this face. Somebody pulled on said mustache 'cause they believed it had to be fake. At the end of the night I was told quite frankly, that it was disgusting. I concur. It is gone now.

3. Realizing that straightening my hair and shaving a mustache makes me look exactly like my father circa 1976. I will never shave a mustache and straighten my hair again.

4. Walking home two or three miles, in a pair of cheap slippers I purchased at the Goodwill ... in the rain.

5. Telling people, drunkenly, that indeed I was not the "The Love Guru".

6. My brother, dressed as a pony-tailed, bearded witch and high off that wacky tabacky, standing by himself in the living room of the house party listening to a Britney Spears song he liked. He then wondered the next day why he felt like the creepy older guy at the party. I think he might've been adopted.

7. Going to a party where only a handful of the girls were dressed like "Slutty ____". Surprisingly, and quite nicely, most of the girls had spent a considerable amount of time building really high quality costumes that did not just showcase the fact that they had nice racks. It was a shocking change from Slutty Maple Valley last week.

8. My friend Pete getting pushed down a hill by other friend Markham 'cause he wouldn't admit to peeing on Markham's car. I didn't witness this, but my mental image of the event is pretty hysterical.

All in all a pretty successful Halloween, I woke up still fairly drunk at 10:30 the next morning and had to be told by a handful of people the various stages of the night and my roles in each, and you know, I call that a success.
Turns out The Red Shoes (44) was one of my favorite Criterion films yet. Sure, criticize my already lacking manhood for loving a movie about ballet, but the whole film was just so impressively put together. Even the gigantic dance sequence in the middle, which I thought I was going to hate, was this epic, surreal usage of the effects of the time, and if anything it was really entertaining (though ballet still seems for the most part like a bunch of spinning and head bowing if you ask me, but you shouldn't because I'm an idiot). Pressburger and Powell managed to use the idea of a story within a story to really nicely capture the pressure and fear of this successful ballet dancer's life. The end was both shocking, poignant, and depressing as all hell. "Julian, take off the red shoes." Duhn duhn duhn. Seriously, get over the fact that it's a film about dancing, it's a classic and you'll hate yourself for not sitting through it.

Yikes, the Samurai Trilogy (14, 15, & 16) is the first Criterion I've talked about that I've actually owned. There was point in my life where I was actually attempting to own every single film in the entire catalog (an endeavor that would've cost my like 8 grand and taken me the rest of my life). I ended up getting all three of the Samurai films for Christmas, along with a handful of other releases and then giving up on this pricey attempt and renting them from the library. Nonetheless, I'm glad I have these films, 'cause they sort of kick ass. Yes, I was certain that this life story of Musashi Miyamoto would involve a lot more high-octane back flips and sword fighting but that's because we as Americans have been conditioned by shitty action films. The films star Toshiro Mifune (Akira Kurosawa's main man) and track the life and times of the most famous of Japanese legends as he fights people, is chased by people, fights more people, ditches this one girl like ten times, and then fights more people. The first film, Samurai I - Musashi Miyamoto follows him as he actually becomes the samurai we know and love. It's a good one, but I prefer the second where he fights a bald man with a sickel and chain and a beach. I'll talk about it more tomorrow.

Tuesday: Samurai II - Duel at Ichijoji Temple

It's HALLOWEEN! THE RED SHOES (44) and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (13)

Oh shit, it's Halloweeeeeeeen! Halloweens' the best! The best damn holiday of the whole year. Sure Turkey Day is always a hoot (my family loves drinking!) and X-Mas is a way nice way to say what-up to Jebus and take out a few non-repayable loans from the fam. But c'mon, it's HALLOWEEN! It's the only day of the whole year when you can dress as whatever you want and only be slightly judged by people (unless you live in The Bible Belt and then it's a dark evening of Psalms and ruler whacks). A couple reasons why H-Day is the best holiday:

1. Costumes. C'mon, is there a more entertaining process than the invention of your yearly Halloween costume? First, spend hours (perhaps slightly intoxicated) giggling with your friends about the variety of personas/concepts/deceased ex-presidents you could be (Deceased Ronald Reagan in a full cowboy suit, but still all old and wrinkly? Hilarious!)? Second, scouring the internet for pictures of said outfit, and then jotting down a lengthy list of all the accoutrements you're going to need to bring Zombie Abe Lincoln to the forefront of the costume world. Third, THRIFT STORES! Is there anything better than braving the stanky, bleachy, geriatric world of your local thrift store in a search not for those things you actually need to survive, but a pitch black trench-coat and hopefully a unused waist-length beard? No, no their isn't. The best part of any costume, THE THRIFT STORE. And finally, getting home from a day of work, and putting it all together, while drinking with friends (or alone, Mr. Creepster) and preparing for a night of revelry. Good lord, I'm a little sweaty just thinking about it!

2. Drinking. Seriously, for whatever reason the allowance of being able to wear whatever you want, also gives kids and adults alike the ability to just get blotto on All Hallows Eve. People do the stupidest, thus hilarious, shit on Halloween and it's always, always more fun, because you're IN COSTUME. Sure it's funny when you're friend Jed falls on his drunk ass, but it's even funnier when he's dressed like a giant Pikachu (by the way if you have a friend named Jed, who dresses like a Pikachu, you're either seven and shouldn't be drinking, or maybe you and Jed should be having a talk). Honestly, it was difficult for me, as it is most mornings, to not just start putting back ice cold Rainiers as soon as I woke up this morning, cause, Jesus and all his many children, IT'S HALLOWEEN.

Well, that's pretty much it. I love wearing costumes and I love drinking, thus Halloween = best night ever!

I put The Red Shoes (44) in to the old player last night and was almost automatically turned off because of the entirely unbelievable premise of the opening scene: young, hip students actually wait in line, for hours and hours, to see, uh, a dance recital? Yeah right, what is this a science-fiction novel? I was close to just rewatching basketball highlights for the fourth time, but the movie actually kind of caught me. It's a big beautiful Technicolor epic, and there's just something so damn entertaining to me to see low-level peeps rise to fame under the manipulating arm of an power-hungry, uh, dancer-guy. Seriously, this is a film I was pretty much set to dislike, and I'm really enjoying it. Old movies have an earnest sincerity, unmatched in today's cold, emotionless Hollywood, and every once in a while it just gets me in the old blood-pumper.

It's well known that I love Criterion and their inclusion of The Silence of the Lambs (13) is one of the many reasons why. I mean, if you're watching the films in order, you've just watched Seven Samurai (2) and The 400 Blows (5) and then, blam, all of sudden it's Anthony Hopkins and flesh eating genius Hannibal Lecter and darling little Clarice Starling get crazy person spooge thrown in her hair. You just know, some film geeky Criterion employee was so enamored with this film that he camped outside of his bosses office with his sleeping bag until they were like, "Fine Jeremy, you can have the serial killer movie." Not that this isn't a great film, but seriously, this movie has a dude named Buffalo Bill dancing around in a, heh heh, lady suit (and I'm not talking an Armani shoulder-pad get-up, oh no). Criterion, I heart you.

Drink a ton, but keep it safe! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Monday: Samurai I - Musashi Miyamoto (14) & The Red Shoes (44) cont.