Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Easter came and went


Spent most of the weekend working, if only to justify my not working on Tuesday, when, instead, I headed out to the tattooist for two and a half more hours of inkage. Looking rad it is, too. Above is a snippet.

On the subject of tattooing, I heard of the death of one of London's premier tattoo artists a few days ago. Jason Saga had been on my shortlist of artists for consideration when I was looking for a new tattooist about 18 months ago. I found Xam instead, since my wants shifted away from Japanese style and more towards old school. But Jason's site remained in my bookmarks. Upon hearing of his death, I also learned that his wife had occasionally worked as a receptionist at my old tattoo studio. I'd admired her sleeves, and she told me, "My boyfriend Jason did them." I never put two and two together, though, since there are a few Jasons tattooing in London.

This is a sad loss for tattooing, and for British tattooing in particular. Despite the growing popularity of the artform, those of us genuinely interested in getting good work from respected artists are still a fairly small, minority community.

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Watched a few movies over the weekend. My list of movies still to review is ridiculous now. I think I'll have to cull some, write them off as too far in the past. Or maybe give them a sentence or two and a score.

Here's the list. Feel free to request a review or two!

Requiem
The World's Fastest Indian
Who Killed the Electric Car?
the fountain
Babel
London to Brighton
An Inconvenient Truth
Clapham Junction
Notes on a Scandal
Intacto
TV Junkie
Following
Stage Beauty
Timecode
Apocalypto
Creep
The Warrior and the Princess (aka Princess and the Warrior)
Best Laid Plans
The King
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Since Otar Left
The Bridge
Where the Heart Is
Eight Below
The Notorious Bettie Page
Hostel
Britz
Deep Water
Internal Affairs
A Scanner Darkly
Elf
Following Sean
The Closet
Aprile
Il Caimano
9th Company
Torremolinos 73
Charlie Wilson's War
Planet Terror
The Battle for Haditha
The Passion of The Christ
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Chicken Run
.

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16 Comments:

Blogger furiousBall said...

I'm curious about these two...

The World's Fastest Indian
Who Killed the Electric Car?

I loved Apocalypto.

26 March, 2008 15:45  
Blogger Wandering Coyote said...

Man, that's a lot of movies...I thought The World's Fastest Indian was slow and boring, and I thought Babel was also boring and way too long.

26 March, 2008 16:01  
Blogger tweetey30 said...

The only two I have seen on this whole list is Eight Below with the girls and Jeff and I watched The Passion of The Christ together when we put the girls down for bed on night about six months ago or so. Other than that I havent seen any of the others.

26 March, 2008 17:25  
Blogger Cynnie said...

me and son went and looked at some tattoo place..I'm looking around..
I'll probabaly travel to get one though ..
I want something that means something..
and i want it to be perfect.

26 March, 2008 18:32  
Blogger Milla said...

I saw the rest of your 'fingers' on your back and they look wonderful! Really.

Two movies I'd like to know what you think of:
The Passion of the Christ (which was OK here and there)
and
Eight Below (I loved the dogs).

26 March, 2008 18:46  
Blogger Karen said...

Some of the documentaries please :)

26 March, 2008 19:46  
Blogger Candy Minx said...

Tat looking very good. I always feel that when an artist (includes musicians, performers comedians) dies it's especially sad since they worked telling us all stories. It feels as if a void in storytelling leaves the earth.

Um, a good list of movie choices for reviews...hmmm...

I'd like to request reviews of...

Eight Below (but be gentle...I gave this a ten out of ten...lve this movie...screamed bloodcurdling screams with my daughter last summer...then had t rewind to conquer the scary parts...buckets of tears) I also loved the extras and seeing how the dogs were trained and cast...and stunt dogs etc. They were incredible actors!

Following...I'd like to hear what you think of Nolans' first film...and perhaps his body of work since.

Charlie Wilson's War. I'd like to her a UK voice. i am alsways fascinatedf by the way a celebrated persona or story from US is recieved in other countries...like Canada or UK!

The Passion of the Christ. I have never met anyone else close to me who has seen this movie. I've thought about writing a review myself...and maybe rewatching it. I think the Christ parts were powerful...but am sickened by the hurtful potential for Hebrew viewers and religious people of the Jewish faith. I am not raised Christian...I am not religious..but I think Christ was the original punk rocker...I feel you and I could find a lot to talk about discussing this movie...so fo fun, I'd like you to review it. There are parts of this movie that I thought were brilliant. I am so sad and sickened by the following scandals and prejudices made public about Gibson. Many friends and family were hurt by his comments, not only about a world religion but about women. I can not imagine watching this movie now with the exposes...so I am curious.

Timecode Just because this is not a movie I would normally be interested in seeing...I wrote it off a "drama" and I don't watch a lot of drama genre movies. I'd like to hear your opinion and would consider renting it.

Internal Affairs, sheesh I didn't even know this was a Mike Figgis movie...I just looked it up and see Timecode is too...I generally am not a fan of Figgis...not because he isn't gifted...I believe he is...it is purely because I don't have a large interest in drama films as I said earlier. I did see this movie a long long time ago...and remember being very interested in the film noir aspect, in the corrupt cops, in the battle of wills between the two characters. I also enjoyed that it wa sa B-movie and cheesy in some aspects.

I have had to go and google some things...because I started to be slightly suspicious of my own qualms about this director...and I see now I have him confused with Mike Leigh. Sorry...I do enjoy Figgis movies and have seen half a dozen as I now clarify. Leaving Las Vegas is one of my favourite films!

I still don't like very many dramas...but...I think Figgis does them with a great deal of grace and layers.

26 March, 2008 19:49  
Blogger Glamourpuss said...

That's a long list - that kind of list would feel like a lot of work to me. I empathise with your desire to cull.

The tattoo is looking intriguing!

Puss

26 March, 2008 20:58  
Blogger Shea said...

Intacto and The PASION!!!!

26 March, 2008 21:22  
Blogger Shea said...

Oh and Princess and the Warrior...



Tat is looking great. I always love Jap water in ink...

26 March, 2008 21:24  
Blogger d34FpUpPy said...

apocalypta is way 2 much violence it dint need

26 March, 2008 21:47  
Blogger Say It said...

Lets see, I laughed a lot at Elf, Wasn't too impressed with Charlie Wilson's war, Eight Below made my kids cry, An Inconvenient Truth was a better discussion than I anticipated, I really liked the Fountain, and I guess that's all I've seen off this list.

Your Tat is looking AWESOME!!!! the colors are looking good.

27 March, 2008 00:34  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tattoo's looking good! How did Jason die?

If I had that much writing to do, I'd start getting passive aggressive.

27 March, 2008 10:53  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Thanks, all, for your requests (such as they are). I'll let you know as each of them goes up.

Candy: I'm with you on Mike Leigh. I much prefer Ken Loach when it comes to Brit grit. Leigh just seems too fake to me. Loach is quite possibly a genius. Figgis is fascinating to me, largely because of his very early movement to digital. Even shooting Leaving Las Vegas on 16mm was pretty much against the trend of the time for a studio-ish type of film.

27 March, 2008 11:46  
Blogger Martha Elaine Belden said...

damn asterisk! your list of "to reviews" could be compared to my "to sees" (except my list is somewhere around 500... bleck)

tattoo's looking sweet, man. can't wait to see the finished piece.

27 March, 2008 14:11  
Blogger Adam Frazier said...

MMM PLANET TERROR - So good, but you have to see DEATH PROOF as well.

Also, Who Killed the Electric Car is really, really great - I liked it better than an Inconvenient Truth, tho not many people have seen it.

31 March, 2008 03:55  

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