What We Watch

starting next week, the alamo is going to be showing antichrist by lars von trier. will it live up to the hype? i’m guessing it will. either way, i’m gonna be there front and center to see it.

-claire

15 November 2009

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i watched the wackness a couple of months ago. i wasn’t planning on posting anything, but i keep coming back to this movie and thinking about it. i liked it as i was watching, but now that it’s had a little time to settle in, i’ve decided that i love this movie.

for those of you that didn’t know, i’m 27 years old. the movie is set in 1994. this is the first movie that has brought back with full detail what it felt like to live in 1994 and achingly reminded me that i’m an adult now and it’s been almost 10 years since i was in high school. the soundtrack features songs by the notorious big, total, faith evans, biz markie and tribe called quest. it’s all the hip hop and r&b that i listened to as i was growing up. this is something i never thought i’d say, but it made me nostalgic for high school- a time in my life that i always wanted to leave behind with all my old insecurities.

as i was perusing rotten tomatoes, i came across this excerpt from a review:

Levine, who wrote the film as well as directed it, re-creates 1994 with the painstaking detail usually reserved for period pieces and costume dramas.

i couldn’t have said it better because when i watched this movie- i was THERE. ahhhhh, the 90’s…. but, it wasn’t just the soundtrack and setting that got me. josh peck’s character, luke, is so sweet… he made me remember what it felt like to have my heart broken for the first time. i especially like when he says:

i love you. i got mad love for you, shorty. it’s on the real. it’s like i want to listen to boyz II men when i’m with you.

that line made me feel all the same awkwardness i felt when i had my first kiss at 14, at the skating rink, listening to boyz II men and not knowing what the hell was going on… and even though that dude grew up to be pretty gross, that kiss floored me and i’ll always remember it.

this is a great little movie and i highly recommend it! plus you get to see old ass ben kingsley stick his tongue down mary-kate olsen’s throat. you decide if that’s a pro or a con.

-claire

15 November 2009

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A feature length documentary chronicling the story of black metal. Part music scene and part cultural uprising, black metal rose to worldwide notoriety in the mid-’90s when a rash of suicides, murders and church burnings accompanied the explosive artistic growth and output of a music scene that would forever redefine what heavy metal is and what it stands for to other musicians, artists and music fans world-wide. UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US goes behind the highly sensationalized media reports of “Satanists running amok in Europe” to examine the complex and largely misunderstood principles and beliefs that led to this rebellion against both Christianity and modern culture.

To capture this on film, directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell moved to Norway and lived with the musicians for several years, building relationships that allowed them to create a surprisingly intimate portrait of this violent, but ultimately misunderstood, movement. The result is a poignant, moving story that’s as much about the idea that reality is composed of whatever the most people believe, regardless of what’s actually true, as it is about a music scene that blazed a path of murder and arson across the northern sky. Featuring: Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, Varg Vikernes, Jan Axel “Hellhammer” Blomberg, Kjetil “Frost” Haraldstad, Ivar Bjornson, Abbath and Demonaz Doom Occulta, Kris “Garm” Rygg, Bjarne Melgaard, Harmony Korine and more.

(via)

www: this one may be worth checking out.

10 November 2009

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as you've probably noticed...

kristin and i rarely post to this blog. this isn’t to say that we’ve totally given up on it. i’m still hanging in there. luckily i think there is going to be an upcoming shift in my work schedule that may give me a little more free time to update. since my last post i’ve seen:

500 days of summer - jason gordon levitt gets dumped hard to an indie soundtrack and by the most classically quirky girl of all time. i loved it.

thirst - lots of blood and chan wook park style action. there’s no way this director could ever disappoint me. he constructs scenes with so much detail and makes horror beautiful.

funny people - it’s almost 3 hours long, but it feels like 5 hours. how could anyone go overboard with excessive dick jokes? ask judd apatow, cuz he did it.

moon - i’ve never swooned over sam rockwell till this movie and he’s totes swoon worthy. the son of david bowie has created a delightful, yet quiet sci-fi flick. bonus points for the matt berry cameo.

the hurt locker - bombs, explosions and war have never looked so good on screen.

extract - much funnier than expected. mad props to the moronic pool boy.

inglorious basterds - christoph waltz was amazing, funny, evil, and entertaining. this one was good from start to finish.

the september issue - maybe i would have cared more if i cared more about the fashion industry… but i don’t. hurrah, ann wintour.

house of the devil - throwback to 80’s horror. jocelin donahue reminded me of a young margot kidder. the suspense in this one is KILLER, but the end is highly disappointing.

zombieland - ok, but entertaining. the surprise cameo really makes the movie.

where the wild things are - when i saw the trailer for the first time, i thought it would be perfect. then the media started to crawl under my skin, until i had almost totally lost interest by the time it was released. saw it on the imax and left the theater thinking - meh. i’ll expand on this one in a later post though.

i’ve also polished off all three seasons of veronica mars. when you tell peeps it’s about a teen girl that’s also a private eye, some might scoff and call you a child. it happened to me once, but i don’t think anyone that has actually watched the show can say veronica isn’t totally badass… cuz she is.

-claire

10 November 2009

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district 9 is definitely worth seeing.

i almost cried, but i didn’t because

a. i was on a date and

b. i was two beers deep

i actually think it was the best action movie i’ve seen this summer. the climax at the end is just great.

xo.

-claire

1 September 2009

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butseriously:

coming soon on whatwewatch.tumblr.com- blair waldorf is a BITCH. tell me something i didn’t already know. gossip girl is becoming almost unwatchable… almost.

whatwewatch: i blew through season one of gossip girl with my roommate earlier this year. i like it and it’s total garbage… I KNOW THAT. nonetheless, it is entertaining. in addition, i’ve been revisiting beverly hills 90210 during my lunch breaks because netflix has recently made the first season available for instant play. sure i saw EVERY episode back in the 90’s when it originally aired, but i suppose i viewed the show in a different way as a teenager. coming back to it as an adult, i’ve realized that beverly hills 90210 is hilariously funny. the dialouge is a total joke, brenda is the ultimate fuck-up and the walsh parents are major losers. even so, 90210 has that one thing that most popular teen dramas today do not have- it has morals!

you learn something somewhat important in every episode. throughout the series each character becomes addicted to an illegal substance at some point. except brandon (OF COURSE), who becomes addicted to gambling instead. 90210, at least in the beginning, attempted to teach its young viewers not to do drugs, play with guns, shoplift, be racist or even cheat in class.

over time i’ve noticed that the characters in teen dramas are just as disgusting and hard to watch, but the repercussions to their foolish behavior rarely lead to punishment as much as they lead to another scandal. so, now i’ll talk about gossip girl…

what happened to serena when it was discovered that she had a late night coke party that led to the death of a friend?

NOTHING. yeah, so what she had to apologize to the parents of the dead coke-head? she got away with a slap on the wrist and the worst thing that came of the incident was that blair used the death as fuel to ruin serena’s chances of getting into yale.

in addition, blair does something shitty every week…. really shitty. she lies and treats everyone around her like crap because she’s selfish and empty. it’s exhausting to watch and even though i’m painfully trudging through season 2, i plan to finish it. i just really don’t understand how serena constantly forgives her or why chuck still wants to bone her.

one thing i can say about blair is that at least leighton meester is better actress than mischa barton because watching the OC was agonizing for every scene that featured marisa and every scene in which seth cohen was missing.

-claire

1 September 2009 • reblog: butseriously

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claire watches a lot of fucking tv in august '09

ever since my epic dumping by the first boyfriend i’ve had in 5 years, i decided to get back into watching tv on dvd to keep my mind occupied. a little over three months have went by and i feel good about the break up, but now i am am currently faced with a crippling addiction to tv on dvd… once again. in the past few months i have blown through every season available on dvd of how i met your mother, freaks and geeks (rewatch), true blood, mad men (seasons 1 & 2), the entire series of queer as folk (rewatch, believe it or not), and i’m now in the midst of gossip girl season 2.

you’d think my brain would feel totally rotten by now, but it doesn’t. getting into mad men has been one of the best television watching choices i’ve ever made. true, i was entertained by true blood, but mad men is seriously one of the most well done, interesting shows i’ve seen in a really long time. more of my fascination with true blood stems from the fact that it is totally-fucking-absurd.

it’s hard to believe that upon viewing the first episode of mad men, i was bored with it. the show has really warmed over me like a delicious whiskey in the winter. now i’m reaching season three and feeling completely addicted to the time period, the story and the characters. each scene appears finely crafted with rich colors and gorgeous actors with finely tailored costumes that reflect the culture of the time.

i’m really hoping by the end of the series, peggy olson will run everything. i love her.

-claire

1 September 2009

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last sunday morning i went to go see paper heart. it wasn’t a great film, but it was incredibly cute. it stars charlyne yi and her real-life boyfriend michael cera. it’s half documentary and half scripted movie. maybe it’s a girl thing, but i really liked it. i say this only because after i rated it on netflix, a dude commented that it was completely overrated. not that i totally value his opinion, but i suppose i could see why a man may not find the flick as endearing as i did.

i think it’s hard not to relate to at least one of the stories of love and heartbreak delivered from the average people charlyne interviews on the road. it’s also nice to see a film where love isn’t driven mostly by sex and physical attraction as it is in most movies (and my trainwreck of a life). instead the interactions between michael and charlyne seem stripped down and much more innocent.

so while it wasn’t great, i thought it was refreshing. i’d probably even see it again.

-claire

26 August 2009

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thank you, netflix instant play - rewatching beverly hills 90210 is HILARIOUS

today on my lunch break:

brandon deflowers his old girlfriend from minnesota in his parents house while they are asleep. later ‘sheryl’ becomes distant because of a growing fascination with the glamourous beverly hills lifestyle and more so, brandon’s best friend dylan. brandon later learns that his girlfriend is a runaway and even worse, not a virgin. meanwhile brenda babysits for her hunky algebra professor and gets caught looking through his personal possessions.

-claire

19 August 2009

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Triumphant Return

…sort of.

It’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve updated this (or any) blog. I’m starting the first disc of ‘John Adams’ tonight. I’m super psyched.

Especially with all these militias forming at the healthcare “town hall” meetings. My taste for revolution has been whetted. But not in that crazy “I’m gonna bring an automatic weapon to a rally” way… Eh, yeah.