Awards of Excellence, Japan-Style

Japan has some crazypants architecture.

There's this building here, which looks a lot like the birdhouse in my soul:

Also this one:
And this one, though it looks a little fake to me:


But? There's a new one opening this autumn, where you can buy purses and sweaters:


And the architectors just won an award!

I love Awards of Excellence. Congratulations, Excellenters!

Alright, Who Shaved A Dozen Sheep In My Sink?

If you've been to my house in the past few weeks, and used my bathroom, and washed your hands like your momma taught you to do, then you know my bathroom sink has been backed up for a while, draining slower than molasses in a Michigan winter.

This morning I fixed the problem. And almost died at how gross the problem was. Hint: it was not a problem with my pipes.

Here's my story, as told in one of the best movies of all time:

Bloody Winters!

Wow. Wanna be really, really uncomfortable? Have some friends over for Awesome Club Movie Night and watch Bloody Mama, Roger Corman's 1970 exploitation movie starring two-time Academy Award Winner Miss Shelley Winters as Ma Barker. It's like Myra Breckinridge, only much much worse.
The horrors start in the first five minutes. We see a young Shelley being brutalized by her brothers and fathers (in X-Files meets Mackenzie Phillips fashion). In voiceover she swears she'll grow up and raise all boys, and have them do everything for her, her own army.
Flash foward and we're in the middle of the Great Depression, and she and her sons - including young Robert DeNiro - do exactly that. They drive across country robbing banks and killing people. In one scene, they rob a bank, take hostages, and have the hostages - old ladies - stand on the running board of the car as human shields. Inexplicably, the cops chase after them, shooting. Also inexplicably, they drive past a modern shopping mall, but no matter.

The best part of that scene is when they bust into the bank and the two-time Academy Award winner fires her machine gun and yells "everybody reach for the nightgown of the Lord!" I'm going to use that line as much as possible.

One of her sons gets caught and thrown in prison. In there, he gets R'd by his cell mate. Later, they break out together and become boyfriends. Later still, after Shelley has slept with all of her sons, she sleeps with this son's boyfriend. Oh, and that's Bruce Dern.

Eventually, there's a big bloody shoot-out. Sometime before that, smack-addicted Robert DeNiro picks up a girl that Shelley eventually drowns in a tub. Here's one of the more light hearted scenes, where she consoles him and all her sons by leading a rousing rendition of the World War 1 peace song, "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier." I'm not kidding.



God Bless you, Shelley Winters. And God Help Us All.

Der Haifish in Venedig

So if you know me at all, you know I'm terrified of scary movies. The oft-told tale of my 3rd grade experience with a film strip of The Headless Horseman is example enough - after several evenings of nightmares a note went to school and every subsequent Halloween I read quietly in the school library while the rest of the class re-watched that classic of decapitation and revenge.

And yet, I love monster movies. This probably stems from my fascination with sharks and with Jaws - though Jaws is certainly a terrific movie for many reasons, not just the scary fish. Piranha II: The Spawning, is another fave, and yet I can't really attest to that flick's artistic values.

Anyway, I recently stumbled across the preview for this modern classic, and promptly added it to my queue. The title leads me to believe there's a Thomas Mann homage going on, but whatever Baldwin brother is here is certainly no Tadzio.



Perhaps even better? This one here, which seems to have drawn its inspiration from a post I made a few weeks ago.



Netflix, here I come!

These Arms Of Mine; or, Don't Swim In The Tank

I like being on email mailing lists. Largely because I get a sense of satisfaction by deleting them so efficiently from my Inbox each today.

Today I received this email from Criterion Collection.



My first thoughts were to forward it to David, because he loves Science. Then I thought about myself, because I really like Seahorses and Octopi. Then, I clicked on the link and saw an awesome video about octopi doing it. As hard as I look, I can't see where Isabella Rossellini's costume is stitched on. They won't let me embed it, but here's the link - worth viewing.

What I can embed is this awesome video from way back when. The narrative is a little High And Mighty (Sturm und Drang to you foreigners), but it's a pretty awesome spectacle. And a lesson about octopi from which we can all learn.

Goonies ARE Good Enuf

Wow, thank you, New York Daily News, for this feature here.

I mean, we all know what Sean Astin and Martha Plimpton have been up to lately. Or I think we do - Astin in the Lords Of the Ring, and Plimpton on Broadway, most recently in Pal Joey with Miss Stockard Channing.

But even though I spontaneously saw Milk recently, I didn't connect that Dan White was played by Brand Walsh. Method!


Did YOU know that Chunk is now an entertainment lawyer in LA?

Then:
Now:

Data is now a stunt choreographer, most recently with the X-Men franchise. The man who played his pop, who couldn't get his camera open, is now Lt. Tao on my favorite cop show, The Closer. Oh! And Lupe, the housekeeper? She played Gabby's mom on Desperate Housewives a few years back.

I had no idea that the man who played Sloth was really a footballer, nor that he sadly died a few years ago.


But really, my favorite grown-up from the movie was Mama Frateli, aka Anne Ramsey. She wasn't just my fave because she was in the Shelley Winters role, but that helped. (Can you imagine a Goonies made in the early 70s? With little Jodie Foster in the Andy Carmichael role and Winters as Mama F?).

She also played the titular (hee hee) character in Throw Mama From The Train, and she pops up very regularly in the old programs I frequent - I've seen her on Charlie's Angels, on the TV movie pilot for Murder, She Wrote, Wonder Woman, Laverne, & Shirley, you name it. She went to Heaven back in 1988, but she'll live on forever in our hearts. And our old programs.

Thanks for the memories, Mama Fratelli.

Der Montaukster!

One highlight of our trip to the Hamptons last weekend was that we didn't run into the Montauk Monster. Like that other great NYC story, Kitty Genovese, this one has captured the cultural imagination, and will likely be studied by future generations in textbooks for years to come.

You can tell for sure this little beastie has captured the cultural zeitgeist, because he's been LOL-ized!

Last week, Amber kept us in the loop of other news-worthy animals, but if there was a vote I'd give this one the cake, or whatever the saying is.

Rest In Peace, little guy!