Post-Wedding Thoughts, A Well-Rested Day Later

You know that time-clock that's ticking away, at an alarmingly-rapid and relentless rate? The one that's programmed in Personal Time Zone in your brain, first set years ago when you told yourself: "By age 25, I'm going to be married with one kid, and living in a nice suburban house with a picket fence and a neighborhood block parties, two short walkable blocks away from a respected grade school where my children will feel comfortable and eager to learn"?

Mine wasn't birthed in exactly that sentiment, but something similar. The age-of-married-by is 30, and being that I'll be advancing to the 2-followed-by-7 in less than three months, the ticks of the clock are ringing like gong-drum hits in High Definition, ramped up to 11, Spinal Tap style, heard through an unfiltered bullhorn. Thank the lucky stars, impending marriage to a female-who'll-be-named-later isn't a daily concern. Doesn't weigh my psyche down like an anchor. If so, I'd be going on tons more dates these days, I'll tell you that.

But having just participated in a pretty-much-flawless wedding ceremony, celebrating the official union of one of the most-inspirationally-functional couples I've ever seen, I can't help but wax prophetic about just when-in-the-fuck I'll tie the knot. Seal the deal. Start a family. Smash that inner-clock into a broken piece of technology. Just like I did with that annoying-ass chicken clock back in high school; my closest friends will recall this ("Woooww! Yeeahhh! Hey baby, shut the fuck up, you irritating son-of-a-bitch that should be grilled and smothered in BBQ sauce, not conceptualized as a rock-a-billy alarm designed to disrupt my precious slumber." Cluck cluck this.)

Of course, the first step to getting married is actually starting a relationship with a female who'll one day end up taking your last name. But, I'm still working on this part. Not as aggressively as I once was, but I figure, what's meant to be will be, and the more you push the issue and wonder "How can I speed this process up to ludicrous speeds," the more you'll feel defeated and want to run up in the Hallmark offices and kick in the front door, waving the .44, screaming, "Valentine's Day division, don't hit my partially-empty heart no more."

Weddings really are something special; family members all assembled, friends knocking back free shots with random uncles and aunts. Heartfelt speeches, and never-before-seen pictures of the bride and groom as wet-behind-the-ear youngsters. I wonder, just how will my inevitable (knock on wood) wedding commence---will my brother offer up a diatribe about how I was once a chubbier, quieter introvert who he'd thought would never meet a girl, let alone one who'd voluntarily spend time with me? Will my dad, who I've only seen cry once and for tragic reasons, tear up and hug it out, publicly? Will my mother serve stories of our endless ma-and-son dinner excursions, and how my new wife is one lucky girl to have such an engaging and loveable meal-eating partner? How about Gianna and Nicholas; after stealing the show as the flower girl, will Little G act an adorable fool on the dance floor, while my-man-Nick jacks the hearts of every female in the place, planting the seeds of his eventual-player lifestyle? And will I myself tear up as pictures of yours truly with the late Zoey (I'm a realist...by the time I get married, I'd be one fortunate and fate-defying son-uva if Zoey is still alive) flash on the projector, with some emotion-strumming slow jam providing the soundtrack?

Only time will spill the beans. Until these moments materialize from fantasy to reality, though, I've gotta keep on spending money on dinners with girls who I'll never take out again, and hooking up drunk-ily in bars with girls I'm envisioning great things with through Corona-goggles.

The early bird gets the worm, as they say. Or as I say, and more fittingly so here, the drunken gentleman gets the nerve to approach an otherwise-unattainable female. And who knows, that tall-order-of-a-sexy-conquest could just end up evolving from beer-soaked, cleavage-bearing T-shirt to white-dress-wearing, "I do"-saying Mrs. Barone.

Next round's on me, fellas.

Basterd sighting!!

Just woke up from a six-hour nap, in the wake of a great, yet long, day yesterday. Was in the bridal party of one fun-ass wedding/reception. Still a bit tired from the whole thing, so not in the mood to reflect on the event just yet....

....but for now, I just stumbled across something that put a smile on the mug. A first look shot of Brad Pitt in his Inglourious Basterds get-up.[Basterds, with an "e," is how Tarantino himself has it spelled; that's not a typo or anything....same goes for the Inglourious spelling] That's the new Quentin Tarantino WWII film that just began shooting, and after reading its script, I'm confident in saying that it'll be fucking insanity once its released. Can't wait.

Nothing super-revealing about this pic, other than the fact that it shows Inglourious Basterds has FINALLY began shooting. Is a reality. No long just speculation or jibber-jab from Tarantino.

Pic first spotted at JoBlo.com, which grabbed it from Tarantino.info:



Here's a bit of dialogue from the script, setting up Pitt's character, Lt. Aldo Raine, a good ol' country boy who heads a crew of Nazi hunters and killers:
"I sure as hell, didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half Sicily, and then jump out of a fuckin air-o-plane, to teach the Nazi’s lessons in humanity."

Bring it on.

Walk Like A Dinosaur, Sen. McCain

Spotted over at Dlisted.com....

No explanation needed. Just get your chuckle on:

gratuitous Let The Right One In post, number whatever

New red band (or "R-rated") trailer for Let The Right One In....

Been doing my mental list of 2008's Best Films So Far, and as of now, this one rests comfortably in the top three....

It hits like one measly theater in Manhattan next Friday.....I advise people to hunt this spot down and see this.

Eden Lake = that new goodness??

Just announced, the suits at The Weinstein Company (through their Third Rail Releasing division) are dumping this UK-horror flick Eden Lake into theaters on Halloween, in what I'm sure will be like seven screens nationwide.

Hopefully, one's here in New York, because I'm highly intrigued. The flick seems pretty bland, in description: a loving couple drives into the woods for a romantic day sprawled out on the beach, when a group of teenage scumbags derails their plans into blood-soaked anarchy.

Yawn, right? Perhaps nil....The critics over in the United Kingdom have been hailing this as the "best British horror movie in years," and I've been seeing the words Eden and Lake popping up on all of my beloved genre sites for some time now.

Thought I'd have to wait 'til it hits DVD in December, but now I can catch it on the big screen....fantastic. Let's hope it ends up being bloody good, not just another Deliverance/Last House on the Left/Hills Have Eyes love-child-from-derivative-hell.

Shit, let's hope it'll be playing New York, first of all.

Trailer:

The good kind of audible Statik

Whoa, whoa, whoa now.

Got my new audio crack, that new album that I'll bump endlessly for some time now, while my friends will never know it even exists. Well, until now, courtesy of this here trusty site o' mine.

Statik Selektah - Stick 2 The Script

He's a DJ/producer from Beantown, white dude such as myself. Has a great ear for this rap shit, makes beats that I'd make if I'd had ever purchased the studio equipment I flirted with doing years back. True story, I really did once, but lack of finances prevented.

This is his second record; the first was also tough, but this new one is mucho tougher. Compilation, featuring dudes like Redman, Jadakiss, M.O.P., Talib Kweli, Little Brother, Royce Da 5'9, etc.

Check some tracks....if you're like me, these will sound divine to the lobeage:

"All 2gether Now," with Young Chris, Freeway, Peedi Crack (State Property)


"On The Marquee," with Little Brother, Joe Scudda, Chaundon


"For The City," with M.O.P., Jadakiss


That goodness. Told ya.

Pointless Image Time

No substantial purpose to this, other than finding a home for some images I can't get enough of....


How can you not love this pic? Of that damn speaking pooch who prevented Quarantine from taking the top spot on this past weekend's box office throne. Dumb bitch. Or whatever you call a male dog that stings as much as "bitch" does.


I'm in love with Mila Kunis. Simple as that. Forgetting Sarah Marshall showed me the way, clinched my decision. Here she is at the recent premiere of Max Payne. Sadly, however, not even her participation nor gun-toting-while-wearing-what-looks-like-leather will have me paying to see Max Payne....what once looked promising looks like a true piece of shit now.


Hell. Fucking. Yes.......this flick's release date can't come soon enough, whenever the hell it may actually end up being.


Was coasting through the Movie Hotties section of JobBlo.com yesterday, and came across a poll trying to decide whether oft-forgotten, under-employed (in my opinion) actress Lacey Chabert [Party of Five, Mean Girls, that fucking atrocious Black Christmas remake] is hot or not. Obviously, it was a hands-down yes, she's hot. But it reminded me that she'll forever remain one of the most beautiful women, like ever. Of all time. She's about as close as an actress gets to being my "exact, to-the-letter" type.....and ladies should appreciate how I opted for a natural pic here, rather than a skin-showing one. Also shows how natural of a looker she is. Okay, enough gushing.

Thus concludes today's Pointless Image Time.

The English are coming....with some truth for that ass

Was watching some episodes of Fawlty Towers with my pops this past weekend, while up at his cabin. Its a show that he'd routinely make me watch back when I was a wee lad, for reasons rotating around "let's show Matt some intelligent comedy, rather than those asinine Adam Sandler movies he loves" and "I love this shit, so I'm going to make my son, who seems to be cultivating a keen liking to pop culture and the entertainment biz, like it, as well" ideals.

Mission accomplished. Funniest part is, Fawlty Towers---a cult classic of a England-originated sitcom, where legendary comic dynamo John Cleese plays the live-in owner/manager of a bed-n-breakfast, where sharply-written hijinx ensue---a good 70% of my dad's catchphrases and insulting punchlines he's used against everybody from myself to my mother (all in sarcastic good fun, of course) are directly bitten from Basil Fawlty's ever-snappy dialogue.

In this same breath, pops also had me watching Cleese's other iconic addition into the comedy canon, Monty Python's Flying Circus, another brutally-smart-and-sly bit of laughs served up in the form of a sketch comedy program.

All this leads me into this clip I stumbled across online earlier....a recent interview w/ Cleese, where he offers his 20-cents regarding Sarah Palin. He says little that hasn't been said or at least thought before, but Cleese is a road scholar, so it means more than yours truly spitting it out:

[btw, Michael Palin is one of Cleese's also-funny associates from the Monty Python crew]


Posted for no other reason than to further belittle Palin. Like this site has any chance of impacting the rapidly-approaching election, but whatever. Peace-of-mind goes a long way.

what I call a "frustrating evening"....

....well, a somewhat frustrating one. Did get to catch Quarantine again, and I'm pleased to say that it holds up. Still really like it. And this time, unlike the last, I saw it in a theater full of spectators, who all cheered and screamed and shrieked throughout. Even clapped as the credits rolled, and chatted amongst themselves on the walk out about how "good" that was, and how "much better than I expected" it turned out to be.

Sweetness.

The evening continued in quality as I hit my personal crackspot....Extraordinary DVD, on the corner of 14th and 7th. Gets new DVDs weeks early, meaning they had The Strangers DVD (Unrated edition, with both uncut and theatrical prints included). Copped that shit with the quickness. Gonna watch the bonus features shortly. Fuckin' great sleeper of a movie. Me likey.

At that point, the evening seemed like one for the books. But then, I got off the F train and approached the Two Boots Pioneer Theater on Avenue A, where the Trick 'R' Treat one-time only screening was to commence in roughly 35 minutes. Problem was, there was a fucking line about 200 people deep stretched longways down East 3rd Street.

What in the fuckity fuck? I took this film and Fangoria's loyal readership for granted. When shit's free, people will flock. In droves.

You can probably see where this story is going....the actual theater only holds like 150 heads, tiny. I was standing somewhere between 174 and 183. Got shut out. Denied. Swindled, sort of.

What in double fuckity fuck?! If I'd had known that admission wasn't guaranteed, I'd have gotten my ass there rapidly. Early in the game. Without a walk-back-to-the-train of shame.

And at that point of disappointment, there was no way in Sam-hell I was waiting around for two hours to see Let The Right One In, a film that is great, granted, but I'd seen already. So, took my ass home. Where I sit now, pissed off.

Really wanted to see Trick 'R' Treat. Now I have to wait like a year 'til its released on DVD. Son of a whore.

So, to those responsible for this free event and who crushed my evening's high-hopes with extreme prejudice, I offer this, courtesy of Dubya himself:


Fangoria...you know I still love ya, though, right?

What I call a "productive evening"....

Taking in a cinematic menage a trois tonight...actually, more like a four-way orgy of horror goodness, if I'm being technical with the mathematics.

Seeing Quarantine again immediately after work, just for the hell of it (it's a quick fix, one I'm planning on indulging for a third time next week....junkies need to satiate their urges, or else gradually watch their mental chip away like asbestos bits falling from top-to-bottom in the head)

Then hitting a free Fangoria Mag-sponsored screening of this flick Trick 'R' Treat. It's one of those multiple-tales-in-one films, a la Creepshow, a subgenre that's been sadly neglected in recent memory. What was the last good one I can even recall? Off the dome, none come to mind. Not a good thing....the reviews and press surrounding Trick 'R' Treat have been wall-to-wall positive, which further sends hateful chills down my spine in regards to Hollywood---you see, Trick 'R' Treat was originally supposed to hit theaters last October, through Warner Bros. But for surely-idiotic reasons, the pussies at Warner Bros. bailed last minute and the flick's been floating in heading-toward-an-inevitable-straight-to-DVD-life-span purgatory for a year now, and it seems that it'll ultimately be delayed to a DVD release of October 2009. Retarded. But thankfully, Fangoria, in their horror-pleasing ways, has arranged a free showing tonight down by Avenue A. And of course I couldn't miss it.

Odds are, I'm going to love the hell out of Trick 'R' Treat. Will post my post-watching thoughts later. The trailer is up on Youtube, btw, but I'm too lazy at the moment to grab an embed and post it here. So sorry.

[notice the October 2007 release date on this original poster....damn shame]



And immediately after Trick 'R' Treat ends, Fangoria has a second $$$-deficient screening that I'll be sitting through, for the wonderful Let The Right One In, which I've already blabbed on about here. Amazing vampires-redefined-and-freshly-envisioned flick from Sweden, and a great way to end my horror marathon-of-a-day.

Gonna be a great, late night. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Gon' Country....for Good Reason

Was living the "simple life" all weekend, a la Paris Hilton and Lionel Richie's little girl. Okay, far from how they did it, actually, being that the leash Hilton's dog wears cost more than what I make in a year, I'd imagine. Maybe not, but you get the point.

I was in upstate New York, all day Saturday and pretty much all day today (Sunday), staying at my dad's 17 acres of farmland. It's his pride-and-joy, a sanctuary for the hard-as-hell-working man to retreat on weekends, enjoying peace, quiet, scenery, animals, and missing-teeth locals. But its certainly added some years on to his life, so for that I'm a passionate lover of what Hobart, New York has to offer my pops.

This is a yeary thing for us....though, I wish I could do it more than one-weekend-a-year. Just that, schedules rarely coincide. I know it means bunches to him when somebody, anybody rolls with him. Alone, which is how he visits pretty much every weekend, is fun only to a point. Sure, he's befriended tons of locals, and just the fact that he's physically there puts his mind and heart at ease. But he's awfully proud of the lot, and loves sharing its many quaint pleasures with family and friends. So it sort-a breaks my heart knowing that I can't go with him more often. But thus is the way of life, I guess.

I'd been trying to make this weekend happen all summer. Sucks that it took 'til mid-October to finally arrange, but in a way, it all worked out for the best, since my brother and sis-in-law decided to tag along, bringing my niece and nephew. Making for even-better times, naturally.

Gianna riding her lil' Barbie four-wheel-quad around the wide stretches of grass. G and my dad watching the "fishies" swimming across the brook. Nicholas getting shook sby a donkey suddenly belting out a "hee-haw!" Gianna holding on for dear life to Uncle Matt's left arm as my dad drove us over bumpy-grassland in his beloved Mule, which is basically a tricked-out golfcart used to commute around the hills and vast property.

Great times had by all. Yeah, Gianna has her "diva in training" moments, and Nick lets out some brutally-deafening cries when he's tired. But I wouldn't have traded this weekend for anything this busy world has to offer.

Peace, quiet, family, fun, money-not-necessary enjoyment. A fine way to spend a couple of days, I must say.

The experience send my mental back a few years, too. Back to the summer of 2004. The summer when I scored my first magazine feature story---a q&a article for KING, during my intern days, with Coral from MTV's The Real World galaxy of how-the-fuck-are-these-people-stars? As a result of this assignment, my green-behind-the-lobes mug graced the does-anybody-actually-read-this-anyway Contributor's Page. Which was a pretty big deal for me.

Even more so for my parents. Part of me wished that this crowning achievement didn't come hand-in-hand with a somewhat sexual-interview and Coral's tig-ol-bitties plastered all around the story. But whatever. Their son's face was featured in a national magazine, and it sort-of legitimized the profession I'd chosen and they'd yet to fully comprehend.

'Til this moment, I couldn't tell whether my 'rental units fully approved of me being an entertainment scribe. They were just happy that I was happy, sure. And I'm the first person in my family to pursue a truly-desired career and fulfill the dream, after graduating from a major university. So the pedigree for parental-pride was in place. But still, the fact that I was working at a magazine that would be otherwise foreign to mom and dad was stained my dome.

That is, until the weekend in '04 that I hit the farm with pops. That first morning, he brought me to his favorite little breakfast nook, The Coffee Pot. Where all the locals gather for damn-good omelettes and pancakes. Seriously, that shit rivals IHOP in taste factors. Always hits the spot, as it did this morning, in fact.

We walked in, my dad introduced me to the owner/cook, and this unexpected look of "It's him!" overtook his grill (facial one, not the burning-hot maker of delish sausage patties). Then he pointed to the back wall, where bulletins were posted and fliers were seen. Up on the top right corner was my Contributor's Page, tacked right next to an announcement for some Scarecrow Festival in the works for Halloween (don't know what a Scarecrow Fest is exactly, but sounds like sweetness to me).

Imagine my shock. How in the fuck would these kind-hearted hicks and yokels even know what KING Mag is, let alone cut out the Contrib's Page in my honor? Then it dawned on me....my dad, in pure pride and secondary accomplishment, had told his new neighbors what I'd done. He didn't think my job was lame, or foolish, or confusing, or poorly chosen.

That was the instance where my career path felt legit. Right. Understood. Appreciated. By those who matter most to me, and for whom I've pretty much done everything I've ever been able to. Just to make them proud.

Mission was accomplished. Still is, matter of fact.

I'm still a city-dude at heart, will be forever. But I'd be lying if I said that Hobart, New York, doesn't hold a secure, spotlight-positioned-above spot in my red organ.

Post-Game -- Indirect Satisfaction

A 64% score on the nationwide film critic site Rotten Tomatoes....

$14.2 million during its opening weekend, falling second to the two-week-champ Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which played to broader audiences, of course. Yet, my special one finished first out of all new flicks, including the bigger-profiled Leo Dicaprio/Russell Crowe snoozer Body of Lies....

Only made for a measly, reported 412 million budget, thus making it a nice-sized hit already....

...yes, it does feel good that Quarantine is a success, on pretty much all fronts. Not that I work for the studio, or anything, though I do kinda feel like the Screen Gems company should mail my ass a generous royalty check for all the voluntary street team work I've been doing for the flick.

But, my reputation (whatever it actually may be, that is) remains intact and avoiding-of-hatred. For this time....

**Wipes his brow, takes a deep soothing breath, and exhales**

Take that, once-impending jeers!!