I want to thank everyone for sending me various links to stories about MR's recent triumph at the Venice Film Festival. I am very proud of y'all for paying attention; you know what I like!
I'm also proud of Mickey these days. Not only is he the lead of the Golden Lion winning The Wrestler, but he also has a supporting role in the upcoming film The Informers, which is based on the novel of the same title by one of my favorite authors, Brett Easton Ellis. The male lead in that one is Billy Bob Thorton AND it also stars Chris Isaak. How could you possibly go wrong?
There is no trailer out yet for, but here is a clip of an interview with Mickey and director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, just so you can see how scary he is looking these days. That's a triple bagger if I ever saw one.
And because it is out, here's the trailer for The Informers. I think I might approve of any use of "Blue Monday". Also, Winona Ryder's in it.
Is that Brad Renfro's last film?
Monday, September 29, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Tales of the City
Week before last I headed out to San Francisco for the Society of American Archivists Annual meeting. Contain yourselves.
It was a good trip, but it would have been a great trip had I not gotten sick on the place on the way out there. I fell asleep about halfway through the five hour flight and when I woke up, I had a sore throat. By the time we landed I had a full on cold that lasted significantly longer than the trip. This doesn't mean that I didn't have a good time and learn a few things.
1. The Hilton Hotel chain is practically useless.
Our hotel was enormous, but with tiny rooms and unbelievably expensive amenities ($5 for the pool? Really?), and it just wasn't that nice. For half the price I could have stayed at the Holiday Inn and gotten free Internet and some eggs in the morning. I really shouldn't speak ill of all Hilton Hotels, as the was the first one I've actually stayed in, and I know from experience that the Austin Hilton has a rather lovely, decently priced restaurant (The Fin and Porter) in it. My friend Jones took his lady there on her 30th and they printed special menus up for the occasion. Nice!
So maybe not all Hiltons are created equal. Maybe some are nice and pretty and useful and some are dull, drab, overpriced and have way too many people coming in and out of them.
2. Everything you hear about AT&T Park is true.
Good God, is that a beautiful ballpark. The first night that I was in town I walked over for the Giants vs. Rockies game and it is a lovely place. I had a seat out in the bleachers and was not prepared for how cold it was. The park is right on the Bay (for non baseball fans that's a literal "on the Bay"; across the wall is water), and it was freezing. As per the recommendation of The New York Times, I got the hot crab sandwich (available only at one stand behind the scoreboard), which is two pieces of sourdough buttered and grill on the flat grill, then slathered with hot crab meat, a tiny bit of mayo, some tomato slices and served with a lemon wedge. Worth $15? Why, fuck yes.
At AT&T they have cultural nights and the night I went it was "India Independence" night. My section was full of folks in formal, traditional Indian dress. One of the men had a drum and at random times during the game, would start up a beat and inspire an impromptu Indian Dance Party in the stands. There was also a whole crew of soccer hooligans in the section who got really into the dancing, so pretty soon it was a British Soccer League/Indian Dance Party. I never got involved, mainly because the eating of that crab sandwich really dulled me to other sensations, but I was jealous of the hats given to the Indian folks: a regular black baseball cap with "San Francisco Giants" in orange Hindi script on the front. I came really close to tripping a little girl in her own sari and jacking her hat. Lucky for her, the crab really slowed me down. It's like a drug.
3. San Francisco has some amazing history and is really fun.
The last time that I went to SF was for a day trip with my friend Brooke (see below), when she was living in Davis, CA. It was a fun trip, but one day isn't really enough to experience a city like San Francisco. Honestly, in what city is one day enough?
Sue, one of our colleagues from Stanford University, took us on a tour of SF labor and civil rights sites, as well as defunct speakeasies. She works with the local "living history" group and has lived in SF for 30 years, so she is well informed. Also, her partner runs Bolerium Books, a used book store in the Mission District that specializes, among other things, in labor history.We didn't ride a streetcar, but we did ride the bus! To round out the night, Sue took us to a new speakeasy, where you have to have a password to get it. Yes, it's a gimmick, but the atmosphere was great and the drinks were delicious. A cucumber gimlet? But of course!
4. Indian pizza is awesome.
Friday afternoon my friend Brooke (graduate school at Ole Miss) picked me up at the hotel for a too quick visit. It's nice to have friends that you can fall into the same routine with, even after not seeing them for four years, which was the last time that I made it out to California. We went to the W Hotel, where her husband Will works, for drinks until he was off. Then to a micro-brewery (okay, but not enough watery-ass lager to please my white-trash ass), and off to their house by the ocean. Literally, by the ocean; it's like two blocks to the beach. It was really nice to go out there, as I've been to the Bay in CA but not the coast.
We ordered dinner from there favorite Indian pizza place, which involves regular pizza crust (not naan, as I thought it would), and meat or vegetables, curry and cheese. Delightful! After eating and chatting until 11:30, we realized that the cab I called for at 10:30 was not coming, so Brooke checked the bus schedule and sent me down to the corner to wait for the bus; the line that they live on goes directly from the beach and into downtown, stopping only one block from the Hilton. So I waited, in the dark, in the thick fog (the first I'd seen in San Francisco), with my back to the strip of woods between the street and the beach, a foghorn blaring in the distance, and a homeless man fighting with himself in two different voices to my left. I missed one bus and the second was out of service, but the midnight bus showed up on time, warm, clean and pleasant. I blessed Brooke for loaning my a book (it kept me sane during through the foghorn and the schizophrenia), and had a great ride back to town, enjoying a microcosm of SF along the way. My co-riders included a gang of teenage Asian skate-punks, people on their way to work, a bunch of Mexican men in their 20's snapping on each other's mommas, the homeless, a few white couples clearly headed to the club and two aging leather daddies sporting gray crew cuts and matching vests and jewelry. Nutshell.
It was a good trip and the conference was great. I have to thank the fine people at RWWL for paying for it and for hopefully paying next year when SAA is in Austin. So far for work I have gone to California twice, Boston once, New York once and Columbus, GA, once; I could get used to this jet set lifestyle.
It was a good trip, but it would have been a great trip had I not gotten sick on the place on the way out there. I fell asleep about halfway through the five hour flight and when I woke up, I had a sore throat. By the time we landed I had a full on cold that lasted significantly longer than the trip. This doesn't mean that I didn't have a good time and learn a few things.
1. The Hilton Hotel chain is practically useless.
Our hotel was enormous, but with tiny rooms and unbelievably expensive amenities ($5 for the pool? Really?), and it just wasn't that nice. For half the price I could have stayed at the Holiday Inn and gotten free Internet and some eggs in the morning. I really shouldn't speak ill of all Hilton Hotels, as the was the first one I've actually stayed in, and I know from experience that the Austin Hilton has a rather lovely, decently priced restaurant (The Fin and Porter) in it. My friend Jones took his lady there on her 30th and they printed special menus up for the occasion. Nice!
So maybe not all Hiltons are created equal. Maybe some are nice and pretty and useful and some are dull, drab, overpriced and have way too many people coming in and out of them.
2. Everything you hear about AT&T Park is true.
Good God, is that a beautiful ballpark. The first night that I was in town I walked over for the Giants vs. Rockies game and it is a lovely place. I had a seat out in the bleachers and was not prepared for how cold it was. The park is right on the Bay (for non baseball fans that's a literal "on the Bay"; across the wall is water), and it was freezing. As per the recommendation of The New York Times, I got the hot crab sandwich (available only at one stand behind the scoreboard), which is two pieces of sourdough buttered and grill on the flat grill, then slathered with hot crab meat, a tiny bit of mayo, some tomato slices and served with a lemon wedge. Worth $15? Why, fuck yes.
At AT&T they have cultural nights and the night I went it was "India Independence" night. My section was full of folks in formal, traditional Indian dress. One of the men had a drum and at random times during the game, would start up a beat and inspire an impromptu Indian Dance Party in the stands. There was also a whole crew of soccer hooligans in the section who got really into the dancing, so pretty soon it was a British Soccer League/Indian Dance Party. I never got involved, mainly because the eating of that crab sandwich really dulled me to other sensations, but I was jealous of the hats given to the Indian folks: a regular black baseball cap with "San Francisco Giants" in orange Hindi script on the front. I came really close to tripping a little girl in her own sari and jacking her hat. Lucky for her, the crab really slowed me down. It's like a drug.
3. San Francisco has some amazing history and is really fun.
The last time that I went to SF was for a day trip with my friend Brooke (see below), when she was living in Davis, CA. It was a fun trip, but one day isn't really enough to experience a city like San Francisco. Honestly, in what city is one day enough?
Sue, one of our colleagues from Stanford University, took us on a tour of SF labor and civil rights sites, as well as defunct speakeasies. She works with the local "living history" group and has lived in SF for 30 years, so she is well informed. Also, her partner runs Bolerium Books, a used book store in the Mission District that specializes, among other things, in labor history.We didn't ride a streetcar, but we did ride the bus! To round out the night, Sue took us to a new speakeasy, where you have to have a password to get it. Yes, it's a gimmick, but the atmosphere was great and the drinks were delicious. A cucumber gimlet? But of course!
4. Indian pizza is awesome.
Friday afternoon my friend Brooke (graduate school at Ole Miss) picked me up at the hotel for a too quick visit. It's nice to have friends that you can fall into the same routine with, even after not seeing them for four years, which was the last time that I made it out to California. We went to the W Hotel, where her husband Will works, for drinks until he was off. Then to a micro-brewery (okay, but not enough watery-ass lager to please my white-trash ass), and off to their house by the ocean. Literally, by the ocean; it's like two blocks to the beach. It was really nice to go out there, as I've been to the Bay in CA but not the coast.
We ordered dinner from there favorite Indian pizza place, which involves regular pizza crust (not naan, as I thought it would), and meat or vegetables, curry and cheese. Delightful! After eating and chatting until 11:30, we realized that the cab I called for at 10:30 was not coming, so Brooke checked the bus schedule and sent me down to the corner to wait for the bus; the line that they live on goes directly from the beach and into downtown, stopping only one block from the Hilton. So I waited, in the dark, in the thick fog (the first I'd seen in San Francisco), with my back to the strip of woods between the street and the beach, a foghorn blaring in the distance, and a homeless man fighting with himself in two different voices to my left. I missed one bus and the second was out of service, but the midnight bus showed up on time, warm, clean and pleasant. I blessed Brooke for loaning my a book (it kept me sane during through the foghorn and the schizophrenia), and had a great ride back to town, enjoying a microcosm of SF along the way. My co-riders included a gang of teenage Asian skate-punks, people on their way to work, a bunch of Mexican men in their 20's snapping on each other's mommas, the homeless, a few white couples clearly headed to the club and two aging leather daddies sporting gray crew cuts and matching vests and jewelry. Nutshell.
It was a good trip and the conference was great. I have to thank the fine people at RWWL for paying for it and for hopefully paying next year when SAA is in Austin. So far for work I have gone to California twice, Boston once, New York once and Columbus, GA, once; I could get used to this jet set lifestyle.
Hoopleheaded Cocksuckers Unite!
Can we just all agree that Ian McShane should narrate everything from now on?
That is all.
That is all.
The Revolution Begins!
Mickey Rourke's new film took top honors at the Venice Film Festival! It just goes to show that the old Hollywood adage is true: aging wrestler (Mickey Rourke) + aging stripper + director of Requiem for a Dream=awards catnip.
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