the rabbits of the night

i've made a concious effort here not to post about any dreams i have... and it's not about not wanting to be pretentious...i've got absolutely no problem with that. it's more to do with the fact that my dreams tend to be either remarkably mundane (people messing with my computer at work) or really horrible (mm...yeah, let's not get into it). but last night i had a really bizarre and disturbing dream, and it just seems like something i want to write about. so.....i was in a bookstore, browsing through the "calvin and hobbes" books, when i noticed there were a bunch of them that i had not read, or even heard of (and i've read all the books cover to cover, many, many times). upon closer inspection, i saw that they weren't even written by bill watterson, which is fucked up, no? there was this haggard old woman sitting in a chair by the shelf, so i asked her if she knew anything about it. she was shocked to learn that i "hadn't heard". she claimed to be a relative of watterson's, and she told me that he had committed a terrible crime. apparently he had brutally murdered his son, whose name was calvin (in my dream, the strip was based on his son.... in reality, i'm not quite sure the man has a son). this was 10 years or so prior to my dream. at this point, the bookstore became more of a library, and i began doing some research on the killing. the whole thing was extremely gruesome, but had somehow been swept under the rug by the media so that they could continue to publish "calvin and hobbes". the dream logic stops short of explaining how people didn't notice that their favorite comic was being written by someone new. so, weird dream, huh? bill watterson killed calvin. which, in effect, he did. so i guess it's just probably latent disappointment over the end of "calvin and hobbes". which is really fucking sad. that i'm dreaming about comic strips, i mean. but also the end of "calvin and hobbes". that was sad too. and so am i.

it's as good as you've heard it is. better, in fact. it sucks that this show gets lost in the HBO shuffle, with "the sopranos" and "sex in the city" getting all the attention. but this is far and away the most tightly written of the bunch....i'm tempted to say it's HBO's best, but i've only seen season 1, and i'm not jumping any guns. anyway, it's sort of the anti-"law & order" (and i like some of the "law & order" shows)....so instead of a case per show format, you get 13 episodes, all one case. and it's just one of the most ambiguous shows i've ever seen.....yeah, we've all seen shows and movies where "the cops are more dangerous than the criminals"....we've all seen harvey keitel jerk off during a routine traffic stop....right? sorry. but "the wire" just blows all that shit out of the water.....you can't help but like the guys putting the drugs on the street.....because they're pretty likeable guys......d'angelo barksdale, the conflicted nephew of the show's kingpin, avon barksdale, is someone you can't help but root for. you know he's stuck in this life of drugs and murder... he wants out, but you know it's not going to happen. also, much credit to idris elba, who plays stringer bell, avon barksdale's right hand man. i've never been more afraid of a character who's voice barely rises above a conversational tone. plus, they're just turning the myth of the drug dealer on its ear.. this guy is taking business courses, he's smarter than the cops chasing after him, and you begin to feel like these guy's are just too careful to get caught. the cops are equally as charismatic and complex. they're obsessed with the work, they fuck up their personal lives, they're manipulative, back stabbing.....they get violent with suspects, and it's real, and scary, because it's sanctioned by the higher ups...hell, sometimes it's the higher ups doing the beating.....there's this particularly great scene where jimmy mcnulty, the lead cop on the investigation into avon barksdale, has pissed off his ex-wife. see, he's a drunk, she feels like he doesn't take care of his kids when he has them for the weekend, and she's threatening to take away his custody rights. he's in his apartment, shit faced, trying to put together some bedroom furniture for his kids, and it's not going well. cut to later in the episode, he's goes to her house to pick up the kids for the weekend, only she's not there, and neither are his sons. cut to the end of the episode, we see him sitting on a bed.. the camera pulls back, we see he's on the bottom bunk of a really nice bunk-bed set...the camera pans around and we see he's decorated the room with soccer posters, and dinosaur posters....man, it's wrenching. if you have the means, check this out......

i'm tempted to just go ahead and say that "sin city" will be my favorite movie of '05, but i suppose that's being a bit premature (and premature is NEVER a good thing)....but there's no way it won't be in the top 3. it's nice when you can walk out of a theatre and not only feel like you got your money's worth, but that your expectations (and mine were high)were not just met, but stomped on, bitch slapped, and in the case of "sin city", castrated. this movie just walked right off the pages of the frank miller graphic novels... i'm wondering if they just brought tattered copies of the books to the set rather actual scripts. and this is a movie where everyone is turning in killer, killer performances. for my money, clive owen steals the show.....he's got this great, menacing line as he holds a blade up to benicio del toro's face..."i'm shelley's new boyfriend, and i'm out of my mind"..classic.
and devon aoki as "miho"....wait, who the hell is devon aoki? call me a fan. she's superbad, flinging throwing stars, carving people up, and generally just intimidating people with her icy stare. the scene where blood splatters all over her face, and she doesn't even blink....brilliant. there's also a hilarious scene where she shoots an arrow through some guy's stomach, and he just stands there telling everyone to check out the arrow, that it went straight through him. this is great, great stuff. leaving the theatre, i had the same feeling i had after seeing both "kill bill" movies...wishing it didn't end, and thinking "how soon can i see this again".....just a fucking incredible movie, top to bottom.

man.....tonight's the night. i'm getting really excited. i think this will be robert rodriguez's return to form (i wasn't crazy about "once upon a time in mexico")... either way, this whole thing has rekindled my love for the comic book... i have all the frank miller "batman" books....i had them when i was a kid, and i'm glad they survived (except for a couple pages in my "complete frank miller batman" that got mutilated in the name of a fanzine that never got finished....that sucks....they never should have let me keep scissors in my room)...anyway, i'm a nerd, and i'll be getting back in the practice of being a nerd. between this and christopher nolan's "batman begins", there's a whole lot of gooey comic book lovin' at the movies. and then there's the "fantastic four"... i saw a still of michael chiklis as "the thing"....a bird poops on his shoulder....and in turn, poops on a lot of fragile hearts.