1) “Taught” — which meant listening to a sub-par presentation on the last World Cup. I showed some World Cup photos at the end. I also played some German pop music to supplement another sub-par presentation on Wednesday.
2) I took off at noon, caught a ride with Di, and went to Point to watch “Grindhouse.” Two words: It Rocks. We’ve got trailers for “Machete,” “Don’t” and “Thanksgiving,” and “Werewolf Women of the S.S.”. And then we have two “features” — “Planet Terror” and “Death Proof.”
The former stars Rose McGowan as a go-go dancer who loses a leg to chemical-weapon-created zombies, and after getting a wooden “peg” she ends up with a machine gun attachment where her leg had been. It’s not that that’s what the movie’s about, but come on (imitate Klaus there) — it’s a f**king ZOMBIE movie … it’s ABOUT killing things, blowing things up, blood and splatter. It’s a zombie movie without the social commentary. Plus it has Uma’s stunt-double from the Kill Bill movies as a doctor with weaponized syringes.
The latter feature isn’t as high-powered throughout, not as campy, but it was surprisingly good … which is to say, better than I expected. I expected an adrenaline rush from Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror,” but I also felt that recently Tarantino had been a parody of his former self, not that that self was great, or as great as his fans thought. Perhaps it was his comically bad cameos on “Alias” that led to this opinion (and his cameos here aren’t anything to write home about), but oh my was “Death Proof” good. The car chase in the 2nd half? The best car chase since “Ronin.”
Hands down.
3. Di gave me a ride home after the movie and after some chatting with friends I ended up at Mother Fool’s to read a while — the 2nd Otherland book by Tad Williams. I have a hundred pages to go now and am on the “4th book/part” of the novel.
4. Once back at home I moved on to Poe and listened to Haunted and Hello — Haunted (her 2nd album) is superior and one of those albums where I had to think, “Oh self, why don’t you listen to this more often?” It’s got the lone-female-vocalist thing going, it’s got just a few elements of pop, it has great production … it’s damn catchy.
5. And post-Poe? A little Ghost in the Shell, some wine (Giant 47 Pound Rooster) and maybe Starship Troopers. And a long, 2-hour call from Jen (I discussed Grindhouse, Ronin, and Shakespeare in Love [and Tom Stoppard] among other things).
6. Now? Bed.
