A few weeks back, it was announced that Paul Thomas Anderson was hard at work on his next project, The Master, a film about an intellectual (potentially Philip Seymour Hoffman) who creates his own faith based organization in the 1950s. Obviously, great news for us, those who love and appreciate great movies, but then I start to think about one specific aspect. I started to run Anderson’s filmography through my head and I started to notice some interesting things.

Nearly all of Anderson depicts Southern California during a specific decade/era. Go with me for a minute:

• 1997’s Boogie Nights showcases the Valley from the late 1970s through the mid 1980s.
• 1999’s Magnolia and 2002’s Punch Drunk Love is about present day/late 90s life in Southern California
• 2007’s There Will Be Blood broadly covers Southern California from 1902 to 1927
• Let’s roughly estimate The Master will come out in late 2010 or winter 2011 and that will take place potentially in the 50s.

Which leaves out the 30s, 40s,  60s and well, anything beyond 2010. Now, the question I’m asking or at least wondering out loudly, will PT Anderson do a film set in Southern California covering every decade since the 1900s? I’m sure this issue has been wondered about before and most likely the subject of some graduate papers in film school (haha!) with much greater depth and insight (Comparing PT Anderson’s depiction of Long Beach V.S. William Friedkin’s in To Live And Die In L.A.). Yet it seems that Anderson hopefully is on his way to becoming the definitive Los Angeles filmmaker. A filmmaker that will make Thom Andersen proud with his devotion to one particular stretch of land.

bigfuckingexplosions:

From time to time, we at BFE like to examine and compare the great moments and scenes to truly discover which is the truly the best. Much like Highlander, there can only be one, ladies and gentlemen. Without much further ado, let’s begin the latest installment of the GREAT DEBATE:

BEST EXPLODING HEAD/BODY CAUSED BY TELEKINESIS: David Cronenberg’s Scanners V.  Brian De Palma’s The Fury

Scanners, thanks in part to the internet boom and the popularization of GIFs and 4Chan humor is perhaps the best known explosion in this debate. With good reason though, it’s quite a spectacular and rather unsettling.

And oh yeah, it’s Michael freaking Ironside using the power of his mind to blow up some guy who looks like David Cross’s head! How insane is that?!

Brian De Palma’s The Fury which I can only describe as Carrie with a pretty girl mixed with elements of The Bourne Identity features an impressive cast: Kirk Douglas, Amy Irving and John Cassavetes. As well as one of the weirdest and wackiest explosions scenes.

While it seems like John Cassavetes is thinking of what film he’s going to make next with his paycheck through a majority of the film, the climatic scene is the first scene in the film where he appears to be acting. His cement shoes/Frankenstein’s Monster stomp is brilliant compared to Amy Irving’s ‘smell the fart’ style of acting.

Comparing the two scenes, one hopefully begins to notice the obvious differences. Cronenberg plays his explosion out in one shot as opposed to cutting to multiple angles like De Palma did. Then again, going over the top is or was De Palma’s key aesthetic in the 1970s and 1980s. The explosion, the effects and the wacky John Williams score is all perfectly in sync with De Palma’s style. Then you have John Cassavetes’ monstrous stomping and Michael Ironside’s semi porno style of acting as he scans the David Cross lookin’ guy’s mind.

Two great scenes, but we leave it up to you. Please answer this great debate: Scanners or The Fury ?

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31 Songs From The 2000s

#17 “Zen” by Clipse & the Re-Up Gang

The Brothers Thornton are great at making singles and mix tapes, but an album? Nope. That’s the problem with hip hop or at least the problem I’ve had with hip hop of this era. It’s a singles man game. Well, with the rise and dominance of iTunes and file sharing, music whether they liked it or not became a singles man game.

The Clipse shined at making that one great song like “Grindin’,” and “Wamp Wamp (What It Do)”, but The Clipse made good, but not great albums. I may lack a certain appreciation of hip hop to fully grasp the greatness of the Clipse. I only listened to “When The Last Time” for thirty minutes straight once.

I need to see THE HURT LOCKER again.

Also, this is how I feel right about now or at least during this time of the year.

Happy Holidays, y’all everybody

31 Songs From The 2000s

#18 “Poisenville Kids No Wins/ Reprise (This Must Be Our Time)” by EL-P

EL-P’s albums especially “I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead” sound and play like the soundtrack to some great post apocalyptic sci-fi movie that has been made yet. Something like a spiritual sequel to Alfonso Cuaron’s master work, Children Of Men. It’s not all doom and gloom with EL-P though, there’s a lot of boom bap and swagger with his work, too. See, “We’re Famous” and well, this song. It might be nerdy in comparison to trap music or mainstream rap music, but it has a large influence on my writing. A little nerdy swagger helps fuel the creative fires around these parts . If the old blog was working at full speed in early 2007, this would’ve been the theme song. This would’ve been the reference point for all things, but I was semi working in an office and had social interactions with people.

In my burnt out apocalyptic world where cockroaches are kings and Coca-Cola is a treasured meal or a Blade Runner version of Los Angeles or Manhattan, EL-P will be the soundtrack.

• The Blindside
• The Hurt Locker
  
• Up In The Air
  
• Up
  
• Nine
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious
  
• Avatar
  
• A Single Man
  
• Invictus
  

The Blindside will be the sleeper nominee of the season and it’ll be the one film the normies root and cheer for.

Suri Cruise Is Magic! made its way to the Tumblr radar. Hooray! Remember when it was a big deal to make it onto the Tumblr radar? Gosh, those were the days. When we are all employed and Sarah Palin wasn’t even on our cultural horizon yet and we weren’t too zealous with our love of “Mad Men” or putting things into frames. Those good old days.

Side note: I really hope the Suri Cruise blog doesn’t lead to a book deal, but instead a meeting with movie producers about a potential remake of Look Who’s Talking.

31 Songs From The 2000s

#19 “Banquet” by Bloc Party

Remember when we all thought Bloc Party was going to be the band? The band that we were going to grow with and happily listen to as they evolve into our U2 or something like that, remember? Their first EP was great and the full length was even better. Bloc Party was going to be the guys that would knock Coldplay off the throne of the band of the decade. I worn a Bloc Party every other week like it was a badge of honor. What happened? Why did their second album have to suck so much? Bloc Party could’ve been the guys. It’s kind of sad, in a way.

Also, Bloc Party mania reminds me of two things: one, the time when I had somebody else take over the first blog because I was “too busy” with school and I met with the girl at a Bloc Party show and she had an open tab at the bar, so I got a couple of free beers out of the matter. Secondly, going back to that show: Steve Aoki was DJing and he decided to play “Banquet” after Bloc Party’s set and I just remember dancing like a complete asshole in front of the booth and then out of the El Rey.

31 Songs From The 2000s

#20 “I’m Ready” by the Diplomats (Juelz Santana, Jim Jones & Cam’Ron)

I had to pick a song that had all of the major members of Dip Set and secondly, it had to be a Heatmakerz production. That classic Diplomats sound with the classic word play and interaction. (Editor’s Note: If I had to pick individual songs: Juelz = “Rumble Young Man Rumble”, Jim Jones = “End Of The Road” [Mainly for TI’s verse], and Cam = “Killa Cam”]

Despite having the perfect song, I’m at a lost of words to describe the impact of the Diplomats on me during the 2000s. I want to say it was an obsession, but I’m not even sure that’s the right word for it. I think I had a picture of Juelz Santana as my default profile photo on MySpace. I had the Diplomats/Ramones shirt. I searched message boards for GIFs. I yelled Freeky! Got some of the mix tapes. I was into it, but then Cam released “Killa Season” and it just fell apart for me. TI started to kill it and I just started to run with that instead. However, I don’t think we’ll ever witness a group like the Diplomats again in hip hop. They weren’t the Ramones of hip hop, they were the New York Dolls, the Stooges, the MC5. They were ground breakers and very ahead of the curve.

While last night’s episode of “Jersey Shore” was a classic, The Christmas Scandal episode of “Parks & Recreation” was the show of the night and maybe the best piece of television since the “Breaking Bad” season finale. I haven’t seen a cast of actors work so well together since “Arrested Development”.  It really is the Wu Tang of comedy forming as one and becoming Voltron.

If you missed it, please watch it