Audience Member
So this is kind of how it's been this week:
[img]http://www.gigglepoetry.com/images/PoemImages/insomnia.gif[/img]
The class that I'm teaching has so many enrolments that we split it into two lectures. I'm teaching both. The first is now on Monday nights from 7-10 pm, and the second is Tuesdays from 4-7 pm. So after staying up pretty late on Monday, then lecturing again last night, by the time I went to bed I was exhausted. But then I woke up quite early, and my brain was filled with a thought for my thesis. And I couldn't get it out of my head enough to get back to sleep. So I got up, despite still feeling pretty run down. So today, I'm moving and thinking slowly... but still probably won't get a full night of sleep tonight. Sometimes when I'm working on a paper it feels like it's stuck in my brain and is trying to burst out of my head like the Alien from John Hurt's stomach...
And......... I'll skip posting a picture for that! In any case, the lectures seem to be going really well, and I'm enjoying teaching them!
In college I knew a guy that really acted weird. The strange thing was, I didn't really think that he actually[i] was[/i] weird. It seemed to me that he decided that his way of getting attention was going to be by being 'the weird guy' so that his weirdness wasn't genuine, it was a pose.
I had kind of the same feeling about 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' while I was watching it. It just seemed like it was really going out of it's way to be 'quirky', which I found annoying. The guy from university was actually pretty interesting once you got past his front, and for me MAYAEWK was the same in that way too. There are parts of it that just drove me bonkers, and others that I found really interesting. I thought that John Hawkes was pretty good, and I found his character to be quite interesting. I enjoyed the girl building her dowery, and there were parts that made me laugh. Like Napolean Dynamite, it seems like a love it or hate it type movie. And like ND, I'm caught between the two... I'm glad I saw it, but I probably wouldn't watch it again. Which exactly defines a '6' for me...
[img]http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0419/nelson.jpg[/img]
On the other hand, most of the people in I, Curmudgeon are [i]genuinely[/i] weird. But in a good way. Here's a quick film festival description of it:
[font=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][size=2]"In this often very funny enquiry into crankiness, Toronto filmmaker Alan Zweig interviews notable curmudgeons like Fran Lebowitz, Harvey Pekar and Bruce LaBruce. Zweig wants to know what their frickin' problem is and, more importantly, whether it's the same as his. As in [i]Vinyl[/i], his equally irascible doc on record collectors, the endearingly dour filmmaker spends much of [i]I, Curmudgeon[/i] spilling his guts directly to his camera and torturing himself with big questions that he can never answer satisfactorily. Zweig then confronts his subjects with the same questions, thereby making them even grouchier. (How grouchy? Andy Rooney is moved to kick Zweig out of his office.) Though[i] I, Curmudgeon[/i]'s meandering structure and incessant jump-cuts are irritants, they're also appropriate to the movie's abrasive, anti-social personality. Consider this a testament to the power of negative thinking."
He interviews semi-famous grumpy people like Harvey Pekar, Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall and Mark Eitzel, plus lots of other people that I haven't seen before (although I recognise many of the names). The movie is very funny, and, Zweig generously lets all of his guests get the laughs - using his parts to set up the questions that he is trying to get answers to.
I found the movie to by interesting, thought provoking, and often hysterically funny. If you like American Splendor, or you like the idea of listening to a bunch of disgruntled, very intelligent people go off on entertaining rants (and especially if you [i][b]are[/b][/i] a disgruntled, very intelligent person that goes off on rants), then you should definitely track this movie down. Track it down to watch it, not kill it.... It actually made me wonder if I'm not grumpy enough around here - maybe I'm selling out??
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Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This movie is absolutely incredible. It's candid, beautiful, heartwrenching and honest. It has been one of my favorite films for the last 7 years.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I'm a big fan of Alan Zweig as a documentary filmmaker and his first documentary 'Vinyl' I consider one of my favourites. This one I found almost as interesting and entertaining but maybe not as deep as his first. I will have to watch his others again but I've liked every one of his works so far.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/14/23
Full Review
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