Friday, July 28, 2006

Days roll into days

Miami Vice today and I must confess I'm excited. Not because it's Miami Vice, or the actors involved, but because it's Michael Mann. He's never going to make a bad movie; I think he's genetically incapable.

One point of concern: has Colin Farrell ever been in a good movie?

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I'm thinking maybe I'll fingerpaint the cover to Notes. That would be great. An artless smear. Apropos, you're all grumbling.

I took some art classes in middle and high school because it was required in the state curriculum. Having no discernible ability coupled with the fact that I had to hold the pencil/brush/random artistic implement in my mouth did not, as you might guess, produce anything the masters in their cold graves would envy. I did produce one passably crude drawing of a bird. Which my dad, in his fatherly pride, took with him to work to show off but instead left in his car with the window down. At this point, dear reader, I know you're already of me so, yes, it rained. An ink sketch, the bird became positively Rorshachian. Even I, who cared nothing about it all, was less than pleased.

My parents still have, I know, all that stuff. I'm going to have to have it destroyed.

It's funny: the middle school art teacher, who I'm fairly certain depended upon on gaudy baubles for life support, freaked out on the first day of class, seeing me there. She didn't want to let me stay. There was no way I could complete the class, she said.

Off to the side, it was all amusing to me, this conflagration of hokey art teacher, school principal, and occupational therapist. I would have been happy to let her have her way. The art room was this tiny, cramped, boiler-room-like enclosure. It wouldn't have been terribly surprising if Hephaestus had stumped in at some point.

She had no choice, of course, and by the end of the year loved me. If not my art.

***

I'm not sure why I wrote all that.

***

Traded a copy of my book with Kathleen Flenniken, whose Famous was last year's Prairie Schooner Prize winner. Another gorgeous production. Looking forward to reading it.

***

Back to Venture Bros.

8 comments:

Charles said...

If Venture Bros was any more homoerotic, they'd have to package it in a brown paper wrapper!

Josh Hanson said...

That show is seriously wrong.

Paul said...

You guys ain't kidding....

Montgomery Maxton said...

CF's best movie was the porno.

Anonymous said...

absolutely he has: tigerland (which is saw ages ago and liked than, but might not now) and THE NEW WORLD, which is Malick and he has never done any wrong

Paul said...

I thought about those two afterwards. Haven't seen The New World yet.

Josh Hanson said...

In my opinion, The New World breaks Mallick's streak.

Anonymous said...

Colin Farrell was in Phone Booth, yo! That's a Larry Cohen flick (i.e. the master of the early 80s bang-up action flicks). But the most entertaining scenes to see him in are the ones he shares with Michelle Rodriguez in the crapfest SWAT. Both of them use an acting technique that can best be described as "the bug-eyed glare with excessively furrowed brow." It's like watching two lobodomites who have spastic eyebrows try to find a brain by looking through each other's empty eyes. Kind of like a poetry workshop.