I think this will be my last post here for a while. I've been lazy to update this blog. I may post from time to time when I feel like it, but if you're expecting any upcoming posts don't hold your breath.

If you haven't seen Up, watch it. It's, by far, the best movie of the year yet. It's also the funniest Pixar movie and I think the best Pixar movie yet.

Do it for Dug.

Maybe I'll never understand why my father has these inane fits of rage. All of a sudden he'll treat me like shit. Maybe he likes it when he feels superior. When he talks down to somebody.

I wish he had throat cancer. So he could just shut up already.

Wency and I saw Watchmen last, last Friday, the opening day. I LOVED the graphic novel. It was gritty, unapologetic, and downright great. I liked the movie but it felt like a film made of brilliant scenes that just don't fit together properly. For example, Dr. Manhattan's origin story is quite interesting and ingenious but it just drags down the second half with it. Another quibble I found with the film is the use of pop music. Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" during the fucking scene, um, cliche much? And that My Chemical Romance cover of the Bob Dylan classic Desolation Row, excuse me while I puke. I did find some pros to the film, the ending is superior to the graphic novel and the acting of Jackie Earl Haley as Rorschach is quite remarkable. While I did leave the theater satisfied, I just couldn't help but feel empty. Unlike the Dark Knight, where I felt that I just saw something truly great. Hopefully the director's cut on home video will change my perception on Watchmen but right now, the theatrical cut is just halfway there.

Ever since I graduated from school I've had 12 interviews, become a finalist twice, 0 call backs, and 0 fucking jobs. Man, I wish I won the lottery.

I don't know why this happens, but whenever my Dad gets pissed off my body gets so stressed out that all I think about is why my Dad is pissed off. A few hours ago I overcooked the fucking tapa (cured pork). Overcooking the tapa means that so much of the fat gets reduced and all that's left is pieces of tapa rather than slabs of tapa.

At this very moment, Papa is talking about me. I know because my room is above the kitchen and I could literally hear the tone (if not the words) in his voice. Right now, he's slamming the cabinet doors louder and louder. Man, I'm so goddamn stressed right now.

Jesus Christ.

All he thinks about is money.
All he thinks about is food.
And I'm so goddamned fucking stressed.
To the max.
FUCK. ME.

According to Wency, I like cumming on people's faces. Like DUH.

Click for more glorious here.

You know what I hate?

Lead singers in shit rock bands that sound like chicks.

Come on, man! Couldn't you have tried singing at least with some dynamic range like Jeff Buckley or Thom Yorke? They earn their fucking falsettos! They don't sound like douches getting their balls stepped on!

I can't believe he would explode like that because of cold (slightly warm) chicken.

The Greatest Gift of All.

So what is it?

Well, it's staying with your dad because he decided to take a week and a half long vacation because the year ended and his vacation days reset back to zero. Fuck. Me.

After seeing it one more time, I think that Slumdog Millionaire is an even better film than The Dark Knight. Why? Wency summed it up perfectly. "Slumdog's peak is directly at the end whereas Dark Knight's was the truck scene." Even though I find Dark Knight to be a absolute masterpiece in filmmaking, Slumdog's emotional and structural ascension is much more potent giving the ending an exclamation point to a beautiful, intense, harrowing, and transcendent film.

AND I'm going to say it.

Slumdog Millionaire is the best film of 2008. Yes, even beating out the Dark Knight.

Slumdog Millionaire. It's probably my 2nd favorite film of 2008 after the Dark Knight. It's absorbing, enthralling, intense and it completely earns it's ending. You must watch this film.

Okay. Right now I'm going to admit that I listen to Taylor Swift. She's hot, so sue me. But she's also missing something in her music that many artists use. It's autotune and there's no trace of it in her music.

There.
I listen to Taylor Swift.

Fuck you.

Quantum of Solace is NOT a good film. I believe that Marc Forster was the wrong choice for this Bond film. What this film needed was an action director like Martin Campbell, John Woo, or the best choice right now, Christopher Nolan.

Unlike most James Bond films, Quantum is the direct continuation of Casino Royale. They should've just titled this "Casino Royale II" because there's literally no beginning to the story. This film is like the next episode of a two episode series. So why did I dislike Quantum of Solace?

The major problem for this film is the storyline and the arc of its characters. Throughout the film, Bond has only one mission: to find out who killed Vesper (Eva Green in Casino Royale) and why. At the end of the film, you still don't know who killed her and why they chose her. Bond never has a character arc throughout the film, he basically just kills lead after lead until the final battle where there's explosion after explosion of ultimately nothing. It almost seemed as if Bond was invincible. There's literally no story contained in this film.

Another problem I found with the story was the addition of Camille (Olga Kurylenko). Her story isn't even connected with the organization that Bond is trying to reveal. I think it would be better for her to be written out of the script.

The last major problem of this film and it's the true reason why I really dislike Quantum of Solace: the action. Every Bond film has action and so does this but did it require the film to contain SEVEN action sequences trying to one up the previous one? Not only were some of the action sequences direct rip-offs from the Bourne Trilogy but also shot and edited in the same way. Casino Royale's action sequences had a sense of space where you can see where each character is but in Quantum you couldn't even pinpoint what the hell was going on. Every action scene was cut to fucking hell and because there were so many it began to get boring.

It's sad that the most recent Bond has to rely on quick cut editing instead cinematography and choreography to have a sense of energy throughout its' action scenes.

Quantum is a disappointment. A major disappointment.

There No More Love Here.

I'm in Joliet right now on a break on a film shoot doing reshoots. Before I left the house this morning, my dad scolded me. And after the scolding, man, I felt so much like shit. I think my dad likes to make people feel guilty. He kept on asking me questions about the job I do on weekends.

"How much do they pay you?" I tell him, "It depends on the shoot. Between $35 to $60 per day." All of a sudden he explodes and tells me, "Shit, that's not even minimum wage!" Then he goes to ask me what I do on these film shoots and I tell him that I'm the boom guy. "That's it? That's why you went to college? To be a boom guy? You can't make money in that. I thought you were in sound?"

See, that's the fucking problem I hate about my dad. To him, sound is just post-production when it actually encompasses everything from boom to sound mixing to sound editing/mixing. I've learned to be the boom guy and how to edit/mix soundtracks.

He then tells me, "But boom guy? You went to college to boom? That's so easy!" I then tell him that booming is not as easy as it looks. He then replies, "No, it's easy, I know!" When he said that, I wanted to fucking punch him. I then tell him that booming is remembering the script, moving the mic in a way where it's out of the frame AND in silence. I wanna see him boom a 5-minute single take with 4 people in the shot with only one fucking boom mic. Let's see if he finds that easy.

He then tells me that they're not paying for my gas. I then tell him that the producers actually pay for it by calculating the number of miles I need to get to the shoot by the price of gas per gallon. He then tells me, "Are they paying for your tires?! Your engine?! You see, if that car dies, it's me who's paying for it!!!!" He then screams at me that they're paying me so little and I reply that it's only a student film and the budget is very small. I also tell him that a film shoot is not like a real job because there are many gaps in between takes. He then scolds me for not being at home and for not helping around the house. "You're not even doing anything in this house. All you do is go out. Sleep. Eat. Use my fucking internet and TV. You're not even doing the things I tell you to do like cutting the grass."

After hearing him say something about cutting the grass I wanted to take a fucking knife and stab him in a jugular with it. He's such a fucking hypocrite, he tells me to cut the grass when I have the fucking time and that week I had no fucking time. He then tells me that he's spending so much money on my brother, mom, and I. "I'm wasting my 401K on you guys and you don't care." Again, he makes me feel fucking guilty.

You see I'm grateful that my dad and mom pay the bills. The problem is that my dad doesn't appreciate anyone and on top of that he'll make you feel like shit. I think the only one he appreciates is Wency. He doesn't the appreciate the stuff I do for him. I think that's why I love my mom so much.

Fuck.

Get a fucking heart attack today.

Or tomorrow.

I hate you.

There's no more love here.

If you can't die, I hope God rips out your voice out.

Geez, I wish I won the lottery so I can fucking leave that house.

RANT. DAD. TYRANT. FUCK.

My mom told me that my dad is pissed at me because I didn't mow the lawn like he told me to. The thing is this is what he told me last week, "Daniel, when you have free time, can you mow the lawn?" I told him, "Sure." Here's how my last week went:

Monday: I had to start my paper and write out my plan for my group project.
Tuesday: It rained so I couldn't mow the lawn.
Wednesday: Had a group meeting in the afternoon so I couldn't mow the lawn.
Thursday: Had class so I couldn't mow the lawn.
Friday: Had SOME free time but had to memorize script for booming the next day.
Saturday: Continued booming on "Upper Deck."
Sunday: Boomed for "Upper Deck."
Today: Final day of shooting for "Upper Deck."

I already know what my Dad is going to say to me today. He's probably going to say one, some, or all of the following:
"If you want to live here, you have to pay!"
"You never do anything in this house for the family!"
"You sleep so late and wake up at 12!"
"You eat so much fast food and you gorge it down!" (this shit aint even related but he might say it)
"You can't even live by yourself!"
"You want to eat here? You have to pay!"
"You're always upstairs on your computer!"
"Oscar's kids, they don't even live with them anymore!"

Maybe he's gonna even say other shit to stress me out and make me feel like shit. Sometimes I think my dad likes it when he scolds people. I think that he loves the authority over a person. I noticed that whenever he's scolding me, I can't say anything. I don't talk back because I can't talk back. The last time I spoke back at him, he put me in a choke hold.

Sometimes I wish my dad had a stroke or heart attack because he really is a piece of shit. One time he called my mom, "a shit in the family," just because she forgot an important insurance document at work (that's only 2 minutes drive from the house).

So why am I writing this? It's because my scared, to be honest. My dad never appreciates OR trusts anyone in his family. That's why he's such a stupid ass fuck. I bet he loves his "favorite." Right, Wency? Wency is the type of person you would call a "homebody." He never goes out or talks to real people. He says he has his chat sessions with his "friends" on Thursdays. The only problem is that they're not his fucking "friends." They're only people he knew from online groups. They're not fucking friends until you fucking meet them face to fucking face. You see, I'm so pissed and scared of my Dad that I'm already ripping on my brother (who's alright, btw).

Well, back to my Dad. My Dad never even once told me that it's nice that I had a job on the side. He treated the side job I have now as a boom guy with such disdain. Even though I make a small amount of money, at least I'm outside having conversations with people! I don't wanna always stay at home (which is what my Dad wants everyone in his family to do). I wanna fucking go where I wanna go cuz fuck man, this is the 21st fucking century. And he thinks I don't pray because I have so much psoriasis on my legs. The main reason for my psoriasis? Duh, it's you, you fucking hateful piece of shit father.

So.
Bottom line.
Even though I'm scared.
And pissed at my Dad.
Even though I know what he's going say to me.
Fuck you, Papa.

While waiting for the director and producers to arrive here in Naperville on the "Upper Deck" shoot.

Songs of the day:

"Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" ~ Craig Armstrong cover with Bono

I think that the Craig Armstrong takes the great vocals of Bono from the U2 version and instead of pretentious Zooropa-type rock, adds a choir and a damn great orchestral accompaniment.

"Lived in Bars" ~ Cat Power

The first time I heard this song on YouTube, I had to have it. I've fallen in love with Chan Marshall's cigarette tainted vocals with a jazz-type band as background. Absolute bliss, this is.

"Breathe In, Breathe Out" ~ Mat Kearney

IMO, Kearney's best song was never originally on his debut album, "Nothing Left to Lose." A song about a relationship that keeps on breaking but ultimately stays together in the end.

Quarantine, a remake of the superb horror film [REC], sucked ass and balls when Wency and I watched it at Stratford Theater yesterday. How can you virtually do a shot by shot remake, remove all tension and pacing, while also totally ruining one of the greatest endings in horror film history?

Seek [REC], fuck Quarantine.

"I don't want my president having a Muslim name!" - my dad during the debates.

Sad :(

Blindness - It sucks. Waste of money. Sadly from City of God director Fernando Meirelles.

Eagle Eye - Turn your brain completely off and you'll have a good time.