You could go to see this tonight in Minneapolis:
The Burning Man Festival started with a group of 20 friends who burned a wooden figure on a beach in honor of the summer solstice. Now some 20+ years later, the Burning Man Festival annually draws over 43,000 free thinkers, radicals, hippies, artists, and general revelers to a big patch of desert in Northern Nevada. The iconic festival’s history and philosophy have been cleverly wrapped up in this documentary, which not only tells the tale of how Burning Man evolved from a handful of hippies to a multi-million dollar movement, but it also examines how the ideals we form in our youth translate to life’s bigger picture. The film screens at 7pm and tickets are $15-$20 at the door. Tickets will likely sell out so arrive early. For more info visit www.dustandillusions.com.
7:00 PM Thursday at Oak Street Cinema in Minneapolis
Or, you could just watch this from the comfort of your home. Same difference?
I know that you’ve been losing sleep over what’s happening with the film American Sunset, so I thought I’d tell you about this press release announcing that it’s going to showcase at Cannes.
In 1997, Troy Duffy was poised to be the next Quentin Tarantino. Well, maybe the next Robert Rodriguez. He was, for a very brief time, Harvey Weinstein’s pet and Weinstein’s Miramax Films was going to produce Troy’s first-ever script, The Boondocks Saints. Miramax was going to shell out $15 million to make the movie and allow Duffy, who had never directed even so much as a home video, to direct. But soon enough Harvey got bored with Duffy, or more likely found him to actually be an unoriginal, slightly psychotic bore, and stopped returning his phone calls, which one could do if one was Harvey in 1997 (today not so much). A person would have had to work pretty hard to be more irritating than Harvey Weinstein in 1997 but Troy Duffy managed it.
While the feature film Troll 2 is often held up as the “worst movie ever,” a closer analysis reveals it to be much more than a shitty movie made for cheap in a small town in Utah. In fact, lying beneath the often confusing plot are powerful messages about the ills and dangers associated with a rapidly changing society. I will identify three major messages, or themes, within the film and formulate questions that will serve to heighten our understanding of Troll 2, regardless of whether or not we, as individuals, enjoy the film as entertainment.
Am I the only person on the planet who is not taken in by the charms of Meryl Streep? Whenever I see her get weepy and red-eyed in a drama, I want to run away. Whenever she’s being quirky in a comedy, I can’t bring myself to watch. I have never seen Mama Mia! Can you fucking believe it?? I should turn in my Midwesterner Membership card.
Even though I’m only a cashier by day, I’m a dancer by night. Weeknights, I dance in my room, in front of the mirror, until Ma yells, “Doreen, knock it off! The floor is vibratin’ like crazy!”
Back in 2001, I sent out a few movie reviews via e-mail. What I really wanted was a blog but I guess I didn’t know how to do it and it wasn’t so easy as it is now, so I used e-mail to send reviews to people I knew (not all of whom asked for it, by the way). Since I’ve just been rewatching Saturday Night Fever, I started thinking about the first movie I reviewed via e-mail – Staying Alive. Plus, a friend who used to get the e-mails asked me a couple of weeks ago why I don’t do them anymore. I found this interesting – someone WANTED more of my weird “reviews” of movies that had been out for years. Anyway, I combed through my old e-mails and found the review.
Man, am I sick of this guy, or what?