Harmony Korine - Mister Lonely

One of my favourite characters is director/writer Harmony Korine. He wrote the film Kids back when he was about 18 years old, and wrote and directed Gummo shortly after. His next film project is called Mister Lonely. The story, they say, is of "a young American man lost in Paris. He scratches out a living as a Michael Jackson look-alike, dancing on the streets, public parks, tourist spots and trade shows. Different from everyone else - he feels as if he is floating between two worlds. During a car show Michael Jackson meets Marilyn Monroe. Haunted by her angelic beauty he follows her to a commune in the Highlands, joining her husband Charlie Chaplin and her daughter Shirley Temple. A place where everyone is famous and no-one gets old. Here, The Pope, The Queen of England, Madonna, James Dean and other impersonators build a stage in the hope that the world will visit and watch them perform. Nuns fall out of airplanes and children ride pigs. Everything is beautiful. Until the world shifts, and reality intrudes on their utopian dream." (from harmony-korine.com)

Korine: I have a novel coming out called, "A Crackup at the Race Riots." It's about a race war, and it happens in Florida, and the Jewish people sit in trees, and the black people - the blacks are run by M.C. Hammer and the whites are run by Vanilla Ice. It takes place in Florida.

Dead Like Me

On Sunday Tyler and I rented Season 1 of Dead Like Me and ended up watching all 14 episodes of Season 1, and part of Season 2 by Tuesday night. There are only two seasons, so I'm not sure what we are going to do with all of our spare time when we're finished. I had heard good things about this show before, but never really got into it. I think the thing is that you have to watch the episodes chronologically to really understand the point and like the characters. Once you get into it it's really funny, and thoughtful, and good.

Finally saw Borat this weekend. I loved it, of course, I nearly died laughing, I swear.

I bought the book Running With Scissors on Monday night and I am about 100 pages into that. It's much more revealing than the movie. He gets way more into his relationship with the 33 year old schizophrenic man (when he was 13), and the dynamics of the Finch family are more complex than they appeared in the movie. That being said, I would recommend both the book and the movie.

Beverly Hills 90210

I started watching my new Beverly Hills 90210 dvd this week and have a few observations. First of all, the first few episodes were a little lame. The writers were trying to work the "fish out of water" angle with Brenda and Brandon. The problem was that they didn't want them to be total misfits, or for the Beverly Hills natives to be complete aliens, so the premise was pretty weak. If I am remembering things properly, the second half of season 1 is when the writer's decided to "tackle issues" such as safe sex and HIV. I think the show really hits it's stride in later seasons when they abandoned this entirely and just went full-tilt soap opera.



A quick note about 90210 Season 1 fashion: I can handle the mullets, the giant eyebrows, the humungous t-shirts, lycra-spandex outfits, and the 16-inch-long-zipper jeans...but I can not handle the 4 or 5 inches of scrunched down socks that every girl character seemed to have to wear at some point, no matter what they were wearing. Jeans - check. Spandex bike shorts and matching spandex top - check. Short cotton dress?? Come on!! I spent about 20 minutes on the net looking for a picture of this look, but have discovered that all photographic evidence has been destroyed. The picture above gives you an idea of the jeans and t-shirts to which I refer - apparently there was a sale!

I finally saw Running With Scissors. In spite of the bad reviews, I actually thought it was pretty good. The story was interesting, I liked the main character (Augusten Burroughs) a lot, and Annette Bening was amazing as the crazy mom. Now I want to read the book, which is on sale at amazon right now for $5.49. Unfortunately, I am too poor to buy things these days...probably because I keep spending all my money on lame tv show dvds....

A Suburbo-tastic Adventure

I took the Go Train to Pickering this weekend to visit my friend Erin's new home and sample the local culture.
First of all, the Go Train I was on was delayed by about 20 minutes and the platform at Union was packed with little kids. I thought it was odd, I had never noticed that many kids on the Go Train before, until I realized that there had been a Wiggles concert at the Skydome. Erin informs me that the Wiggles have outsold practically every other major Australian musical act combined. It was madness! (I find the Wiggles really creepy and am always fascinated by this phenomenon)
We stopped off at her place for a couple of glasses of wine and then headed out to the Whitby Megaplex to see Marie Antoinette . The theatre was insanely busy. I have never seen anything like that in my life - literally hordes of people trying to buy tickets. I enjoyed the film. I guess the main criticism is that it is style over substance, but that's what I liked about it. Kirsten Dunst was pretty good, and I liked Asia Argento as the whore. The soundtrack was pretty neat too.


Asia Argento and Rip Torn in Marie Antoinette

After that we returned to the homestead to drink more wine and eat Chinese food. Apparently "IT'S CONFIRMED" that Chef Yan is the best Chinese chef in all of Pickering, or something like that.
We missed going to the cougar bar "The Harp and the Crown", which Erin says is full of cougars and trannies. I have never understood suburban trannie culture, but apparently Hamilton is the same way. We also missed out on big box shopping and dining (Casey's - my favourite veggie burger ever). Next time!

Hallowe'en Pictures

Tyler and Andrea


Wendy and Dan

As usual, we spent so much time getting ready that we missed the party we were going to (the Vice magazine party at the Bates and Dodds Funeral Home). We ended up just heading over to the Beaver where we ended up getting pretty loaded. Hurray for liquid cocaine shots!

There are more pictures on my photo gallery at: www.kodakgallery.com/raggedy_andrea

Tonight I am supposed to be going to an art show at a tattoo studio at King and Portland, but will probably just stay in and watch Survivor instead. These are lazy days....