herbiehancock

Psalm 19:1-4 (New International Version)    " The heavens declare the glory of God;  the skies proclaim the work of his hands.   Day after day they pour forth speech;  night after night they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language  where their voice is not heard.   Their voice goes out into all the earth,  their words to the ends of the world."      The skies were definitely speaking to me on my Saturday night walk.  I kept stopping to take pictures of the clouds and the sunset.  They just seemed especially beautiful to me.  I'll hush now so you can enjoy listening to what they have to say. I love this last one with the lights of the theater being the only thing you can see of the buildings; the rest just in silhouette against the magnificent blaze of that singing sky.

-A failing encylopedia salesman (Javier Cámara), and his faithful wife (Candela Peña), get roped into making porn films (under the pretence of international audiovisual sex education encylopedias that are a huge hit in Scandanavian countries). -Funny. Darkly so, sadly so, but still funny. For Ingmar Bergman fans, anyway. And, hey, Mads Mikkelsen!

-Fritz Lang's first talkie, Peter Lorre's first big non-comedic role, and the first film about a serial killer. What I'm saying is, it gets a lot of shit done. -Fritz Lang has the worst luck, though. I mean, the Nazis loved his movies, and he hated their guts. Poor bastard. -Anyway. This might be the first classic foreign film I've ever watched entirely without getting up to harass someone. It's that enthralling.

I had some letters ready to mail late today, so I decided to walk downtown to mail them instead of walking through the park as I usually do.  I also wanted to show you how our hospital has changed, but I took so many pictures that I decided to save the hospital shots for another post. I also took a slew of  sunset photos which I will also post another time. So this post will just be of some of the sights along the way and some views of downtown Saturday night here. I liked the way this bright red stop sign stood out against the yellow leaves of the tree behind it. I came across a spot in the sidewalk where there were a lot of these pods.  They fall from some sort of tree.  I'm not sure what kind.  The pods are really long, about a foot or so each, and they have what looks like beans or seeds inside of them.  I think they are a nuisance.  There was one of these trees in the yard next door to my Mom's house.  The pods would fall over into her yard a...

-The homoerotic tensions between Japanese and Korean soldiers and the various prisoners of a WWII POW camp. -Specifically: The young camp commander, Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto, who also did the lovely score), Jack Celliers (David Bowie), a rebellious British prisoner with the best blonde dye job this side of World War Two, Lt. Colonel John Lawrence (Tom Conti), the only one of the prisoners who can speak both English and Japanese, and therefore acts as liason between the two, and Sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano, in his first major acting role), seemingly ruthless but develops a begrudging friendship with Lawrence. -There's an extended flashback that features David Bowie, 1980s David Bowie (already well into his 30s-40s) in schoolboy garb, hanging out amongst his supposed schoolboy peers, and generally pretending to be, like, 16. Therefore, I refuse to take that scene seriously. -Nagisa Ôshima, from the two movies I've seen of his (this and Taboo , the latter of which expand...

-Nanako Matsushima stars as Asakawa Reiko, a reporter who happens upon the tape (you know the one) while investigating the urban legend surrounding it. Now, she, with the (somewhat forced help) of her ex-husband (Hiroyuki Sanada), have one week to get to the cause and cure of the damned thing. -Okay, hear me out: what if you just watched the tape every week after the first time? Wouldn't that just keep giving you one week to live, every week? Or what if you fell into a coma within the one week? How could Creepy Little Girl scare you to death? Whatever. -I will make an argument I have never made before and will never make again...the remake was (technically) better. The acting, the cinematography, the effects, the story, the pacing, the sound, everything. -But what this had that The Ring didn't was good ol' Japanese atmosphere. The quiet, subtle feeling of dread not present in most American films, the kind of tension that makes you jump at the slightest tweak in sou...

-How rad is that poster? -In George Lucas' first feature film (y'know, before he got all George Lucas 21st Century-y), Robert Duvall stars as a man living in (what else?) a dystopian, underground society where people roam about with shaved heads and white clothes, taking pills to both suppress sexual desires and allow them to work their long shifts at dangerous machinery. Of course, he stops taking his pills, and begins to fall in love with his female roommate (Maggie McOmie), who has also stopped taking her's. If you're thinking this is some freaky-ass love child of 1984 and Brave New World , then I'd say you're fairly astute with vague descriptions, and you might have a future in this business. This parentage, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing. -While not exactly a defining film in the dystopian genre, or even particularly notable, there are some notably shining moments here (as all films have, even the ones starring fat suits). The messy, chaotically...