Hidalgo: I wanted to see it for the horsies, Aimee wanted to see it for the Viggo. Neither one of us was disappointed. Overall I thought it was a great movie, though there were some awkward shifts in tone especially around the subjects of race and culture clash. I also thought the Indiana Jones interlude was pretty pointless. However, Viggo was just awesome as long-distance racing veteran Frank Hopkins, and he certainly had me believing that his bond with his horse Hidalgo was genuine as they travelled together across the Arabian desert.
I walk past Varnish Fine Art every single day on my way to my bus home, and never have I glimpsed anyone or anything in there that would indicate it was anything more than a moderately annoying hipster art bar, much less a venue that would host a free screening of the blatantly anti-Bush documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War. But so they did, and so there I was on Thursday night with my ass in a folding chair. We warmed up with some of Brian Boyce's hysterical shorts before getting to the main event. Uncovered is strong when it is showing the sheer number of experienced US government officials who think our preemptive strike in Iraq was a crock, though it could have built a more persuasive argument instead of just stringing a long line of talking heads together. Not having television, a lot of the media clips were new to me, and I found myself laughing out loud at Dubya and his cronies. When they showed the footage of the first bombs falling on Iraq, however, I remembered exactly what I did that night and why I went and marched in the street the next day. A year ago this week.
Only one DVD this week, Carnival of Souls, and what a delightfully creepy B-movie it was. Don't look out the window! Don't go out to the abandoned amusement park! Don't look at what's lurking under the water! Aieeeee! Herk Harvey's direction is truly gorgeous, and I'm going to think of whirling zombies every time I hear organ music for quite some time.
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Hidalgo
Varnish Fine Art
Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War
Carnival of Souls