Sedona Leigh's Open Salon Blog

King's Dark Tower heads to film

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 13:04:56 -0400

Three feature length motion pictures and two television mini-series will bring the seven (almost eight) Stephen King Dark Tower novels to life in 2013. King has adapted the screen play and Ron Howard is slated to direct after the likes of J.J. Abrams had turned it down. It will take three years to make the whole thing.

Javier Bardem has been cast as Roland Deschain. No word on anyone else.

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There is a lot of negative reaction to Spanish born Bardem playing a role that Stephen King envisioned as Clint Eastwood. Personally, I think it is a terrific choice. Bardem is a transformative actor. Slimmed down and accent neutral (technically Roland is not American either) he will be very compelling in filling those boots. In the first book, the character has to age and Bardem is capable of transforming from early thirties to early fifties easily.

There is NOT a lot of negative talk about Ron Howard being put at the helm. These books have a following comparable to The Lord of the Rings. Ron Howard....well, he has Willow as far street cred for world building. I think that choice is far more disappointing.

Yugo's and Barbed Wire with a dash of Steriods

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 05:02:19 -0500

1988 – Paradise Valley, Arizona

Having spent the vast majority of my pubescent years doing my best to self destruct with the aid of any chemical I could find, by the time I turned 17....I was horrifyingly, boringly sober. And so were all my friends.

When drugs were eliminated from the equation, the two remaining hobbies were fucking and adrenaline. Sometime that year, I also went blonde....*shudder*

My Dad, in those days, was a magnet for all that was uncool in the world. Having acquired his AMC Pacer as my first car, four years BEFORE Wayne’s World, I ran it dry of oil out of sheer mortification. Unaware that things could be worse, Dad brokered a deal for me to buy a replacement. Yes, indeed I was quite excited until we went to pick up a brand new 1988 Yugo. Since he co-signed the loan, he attempted to control how many miles I put on the car per week. Since a Yugo is 100% pop-able plastic, this edict was quickly sidestepped by popping out the dash and unhooking the odometer.

Despite wheels the width of bicycle tires and an engine about as powerful as a push mower, my friends and I piled in and went places.

One night, a group of us wanted to check on the legitimacy of a local rumor about a serial killer’s house called Mr. Ugly’s. We searched the desert between Scottsdale and Carefree until we found a compound surrounded by a barbed wire fence that looked like it fit the bill. Despite warnings that trespassers were unwelcome, we managed to traverse the fence and went searching.

Mr. Ugly’s ended being the single creepiest place I had ever encountered in my young life. It was built like a three-story Barbie condo (you know, the kind we would get at Christmas with the little elevator when the parents were too cheap to fork out for the Dream House) – all skinny, tall and long abandoned. Inside, we found the building incorporated several palm trees to which tortured faces and Polynesian totems had been carved out. The ground floor remained fully furnished because all the couches and tables had been shaped out of the foundation concrete.

The dark floors above housed strange, small, maze-like rooms, all painted black, bearing needles, broken bongs and discarded condoms to commemorate the thrill seekers that came before us.

Outside, we surrounded the swimming pool, freaking out over the graffiti in the deep end that skaters had left to warn us that without proper ritual and penance, Mr. Ugly would, indeed, get us too.

That’s when we heard shouting from inside the house. Clearly, the rumors were true and we were headed for the meat hook.

Alas, it was only the neighbor who was long tired of the place being used as a teenage orgy shack. He hollered at us to stop, warning us that the cops were on the way.

Fuck that. We beat feet.

If there was cactus to run into, or a gopher hole to fall in, I found it as I fled. I still resembled a newborn knobby-kneed gazelle in those days.

To add insult to injury, the old coot had brought his shotgun and was firing at us. Luckily, it was only rock salt. I was able to make this distinction as I was attempting to climb over the barbed wire, by the stinging nettle-like impact on my ass and the back of my thighs as I was making the critical maneuver to throw a leg over the fence. The impact of the shot sent me flying over the other side, my knee catching on the last barb twist and holding on down most of my lower leg. (To which the scars exist to this day.)

We ran as mad hatters do to the car and I popped the clutch to make our getaway. In a blind panic, I drove the wrong way and we ended closer to nowhere on a rocky, rutty road, kicking up streams of dust in my wake. I had the little beast at full throttle as we were tossed around and bashed into the low lying roof of the car.

The great escape ceased at the blowout of one of the bicycle sized tires. The spare tire was a donut, as Yugoslavian day-old pastry and car manufacturing were being doled out on the same conveyer belt.

We huddled together to read the manual on how to use the custom made jack. The manual had no pictures or any English writing. We knew the cops were coming and there was still a pissed off guy with the firepower out there somewhere, so snap decisions were made. Within our group were two guys who thankfully didn’t believe that steroids were drugs. They literally held the car up for me as I changed the tire.

We felt safe by the time we hit Central Avenue. We made our way to the Five and Diner to celebrate our survival with strong coffee and bragging rights.

My ass was on fire, my ankle was twisted, I was still bleeding at the knee and the car was lopsided – but that is the glory of being 17 - that kind of shit didn’t matter. Rather, we were the daring survivors of a fantastic tale. We proclaimed it the Best Night Ever!

Language: Use it OR Lose It

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 05:02:24 -0500

A response about language mastery versus intelligence.

I was raised by a woman who received all her formal education at the Lycée in London and as a result, by the time I was eight, I was fully bilingual. I have few memories of what that was like other than my Dad’s frustration at not knowing what the hell we were talking about. French continued in private school until 4th grade and then came to an absolute abrupt halt both at home and at school. And I didn’t use again, except in passing fancy.

Spin forward several decades - I have need of it again for work. A third language would be tremendously helpful and I love how it sounds. I tested myself against a couple of French films and while my understanding of the structure (conjugation, pronoun agreement, expressions of time, etc) is there, my vocabulary is fucking gone. POOF. It’s deep in my brain somewhere, but I will have to start at French 101 again.

The lesson in that for me is the old adage of ‘use it or lose it’.

I see this in my daughter who has been away from native English speakers for three years now. They try to pass off informal British (eg. ‘have got’) as English education here and I see how it is just horribly chipping away at the excellent foundation in Standard English she had already received. That means after doing double duty to learn Norwegian, she now has to do double duty at home to keep her mother tongue. Use it or lose it.

I don’t think I get to keep any skill set without exercising it and growing it on my own. School isn’t responsible for that. School was merely responsible for hammering it into my head that I had to keep learning. One of those sad little pieces of fine print is that acquiring a brand new skill at age 40 is going to takes twice as long to learn than at age 20. Neurology FTL.

While I agree with Deb to some extent that language is not necessarily indicative of intelligence on a social media site (because we can’t SEE your life) – it IS a widely accepted meme in absolutely everything else. That is my first-hand experience everyday in a country where the native language is difficult for me and I have to work hard for every small piece of ground I gain in the language. I know I’m not stupid, but convincing others of that is a dubious proposition without masterful communication. Walking away feeling stupid or, in the case of one particularly nasty meeting with my government case worker, crying because I simply couldn’t understand half of his backwards ass dialect is the WORST feeling. To do that to myself on purpose seems to be amazingly self defeating.

I cannot be witty in Norwegian. I cannot produce a fabulous double entendre to flirt with. I cannot be sarcastic, obnoxious or deliver the punch line to a joke – just so. I can provide the mechanical phrasing, the needed communication, the passable written passage. I can ask a question and struggle to understand the answer.

Bottom line – I am judged by how well I use my words. Every single day.

I think the only folks who scare me when it comes to poor English are the ones that believe themselves to have somehow graduated from the responsibility of having to keep on learning it. No matter their age or station in life. Being able to be understood and being able to understand is a gift – not a right, not a God given talent.

So in my world you are either a student, no matter your age, or you really are dumber than a bag of cotton. Use it or lose it.

Pennsylvania Is a Third World Country and No One Cares

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:01:31 -0500

In a raid to bust a pill factory doctor's office, one of the most horrendous crimes in the United States was discovered. A crime spanning two decades and being done with the IMPLICIT PERMISSION of Pennsylvania's Department of Health.

As a result of a radical political decision during the Tom Ridge years, the Pennsylvania Department of Health STOPPED inspecting abortion providers. Yes stopped inspecting the facilities, doctors and personal that were providing Life Endangering MEDICAL treatment.

Official policy was to inspect IF they received a complaint. Well they started receiving complaints in 1993. Women were dying. Women were ending up in the emergency room. Women were getting infections and STD's. It's all documented. The DOH knew it and they did NOTHING.

When the clinic finally was raided, the facility and the stories of what had transpired within those walls is nothing short of the worst and most horrific kind of evil imaginable. This doctor makes Jared Loughner look like an affable next door neighbor.

This man murdered women and babies. He mangled, mutilated, over medicated and knowingly infected his patients and he has been doing this since 1979. He's been charged with 8 counts of murder, but without a doubt, the true scope of his evil would be numbers too staggering to swallow.

This story touches on every facet of civil society and the many questions we ask ourselves.

Have women really acheived equality?

How many other clinics like this are still running in Pennsylvania?

How many other states have the SAME inspection POLICY when it comes to female reproductive medical care?

How much of this could have been prevented if these women had the inalienable RIGHT to medical care in the first place?

Shame on Pennsylvania and shame on the mainstream media for not splashing this story from coast to coast.

PROPUBLICA article and Grand Jury Report

Sedona's Top Ten Films of 2010

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 16:12:22 -0500

Top Ten Movies of 2010

Caveat: This list was made without seeing True Grit and The Tempest. Both of which I really look forward to. The list is also based on European release times, so I think that technically Shutter Island was released in 2009 in the States.

Worst of the Year:

The American with George Clooney. As nice as he is to look at, an hour and a half of George mumbling and looking distressed without much of anything else going on was just flat boring. To add the morose and lagging timing so prevelant in European cinema, they called it dramatic irony. The Italians can keep this disaster.

Harry Potter's Hollow Whatever. We run and do stuff!...for five minutes....then we run to the forest and talk about how we should do stuff for twenty minutes. Over and Over and Over again. *face palm* It was like the extended Hobbit erotica director's cut of Return of the King without Aragorn.

10. Dispicable Me

Belly laughts, cuteness, belly laughs, cuteness. I prize real laughter these days...and there was buckets of laughs in this movie. Way more than Toy Story 3.

A super villian adopts three girls as a means to his feindish plot.

9. Eat Pray Love

Wow. I don't know why this one didn't get better press. Julia Roberts was excellent as was Javier Bardem. Oh, if we could all take a year and three countries to go on a journey of self. Each setting was also such a lovely character as is everyone you come across in this film.

A disenchanted woman seeks self enlightment by way of Italy, India and Bali.

8. Prince of Persia

Okay, maybe a little chinzy, but you know what, this was a fun fucking adventure. Bottom line. And of all the poxy adventures released this year from Tron to the Clash of the Titans, to Harry Potter and Nick Cage with a bad hairline, this was premium on story, effects, pace and actors.

The adopted son of a Persian King is accused of killing his father. Chaos, magic and swordfights.

7. Restrepo

I left the movie thinking to myself, 'What on earth is the point?' A powerful documentary following the 15 month deployment of US troops into Afghantistan. Overall, it's pretty sanitized as far as actual combat is concerned - but the hard fact of these men coming home with the 1000-mile stare from an engagement that seems to have no real purpose, no real support and absolutely nothing to gain for anybody - the country, the people or the troops. The humanity portrayed and the soliders you meet in this documentary will stay with you though.

6. Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky

The true story of the affair between French clothes designer Chanel and Russsian composer Stravinsky in Bohemian Paris.

Frankly, this is kinda like literature - the rare exception to where the story is secondary to the utterly beautiful composition. Each frame of this movie is a work of art. The lighting, the colors, the settings, the angles and the beautiful main characters. Everything is posed, meticulous and exacting for the very specific purpose of making each shot beautiful. As such I enjoyed it tremendously.

5. Unthinkable

What an amazing, tense, horrifying film. The ONLY annoying thing with this movie was how badly they dressed Carrie Anne Moss. I wasn't looking for Matrix Leather, but frumpy ill fitting, baggy clothes detracted from her acting and interrupted an otherwise perfect script. Much like The Nuremburg Trials - you as the viewer decide about your own sense of morality and how far it stretches. Yeah and Sam Jackson's proposterous acting method was perfect for this role.

An FBI investigator witnesses the attempts to get the information from a terrorist on the location of three nuclear bombs.

4. Devil

M.Night Shymalanlanlan finally writes a GREAT movie again and no one notices!!! He set the stage way back for his movies to get the heavy scrutiny for the subtle clues that lead to the end. Unfortunately, he failed repeatedly since his One Amazing Movie. This film should have been his follow up.

Five people are stuck in an elevator. One of them is the Devil.

3. Black Swan

Aronofsky is a film maker of a particular caliber. His artistic eye and capacity to direct beautiful movies was clear back in the days of Pi and Requiem. I admit to being really skeptical that he decided to do a ballerina movie. Because, ummm, it's a ballerina movie. A ballerina movie that stood in the way of him teaming up with Hugh Jackman again (from The Fountain) and doing something amazing with the Wolverine franchise.

But this wasn't your average, every day chick flick. This was a story about a story wrapped in a story and from it all sprang the absolute role of a lifetime for Natalie Portman. Single minded perfectionism in any form of art brings about a loss of disctinction between reality and that goal of perfectionism. The way this was captured between a stunted and sheltered mama's girl and a bisexual sexpot was quite unlike anything you can generally see at the movies.

The score of this film was the best of the year.

2. Shutter Island

I saw Shutter Island literally within days of posting my 2009 list. Wow - what a powerhouse script and cast. DiCaprio, gotta hand it to him, he knows how to pick 'em. The movie was a brilliant head fuck.

Two marshalls investigate a mental hospital to find a missing patient.

1. Inception

I've only watched it once. It's a hell of an investment and worth every penny. Chris Nolan just can't do wrong. The cast, the action and, most espeically the story, all respected the fact I am an intelligent human being who likes to mull over my own conclusions.

The power to plant a suggestion in the world of the subsconcious frames the plot of a group of people who infiltrate dreams to steal secrets.