Archive of October 2006
Captain Koons
The other day a couple of coworkers and I got to talking over lunch about the scary, masterful genius that is Christopher Walken. Which got me to thinking about one of the single greatest movie monologues in the history of the cinema, delivered by Walken in Pulp Fiction. Tarantino’s writing helps a lot, of course, but the thing that really blows my mind is Walken’s economy of expression. I’ve never really seen anything else like it. At first, his character is very reserved – all of his expressions are pretty subtle. Looked at another way, however, it’s completely over-the-top: the guy seems nervous as hell, and it’s as if every single little muscle on Walken’s face is animated in these very specific tiny gestures. His whole face just never stops moving. It’s completely crazy, and totally brilliant. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, you can go see for yourself.
06:33 | 0 CommentsNow what’s cooler than bein’ cool?
I just remembered I’ve been wanting to post this for awhile now. After some YouTube feeding frenzy and some guilty liberal hand-wringing over appropriation and irony, I think it’s maybe gotten a little lost that Mat Weddle’s folkified cover of OutKast’s “Hey Ya” is really just a thing of beauty. For my own part, I don’t sense any mockery or irony here at all. Weddle just knows a good song when he hears one, and plays it with skill and heart and soul, to the point where any effort at comparison with the original is simply not necessary.
06:00 | 0 Comments