Minnehattanapolis

While the rest of the Blogulator staff enjoys their time in New York, seeing the transplendent new band City Breathing (featuring Blogulator friend Arun!), I held down the fort in Minnehattanapolis. Yeah, that's right. Suck it, pretentious Manhattan-astards! Here in Minnehattanapolis, we also do fun stuff! Like...um, catch up on television, movies, and music. Okay, so this weekend I didn't do much besides sleep, play with the Qualler Family doggies, and watch television, but it was thrilling in its own special kind of way.

John Adams
After weeks of speculation, the facts are in -- John Adams was indeed the second president of the United States! After mostly "m'eh" viewings of the first five parts of HBO's seven-part miniseries John Adams, I watched the final two parts via our DVR. Without giving much away, I was extremely pleased with the way it wrapped up -- there was more Terance Malick channelling than ever, and for once some real (i.e. personal) conflict came into play. The finale was like if I mated my 11th grade AP History book with my most favoritest pretentious filmmakers. The history that I learned is the kind of history I like to learn is that Thomas Jefferson was a stuffy a-hole who wasn't afraid to hit on Abigal Adams, Ben Franklin liked kinky fun in the bathtub with French ladies, and when old people in the olden days get old, they get lots of liver spots and make-up applied to them that makes them look older. And, I'm not ashamed to admit that, at the end, I shed a few more tears than I did at the end of Ratatouille. Overall, well done, HBO. Despite what the haters say, you ain't dead as a network. Major characters in John Adams, on the other hand...

There Will Be Blood
Yes, finally, I watched it again, this time with yet another friend of the Blogulator, Paal. Freed of the disappointment I felt the first time I saw this in theaters when I was angry that there weren't no Philly Seymour Hoffman involved, nor any John C. Reilley, I have finally accepted this film for what it is -- a totally effing perfect piece of work. Jonny Greenwood's score? Breathtaking. Robert Elswit's cinematography and Daniel Day-Lewis' acting? Oscar-worthy! (See what I just did there? They already won Oscars, doy!) And my man, Paul Thomas Anderson, stretching himself in ways I never would have expected him to stretch as a director and writer. Bravo, Paul Thomas Anderson! And bravura, ladies! See, as I learned from the guy with the bowtie who wasn't Brother Mouzone (i.e. only Brother Mouzone can pull off a bowtie and look awesome) at the Opera last weekend, bravo is to cheer for men, and bravura is for women, but I digress.

M83
OMG what a perfect album Saturdays=Youth is! For srrs, it makes so much better of a soundtrack to playing Madden 2005 on XBox than the soundtrack built into the game featuring will.i.am and Green Day's "American Idiot". Of course, we all know that M83 is genius -- as Chris stated, why has it taken this long for the critics to realize that M83 is actually pretty good? Here in Minnehattanapolis, we've known that since like forever. And by Minnehattanapolis, I mean, I've enjoyed listening to their new record on my stereo while playing video games in my pajamas all weekend long. I swear I also did some chores this weekend, Brigitte! Please don't hit me...

Other odds and ends
Idris Elba appeared to me in three different artistic endeavors this weekend -- once as the actor in the special feature from the Season Three DVD of The Wire, once in The Reaping on Cinemax, and once in 28 Weeks Later on HBO. He's a great actor. . . I watched both "The Soup" and "Best Week Ever". Turns out, they're pretty much the same thing, except "The Soup" is more consistently funny. . . In the NFL Draft this weekend, the Minnesota Vikings drafted a quarterback whose last name is Booty. Imagine the jokes that will come with that one! Ha ha ha booty. . . I don't really hate Chuck from Gossip Girl -- I'm just jealous of his ascots. . . Blogulator friends Joe and Dave have released their first of a series of videos about having fun which you should take a little time to watch. . .

Joe and Dave For the Week: Episode 1 - Boulder, CO from David Ryan on Vimeo.

This entry was posted by Unknown, on Sunday, April 27, 2008. You can leave your response.