you really thought Dicaprio was miscast in The Departed? I'd agree with you certainly on Gangs of New York and Shutter Island, but I thought, Boston accent not withstanding, he was really good in the Departed, perfectly suited for the headstrong but naive nature of the character. In The Aviator I thought he was really…

Dunno if Emily is going to serve you well as a killing machine. Her powers seem much more suited to stealth, the teleportation being no longer instantaneous for instance. Maybe I just lack the killer instinct…

Taking Tiger Mountain is great. The whole thing Strikes a great balance between his more soaring/serene ambient work and his more raucous/youthful early work. Third Uncle in particular is so much fun. I'm interested what about his career you find scattershot though. In my books he has one of the best solo/production…

Caught up on a bunch of movies this weekend.

Started/Finished reading a bunch of things.

I've had Go Tell it on the Mountain sitting on my shelf for a long time you've just convinced me to pick it up. You had me at "dripping with biblical tension".

Watched The Overnight and really enjoyed it. One of the most artful and strange cringe comedies I've seen in a long time. Loved the horror movie dread and tension that ran through the movie (thats what I always look for in my comedies). Liked how that feeling gradually dissolved and the movie turned more towards a…

Yea, I guess there was not much you could do about it. Having him deliver exposition about his life in voiceover or something would be pretty awkward.

in my books what he does is better than indie bands which take themselves too seriously, like Destroyer or something …also not sure if hes having a very significant impact on independant music, I guess hes fairly popular but I don't know of too many copycat acts.

The Revenant - Liked it a lot. Thought Tom Hardy was great, exuding forcefulness and devilishness while simultaneously seeming feeble and weak doesn't seem like an easy balance to pull off but he makes it believable. He gets many of the best lines in the movie too (Though I guess this movie is pretty low on dialogue…

The "shake that body" sample is a too familiar from the original song/New God Flow it kinda takes me out of it. Also didn't think the Kanye verse was very well delivered. Some good ideas though I guess. Continues on a lot of the stuff in Real Friends ie paranoia about fame and how that effects relationships and how…

Reminds me of Every Frame a Painting's video about Chuck Jones which I thought was pretty interesting.

20,000 words on his friendship with Jessica Simpson.

Needs more Lodger. For me that is the one Bowie album that isn't hyped up enough. "Move On" is one of my all time favorites, love the soaring background vocals and the general drive of the song. "Red Sails" and "Fantastic Voyage" (That David Bowie can really sing can't he?) are also great.

The big broad-chested tank-tread robot with the pincer arms was cool though! Remember him? I had the toy! My life has meaning!

Lots of Haruki Murkami.

Got about halfway through American Gods and couldn't bring myself to finish it. The dark/gory/horror elements just didn't vibe with the lazy/glib humour for me. And I found the road-trip aspect of the book to get pretty tiresome, as we're whipped around to various locations for what seems like little or ill explained…

Yea definitely very experimental, I wish he'd do stuff like this more often because reading a bunch of his books in a row (especially his early work) can get pretty repetitive. I just finished South of the Border, West of the Sun by him which also felt like a bit of a change-up from his formula.

Started After Dark by Haruki Murakami which so far has been fantastic. Love the writing style as always with Murakami (the description of a character's black hair as a "cascade of dark water") but I was surprised by how fresh it feels in comparison to some of his other books. For instance, this time the main…

Yeah, It starts out pretty slow, like pretty much a guy just doing household chores/cooking and looking for his cat, but the weirdness slowly creeps in and it becomes gripping as hell. I wouldn't recommend it if you like plots that make about more than 15-20% sense though.