Dogville - This is my life!

I think I am living in a movie! We just watched Lars Von Trier's epic 'Dogville' and we are shocked by how closely the story resembled the current state of our lives. Shocking!

Narrator: This is the sad tale of the township of Dogville. Dogville was in the Rocky Mountains in the US of A, up here where the road came to its definitive end, near the entrance to the old abandoned silver mine. The residents of Dogville were good honest folks...

Okay, subsitute Iron Ore for Silver and there you have it, I am living in "Deerville"!
We came to this little town and at first we were welcomed, when we tried to do our best to make Deerville a better place and help the people and economy, the people turned on us and got all crazy. Hopefully, we get out before the bell gets hooked to our necks!

The TV Ministry on IMDB?

Yep, it's true! I was looking for information on something I was listing on ebay and up popped The TV Ministry - The Movie. Back in 1997, I gathered the troops, collected a tape full of favorite TV moments, and my husband "convinced" one of his friends to film a short infomercial for "The World's Truest Religion".
The fella who shot the video, Mark Hejnar, edited it together for me and added his own "special touches" (which translated to clips of Hitler, a lady with a used sanitary pad, and one cool clip of a light nearly falling on then Pres. Bill and Hillary Clinton). Hejnar was angry to do the job, complained insessantly about some nearby road construction, and acted like the whole thing was a real bother. He then went on to submit the film to numerous film festivals where the short actually won awards!
Here is a link to the IMDB listing, and a review from one of the film fest magazines: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0224211/, and the review: http://www.impossiblefunky.com/archives/issue_11/11_mcf99.asp?IshNum=11&Headline=MicroCineFest%2099.
I especially like the end of the review when the writer says, "Upon winning the award for Best Low-Budget Video, Hejnar revealed that the members of the TV Ministry have completely missed the irony of his work. This, more than anything, is a testament to the success of his work!" Silly Hejnar! He has to make himself feel better because The TV Ministry, has become his most well received film, and wasn't really his movie. The TV Ministry was born from sarcasm and irony, apparently my crew of "chowderheads" was more convincing than I had ever hoped!
I will dig it out and post it up for everyone to enjoy, hopefully this weekend.

From FOX to IFC

I should say at this point, I have never had cable television.

All through my years growing up, and then living on my own, and even during the first 9 years of my marriage, it was all regular TV. I had no real need and no ability to afford cable or satellite television. My husband Shane and I pretty much watched only FOX TV when we lived in the Chicago area -- it had everything we needed.

We had the Simpsons on 3 or 4 times each day, Seinfeld on 3 or 4 times a day, and tons of cheesy TV shows -- We found ourselves hooked on stuff like American Idol, Trading Spouses, Paradise Hotel, The OC, John Doe (Bastards never brought it back after the chiffhanger season finale, grrrr) and the like. Hell, we even got hooked on 24, and that was after I said how much I hated it during the first season.

We really never felt a reason to turn the channel, we had Walter Jacobson and Robin Robinson to give us news -- I still miss you Robin! We had the greatest weatherman of all time Harry Volkman -- He invented the Tornado Warning back in 1953! No, REALLY!

I can't tell you how many letters I wrote to WFLD-TV in Chicago suggesting they get the city to make a Harry Volkman day and give him a parade -- They responded by forcing him off the air, which still kills me! I got to meet him once and got his autograph. We were at an event called "Busker Fest" watching an old friend of ours lay in broken glass and there was Harry across the crowd watching! We ran to catch up with him, I told him how much he meant to me, though I don't think he understood how sincere I was. I made Harry Volkman buttons and sent them to him too.... so much for reminiscing... What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, so we moved from Chicago to Northern Minnesota, and mean WAY Northern! The closest "Big City" is Duluth which is 2 hours South of us, what I am trying to say is, when we moved here we HAD to get satellite or we would have had NO TV at all, and when you live in a place that gets five to six feet of snow each winter, television becomes a serious necessity!

So we got Direct TV as part of or phone package, and then upped our basic service to the whatever-they-call-it-$11-more-a-month-package, it gave us another 30 or so channels. We got it so we could watch The Shield on FX, (we got hooked on it when we were staying with my in-laws, FX played all of season 1 over two weeks and then started season 2 right after. We watched all of the first season which was great because they played 2 episodes each night. Then we caught most of Season 2, until we missed the Season finale -- Total Bummer!). We hadn't seen any of Season 3, so that may have led to our disappointment, but Season 4 - the one with Forrest Whitaker - was really lame.

Then we discovered IFC, and the $11 a month became well worth it since it has become the only channel we really watch -- well that and Comedy Central, and sometimes the DOC Channel. IFC offers really great movies, this week alone we saw 'Amores Perros' which was haunting, and 'Affliction' which was really weird.

'Amores Perros' is 3 different stories that entertwine eventually, all with strong morals and all related in one way or another to dogs. There is some pretty realistic dog fighting in the movie, and I thought for sure they were really killing dogs since it was filmed in Mexico, but a little research the next day proved me wrong (thankfully). 'Amores Perros' is written and directed by the same fellas who did 13 Grams (Hated it!) and the new movie Babel (haven't seen it yet). I have to admit, dead dogs aside, it was really good.

'Affliction' was filmed like a horror movie, but with no horror-- just a whacked out Nick Nolte (Which you really can't go wrong with). It's is supposed to be based on a true story (I have yet to look this up) and is narrated by a younger brother (Willem Dafoe), who just can't understand what drove his brother into a homicidal rage. DUH! He moved into his childhood home with his father. Homicidal Rage is mild compared to how I felt when I moved back in with my parents at 22!

Unfocused? Me? Damn right! I will try to reign it in....

Anyway, IFC has some pretty good series' on it too. I got hooked on "The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman", it was the "Drunk On Cock" episode that sucked me in, now I have been trying to see them all in reruns as I eagerly await a new season. After that show is "The Business" which I really hated at first but it eventually grew on me. I think it was the crazy Japanese investor that was the initial draw, but the other characters seemed to get more interesting as time went on.

So there is my TV rant for the night, no I do not work for IFC, I just wanted to prepare you gentle readers for the inevitable emphasis that IFC, and the other stations I mentioned, will have in this blog.

Also, I was trying to add photos of what the hell I am talking about, but after an hour of futile attempts (yes, I am a moron). I need to do a little more work on this matter. I refuse to subject all of you to a box with a question mark, while I fiddle around.

Good Night!

Adrienne Shelly RIP

I was bummed to hear that Adrienne Shelly was dead, I was shocked to find out the gruesome and bizarre details of her murder.
I just saw the movie TRUST on IFC recently and thought she was great. I was shocked to see how many movies of hers I have actually seen -- I love actors like that. You know the ones, they are in tons of movies and you never even notice them. There are so many actors, that just can't suspend my disbelief, not for one second.

A quick peak at her IMDB (Internet Movie Database) will give you a list of her work, and I am betting you will be hard pressed to say you haven't seen a single film with Adrienne Shelly. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0791248/ (Geez, I hate adding all that a href stuff!)

In addition to acting she had also written and directed several films, mostly shorts. This makes her untimely death all the worse since she was about to release what would have surely been her biggest film to date "The Waitress", and if it's as good as people are saying, this means we may have had the female Clint Eastwood stolen away from us.

I am going to send some psychic waves and maybe a letter to IFC (Independant Film Channel) to say "How about an Adrienne Shelly film fest for a weeked?". I hope it works.
Send Mail, or see the website: http://ifc.com/

This should be a lesson to all of us, the ladies especially, loud assholes (Can I say asshole?) are to be ignored, not engaged, no matter how rude and irritating they are.....

The Colbert Report and me

DO I really need to say "gee I haven't used this great blog at all, now I am going to"? If so, then there I said it.

Anyway, like most Americans with an IQ over 75, I get most of my TV news from Comedy Central - Yep, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. I don't care what Geraldo Rivera says, it is real news, and it's not like he'd know real news if it smashed a chair over his face.
Even my 70+ year old landlady says she gets all her news from the same place -- and she is way smarter than me. So there.
I watched the 'Midtern Midtacular' the night of the election, and watched it again the next day - and still laughed. Usually only Seinfeld can make me laugh over and over at the same shows I have seen 12-15 times now.
I must admit though, my fun and innocent joy of watching The Colbert Report has been taken down a dark and shadowy alley of late. Why you ask? Well, a few nights ago I was sleeping away in my futon bed which is about 3 inches too short to actually accommodate my entire body (And, no I am not some amazon, I just hit 5'7")--- but that's a whole other story -- Anyway, I had this dream that I was riding in an old convertible with Stephen (Steven?) Colbert, except I didn't realize it was him. He took me on a bunch of crazy errands and then we went back to "my place" (which I'd never seen before) and we got it on --- Yeah "IT"! We got IT on, and it was HOT and HEAVY, and WILD!
I woke up in the middle of the night and thought "What the Hell was that?"
Now, I feel very weird watching the show, especially with my husband. I feel dirty and like a very bad girl. Hopefully, by writing this down in my oh so private blog, I will be releived from this feeling of....... whatever it is, and just get back to enjoying his peculiar "humor".


Until Next time.... TV is God!