Movie and a Show

The last couple of nights have been really fun and really tiring, but worth it in the end. Let me tell you about them:

Last night I went to the IFC Center to catch a showing of the film Day Night Day Night (trailer). I heard about it on Attack of the Show and a few other places around the internet, and it sounded interesting, so I decided to see what the fuss was about.

For those too lazy to watch the trailer, the movie's about an unnamed girl who volunteers to become a suicide bomber, on a mission to carry a backpack full of explosives into the heart of Times Square. Her ethnicity and the ethnicity of the people she's working with are completely ambiguous throughout the film, and it's never fully clear why they want to do it, or why she's volunteered. She occasionally whispers prayer-sounding things to an unnamed god and treasures a necklace in the shape of a key. The movie's not about any specific group wanting to blow up Times Square, it's about a girl who believes that her god wants her to become a martyr.

The movie was pretty slow, with very sparse dialog. There were long shots of the main character walking, staring, eating, and sometimes I felt like they might have been included just to make the film longer. Another annoying thing was the sound. I don't know if it was just loud in the theater or if the movie was shot this way, but every tiny sound was amplified to almost deafening levels. It was as if I had Wolverine's superhuman hearing ability for the duration of the film. The eating scenes were the worst, it was like I had my ear pressed up against her cheek as she chewed. It was...gross. And annoying. And really gross.

But overall the movie was okay. I give it a B-. It gave me something to do, it let me explore the city some more, and now I know where the IFC Center is so I can see more snobby indie films. Speaking of, there was a trailer for another movie that looked really fantastic, called Pierrepoint, the Last Hangman (trailer). I promise I want to see it for reasons other than that Peter Pettigrew is the star.

And that's a surprisingly good segue to tonight's events...

Tonight I went down to The Knitting Factory to see Harry and the Potters and Uncle Monsterface.

I'd never heard of Uncle Monsterface before, but let me tell you, they put on one hell of a show. A multimedia extravaganza, if you will, including projected movies, pre-recorded background instruments, inflatable ball/animals/guitars and a puppetshow. Yes, a puppetshow. It was quite hilarious and quite enjoyable. Listen to We Wear Capes or Derockracy and tell me that's not great. That will be the sound of you telling a lie.

After that, Harry and the Potters took the stage. For those of you too lazy to click through to their website before (shame on you, lazy jerks), Harry and the Potters is a wizard-themed indie rock band from Massachusetts. In fact, prior to researching to write this blog post, I didn't realize that the wizard-rock genre was so popular. I may have to explore this some more.

Anyway, they sing songs like "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock" and "Save Ginny Weasley" and songs covering a variety of other Potter-themed topics. In fact, they call their three-pack of full-length CDs "Rock and Roll Cliffs Notes" for the books. Still, it's the kind of music you probably won't understand unless you've read the books. Luckily I have, and so did everyone else there, and we had a great time.

So yeah, there's my last two days. Full, fun, and tiring. Just the way they should be.