…and I feel fine.

Posted by Marco Sparks on November 15, 2009

Hello! It’s Sunday. And Sundays, well, Sundays are boring, right? Right.

John Cusack goes out for a little jog in the middle of the apocalypse.

Went and saw 2012 yesterday, as promised. It was, well… Hmm.

the end of the world just got a whole lot more end of the world-ier.

My first reaction to it: Ehhhh. Not horrible, but not great. It’s exactly what’s advertised on the tin, I’ll put it this way. You’ve got a lot of real actors doing some cartoon shit while the world goes to hell all around them. The cast, when you think about it, is actually quite impressive. Also, Woody Harrelson’s in the mix too.

We can see you.

My second reaction to it: Why the fuck didn’t this come out in the middle of the summer?

It was literally this or ID4ever, right?

Third reaction: Comedy of the year, hands down.

Especially in a year when, if you think about it, the big comedy was… what? The Hangover? Right? Get serious. I never saw the movie, I won’t lie, but for a lot of reasons. Primarily, things like the trailer. Did you see it? It looks like it was made for retarded boys. But, you know what’s even worse than the trailer? Listening to people who actually liked the movie. They sound like retarded boys, don’t they? Anyway.

There is virtually no situation in which I will not find Thandie Newton excruciatingly gorgeous, except for maybe 2012.

But I really feel like 2012 deserves a good proper Counterforce review. It really does. It’s really our kind of movie, and I mean that in the best and worst possible ways. I don’t know that I’m the man for that job. Benjamin Light, I’m looking at you. Are you the man for that job?

Can you believe me actually made this ridiculous movie?

Anyway, I went and saw the film yesterday with Conrad Noir and walking out of the theater, still buzzing from all that ridiculousness, we saw this:

You are killing me with this ridiculous shit, Dwayne. You really are.

And we thought, “Dear God, who gave that man wings.” Much less Wings Of Desire and much more Red Bull: The Movie.

But then we got into a little conversation, talking about this and that and action heroes of the 80s, mostly cause we’ve been watching a lot of that horrendous/wonderful action movie fare from that decade, and we were talking about how action stars back then were so… foreign seeming. And maybe that contributed a lot to their allure. Maybe it also made some of the ridiculousness easier to stand, too?

For example there, Benjamin Light and were discussing a week or so ago what a remake of The Terminator would look like – since the franchise is up for sale, and should be sold to Joss Whedon, of course, cause why not? – And I brought up the question, “Does the killer robot from the future have to be Austrian?” Commander Light emphatically assured he that it indeed had to be. I’m taking his word for it.

This just looks magical.

Anyway, so Conrad and I, discussing action stars today, talking about guys like Dwayne Johnson, and how, in our minds, he’s not really latched on with America. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the idea of a “non-conventional” action star quite a bit, i.e. a non white guy running around screaming at people, doing high kicks, and blowing copious amounts of shit up. So why hasn’t “The Rock” caught on with us? I posit two possibilities:

1. In a grab for “credibility” or attempting to “not being as big a joke as he is,” he ditched his silly little wrestling moniker, “The Rock,” and went with his real name: Dwayne Johnson. Except, we can’t root for a guy named Dwayne.

2. Not foreign enough? Perhaps? I suggest investigating this has merit. Especially since it seems American action-loving fans get a bigger hard on from a ponce like Jason Statham than Dwayne Johnson.

How Statham picks up a girl.

Then, walking out of the theater, Conrad and I were looking at the various posters on display, the coming soons and the current releases. Part of me still wants to see This Is It. I’m a Michael Jackson fan, I won’t hide it. But I’m also a huge Richard Matheson fan, and while I have serious reservations about the movie, I also kind of want to see The Box.

Cameron Diaz is trapped inside her own box.

But I don’t know that I trust Richard Kelly anymore. Donnie Darko was okay when it first came out, before you put it through any real tests of serious thought or logic and saw through it’s masturbatory philophosizing. It’s a glorified remake of Last Temptation Of Christ that doesn’t fully pan out. But Kelly also went on to make – speaking of Dwayne Johnson – the gloriously bad Southland Tales.

Dwayne Johnson Fever Dot Net.

Look, I’m not going to talk about the Philip K. Dick pastiche that was Southland Tales here. I’m just… not. I’m not going to do it. All I’ll say is I went into that movie wanting to like it. And I sit here now feeling like I’m a veteran of that war. It’s like Richard Kelly is George W. Bush and I was some dumb kid who supported the Iraq war until I went into the fucker and got my bits and pieces all cut off. Now I’m shell shocked.

But, yeah, there’s The Box, directed by Richard Kelly, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, based on the Richard Matheson story, “Button, Button,” and was previously adapted into an episode of The Twilight Zone. We’ll see if I ever see it.

And again, here we are. It’s Sunday. Tomorrow’s the start of the “work week.” I’d love to Weeks In Review here at Counterforce, but lately it’s just me rambling and I’d feel bad directing the two and a half readers of this site back to more of me rambling. Poor fuckers. Oh yeah, the season finale of Mad Men was last Sunday. And we had a Friday the 13th happen this past week as well. There you go. Oh, and: Young women having sex with sea creatures. Now there you really go.

The Doctor hates funny robots.

But again, here we are. It’s Sunday. Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see… Oh! Tonight was the airing of the latest Doctor Who special over in the UK, “The Waters Of Mars,” the start of the end of David Tennant’s run as #10. You can catch it online if you’re good, if you’re very good, and it’s dark. And a bit sad. And leaves you kind of sweaty and breathless too.

Water Monsters! On Mars!

Also tonight is AMC’s remake of the classic 60s show, The Prisoner. I’d watch it, but I’m not sure I want to see my childhood get raped so thoroughly and with such production values. Ian McKellen is a good choice for just about anything, but Jim Caviezel? I think I hate you for that, AMC. Honestly, Jim Caviezel makes Keanu Reeves look like Marlon Brando to me.

You deserve so much better than this, Gandalf.

Oh well, here we are. The weekend’s almost over. I went to the movies to watch the end of the world as we know it and…

What?

REDRUM.

Posted by Marco Sparks on October 30, 2009

Puberty sucks hard.

I’m in a mood tonight to watch The Shining. Well, tonight or tomorrow sometime. I’m a scary movie mood, I guess. Something festive. Something seasonal. And I’m open to suggestions. Conrad Noir suggested The Exorcist which, no joke, I’ve never seen. Occam Razor suggested The Wicker Man remake with Nic Cage which, unfortuanetly, I have seen. And Benjamin Light made a joke about some new movie about a reanimated zombie pop star called This Is It.

All work and no play puts Marco Sparks in a mellow Halloween mood. The Shining, it is. Martin Scorsese agrees with me. Trick or treat, you sons of bitches.

This is roughly my mood as of this moment.

Memento Mori.

Posted by Marco Sparks on October 24, 2009

Spooky!

Donnn’tttt forgeetttt: Halloween is just a week away.

Girl, Skeleton, Mask.

What is everyone’s plans for All Hallow’s Eve? How drunk are you going to get?

Girls and skull

And what kind of costume will you be wearing when you get that drunk?

That Great Pumpkin is a bit of a tease, if you ask me.

And since Counterforce tends to skew towards movies a little heavier than other things perhaps, what are you favorite scary movies?

You should totally party with those girls, Danny. They look legit.

Adolf Hitler and the things from Hell.

Posted by Marco Sparks on October 20, 2009

“Is it me or does like every Nazi want to clone Hitler?”

Mad Men wasn’t the only fantastic bit of TV on Sunday night. Thankfully we had the fourth season premiere of brilliant Johnny Quest riff that is Adult Swim’s The Venture Bros. to put us to bed.

from here.

I feel like this show, which seems to only get more colorfully brilliant and more fun by the moment, is still criminally unheard of and even more of a shame, I wouldn’t even know how to begin to distill the Sunday episode, entitled “Blood Of The Father, Heart Of Steel” into easy to digest soundnuggets for you.

It wasn’t exactly the easiest jumping on point in a narrative with about 20 of it’s recurring characters making apperances, and in fact, it was considered pretty confusing by quite a few of the long time fans because of it’s breakneck pace, it’s nonlinear storytelling method, and the fact that it asks you to just hold on and stay with it. Patience and intelligence are rewarded handsomely.

For any out there confused by the episode, which you can view on the Adult Swim website thankfully, I’ll just say that the somewhat Memento-esque structure is easy to follow once you hear Henchman 24′s line about the monetary value and CGC rating of his issue of Marvel Comics #1 (you can follow the ratings/value and title cards from there) and just remember: All the Brock stuff moves forward in time.

Because Brock always keep moving forward, like a shark, but on land. Or, more like a Swedish murder machine.

But some highlights: Brock Sampson, the mulleted bodyguard of the Venture twins makes good on his decision to quit, but a nasty bit of shrapnel derails his plans for revenge. Dr. Venture, meanwhile, has to find himself a new bodyguard and settles for the new “socially adjusted” Sgt. Hatred. Hank and Dean, now sans their clone safety nets are starting to grow up, and change their appearances. “I am full on Charles In Charge of you!” Bigfoot and the Six Million Dollar Man are big on art therapy. OSI is operating on the invisible man in their helicarrier and there’s more than meets the eye going on with Molotov Cocktail and the newly female Hunter Gathers. Oh, and a bunch of Nazis have somehow put the evil spirit of their fuhrer into the body of a pitbull.

“I can cross ‘Stab Hitler to death’ off my list of cool crap I thought I’d never get to do.”

Unrelated, while I was very much against it originally, having finally just watched Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, I have to say that a sick part of me absolutely loved it. This is old school Raimi, free from the campy musical theater soap opera hijinks that the Spiderman series faded into and back into just plain campy horror and gross fluids mode. And speaking of gross fluids, I have never before (outside of porn) seen a movie with such an oral fixation. Any and all chances to put something disgusting into the lovely Alison Lohman’s mouth are happily pounced upon.

That, or tearing her hair out, literally and figuratively.

You can always tell that Raimi the filmmaker is happiest when he’s literally torturing his “protagonists,” who, if you look back at his oeuvre, I think you’ll find he’s always least fond of.

Thankfully, it’s not just B-horror porn about gypsy curses and fiendish demons from Hell, especially when you take into account the very subtle thread (or maybe not so subtle) dealing with food and the fear of it.

Supposedly Raimi is going to take his newfound creative juice (and critical success) from Drag Me To Hell into the upcoming Spiderman 4, taking the series “back to basics.” Personally, I have to wonder: Who really gives a shit? But even still, it’s always nice to see where an excited director can go with themselves.

Speaking of excited directors who may or may not be in league with the infernal…

You should totally wish Benjamin Light a happy birthday today, especially since he’s so lucky to have been born on the same day that the new Transformers movie would come out on DVD. You just know he couldn’t be more thrilled.

NEVAR FORGET!

Posted by Marco Sparks on September 11, 2009

In honor of New York and the Pentagon. In honor of families and lives torn apart and fallen off the edge of the Earth. In honor of beer, barbecue, and children wrestling with each other in confederate flag diapers while their parents film it and make money on the internet. In honor of underage couples that get knocked up on shitty beer in the back of pick up trucks while listening to Toby Keith songs. In honor of those who think you shouldn’t elect a President with a middle name of “Hussein” because it marks him as a terrorist. For all of you patriots and winners… Continue reading →

One Year Later.

Posted by Marco Sparks on July 8, 2009

So, on this day in history, about 62 years ago, the US Air Force shot down and captured what was either a weather balloon or some kind of “flying disk” in Roswell, New Mexico.

Perhaps related or not so related, just over a year ago, Benjamin Light mentioned something outlandishly foolish to me. I really thought he was off his meds, no joke. But he had that kind of dangerous, scary clarity that only a nutcase can have. The kind where you don’t turn your back on them, are afraid to look them in the eye, and you pretty much agree with whatever the fuck they say just so you can get out of the room with her genitalia intact. He said to me, “I think I want to start a blog.”

And I – always the level headed one – said, “What? You’re fucking crazy.”

And he said, “No, no, trust me, it’ll be good.”

And then crazy psychotic history was made…

So here we are.

What a long strange trip it’s been, right?

We’ve talked about post peak oil, we’ve talked about Lost (like, a lot), we’ve talked about politics and the news in general. And general weirdness. We’ve talked about being cool with yourself, not so cool with yourself, and how to get laid either way. We’ve barely give you a chance to get a word in edgewise, because we’ve been talking about cats (and more cats), and things that are in bad taste, and the moon.We’ve talked about film, music, and literature at times, and everything in between. Including the stuff that’s just bullshit. We’ve talked about ourselves just a little, both with words and in video, and we’ve even talked to people we love (other than ourselves)(though this site is filthy with onanism, to be sure). Hell, we’ve even talked about talking (but mostly about ourselves, again with the onanism)!

Look at all that talk talk talking. It’s like we’ve found the nexus of the fucking universe and we’re mapping it for you.

Michael Jackson is dead and we’re still alive.

And not to brag too much, but we’ve seen a few faces and we’ve rocked them all!

Sometimes we’ve felt like we’re a bit alien ourselves, or maybe we’re transmitting to you from outer space, but we do it anyway. We do it because, no joke, there is something very seriously wrong with us and we love it.

This Recording already used the blog as a spaceship metaphor that I would love to use here, but rather than appropriate it here, I’m just gonna outright steal it. But rather than a proper spaceship, Counterforce is the fucked up. The weird one. The one that the prisoners took over and started running their own way. Like Spock and Nero and all of those pointy eared fuckers, we’re bursting through your black holes and disrupting your time stream and hopefully reality as well. Hello there, we’re from the future. We’re in your here and now and you’re our living sexy museum and we’re yours. Don’t take us to your leader, because we only care about you.

Not that we haven’t made some mistakes. Sometimes we’ve been really on our games and sometimes… well, really off them. That’s usually on me though, I’m not gonna lie. As blogonauts, we’re still learning out here in space. There’s a few less rings on Saturn because, well, we crashed into them just a little. Same with the Big Dipper. We did something inappropriate with a black hole for the same people climb Everest. Also, we found life on Mars and then accidentally blogged it out of existence. And Halley’s comet won’t make it’s way back to this solar system for a few more years than it was already scheduled to because we saw it, liked it’s style, were in kind of a naughty bad place, and now, long story short, it won’t look our way, won’t return our phone calls, and wants to take a break with the Earth. Our bad, kids.

That said, we’re still here, and even though we’re sometimes the blogging equivalent of the chaos cloud that will someday end all life on Earth, we’re also hopefully going to only get better. Help us? Tell us what you think. Tell us how much we rock, or how hard we suck. Tell us what you want to see and maybe, just maybe, we won’t poke your eyes out.

We’ve been proud so far that with us, you’ve gotten basically 6+ different blogs, some that overlap, and some that are drastically different. We’ve enjoyed it and hope you have too. My co-bloggers all wanted to be more involved in our very special 1 year birthday here, but most were busy with jobs and living sexy lives of danger and adventure. Benjamin Light has been off the grid and we eagerly await his return, and his shocked disgust at how I’ve trainwrecked this beast in his absence. And Occam’s probably not speaking to me since he realized that I stole some CDs from his house during a Lost party. And Lollipop especially wanted to remind you of how much greater the blog has gotten since she first commented and then joined us (and she’s more right than she’s wrong about that) and August Bravo wants to let you know that he’s giving up Heroes due to relentless scrutiny. Bravo, August Bravo.

This is where I wrap it up. If it was just me closing this up, I’d say something like: We’ll see you out there, space cowboys and cowgirls. But instead I found someone to put it even better than I can…

And now a special word from the desk of Peanut St. Cosmo:

hello readers! funny to think we’ve been in existence on this “series of tubes” for a year now! it feels kinda like the first rocky year of a marriage and if you make it, you figure you’ve got about six more years before the itch comes on and you’re both fucking the pool boy/baby sitter and filing for divorce. you get the idea, i give us six more years until you call it quits on us, but you’ll never find a better lay! i promise you, i’m the best you ever had!!!

but in all seriousness, i do appreciate the two of you who like my infrequent posts. thanks for stopping by

The Auteur Theory, part six: The only way to get rid of my fears.

Posted by Marco Sparks & August Bravo on April 4, 2009

“The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them.”

-Alfred Hitchcock.

And here we continue with part six of our films that we love, and perhaps even adore, that we feel should make the jump over to the Criterion Collection, if, for no other reason, just to make ourselves a little happier. But today I think we’ll venture out into international waters of fear and unease, but first…

Marco Sparks: Based on reading this, I’m tempted to make The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronofsky, my next choice, but… I won’t. I may be the only person who actually liked this movie, even though I did feel it was hurt by Aronofsky having to downgrade his vision for it do to crisis after crisis (though not quite to a Lost In La Mancha level, but still). Even still, I feel that it falls into the category of several films of more recent release, like Lost In Translation, that could very well find themselves heading into Criterion status after a little bit of aging.

Oh… well. August, what’s your pick for today?

August Bravo: Munich, 2005, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the Munich massacre.

Seeing the trailer alone got me pretty pumped up to see this. I remember actually going to the theater and watching it, where I was quite surprised to find Benjamin Light sitting. Well, I guess it wasn’t that big of a coincidence since that was one of the only showings in town.

Eric Bana plays Avner, an old bodyguard of the prime minister of Israel, sent out on a mission to find and assassinate the men responible for the murders of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich olympics. Seeking not just retribution, Bana and his team are sent out to get an eye for an eye. Eleven names, eleven assassinations, all tied to Black September, or so they think. This is an unusual movie, but a very good one.

It seems the only good movies these days are either based on books or real life events. It’s such a rich topic to tackle, especially for someone like Steven Spielberg. Oh, did I mention that he directed it? Yes, Steven Spielberg is to blame for this awfully terrific movie, which is probably why this was nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best Picture. I was sad to see that Eric Bana didn’t get a nomination for Best Actor, but he had some stiff competition: Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain, Joaquin Phoenix (my absolutely favorite new rapper) for Walk The Line, and the eventual winner, Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Capote. I was even sadder to see that this film didn’t win a single Oscar, but this isn’t the first time Spielberg’s been atrociously robbed by this ceremony.

Now, after having given you a brief overview of the movie, here’s why I think it should be a Criterion classic: Because why not? Well, for one, it’s a Steven Spielberg movie. When is the last time he got some respect? Err, wait. Because Daniel Craig’s in it? He’s sooo dreamy. Wait. That’s not it either. Okay, because this movie has no rules. With a decently notable cast, other than the ones I’ve named, you’ve got Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz (from Amelie), and Mathieu Amalric, who plays Louis, the provider of names. And I can’t get over how great his role is, or how great he is in the role. Louis despises Avner because his father longs for a son more like him and the sides he does not take makes him so interesting, yet Amalric plays him such a subtle amount of venom.

Marco: I have to interject here just to add that you’re right, Amalric is really good in this role, and his presence is incredibly understated. He’s an actor (who was compared to Roman Polanski so many times in reviews of Quantum Of Solace) that you always think is going to take it over the top, but he never does. He always keeps it perfectly on the line, with those big bug eyes of his betraying so much of what’s inside him. And don’t forget to mention the equally wonderful and low key Michael Lonsdale, who’s wonderful as Louis’ papa in this film.

August: Avner’s inner struggle, wondering if what he’s doing is right, is something to pay close attention to. The cover to the two disc edition of the DVD and the original movie poster explains it well enough. The Israeli crew’s progression throughout the film is something I’ve enjoyed as well. Their circumstances can’t help but force them to grow weary of each other. Among other untimely events, the film takes you back exactly to the beginning. It seems this is something I find fascinating in movies, or, I guess you could say that I just hate resolution in films. Not everything needs to be a happy or unhappy ending. But an ending, just a regular, ordinary ending is what I feel should propel this movie to that ultimate and pivotal infamy of the Criterion collection.

Marco: Good point, that. We’ve never really discussed in depth what our personal criteria or what we see as the criterion for the Criteron collection is. Partly because it’s hard to nail down, but… there’s a certain off beatness of fine filmmaking that I feel is one aspect of it. An overlooked quality, perhaps. A somewhat political film like this definitely makes sense, possibly after a few years of aging like fine wine, just like Costa-Gavras’ Missing. But I don’t feel that the Criterion collection should be home to just plain classics. Casablanca probably shouldn’t carry the Criterion logo on it, but The Third Man certainly should.

Eric Bana as Nero, the villain in the new Star Trek movie. I dig the name.

Now, for my pick today, I’m actually going to throw out a few. And since I have the tendency to ramble on, I’ll just throw them out and walk away, most likely to talk about them another day. They are:

The Tenant, 1976, directed by Roman Polanski (and starring him as well).

Suspiria, 1977, directed by Dario Argento.

Deep Red, 1975, also directed by Dario Argento (I told you that I’d be suggesting a giallo classic or two, didn’t I?).

Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate before.

These are three excellent films of psychological horror and, well, just plain horror as well. And a clear indicator that the 70s were a great time for paranoia. The Tenant works on so many terrifying levels, further proving that Polanski was quite possibly a genius filmmaker at one time, and nobody handles the unnerving unsettling terror that lives beneath your skin like him (it’s sad to say, but the closest I’ve ever seen to true perfect sinister feelings in a film since Polanski was probably Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring), especially here as he deals with a little bit of diaspora unease and a lot of the existentialist hell that is living in an urban environment like an apartment complex, surrounded by people that may want to destroy you.

Marco Sparks’ favorite French hottie, Marion Cotillard reenacting the shower scene from Psycho.

As for these Argento movies… they just get inside you and grab a part of you and squeeze. And they’re beautifully lit and shot. And sooner or later, Suspiria will get remade (though I think Deep Red needs it first), possibly with Natalie Portman in the lead. Argento (whose daughter, Asia, was the subject of every cinephile’s dirty fits of lust at some point or another), has been more miss than hit in the last few decades, but for a while there he and De Palma were neck in neck for producing that certain brand of psuedo-Hitcock horror-thriller, though Argento was much more interested in the more supernatural and gory parts of life (which, thankfully, lead to his funding Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead).

August and I will continue for a little more talk about the films we love and respect and think that you should as well, but for now, we’re wondering what scares you so bad in a film that you can’t bear to watch it?

And what scares you so badly that you can’t bear to look away?

Counterforce on Vacation: I’m only happy when it rains.

Posted by Marco Sparks on March 6, 2009

This is my weird but wonderful celebrity sighting from over the past weekend:

Most of my associates here at your semi-friendly neighborhood Counterforce have gone back to work, whatever their day jobs are, or back to school. They’ve gone back to the grind. But not yours truly. Marco Sparks is still on vacation, grinding away here in the golden state and chilling in Benjamin Light’s apartment while he’s off making a little paper.

Anyone care to know the contents of Light’s porn folder?

The nice thing, let me tell you here, about starting a blog with a bunch of people is that when you go on vacation, it gives you places to stay. So, you know, thanks to both Peanut and Lollipop for putting me up for a while. Occam, understandably, is a cheap bastard who wouldn’t put any of us up, but he has been hosting the official Counterforce Lost parties the last two weeks, and that’s pretty stand up of him.

Speaking of official Counterforce anything, over the weekend, all of the assorted weirdos from this blog were gathered together in one room, and in the same hotel room for a while, in San Francisco. There were some lurid stories, some large quantities of consumed alcohol, and some down and dirty drama: The ingredients of any good party, yes?

In SF, pretty much all of us attended a nerd convention, and Lollipop took home the best spoils: a picture autographed by Mitch Hurwitz, Will Arnett, Henry Winkler, and Kenan Thompson (Kel was busy manning the Coolburger). Oh, and the guy who did the voice of Spongebob was in there somewhere too. A very cool grab.

But me? Other than the pleasure of everyone’s company, which would’ve been more than enough for me (more than I deserved, certainly), I got the photo you see up at the top of the page of a certain flame-headed singer of a 90s “alternative” band (who now sadly stars on that Sarah Connor show in the middle of the Friday night graveyard of programing on Fox)(Right before Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse which, sadly, I’m expecting to get cancelled any second now).

The story of the picture is simply that I was out to lunch with August Bravo (who smells like straight up mayonnaise, no joke) and my friend Anthony at some Chinese place. “the best dim sum in the city,” the sign outside told us. I was broke, Anthony was buying, so that meant I would’ve followed him into hell. Or a dim sum place when the sketchy looking tempura house he originally wanted was closed (damn you, SoMa!).

I’ll spare you the nitty gritty of our conversation there, but Anthony’s training for a job in which he’ll have a gun. Sigh. What starts out there was cop talk slowly devolves into cock talk and something tells me to look over my shoulder. Perhaps alternarock nostalgia. Either way, there’s Shirley Manson, radiant and glowing, like 5 to 6 feet away from me, having lunch with some wanker. I quietly mutter to my associates in a hushed, stealth tone, “HOLY WTF OMG JESUS CHRIST, THAT’S SHIRLEY MANSON OVER MY LEFT GODDAMNED SHOULDER FUCK!” Luckily, August is on the ball (he was already sexting away on his iphone, so it was cool) and snaps the photo. We decide not to be the kind of pricks who interrupts a celebrity’s life or meal, even if it is with some wanker, to ask for an autograph or ask them to marry us or seek out any kind of validation for our own weird existence. Instead we took a much more subtle and despicable route of just casually glancing back at her like constantly. I suggest to Mr. Bravo that he should get another picture of the lovely Ms. Manson, this time with me leaning into the frame (cause I’m an asshole like that)(and cause the one above has Anthony in it staring off into nowhere or perhaps our waiter’s ass cleavage). He tries to, but it’s too late, the jig is up, and they’re onto us.

The wanker proceeds to look back at us constantly now and we feel shame. Not too much, mind you, a little. Anthony orders more duck and we bullshit our story for in case the wanker decides to say something to us, you know, to stick it too us. Anthony orders some shrimp porridge, rattles off all the police codes for various nefarious sexual acts one can visit upon a minor, and we bullshit that we’re celebrities too. No, not as bloggeurs, but that we’re actually an avante garde folktronica groupe called Infinity Sign. The story we come up with to back that up holds no water and of course, Shirley Manson isn’t going to lower herself to talk to us, and that’s understandable, and I do feel bad about taking the picture. By the way, our first single, “Put My Thing In Your Thing Where All The Other Wild Things Are” will be available on itunes soon.

This picture is absolutely for Peanut, who loves Gwen Stefani so much.

Eventually Shirley Manson and the wanker – whom we try to hypothesize could be her young lover that she takes whenever in the city or her bodyguard or both – leave. And let me tell you here: Some women leave a room and some women leave a room angry. And some do it in the sexiest way imaginable. That’s Shirley Manson. And most likely that dopey guy enjoying the meal with her was probably just the executive producer of her show, but whatever, he’s still the executive producer of that show. Wanker-ish.

Several days later, Commander Light and I took in a showing of the new Clive Owen picture, The International. What a bizarre, wonderful film. Total 70s paranoia thriller fetish porn and all the major action sequences take place in post modern art museums. There’s a wonderful collection of weird European hair happening this film (this weapons manufacturer character who’s running for Italian PM in the film would appear to have a sleeping falcon resting on his head at one point, but, no, it’s just his mega hair). Naomi Watts is barely in it (because, I assume, Jennifer Connelly was busy) and Clive Owen has clawed his way into being my favorite living movie star. Why? Because he’s not a star. He’s not even a man. He’s an animal in a suit and it works.

That, of course, leads me to the Clive Own interview in the latest Esquire. An excerpt:

It just didn’t occur to him to feel the part in advance of doing it. British actors are utterly different animals. You talk to a British actor and he’ll tell you about the night before very matter-of-factly: ‘I fucked her three times.’ They don’t care about your reaction. And you’ll say, ‘Hmm. You fucked her three times. How did it feel?’ and they’ll be blank. ‘Feel? Feel? What’s feeling got to do with it?’ They don’t cart around their emotions about the job. They have lives.

As for Lost, since we do tend to ramble on about that show a bit here, I have to express some love for this past week’s episode, “LaFleur.” It was packed with little tidbits for the fan, and quite frankly, you know that any episode that’s “previously on Lost” clips package starts with a character getting slapped is going to be. Plus, there was this:

“Hustlers, get your guns/This shadow weighs a ton…”

Posted by Marco Sparks on February 24, 2009

It’s going to be a busy next few weeks for the ladies and gentlemen of Counterforce as most of us go on a vacation of some sort or another. We’re going to try to keep coming at you with regular updates but just understand that if we don’t post as much as we normally do… well, it’s because we’re off having loads of fun away from the internet. Sorry. We’d love to take you with us but there’s really just not enough room.

from here.

But for now we invite you to take a trip down memory lane and remember why you love as much as you do and get caught up on some of our old posts…

Occam Razor loves America and is going to tell you how to survive in a post peak oil world. Also, there’s pictures of Esther Baxter.

Lollipop Gomez is remarkably like David Frost, Barbara Walters, and a sexier Geraldo Rivera all wrapped into a tiny glasses wearing package. Take a gander at her hard hitting interview series where she puts only the best and the brightest in the hot seat and asks them probing questions about food, card rooms, and wacky religious cults.

Benjamin Light talked about the Oscars earlier and really disgusting “film reviewer” types a while back, but catch up on some of our earlier film reviews:

X-Files 2: I Want To Believe.

The Dark Knight.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Jack Nicholson and The Witches Of Eastwick.

And Hellboy 2 and the death of the modern action flick.

Quantum Of Solace.

The Candidate.

Let The Right One In.

And why Point Break is one of the great films of this time or any other.

And film remakes to be terrified of.

And don’t forget that August Bravo and myself get a bit pretentious (well, a little) about films that we’d consider super duper classics, which you find here and here and here (and parts four and five coming very soon).

Plus, Benjamin Light does a nice counterpoint to that with films that he considers to be hidden indicators of bad taste.

Oh, and politics! Back during the campaign season, this site used to be just filthy with political trash talk. Now, it’s just filthy.

And Lost. Yeah, I guess you could say that we have Lost mania. Or something.

And that’s not to say that we don’t talk about literature and music and art as well, cause believe me, we do. In fact, we talk our asses off about it. About all of it and more.

And don’t forget we have Peanut St. Cosmo too.

So, just remember, we’re not going anywhere. We’re still here and we still love you. Sort of. We’re just going to go on a little vacation and we invite you to join us.