If you don't see Midnight in Paris, you lose. It's one of the best I've seen in a while. I can confidently say it's made my "top 10 ever list."

I'm not going to post a trailer, just go see it with no knowledge of it.

The new Apparat album (available wherever piracy reigns) is really good.

http://www.apparat.net/

I can't go all techno or electronic for long periods of time, but Apparat makes it easy. Their last album, Walls, was one of my favs of 2007.

I went to the My Morning Jacket show at the Greek two Friday's ago. They are fantastic and I stand by what I declared last time I saw them. They are the best American rock band. The crowd loved their set, and lead Jimmy James brought his A-game.

I filmed some of it with my new Camera.

The show started off a little quiet before breaking out into some grand rock sounds. They setlist had a lot of range and some cool new songs were played too. Of course they finished with One Big Holiday which is always special.

There's a group in Los Angeles that has been doing a great service for the city over the last 10 years by screening movies at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary. Cinespia picks classic movies, and invites people to picnic outdoors, surrounded by tombstones and mausaleums. They really do celebrate the movie and make the whole event fun. For the screening of my favorite movie ever, Airplane!, they brought out a cockpit and some of the original props from the movie.

The whole event is pretty social and fun. I enjoyed seeing the movie for the first time with a huge crowd who laughed at all the right moments and simply enjoyed the movie. Kait and I made a pitstop at Whole Foods before getting there and had a great picnic. She did most of the slicing and dicing while I watched the movie. It probably should have gone the other way around since I've seen it dozens of times and she never had. That said, we were situated way towards the back and didn't have the clearest view of the screen. But we could hear and mostly see everything going on.

For anyone thinking about embarking on a screening, you seriously need to show up 3 to 4 hours before the movie starts. The line was literally wrapping around the block of Sunset and Gower. We got there at 7:00, a mere two hours before the movie started and we almost didn't get in. About 5000 people were ahead of us, two hours before the movie. Airplane! is a fairly popular and beloved movie, so I don't expect the crowds to always be so massive. If you go, have someone wait in line at 6:00 while you go and get food and drink. I definitely recommend it though. The line isn't so bad because you're surrounded by sociable like minded people.

I'm watching Braveheart on the satellite right now, and it's a fantastic movie. Despite the rediculousness of Mel Gibson, it's probably top 3 of my inspirational movie list. I still get goosebumps when William Wallace yells "freedom" as he's getting disemboweled. Anyways, the first time I saw this movie was on VHS in 1996, and it was a 2-tape set. That seems completely crazy now. In the middle of the movie, I had to get up from the couch, eject tape 1, and put in tape 2. Now it seems silly to have any physical media to deal with when watching a movie. that is all.

I forgot how awesome this song was. Although it's a little cheesey at the end, and the video is a little silly, this song rocks. It makes me feel good about the 90's.

One of the great things about living in a metropolis is the easy access to arts and culture. This week, there have been special screenings of the 1927 film, Metropolis, which is being shown in it's entirety for the first time since it's premier. Back in the day, movie theaters would cut out bits of the film to make it friendlier for movie going folk. Sometimes that meant censorship, and sometimes that meant cutting out the boring parts.

I had never seen Metropolis, but I did know it was the grandaddy of sci-fi. It was the first major film to look at the future of Earth and what the human race might become. I was amazed at how relevant some of the subject matter from the 1920's is still relevant today.

The film takes place in a dystopian future where one brilliant man creates a utopia for the few intellects, and a dystopia for workers who run his giant self-sustaining city. The workers grind out 10 hour shifts in underground factories so that when they're done they can retire to their even further underground homes. The genius that creates the city has a son who sees for himself that life is harsh for the workers and he tries to convince his father to make conditions better. At least that's what I think was happening. The movie was silent (there was orchestra) and some dialog was conveyed with placards shown during the film. Of course a love interest is included in the story as well as a fine looking man-machine who dances wearing nothing but pasties.

There was a lot of biblical imagery which I'm sure was completely understood back in the 1920's, but today it doesn't cross over so well. Back then, the public went to church more often and children even learned religion in school. There was also a great deal of struggle between the workers and owners which were direct comments on capitalism. In the end, after some great action, the good son unsurprisingly gets everyone to work together.

Seeing an old film like this in a big theater was pretty neat and I did enjoy the story. If you're in LA, Metropolis is showing at a few theaters for one more week.  It wouldn't hurt to check it out.

There's a real challenge in reviewing Kick-Ass without using the adjective kick-ass to describe Kick-Ass. I'm not up to that challenge.

I'm not really into comic book's, tv about comic books, or movies about comic books. I've never seen any of the Spiderman movies, only a couple of the Batman movies, and X-Men only by accident.  I don't even care enough to name any more comic book movies besides those, even though it seems like a new one comes out every 6 weeks. Apparently Kick-Ass is based on a graphic novel, which is a fancy way to say nicely bound comic book. I don't really care.

The trailer for Kick-Ass actually turned me off of the movie. It looked really cheesey, but a positive review from Ebert, and the craving for a comedy had me putting on the flip flops for a walk down to the Laemmle. I had no expectations I'd see anything good, which might be a reason I've ended up liking Kick-Ass so much.

There is a dark and seedy humor to the film. The bad guys are likable but gruesome. The hero is dorky slacker who is in way over his head. There is a sense that you never know the complete story, and you want to know more because the characters are great. That's what comics are all about anyway right? The intriguing characters keep everyone intrigued.

There's a lot of crudeness, but most of it is warranted. The violence is over the top, and very creative. Who knew an 11 year old girl could shout so many swear words while causing a gangster to shoot himself with a piece of fishing line (or whatever she used.)

Definitely ignore the cheesey trailer and commercials for Kick-Ass and go see it. It's got comedy, nerdiness, violence, a little romance, a great cast (Nicholas Cage is really good), and a sweet story of revenge mixed with a story of stepping out of your shell.