Todd Terwilliger » commentary

Terminal Illness

Todd — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:17:32 +0000

Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. It’s been a month since my last confession. Over a month, actually, but what a busy, busy month it’s been. I’m still chewing over my Cannes 2009 experience- the meat of it still churning slowly through my digestive tract. In the meantime, over the long weekend, I watched Terminator: Salvation and could only conclude my viewing with a single thought: when did John Connor become a complete and monstrous prick?

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Post tags: great man theory, helena bonham carter, lord humongous, master blaster, mcgyver, michael biehn, michael ironsides, richard dean anderson, salvation, save the cat, star trek, tango & cash, terminator

Whither, Twittiquette?

Todd — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:25:04 +0000

I got into an argument with a gentleman last night over twitter. I had posted a tweet about his application (which I hashtagged) in which I questioned certain aspects of that application. Inevitably, sometime later, he responded. A few back-and-forths later, he tried to dismiss me as a troll. Now I’ve been around the internets long enough to know the cold, slime-slick claw of a troll when I see it and this wasn’t it. Besides, how can I be trolling in my own feed?

Let me say this first: I don’t begrudge a man who wants to defend his own creation. I most certainly would do the same. I appreciate that twitter is a medium through which he could address me both personally and in the larger context of anyone else interested in him or his product. That being said, what I found distressing was his attempt to paint me as some sort of skulk by suggesting that if I post, in my own feed, something negative about his creation, I’m somehow interloping into his inviolate demesne.

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Post tags: conan, messageboards, thirteenth warrior, trolling, twitter, vikings

Counting Cabs

Todd — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:08:35 +0000

I spent most of last night ensconced at the Brooklyn Public House which is, depending on who you talk to, either the best or worst new edition to my home turf of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. That it is a sign of the times for the neighborhood, no one questions. What it means, on the other hand, is up for debate, fierce debate. This is the chief problem with divination, ever since the first disheveled Homeric sage squinted his eyes into a muddle of thrown bones or a strange bird formation: one man’s vision of a divine face is another man’s vision of a lumpy Abe Vigoda. What the devil does it all mean? Everybody sees something different. This only is beyond a doubt: the neighborhood, it is a’ changing. You don’t have to venture inside the latest gastropub to see it, it’s there in the street. Just look at the cabs.

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Post tags: abe vigoda, brooklyn public house, clinton hill, dumbo, eye of sauron, fort greene, ghostbusters, new york times, park slope, williamsburg

The Death of Good Manners in the Internet Age

Todd — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:04:35 +0000

I’ve been stewing on this for the better part of the week: a girl I know de-friended (un-friended?) me on Facebook. That didn’t bother me at all. What bothered me was the total lack of decorum in the whole affair. Hallowed laws of etiquette had been infringed at my expense. That was a crime I could not abide.

First, let me rewind the tape. There is, in this world, the tiniest percentage of people over whom I have a disturbing power: I am given a mainline into their very psyche, direct access to their cerebral cortex. For whatever reason (I don’t pretend to know), the smallest things I say (or don’t say), do (or don’t do), take on a monstrous life in their tortured cerebellums.

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Who is That Masked Man?

Todd — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:31:23 +0000

One of the things I picked up from this past New York Comic Con was an old luchador movie, Blue Demon vs. Podor Satanico (Blue Demon vs. the Satanic Power). Just this week I got around to watching it, in fabulous black and white with a total lack of subtitles. Let it be known: I do not speak Spanish. Not a word. This very fact thrilled me. I would experience the film entirely visually, unsullied by dialog or exposition. This was to be a pure experience, in the purest sense of the word.

To fully document this momentous achievement, I decided to log my viewing (split over two nights) of the film. I do this not for myself but for the cultural enrichment of future generations… Let’s get ready to rumble!

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Post tags: blue demon vs podor satanico, cher, gimp, luchador, movielog, pulp fiction, sonny bono, vincent price, wrestling

The Immigrant Movie

Todd — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:23:47 +0000

If a Viking takes a dump in the woods, does he make sound? Yes, yes he does. How do I know this? Because I made the mistake of seeing Severed Ways at the Angelika Film Center on Saturday.

The premise of the film reads like a teenage boy’s wet dream:

Abandoned by a Western exploration party and stranded in the New World, two lone Vikings wade through a grand primeval landscape, struggling for survival while still in the grip of their Norse ways. An impressive DIY epic, SEVERED WAYS features a frosty black metal soundtrack, including Burzum, Morbid Angel, Judas Priest and Dimmu Borgir.

How could something that sounds so good turn out so horribly, awfully wrong? Where should I begin?

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Post tags: angelika, beowulf, brokeback mountain, john cleese, mary magdalene, monty python & the holy grail, severed ways, sir lancelot, society for creative anachronism, thirteenth warrior

Mid-Week Doldrums

Todd — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:34:39 +0000

What do you write about when you have nothing to write about? It’s not as if there aren’t pressing concerns. There are pressing concerns everywhere, pressing so tight I’m wearing them like a turtleneck. The problem is there’s no particular urgency at the moment. Like some mutant fish living in the Gowanus Canal, I’ve become normalized to these strange, twisted times.

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Post tags: adam carolla, glenlivet, gowanus canal, hunter s. thompson, liz smith, ny post, the producers

The Dark of Heartness

Todd — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:57:47 +0000

I saw Coraline in 3-D last night at Union Square. Dark, fantastical, fanciful, animated- right up my alley and as good a coming-of-age film as I’ve seen in a long time, not that I make these sorts of films a habit but when they’re dark, fantastical, fanciful, I’ll give them a shot (being animated doesn’t hurt either).

I hadn’t read much about the film. I knew only that it shared lineage with The Nightmare Before Christmas. The movie posters present an exaggerated version of a 50s TV couple with black buttons for eyes. Those two things were enough to get me intrigued. The 3-D part was no small hook either.

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Post tags: beowulf, bridge to terabithia, coraline, keith david, nightmare before xmas, pixar, review, up

Taken for a Ride

Todd — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:52:15 +0000

Friday night I met up at midtown with ex-coworker Chris and his girlfriend to go see the Liam Neeson flick, Taken. It was Man on Fire “light”, the diet version of that darker, more extreme film.

Getting to the movie was a bit extreme in its own right. We went to the Regal on 42nd street. Had I known this fully in advance, I could have planned it better if only because I had to go to midtown after work. In fact, I went to midtown, after work, and then back home, as we had decided beforehand (or so I’d thought) to go see the film at a local theater. It was only when I got home and made contact with Chris that I found out the movie location had changed… to midtown. I picked up my jacket and hat which I had just taken off, grabbed my wallet and keys which I had just deposited on the kitchen counter, turned off the lights I had just turned on, and hoofed it back to into the city.

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Post tags: batman, boerum hill, james bond, jason bourne, joya, liam neeson, man on fire, regal, subway, taken, thai 101

In Defense of Bale

Todd — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:52:58 +0000

By now, there is no dark forbidden trench of the universe that is not aware that Christian Bale went on a tirade on the set of the new Terminator film. Indeed, given the penetration of the internet into every fold and fiber of our very being, it is impossible that we would not know, as soon as it happened, perhaps even before it happened. Time and space are trifles compared to the power of judgmentalism.

What exactly is the shock here? That a guy got upset, flipped his switch for a bit, and a let loose a foul-language tongue-lashing on the object of his ire? Have we reached a time and place in which we can no longer understand the urge if not the absolute need to go mental for a few minutes?

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Post tags: bismarck, christian bale, jake gittes, merchant ivory, miller lite, realpolitik, robert towne, terminator