Miscellaneous Miscellany

Amidst really digging the new Pat Metheny Trio CD, Day Trip, which someone finally found for me in Singapore - yes, some CDs are like good movies that never make it to our shores - I was chatting with an Aussie friend of mine who has lately become sort of an extra-for-hire. He was earlier in some TV series with Jet Li's brother, then he worked on something else. And now he's in this TV war series produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

It was a real coincidence when he told me he met the red-headed kid from Jurassic Park, because just this past weekend I saw the movie again. If you believe my friend, the kid told them: "G'day, mate, I'm the kid from Jurassic Park." Heh.

I asked my friend what part he was playing in the series (is it a Private? as in a "private part"?). He said: "Well, I'm one of the 500 extras playing soldiers. I've died about five times."

Extras, as they say, have nine lives ... in each movie.

Former Chicago Reader critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum, recently retired and all, had promised us a website soon, and yes, it's up and running now. Check it out. It's still new, and a bit of a disapppointment at the moment, as Dave Kehr points out. Right now, it will only consist of reprints of his older writings and a "brief list of recent publications and upcoming events." But Rosenbaum does tell us that it's only "for the time being."

Over the years, I'd followed his film reviews at the Chicago Reader (I have a huge, printed and bound, personal collection of them), and written to him several times, once for a short interview and a couple times to tip him off on some stuff. He was generally courteous but you could sense how busy a guy he is in the brief and hurried way he replies. But always courteous, even when I wrote to him once to voice my shock at his positive review of Chen Kaige's generally despised The Promise!

In other news, this one a bit late, Da Huang Pictures, the indie collective comprising Tan Chui Mui, Amir Muhammad, James Lee and Liew Seng Tat, has gone online with a webstore. You can buy all their award-winning films and documentaries there. So now, you don't have to worry about falling asleep at James Lee's slow-crawl movies and missing the important bits. Now you can watch them in the comfort of your home, fall asleep, wake up and rewind the DVD, and not miss a single frame!

Aren't DVDs such wonderful things?