Don't miss this movie (if you have the stomach for it):

Sindrome Stendahl (a.k.a. Stendahl Syndrome)

Genre: HORROR (And I am not a horror fan.)
Country of Origin: Italy
Language: English

Playing until August 2, 2007 on Channel 500, International Movies on Demand (Time Warner Cable NYC)

Read my review from the first time I saw it.

It's never too early:

to introduce my son to Nine Inch Nails.

I am sick of children's programming. That's all I can watch with my son. He gets all fussy when I turn to my favs, such as The History Channel, Science Channel or BBC World News. Foreign films? Yeah right. Masterpiece Theatre? Bullshit. American Idol? Not even. He insists, Piiinguuu!!! or more Paz??? or more Pucca??? Fucking-A -- why did I introduce my child to television? I know it's illegal to blindfold my kid till he's five, but it's impossible for me to get my requisite dose of boob tube culture -- how the hell am I supposed to keep up with the Nielsens? It doesn't help to put him down early, because by that time, I'm ready to conk out too.

Now we're doing R-and-R out here in MD. I say, the chips are down -- Mommy gets to watch what she wants to watch. I'm gonna friggin' watch this Nine Inch Nails concert even though you want to watch cartoons. No, this is not "If You're Happy and You Know It." This will do you some good, honey -- you get an early start on aesthetic/music appreciation. Can you say industrial?

(It was a good concert by the way, but a lot similar to the one I saw at MSG in 2000.)

Obscure Reference of the Week: Gordian Knot

In lieu of my Recipe Tip of Day (which I will resume in April), I am starting a new series, Obscure Reference of the Week. I take pride in my oft off-tangent way of elucidation. (Anyone that can follow where the heck I'm going in my writing or speech gets beaucoup brownie points with me.) As such, I've been inspired from my last lengthy rumination to expand my horizons and my vocabulary. I don't want to embarrass my son as he and I get older and regress into some Flowers for Algernon retard.

Each week (if I'm diligent) I'll introduce some new word or clause I've come across and don't understand. It'll be a challenge for me to somehow work that phrasing into one of my blogs during the rest of week without forcing it.

This week: Gordian Knot (noun), which according to Dictonary.com means:

1. any very difficult problem; insoluble in its own terms
2. an intricate knot tied by Gordius, the king of Phrygia, and cut by the sword of Alexander the Great after he heard that whoever undid it would become ruler of Asia

The how and why: I'm into cosmology (on a very low-fi, populist scale — don't ask me to prove any equations) and a PBS-Nova/Science-Channel slut. I mentioned the "theory of everything" in my blog about real estate studies. I linked that phrase to a recent and fascinating Nova doc on the subject, The Elegant Universe. I decided to actually read one of my hyperlinked references and I came across "Gordian Knot" in Brian Greene's essay. I'm also a fan of ancient Western history and mythology, where the phrase originates.

I will extend the challenge to anyone who chanced upon this site, to add a comment to my blog, working the phrase in themselves. ;-)

If she were alive today, she'd be a rock star.

Empress Theodora (c. 500–548)
of the Byzantine Empire and the wife of Emperor Justinian I.

Her rags-to-riches story reads like a 6th-century Eva "Evita" Peron.
(Theodora was even canonized, which Evita hadn't acheived.)

Learn more about The Dark Ages on The History Channel.

My latest crush: Gordon Buchanan

He's a nature filmmaker. He's adventurous. He's Scottish. He's smart. He's sexy. He just needs to shave more often, and I'll love him even more. (He reminds me of a favorite actor of mine, Ben Chaplin, from Birthday Girl with Nicole Kidman, and Terrence Malick's WWII epic, The Thin Red Line.)

See Gordon Buchanan in Expedition Borneo on The Science Channel.

His Nature documentary, Leopards of Yala, has clips on the PBS website.

This is so tweenie of me:

But everybody, there's a Pucca marathon on the Toon Disney channel, tomorrow Wednesday starting at 7 PM ET.

A homage to unplanned pregnancy & Adrienne Shelly

Catch it while you can: Trust (1990) airs on IFC today from 3:30 - 5:20 PM ET. It airs again 2/21/07 at 12:15 PM and 7:05 PM ET. (Those with DVR: now is the time to use it.)

This is a classic Hal Hartley film, starring Adrienne Shelly, a talented actress, and also wife and mother, who was murdered on November 1, 2006. Her untimely death sadly exemplifies the phrase "a life cut short."

In this offbeat comedy, Shelly plays a teenager who gets pregnant and is alienated from her family; she becomes independent and smarter because of it. Martin Donovan, her sexy co-star, is phenomenally intense in this film as well. Albeit his loner character is a touch crazy, he plays such a man. It also stars an early Edie Falco, pre-Sopranos.

I miss arthouse films...

Forget mainstream, R-rated films. It's the unrated foreign or indie films that I miss the most now that I am a mother, especially now that my son is a very aware toddler. As a single mom struggling with her budget too, it is hard to find an excuse for spending $25+ for just a visit to a far off arthouse movie theatre, not to mention the subway time and fare, and the distinct possibility that grisly popcorn and nuked nachos will not satiate my stomach. Then add the hassle of sneaking in a bottle of seltzer and maybe a Quiznos sandwich. On top of that, try coordinating schedules with an ex-boyfriend-turned-parenting-partner who will babysit for free, only if he can raid your fridge. Last but not least, breast engorgement from staying away from my nursing child too long...

At long last, my cable provider, Time Warner, added an "International Movies on Demand" Channel, an offshoot of the "Indie" section on the general "Movies on Demand" Channel. My prayers were somewhat answered — there are some interesting sounding films listed, but many are years old. If I'm looking for the latest Almodóvar film that was just released on DVD, this is not the channel to search.

Yesterday was my second time ordering a Pay-Per-View movie, and both had been from the "International" Channel. (The first was a French period film, A Song of Innocence, about the life of a wetnurse in the 19th century — excellent and resonant film that could be applied to the politics of mothering and breastfeeding today.) Yesterday, I ordered 1996's The Stendhal Syndrome, a tale of a policewoman in Italy hunting for a serial rapist/killer. It stars Asia Argento, who I have a girl-crush on (she is like a cross between Chloë Sevigny and Angelina Jolie; if I were a dyke I'd totally fuck her — actually all three of them) and Thomas Kretschmann, this blond German up-and-coming hottie, who was in King Kong and The Pianist with Adrien Brody.

It was melodramatic, heavy-handed with the dialogue and acting. It was extremely gory and violent, considering it came from Europe and since it's from 1996, it predates the CSI-TV and Saw-movie series. It was also impressively imaginative in its hallucinatory depiction of an actual Stendhal Syndrome sufferer and the viseral nature of this sociopath's crimes. Asia Argento shows off her dichotomous butch/femme side (which is making her hot in Hollywood action films right now) as an avenging riot grrrl on Thomas Kretschmann's disturbingly sexy sadist with washboard abs (his second-fiddle roles in King Kong and The Pianist did not put him on the map for me). (I did not actually finish the climax of the film because Time Warner's On Demand system can be wonky and block your access to content often, even if your account is in good terms. A frequent topic for me with TW reps on their 24-hour hotline.)

I recommend this film if you're cringe-factor is quite resilient, both to violence and Jean Cocteau-esque European cinematic excess. Also, I recommend you put your child down to sleep for the night or a very long nap.