01/28/02
"Impotent hatred is the most horrible of all emotions; one should hate nobody whom one cannot destroy." --- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
IF IT’S AMERICAN IT MUST BE RIGHT
Black Hawk Down holds at number one this week and the latest criticism of this film is that the point of view of the Somalian opposition is never shown. So what!?! Let them make their own damn movie about the nasty, imperialist Americans who come in and kill a thousand of their people while only 18 Americans die. Besides, we were the good guys (I know because the government told me so).
SNOW DOGS II: ELECTRIC BUGALOO
Snow Dogs holds in the number two spot and how long do you think it took for Cuba Gooding Jr., to call his agent and demand, "More family movies! I don’t care how insipid they are." This could be to him what Beethoven was to Charles Grodin---total justification for his place in hell.
THERE’S NO AWARD FOR FOURTH PLACE, HONEY
A Walk To Remember opens at number three and apparently Mandy Moore can read the writing on the wall. Unable to compete with Britney’s raw sex appeal or Christina Aguilera’s actual talent (and unwilling to fail miserably trying like Jessica Simpson), she’s begun the slow segue to films, starting with small roles in Max Keebler’s Big Move and Princess Diaries to her starring role in this dreck. Notice how they totally leave out of the trailer how it’s essentially a "disease of the week" movie (Mandy has cancer) the same way they hid it in last year’s teen weeper, Here On Earth. Don’t remember it? Well, in a week you won’t remember this either.
ISN’T JERSEY DEVIL REDUNDANT? EVERYONE KNOWS SATAN IS FROM HOBOKEN.
The Mothman Prophecies opens at number four and I was actually planning on seeing this due to the presence of Debra Messing and the fact that I used to read about The Mothman when I was a kid. It was during the "real life science fiction" part of my geek existence. Every geek goes through it. It’s when we can’t read enough about Bigfoot, or UFO’s or The Loch Ness monster and you become convinced all these things are real (so far at least two men have confessed on their death beds to faking Loch Ness and crop formations---and the fact that’s all they had to waste their last breaths on, explains why they did it in the first place, the loser bastards). Mothman is one of the many American myths (along with Bigfoot, The Jersey Devil and The Men In Black). For two seconds, the ten-year-old in me was dying to see this and the thirtysomething Laura Linney and Debra Messing fan in me seconded it. They were both shot down by the thirty-five-year-old who who realized the former dies and the latter would be kissing Richard Gere. That was enough to keep me at home.
"IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY/AIN’T A DAMN THING FUNNY…"
A Beautiful Mind holds at number five and the less than one-percent drop in box office pretty much solidifies The Golden Globes as a serious force in Hollywood Award-giving. That’s what it’s all about. The Oscars don’t mean as much as the additional box office they bring in. Same for the Grammys. Mea Culpa: I screwed up last week and called this guy Graham Nash. Oops.
STRIKE THREE?
The lasted rendition of The Count of Monte Cristo opens at number six and I was too busy this weekend to see this, but I will get to it. Revenge and swordfighting. How could I not see this? Still, its poor showing does not bode well for Jim Caviezel. This is his latest shot at the brass ring. If he doesn’t have a hit soon, he’s going to be the next Craig Schaffer. Guy Pearce doesn’t care. In fact, he cares so little he was offered the role of The Count, but chose instead to be the bad guy. This is not a guy with stardom on his mind.
FALLING FROM GRACE
I Am Sam opens at number seven and speaking of bad career choices, when is Michele Pfeiffer going to stop making this Lifetime Movies of the Week. Why would anyone pay to see this manipulative dreck when it’s on TV every week? At least on TV it’s usually based on a true story, which would have killed this film in its infancy. The entire conceit behind this movie is bullshit. A mentally retarded man never would have gotten custody of an infant to begin with, so there’s no struggle to take place down the line! And Sean Penn has lost the ability to criticize Nicholas Cage ever again. Between this Oscar-begging bullshit ("Oscar-begging bullshit", see "Jodie Foster in Nell") and an appearance on Friends, he is no longer on the Artistic Mountaintop, no matter how many dull, pretentious, Cassavetes rip-off movies he directs.
I THINK BRUCE JENNER WAS IN "ENTER THE DRAGON IV"
Lord of the Rings is down to number eight followed by Kung Pow! Enter The Fist, at number nine and this is a visual rehashing of Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lilly, in that the director has taken an actual martial arts movie and re-edited it into a comedy. There are two problems with this. One, bad martial arts movies are already funny, so there’s no where can you go, and two, this is only for fans of the old school martial arts movies that used to run on Saturday afternoon and star guys named Bruce Lei, Bruce Li, Bruce Liu, Bruce Bruce, etc. The kids today don’t know this stuff. This is why it opens with more theaters than five of the other films in this list do, but still only at number nine. On the up side, I can’t imagine it cost too much.
…BUT UGLY IS TO THE BONE
Finally, Orange County closes out the top ten at number ten and I hope Sissy Spacek’s daughter got her talent, because she didn’t even get her looks and Sissy is no model. Yeah, that’s a mean thing to say, but if she wanted to be judged on something more she should have chosen another line of work.
I WAS A WILLING SUBJECT OF THE EXPLOITATION BY THE PATRIARCHY
MTV’s I Was A Beauty Queen was one the most twisted pleasures I’ve had of late. Someone had the wonderfully nasty idea to juxtapose the Miss America contest against a Hooter’s Bikini contest and follow the participants in each one. I’m sure the Miss America people agreed because it would give their dying pageant more exposure to a younger audience, but the similarities could not be ignored. Let’s face it, no matter how they try to pretend it’s about talent and brains, it’s truly about boobs and butts. At least the Hooter’s contest doesn’t pretend. And the poor pathetic girl they chose to follow for that contest…jeez. First of all, when you’re that pretty, you don’t need a boob job, but dumbass she is, she wasted at least three grand that way. If you wonder why, her mother’s presence was all you needed. Mom was so obviously living through her much more attractive daughter, it was painful. Compared to this horrible display of "family" the twisted nature of Miss America seemed almost wholesome. Beauty pageants are right up there with porn as sad reminders as to just how much of a man’s world it still is and how many women have resigned themselves to just living by that.
AND THEY FORGOT ABOUT "YOU’VE LOST THAT LOVIN’ FEELIN’" TOO!
Behind The Music with Hall & Oates!?! Be still my beating heart! I love with Hall & Oates without shame. At any given time, you can find me listen to two different "Greatest Hits" collections. I even have one of Daryll Hall’s solo albums. Again, because this is from my lifetime, I know too much and noticed they skipped over things. The song "Rich Girl" came from Sara Allen’s dating of an heir to the Kellogg Cereal fortune, so it’s actually about a "Rich Boy." The very important of Hall & Oates’s appeal to Black audiences, to the point where "I Can’t For That" was a hit on R&B stations, which is still unusual for a White artist (not that anyone knows what the hell John Oates is). They also totally left out that Hall wrote "Everytime You Go Away" for Paul Jones. And notice they never spoke to G.E. Smith even once. This guy was with the band forever. You think he might have something to say. And John Oates is suddenly mentioned getting divorced with no mention of him ever getting married (especially since that mustache screams "GAY!")! But I had no idea their first manager was Tommy Mottola. Notice how their fall from grace begins with his departure. Say what you want about the man, he knows his business.
OTTER MADDNESS
Over the last two month, my struggle with my overwhelming concern for the otters has been well documented. My love of these small creatures has so consumed me that I sank deeply into depression, lost weight, considered therapy, let my hair grow and wound up taking guitar lessons (there’s more I’ve done, but I’ll die before I tell you). To help remedy this situation, I was paid a visit by The Queen of the Otters herself (a.k.a., Instant Messenger Buddy), a woman whose concern for the otters is as great as mine, but in a different way. Granted, she didn’t come to New York just for me, but I took her the lion’s share of her visit here. To place things in their proper perspective, The Otter Queen was the woman at the heart of The Cock Blocker’s actions a few months ago. Like many others (namely Married Suburban Housewife and my Surrogate Sister), he falsely believes that I’ve had relations with The Otter Queen. I have not (though she looks much better now, having corrected her biggest flaw and grown an ass in the years since I’ve seen her). In any case, though she once lived here, I still felt the need to try and entertain her, so to this end I turned to my Nightlife Guide, who always provides me with a list of bars to visit. He gave me a nice list, but unfortunately, both The Otter Queen and I are now too old to make the most of it (we failed to follow the basic rule of going out: always take a nap). Sadly, we only managed dinner (Mary Ann’s) and two bars before packing it in. Von was a nice beer and wine bar on Bleecker, where we had a Shiraz from our mutually favorite label, Black Opal. Open Air was a nice little club-like bar near Avenue A, which a sleek, futuristic setting and deejay, who actually played a mix of Was Not Was’ "A-E-I-O-U And Sometimes Y" which I love. Still, aside from the obvious fatigue I was fighting, nausea was also a problem. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can no longer eat Mexican food. It seems my new, slightly healthier eating habits (which were, ironically, brought on by my weight loss because of the otters---and overwhelming vanity at being able to look down see my dick again), has made it impossible for me to eat really fun, crappy food. When I got home that night (at a wussy 11:30), I camped out in front of the bathroom, waiting to vomit up yet another meal from south-of-the-border (for the second time in less than a month). Thankfully, when I awoke on the floor at 2:30am, the need to upchuck had passed and I crawled into bed to get another eight hours of sleep. The next day, I met The Otter Queen at The Met (after she made her pilgrimage to Ground Zero solo, because I simply won’t go there), where we saw the Irvin Penn Nudes, Extreme Beauty & The Body Transformed exhibit of torturous outfits in the name of fashion (where we saw Miranda from Sex & The City) and something by a video artist (Bill Viola: The Quintet of Remembrance), which was actually good. That night, we went to The Donkey Show, an off-Broadway musical retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream using disco music rather than Shakespeare’s dialogue. It was a lot of fun, but I only wish I’d known about the "21 and over" 10:30 show before I had my friend get us tickets to the 8:30 show. After the show, I made dinner. Apparently, everyone likes the idea of my Ginger Ale Pork chops, so I made it again, only this time The Otter Queen was the first victim of my Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Needless to say, after dinner and almost two bottles of wine, we had to discuss my concern for the otters and its affect on me, which had made our previous 24 hours together fairly tense ones. It all seemed to come out okay, but in the words of Janene Garafalo, "…you know when you’re drunk and wildly optimistic?" I was drunk and wildly optimistic. By the next day, our talk had worn off, she was on a plane back home and I’m back to my base level of melancholy. And my otter obsession continues unabated. 150lbs, here I come! Still, she invited me to come visit her in Otterville, so maybe there I can conquer this obsession once and for all.
"ALL CHANGED/SHE’S HAVING A BABY…"
So The Young Married Couple are now Young Parents! She gave birth to an eight-pound boy on Wednesday, January 23rd and then walked home from the hospital. It’s sad when women are manlier than you are. I go to the dentist for a cleaning and I need to be helped home by a nurse.
01/21/02
"When the wine goes in, the murder comes out." --- The Talmud
WAR IS HELL…AND SO IS BAD MUSIC
Black Hawk Down goes wide and enters the top ten at number one. And notice how the advertisement has changed over the last few months. Initially, they were downbeat, using Eric Clapton’s "Knocking on Heaven’s Door," but were then changed into more of rah-rah type of ad post 9/11. Now, they’re totally deceptive, saying that the operation was some type of victory. Granted, they did accomplish their mission, but at a horrible cost. And to make matters worse, they’re using that godawful Dave Matthews Band in the advertisements now. That’s an insult to every man who died. I would sooner be forgotten than eulogized in any way by bad music. "The Space Between Us!?!" How the fuck does that relate to the greatest American military loss of life since Vietnam? That said, the real star of this movie is Eric Bana, best known for a small Australian film called Chopper and now slated to star as Bruce Banner (with Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross) in the Incredible Hulk movie, directed by Ang Lee. Every time Eric Bana (another Australian here to show us what real men look like) stands next to Josh Harnett, you wish the movie were more about him [Bana].
YOU MEAN A ROBIN WILLIAMS’S MOVIE ISN’T GOOD FOR MY CAREER?
Snow Dogs opens at number two and Cuba Gooding Jr., continues his slide from his Jerry Maguire peak. He so needed to start imitating whatever Tom Cruise was doing during his moment of hotness and he totally blew it. I’m sure working with Jack Nicholson, Anthony Hopkins and Robin Williams seemed like a good idea at the time, but given that he’s a minority, he didn’t have the luxury of using his very brief Oscar currency to playing supporting roles. In fact, he is the only person As Good As It Gets didn’t help. It was a waste of his time and career. Now he’s making Disney movies with CGI-enhanced dogs. Sigh.
BEAN, SEAN BEAN
Lord Of The Rings is down to number three and Sean Bean considers this his "heroic role" for people who’ve only seen him as the bad guy in Goldeneye, Don’t Say A Word and Ronin (okay, maybe he was just weak in Ronin). But he’s hardly heroic here. Only in the last half-hour of the movie does he truly become heroic. I recommend you see him in any of the Sharpe mini-series (Sharpe’s Army, Sharpe’s War, etc.,) that ran on PBS. He’s a very good actor who needs to make the decision that he’s simply not going to play bad guys any more or he’ll be playing them for the rest of his life.
EXCUSE ME, BUT HAVE I SLEPT WITH YOU YET?
A Beautiful Mind is down to number four and I finally broke down and saw this, because it’s so obvious Russell Crowe is going to win Best Actor again this year---only this year he actually deserves it (Gladiator was a 50’s B sword & sandals movie with an A budget and none of the charm). The true life story (more or less) of Graham Nash, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who happened to be nuts. Since most truly brilliant people happen to be nuts (not that everyone talking to himself on the streets is a genius), it’s no surprise that it took people awhile to notice. Jennifer Connelly plays his long-suffering wife and joins Halle Berry as one of those people who have been around forever and then suddenly turn around and get respect. She also joins her in being one of the most physically perfect people one this planet. Personally, I’ve never found her to be as pretty as everyone else has since she first popped up in Once Upon A Time In America (I only found her large breasted and that’s not my thing). Now that the babyfat has finally left her face, we can all see that well-developed bone structure. Apparently, Russell liked it too, as they are rumored to be gettin’ it on. How unusual for Mr. Crowe to be banging an attractive woman within five feet of him.
TOM HANKS: THE NEXT GENERATION
Orange County is down to number five and this scary piece of shit might actually be a success, having made almost $30M with no real stars to support it.
SOMEWHERE JLO IS SAYING, "I WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER." AND SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN.
Ocean’s Eleven is down to number six and it’s unanimous: Julia Roberts is a gaping hole in this film. George Clooney might as well been trying to have chemistry with a cardboard cutout. Granted, she doesn’t have much to do, but given that, she should have been good at the little she had. She wasn’t. Ferret face.
OTHERS…
The Royal Tenenbaums is down to number seven, followed by Kate & Leopold at number eight and Gosford Park at number seven.
WHO’S THE MAN?
Finally, Vanilla Sky closes out the top ten at number ten and despite my criticisms of Tom Cruise, I cannot deny this muthafucka is a star. Here is a mess of a movie that’s too long, has no appealing female star and keeps it’s leading man in a fright mask for almost half its running time and it’s still going to be a $100M film. All because of him. Who else can do this? Okay, Ferret Face can too, but I never denied her movie star props either, and she never had a success with something like this. Again, Cuba really should have picked Tom Cruise’s brain when he had the chance on the set of Jerry Maguire.
NEXT YEAR: MORE BOOZE
In my continuing efforts to be more social (and deny my destiny as the grumpy old man in your building or on your block who lives alone and scares your kids), I hung out with friends to watch The Golden Globes, a show I’ve ignored up until this time. I’m told it was unusually boring this year, but let’s face it: who really gives a shit who wins a Golden Globe? Its only appeal is that it includes TV people with movie people and gives everyone liquor. I can’t even bring myself to do my usual blow-by-blow of the show, it was so lackluster. All I remember is that Sara Jessica Parker and Sela Ward were dressed by people who secretly hate them. Either that or they both lost a bet.
HUMPING AIN’T BRAIN SURGERY
A few months ago I spoke about my attending a lame sex party sponsored by Nerve.com (along with Vassar Girl; while Young Married Woman & Movie Buddy ’98 actually worked the film crew shooting it). Well, their show finally aired this week on HBO and showed said sex party. They did their damnedest to cut it and use visual effects to make it look like a happenin’ thing, but they failed. One more time kids: florescent lighting does not a sexy party make. I didn’t see myself in any footage, but I did actually speak to the thumb-sucking blonde dressed like a gothic Heidi. The graphics on the show were nice, but the best thing about the site is the way it looks, so that makes sense. The content is as boring as ever, but you can guess why based on one look at the staff, as shown in one scene. Middle and upper middle class White people with liberal arts educations. No minorities, no one who actually worked for a living, just people who are too smart for their own good. Kids, it’s just fucking. We’re not splitting the atom. We’re not looking for the meaning of life. We’re just fucking. This is why I respect Penthouse Letters more any of those "erotic fiction" anthologies you always see out there. It’s fiction too (sorry to break it to you), but it never forgets its primary purpose is to give you something to masturbate to. Nerve.com and all others like it continually forget that. They’re so busy trying to make "art" they forget that some of the people watching the show were hoping it would make them hot so they could have sex with as spouse or significant other. Instead, most people probably turned to Cinemax (a.k.a., Skinamax) to fulfill that need. Only the segment on Natascha Merritt’s Digital Diaries (young slut takes pictures of the men and women she has sex with, while having sex with them) came close. I’ve seen her book and I like it (here’s the website: www.digital-diaries.com), but not enough to pay $30 for it. The scenes of women masturbating (face only) were more humorous than anything else. Notice how they didn’t have any men doing it. That’s because there’s nothing scarier than a man’s face at that moment. Hell, that’s the main reason I keep it dark. I don’t want anyone to see me looking like that.
IT’S LIKE WHEN SOMEONE JUST HUGS YOU TOO LONG
It’s January in New York and the streets are wonderfully empty, finally free of tourists. While I do appreciate the love the rest of the country and the world has been throwing our way these past few months, might I suggest that next time you just send a check and let the rest of us walk the streets at our usual frantic pace, not having to stop for you as you figure out just which way is east and which way is west.
EVEN A GEEK CAN CRY
There is pain in my geekboy heart this week as John Buscema has died. For those of you who don’t know, John Buscema was one of main artists at Marvel during its glory days of the 60’s and early 70’s. He drew The Avengers during one of their peak periods, helped develop The Silver Surfer and was the main artist on Conan the Barbarian for a long time. He drew superheroes as gods, much to the delight of skinny little geeks like me, who lived our fantasy lives through them. I think I’m gonna cry…
PUT THAT IN A PLAIN BROWN BAG, PLEASE
I’ve mentioned my disgust with the wussy boy porn mags like Maxim, Stuff, FHM, etc., but what really makes me hate them is when they put someone on the cover that I like so I have to buy their freaking magazine. The last time this happened was with Halle Berry, when The X-Men came out (the first time was Bridget Fonda when the magazine first started). Well, I had to do it again last week when Leah Rhemini popped up half-naked on the cover of Stuff. My love of Bridge & Tunnel women has gotten the best of me again (and they sealed the fucking thing in plastic so you can’t read it on the newsstands and have to buy it). I feel so dirty. But she looks great. Too bad she’s a freaking cult member. Yes, she’s another Scientologist. How can that be? She’s from Brooklyn! You know her Italian Catholic mother prays every Sunday that her daughter will get over this and come back to the church---where she can be punished daily for liking sex.
INDIE BOYS EARNING A CHECK
Robert Burke, one of Hal Hartley’s leading men, appeared on the first episode of Sex & The City (Miranda’s last fuck). That’s makes three so far on the show (him, Bill Sage, and ). Only his number one boy, Martin Donavan has never appeared.
LET IT FLY IN THE BREEZE/GET IT CAUGHT IN THE TREES/MAKE A HOME FOR THE BEES IN MY HAIR…
Okay, so the experiment in facial hair is over (the less said, the better) but I’m letting the hair on my head grow for now. It’s been over two months since I last cut it. Quite a change from a man who shaved it almost once a month. Needless to say, it’s getting on my nerves. Aside from the fact that I broke down and put a comb through it from the first time in over ten years, I now have to condition it or it looks like shit after a night of swimming and washing. It turns into a fucking bush. Sigh. The clock is ticking to shaving day. Maybe I’ll have a party.
PRETTY PEOPLE BUMPING UGLIES
Benjamin Bratt is dating Talisa Soto? Now that I would pay to see. Why is it skanky looking people like Pam Andeson and Tommy Lee tape themselves, while beautiful people like this never do? Now, he took a serious step up in the beauty department after Ferret Face. She too made a choice for the better, having been married to pug-faced Costas Mandylor. F.Y.I., Talisa is another B&T babe, coming from Brooklyn.
MUSCLES AREN’T FOR EVERYONE
Okay, aside from sheer laziness and my love of cheese, the greatest threat to my physical fitness comes from the other men at the gym. I just can’t stand looking at them. No, not the chiseled muscle boys, but the other guys. So many losers. Granted, I’m not exactly buff, but even a geekboy like me knows not to workout in a Superman T-shirt. Especially, when you’re far from that! I never workout in any of my Superman stuff. It’s just asking for trouble. And then there are the locker room people. Zeus help me. I am the only man who does not look at himself while drying off. While drying off!?! Why!?! Who looks good drying his balls? And one of the final nails in the coffin was the middle-aged man in the pool…in his tighty-whiteys. Not swimming trunks, white, cotton, Hanes, Fruit-of-the-Loom briefs. Ewww.
01/14/02
"I had a bad day. I had to separate my principles and kowtow to an idiot. Television makes daily these sacrifices possible. Deadens the inner core of my being." --- Martin Donovan in "Trust" written and directed by Hal Hartley
IF YOU PUT HALF THIS EFFORT INTO GETTING LAID…
Lord of the Rings holds at number one for a full month and now the geeks, who finally get a worthy adaptation of a geek classic (a rare thing indeed), aren’t satisfied and are now trying to take the movie apart, because apparently, in one shot a car can be seen in the background , and in another a boot can be seen on one of the actors playing a hobbit (hobbits don’t wear shoes). Fucking losers. You know how much lonely masturbation leads to a person checking for a two-second shot exposing a boot? The older I get, the more I realized just how much I deserved to have my ass kicked all through elementary school and on through high school.
MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS AND INTERGALACTIC WAR IS COMING
A Beautiful Mind holds at number two and apparently the homosexual portion of this guy’s life was left out because they didn’t want to give the impression that insanity leads to homosexuality. Well, of course not. It’s heterosexuality that leads to insanity. Everyone knows that!
I DID THE MONEY PIT, HE HAS TO DO THIS
Orange County opens at number three and this is a second generation movie because the male lead is Tom Hanks’s son, the female lead is Sissy Spacek’s daughter and the director is Lawrence Kasdan’s son. That’s about the most interesting thing I can find about this movie. The presence of Jack Black as his goofball brother doesn’t help. He’s quickly going from "scene stealing funny guy" to "number one reason not to see a movie." And I’m still bothered that the wonderful Laura Kightlinger (who was recently credited for an entire episode of Will & Grace, not just as a consultant) sleeps with this fat bastard.
THEN THERE WAS HER CAMEO IN "WHERE THE BOY’S AREN’T 13"
Ocean’s 11 is down to number four, followed by The Royal Tennenbaums at number five and I was corrected by no less than two others that Winona Ryder had beaten Gwyneth to the sapphic punch, not once, but twice before this film. Once on Friends and before that in a scene in Dracula. Now, I saw Dracula, but I don’t remember her locking lips with Sadie Frost and quite frankly, I don’t care enough for Miss Horowitz to put myself through the agony of Coppola’s crap-fest of a movie again.
HEY, IT’S NOT LIKE I WAS BUSY DATING
Jimmy Neutron is down to number six and the sad part is, I can remember a time in my life when this silly movie would have meant the world to me. Ah, college.
YEAH, HE’S GOT TASTE, BUT COME ON…
Vanilla Sky is down to number seven and I swear there was a moment in this movie when I wondered if it simply existed just to take us on a trip through Cameron Crowe’s record collection. If you thought Scorsese overdid it with using popular music to tell you how to feel, then you haven’t sat through this yet.
TIME TO PLAY KIRSTIN DUNST’S MOM, MEG
Kate & Leopold is down to number eight and hopefully the lackluster success of this will encourage Meg Ryan to stop making these lame-ass romantic comedies. Granted, the fact that they’ve always been lame has never stopped their success (yeah, I’m talking to all you loser You’ve Got Mail fans), but now even her tasteless fanbase has seemingly had enough. The actress who can’t grasp that she’s too old to play the "single woman in the big city" role is as sad as the actor who can’t grasp that he’s too old to play the lead, period (Harrison Ford, I’m talking to you). And hopefully, Hugh Jackman will simply fire his agent outright. He has completely squandered his X-Men currency. Better be glad that sequel is coming.
STIFF, UPPER LIPS
Gosford Park actually enters the top ten this week and the only person who comes close to Maggie Smith in the icy Brit contest, is Kristin Scott Thomas and when they’re together onscreen in this film it’s a wonder the other actors didn’t freeze to death.
THE END
Finally, Harry Potter closes out the top ten at number ten.
LE BUTTKICKING
Not breaking the top ten was French action flick, Brotherhood of the Wolf, which is apparently a big hit over there. Based on a real event, it’s about two men who use martial arts to hunt down a monster in the countryside of 18th Century France. At 2 1/2 hours, I almost didn’t make it, but the idea of seeing it at the Ziegfeld was enough to get me there. Visually, it looks great. Obviously influenced by American action films, it’s a sight & sound treat, and for the first two hours I was not bored. Aside from the action, the French added a much lacking element from American films in general, not just action movies: sex. Not just nudity, but sex. And not just nudity and sex, but nudity and sex with Monica Bellucci. Can’t beat that. Of course, the French couldn’t go without fucking it up somehow. Not only is it overripe with politics and religion, but also characters you like meet bad ends (it’s being narrated by a man right before he goes to the guillotine). Also, just when it should climax in an orgy of well-choreographed violence. It stops, goes on with some dumb story for another twenty minutes, then back to a violent climax. And even after that we’ve got another ten minutes of tying things up. Sigh. They came so close.
PEOPLE LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY BEST FRIEND…
I’m just back from hell. My cable was out for almost a full week and what scared me the most about it was how much I didn’t miss it. Then Sex & The City started its new short season and Bridget Fonda began her run as Chris Issak’s girlfriend on his show and I realized that I was in fact, missing my best friend in the whole wide world. Sex & City really, really needs to end. I have to give credit where credit is due and say that Entertainment Weekly was dead-on when it described the show as now being not so much a comedy anymore as much as a drama with some funny dialogue. These are four middle-aged women all desperately in the middle of some sort of emotional crisis or another. The days of their biggest problem being whether or not to take it up the ass from a new boyfriend are all over. It’s now babies and marriage and divorce. And these are the episodes before 9/11, which they plan to address next season. Ooh. The fun to come. Now, The Chris Issak show has always been a huge disappointment to me because it’s just a freaking sitcom. In fact, it’s less than a sitcom, because they insanely try to stretch it out for an hour, when its storylines are your typical half-hour fare. I’m only watching it because Bridget Fonda is on for a few episodes as his girlfriend. Here’s the plot: she’s a reporter interviewing him on Roy Orbison and because he likes her, he begins to make up stories about Roy Orbison to keep her around. Oh, I can’t contain my giggles. Tee-hee-hee. In the meantime, his manager begins dating a Canine Psychologist who---get this---acts like a dog! Oh, I didn’t see that coming. My, the hilarity. Call a doctor, ‘cause I think I’m going to die laughing. In the next episode I think they go down to the Regal Beagle where Mr. & Mrs. Roper see him kissing a girl! Jesus, I’m paying for this shit, people. Still, Bridget Fonda is just as sexy as she’s ever been.
"SKANK" IS TOO KIND A WORD HERE
Mere words cannot describe the train wreck that is Mariah Carey as evidenced by her episode of Cribs. This woman is pathetic. A friend of mine felt sorry for her, but not me. She’s got money. She can get therapy. Hell, if I was thinking about it with my broke ass (my guitar lessons are my therapy now—-talk to me Dr. Six String!), then she can easily afford Brad Pitt’s therapist. Unlike other episodes of Cribs, where people would actually have their friends and family around, Mariah had no one who didn’t work for her, period. Why? ‘Cause she ain’t got no friends and her family is as whacked out as she is. Did I mention the six outfit changes in the half-hour show? Why? None of them made her boxy body look good. And where is this place? The Empire State Building looked a million miles away. It was like the view was from the fucking Bronx or something, but we know she ain’t living there. Sigh. Somebody please book the Judy Garland suite for her right now.
SITTIN’ IN THE MORNING---DAMN! WRONG FINGER. SITTIN’ IN THE MORNING---DAMN! WRONG FINGER AGAIN. SITTIN’ IN THE…
So, I bit the bullet and went for the two-hour guitar class this weekend (don’t ask what it cost, ‘cause you’ll only make me cry). Now I can also play a half-assed rendition of "Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay" but, as always, you wouldn’t know it unless I told you, because it takes me five minutes to move from chord to chord.
THEY WERE THREE IN THE FAMILY/AND THAT’S A MAGIC NUMBER
So, I’m trying to spend more time with the Young Married Couple because, any minute now the baby will come and it will take my place in fulfilling that role in their lives (she was due yesterday). Inevitably, we wind up pulling out the guitars and you have two guys who can’t play worth shit strumming away. Wanna hear something so sickeningly sweet it’ll make you ill? Young Married Guy initially bought his guitar over the summer to teach himself to play. Now, I thought it was simply another one of his whims, but as it turns out, his dad used to play guitar for him as child all the freaking time, so now he wants to do it for his kid. Now, try keeping your lunch down. Bastard. I’m fighting insanity and he’s trying to enrich a child’s life.
YODA NEVER SAID SHIT LIKE THIS
So, I found myself in Brooklyn last week at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) where I’ve never been. I was there to see a screening of an indie film called "Old School Story" a semi-autobiographical story of a California kid in 1972 who gets into an elite East Coast prep school and winds up befriending the only four black guys who go there. Your typical Afterschool Special coming-of-age drama, but with an excessive use of the word "muthafucka." Nothing special. Afterwards, I hung with my friend who likes to drop knowledge constantly. You know him better as the man behind such bon mots as "When Asian girls start having asses, you know they’re putting something in the water." Or "That’s the result of the 80’s for you; women can’t cook and men can’t fix shit." That night his particular pearl of wisdom was, "This is a Black owned establishment, so you know we’re not going to get waited on any time soon." Needless to say, he is Black, so it’s okay for him to say it (it also turned out to be true). What makes these comments hysterical is the way he says them, with a kind of world-weariness, as if they’re just simple truths, handed down over the ages that we all know.
WE ARE FAMILY/YOU BOTH ANNOY THE HELL OUT OF ME…
So, before my sister goes home, I wanted her to meet the Surrogate Sister who’s been filling her place in my life, by being a lot like me, but different enough so that she annoys the shit out of me. I took them both to lunch at Cowgirl Hall of Fame, because neither of them can resist a free meal. Once the mutual abuse of my experiment in facial hair and my favorite sweater had ended, I was actually able to eat in peace for a little while because they started talking to each other about make-up and fashion (which they both hope to make careers out of) and left me alone. As always, whenever I’m with any member of my family, I discover something about my family that I never knew. This time is was discovering that, because the White side of my grandfather’s family, my mother and her siblings had a few White privileges afforded to them when they were kids, because "everyone knew" who they were really related to, and apparently these people had a little money. What were these "White privileges?" Well, at one point in time, Coca-Cola wasn’t sold to Blacks in the South, as the actual cocaine then still in it made it too good for us. We were only sold the other southern standard of RC Cola. My mom’s family, however, could buy Coke with impunity, because, ‘every one knew" who they were related to. Sigh. It’s so sad when your family history is like some freaky mini-series. Maybe next time my baby sister will provide me with more details about my grandfather’s moonshine running, of which I’ve only heard mentioned in passing. Oh, yes. I’m that freaking southern.
THIS IS WHY FLORISTS HAVE LOVED ME SINCE I WAS 15
Finaly, my ability to piss off friends grows with leaps and bounds every week. Only this time I did it outside of my rantings here. I was having a very civil conversation with a friend through Instant Messenger, when she assailed my love of the movie, Bring It On. Before I knew it, a dig slipped from my mind, down through my fingertips and over the fiber optic network that makes up electronic communication. The next thing that read on my screen from her was "Go to hell," and then silence. The only good thing about fucking up as much as I do is that I know how to get out better. I quickly put the internet to some good use for a change and within the hour, thousands of miles away, a bouquet of "I’m Sorry" flowers were being delivered. Of course, now I’m going to get shit from people who didn’t get flowers when I pissed them off. Get over it.
01/07/02
"One should forgive one’s enemies, but not before they are hanged." --- Heinrich Heine
THINK OF MONEY SAVED BY NOT HAVING TO BUY DINNER
Lord of the Rings remains at the top spot and it’s no surprise considering the primary audience for this doesn’t have to spend money on actual dates. They can easily afford to see it a few times. Is anyone surprised that the fat, ugly bastards that make up Barenaked Ladies are Lord of the Rings fans? The irony is that Viggio Mortensen and Sean Bean look like nothing but men in this movie. How is it that neither one of them became movie stars? Granted, both have that creepy thing going on, but so does Nicholas Cage and they’re both better looking than that bastard. And what’s up with Liv Tyler deciding she wants to be a fat chick now? Or should I say acquiescing to being a fat chick, because her half-sister is a "full-sized" model. That means it’s in Steven Tyler’s genes that the men be skinny and the women not. How cruel is that? That’s the cruelest bit of genetics since Billy Joel’s daughter came out looking like him and not mom, Christie Brinkley.
I WONDER IF MY MOM KNOWS HUGH JACKMAN TOO?
A Beautiful Mind goes wide and jumps up to number two and either all mothers are the same or my mom has gotten to Russell Crowe, because in an interview in USA Today Weekend, he laments over fatherhood saying, "Even if I got married and had a baby tomorrow, I’m going to be 57 when the kid is 20. Frankly, this is starting to drive me nuts." Okay. That makes me feel a little bit better to know that even fame and fortune is no guarantee. Then again, I don’t have every fertile woman in the world throwing her reproductive system at me, so there’s just something wrong with you, dude.
NOW YOU KNOW THAT "11" REFERS TO INCHES
Ocean’s 11 is at number three and there have been rumblings of a homoerotic subtext and I can’t say they’re unfounded. Pretty men with short haircuts, nice clothes, odd tattoos, a habit of going to prison and no interest in being with women says exactly what to you? Aside from the loving way Brad Pitt gazes at George Clooney throughout this film, there’s that scene when they all gaze in wonderment at the spouting fountains that makes this near Top Gun as America’s most mainstream homoerotic movie.
STILL HERE?
Jimmy Neutron is at number four and I’m still looking for a reason to care.
IS IT STILL CHIC AFTER ALL THESE YEARS?
The Royal Tennenbaums enters the top ten at number five and one day they’re going to look back at the films made in the late 20th, early 21st century and going to take note of when it became a rite of passage for all actresses to do lesbian scenes. It’s literally two seconds in this movie, but Gwyneth Paltrow finally joins that sorority. Now, how long do you think it’s going to take the desperate-for-attention Winona Ryder to do the same?
AS AN ACTOR, HE’S A PRETTY GOOD COMEDIAN---AND HE SUCKS AT BEING A COMEDIAN
Ali is down to number six and Jamie Foxx is bitching about most of his role as Bundini Brown being left on the editing room floor. Uh, Jamie, this movie ain’t called "Brown." It’s called "Ali" so who do you think was going to suffer when it came time to cut it down? And he thinks he’s done his best dramatic work so far. Is he kidding? All he does is act like Jamie Foxx, complete with constant one-liners.
ALL REDHEADS ARE EVIL. EVEN THE MEN.
Vanilla Sky is down to number eight and what happened to the Eric Stoltz Rule of Cameron Crowe’s films? Up until Jerry Maguire, Eric Stoltz had been in every single one of Cameron Crowe’s films. He was a stoner in Fast Times At Ridgemont High (for which Crowe wrote the screenplay, based on his book),he was the guy who threw the party in Say Anything, he was the mime in Singles and he makes a brief appearance as an agent in Jerry Maguire. After that, nothing. Given what a staunch indie boy Stoltz is and has always been, I can’t help but think he was somewhat disgusted by the growing relationship between Crowe and Cruise. Then again, maybe Crowe realized what Bridget Fonda is said to have realized, that Stoltz is an asshole. Still, it takes a special kind of man to make a short film called "Jesus & Hutch" with Stoltz as Jesus kicking ass and taking names with his partner Hutch. The first scene is Jesus chasing Hasidic Jews through the streets of L.A. Tasteless, maybe. Offensive, yes. But funny.
TABOO #87
Kate & Leopold is down to number eight and the people who made this movie are so dumb, that it took the actor Liev Schreiber to point out that, if his character is the descendant of Hugh Jackman’s character (which is why he’s studying him, in case you, like any normal person, wondered why), that makes his ex-girlfriend Meg Ryan, also his great, great, great-grandmother. Needless to say, they took the vague incest subplot out. Oh, did I ruin the ending for you? Did you think for one second Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan wouldn’t live happily ever after? Yeah, because an independent woman of the 21st century is going to get along so well in a time where she couldn’t vote and had a fifty-fifty chance of living through childbirth. What crap.
RICHARD HARRIS IS TEACHING THEM TO DRINK AS WE SPEAK
Harry Potter is down to number nine. Are the kid stars of this going to crash and burn or what? Any second now, the puberty fairy is going to touch the lead actor and completely transform him and his usefulness will be over. He’s going to make Todd Bridges look like a saint.
BYE, KITTY
Finally, closing out the top ten at number ten is Monsters, Inc.
AUTEUR: A DIRECTOR WHO BELIEVES HIS OWN BULLSHIT
Not breaking the top ten is Gosford Park and you know I was hard up to see something to break down and see a Robert Altman film. I despise Altman. Aside from his recent stupidity of saying that American action films taught the World Trade Center terrorists, he’s always been one of the most overrated directors ever. He’s one of these people who believes the means justifies the ends, and by that I mean he really doesn’t care if you have a film that progresses from A to B to C , so long as he feels artistic doing it. He also doesn’t care if you enjoy it or not. Every once and awhile he gets lucky (M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player) but for the most part they’re just messes (The Long Goodbye, Ready To Wear, Short Cuts, Kansas City, Dr. T & The Women, etc.). Here, he got lucky again, but even here his fascination with depicting the class differences in pre-WWII society at a dinner party threatens to overwhelm the icy humor generated by it. Yes, it’s interesting and funny and the cast is top notch (Richard E. Grant, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Jeremy Northam, Alan Bates, Charles Dance, Clive Owen and my personal favorites, Kristin Scott Thomas and Emily Watson), but after an hour-and-a-half, the plot finally begins and is over half-an-hour later. It’s not really a mystery. You know whodunit almost instantly and that’s because Altman openly admits he had no interest in that. Once he couldn’t do the class struggle bit, he lost interest in it all. Sadly, it still turns out a good movie, which means he’ll once again be given a blank check on his next film (the way he was after The Player) and again he’ll subject us to his all-star meandering drivel (after The Player came Short Cuts and Ready to Wear).
PILOT TO TOWER, CAN I WAX HIS PIMPLY ASS?
So this dumbass kid takes a plane and crashes into a hotel. Hey, he got off lucky. The military had scrambled and they were seconds away from blowing his ass out of the sky anyway. But there’s a bright side to all this. We may be back to the days when dumbass kids only killed themselves and left everyone else alone.
THE GREATEST LOVE STORY NEVER TOLD
So I wound up one of the worse years in all our lives quietly with my good friends, The Young Married Couple, who are entering their eighth month of pregnancy. She swore she’d drop that puppy at Christmas (and even put it on her calendar), but the kid had other plans and they’re still holding. I never go there empty handed, so this year I brought cake, champagne and my first attempt at artichoke dip (two cheeses, mayonnaise and artichokes; disgustingly delicious). Because she’s with child, the job of drinking the two bottles of champagne fell to the husband and me and by the end of the night there were two guys who couldn’t play guitar with guitars in their laps (call us "Wild Stallions"). During the course of the night, however, I had a large correction made in my understanding of their relationship. I thought they were another one of those couples who met, moved in together two weeks later and were now happily married and breeding (we all know at least one). Wrong. Apparently, she had no interest in him in the beginning and he pursued her for a whole year. Now, where I was this year, I’ll never know, because I turned around and they were together. I missed his classic geek pursuit. By that, I mean he sat and waited patiently, being "just her friend" while she continued to date other men. This is a geek tactic from the beginning of time, but it rarely ever works. In this case however, it did. Days out going to museums and nights out of going to the movies, soon gave way to drunken making out, and now she’s his wife. Now, I don’t know which story is worse. The first story for being just so fucking idealistically romantic, or the second, because of the false hope it inspires. Trust me. This is the exception to the rule. The rest of you who sit and wait, will still end up alone. It didn’t work for Kristin Scott Thomas in Four Weddings & A Funeral and it won’t work for you. Don’t waste your time. No, I’m not bitter. What makes you think that!?! Who have you been talking to!?!
ANALOG RULES!
So, while with Young Married Couple on New Year’s Eve, I discovered he’d bought the reissue of the classic Mattel Electronic Football Game. I’d read about it, but had forgotten about its release. It’s $13 in Toys ‘R Us and I bought one less than a week later. I still prefer the green second edition where you can pass (which goes for $100 on ebay), but this is still just as frustrating and time consuming as it was over 20 years ago. Screw your Playstation 2 polygons! I’ve got little red dots!
THE BUBBLES TICKLE MY NAUSEA
I hate beer and beer hates me. Last week, after a few beers, a margarita, Mexican food and an attempt to go to a strip club (hey, it was her idea, not mine), I wound up seeing my meal again at 2:00am. Now, what could have caused this? Now, I’ve recently been eating healthy (lots of fruit and salads, no cheeseburgers or junk desserts), so maybe my body didn’t like the sudden influence of crap. Also, there was my old friend tequila making its first appearance in many a month. I dismissed these two because earlier in the week I drank a bottle of champagne after artichoke dip and cake and had no problems. No, it had to be the beer. I hate beer. I don’t like the taste. I never have. I tried to learn to drink it, but have failed. Yes, I know, it’s the cheapest most casual way to drink, but that’s simply not good enough any more. If I must drink it’s hard liquor for me from now on.
NEXT WEEK: GIMME SHELTER
So, I got a new guitar instructor, because the old one got on my nerves. First of all, he was on the Upper East Side. Secondly, he lived in a hovel. Third, he seemed to eat chives before each lesson, so I had to have that breath in my face for an hour at a time. Finally, he got short with me on my last lesson before the holidays and that was it (forgive me for not grasping an E minor scale on my second fucking lesson). Now, the new guy is within walking distance, has a clean place, he is clean and in an hour pretty much taught me how to play "Angie" by The Rolling Stones. Now, the downside. He’s more expensive than the other guy (who wasn’t cheap either) and he recommends two-hour lessons. If I go along with that, it will rival my rent to see this guy. I might have to---gasp---give up another hobby. Comic books or DVD’s? Damn. I already gave up porn to continue those two.
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE; ONLY LUST AND TROUBLE
So, after missing out on a dinner party because I was taking a nap and couldn’t answer the phone, I wound up spending Saturday night at home restringing my guitar on the advice of my new teacher. While doing so, I treated myself to my own little Hal Hartley film festival, as I own everything he’s done except for Henry Fool, which I despised. I even have Surviving Desire, which includes the short films Surviving Desire, Theory of Achievement and Ambition. Trust remains my favorite, but the first chapter of Flirt is a close second (let’s not talk about Amateur, because no one is perfect). Flirt is three short films using essentially the same script, but with major character overhauls. The first takes place in New York with almost every single Hal Hartley regular (though Adrienne Shelly and Elina Lowensohn are noticeably absent) with Bill Sage as "The Flirt" in question. The second takes place in Berlin with Dwight Ewell (Hooper in Chasing Amy) as The Flirt, and now it’s about two men. It changes again, when three German workers sudden stop and begin discussing the situation and actually commenting on the first chapter and the director! Further line blurring occurs in the last chapter, which is in Japan. The Flirt is now a woman, but her love interest is now Hal Hartley himself. Love it, love it, love it.
NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE
Finally, the DVD collection is now up to 228 (not counting the porn) and new additions include Untitled: The Almost Famous Director’s Cut and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension. It’s a true cult classic, which failed because no one knew exactly what they were spoofing in this film (Doc Savage to be precise, and if you don’t know who that is, don’t worry about it). I didn’t even know that at the time, but it was still a damn funny movie in my eyes. The DVD comes with deleted scenes and a special information file which reveals that Ellen Barkin’s character eventually married Buckaroo Banzai, but was killed by the same man who killed her twin sister (who Buckaroo Banzai had also married). Man, does that ever suck! Sequel, I say! Sequel!