APRIL ARCHIVE

4/28/2003

“I have so much to do that I am going to bed.” --- Savoyard proverb

IF IT DOESN’T HAVE “SECRET” IF FRONT OF IT, THEN I DON’T CARE

Opening at number one is Identity and there was no way I was going to see this. First of all, I hate the scary. We all know this. Life is scary enough; I don’t need to go looking for thrills. Second, I also hate the “10 little Indians” plot where you watch people get killed off according to their level of fame. You know John Cusack isn’t going anywhere until the last ten minutes, if at all. Behind him is Ray Liotta and then Amanda Peet and so on. Not to mention the inevitable “big twist” followed by an even “bigger twist” and sometimes the really annoying “now this will just fuck your mind up!” It’s formula, it’s clichéd and I don’t have time for it. Besides, there was something in the trailer that looked like the kid was somehow evil and nothing, but nothing, scares me like an evil kid.

HDTV DOTH MAKE WHORES OF US ALL

Down to number two is Anger Management and it has broken $100---which would mean more if it didn’t cost $75M. The funniest thing in this movie is John Turturro and this is what real actors like him do so they can do real work in indie films and on Broadway. Same for Marisa Tomei, who has been quite vocal about being bored just playing “the girlfriend” in this movie. But I forgive them. Artistic fulfillment is nice, but sometimes you just gotta have that plasma screen TV.

WHERE IS THE HEIR TO JOHN CANDY’S THRONE?

Holes is down to number three and this movie remains a mystery to me. One kid I know of actually hated the book, so it’s not like some sort of Harry Potter phenomenon. Which explains how the lead character went from being a fat kid to a skinny one with no outcry of any kind. Fat lead characters exist only in books and the occasional slob comedy. America isn’t spending billions trying to stay thin to see fat people succeed onscreen---as they eat buttered popcorn, and Milk Duds.

BEST KNOWN AS ONE OF DREW BARRYMORE’S HUSBANDS

Malibu’s Most Wanted is down to number four and this asshole is being courted to replace Jim Carrey in the decade-in-the-making sequel to The Mask. Why, god, why? Why not Ryan Reynolds (National Lampoon’s Van Wilder) who actually looks like a younger, better looking Jim Carrey---not to mention actually being funny. I really, really needed this film to crash and burn so this guy could go the way of Tom Green. Remember him? Exactly. I want people to say the same about Jamie Kennedy next week.

GRIFTING BY THE NUMBERS

Confidence opens at number five and I almost saw this, but instead actually chose to spend Sunday afternoon outside playing with a child. First of all, it’s only 98 minutes, which is always a good thing. Second, it’s got Rachel Weisz. An even better thing, as she has no aversion to complete and total nudity and a nice curvy body you’d like to see nude. Third, even while Ed Burns is in it, he had nothing to do with either the writing or the directing on this one. Those are the positives. Now the negatives. Did I mention Ed Burns in it? Also present is the ever-annoying Dustin “Watch Me Act” Hoffman. Third, and most important it’s a con/heist movie and I fucking hate them. Now, I don’t like scary movies, but I don’t hate them. I hate con/heist movies because they’re all the fucking same but they all act like they aren’t. It’s a job. A big job. One that’s usually getting the lead out of the game or paying off a debt to someone who wants to kill him. Secondly, no matter what, there’s always a point where it almost fails, but miraculously does not. Finally, when the job is done, comes the double cross. Then the triple cross because our lead is much too smart to be double-crossed. Then the quadruple cross by the woman he trusted, but shouldn’t have because women in these movies are always no damn good. Finally, the quintriple cross, because our lead knows that women in these movies are no damn good and cannot be trusted and he never did. A variation on this is the woman pretends to double cross him to fool the big boss and then reunites with the lead. Like I said, no matter what, it’s been done before, so it’s all in the execution of it. Now this looks stylish and well done, but I could give a shit because I simply hate this fucking genre.

YOU CAN ONLY GET AWAY WITH BEING UGLY IF YOU’RE SMART

Down to number six is Bulletproof Monk and also starring in this is the incredibly pug-faced Jamie King. You know you’re in trouble when the female is the less attractive than your two male leads. Honestly, I have no idea how she made it as a model. I guess being tall and thin actually is enough, because the girl is not even close to pretty. She’s pure trailer park who stumbled into a modeling career, only to almost kill herself with a drug problem---before 20. Her boyfriend, photographer, David Sorrenti, actually died, but I don’t give a fuck. He was another asshole who had the world handed to him (a high fashion photographer at 20) and pissed it away. Yeah, that’s a loss to humanity’s gene pool.

AND WHAT ABOUT SUPERTRAIN?

What A Girl Wants Is down to number seven, followed by Phone Booth, still holding out at number eight, and Colin Farrell still hasn’t made it over the superstar hump yet. Looks like it’s all coming down to this summer and the big screen adaptation of S.W.A.T. Yes, I said “S.W.A.T.” a movie based on a film that lasted only a season. What next, B.J. and the Bear (the adventures of a trucker and---I shit you not---the monkey who saved his life in Vietnam)? That lasted a season and a half and spawned a spin-off that lasted equally as long: Sheriff Lobo. Where are their movies?

THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN

It Runs In The Family opens at number nine and how sad is it to see Kirk Douglas now? I know most people thought that shtick he did at the Oscars was cute, but it was just depressing to me. It’s like seeing Christopher Reeve paralyzed. Superman and Spartacus, mere shells of themselves. It’s just not right. And if he was in more control of his life, do you really think he would have done this shit? My god, the commercials are so bad they make Hallmark Hall of Fame movies look like Ordinary People in comparison. And Michael Douglas’s son (who plays his son in the movie) is just fucking ugly. When your 78-year-old crippled-by-a-stroke grandfather is still more handsome than you are, you’re fucking ugly. And lost in this mess is the fact that Michael Douglas is actually with a woman his own age: Bernadette Peters. Who still looks pretty damn good, by the way. Saw her in a Barnes & Noble last year.

JUST GO RENT SOME PORN FOR GOD’S SAKE

Finally, The Real Cancun opens at number ten and for all of you who couldn’t manage to jerk off to the pixilated boobs and quick snippets of groans you got on The Real World or Road Rules, there’s this. Rated R for what I assume is sex and nudity because I really don’t know just how you get an “R” for “partying.”

BEHIND THE BUYING OF THE MUSIC

Okay, so I broke down and bought it: Justin Timberlake’s solo album. My rule for buying albums is as such: three songs is worth buying. I didn’t mind “Like I Love You” thanks to the spare drums and acoustic arrangement; “Cry Me A River” got points for being a Timbaland production (and the video was just funny), but “Rock Your Body” is straight up nice. It sounds just like something George Michael would have done a decade ago (that he’s rocking the same gay vibe with the goatee and short hair helps). To ease the embarrassment of buying it, I also picked up Massive Attack’s new album “100th Window” (a.k.a., “More Weird Electronic Music To Fuck To”). Aside from liking Massive Attack, this latest album has Sinead O’Connor singing on some of the tracks.

SHE HATED THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BEFORE ANYBODY

Speaking of Sinead O’Connor she’s retiring. From fucking what!?! From being out of her fucking mind for 20 years!?! I mean, yeah, she released an album last year, but who noticed? What is she doing within the music business that she needs retiring from it? And hasn’t she retired before? Right around the time she became a lesbian? A retirement from dick, so to speak. Well, it was brief, because she had a daughter afterwards. If it means she’ll never sing again, it’s a tragedy, because if Aretha Franklin is the voice of God, she’s definitely the voice of the Celtic Gods. Probably Danu.

CECI EST LA VIE FACHEE DE GEEK

So I chose to spend Sunday afternoon out with the Young Married Couple and their son, who’s now 15 months and walking and talking. Granted he’s not great at either one, but you still have to pay attention to him when he’s doing either. Especially walking, because he tends to do it at a strong, steady pace, but he only looks at his feet, so you’ve got to watch what’s in front of him. We stopped for lunch at a small café in the West Village, where I’m told all the waitresses are so attractive, that the pretty French one who was waiting on us was actually one of their low-end models. Though she wasn’t exactly packing a JLo type ass, I nonetheless was quite taken with her and discussed the possibility of asking her out with Young Married Couple (actually, I asked Young Married Mother to do it for me, but that’s just a detail). There were a few drawbacks to this plan: 1) customers probably hit on her every day, even in the West Village; 2) I was looking bad, even by my standards. Scraggly facial hair (two whole weeks worth), uncombed hair and a Superman t-shirt. And 3), the biggest drawback: what if she actually said, “Yes”? Then I would actually have to go out, which I hate. And not just movie/dinner going out either. Probably some of that club/theater going out. Not to mention bars. After all, she’s European. Probably had her first drink and cigarette before her 5th birthday. It made me tired just thinking about it. As Young Married Wife pointed out, “It would take away from your valuable slacker time.” That was the final nail in the coffin of my impulse to be more social. I blame the nice spring weather for making me briefly delusional. Thank god X-Men 2 opens this weekend, signaling the beginning of the summer movie season, so this won’t happen again It’s better for you people too. If I actually had a social life, do you really think I’d be doing this week after week? It’s very hard to be an angrygeek if some hot French girl is boning the life out of you.

4/21/2003

“In the fight between you and the world, back the world.” --- Franz Kafka

STILL PISSED

Anger Management holds at number one and can you believe this thing cost $75M? And you know the bulk of that went to salaries. Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson are both members of the $20M club, so that’s $40M right there, leaving $35M to be distributed amongst the rest of the cast (maybe Marisa Tomei’s Oscar got her $3M, tops) and total production, which was on location in New York, which ain’t cheap. This leaves maybe twenty-five cents for the script and that sounds about right. The only laughs squeezed out are by John Turrturo making the most out of a small role. And who the fuck is this Krista Allen girl who’s being sold as some sort of sex symbol? I see her on the cover of the faux-porn magazines (Maxim, FHM, Stuff, etc) like she’s supposed to be something. When I first saw her in the movie, I thought Adam Sandler had tossed a bone to his old MTV co-worker, Kari Wurher. Then I remembered Kari Wurher had her ugly, needless, breast implants removed, while this Krista Allen person obviously has not.

LEAST APPEALING TITLE OF THE WEEK

Holes opens at number two and this is supposedly some sort of prized kids novel. I never read novels as a kid, and I was a kid when S.E. Hinton ruled the freaking world. The only “kids” book I remember reading was Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (never made it through the sequel, “Willy Wonka & The Glass Elevator). When I read actual books, it was either science fiction novels (not dumbed down for kids, thank you very much) or Encyclopedia Brown books, which were hardly novels. In any case, even with cable channels, video games and computers providing new and more wondrous distractions every day, some weird kids keep reading books and this was one of their favorites. Unfortunately, it’s going to be the leading cause of children accidentally taking home porn videos for years to come (“Oh, I’m sorry Mrs. Merewether. I gave you Hot Tight Holes by mistake.”).

SOMEWHERE WILD CHERRY IS SMILING…AND COUNTING CASH

Malibu’s Most Wanted opens at number three and I despise Jamie Kennedy the same way I despise all those shows that think it’s funny to fuck with people leading their regular lives. I simply have no patience for it. I can’t even watch it when Letterman sends people out to do it. But that was actually the second thing stopping me from seeing Malibu’s Most Wanted. Sorry, but if Chris Rock couldn’t make a hip-hop comedy work, no one can. Besides, how can you make fun of something that’s already so absurd? Aside from the pure comedy that was “Vanilla Ice: Behind The Music”, just last week there was an article in the New York Daily News about a whole crop of new “White” rappers coming up. Nothing in this movie could be funnier than the record company’s description of a new female rapper as “feminem.” And I won’t even get into the wannabe rapper arrested for killing his girlfriend and eating part of her lung. And as much as I love Taye Diggs, this is one bridge I will not cross for him. And the presence of Anthony Anderson automatically means your movie sucks. He’s like the Black Tom Arnold.

BULLET-RIDDEN SCRIPT

Bulletproof Monk opens at number four and will Chow Yun-Fat ever have a hit in America? I’m not even asking for a good movie, I’m just asking for a hit. Even Jet Li scored with Romeo Must Die. Yeah, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a hit, but that was Ang Lee’s movie, and after him, the women. Chow Yun-Fat ran a distant third there. Part of the problem is that Chow Yun-Fat does whatever his wife tells him to do. That may have worked in Hong Kong (where marriage saved his life, as he once made the mistake of banging a gangster’s girlfriend), but Hollywood is an entirely different animal. Granted, she’s trying to give him his own Shanghai Noon with this one, but the big problem is that Chow Yun-Fat is simply not a martial artist. He’s the epitome of cool, but a hand-to-hand butt kicker he is not. If his career has been built on anything, it’s been his charm. Thankfully, you do get a good dose of that here, but it’s simply not enough. Not even with the obvious charm of Seann William Scott to help bring in the young girls. First of all the movie is just so apparently cheap it hurts. Why even pretend it’s America when it’s so obviously fucking Canada? I mean, it’s not like they identify the city or anything, so just let it be an action film in fucking Montreal. And the suckiness of the script goes without saying. Someone apparently watched Raiders of the Lost Ark one too many times to think that what the world needed now were Nazis as villains again. In any case, Nazis have been chasing after Chow Yun-Fat for 60 years because he has the Ark of the Covenant---uh, I mean the Mystic Scroll---which is all-powerful. Chow Yun-Fat on the other hand, is looking for his successor, the new Bulletproof Monk, who appears to be Seann William Scott. Now, what’s the point in hiring someone young and studly (like Justin Timberlake, Seann William Scott’s fanbase is equally teenagers and gay men) and not have him take his shirt off? Paul Walker can’t make a movie without doing it and neither should Seann William Scott, who obviously hit the gym before taking this role. Movies like this need all the help they can get.

LARRY KING WAS NEXT

Phone Booth is down to number five, followed by What A Girl Wants at number six and also appearing in this film is Kelly Preston, better known as John Travolta’s beard. Sorry, but a woman who went from Charlie Sheen (she was “accidentally” shot in their apartment back in the 90’s when he was still doing coke) to John Travolta is someone who’ll marry just about anyone. George Clooney, whom she also dated, obviously escaped this trap. Then again, he wasn’t famous then, so marriage was hardly on her mind

ETC.

Bringing Down the House is down to number seven, followed by A Man Apart at number eight.

MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING

At number nine is Chicago, which has eclipsed Scary Movie as the most profitable movie Miramax has ever released, which you know is a great relief to them. Having that godawful crap be the pinnacle of your financial success was a dubious honor. Now they’ve got a good excuse to finally remove the poster from the office walls. God knows they’re probably stopped returning the Wayan’s Brother’s calls (Scary Movie 3 comes out this summer, but they have nothing to do with it).

“CAUSE I’M EASY….”

Finally, House of 1,000 Corpses closes out the top ten at number ten and apparently Rob Zombie does a cover of “Brick House”---with Lionel Richie. I have admit a secret appreciation of some of Lionel Ritchie’s solo material (everyone loves that classic Commodores stuff, so it goes without saying). No, not that “Say You, Say Me” shit, or when he was truly annoying the world with “Dancing On The Ceiling” but songs like “Hello” “Running With The Night” and my personal favorite, “Penny Lover”---which is different from the original album version because he was sued over it. Needless to say, that little tidbit was left out of his Behind the Music episode, as was the incident when his wife finally found out about his cheating and attacked both him and his girlfriend, kicking both their asses in the front yard. Some women you just don’t cheat on. Just give ‘em half your money and be happy to get out alive. Special tidbit: according to my family in Alabama, where Lionel Ritchie’s family is from as well, he was also sleeping with Shelia E. when she was in his band.

AIIEEEEE!

Speaking of Shelia E., she makes an appearance with her entire family (including the great Pete Escovedo, who was in the original lineup of Santana) in Chasing Papi, which doesn’t break the top ten and doesn’t deserve to. Now, normally I’d never see this type of movie. I’ve got far too many embarrassing Black comedies to ignore to waste time on this but a friend of mine tried to push it on me before she knew what it was about. Now when she found out, she couldn’t stop bad-mouthing it, and that’s when I knew I had to see it. Just to embarrass her in a way she hadn’t been embarrassed since the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Hey, I earned it. Every time some dumb Black movie or TV pops up she asks me if I’m going to see it and “support my people.” The movie is pure amateur hour from the first frame. Actually, first we get an indie film called Washington Heights pushed on us in the trailers, in a case of targeting your probable audience. Then comes our bad movie. It opens with animation, which to me is a sure case of “our audience isn’t going to be very bright, so let’s be as simple as possible.” Fortunately, the animated sequences stop after the first 15 minutes, but they pretty much let you know the level of the film you’re dealing with, not to mention setting up the character of Thomas, who has been pretty much adored by women since birth. He grows into a six foot pretty boy who not only turns the heads of nuns, but has three women in three cities: Roselyn Sanchez as the uptight lawyer in Chicago; Jaci Velasquez as the LAP (Latina American Princess) in New York; and Sofia Vergara as the slutty cocktail waitress in Miami. Needless to say, they all come to see him LA at the same time and discover each other. Thomas is so stressed out by all of this, that he overdoses on tranquilizers and spends pretty much the rest of the movie unconscious, which is for the best because, pretty boy he may be, he’s no actor. In fact, only one of the three female leads does a decent job and that’s only because she has no accent (if I didn’t know better, I’d swear Roselyn Sanchez learned her lines phonetically). Thanks to some dumb subplot about a missing bag of money, the three women have to bond together and, wouldn’t you know it, all come away learning a little more about life and themselves. The LAP learns to live on her own (and take out the blue contact lenses), the lawyer learns that her life is incomplete unless people know how pretty she really is (and begins wearing short, tight skirts to the office and six inch heels) and the slutty cocktail waitress becomes…a cruise director? What’s sad about this film that it’s all Latin-made. The names on the opening credits all ended in “Z’s” or vowels. Hell, a Latin woman actually directed this. But there is still one good thing about a movie with an all-Latina cast: everyone has a nice, curvy body and it will be on display, as is the Latin way. It was almost worth it just to see Roselyn Sanchez in lingerie (as an in joke she has to pretend to be Miss Puerto Rico in the movie, when, in fact, she was just that in real life---twice). Jaci Velasquez isn’t much to look at and Sofia Vegara is one plate of rice and beans away from having an equal number of chins to match her enormous breasts (which appear to be all-natural, so pity her back problems and her future of having them hang to her ankles). Lisa Vidal also shows up (as an FBI agent in leather pants with frosted Farrah Fawcett hair and more lip gloss than a slutty teenager), proving she is the hardest working Latina in show business. Needless to say, there are jokes only Latinos will get. Maria Conchito Alonzo (who would have starred in this 15 years ago) plays the LAP’s mother and says something in Spanish that made the crowd I was in laugh. Also, there are minor Latin celebrities all through it that got crowd recognition that I wouldn’t from a hole in the wall. Most notable of these was some guy who looked like a lost cousin to Siegfried & Roy who did a daily-televised astrology report that every Spanish person in the world seems to watch. The audience was actually more entertaining than the movie. I know it’s more of a class thing than a racial thing, but Latin women seem to be in uber-femme role more than any other women. Doesn’t matter the time, the place or the situation. Something short, tight and revealing will be worn, regardless of height, weight or age. I’m in line and in front of me are a group of no less than eight Latinas, ranging in age from 5 to 50 and everybody over the age of five had been squeezed into something. Especially the few in the 15-20 year old range. Skin-tight, low-riding jeans and halter-tops just to go to the movies? On Easter Sunday no less. But I’m not going to pretend I didn’t like seeing it. Oh, no. I won’t tell that lie.

CHEAP, MUTHAFUCKIN’ BASTARDS ALL

Since you cheap-ass bastards still aren’t buying my monthly reviews in CMJ New Music Monthly, here’s last month’s:

There’s two types of movie bad: indie bad and mainstream bad. Of the two, indie bad is worse because at least mainstream bad is trying to appeal to you someway. Indie bad is just someone whacking off and charging you to watch under the guise of art. Robert Duvall has done mainstream bad, but with Assassination Tango, a film in which he wrote, directed and stars, he’s the epitome of indie bad. Essentially an excuse for Duvall to tango dance with his sullen-faced (i.e., ugly), one-third-his-age-girlfriend, Tango is about a hitman from Brooklyn who becomes caught up with dancing in Argentina while waiting for his target to show up. Name every way you can think of a movie to be bad and this movie hits it. The writing is abysmal, the acting subpar (Duvall just hams it up) and rush hour traffic is better directed. It didn’t help that Francis Ford Coppola produced, because that meant there was no one to save Duvall from indulging his worst possible instincts. “Non-actors improvising dialogue? That’s great, Bobby. Wish I’d done that in Godfather III.”

On the other hand, indie good is something special because you get a unique film experience. The Safety of Objects is indie good. Based on short stories by A. M. Homes, director and screenwriter, Rose Troche has created a rich tapestry of a film. In following the lives of various residents of a middle class California suburb over a 24-hour period, we find how their lives are all tied to a past tragedy and how it continues to affect them. Not exactly scintillating material, but headed by an all-star indie cast (Glenn Close, Dermot Mulroney, Patricia Clarkson, Timothy Olyphant and yes, Pacey himself, Joshua Jackson) it’s nonetheless compelling. Thankfully, there are doses of humor to ease some of the heavy drama (especially the storyline about the 12-year-old-boy dating a Barbie doll---who talks to him and kinda deflowers him).

LET BE WRITTEN, LET IT BE DONE

I love The Ten Commandments. I watch it every year on ABC. It’s on DVD and I could buy it, but it would never be as much fun. The hammy acting, the wooden dialogue the obvious sets…I love it all. One of my favorite parts is how the Egyptians constantly question how a god could leave his people in bondage. I wonder about that too. I mean, most people get pissed if the cable man is late. Imagine 3,000 years of fucking slavery. Who the fuck deserves worship and thanks after 3,000 years of neglect? I’m thinking of a response more along the lines of “So where the fuck have you been? Thought you omnipotent, omniscient and all that shit. These people worship fucking cats and we’ve been wiping their asses for 3,000 years. So I repeat: where the fuck have you been!?!” In retrospect is might have been better to not have a prophecy of deliverance, so maybe someone during that first---oh, I don’t know---century or so might have been encouraged to step up to the plate instead being told to wait. “Look, fellas, I’ve had it with this pyramid build shit from these cat-loving freaks. I’m gettin’ out. You coming?” “Oh, no. I’m going to wait for the deliverer.” “Suit yourself. If you ever make it to Great Neck look me up.”

I LOVE YOU MARTY; WHY MUST YOU LOVE ROMAN POLANSKI?

I love, love, love the new Martin Scorcese American Express commercial. I respect him more because he did his commercial in America, unlike all those other sorry bitches who do their commercials in Japan.

“ADVENTURE’S WAITING JUST AHEAD…..”

So the DVD collection grew by one very important step. The first 11 episodes of Speed Racer in the special deluxe rubber-tire package. It’s got everybody, Speed, Trixie, Spritle, Chim-Chim, Sparky, Inspector Detector and Pops (mom never had a name it seemed, and creepily looked just like Trixie). It’s also got the first appearance of Racer X (initially called The Masked Racer) not to mention the Mammoth Car and the Car Acrobatic Team. I remember getting up on Saturday mornings to see this and just dying whenever a two or three part episode would come on. Watching it now…it’s pretty bad. The animation is really crude and the stories and dialogue couldn’t be dumber. But I love it more now than ever. I even bought the 30th Anniversary Guide book a few years ago. A few tidbits: Peter Fernandez didn’t just adapt the Japanese TV show Mach Go-Go-Go into Speed Racer, he was also the voice of Speed and Racer X and wrote the lyrics to the theme song (the Japanese lyrics have really Japanese shit like “With unyielding spirit Goh Mifune drives the Mach 5”). The “G” on his shirt was for his name of Goh Mifune (now guess what the “M” on his helmet was for). The “M” on Trixe’s shirt was for her actual Japanese name of Michi. There are 52 episodes in total, so I’m both eagerly awaiting the rest and super-pissed they didn’t just release them all in on big set. In fact, the 12th episode is the classic “Race for Revenge” where you get the infamous line, “Mélange still races.” Not to mention the episodes where he fought a giant spider, turned the Mach 5 into a dirigible by attaching balloons to it, fought another Mach 5, got punched out by Racer X after discovering they were brothers and actually wore something other than the blue shirt and white pants (a red blazer, making him look more like Elvis than he normally did). They remade Speed Racer ten years ago and it sucked big dick, so we’ll just pretend it didn’t happen. There was another Japanese version in the late 90’s but that supposedly sucked as well. It’s a shame that Johnny Depp never portrayed him in a planned big-screen version, ‘cause he looked just like him. And believe it or not, now you can actually buy a street legal version of the Mach 5. Number one on my list of things to do once I marry rich.

4/14/2003

“I tell a woman that the face is my experience and the hands are my soul---anything to get those panties down.” --- Charles Bukowski

DON’T MAKE ME FUNNY; YOU WOULDN’T LIKE ME WHEN I’M FUNNY

Opening at number one is Anger Management and when will I stop watching Adam Sandler movies? I saw the first one, Billy Madison on cable and it was crap. I refused to see Happy Gilmore, but after much insistence from others who insisted it was funny, I gave it a shot and it actually was funny. This lead to me sitting through the crapfest that was Big Daddy. After that, I was sure to avoid Little Nicky, but somehow still stumbled into Mr. Deeds. Punch Drunk Love was an indie film he just happened to be in, but it sucked nonetheless (forget what you heard). Now two things made me place my head in the lion’s mouth of Anger Management: 1) neither he nor his crew of buddies wrote or directed this one; 2) Jack Nicholson wouldn’t just appear in any old crap would he? Oh, yes he would. In fact, he won his last Oscar for the overrated piece of mediocrity that was As Good As It Gets and was nominated for another (About Schmidt). Both of these were supposed to be comedies and neither was funny. I should have realized he wouldn’t know a comedy if it crawled up his ass and established its own country. It’s not an original idea: meek man meets secret nutcase who keeps getting him into trouble, only no one believes him. So you’d think they’d look back at other, better movies and learn from them (The In Laws, for one), but sadly, no. The premise that your anger management therapist is actually out of his mind is a funny one, but they do nothing with it. For ninety minutes we get hints that Nicholson is crazy, but nothing really outlandish or gut-busting (with the exception of starting a fight in a Buddhist monastery). And the celeb cameos are distracting in their uselessness. How can you put Jon McEnroe and Bobby Knight in a comedy about anger issues and it not be funny? Woody Harrelson, Heather Graham and Rudy Guliani all show up for no particular reason whatsoever.

HE MUST BE REALLY, REALLY FUNNY WHEN THEY’RE ALONE

Phone Booth is down to number two and Ron Eldard was originally the voice of the sniper in the film. Keifer Sutherland replaced him and neither he nor the studio will comment on it. Just how much do you have to fuck up to be replaced as a goddamn voice!?! I mean, it’s you alone in a studio. What kind of issues could you have? It’s easy money. Say the words, take the cash and go back to being that guy who has no business dating Juliana Margulies for as long as you have. Especially when her days were spent making out with George Clooney. It’s kind of the opposite of Jennifer Anniston’s job, where she had Brad Pitt at home, but spent her days with David Schwimmer (talk about acting).

THANK GOD I STILL HAVEN’T BEEN FORCED TO SEE IT

What A Girl Wants is down to number three and how long before Amanda Bynes is on the cover of Maxim in a bikini, greased up with her legs spread? Sorry, but she’s a kid star nearing that age where she wants to me be taken “more seriously as an actress” and for girls that means looking like a slut. For male stars it means your usual pussy stuff, where they try to look like hoods, so any day now expect to see her one-time costar, Frankie Muniz, in some ill-advised facial hair and leather jacket trying to talk tough “It’s Malcom in the Mis-shizzele, fool!”

NOT THAT LEON HAD ANY GREATER SUCCESS

Bringing Down the House is down to number four, followed by A Man Apart at number five and co-starring in this is Larenz Tate, once positioned to be the next young, Black leading man---until they installed that sign that reads “To be a Young, Black Leading Man, you must be this tall.” And both love jones and Dead Presidents tanked at the box office. Then along came Taye Diggs and the public said “This is the shortest at which we’ll accept a leading man. Sorry, dawg.”

MY HOMECOMING QUEEN WAS PIPER HOUSE AND YES,THAT’S HER PICTURE

Head of State is down to number six and Chris Rock, whose marriage has never been the ideal one, has been joking around about how he made this movie in order to avoid his wife and if he’d been single, he never would have made it. Ahem. To quote the great Cary Grant in The Bishop’s Wife, “I’m at my most serious when I’m joking.” Also in this movie is Robin Givens. Yes, Robin Givens. Apparently Rock owed her a favor from Boomerang, where he appeared for two seconds. Or maybe this was his way of getting her back for being a bitch during her two seconds of heat back in the 80’s. A “pity” acting job on a film where he’s the writer, director, producer and star. I mean, you don’t see Eddie Murphy giving her work. Then again, he actually fucked her, so what does he care? It’s only losers who didn’t get the girl that never forget them.

INSERT YOUR OWN FUNNY HEADLINE HERE

House of 1,000 Corpses opens at number seven and this movie has been done for about two years, but Rob Zombie’s refusal to cut it has caused not one, but two studios to walk away from it. Apparently, Zombie wouldn’t jump on the bandwagon and make a post-modern, hipster horror film, filled with irony and open quips on the fact that this is a horror movie. An admirable concept, but we know what paves the road to hell. And why the fuck is anyone releasing this film now? Hell, it’s been two years, you couldn’t wait another eight months and release it in October where it would have definitely pulled at least a $10M opening weekend around and on Halloween? Sigh. Where are the soulless corporate execs when you need them?

YOU COULD HAVE CALLED IT BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Chicago holds at number eight and now that she’s a twice nominated, unquestioned A-list star, I think we can deal with the fact that Renee Zellweger is not pretty and the thinner she gets, the more squinty and less attractive she becomes. Making her stand next to Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn’t help either.

MUCH TALENT DOING NOTHING

The Core is down to number nine and another waste of an all-star cast, Basic, closes out the top ten at number ten.

HOW MANY JOKES ABOUT FAILURE CAN WE MAKE USING THE TITLE?

Not breaking the top ten is Better Luck Tomorrow a movie about a bunch of middle-class high school kids in California who get into trouble because they’re bored. The twist? They’re all Asian. Yeah, it didn’t move me either. That’s why I couldn’t bring myself to see it. Normally, I’ll all about supporting my Asian brothers and sisters out to shatter stereotypes (Ming-Na aggressively fucking the hell out of Wesley Snipes in One Night Stand justifies that movie’s existence), but is this how you want to do it? Some sort of Mean Streets variation? If you want to break stereotypes, how about a movie about a bunch of hairy, well-hung Asian football players who dance well? Now that’s something new. Hell, I won’t go to see Black people act like criminals onscreen, so forgive me if I don’t have the energy to do it for anyone else. And again, if stereotypes are what you’re fighting, why a play on an old Chow Yun-Fat movie (A Better Tomorrow) for your title? Like all minorities, this movie has its instant haters, who didn’t want Asians depicted as a bunch of criminals, even middle-class high school ones. It’s nice to know every group is burdened by its own narrow-minded, self-appointed art police (we call ours “Bill Cosby”).

I DON’T WANT TO GET OFF ON A RANT HERE…

Dennis Miller had a new stand-up special on HBO this weekend called “Raw Feed” and if you liked the way he once ripped everyone equally, well hang on to those memories because now he’s just another right wing asshole. Granted, Dennis Miller hasn’t been funny in years and I stopped watching his show because it was twenty minutes of kissing ass and only ten minutes of the funny, but when it was funny, it was dead on and played no favorites. Now he says Bush makes him “respect the presidency again” and that he “admires” Dick Cheney. Excuse me, but am I the only person who remembers when he would rip these two a new asshole every week during the election? Now his entire stand-up is “liberal this” and “liberal that.” I knew 9-11 had fucked up Dennis Miller’s mind when he agreed with the idea of an American ID card, but unlike the rest of us, there’s been no healing of that initial raw wound. And he’s got no fucking excuse! He lives in California! The truth is, Dennis Miller finally woke up to the fact that he is a rich, White, middle-aged, Christian man and that anything that challenges the status quo (the way he used to) takes away from him. But he was always a bit of a self-congratulatory dickhead, so once the humor is gone, it’s no big loss. I’ll add him to my list with Janeane Garofalo and Dennis Leary of once-funny people who have just become less funny with every bad movie they made---and that’s a lot of bad movies.

BUT IT WAS ALL DOWNHILL AFTER MOTLEY CRUE’S BEHIND THE MUSIC ANYWAY

Alicia Keys “Songs in A Minor” is an Ultimate Album!?! Man, VH1 is just freaking desperate and sad these days. I have the album and let me tell you, the only track I really like is “Girlfriend” which was supposed to be the first single---until Alicia ripped off James Brown’s “A Man’s World” in “Fallin’” and we all had to spend a year listening to that. And “ Woman’s Worth” is just weak. The hour is more a “Behind The Music” as it hardly gets into the genesis of how an album is made. Over and over again we hear how “surprising” it is to hear such mature thoughts and music coming from one so young. Please. Every fucking new prodigy has an “old soul.” When are we going to meet the young, talented performer who’s just young? Do they exist? Not to mention they were no more interested in the other songs on the album than I am. She covers a Prince song (“How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore”) but no mention is made as to why or what Prince thought of it. And while an old boyfriend from high school is mentioned, no reference is made to the incredibly butch vibe she constantly gives off. I’ll believe this alleged boyfriend when I see him, ‘cause the first woman Justin Timberlake went to after his Britney break-up was Alicia and he walked away empty handed. Not a good sign, as I’m sure even Clive Davis was pushing for that little hook-up. I think if she were straight she would have done him on principle alone.4/7/03

“The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.” --- Bruce Lee

THERE’S SOME GUY WITH GLASSES IN THERE UNDRESSING

Opening at number one is Phone Booth, and we still haven’t answered the question “Is Colin Farrell a star yet?” He’s still not in my book. He’s yet to have a hit that’s squarely a result of him. Hell, he hasn’t been in a hit film yet. Daredevil barely broke even and he was hardly the star of it. I refused to give even ninety minutes of my life to this due to four little words: directed by Joel Schumacher. No more will this man torment me. Besides the premise is purely a writer’s conceit. The reality is, there are no phone booths anymore. And even if there were, no one could keep you in one. Hell, the movie ends the moment the sniper shoots the first guy as an example. That’s when you run out of the phone booth. End of movie. Enter Joel Schumacher. Also, the guy is a dick, so who really cares if he gets shot or not? Alfred Hitchcock always roped innocent people into his plots so the audience could have some empathy with the character. Just the facial hair on Colin Farrell alone makes me pray for his death. Will the chin pube look ever go away, or will the trademark of stupid hipsters be with us forever?

THIS IS HOW STRIPPERS AND PORN STARS ARE MADE

What A Girl Wants opens at number two and I’ve been threatened by my Geek Girls to being dragged to this. What did I ever do to them? I mean, aside from naming them “Geek Girls.” They’re going for Colin Firth, who apparently did this after being pitched, “We’ll film here in England and we’ll only shoot on sunny days.” Amanda Bynes is yet another child star that I knew nothing about until she appeared in a movie with Frankie Muniz (Big Fat Liar). Apparently she’s had her own show on Nickelodeon called “The Amanda Show” for a few years now. Given that’s owned by Viacom, which also owns Paramount, they must be a little pissed that she’s making movies for Warner Brothers. This is actually a remake of a movie called The Reluctant Debutante, which starred Rex Harrison, Angela Landsbury and Sandra Dee. In that film, the English father and his new wife bring his daughter to England to“bring her into society.” In this version, a modern, sordid 21st century twist is she’s now his bastard American daughter who tracks him down after her mother finally relents and tells her daughter who her father is. Okay, who let this fucked up idea through on a family film? First of all, a bastard child is your heroine. Wouldn’t more kids understand the divorced parents, as they were in the original? And what kind of woman doesn’t tell a man she’s had his child!?! For seventeen years! Forget their feelings, what kind of damage has she done to this little girl? Not to mention, most teenage girls who have grown up without fathers are too busy fulfilling their duties as school slut to be tracking anyone down. I’m anticipating one hour and forty minutes of nothing but pain.

APART FROM WHAT EXACTLY?

A Man Apart opens at number three and this has been sitting on the shelf for at least two year now, only getting a release date thanks to Vin Diesel’s new high profile. It was originally called “Diablo” and they should have stuck with that title as this one sounds like a CBS TV movie about some guy who comes out in middle age (“Bob seemed to have it all…wife, family, career, but now there’s a part of himself he can no longer deny and so he’s…A Man Apart.”). Now that’s a role I’d like to see Vin Diesel play, since he’s so desperate to prove he’s “an actor.” Sadly, this movie looked far too much like a boring drama than action film to me. I’ll sit through some stupid action, but stupid drama from a guy who should be shirtless and blowing shit up? No thanks. And what’s with the ugly, fake mustache and beard. Could it be that America’s new he-man can’t grow facial hair anymore than I can. Are we the only two Black guys who can’t? Yeah, he’s Black. Don’t think I’m ever going to let that go.

IT’S NOT G.F.; GENTLEMAN’S FUGLY

Head of State drops down to number four and once all the numbers have been counted, it’ll be interesting to see just how this pans out. Just remember: CB4 opened at number one as well. And what the fuck is Bernie Mac’s ugly ass doing on the cover of GQ? That’s not what I’m paying for.

BUT FOR STEVE, NOTHING

Bringing Down the House is down to number five, but still became the first movie to break $100M in 2003 and it did it within a month. I think Daredevil just barely crossed $100M and it’s been out for over two months now. The difference being this cost much, much less. Latifah’s next move? A spin-off of the Barbershop sequel called Beauty Shop. No, I’m not kidding. She’ll have a cameo in the sequel and then a movie to herself.

AN AX HANDLE WOULD WORK NICELY TOO

The Core drops to number six and adding to the wonderful cheese factor that is this film is the fact that 30 Seconds to Zero plays over the closing credits. Who is 30 Seconds to Zero you ask? Well, it happens to be a band fronted by none other than pretty boy, Jared Leto. It’s not a bad band. Not great, but not bad either. But the most prominent thing going for them is him---and he refuses to play up on it. Now, imagine you’re a full time musician. You’ve pissed off your parents, dropped out of college, and now deliver shit so you can follow your dream. You wind up in a not too bad band with some acting pretty boy and actually sign a record deal. Now, he can guarantee you a lot of free press if he would just trade in on his acting career, but he refuses to do that. How long before you take a baseball bat to him so he’s not so pretty anymore? I mean, what the fuck does he care if the album fails (and it did)? He’s got acting gigs by day and Cameron Diaz on his dick by night. You, you’re lucky if you’re banging the receptionist you met while out on deliveries that day.

IF NOTHING ELSE…

Basic is down to number seven and at $20M they may have just paid for John Travolta’s salary.

SOON ON CONTINUOUS LOOP IN YOUR FAVORITE CHELSEA BAR

Chicago begins its journey to a slumber party video favorite (and first indication to Bobby that he may not be like the other boys) by dropping down to number eight this week.

DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THE NINE “LAND BEFORE TIME” SEQUELS

Agent Cody Banks is down to number nine and yes, they have announced a sequel to this. But hey, announcing a sequel is free. Actually knocking one out is something else altogether, especially with this lackluster box office. Look for it to be a direct-to-video deal with a completely different star like the Dennis the Menace or Richie Rich sequels. Oh, you didn’t know there were sequels to those movies? Ask any kid under the age of 14. They’ll tell you.

THE END

Finally, Piglet’s Big Movie closes out the top ten at number ten.

WHAT NEXT? A DOCUMENTARY ON MY ASS?

Not breaking the top ten is Dys-Funk-tional Family, a documentary about Eddie Griffin and his family. Why, God, why? Why do anything that so much as hints this man is exceptional or, least of all, actually funny. He is neither. They use a Richard Pryor quote that he’s funny. Of course Pryor thinks he’s funny, all he does is recycle Pryor’s old act! And even then it’s the least funny bits. Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

INSERT YOUR OWN LAME PUN ON CHINESE FOOD HERE

I missed the first episode of Black Sash, starring America’s favorite, poorly aging, Asian pretty boy---no, not Dean Cain---Russell Wong, but I caught the second one, and boy does it suck. But I’m still glad Russell’s working. Best known to most of you as the abusive husband in The Joy Luck Club, or the guy who gets his spine compacted by Jet Li in Romeo Must Die, or even the star the syndicated TV show Vanishing Son (or as I liked to call it, Kung-Fugitive), Russell’s been around for awhile now. Hell, I remember when he and Kelly Hu were both on 21 Jump Street. Hopefully, this will be for him what Smallville is for John Schneider: a steady gig allowing for a dignified passing into middle age. But he looks bad. I mean, he can’t help the puffy eyes, but if I had my own TV, you know I’d lose my double chin. It’s on the WB, so you know it’s all about very attractive, yet very troubled teens, only this time they can seriously kick your ass. I have wonder what the budget for insurance is on this show, because one stunt goes wrong and you’ve lost a cast member for weeks, if not permanently. The exception to this rule is Brandy’s ugly-ass younger brother, Ray J. Why did the only Black member of the cast have to be ugly? On the show, Russell is an ex-cop just getting out of a Hong Kong prison after being framed, struggling to rebuild his life in San Francisco by taking over his master’s martial arts studio and helping wayward teens (who just all happen to be beautiful and possessing only 4% bodyfat---with the exception of ugly-ass Ray J). He’s also fighting his ex-wife to reconnect with his daughter, which means lots of warm and fuzzy kid scenes. Also in the cast as his master/father figure, is perennial Asian character actor, Mako. You know Mako, people. He fought Bruce Lee on the Green Hornet series, taught Jackie Chan in The Big Brawl, was the narrator/wizard in Conan the Barbarian, was Chuck Norris’s teacher in Eye For An Eye, was Jeff Speakman’s teacher in The Perfect Weapon, was the admiral of the Japanese fleet in Pearl Harbor and also does the voice for bad guy Aku on Samurai Jack. You know Mako. Oddly, Russell’s onscreen ex-wife is white, which does happen but is one of the rarest interracial couplings you’ll ever see onscreen. (the rarest? Black woman/Asian man--which I actually saw in the West Village one day, as a very attractive couple took their baby out for a walk). I guess having a total of four Asians on one show (Russell, Mako and the actress playing the daughter are the other three) would have been too much for the senses of middle America. I’ll watch it devotedly, the same way I watched Martial Law (until Arsenio Hall showed up), because there just aren’t enough TV shows where a nice sidekick is integral to the plot.

ENTER THE PRETENTIOUS DRAGON

Speaking of marital arts, in a doomed quest to trim my fat ass down, I took an introductory kung fu class at Bo Law kung fu, down below Canal Street. Now, let me be a geek and tell you there is no martial art called “kung fu.” Kung fu actually refers to the discipline it takes to get something done. Technically speaking, anyone who excels at disciplining themselves in order to accomplish something is a master of “kung fu.” The correct term is wu-shu, but that doesn’t sound nearly as tough. In fact, it sounds kinda wimpy. In any case, I should have paid attention to my instincts because they told me the super pretentious website was a clue that it wasn’t for me. Now, most websites give you information about the classes, times, cost, etc. Not at www.shaolinblacktiger.com. You get history, you get purpose, you get…nothing you’re really looking for. Not to mention the introductory lesson is $20. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the first one usually free in order to get you in there? That was my second warning. Third came once I actually walked in and was reminding immediately of why I left the martial arts. Bowing to every fucking thing in room. The shrine, the instructor, the coffee maker. Okay, not the coffeemaker, but you get the idea. I cannot stand all the bowing and scraping. I’m just too old to do it anymore. Give me all-American, jocularity any day. Now, all the martial arts come from religious orders, so you can’t escape some of the solemnity of it all, but these people were acting if they were on some mountaintop somewhere. In the changing room, not one word was exchanged by anyone. No, “Hey, how you doing?” Nothing. I was told before class no talking and no questions. That’s normal, but what isn’t normal is not having things explained while you’re doing it. I’ve never had an instructor in any martial art I’ve tried (and I’ve tried taekwondo, akido, judo and kendo) who did not feel the need to explain the purpose of every movement, even to the more advanced students. No one is perfect and everyone can get better. Not here. Just do the form. But it was a good workout. I’m amazed I once did any of it easily (especially that freaking horse stance), not to mention well. Once it was over and I was on my way out, I asked about a schedule to just to be polite and pretend I was interested. “Schedules are in house only. You tell us when you’re available,” I was told. What. The. Fuck. Now, once upon a time, martial arts were taught in secret and every sect was paranoid about another learning its techniques, but in New York City in 2003? Get a fucking life. And I hated the shirts you were supposed to wear. Red with the school’s name in gold lettering on them. See, I was told once that my gi (those white pajamas you always see) represented my soul, which is why I should keep it very clean. It’s also why I’ve always refused to put anyone’s name on it. I’m not putting “Master Fong’s School of Butt Kicking” on my soul and I pretty much feel the same way about anything you train in. I mean, what’s the point? You wouldn’t wear it on the street because it means instant fight, and what’s the point of wearing it in the school? To top it off, I was so wiped out, I forgot my boots when I left (you train in sneakers). When I called the next day, they told me they’d thrown them out because they didn’t know to whom they belonged. Again: what the fuck is wrong with you people!?! I was about to detonate and tell them this is why the Japanese had kicked the shit out of China for the last thousand years when I suddenly told, “Oh, wait. We still have them.” Needless to say, Bo Law kung fu will never see my Black ass again.

THE OPERATIVE WORD HERE IS “PUSSY”

So I actually took my lazy ass to the gym as well---and haven’t had one day without sore, aching muscles since. I admit, I overdid it a bit, but the gym gets a little intimidating. I’m used to being there late with few people around. This particular gym, however, has a healthy clientele even at 10:00 pm. Not to mention being in the Broadway area, so on a Monday night, when it’s dark, you’re getting your better-than-average-looking patron. This, of course screws with the mind of your pot-bellied middle age man. For example, I didn’t mean to run for two miles straight at increasing speeds, but an attractive woman got on the treadmill right next to mine and started running faster me. I had to kick it up or look like the pussy we all know I am. Then came the weight training and you can’t use a weight too small or else everyone will know you for the pussy you really are. Sigh. When are they just going to make a pill that tones you and keeps you that way, ‘cause I can’t see this getting easier as I get even older.

WAR IS TRULY HELL

Now, I haven’t mentioned the war mainly because it just depresses me too much. I was against it…until I saw the protesters and if you ever want me on your side for anything, just tell me some middle class white kid with dreadlocks is against you. I’ll join you immediately, no questions asked. And on what fucking planet does running around naked stop a war? That type of “protest” never ceases to piss me off. It’s so hard being on the left, it truly is. At least right-wingers are united by a love of power and money. Left-wingers are only united in their dislike of the left. It means including everyone from conservative Democrats (who will vote Republican if not carefully watched) to smelly anarchists, who have all the time in the world to protest and attend Legalize Pot rallies, but never seem to actually fucking vote (or bathe). I hate my people. I truly do. And am I the only person bothered by the fact that journalists are dropping left and right and not a single one of them is Geraldo Rivera! Remember that the next time you question my atheism. A family seeking safety is accidentally shot to death by our troops, but Geraldo reveals troop positions and leaves without a scratch on him. Couldn’t one soldier have been cleaning his weapon in Geraldo’s vicinity? A just God. Snort. You fuckers might as well be praying to the toaster.

Home