7/28/2003
“I dote on myself, there is a lot of me and all so luscious.” --- Walt Whitman
PLAYING PONG IS MORE ENTERTAINING
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, opens at number one and this will effectively bring any other ideas to make a 3-D movie to a swift end. Why? 3-D sucks. It always has. I can hold a computer in the palm of my hand and can take pictures with my phone, but apparently we still can’t make 3-D that works. And the worst part is you can’t just take off your glasses and watch the movie, because the 3-D effect makes that impossible. Not that it would have helped this movie much. Robert Rodriguez has always been an overrated talent. He’s like the less attractive Ed Burns. Both made a name for themselves by making a low-budget film that pretty much got by on its charm. Since then, they’ve both failed to live up to their promise, only surviving by making films so cheaply they don’t ever lose money. Rodriguez has been a little luckier, actually getting it right with the first Spy Kids movie, which was actually good. The second, however, was disappointing. It makes sense that he idolizes George Lucas. Lucas is someone else who can’t write worth a shit, but is in a position with a franchise that he doesn’t have to listen to anyone else. Rodriguez’s style is to throw everything he can think of onscreen and hope that it works. It usually comes out 50/50, which means it’s never all bad, but it is always inconsistent and usually a mess. This movie is no different. First of all, if you’re looking for Antonio Banderas, you can pretty much save some time by seeing another movie, then walking into this one in the last ten minutes. No, I’m not kidding. You literally do not see the man until then. Secondly, the much more charismatic girl is pretty much the Lone Ranger to her little brother’s Tonto; the Sherlock to his Watson, but the movie 90% this ugly little boy. And while the second film was very flawed it at least touched one the fact that the kids were growing older and changing. None of that here. As we all know, the kid’s film is usually the last resort of a falling star. It was the case for Antonio in the first and it’s the case for Stallone here. And he still sucks. A bad script with a bad actor is a bad combination. Also, while Stallone has comic timing, he only does it right in non-comedy films. Like so many other actors, he forgets that comedy only works when you play it straight.
EXPLAINS THAT WEIRD “OLD PERSON” SMELL IN THE THEATER
Holding at number two is Pirates of the Caribbean, and in case you’re wondering why the answer is old people. Yes, a pirate movie, not to mention a pirate movie based on a forty year old amusement ride that half the world has been through, is bringing out people who never go to movies any more. People who actually remember a guy called Errol Flynn when he was still alive (and humping everything that moved). You can tell, because they talk incessantly in the ticket line. Pointing out every little thing they see to each other. What is it about growing old that makes shutting the fuck up so difficult? Is it a mindset of “I’ve got some shit to say before I die” or what?
IT COULD BE WORSE; YOU COULD BE VIVICA FOX
Bad Boys II is down to number three and Gabrielle Union is making her bid to become the go-to-Black girl in Hollywood, a spot left open when Halle Berry went total A-list and wouldn’t be caught dead in a movie with Jamie Foxx or a rapper. She’s definitely been working hard. In this year alone, it’s been this, Deliver Us From Eva and Cradle 2 The Grave. Of course she has yet to carry a film, which is the true test of ever wannabe star. Even in Bad Boys II, she’s the “macguffin,” the object that motivates Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as her lover and brother, respectively. I don’t think she’s going to make it and will soon be on a family sitcom as some Black comedian’s wife. Sorry, but despite all her appearances, she’s still best known to the average person as “the Black cheerleader from Bring It On.” Sorry, but she’s just kinda bland. It’s not a crime, but she doesn’t stand out either. Besides, she’s only been able to do so much because Nia Long took time off to have a baby. Otherwise all those roles would have probably been hers (and in the future will probably go to Joy Bryant from Antwone Fisher). Good luck on the UPN, Gabrielle.
RAIDERS OF A BETTER MOVIE
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life opens very poorly at number four, coming in behind two sequels and a movie based on a theme park ride. Damn, where are the geeks? Shouldn’t they be in the theater with computers places strategically over their laps so they can “maximize” their enjoyment of this film? Or did the reduction in the size of Lara’s breasts take all the fantasy fun out of it? The first film sucked and sucked hard. Forget logic; forget its total lack of humor. It was boring as hell. The capital crime in filmmaking, much less dumb summer fun filmmaking. This is a better movie but it still sucks. Finally they remembered the character of Lara Croft was simply a rip-off of Indiana Jones and they rip-off the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I mean rip-the-fuck-off. You’ll see similar dialogue and situations all throughout the film. And it’s still not that good. Jan de Bont started out as a cameraman and cinematographer under James Cameron and Richard Donner and later directed Speed and Twister, so you’d think he could do something with an action film, but he’s proving that maybe those were flukes and Speed 2 and The Haunting are more what he’s really all about. Aside from its total lack of humor about itself (all three Indiana Jones films are filled with it) it’s also oddly…clean. I mean, you never get the feeling this is a rough and tumble adventurer. Case in point: Lara Croft and a guy who is supposed to be her roguish ex-lover are riding motorcycles along mountain paths in China, but when they stop, there’s not a speck of fucking dirt on them. But why should there be? I mean, it’s not them anyway, but stuntmen. This leads us to the film’s other major problem: the constant cutting kills the flow of any action scene. And you have to cut because Angelina can’t do half her stunts, unless they’re reeeeeaaallllly slow. But she does have a reeeeeealllly pretty face. Too bad she’s crazy.
HORSE FEATHERS
Seabiscuit opens at number five, which is pretty good considering it’s in less than 2,000 theaters. This is the type of film that comes in under the heading “Will Suck Dick For Oscar.” Yep, the first Academy-blowing film of the year has arrived and it’s just as obviously and heavy-handed as you imagine. Jesus, can we get a moratorium on films that depict the past in these incredibly rosy hues, where everyone was fucking decent and good-hearted? . They even make the border towns of Mexico filled with liquor, gambling and hookers seem wholesome. I realize we’re telling a true American Fairy Tale here, but what makes these stories work are the flaws, not the virtues. In fact, it’s the flaws that make the virtues stand out. Like most people, my primary knowledge of Seabiscuit came from Warner Brothers cartoon, where it was used in many, many jokes. Then, of course, came the best-selling book of last year that filled in all the blanks (I didn’t read it, but I never read anything, much less a book about a horse). I can only hope it shaded the characters better than this. With two hours and twenty minutes you’d think you would get a little more in depth, but you don’t. You can’t. You’ve got to have PBS documentary moments actually narrated by David McCullough, with shots of black & white photographs from the 20’s. I would imagine the people who read the book, who made it such a success that this movie was made, would know better, so who is this candy-coated bullshit for? Then I see that the producers are two of Spielberg’s people and it all becomes crystal clear. Also, every actor plays a role they’ve patented. Jeff Bridges recycles his Tucker role, Chris Cooper does the simple, decent man of the earth thing he could do in his sleep and a massive step backwards from the great character he played in Adaptation. And if Tobey Maguire is doing anything more than his sensitive young man routine, I missed it.
CHICKS WITH GUNS BETTER THAN PORN
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is down to number four and I have to admit, I liked this enough to want at least one more to wrap it all up and give me the final battle between man and machine that set all this in motion. I know, I know, “What’s the point? We know how it ends.” Well, we’ve always known how it ends. The Terminator never wins, John Connor always survived. It’s the journey, not the destination and so far all the journeys have been fun at the very least. But the next one needs to return to the butt-kicking female. Once you raise the bar like Linda Hamilton did with the last movie, you can’t go back. One scene with Claire Danes and an uzi does not a wet dream make.
ETC.
The League of the Extraordinary Gentleman is down to number seven, followed by Johnny English at number eight and Finding Nemo at number nine.
NOT A STARLET, YET NOT A SUPERSTAR
Finally, closing out the top ten at number ten is Legally Blonde 2: Red White & Blonde and it’s official: Miss Witherspoon ain’t joining the $20M this week. She joins Cameron Diaz, who should be out of it now, what with Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle falling completely out of the top ten. Not to mention she and her husband have now moved to London to “get away from it all.” Well, honey, if by “it” you mean the type of success that actually allows you to get up and move to the most fashionable neighborhood in London, well, yeah, you’ve done that.
I LOVE MUSIC. I DO. I SWEAR.
I mentioned how happy I was that Fountains of Wayne finally had a new album a few weeks ago and repeated listenings have only made me love it more. My favorite song after the very first play was “Stacey’s Mom.” Well, I wasn’t the only one because it’s the first song off the album to get a video with Rachel Hunter (the eventual ex-Mrs. Rod Stewart) as Stacey’s Mom. The video is funny, but mildly disturbing because “Stacey” herself is also prouncing around in a slightly sexualized manner. Not something I want to see in a 13-year-old girl (if I wanted that, I’d go to the Puerto Rican Day Parade). But the highlight is definitely the homage to Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Yep, that scene. Red bikini and all. The funny part is I’ve never found Rachel Hunter even remotely attractive---until now. Behold the power of really good pop music. And as long as we’re on music, let’s talk about what I hate. I hate that fucking Black Eyed Peas song “Where Is the Love?” Where are the lyrics? Stupid lines like “whatever happened to the values of humanity?” annoy the shit out of me because they cling to that bullshit Seabiscuit view of the past. On what planet was there a time when everyone loved each other and treated each other justly? I’m pretty sure your average peasant in the middle ages would give his left nut to live in our world where childbirth has a better than 50/50 survival rate. As well as all those born before penicillin and the Polio vaccine. Not to mention if you go before 1955, every single member of The Black Eyed Peas is now drinking out of the “colored only” water fountain. Lines like that are either stupid songwriting or lazy songwriting. In this case I’m thinking both…and is anyone else as shocked as I am that Ashanti didn’t crash and burn without some rapper to support her? She joins Nelly as someone you thought would disappear, but still around two years later…that damn “Uh-oh” song needs to have every copy confiscated and buried in a landfill in New Jersey. I’m not kidding. Put Jason Mraz and “The Remedy” in with it…my hatred of Matchbox 20 burns like a thousand suns, but they won’t go away either. Hootie finally died (did you notice their album came and went without a trace), but this loser and his “Malcolm McDowell ’74” look continues to plague me. Along with fucking Train. Somewhere there’s a lame bar missing a lame band…speaking of unnoticed album releases, Third Eye Blind had one come and go as well. Must really annoy the lead singer because his middle aged ass is now dating 21-year-old Michelle Branch and her bad song “Are You Happy Now” which is about her ex-boyfriend, is a hit. Unless they broke up and the song is about him, which is ever more cruel and therefore funnier and I actually like Third Eye Blind…the only reason I’m giving Uncle Kracker a break on his soul-free cover of “Drift Away” is that he brings Dobie Gray on to sing with him…Mary J. Blige looks amazing in her new video, but she needs to stop talking about how there’s no more drama in her life. Okay, I get it…Mariah Carey shows her Long Island roots by doing a horrible cover of Def Leppard’s “Bringing on The Heartbreak” Is this why she can’t stop dressing like a fucking teenager? She still thinks she’s one?…speaking of Tommy Mottola’s bounty, that creepy bastard got his cradle-robbing right with Thalia. I’d never seen her before the video with Fat Joe and she’s a damn sight better looking that Mariah Carey and her two-dimensional face and body. According to a friend of mine, Thalia’s been big in Latin music for years and it’s no secret that she had ribs removed to get that narrow waist. Don’t know if I believe that, but if she did, she’s a walking argument for the procedure. But that didn’t give her a pretty face or a nice ass. The song? Well, it doesn’t annoy me. That’s the best I can do…Coldplay with another dreary English pop song with a dreary video about a guy walking away from his dead girlfriend’s body after a traffic accident. Wonderful.
THE WHY
There’s no real reason for that photo, but you never really need a reason to show Cary Grant, much less Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock.
7/14/2003
“I am living so far above my means we can be said to be living apart.” --- e.e. cummings
WORSE BOYS
Bad Boys opens at number one and this is one bloated mess. There is no reason on god’s green earth this needed to be two-and-a-half hours long. None. The whole “bickering but we love each other” thing wasn’t funny in the first film, and stretched out it’s even less funny. The only even remotely funny scene is when Martin Lawrence’s daughter has a date and he and Will Smith terrorize the boy. Will Smith comes out with a half bottle of wine and sleepy eyes looking and sound like far too many of my relatives at family functions who badgered me with a thousand questions. Directed by Satan himself, Michael Bay, it obviously looks good and the action scenes are nice, but there’s an addition of gore that’s part of some sort of Saving Private Ryan fallout that doesn’t allow for a death that’s not depicted as realistically as possible, with blood and brain matter everywhere. There’s even a slow motion shot of a bullet leaving the chamber, ripping through Martin Lawrence’s ass and into the neck of a bad guy. Um, why? As is the plot was somehow important, it’s about a Cuban drug dealer who uses bodies to smuggle drugs. This allows for no less than two revolting scenes involving corpses, which are both, played for laughs. I’m sorry. How is running over a corpse in a car chase funny? And this has the fourth big car chase of the summer (The Matrix Reloaded, 2 Fast 2 Furious and Terminator 3 were the first three) and it’s the least interesting due to the constant use of computer-generated effects. Come on people, dinosaurs and robots you can fake because we have no idea what they look like, but I know what a fucking car looks like, so when you fake it it’s pretty damn obvious. The first film was a guilty pleasure of mine with a few nice actions sequences thrown around an incredibly stupid plot (Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have to pretend to be each other) with the surprise pleasure of Tea Leoni’s amazingly toned legs. Tea’s not back for this one, but you do get Gabrielle Union in a bikini. And if there’s something sexier than a beautiful woman efficiently using firearms, I haven’t seen it. I actually bought the first one on DVD. This will not enter my house under any circumstances.
SATAN TAKES A BRIDE
Pirates of the Caribbean is down to number two giving the evil Jerry Bruckheimer two films in the top ten this week and literally 80% of the box office in America. Sigh. Just remember, people: shit floats. Keira Knightley is the official “It Girl” of the moment (on the cover of Elle this month with just one Hollywood film under her belt) and Winona Ryder is officially on notice, as is Natalie Portman, because this girl can fill both their roles with a nice English accent. Granted, she ain’t got the Winona breasts, but she also doesn’t have the klepto tendencies or drug problem. Not to mention being taller and a full decade younger. Look forward to her never being with a guy even remotely close to her age for the next few years. I like to call it “The Audrey Hepburn Syndrome” where every hot new starlet is passed around my older leading men like the only cold beer on a hot summer’s day. This is why I can’t watch Audrey Hepburn movies. She’s forever kissing on some fossil. Even Cary Grant was too damn old for her in Charade and he knew it and had the script changed so that she pursued him, which was only slightly less disgusting than the opposite. He’s not your daddy, ladies, and he can’t give you the love that daddy withheld. Next she’s playing fucking Guinivere to Clive Owen’s King Arthur and Iaon “Horatio Hornblower” Gruffudd’s Lancelot in the movie “King Arthur” also produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (which means that it will suck, suck, suck). So, what are the odds he’s got a thing for her and will eventually leave his latest trophy wife for her. After all, this woman must be pushing thirty by now. And if you missed Mrs. Bruckheimer’s interview in Allure a few years back where she tried to defend how she wasn’t a trophy wife when all she did was work out all day and buy things for the house, then you missed the human comedy at its finest.
MAYBE HE TURNED DOWN X-MEN AS WELL
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is down to number three and in the comic book Mina Harker, former victim of Dracula, is the leader of the League. Before you bemoan the loss of a feminist role model in the movie version, note that in the comic, she and Allan Quartermain (Sean Connery) wind up as lovers, where she asks him to bite her during sex. You know, I knew a girl in college who liked…never mind. Sean Connery says he took this because he turned down The Matrix and Lord of the Rings. All he needs now is to tell us he also turned down Harry Potter to complete the hat trick. How ironic is it that he started off the most successful franchise ever, but has blown two of the greatest since then?
VEDDY, VEDDY UNFUNNY
Johnny English opens at number four and am I the only person who finds Rowan Atkinson, along with most English comedians, un-fucking-funny? I mean, it pretty much begins and ends with Monty Python for those people (not counting the rare romantic comedy). I find their humor corny, stupid and worst of all, obvious. If you see someone eating a banana, there’s going to be a slip on a banana peel joke coming that’s going to be very long and very unfunny. I found Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson’s most successful creation (Black Adder was funnier but that’s the exception that proves the rule) excruciating in the way I found Inspector Clouseau. A dumb guy doing pratfalls? Are you fucking kidding me? Now he’s doing a variation of that character as James Bond and it looks like the same crap. It’s been a huge hit in England. Once again, understand why America runs the world.
HUMANS ARE STUPID
Terminator 3 is down to number three and why are people having such a problem with this? In each film it’s obviously a different Terminator, so what’s the confusion. No one ever confused the Terminator of the first one with the Terminator of the second. Are we really getting dumber? Also, I always thought that the “2” in Terminator 2 referred to the new machine more that the movie, the same way “3” here refers to this mediocre looking broad they get to play her. She won’t even have Robert Patrick’s career after this is over.
SHE’S SOOOOOO ANNOYING
How To Deal opens at number eight and I can’t deny that Mandy Moore is much more attractive with short, dark hair than she ever was with long, blonde hair, it’s still not enough to move me. In fact, the guy who’s in the poster with her, is almost prettier than she is. Also, Mandy Moore annoys me with her fucking earnestness in every single statement she makes. Not to mention she’s one of those girls who just fucking lives to have a boyfriend. She’s soooo in love with him. Squeal! Give me a fucking break, sweetheart. He’s not your first (Fez from That 70’s Show was actually here first), he won’t be your last. You’re not even in love with him. It’s infatuation. Hell, as a tennis player on tour, you probably never see him anyway.
AND LET’S NOT FORGET HER “APPEARANCE” ON LETTERMAN
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is down to number nine and what’s up with Drew Barrymore not showing us her goods? All this bullshit about looking good in high heels while kicking ass seemingly doesn’t apply to her, as she spends most of movie in the most shapeless clothing possible. This from a woman who posed in Playboy. Unless she’s full of shit and thinks you’re only pretty when you look like a fucking man (like Cameron Diaz and Demi Moore) she needs to show some skin. Then again maybe she’s learned the hard way there’s a reason you wear a bra, and her years of not have caught up her (the way they’re going to catch up to Kirstin Dunst). And she “revealed” this week that she’s bisexual. Gee. Shocker. Yawn.
FOR ALL OF YOU WHO WANT JACK OF “WILL & GRACE” TO HAVE HIS OWN SHOW
I caught the second episode of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy and it is actually a very funny show, but my theory holds true. It’s all about gays playing with straight guys like big Ken dolls. You cold have women do this show, but they wouldn’t be nearly as bitchy, which means they wouldn’t be nearly as funny. The would have made this grubby artist guy do all the things that the guys do (cut that nasty hair, clean that nasty apartment, get rid of those nasty clothes), but only gay men would get his eyebrows lightened! Also, they would hardly touch him as much. I swear, it was a grope-a-thon on this show. They would touch this guy at every given opportunity. When they finally left him, you could see him sigh in relief. The blonde guy is the super-bitch, so he’s the most entertaining (at one point he quips, “Everyone loves a pearl necklace,” but no one gets it), but he’s not to be trusted. Contrasting denim? I don’t think so. And anytime people are forever telling you how great you look “now,” what they’re really saying is how shitty you looked before and they say it a lot on this show. Actually they never stop saying it. The problem is, women and men look for different things in men. Men like the pretty, period. Straight or gay, we like the pretty above all. Women, however, are weird. They like the pretty, but they also like men who would never get laid if they were gay. Ever. Gay men also tend to like style even in the face of all common sense (as demonstrated numerous times throughout the episode). But my favorite part has to be when they send their creation out into the world and give commentary while people react to what they’ve done. The women were fairly shameless in regards to what was only a cosmetic difference. In other words, you could hear the sounds of panties dropping for miles and don’t think our queer Dr. Frankenstein’s didn’t revel in it.
FASHION CRIMES AGAINST THE STATE
I’m going to have to call for an end to the terry cloth and/or crushed velvet warm-up suit. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. They are fucking everywhere. Granted, if you’ve got the body for it, it works. But only in a reeeeeeally slutty way. And if you don’t have the body for it, like 99% of the women wearing it, it’s just sad. Not to mention disgusting. See, they’re designed to be, not just form-fitting, but crotch-dusting, low-riders. Like the midriff shirt, it’s only meant for the young and the fit. The rest of you need to cover the fuck up.
‘JENNY, I GOT YOUR NUMBER/I NEED TO MAKE YOU MINE…”
Huge, personal mistake. Bought a brand-new computer I didn’t necessarily need, but the design limitations of the previous one was killing. The Lombard powerbook I bought last year had a design flaw in the daughtercard, which prevented memory upgrade. Apple denied it, but would quietly repair it if you bitched enough. If you didn’t bitch enough, you paid $300 for the repair. Given that it was six years old and I bought it on ebay, I couldn’t very well plead “warranty” and the person I spoke to at Apple made sure mention that the warranty would have expired anyway. Yes, despite their people friendly image, Apple is as nasty as Microsoft. The only difference is you know Bill Gates is trying to fuck you. Why is this still a fucking? Well, if GM discovered they sent faulty part into the world, they’d recall and replace it free of charge. Apple sends a faulty computer into the world and they say “Fuck you if you don’t discover it within warranty time.” And the problem was I couldn’t use Apple’s new operating system properly unless I upgraded my memory. I was actually online looking for a cheap daughtercard to install myself (as a geek, I can do that) when I stumbled across their ultimate evil: buy new powerbook now, pay later. This is how I wound up getting a brand new G4 Ti Titanium powerbook and only owing Apple $2000 for the honor. Oh, yeah, and there’s some reeeaaaaaly nasty interest on that. In retrospect, I probably should have gone to My Arizona Problem and gotten her academic discount at the very least, but I was pissed and not thinking clearly. So now I have a powerbook so pretty, I literally wash my hands before I even touch it. No, I’m not kidding. This is my girlfriend now. She gets all my time and obviously all my money. I must buy her things to keep her happy (like a new scanner, because the old one is now incompatible with it). Because of this, I’ll give her the name that’s haunted me since I was 11 years old: Jennifer. Jennifer finds it origins in Guinivere, and as she destroyed Arthur she will also destroy me. The very first person I told was Bad Influence who reveled in it. In fact, he lamented not being able to go with me to pick it up. That’s the extent of his evil. Forget my eventual fate in debtor’s prison. I turned to others to admonish me the way I deserved. Only Movie Buddy ’98 promised to beat me within an inch of my life for doing so. The French Woman, who is my MacGoddess, who gave me my first computer and set me on the path, only disparaged me briefly before suggesting, “Hey, a new ipod would look nice with that machine.” Married New Jersey Husband, who would be pure geek if not for being six feet tall, blonde and pretty, told me too late not to do it before adding, “Damn. That machine is sweet.” These are my friends, people. Is it any wonder I’m in so much trouble. I suffer buyer’s remorse for virtually anything I buy, so this has me in agony. Anything in my apartment that isn’t nailed is now on ebay. The old computer and all the things associated with it that are now rendered obsolete by the new one are for sale. Hopefully, this will take the sting out of it all…but I doubt it.
I HALF EXPECTED TO SEE PIKACHU SHOW UP
The new Teen Titans animated series sucks. Sorry, but it’s just too cutesy Japanese anime (even the theme song is like that). I understand that this is where the money is made for Cartoon Network these days (half their line-up seems to be Japanese animation) but this shit instantly alienates the old geeks---the people who can really afford all that fucking merchandising. And if you’re making a kid’s show, why is it on at 9pm on a Saturday night? Not to mention there’s a new Teen Titans comic book (which sucks as well) and looks nothing like this show. The line-up they’re using is from the Teen Titans that existed when I was a kid (though missing the more recognizable characters of Wonder Girl, Kid Flash and Aqualad), so this fucking concept is almost 20 years old. It makes sense in an odd sort of way because the Teen Titans of the 80’s was a blatant attempt to cash in on the success of The X-Men. This is an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of the X-Men: Evolution series, which was modestly successful, and in reruns on the Cartoon Network, I see it was better than I gave it credit for (the appearance Captain America was all I really needed).
THATSA SPICY MEATBALL
The Restaurant premiered and what are they going to do when Rocco finally realizes he’s gay? Sorry, but the way he was standing at his family’s dinner table and talking just gave me that vibe. Well, that and the little candy-coral necklace. Then again, he dresses for shit (they should do a crossover with Queer Eye For the Straight Guy), so maybe he’s just a sensitive, creative chef. One thing I do really like about this show---aside from its lack of traditional reality show cannibalism---is that it makes New York City look great. Right now, some poor kid in East Buttfuck, U.S.A. is watching this and thinking, “I’d love to live there.” Well, kid, that’s called editing, because while beautiful, by that footage you wouldn’t know that it was like Seattle here up until mid-June, it was raining so damn much. Of course there are things that are obviously set up, why else would people strangely be miked up before being told they were hired? And could you hire a better-looking group of people? Even the ugly people seem photogenic. I love how the cliques were starting almost immediately. The kitchen staff was looking down on the pretty waitstaff and the bitchiness within the waitstaff starts. I love it! And you know a show is involving when you start yelling at the screen. I was screaming at the TV when this guy drank the wine-tasting spitbucket. I never scream at the TV. Ever. But that got to me.
SAD IN THE CITY IS MORE LIKE IT
Also on the reality front is Single in the City 2, the “real-life” Sex & The City. I watched one episode last year and found it incredibly pathetic and this year is no different. First of all, these women are hardly beautiful. Secondly, they have no fucking sense when it comes to men. One woman has a guy, who’s not just more attractive than she is, but is leaving to go into the Army for the next six months and she doesn’t sleep with him! Hello!?! Girlfriend, that’s exactly what you want! A good-looking person you can fuck and never see again! What’s more perfect than that? This is why men run the world, gay or straight. We understand this. Then we have the most attractive woman on the show flat out stating that she’s not going home alone from her birthday party. The number one guy on her list is a middle-aged guy with a lousy body, thinning hair and he gives her a shitty gift. Number two is her loser friend who should be gay if he weren’t so fucking ugly. So, so sad. Then there’s the girl who waits an hour for a model who’s not that good looking either. I won’t even get into this trio of blonde skanks who could easily be mistaken for men in drag. I swear, if I didn’t have standards, my pants would never be on because these women will put up with anything.
7/07/2003
“The aim of education is the wise use of leisure.” --- Aristotle JUMPING JACK SPARROW Pirates of the Caribbean opens at number one to no small amount of surprise. First of all, it’s a pirate movie, which died with Errol Flynn. Second, it’s another movie based on a fucking Disney ride, which makes it defacto Satan’s work and an anathema to all decent humans. But it’s not that bad. The surprise of the summer is that the cheesy movies you’re supposed to hate (this, Terminator 3) are the ones which are the most fun, while the ones that want you take them seriously (The Matrix Reloaded, The Hulk, X2) verge on boredom when special effects are not in evidence. What makes this film work is Johnny Depp, who may be in bad movies, but is rarely ever bad himself. Here he’s the pirate Jack Sparrow, which he based partially on Keith Richards and it’s very obvious, not to mention damn funny. At any moment you expect him to whip out a guitar (or some heroin). They try to make him look skanky, but you can’t hide that kind of pretty. If anything, the eyeliner just adds to it. Competing with Johnny Depp in the pretty man contest is Orlando Bloom, better known as the blonde elf archer in Lord of the Rings (I don’t know his name, because unlike most Tolkien fans, I’ve actually had sex). This forces the leading lady, Keira Knightley, to come in third in the running and she’s damn pretty. She looks like the love child of Natalie Portman and Winona Ryder (I know what you’re thinking and ewww). But at over two hour, it’s a little too long. During the climatic battle, I found myself wishing they’d just get on with it and I like swordfights. Come to think of it, there weren’t enough of them in this movie. A.K.A., SUPER-LITERARY-CLASSIC FRIENDS The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen opens at number two letting you know the lion is truly in winter when Sean Connery can’t beat Johnny Depp at the box office. It didn’t help that it had one of the worst ad campaigns in recent memory. I mean, did you know the movie was about a bunch of classic literary characters teaming up like the Justice League? It’s The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde; Dorian Gray, Captain Nemo, Tom Sawyer, Alan Quartermain and Mina Harker (best known as the role Winona Ryder played in Dracula a few years ago) teaming up to fight evil. This is based on a comic book by Alan Moore, who also wrote the comic book that From Hell was based upon. While a good writer, I personally don’t care for Alan Moore because he needs his heroes to have incredibly severe and perverse flaws. For example: in the comic book Alan Quartermain has an opium addiction. Also, if you know the original “Invisible Man” story, you know that he was crazy, a murderer and dies in the end. In the movie they create a new Invisible Man who’s more rogue than evil, but in the comic it’s the original Invisible Man who is given to rape (he actually rapes the character of Pollyanna in one issue) and is eventually raped himself by Mr. Hyde. Yeah, dontcha wanna rush right out and get that? Alan Moore was also planning a comic book where the son of Superman and Wonder Woman was a murdering sexual pervert. In the comic book the villain was Fu Manchu. They only called him “The Doctor” to avoid being sued, but apparently that was still too close for the lawyers at Fox, who eliminate the character entirely for a new villain (who is also literary based). On the other hand, they have no problem using Tom Sawyer, but never really calling him that for the same reason (the Clemens estate is alive and well and have lawyers). I know. It makes no sense to me either. Other characters lost from the comic are Sherlock Holmes’ brother (the stories take place during the period when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had killed the character off only to bring him back later) and Campion Bond (one hint: it’s fitting that he would be in a movie with Sean Connery). The movie tries to import some relevancy by having the league out to avoid a “world war” and an “arms race” but it doesn’t work. This movie is about cheese and on that level it works. Unfortunately, the director apparently thinks we all suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, Goddamnit, if you have a 73-year-old leading man who can’t do stunts, don’t give him any! Don’t chop up the film to hid stuntmen! Though purists hate that Tom Sawyer was added, there’s a nice father/son relationship that develops between him and Connery’s Quartermain. My favorite character had to be the totally amoral Dorian Gray, played by Stuart Townsend, who amused me with pretty much the same decadent aristocratic performance in Queen of the Damned. It seems he’s doomed to big cheesy movies that will only be truly enjoyed years down the road at 2:00am with some chips and root beer. PUT THE MONEY WHERE THE STUNTS ARE Terminator 3 is down to number three and I can’t believe this piece of crap cost $170M. Don’t get me wrong. I did enjoy it, but in the way I enjoy a bag of Fritos, but I have a problem paying more than ninety-nine cents for them because they don’t taste better than that. In Terminator 2 you saw every dime on the screen. You saw a helicopter chasing a truck down the highway. You saw a building go up. You saw an 18-wheeler flip over. It was an expensive movie, but you saw exactly why. You don’t see why in this movie. Yes, there’s a big chase down a street that they built, but here was also one in The Matrix Reloaded and it was a helluva lot better and if you told me that movie cost $170M (actually it cost about $150M) I’d understand. YOU WANNA BE A STAR OR AN ACTRESS, BABY? Legally Blonde 2 is down to number four and Reese Witherspoon’s entry into the $20M club was a bit premature. This thing cost $50M ($15M to her alone) and is not going to do nearly the business of the first one. She’s going to have to realize she’s in Julia Roberts’s territory now and JRo does not do sequels. She just makes new bad movies where she acts the way the moronic viewing public wants her to act. In the case of Reese Witherspoon, that means new bad movies where she’s cute, spunky and blonde. No villains, no supporting roles and no dramas. Just crappy suspense movies and romantic comedies. It’s in the Superstar Handbook, sweetie. On page 1. AND YOU KNOW THERE’S GONNA THOSE GREAT OUTTAKES Finding Nemo is down to number five and may be on its way to being the biggest grossing animated film ever. Why? Because unlike every other film on this list, it’s a movie that you want to see more than once and many people have. I’m personally counting the days until I can have my DVD to watch over and over and over again. Okay, I’ll buy League of Extraordinary Gentlemen too, but that’s only because I’m a geek and the Campion Bond footage was allegedly shot and will turn up there. I MEAN, IT’S NOT LIKE THEY MADE A REALLY CRAPPY MOVIE OR ANYTHING Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is down to number six and the finger pointing has begun. First, they tried to tactic of “we don’t care about money; we didn’t do this film for the money.” Yeah, right. That’s why Cameron Diaz got $20M; she’s giving it to orphans. Now, they’re trying the time-honored tactic used by teams of children the world over: blame the new guy. Yes, Drew, Cameron and Lucy are not too subtly insinuating that it’s Demi Moore’s fault that the film is tanking. They’re blaming her opening night entrance with Ashton Kutcher and Bruce Willis for taking attention away from the film. Please. That’s called free fucking publicity. They’re also blaming her for not doing enough to promote the film. How does one person, who is literally only in the film for half an hour, not doing promotion counter the media assault the other three staged? It’s so fucking sad, but the fun part is, this is the last step before they turn on each other. Now that I’d pay to see. AND SHE STILL LOOKS LIKE A PRETTY FISH Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is down to number seven and when was the last time Michelle Pfeiffer carried a film? Dangerous Minds in 1995. Since then it’s been flops and one hit with Harrison Ford three years ago. And I loved White Oleander, but it was not a hit and she was denied an Oscar nomination for her performance (as was virtually every other woman in that film). And my love does not an A-list star make. If it did, Bridget Fonda would be in Julia Roberts’ place right now. AND DARTH VADER IS LUKE’S FATHER! 28 Days Later is down to number eight and because I’m curious I went to www.moviepooper.com and found out the ending. Hmmm. Interesting. But still, I’ll never see it. THE ORIGINAL IS ALWAYS BETTER The Hulk is down to number nine and in the cruelest of ironies, the original basis for The Hulk, Mr. Hyde, is depicted much better in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen than The Hulk is in his own film. One big difference: they combine CGI with an actual actor in makeup. Much much, better. Not to mention, it ties you to the character more. Also, Ang Lee did all the motions for The Hulk that they used to animate. Why? Why not the actor? That makes no fucking sense at all. If the actor did it you would have some common physical motion aspects as well. Well, unless overseas comes through, this will be a flop and will hopefully put a chill to future comic book movies by directors who just take it too fucking seriously. Hell, X-Men had fucking Holocaust allegories, but still found room for jokes. I think a movie about an extended Oedipal complex might have. IT WAS A GOOD RUN Finally, The Italian Job closes out the top ten at number ten and while it didn’t do gangbusters, it did, however, show some legs. Finding Nemo is the only other film on this list released 7 weeks ago. Hollywood Homicide anyone? 2 Fast 2 Furious anybody? Alex & Emma, The In-Laws, Rugrats Go Wild, etc… “FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD!” So, at the insistence of a friend I watched a movie called Dinner Rush on DVD. It’s about one night in a hot downtown restaurant and the drama within. Not bad. I love food and a good movie about food is better than porn. Hell, it is a kind of culinary porn. At best, it’s something you can never have in your real life that you fantasize about, that you know a few fortunate bastards are having. It can be a threeway or the champagne lobster shown in this film (personally, I’d rather have the lobster). Danny Aiello stars in this and he annoys me as a rule. He’s a dick and is show in every performance he does. Whenever he goes sincere, I just can’t buy into it. He plays the owner of a long-standing restaurant that has recently gone hot thanks to his son, who’s the new superstar chef. The son is demanding to take over the restaurant completely. He is fooling around with a waitress, who in turn is sleeping with the sous chef, who is a gambling addict, whose losses have brought mobsters to the restaurant demanding a piece of it. These are the same mobsters who killed Danny Aiello’s bookmaking partner before the opening credits. Got all that? In addition there’s an English bartender with an endless knowledge of trivia, a waitress who paints waiting on a table filled with artists and an important critic and Mr. Vanilla himself, John Corbett as a mysterious stranger sitting at the bar. Very atmospheric, it conveys a restaurant so accurately, you think you can hop in a cab and go there. It was directed by Bob Giraldi, best known for his video work, most notably Pat Benatar’s “Love Is Battlefield.” He also owns a restaurant, so that helps. Vivian Wu is the waitress between the chefs and her odd elocution always reminds me why she never made it, not even in typical “Asian female roles.” It’s not the accent. She just freaking talks funny. And did I really need to see her have sex in a doorway with the ugly gambling chef? Her tryst with the good-looking star-chef happens behind closed doors. That sucks. Oh, well. At least we still have the food to see. IT’S ONLY THE VIDEOTAPE THAT’S MISSING Movie Buddy ’98 also prompted me to see Charlotte Sometimes, which was at the Asian Film Festival I attended a few weeks back and has sporadic releases all over the country. It’s the movie for all of you who thought sex, lies and videotape would have been better with an all Asian-American cast and only half as interesting. I’m serious. You’ve got a quiet weird guy, a seeming free spirit, a dutiful woman and a soulless yuppie. You’ve even got that odd non-music soundtrack of tones. Only this one has a lot more sex. When one male character is essentially fucking the mouth of one of the female characters, you know you’ve got a director taking the sex seriously, and goddamnit, we need more of them! He even had the common sense to have the large-breasted girl get naked almost immediately, something we were denied with Laura San Giacomo. The storyline struck a little close to home, as it’s about this dweeb who spends most of his time alone and the beautiful girl who’s his best friend, who comes to cuddle with him after fucking her real boyfriend. Gee, thanks. That emotional stuff is nice, but it’s also good to be the guy who’s straddling your mouth too. Things get complicated when he meets another girl, whose mystery is very deliberate and easily figured out. The problem is the lead. He’s not just the strong, silent type, he’s the strong, almost-fucking-mute type. And he’s our leading man! Half the movie is watching this guy not speak, and not in a good “one-look-says-everything” Clint Eastwood way either. And while the ending of sex, lies & videotape may have been a bit fanciful (there’s no way she’s ending up with freaky James Spader), this one is forced and equally improbable. AND THERE’S NO NEAT THEME SONG EITHER MTV started its new Spider-Man TV show this weekend and while not bad, I hate the need to create new characters. Spider-Man has a 40-year history and the chances are doubtful you’re going to create anything new or better. In the first two episodes we get an Elektra rip-off and an Electro rip-off. What is the point? The only advantage this has over other super-hero cartoons is that people die. There’s a body count here, people, just like in the funny books. And the voices are your usual band of B and C list actors. Doogie Howser is Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Lisa Loeb is Mary Jane and Ian “Finally Found A Job” Ziering is Harry Osborne. I was disappointed because the writer and executive producer of the show, Brian Michael Bendis, is a very good funny book writer. I’d think he’d make a better TV show. Maybe it’ll get better. I’ll know because I’ll be watching, sad fucking geek that I am. NEWFLASH: MEN ARE SHALLOW AND ONLY WANT SEX There’s this new show Queer Eye For The Straight Guy which is about gay men who give straight men makeovers. Yeah, it sounds cute, but it’s bullshit. First of all, straight men with style are different from gay men with style. Straight men with style dress for their vanity and women. Gay men dress for their vanity and to get laid. There’s always a strong undercurrent of sex in almost everything they wear. Form fitting is the rule, not the exception. The truth behind this show is that these guys are trolling for straight guys. To gay guys, bagging the straight guy is the sexual equivalent of a threeway with two girls. It’s the Holy Grail of sexual accomplishment. You hear about it, but it never seems to happen to you. Right now in a bar there’s some frat boy talking about how he bagged two cheerleaders one night, while across the street in a gay bar, another guy is telling how he bagged that self same frat boy. “Yeah, he’s nailed those two cheerleaders, but last night he was sucking my dick!” Men are men, baby. Never think being gay changes that. YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A BIG GAY AL Speaking of gay bars, I wound up in another one recently when I was drafted accompany a friend to the birthday gathering of one of her co-workers at a bar. What I didn’t know until well underway was that it was a gay bar. As far as gay bars go, I found it disappointing. The music sucked (very odd for a gay bar), there were more pot bellies than I’m used to seeing on gay guys in New York, and a lot of fashion mistakes. And what the hell is that pool table doing here? Still, you can’t beat a happy hour that lasts until 10 pm. We staked out a claim on the couches and my friend noticed there were men with numbers on their chests. We soon discovered that there was “gay speed dating” going on that night. She’s the inquisitive type and started asking a participant about it. This is how we wound up talking to Big Gay Al. Seriously, his name was Al and he was very gay and he wasn’t slim. Al told us all about the speed dating and how he’d been on a few, but hadn’t found anyone yet. I didn’t know how to break it to Al, but he was a chunky guy who worked in computers. He couldn’t afford to be too picky. Not with gay men anyway. Only straight women are willing to date guys like that. This is why I still can’t bring myself to get into shape. I know that comic books, cheese gut and all, some woman out there will still put up with me. YOU’RE ALL STILL A BUNCH OF CHEAP BASTARDS
Time again to show you what you miss when you don’t buy CMJ: New Music Monthly to read my column. This was last months:
The Shape of Things continues writer/director Neil Labute’s chronicles of people who are just evil, but it was only in this one where I discovered his subtext: especially if they’re really, really good looking. In this film, Fine Arts Major, Rachel Weisz, is obviously up to no good as she slowly convinces geeky boyfriend, Paul Rudd, to lose weight, dress better and get a nose job. Suffering horribly from its origins as a play, if you can’t see the very obvious ending coming, then you’re just not paying attention. This is essentially a female companion piece to his first misanthropic work, In The Company of Men (which is seen by stupid people as just being misogynist). You can call it, In The Company of Coeds…Just as Stax, even in its prime, was eclipsed by the Motown hit factory, Only The Strong Survive, a documentary about still-performing soul singers of the 60’s, many of whom were on the Stax label, is eclipsed by the Motown documentary, Standing In The Shadows of Motown, which it bears the misfortune of following. While it does spare us lame renditions of classic tunes by inappropriate performers (I still can’t believe how much Ben Harper sucked; someone pull that pole out of his ass), it lacks the polish and cohesiveness of SITSOM---not to mention the handheld digital video only served to make me nauseous. This is not to say it’s totally without interest. No film that shows us Sam of Sam & Dave showing his former drug route in New York City could be uninteresting. Not to mention Jerry “The Iceman” Butler, former lead singer of The Impressions, now city comptroller of Chicago, in full politician mode, even while performing. Or Wilson Pickett, revealing time hasn’t calmed him down a bit, as he describes how ugly Diana Ross was when he first met her. Also along are Rufus Thomas and his daughter Carla (who would have been the queen of soul, had it not been for someone called Aretha Franklin), Isaac Hayes, Ann Peebles, The Chi-Lites and oddly enough, Motown’s Mary Wilson.
“WHEN CAPTAIN AMERICA THROWS HIS MIGHTY SHIELD…” Finally, I only meant to buy a few casual shirts, but wound spending much more than expected, but there was a silver lining. I discovered Captain America underwear. Needless to say, I bought them immediately. Now, when you see me, know that there’s truth, justice and the American way in my pants. “It is better to have a permanent
income than to be interesting.” --- Oscar Wilde
I’LL BE BACK…AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines opens at number one and I’m as shocked as anyone that this wasn’t a total failure. Maybe it’s the low expectations we all shared, but this was a fun movie. First of all, it clocks in at less than two hours. Already I’m happy that James “I Can’t Cut Anything” Cameron is gone. Secondly, though Edward Furlong was fine in the second one, his just-can’t-quite-make-it-through-puberty voice and look are not missed. That infernal cracking drove me nuts. Third there are no changes in the basic story of T1 and T2: a Terminator comes back in to kill someone and is practically unstoppable. What more do you want? The action scenes are nice, but lack the sense of grandeur that James Cameron brings to his pieces. All the shots are much too tight. You never get that ONE BIG SHOT of all hell breaking loose, just lots and lots of small shots. And Arnold? Well, if there was one role he was born to play, it was The Terminator. He and Clint Eastwood are the masters of the stone dead dry delivery with a hint of menace behind it. And it’s really sad that he looks better at 55 than I do at almost 20 years younger. Pardon me while I eat some cheese to make myself feel better. Okay, where was I? Oh. As for the female Terminator, she must have gotten the role on talent, because I can’t believe there was no one better looking out there for the role. Yes, I’m just that shallow. Sorry, but the goal was obviously to create some sort of “babeinator” (why else would she be a blonde and ex-model?),but they fall far short of the mark. Speaking of unattractive women, Claire Danes is hardly filling the gap left by the absent Linda Hamilton, but her role is a nice addition to the story. I hate to say it, but the ending left me wanting another. It’s nicely dark, but almost requires we see what’s long been discussed: John Connor’s defeat of the machines. But if Arnold gets elected governor (and he will), you can forget about it.
NOT MENTION KENNEDY WOULD HAVE SO NAILED HER
Opening at number two is Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. I swear I was going to see this, but the more I thought about it, the less appealing it became. Now, I enjoyed the first one for the nice little piece of fluff it was. The old “fish-out-of-water” idea is one of the oldest because it’s so effective if done right. The problem is, by succeeding, she’s no longer that person. Taking her to DC hardly does that, because as anyone knows, it’s got as many freaks and airheads as any place else. Hell, we almost impeached the last president over a blowjob and the current one admits to being a drunk and has two party-hardy daughters who would probably be best friends with Reese Witherspoon’s character, so where’s the outsider-insider conflict? And why is the beautician from the first film still around? That makes no sense. Hell, it never made any sense before that she’d go to such a low-rent beauty parlor to begin with. And any day I can avoid Luke Wilson is a tiny victory in my soul.
GOD KNOWS YOU’RE NOT PAYING FOR LOOKS OR BODY
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is down to number three and I have to ask: just how the fuck do you justify giving Cameron Diaz $20M? I mean, what film has she ever carried over the $100M? All the others members have. Bruce Willis, Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, even recent addition, Renee Zellwegger and future member Reese Witherspoon (she got $15M for the sequel and they’re talking a third) have all carried films with their appeal alone as the selling factor. Where’s Cameron’s? There’s Something About Mary was the Farrelly Brothers and Ben Stiller; the first Charlie’s Angel had Drew Barrymore and Bill Murray (oh, is he not laughing his ass off now!), Shrek was Eddie Murphy and Mike Meyers and everything else was her as a supporting player. How did she jump into Julia Roberts’s territory? I hate JRo but can’t deny she puts buts in the seats. How did Cameron Diaz do it? Oh, yeah. She’s blue-eyed and blonde and this is America.
JUST WORKING OUT MY ANGER
Finding Nemo is down to number four followed by The Hulk at number five and believe it or not, I’m somewhat relieved to see this fail. Why? Because it stops more being made, that’s why. This gives people pause and prevents Nicholas Cage from fucking up another beloved comic book from my youth. He tried to do it with Superman and is supposedly going to do it with Ghost Rider. Not to mention any thought of a fucking Daredevil sequel. One saving grace of this film is the game I rented. It’s fun to destroy shit (at one point I smashed a tank with a car)! But what fucking dumbass decided that being Bruce Banner be an unavoidable part of the game!?! What fucking kid wants to play Bruce Banner!?! “Ooh, look at me crouch and avoid security cameras.” Major pain in the ass. I had to do what I never do: go online and get cheat codes without playing the game through first. I am not going to play those fucking Banner levels. No way.
MYTHOLOGY A.K.A., CLASSIC COMIC BOOKS
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas opens really poorly at number six and I love to watch Jeffery Katzenberg fail. Granted, you hate to take Disney’s side on anything, but I despise the mediocre shit that comes out of Dreamworks as a whole and they stink of the cookie-cutter shit Katzenberg used to push out of Touchstone in the 80’s. And the first clue of any inferior animated movie is the need to push the celebs behind the voices. If you don’t read the credits, you’ll never know who the voices are for Disney, but Dreamworks couldn’t stop telling us Brad Pitt was the voice of Sinbad. Yeah, because your average 6-year old is a Brad Pitt fan. And it’s not that the movie is bad. It does follow the basic Sinbad movie plot, which is going off on a quest to a distant land, supposedly to save an empire, but in actuality to impress a girl. Once there, he fights lots of different monsters, gets the Eye of the Tiger or whatever and saves the day. Oh, he also gets half his crew killed in the process. You have to wonder, when that boat came back to port half empty, what kind of fool would sign up with Sinbad? And even if you did, never get off the boat with him. It’s like being a red-shirted crewman beaming down with Captain Kirk. He’s coming back; you ain’t. Needless to say, the crew doesn’t die here and there’s zero hint of sex (impossible to achieve when you’ve got Jane Seymour half-naked like in Sinbad & The Eye of the Tiger). This movie has a few decent monsters, but you never get that sense of good vs. evil, not to mention swordfights just don’t work in animation. At least not outside of Japan. And what’s this shit with Sinbad not being an Arab!?! What the fuck!?! He’s Sinbad! He’s from fucking Baghdad! Everyone knows this. His story comes from “1001 Arabian Nights,” not “1001 Greek Nights!” Would you change Hercules if we were at war with Greece!?! Hell, we don’t like the French. Doesn’t that mean the Three Musketeers should now be Dutch? It’s so stupid. Especially in light of those great Ray Harryhausen movies where you hear Sinbad thanking “Allah” every other minute. And the storyline is actually the story of Damon and Pythias, where Dionysus had condemned Pythias to death and Damon sat in Pythias’s place while Pythias got his affairs in order. If Pythias failed to return by a certain day, Damon would die. Here, it’s Sinbad’s childhood friend, Proteus (goddamn, this transferring of cultures annoys me) taking the place of Sinbad after the evil goddess Eris (the Greek god of discord and strife who actually caused the Trojan War) frames him for a crime. Yes, every geek knows mythology and folklore. The Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons has a Masters in it.
A DISEASE THAT MAKES YOU FAST AND ANGRY? ISN’T THAT CRYSTAL METH?
28 Days Later is down to number seven and only my brother noticed I left if off last week in terms of commentary. Obviously a Freudian slip, because as we all know I DON’T DO THE SCARY! It’s another variation on the “end-of-the-world-zombie” movie, but in this case “the world” is just England. I can only think this is the most popular movie in Ireland right now. In any case, it’s about a virus that sends people off into murderous rages and everyone pretty much begins killing each other off. The only difference here is the rage zombies are incredibly fast. Nope. Don’t need to see that shit. The only saving grace of zombies to me was that you could easily outrun them. Now even that’s gone? No thank you. Besides, between monkeypox and SARS, this is the last thing I need to see. Is that a cough?
AND NO MARK WAHLBERG!
The Italian Job is down to number eight and I also rented the game of this and it’s fun to drive a mini-cooper at insane speeds through LA. I’m a bit spoiled in the graphics department after two weeks of playing Midnight Club 2, but it’s still a decent looking game.
SOMEBODY’S GOT TO BRING HOME THE BACON
Bruce Almighty is down to number nine and I hope Jennifer Anniston was well-paid for this, because her pizza-faced husband can’t even open up a cartoon these days.
THIS IS THE END/MY FRIEND…
Finally, 2 Fast 2 Furious closes out the top ten at number ten.
GOD’S CHOSEN IN GREAT NECK
So, every summer, Nice Jewish Doctor has a joint birthday party with four of her childhood friends because they all have birthdays in July and August. I’ve been a regular attendee for awhile now, and this year was no different. The most obvious change is the increasing number of offspring now present and some of them are actually growing into little people now (this means I got no puke on me like last year, but Baby Nice Jewish Doctor did poop on me). It’s very scary. Soon, I’ll be fighting them for stuff in comic book and video game stores. But the saddest part is I’ve got a belly like everyone else there my age, but no excuse since I don’t have any kids. Hey, I’ve got cable! Sigh. Time for more cheese. I’ve just discovered smoked cheddar and I’m liking it.
JACK KIRBY HELPED CREATE CAPTAIN AMERICA, DAREDEVIL, THE X-MEN THE HULK AND THE FANTASTIC FOUR. WHAT HAVE YOU EVER DONE?
So, I got my geek on very hard this weekend when The Cartoon Network ran three hours of Superman vs. Darkseid (pronounced “dark-side”). The first two hours where episodes of the Superman Animated Series where he fought Darkseid, most notably the one where Darkseid brainwashed Superman and sent him off to conquer the universe, including Earth. Needless to say, Superman got free, went back to Apokolips (pronounced just like you think and even though the great Jack Kirby created all this, that doesn’t mean it isn’t really corny at times) and beat the living shit out of Darkseid in a knockdown, drag-out brawl. But it ended on a down note, because the people of earth weren’t that forgiving. The final hour, however, was actually two new episodes of Justice League, with Superman taking on Darkseid with the Justice League’s help. Actually, he has to help Darkseid because Superman’s old enemy, Braniac is going to destroy Apokolips. Initially, Superman actually doesn’t care, but is pushed by the Justice League into doing the right thing. Especially, Batman, who pretty much calls him a pussy and tells him to get over it (second best Batman line of the night, “The next time I let Superman take charge, just hit me real hard.”). Yeah, if your memories of superhero cartoons are limited to Super Friends, then this is real treat. Actual characterization (it opened with two superheroes talking about how lonely they actually were) and violence! When Superman and Darkseid do duke it out again, it’s a really violent fight and even thought I liked it, Superman would never try to kill Darkseid in the comics the way he does here (not to mention burning holes in a bad guy’s foot with his head vision). Catch it in reruns if you can---cause you ain’t borrowing my tape of it.
“DON’T WANT NO BRASSIRE AROUND HERE…AW, SHOYARIGHT (SURE YOU’RE RIGHT)”
Shit. Barry White is gone. I can’t say I’m surprised. I actually expected him to die when he first has his stroke, but it doesn’t bring me down any less. As we all know, you ain’t had sex until you’ve had sex to Barry White. Barry got more men laid than booze and jewelry combined we are all very grateful. Herbie Mann died too. It’s okay if you don’t know him because he only did an obscure type of music called JAZZ! You people are Philistines! Not to mention his one big crossover hit of disco flute called---drum roll, please---“Superman.” Yes, there was a disco song of jazz flute called “Superman.” I even remember the video. It was Herbie playing the flute in a disco filled with dry ice. Hysterical. And Buddy Hackett died too---following his career by only 30 years. Damn, the year is only half over and already they’re starting to add up.
AND EVERYTHING I’VE DONE IS BETTER THAN PEARL HARBOR
So there’s a program in OS X called iMovie, which has got be the world’s simplest editing program. Since I no longer read actual books and we’re into summer reruns, I spent a few hours one night making a tiny film using my roommate’s headshots and 20 seconds of low-rez video I took of her on my wonderful digital camera. For reasons I cannot explain I felt the need to set it “Diamond Girl” by Seals & Crofts. The program his this great aspect called “The Ken Burns Effect” which is to say it does slow close-up on photos for you (somewhere, there’s an 80-year-old director who actually did create it who is super-pissed, but hey, most people don’t know who invented the automobile, but they know Henry Ford). Since the movie came out better than I expected, I’ve spent the weekend rummaging through my photo albums digging up more to play with. The biggest problems so far are titles and having to find the appropriate music for each person. I did one for the 18 years I’ve known My Arizona Problem (a.k.a., Blight of My Life, Original Queens Girl, etc.) and even the music I finally chose can only be thought of as temporary (it’s too saccharine to mention here). The one for my Surrogate Sister was easy, not simply because I only have six pictures of her, but because her song has always been “Electric Relaxation” by A Tribe Called Quest. I even made one for the otters (remember them?), but that’s just between the otters and me. But I swear, when I make one using all my old family photos I will not use Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” or “Family Reunion” by The O Jays. Especially the latter, as I’ve heard it all my life at my own family reunions and those stupid lyrics just annoy the shit out of me. “First is the father/the head of the family..” Give me a fucking break. Tell that to my aunt who raised her four daughters alone thanks to her husband being a complete loser. Spare me the patriarchal bullshit. Needless to say, once I master iMovie, this site will change, so get the QuickTime plug-ins now!