OCTOBER '05 ARCHIVE

10/31/05

PERSONALLY, I WOULD’VE CALLED IT “BUZZ-SAW”

Saw II opens at number one and this comes as a surprise to whom exactly? It’s Halloween! Of course a horror movie is going to come in at number one. Not to mention a sequel to a successful horror film. I don’t do the scary, much less scary like this, which borders on snuff film. It’s not so much about being scared as it is watching horrible things happen to people. The hook of the first film was that the protagonist had to saw through his or her own leg in order escape. And even I’ll admit for the filmmakers not to go through with it at least once is a betrayal to the audience. Also adding to my repulsion is the bad guy, who obviously escaped the first film unscathed. It used to be that a bad guy would meet some type of end. Dracula would get staked or turned to dust at the end of the movie, and only brought back because of some idiot in the first five minutes of the sequel. Even Jason and Freddie meet some type of “justice” for their acts and are vanquished. Now, this guy just murders and maims to do it another day. I hate that. And the fact that he’s a terminal cancer patient doesn’t alleviate this one bit (he’s “teaching” people about wasting their lives by torturing them…before killing them). And remember what I said about horror films being the safe entry point for WB stars into films? Well, say hello to the second daughter (but third cast member) of 7th Heaven to enter into the genre and open at number one. But considering she’s not the star, there’s a good chance you get to work out a little frustration by watching her die horribly. Okay, so maybe it’s not all bad, but her agent sure sucks. She’s the closest thing to a star in this and she’s just another cast member which means she probably bites it so no sequel money? What was he thinking?

Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z

The Legend of Zorro opens at number two seven years after the original opened and five years after this freaking thing should have opened. One year for every soft, fleshy fold under Antonio Bandera’s chin (Catherine Zeta Jones is heavier too, but at least she’s got the virtue of having given birth, both in real life and onscreen). But even at two years wait this would have been a horrible disappointment and you know almost immediately why it’s going to suck by the harbinger of ruination to virtually any film: the cute, spunky kid. Yep, as soon as you see the CSK show up, especially in an action adventure movie, it’s all over but the shoutin’. Then, after the opening---which essentially mirrors the opening of the first film, but twice as long, half as interesting with five times a many special effects (Douglas Fairbanks and Tyrone Power didn’t need CGI---I’m just sayin’…)---we learn the CSK is, in fact the son of Zorro, which means he’s around for long haul. And what’s with the casting of this ugly kid as the son of Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones!?! Are we supposed to believe their superior genes couldn’t do any better than this? And this keeps happening to Antonio and his movie wives. With Tamlyn Tomita and Carla Gugino, we keep seeing these really common looking kids (though his daughter with Tamlyn Tomita was actually somewhat cute). It’s easy to say that the presence of Anthony Hopkins would have helped this film, but the truth is, The Mask of Zorro may have been the last good film Sir Tony actually made (okay, maybe Titus), so it’s not like he would have realized how shitty this script was (Bad Company, anyone?). Not to mention, the previous film was also burdened by over-length and little too much slapsticky humor and what was only annoying there, becomes a full-fledged problem here. Let me put it this way: I found myself text messaging a friend about a song I’d just heard on my iPod in the middle of the movie. Yeah, it’s that lame. Not even bad enough to be interesting. Just lame. And what were they thinking releasing this on Halloween? This is a summer movie, a Thanksgiving movie or a Christmas movie, but the lack of talent associated with this film extends all the way to the front offices it seems.

ONE WORD NEVER MENTIONED IN THIS FILM: SHICKSA

Prime opens at number three and while I adore Meryl Streep, who may just be the greatest film actress who ever lived (yes, better than Bette and Katherine---especially Katherine) not even she could pull off playing a yenta of an Upper West Side Jewish mom. Especially not with the minimal support given to her by this script, because we all know how she rocked Sophie in Sophie’s Choice. Ugly jewelry and frumpy clothing are simply not enough to fill in the character gaps to make her portrayal of a neurotic, slightly-overbearing, psychoanalyst Jewish mother convincing. We’re simply given no basis for her overreaction to her son going on a single date with a girl who isn’t Jewish. Especially given their upper middle class Manhattan background. It’s more unlikely that he wouldn’t date gentiles, especially at 23. As it turns out the woman she doesn’t want her son dating is her patient, Uma Thurman, whom she’s simultaneously encouraging to date a younger man. Also underdeveloped is Uma Thurman’s character. In all this strum und drang over family, we know nothing about hers or lack thereof. A line or two here and there is simply not enough, especially when it’s the basis of conflict in the movie. In fact all the character are unformed, despite the enormous amount of time we spend with them (it’s 105 minutes but feels like the full two). After all, this is a character driven movie and if you don’t know anything more about your characters at the end than you do at the beginning, there’s a problem. Casting doesn’t help. Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg (the guy Jewish girls fantasize about marrying before settling for the David Schwimmers of the world) are fine in their roles, but he doesn’t look 23 and she doesn’t look 37. She comments he seems older and it’s an audience conclusion as well and not even a little immature behavior later helps to shake it. In fact, you can’t believe he would become the slacker boy who lays around her apartment all day doing nothing but playing Nintendo (which is the source of the movie’s funniest joke concerning its effect on the male libido). On the good side, it’s a seriously NY film. It’s shot here by someone who knows what New York and more importantly, what New York apartments look like. People with no money live in holes and when faced with Uma’s lavish pad, he tells her he doesn’t want to know what she pays.

MOVIES I’LL NEVER SEE ‘CAUSE I DON’T HAVE KIDS

Dreamer: Inspired by A True Story is down to number four, followed by Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which was not helped a bit by the fact that Halloween is now the second-biggest holiday for kids behind Christmas.

COULDN’T STAND THE WEATHER

Opening at number six is The Weather Man, which just looked a little too miserable for me to see. Nicholas Cage puts mopey and whiney in everything he does, but I’m not about to see an entire film about it with not other distractions. And poor Hope Davis had two seconds of being an indie film leading lady, but was then regulated to being the downer woman in everything she does now.

BETTER TO RULE IN HELL? UH, YOU’RE STILL IN FREAKING HELL!

Doom is down to number seven and Karl Urban has secured his future amongst geeks. Not only is he in this, but he was also in Chronicles of Riddick and was Eomer in two of the Lord of the Rings movies. He’ll be able to make a living attending conventions for the rest of his life now. Actually, that’s a fate worse than death now that I think about it. Poor bastard. When his kids need braces, daddy will have to sell his ass at the local science fiction and fantasy convention. Probably in costume.

MEA CULPA

North Country is down to number eight and apparently I was wrong. Sean Bean is actually Frances McDormand’s supportive boyfriend. I love Frances McDormand and Sean Bean is pretty good looking. I’d pay to see them in a sex scene, but this isn’t that kind of film. I’m still annoyed she didn’t hook up with Keanu Reeves in Something’s Gotta Give.

THE END

The Fog is down to number nine and Flightplan closes out the top ten at number ten at number ten.

APPARENTLY DEATH THINKS MICKEY ROONEY IS ALREADY DEAD. HE LOOKS IT.

Apparently even if someone wrote a song about you, you die. Last week it was Lucy who inspired “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and this week Rosa Parks, who actually sued Outkast for their song “Rosa Parks.” Well, that and the fact she was 92. Watch your backs Sharona, Sarah, Peggy Sue, Sherry, Diane, Carolina, Little Christine…etc. On a more traditional Death note, the drummer from Badfinger died which is a shame. And remember what I always say: Good pop bands don’t sound like The Beatles; good pop bands sound like Badfinger. They were a great band and were unlucky in ways that make Def Leppard look like the freaking Osmonds. And another Little Rascal died. Shit. Who knew these guys were still alive? This time it was Eugene Lee, who played “Porky.” Death tried to take fucking Cam’ron off our hands. Better luck next time, girl!

RUN’S HOUSE…IS IN JERSEY?

If you saw the show Run’s House, yes, that was my boss, Dolly Lenz, showing Run’s daughters multi-million dollar apartments. Now, neither Run nor his brother is attractive. How did the daughters come out so well? Even though they look and speak like him, which is pretty funny.

GIVING KIDS LITTLE LUBE SAMPLERS WOULD BE WRONG, RIGHT?

I don’t go out on Halloween any more. That’s a game for the young. However, Star Trek Woman showed remarkable insight into my personality by actually getting me agree to a Halloween party by suggesting the cheapest costume would justify buying sword. Damn, she’s getting good. I’ve always wanted to buy a sword, but I only wanted the Highlander katana the Duncan had on the TV show. I could never find it for the right price so I let it go. However, she managed to get me thinking Johnny Mo from Kill Bill was a cheap and effective costume (black suit, head shaved, I’m already half-way there) while she would go as Go-Go---with the plank in her head. All I would need was a sword and a Kato mask. So I bought one on eBay for $.99. Not kidding. Ninety-nine cents…and $18.95 for shipping. I thought a week would be more than enough time for shipping…until I read their little disclaimer, which they deliberately kept off the bidding page. Because I’m anal (and not in good way), I was not going out with an incomplete costume. It was either whole magilla or I was staying in. It didn’t arrive, so I didn’t go…and now have a useless Johnny Mo sword on the way. In a rare occurrence of social riches, The Libertine also invited me to a party in Brooklyn, suggesting I use a fur coat she bought at thrift shop to be a pimp to her ho’. Bear in mind The Libertine is the whitest of white girls…of German descent…from Ohio. Yeah, that was almost funny enough to make me go. Almost. Going out would be a miracle, going out to Brooklyn might cause the end of the world. Ultimately, she got sick and wound up going with me to see Prime (I didn’t go in the morning because I was hanging around all day waiting on a freaking sword). After that we then did what anyone does: shopped for shoes (finally found what I was looking for, though I can't afford it and her desired brown snakeskin Kenneth Coles boots were ulitmately disappointing), had sushi (spicy fried oyster is my new favorite) and toured the Village sex shops. I learned a great many things from her during the tour, such as some sex stores have their own credit cards (yes, she had one). Also, when looking for sexual aids, there are only three words to look for: MADE IN GERMANY. Apparently, when it comes to violating the body even for pleasure, no one does it with better efficiency than the Germans. Not even the Japanese. The best lube in the world is Pjur Eros. It was created by a gay German chemist and if he can’t make the perfect lube, nobody can. And only buy the Original formula with the “swoosh” on the bottle; everything else with a body on the label is a crap rip-off that he’s successfully sued in Germany to have shut down. Perhaps the most entertaining part of the evening was when she was explaining which was better to a couple in the sex store, who seemed a bit unnerved by her unsolicited product endorsement at which she took umbrage (“Hey, if he wants to get back into her ass, he’ll listen to me.”). I also learned that she’d broken at least three sex toys. This not only increased my respect for her, but her boyfriend as well and made it clear that only a doctor could date her, because of the potential for serious injury. But she comes from crazy and seeks to go that way. Yes, her mother is a redhead and she plans to dye her hair. Sigh. It’s one thing to be born evil, but to choose that path… But how can you not like a straight woman who nonetheless swears she’d not only take a strap-on to Angelina Jolie, but would take pictures of it? I assume some Pjur Eros will be involved.

THE FINAL FRONTIER

George Takei, a.k.a., Sulu is gay. Duh. If you’ve ever seen the man interviewed over the last forty years, you know he’s always been boldly going where only thin, neat, well-dressed, musical loving men have gone before. Nice to know that that gays will be allowed in Starfleet, but it is headquarted in San Francisco, so it would have to.

LONG LIVE THE QUEEN

KATE BUSH HAS A NEW SINGLE, BITCHES! Time for you fucking Tori Amos fans to recognize and be schooled! As much as I’m a Kate fan now, I initially resisted my brother’s attempts to introduce me to her when I was 15. I didn’t take an interest until college, when hers was the only cassette tape (remember those) My Arizona Problem had in her collection that I could stand. So we’d play it when she…took not nearly enough advantage of me. That and Sade’s second album, Promise. Damn I’m old.

<10/24/05

Doom opens at number one and The Rock has the worst agent in the world. Here is a man with charm and charisma, who the heir apparent to Schwarzenegger’s throne (he appears in The Rundown, essentially passing the torch), but is pissing away his shot with bad movie after bad movie. Arnold’s first starring role was Conan. His third was The Terminator. This is The Rock’s third starring role. If you don’t know what Doom is, you are either not a straight guy nor have you dated a straight guy over the last 15 years, otherwise you would be familiar with the sounds of monster roars and gunshots coming from a computer at 4:30 in the morning. Doom was not the first point-of-view video game (that honor goes to Castle Wolfenstein, which had the great conceit of you being a US Soldier fighting a castle filled with Nazi monsters), but revolutionized the genre and all those that follow pay homage to it. If Castle Wolfenstein is Bill Haley, then Doom is Elvis. Which begs the question, “How do you make a movie about a video game whose basic appeal is that you’re the main character doing all the action?” Answer: You don’t. And they didn’t. This is a bad remake of Aliens, with Space Marines headed off to investigate what happened to a bunch of scientists on Mars and finding monsters. That plot was their first mistake. Doom actually begins with you already on Mars in the middle of the shit, fighting your way out. This instead takes forever setting up a group of characters, all of whom we know are going to die and then killing them off in an utterly listless manner. And since The Rock himself gave it away on The Daily Show last week (which I’m sure thrilled the studio) he also becomes a demon and has the best line of the movie: “I’m not supposed to die.” That fourth-wall breaking line is the most innovative thing about this movie. It also fails by removing the omnipresent threat of one man against a planet filled with monsters. Here, there are only two or three, at one time, more than outnumbered by the marines. And since they can be killed by ordinary gunfire, it’s only the sheer stupidity of the marines that allows them an upper hand. For example: all the lights are out in the monster half of the base, but every time a marine walks into one of these rooms, he turns on the freaking lights! If the fucking lights work, why are you choosing to walk around in the fucking dark!?! By the time it finally gets around to giving you a POV scene just like the game (complete with chainsaw), it’s too little, too late. And while The Rock has been “outed” like Vin Diesel as being half-black, he’s never made claim to the culture the way he has his Samoan half and given how poorly he curses, that’s probably best. When he finds the BFG (yes, the Big Fucking Gun is also in the movie), he sighs “Shit.” If he were truly Black it would have been “Daaaaammnnn” or "Dayum" And let’s not get into how he says “motherfucker” instead of “muthafucka” in the tried and true brutha manner.

“SHE RAN CALLING DREEEEEEAMER…”

Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story opens at number two and you know this is all-but fiction when they go with “inspired” over “based” and feel the need to put it in the title. Like golf movies, apparently horse movies still make money in the end, because they keep on making them. I can’t say anything, because when I was a kid I fucking loved Ride The Wild Pony and was almost out of my seat at the big climatic scene where the pony has to choose between the rich girl who found him and the poor kid who originally had him. Of course, as an adult, you wouldn’t catch me watching it---or this. Hell, I barely made it in to see Seabuscuit and regretted that. And remember what I said about children’s films either being the indulgence of the comfortably successful or desperate grasp of a falling star? Well, with the exception of Dakota Fanning, who is a kid and should be here, tell me what this cast makes you think: Kurt Russell, Kris Kristofferson, Elizabeth “I Was Once Nominated For An Oscar” Shue, and David Morse. Yep, they’re all jumping on little Dakota’s back for more exposure than they’d ever get otherwise. And I’m sure the pay scale reflected who was the real star.

LOOK FOR AMANDA BYRNES TO MEET JASON OR FREDDY ANY DAY NOW

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is down to number three, followed by The Fog at number four and what’s the other genre of the desperate actor? Yes, horror films. It’s an easy entry into features, which is why WB stars like Tom Welling wind up here (Sarah Michelle Gellar learned the hard way with Simply Irresistible, which is why her next starring role was The Grudge) and it can stop a slide without the embarrassing taint of children’s films, which is why we find Selma “Enough of this Indie Shit, Pay Me” Blair here, though she was never really a star---and she’s not even the star of this. Ouch. At least she could be the hero’s girlfriend, but she isn’t. But I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for her from her role in Storytelling where she has sex with her Black college professor against a wall, while he tells her to scream “Fuck me, nigger!” That may quake some frail liberal hearts, but it’s meant to be funny and it is. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. It’s even funnier in the censored version, where they’re covered up by a large pink rectangle, because the sight of this miscegenation so upset the ratings board it’s the only way it could get an “R.”

IT COULD ONLY BE BETTER IF SHE WAS A SEXUALLY HARASSED DRUNK WHO DIES

North Country opens at number five and how can anyone even pretend this isn’t Oscar bait? That’s the only way anyone would make this Lifetime/Oxygen/WE movie and release it theatrically. You know Mira “I Once Won An Oscar” Sorvino is pissed her women’s struggle movie isn’t getting beyond basic cable. Actually based on a true story, Charlize Theron tries to take the edge off her hypocrisy of doing Aeon Flux after ragging on Halle Berry for doing Catwoman after winning her Oscar (hard to say “No” that big budget money when it’s your turn, isn’t it, Charlize?) by telling the story of female mine workers who filed a class action suit against their employers for sexual harassment. What I don’t know is how they chose this story over half-a-dozen others. Oh, yeah. It’s rural and dirty, which looks so much better to those Academy members. And don’t get me started on the Oscar-packed supporting cast: Frances McDormand, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek. But even I can’t fault them too much. Not when the only way I’ll ever see this is if she’s nominated.

ONE OF RARE TIMES A REDHEAD BRINGS GOOD LUCK

Elizabethtown is down to number six and there’s apparently a rumor that Cameron Crowe’s troubles began when Eric Stoltz didn’t appear in one of his films for the first time ever. It was Almost Famous and apparently he didn’t want to be David Bowie running across a lobby for one scene (which is pretty arrogant for someone like Eric Stoltz). Even though Almost Famous was still critically praised, it tanked. Next, Stoltz failed to appear in Vanilla Sky, neither a huge success (not for a Tom Cruise film) nor neither critically loved. And guess who’s not in Elizabethtown either? Yep. Better check Stoltz’s schedule before you plan your next film, dude.

APPARENTLY NO CASTING DIRECTORS SAW THE SHARPE SERIES

Flightplan is down to number seven and actually in this in a sympathetic role is Sean Bean as the captain. He’s also in North Country and considering it’s about sexual harassment, I don’t think we have to guess what he’s doing there. I guess being a bad guy comes easy to him, given he’s pretty much a tool in real life, on his third marriage because he believes that women should pretty much be barefoot and pregnant.

WONDER WHAT COOLIDGE IS DOING RIGHT NOW? THORPE?

In Her Shoes is down to number eight and also in this is Ken Howard, The White Shadow himself. He’s plays Cameron Diaz’s father, which is pretty good casting, because he’s six foot something and blonde. Yes, he’s playing a Jew too. It’s a big week for Ken, as he’s also in Dreamer. I take it he’s no longer teaching at Harvard. Now, I bet you’re wondering how The White Shadow (which I loved as a kid, but only because I was too young to realize how bad it was) leads to you teaching Drama at Harvard? Granted, he studied Drama at Yale, but so did Sigourney Weaver, Meryl Streep and William Hurt and they’re not teaching. Actually, he left Yale early to go Broadway, where he originated Thomas Jefferson in 1776 and then won a Tony later on for Child’s Play. So The White Shadow was actually slumming for him---as Crossing Jordan would be twenty years later. Now that show truly sucks. The White Shadow looks like a show full of Yale drama grads in comparison.

THE OPERATIVE WORDS HERE ARE “SMOKING HOT”

So, I finally made it into see A History of Violence and never before has $10.75 been so well spent (yes, that’s what we’re paying here in Manhattan. You’re not paying it, but you don’t get to see Al Pacino walking down the street, so fuck you). Not only do we get the smoking hot Maria Bello, we get the smoking hot Maria Bellow in a cheerleading outfit. We get the smoking hot Maria Bello pulling up the skirt of her cheerleading outfit to reveal see-thru lace panties. We then get the smoking hot Maria Bello receiving oral sex from Viggo Mortenson, whom some others would also say is smoking hot. But the kicker is, she then swings around and begins to reciprocate, in what may be the first ever depiction of “69” (or as I like to call it MAD: Mutually Assured Delight) in American films. And that’s not even the end of it. Later, we get rough sex on the stairway between the smoking hot Maria Bello and the smoking hot Viggo Mortenson. Unlike most films, they keep it real by showing you the bruises later that come from having sex in such an uncomfortable place. There’s also one more, utterly gratuitous shot of full frontal nudity from the smoking hot Maria Bello. Yeah. Good stuff. Oh! The movie! Yeah, this all happens within the context of an actual film, which is based on a graphic novel (aka, a really big comic book). Viggo is a the owner of a diner in a small town in Indiana with an oddly smoking hot wife, slightly wimpy son and daughter who makes you realize just how good an actress Dakota Fanning has always been. He becomes famous when two serial killers walk into his place and he has to kill them both. This causes his past to come back to haunt him, hence the double meaning of the title. This history includes both Ed Harris and---gasp---Yale grad William Hurt, doing horrible “working class, mob accents” in the condescending way that only the artistic elite can. Some may blame it on the comics, but the flaws in this film are as common in comics as they are in Hollywood. Ed Harris comes to town because he thinks Viggo Mortenson is the mobster who once tried to kill him. The town sheriff identifies Ed Harris as part of the Philadelphia mob, but at no time does anyone in Philadelphia law enforcement notice this guy on TV might be a member of organized crime and no one ever thinks to call the Philly cops or the FBI because Ed Harris is harassing someone in their town. Later, there’s a massive development that goes totally unnoticed by the media, which was all over Viggo Mortenson the first time. They just conveniently disappear the way the FBI conveniently never shows up, because if either happened, this film would come to a dead stop. So basically, enjoy the sex (and violence) and don’t think about it too much.

MR. TOAD NEEDS ROGAINE

Finally, Two For The Money closes out the top ten at number ten and will Jeremy Piven ever play anyone other than himself? He’s in this and in the brief clips, he appears to play…Jeremy Piven. And no matter what he says, he’s essentially playing himself when he plays Ari. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it, because he is a funny muthafucka (hell, I even enjoyed Cupid until they suggested he might simply be crazy and not actually be the god of love), but in the interests of his own career he might want to change it up, because this character is always the sidekick of the lead and never the lead (usually played by John Cusack). Well, that and the fact that he’s bald and frog-faced. He’s also a Crowe alum, appearing in both Say Anything and Singles.

HOT CHILD IN THE CITY

The Libertine, who “accidentally” picked up a handsome Jamaican from Europe, “accidentally” flirted with Paul Sorvino. While out buying shoes (without me!) in Macy’s, she came upon Mr. Sorvino sitting while waiting on his wife. He was telling the salesperson that, since he was paying, he got to sit. The Libertine (though swearing she wasn’t flirting) said, “Well, you can pay for my things too and rest more comfortably.” Yeah, that’s an “accident” all right. Mothers lock up your sons and you daughters better think twice about letting dad out unaccompanied because I’ve stumbled upon yet another Wild Child.

WHERE THE BOYS AREN’T: THE THEATER

Dorito Cheeseburger Woman returns and while she is still filled with so much genuine goodness that, every time she touches me I expect my flesh to burn like sunlight hitting a vampire, she has once the most enigmatic, bordering-on-evil smiles I’ve ever seen. I truly don’t know if she’s fucking with me or not, but I don’t doubt she enjoys my confusion. She’s currently in a play called Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, but unlike some people, I didn’t have to leave the city to see her in it. Set in the 70’s, it’s about a community of lesbians and the summer they spend on a beach. They are joined by a woman fleeing her marriage, filled with thoughts of being one of those “feminists”, unaware she’s the only straight woman around. Needless to say, she falls for one of the group---who just happens to be the one member of the group dying of cancer. Had it not been for the presence of a Dorito Cheeseburger Woman, I never would have seen this. A dated play about lesbians combined with Steel Magnolias ("Iron Tulips?") sits high on my list of things never to do, but there I was. The situation was mitigated by the fact that actresses in general tend to be attractive, so there was eye candy aplenty, on and off the stage. In the audience there was one girl so pretty it was wrong. I could describe her, but it would only hurt me. Even her hair was perfect. It was just wrong. Not nearly as perfect, but no slouch, was Sonya, who sat right next to me and with whom I briefly made conversation (non-mack conversation, because everyone is now a child and I’m just a dirty old man). Unfortunately, there was also woman present who was the epitome of the reason I dislike most actors. She was an audience member who nonetheless turned her seat into her own little stage, because like far too many actors, she simply cannot speak without “projecting” or “performing” so that every single person in a 12 mile radius knew that she put on her own shows, what they were about and why the person who criticized them was wrong. Even when the play started, she laughed the loudest so that everyone know what she was feeling even then. Thankfully, she became involved in the play and forgot to perform further. Maybe it’s an age thing, maybe it’s a gender thing, but Sonya (a theater person herself, but behind the scenes) enjoyed it more than I and felt it spoke real “emotional truths”. Um, okay. Nice meeting you. The play was okay. The humor still works, but the drama, however, tended to be very generic without any real insight into why some of the characters do what they do (fleeing housewife to lesbian lover within an act change). As it turned out, Dorito Cheeseburger Woman was the dying woman, so was kind of the star of the play, but my attention was actually held by the character of the gold-digging Brooklyn lesbian hooked up with a woman twice her age. She looked exactly like a girl I knew in high school named Mikey (from Michelle) Morton, who causes my brother problems to this day. Not only did he have an interest in Mikey (unfulfilled), but she wound up working with his wife more than decade later. I take much pleasure in constantly bringing up Mikey, just as he never shies away from to bring up a small indiscretions from my past. This girl not only looked like Mikey, she had the same perfectly proportioned body, which was revealed during the beach scene, that required her to be in a bikini (totally justified, it is set on the beach in the summer). I lack the shame to hide the fact this may have been my favorite scene just because her of her utterly firm and fat-free body, confirming what I always suspected about Mikey (who was a cheerleader). But she actually did a good job with her role as Donna the gold-digger from Brooklyn. Afterwards I joined Dorito Cheeseburger Woman as she went to pick up a case of her favorite energy drink from a vitamin store. Just being there I became acutely aware of all the crap I put in my body on a regular basis. Not that this stopped me from buying my first pack of Hamburger Helper for the first time in over ten years the very next day. I’m building my layer of winter fat.

“PICTURE YOURSELF IN A BOAT ON A RIVER…”

Lucy Richardson died. Don’t know her? Yes, you do. Julian Lennon went to school with her and drew a picture of her that his father made into a song---thus causing a generation of casual drug users to insist forever that “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was about LSD, ignoring that it would actually be LITSWD (there’s a reason they call it “dope” kids). Like I said, if you even inspired others to entertain, Death wants you. On the other hand, Charles Rocket never entertained anyone and couldn’t handle Death’s snub, so he killed himself---by cutting his own throat. You know how much you have to hate your life to do some shit like that? And Death took a swipe at Shelly Winters, whom most people thought was dead already.

“ALL THE BOYS ARE HOTTER/UNDER THE WATER LISTEN TO MEEEE…”

Finally, in geek news, yes despite the bad acting and southern beach boy persona, that was a pretty good depiction of Aquaman on Smallville last week (though Paul Walker did a pretty good impression in Into The Blue). Tall, good-looking, curly blonde hair, squinty eyes and strong jaw. They even got his origin right: raised by lighthouse keeper after his mother died. Because I know you care and don’t care if you don’t, his original origin was that his father was a scientist who gave his son the ability to breathe underwater. That was redone to having his mother being from was from Atlantis and the lighthouse keeper was his father. It was then revised a third time that he was the son of the queen of Atlantis and a mysterious wizard and was abandoned at birth because he was blonde and in Atlantis that’s a sign of evil. He was initially raised by a dolphin named Porm before being taken in by the lighthouse keeper. Why do I know any of this despite not being a big Aquaman fan? Because his name is Arthur Curry, that’s why. The show was the usual mess of heavy-handed “in jokes” (Arthur calls Clark “super-boy” says they should form a “Junior Lifeguard Association” and the best one, he doesn’t travel with an “entourage”) and incredibly bad pretty boy acting (both the actor who played Aquaman and Clark Kent are former Abercrombie and Fitch models) but I will give them credit for having Aquaman go to University of Miami to explain why he’s in the orange and green of Aquman’s costume. No such logic is used to explain why Clark is in red or blue every fucking day and no one notices. But the water powers actually belong to his eventual wife, not him. And yes, Aquaman was once on American Idol, serenading Paula Abdul, who apparently has the worst taste in men ever to have chosen that other goofy bastard and not this guy.

10/17/05

A LITTLE SCARIER THAN “THE MIST”

I’m don’t do Monday morning predictions for movies. I don’t see the point, so when I suggested that The Fog would open at number one because of all the horror fans, I was being kind of flippant. So, what was a dismissive joke from be has become a sad indicator that I know far too much about movies. In other words, I could never do this for the New York Times Bestseller list. Sadly, I even know why they remade this mediocre movie, best know as the less-than-spectacular movie John Carpenter made after Halloween became an unexpected success (and launched the slasher film genre that continues to this day). Because the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre made money, that’s why. It’s the odd belief that 70’s horror films can be resurrected for cash today, because of familiarity, despite the fact the primary audience wasn’t born when the film was originally made. Nonetheless, given that it opened at number one, expect every half-assed post-Halloween slasher flick to be remade now, meaning Jamie Lee Curtis can look forward to steady “in-joke” work for all the movies she made post-Halloween as well, including Terror Train (which also had Vanity of Vanity 6 herself, Denise Matthews, in a small role) and Prom Night. She was also in The Fog, but they don’t seem to have bothered calling her. I didn’t really do the scary back then so I don’t know if it sucks more or less, but because I am a geek and watch Smallville devotedly, I am glad what Tom Welling, who plays Clark Kent is being briefly given the illusion of a big screen career, but he’s a lousy actor and there’s already one Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker out there and barely that. The “himbo” field is very limited.

AN OFFER STEVE JOBS CAN’T REFUSE

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is down to number two and the moment this opened at number one, their warehouse with almost their entire history burned to the ground. How many times do I have to tell you not to mess with The Mouse? Messing with Disney regarding animation of any kind is like messing with the mob. Notice how Pixar has never really left them. Know why? Because then their headquarters would also “mysteriously” burn to the ground.

BUY THE SOUNDTRACK, SKIP THE MOVIE

Elizabethtown opens at number three and I once said that sometimes Cameron Crowe’s films seem to be an excuse for him to show off his record collection. Never was this more true than Elizabethtown. Virtually every scene has a different song to tell you what everyone is feeling or what you should be feeling. And it’s a good thing too, because in this sprawling mess of a film, you need all the help you can get. If Almost Famous was Crowe’s tribute to his mom, then Elizabethtown is his tribute film to his dad. Unfortunately, Crow has mythologized his late father too much in a way his mother simply would not let him (if you’ve heard her on the commentary on Almost Famous, you know her strident, demanding nature was no joke). Her loving, but obviously irritating nature refused to allow him to see his life through rose-colored glasses (mother and daughter actually only reconciled when the film was released), whereas he has no such perspective where his father is concerned, which is why this film is one gigantic blob of uncooked dough. Orlando Bloom plays plays the latest Crowe doppleganger, who works at version of Nike (Alec Baldwin even plays a man named “Phil”) and creates such a disastrous shoe that it will cost the company a billion dollars. He’s just about to kill himself over it when he learns his father has just died of a heart attack and he has to go to his father’s hometown, where he’s never been, to take care of it. Along the way he meets Kirsten Dunst, a flight attendant who strangely intrudes on his life. And apparently that’s as far as Crowe thought it through, because you get zero character development after that. Why is Kirsten Dunst so committed to being part of Orlando Bloom’s life (other than the fact he’s so much prettier than she is, she’s practically the man here)? Why is it he’s never been to his father’s hometown before? What’s the secret about one of the characters that causes Susan Sarandon (as Orlando’s mom) to so resent him? Maybe the answers will be found in Elizabethtown II, because they sure as hell aren’t here. Instead, potentially interesting characters and situations are introduced and never expanded upon or resolved. And whatever you do, don’t let Kirsten Dunst define a character by herself. She needs to be told what to do at all times. Letting her run around trying to get by on her personality alone simply does not work. While Kate Hudson does possess enough of her mother’s sparkle, so that even in a bad movie she’s charming (much less a good one like Almost Famous where she makes a groupie slut an endearing romantic character), Kirsten Dunst simply has none of that and simply cannot exude wit or wisdom with nothing witty or wise to say and do. Part of the movie has to do with his keeping his colossal business failure a secret even though it’s coming out in Business Week in a few days. But If you’re looking for rising suspense concerning this eventual revelation or the actual reactions of his family and friends to that again I direct you to Elizabethtown II, ‘cause it ain’t here. Oh, and it’s two freaking hours long. By they way, the wonderful Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and their director are reuiniting to make a sequel to Elizabeth with Clive Owen along for the ride as Sir Walter Raleigh. I was disappointed by the first one, but I’m so down for the sequel it hurts.

BUT I’M SURE HE’S FUNNY; HE’D HAVE TO BE

Flightplan is down to number four, followed by In Her Shoes at number five and taking a break from his career as the David Schwimmer You Might Actually Sleep With, is Mark Feuerstein as The Really Perfect Guy who helps Toni Colette find love. You know him best as the really bad lover Miranda had on Sex & The City. Me I know him as the really bad lover one of my friends had a one-night stand with years ago, so know that he was typecast. Unfortunately, this is all that comes to mind whenever I see him. It also says something about his career that he’s never had a role that makes me forget anything other than he’s bad in bed. He does have one sparkling moment in the film, when he finally wins Toni Colette’s interest by describing the meal he’d order for them at a four star restaurant. It’s a nicely written scene fully utilizing the seductive elements of food and would have had greater resonance if Toni Collette were anything close to the fat girl taking comfort in food they keep trying to pretend she is.

ONLY THE VAGUEST RESEMBLANCE TO A TRUE STORY…

Domino opens at number six and every time a Tony Scott film fails, an angel gets his wings. Lacking his brother’s talent for style, but sharing his brother’s love of style over substance, the man has been a plague on cinema for the last twenty years. People forget that, before Brett Ratner and Michael Bay and an entire generation of MTV non-trained idiots graduated to crap all over the big screen, there was Tony Scott and Top Gun, which is sadly, the best film he’s ever made (George Michael’s light & shadow drenched “One More Try” video coming in a close second). And if you think it’s not going to get worse, know that he’s been tapped to direct the remake of The Warriors. Yes, we will finally have to kill him. Based on the true story of Domino Harvey, the daughter of Lawrence Harvey who came from money and privilege, modeled briefly and turned to bounty hunting for the thrill it gave her, it chooses to overlook the fact she was a lesbian (gay men who may have slept with women before coming out are still gay, while gay women who once slept with men are nonetheless bisexual) and the drug addiction that killed her earlier this year. It’s Tony Scott so do I really have to see this to conclude it sucks big monkey dicks? I think not. Keira Knightly joins the list of actors who experience big breakthrough roles then piss away their heat on crappy, big-budget starring roles because some agent tells them to grab the big money while they can. But she could care less. After all, she’s got Pirates of the Caribbean II & III coming, so she can afford it. But wherefore art thou Lucy Liu? Her small role in this hints that her time as Hollywood’s Asian Woman of the Moment is officially over. Zhang Ziyi’s starring role in Memoirs of a Geisha this Christmas should nail that coffin shut. Also in this is Jacqueline Bisset as her mother. Triva: she was originally in Mr. & Mrs. Smith. She and Terrance Stamp played the employers trying to have them killed and Jacqueline Bisset as the head of an assassination agency filled with beautiful women is fucking inspired. They then cut it, reshot it with Angela Basset in her place (they are fulfilling so many of my fantasies by having these women play ruthless killers). But then cut that too. Looking forward to the DVD.

OF COURSE, ASHTON KUTCHER AS BOBBY AND JESSICA SIMPSON AS PAM

Two For the Money is down to number seven and probably the most inspired casting I’ve heard is the idea of Matthew McConughey playing J.R. in the Dallas movie. Now that I might actually see. Part of the problem with his career is that he keeps playing the good guy when he’s got this slightly sleazy smarm about him (remember Dazed & Confused) that’s better suited for bad guy roles. Like Travolta, he’d probably take to it.

SLOWLY BECOMING MY HOLY GRAIL

A History of Violence is down to number eight and no, I still haven’t seen it. Art films are coming out by the fistful and it’s difficult to see them all. I will see Maria Bello in a cheerleading outfit, but keeping me complacent for the moment is the internet, which already has shots of her naked from this very film. My geek brethren are both wonderful and painfully sad at the same time. And I am their king. Sigh.

NOTHING REALLY MAKES ME TOTALLY HAPPY

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is down to number nine and at a cost of $30M this will turn a profit before it’s done, especially with a probable Halloween bounce. I’m both happy and sad for this. Happy for stop-motion animation, sad that anything works for Tim Burton.

IT’S JUST AN EXCUSE TO AVOID ACTUALLY GOING TO CHURCH

Finally, The Gospel closes out the top ten at number ten and what hath Mel Gibson and Tyler Perry wrought? At a budget of $4M, this has more that made its money back mainly because of the fact they got the Church people to see it and being Jesus freaks, they actually paid rather than bootlegged.

SOCIAL SKILLS = FAT ASS

So, I had an unusually busy social schedule this week, which I feel frees me up from any further obligations for the rest of the year, so don’t ask. First, The French Woman came into town for a job interview and stayed with me for a night (before joining her family in France). For this I opted for a very “European” meal (despite the fact she’s been in this country for quarter of a century). We had prosciutto, genoa sausage (imported, not that domestic crap), three cheeses (gouda, goat’s milk and triple crème), focaccia with roasted peppers (dipped in olive oil, of course) and a nice red. The thing about these meals is that you really don’t eat a lot, so as rich as it may be, you don’t get fat. This is why a guy in France or Italy can eat this daily (lucky bastard) and remain a rail, while the guy in Georgia or Indiana who hits Wendy’s every day at lunch looks like John Goodman. Because I had The French Woman over, I couldn’t make an impromptu dinner with Star Sister (who was the Original Rock Chick, by the way). Plans with Blind Date 2000 to see History of Violence (see, I’m trying) were canceled for Friday and I couldn’t reschedule for the weekend because I had a brunch with The Libertine Saturday afternoon and a birthday gathering of my Geek Girls on Saturday night. The Libertine and I wound up on Avenue C and 8th at an Australian place which had an “Unlimited Brunch” which means you could either have unlimited mimosas, Fosters or Bloody Mary’s. This was the result of much research, because a previously attempted drunken brunch with Surrogate Sister at Bowery Bar failed when we learned their unlimited mimosas were a thing of the past. This, however, was still in effect and my bacon came in the most decadent fashion possible: a bowl. Yes, I was given a Bowl of Bacon! No matter it was a small bowl, you can’t make that sound healthy no matter what you do. And I keep forgetting how tall The Libertine is. I was in boots and she was in sneakers but we were eye-to-eye. Not that I’m at all tall, but she’s a chick! And The Libertine joins the increasingly annoying ranks of attractive women who insist they are dorks or geeks. No, baby. I know geeks. Geeks are good friends of mine and you’re no geek. After brunch we did a little window-shopping in the East Village, which hasn’t been a place for people with no money for many, many years. I also joined her for a little shoe shopping, while she looked for boots. Sadly, I’ve no shame about my love of women in boots, so this was actually a pleasure for me. Especially since she was all about the knee-high kind. Yes, she has a gay friend for this, but the difference is, I have restraint. A gay man would say “Yes, they’re fabulous! Buy them now!” whereas I say, “Yes, they’re hot, but don’t buy them now just to buy them.” I have excellent impulse control…for other people. At least until she found the Kenneth Cole snakeskin boots. I was down with that plan. Fuck the future. Look hot now. I was a much better friend than the somewhat chunky Jewish girl who was with her tall, thin, attractive Asian girlfriend next to us. The attractive girl was in a dangerously short lavender dress and was looking at calf-high matching faux-snakeskin boots. She looked good in them (in a slutty way, of course), but her less-attractive friend was not about to be eclipsed any further than she had to be, so when asked her opinion she replied, “I don’t like snakeskin.” Translation: “Guys want you anyway, bitch. Why do you need more?” In the end, The Libertine wanted her boots in brown, so with my uncharacteristically sensible advice to wait until she found exactly what she wanted, she bought nothing. I was home only long enough get a warmer jacket when two of my Geek Girls swung by after their gourmet pizza run (everything from barbecue chicken to roasted pepper with eggplant and goat cheese) to take me down to a birthday gathering, where I couldn’t get drunk because a) I’d been drinking earlier with The Libertine and was exhausted, and b) had to get up the next day to do another open house on Park Avenue and 36th street. Aside from taking away from my valuable masturbation and comic book reading time (Janine now does guys and DC just released Infinite Crisis with the return of the Earth-2 Superman), all this socializing has made me an even fatter bastard than normal. I only eat and drink this much with others. Never alone. So leave me alone, you fuckers. I can’t afford to buy new, larger clothes right now.

SQUARE FOOTAGE REFLECTIVE OF CUP SIZE

Speaking of my open house, women have no excuse not to run the world. Sorry, you don’t. Men are sad, sad creatures. That you cannot overcome us does not speak well of you. Take my open house on Tuesday night (same place I’ve been doing for the last week or so). I don’t get paid, but I can claim any clients who want to look elsewhere. So, I’m there for an open house and no one comes. I’m reading a book, trying desperate to stay awake in the small studio that smells of Glade Hawaiian Scent (i.e. pineapple) that I’ve used to mask the horrid linen scent preferred by the owner. I’ve got ten minutes left when the doorman buzzes me to let me know someone is coming up. I collect myself and prepare for the worst, only to open the door to a lovely, young, olive-skinned creature with beautiful eyes and curly black ringlets of hair. I wound up spending the next half-hour talking to her about the place. It gets worse. Her boyfriend is buying the place for her. Not her dad, not her sugar daddy. Her boyfriend. And I would have too (hell, I would have bought a place for The Libertine the moment she zipped up those Kenneth Coles in front of me). This is why we’re pathetic and sad and you have no excuse not to overthrow us. Just send a pretty girl out front and then come around back and seize the keys of power. It’s just too easy. Your only threat: Power Hungry Gay Men. And even they can be disarmed…but only if you’re dressed fabulous.

NO, RICK JAMES’S “MARY JANE” IS NOT ABOUT A GIRL

My new favorite song is “Nikki Don’t Stop” by Low Millions, who were introduced to me by O.G. He told me of another song, but I discovered this one which has the great lyrics, “Hotter than a Puerto Rican mama/Suckin’ on ice in a sauna/Hotter than a little cheerleader/Throwin’ back cheap tequila…” Are all songs about girls named Nikki slut songs (Prince’s “Darling Nikki”)? Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Songs about girls named Jennifer are about frustrated longing or flat-out resentment (“Jennifer” by M2M, “Jennifer” by The Drowners and “Jenny 867-5309” by Tommy Twotone), Janes get fear of their intentions (“Jane” Jefferson Starship and “Jane’s Getting Serious” by Jon Astley) and Sarahs get sadness (“Sarah” Jefferson Starship and “Sarah Smile” by Hall & Oates).

THE RICH, THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU OR I

The funniest thing about the people who got advance warning of Subway bombing was what it says about our class system. Yes, Virginia, in case New Orleans didn’t make it abundantly clear, we have a class system in this country. In this case warnings went to the Upper West Side. Not Brooklyn, not The Bronx and definitely not Queens. Obviously there is money and privilege on the Upper West Side, but is there not, in fact, more on the Upper East Side? Yes, but you have to remember, Homeland Security is technically Civil Service and the threat was to the subway, which are two things people with money simply do not involve themselves with. The Upper West Side, however, suffers from liberal guilt, so they have relatives in civil service and they take the subways. Now do you understand?

LET THE RAIN FALL DOWN, LET THE RAIN FALL DOWN DOWN…

Finally, fuck all of you. I love the rain. I loved all eight days of it. Every freaking drop. Every goddamned inch. All two million fucking gallons. Do you not realize we were in a goddamn drought? There was practically no rain from July until now. We needed it, we were due and I was in heaven. I can’t wait until it happens again. Now we’re talking a lot of songs. “I Wish It Would Rain” by The Temptations, “I Wanna Go Outside (In The Rain)” by the Dramatics, “Fool In The Rain” Led Zeppelin, “Here Comes The Rain Again” Eurhythmics, “Rainy Night In Georgia” “Making Love In The Rain” Lisa Keith & Herb Alpert (Janet Jackson on background cough-cough “vocals”), “I Can’t Stand The Rain” Ann Peebles…I could do this all day. And we’re not even talking about songs like Sting’s “Fortress Around Your Heart” which opens with the sounds of rain.

10/10/05

CLAY ACHIN’

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit opens at number one and I’ve never been able to get into this. I’ve tried, but like so many English comedies, it just tries my patience. Unlike people who declare that something isn’t funny merely because they don’t get it, I will fully admit this may be the funniest shit in the world, but I simply lack the genetic configuration that allows me to get it. I also don’t like or get Fawlty Towers, but this is for the same reason I never watched The Office and don’t watch Extras. Most English humor is based on the concept of the unease of watching an idiot make an utter fool of himself and that just makes me angry. I just want to choke the shit out of him, not laugh at him. This is why can’t watch Curb Your Enthusiasm and hated George on Seinfeld. The primary of a comedy cannot be an idiot for me. I just can’t take it. Nevertheless, between this Corpse Bride and the great Robot Chicken the future of stop-motion animation seems very safe and that warms my Sinbad-Jason-and-the-Argonauts-King-Kong-Mighty-Joe-Young-loving geek heart.

SOLE SISTERS

Flightplan is down to number two, followed by In Her Shoes, which opens at number three and forget all that bullshit they’ve been trying to spin by saying this isn’t a chick flick. It’s as chick-flicky as it gets. The only way it could be more chick flicky is if it were about a mother and her daughters rather than two sisters, played by Toni Colette and Cameron Diaz (think Dennis and Randy Quaid). It’s two sisters, one fat and smart, one thin and pretty; one a successful lawyer, the other a thief and a leech; a dead mother, unconditionally loving dad, evil stepmother, conflict, break, new beginnings, reconciliation, A Really Perfect Guy to make it all better, at least two fucking weddings and, of course, a closet filled with shoes. Can you imagine that with two guys? Even if you replaced the shoes with guns or porn? No. That’s why this is a chick flick. Nevertheless, it’s got one man-friendly component: Cameron Diaz, who opens the film about to have sex in a bathroom stall and spends most of the film in various stages of undress. But I can’t say it’s totally exploitation, because it does fit her character. Yes, the “low self-esteem girl who sleeps around” is an old cliché and in true Hollywood fashion, they’re always hot---as if the short, fat, unattractive girl doesn’t have ten times the reason to be that way (and if you’ve been to college, you know that’s who usually is). But this is one of the few times we get to convincingly see just why “The Hot Girl” would have self-esteem so low: she’s not stupid, but is dyslexic and is actually too embarrassed by it to get help, which only compounds the problem. This movie convincingly stages her frustration well enough that you understand why she needs the brief reinforcement of male attention to make herself feel better, no matter what the eventual cost---which is high when she screws her sister’s new beau. This sends Cameron Diaz off to Florida to find the grandmother she never knew in Shirley McClaine, who is apparently is at the rest home of Wisecracking Retirees, because the quick quips and one-liners come flying out of the mouths of virtually all the geriatrics. Or maybe it’s because they’re all Jewish and God’s chosen seem to genetically have that timing. Oh, did I mention that Cameron Diaz, Shirley McClaine and Toni Collette are all Jewish? Come on, people, suspension of disbelief. After all, it’s not so unheard of. You wouldn’t know Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall and Winona Ryder were all Jewish if they didn’t tell you (I’m sure Winona Ryder would tell you…eventually). The movie isn’t bad, but not much more than a big Lifetime/Oxygen/WE movie. It’s definitely too long and spends too much time building to the sisters’ eventual reunion in Florida. It also gives us the short shrift when it comes to the evolution of Toni Collette’s character, who seems to find herself by giving up her law career to walk dogs. Also, her seeming self-hatred over not being physically perfect just comes and goes as the story needs it and doesn’t seem to really be part of her personality. Cameron Diaz gets the better end of the deal, because she gets the role of the bad sister who goes good with the help of lots of wisecracking old people.

DOES THIS MAKE IT THREE FOR THE SHOW?

Two For the Money opens at number three and this is definitely a guy picture, but a limited guy picture because who cares so much about betting on sports they’d actually watch a movie about it? Sports, yes, but movies about gambling tend to suck because there’s no way you can convey the actual thrill of it. This movie continues the Al Pacino Younger Actor Tour (not to be confused with The Jon Voight Younger Actor Tour), where he plays the older guy to some hot, younger actor…only Matthew McConughey isn’t the young hot stud any longer. Not in the way Keanu Reeves, Chris McDonnell, Colin Farrell, John Cusack where when he worked with them. In fact, it’s kind of a strike against Pacino that he’s not doing this movie with Orlando Bloom or some refugee from The WB trying to be The Next Big Thing. It’s sad when the hottest actor in a movie is Jeremy Piven…essentially playing Jeremy Piven. And what the hell is Renee Russo doing in this? Suddenly I’m glad they’re making a sequel to The Thomas Crown Affair so I can see her in something beautiful, big and glamorous and not this wannabe intense drama. I’ll never see it, but let me guess: hot young stud comes to be noticed by older powerful guy. Older Powerful Guy takes Hot Young Stud under his wing. Hot Young Stud rises quickly to the top and makes everyone happy. Hot Young Stud then over indulges in success and crashes and burns and no one likes him anymore. Hot Young Stud has the type of epiphany you can only have from the bottom (which is why Mick Jagger and Jack Nicholson have never found Jesus) and wants out. Older Powerful Guy won’t let him. Hot Young Stud pulls a rabbit out of his ass and makes his escape while damaging Older Powerful Guy in the process. I’d say let me know if I’m wrong, but I honestly couldn’t care less.

LEAVE NO SUB-GENRE OF FILM UNTOUCHED

The Gospel opens at number four and given the strength of The Church in the black community as well as the well as the financial success of gospel music, I suppose this is a long time in coming, but it just seems dumb to me. As far as I’m concerned this whole concept was summed up in that one sequence in The Blues Brothers---and even that was too long. It’s an old story: Young Man walks away from family business. Father dies and he returns to settle estate, but finds himself drawn back into the life complete with old loves and old enemies and eventually assumes his father’s place as head of the family business. Again, I’d say let me know if I’m wrong, but I honestly care even less about this one. And what’s always the irony about Black films? The people who complain the most about there not being enough of them are the first to bootleg them. Heavy, heavy sigh.

I’VE HEARD IT’S THE HARDEST PART

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (which, by the way, is the official title and not a description on Helena Boham Carter) is down to number six, followed by Waiting at number seven and while this may seem to be a bit of a disappointment, I think it’s obvious the movie cost about thirty-five cents to make, so opening even this low is an accomplishment (actually it cost $3M, but marketing seems to be three times that). And it will obviously find a teen audience on DVD, so this does not impede the return of the “R” rated comedy or Ryan Reynolds career. Actually, Blade: Trinity and The Amityville Horror hurt him more than this does. And when the fuck did Dane Cook suddenly become someone? Number one comedy record? College kids love him? Damn, I’m getting older by the second. I tried to watch his stand up, but couldn’t take it. Jokes about looking at your own ass while you puke were utterly lost on me. I think it’s more because he’s better looking than the average comic, which is not to say he’s good-looking but just not as ugly as the rest.

“THAT’S THE SOUND OF THE MEN WORKING ON THE CHAIN GAH-EE-ANG”

A History of Violence is down to number eight and Maria Bello’s cheerleader sex scene calls out to me, beckoning me, but I had to whore myself on Sunday and there simply isn’t enough time to see all the films coming out. Capote opened, The Squid & The Whale opened and I still have not seen fucking Proof. I swear, this is almost like a second job. You people should seriously start paying me for all the joy I bring you. Joy, damnit!

“WITH YOUR SATIN TIGHTS/FIGHTING FOR YOUR RIGHTS…”

Serenity is down to number nine and the most troubling thing about this movie is that Joss Whedon is also writing and directing the Wonder Woman movie and this leaves me less-than-impressed with his big screen abilities. Just because he’s already done a mini-Wonder Woman with Buffy The Vampire Slayer (actually, she was inspired more by Kitty Pryde of the X-Men he says) means nothing. Not everyone who shines on the small screen can convey it to the big. And it doesn’t help that he makes stupid statements like, “I've never loved the comics and I didn't watch the television series, but I loved the character very much.” How the fuck can you love a character but not any of the presentations of her? Just where does your fucking love originate? He also said height wasn’t important (thus clearing the way for that Lindsay Lohan/Mischa Barton Wonder Woman) and criticized the outfit that Lynda Carter wore on the show and if you know anything, you know that was the best thing about it (well, that and the theme song). I have the sick, sinking feeling he’s just going to use Wonder Woman to tell a big Buffy The Vampire story. Love Buffy, but she ain’t no Wonder Woman.

OBVIOUSLY NOT AS BLUE AS IT NEEDED TO BE

Finally, Into the Blue closes out the top ten at number ten proving there is a limit to the marketability of Jessica Alba’s body. I guess even your horniest frat boy has a limited tolerance to her “no nudity” policy, especially when there’s nothing else going on, which your PG13 pretty much guarantees. Including even Ashley Scott’s (geek connection: she played The Huntress, daughter of Batman and Catwoman, the horrific show, Birds of Prey) slutty bad girl, whose topless scene is shot from the back! The back! Excuse me, but I can see tits on basic fucking cable, so I’d damn well better see them here on the big screen. Sin City and The Fantastic Four had at least the hardcore geek factor to get them in. This has only her for the boys and it’s more about Paul Walker, so it’s his fat-free, bronzed torso that you see the most of. Not something your average overly-thin/fat geek or pudgy frat boy wants. But where are the girls? You know, your refusal to support C&A (chest and abs) is why we rule the world and you don’t. I’m serious. You can’t achieve supreme power by pretending to be deep.

NOT SO BLACK & WHITE

Not breaking the top ten is Good Night & Good Luck, the story of Edward R. Murrow’s struggle with Edward McCarthy and the “Red Scare” of the 50’s. Shot very beautifully, it’s a love letter to the birth and almost golden age of TV journalism and it’s one true god. George Clooney, who writes, directs and co-stars is the son of a TV journalist and was so raised on the Gospel of Murrow. Subsequently, this isn’t what you’d call multi-dimensional or even remotely shaded. It’s almost a documentary, which makes me think this might have been better served with one, because a good documentary shows more than one side. Not that Senator McCarthy wasn’t an evil bastard, but there was more going on than just him versus Edward R. Murrow. Yes, he did self-destruct on Murrow’s show (the film uses only genuine McCarthy footage, not an actor, so that asshole you see is him and him alone), but there was more going on. It wasn’t just Murrow that brought McCarthy down, it was TV in general. Before TV, people couldn’t see what he looked like as he badgered and attacked people. And as shallow as it sounds, the man was ugly. If you think it doesn’t matter, Richard Nixon could tell you a story about a debate he once had with John F. Kennedy that cost him an election to the presidency. Also, McCarthy became drunk on his power and thought he could do anything and went after someone in the Eisenhower administration. But you’d never know it from this movie. According to this, it was the integrity of newsmen and the integrity of newsmen alone that took him down. That aside, it’s not a bad ninety minutes, even though it gets a little too obvious, showing commercials for smoking and actual interviews with Liberace about what he’s looking for in a wife for cheap laughs. Then there’s totally wasted subplot about married co-workers. That’s time that could have been used to give the story a little more depth. For example: William S. Paley built CBS and more importantly, CBS News, and when it took on the US Government to the point where Lyndon B. Johnson called him personally to complain, Paley stood up for it. Why? What makes a corporate head jeopardize everything? If it helps, Paley was the kind of loon who believed quality programming made money, pushed networks developing shows so that advertisers couldn't determine content and helped build the Museum of Modern Art. On the other hand, CBS bought Fender guitars in the 60’s and almost destroyed it, so he wasn't perfect. He also rejected many successors, before selling to Tisch in the 80’s---who promptly gutted the network the moment it didn’t turn a profit, starting with the news division.

I SAY THERE, SIR NIGEL, YOU DIRTY COCKSUCKER, WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR ASS?

As I said before, I don’t watch English comedy because it’s all based on embarrassment and uncomfortable situations. Extras, the new HBO series from Ricky Geravese who created The Office is more of the same. BUT…Kate Winslet appears as herself, giving holocaust dramas a long overdue mocking and revealing what everyone knows: do the holocaust, get an Oscar. But most of all, she gives advice on how to give phone sex and in that wonderfully English accent it is more fun and dirtier than it has a right to be---and is on a loop in my mind as we speak (“I’m playing with my dirty pillows…I’m aching for your purple-headed womb ferret…Get ‘round here ‘cause I’m fudding myself stupid and bloody loving it.”). Apparently, she had to ad-lib something similar in the set of her new film, Love & Cigarettes, but they had to cut half because it was simply too vulgar. See, the English love using their language in the most profane way possible. You can see the delight in their eyes when they do it. The love calling each other “cunt” which would get you killed here. If you’ve ever seen the deleted scenes of Bridget Jones’s Diary (which are great), you know that Hugh Grant yells at the TV screen while watching sports, “How could you miss that, you great wet pussy?” What kind of thing is that to yell at TV? It’s just…nasty.

SOMEONE SANITIZE MY BRAIN!

So, after whoring myself at another open house (which is hysterically RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM WHERE CHASING AMY LIVES), I’m stopping by a deli on the way home when a bald, middle-aged man comes in, grabs a pack of condoms and says, “Gimme a small thing of baby oil.” EWWWWWWW! EWWWWWW! Why did I have to be there for that!?! Why has fate cursed me so!?! EWWWWWW! We need that memory-zapper from that bad Ben Affleck movie, Paycheck. I would soooo pay to have that deleted.

THE MAN WAS A POET AND YOU DIDN’T KNOW IT

The most shocking thing about Nipsey Russell’s death is that he was 80. Damn. And here I thought “Black don’t crack” was just a joke (probably one that Nipsey made). Playwright August Wilson also died, and this rare theater entry shows us that Death notices theater about as much as the rest of us.

10/03/05

IT’S NOT LIKE SHE’S ROYALTY

Flightplan holds at number one and remember what I said about Jodie being queen of the estro-thriller? Did you think I was making it up? Also appearing in this for no reason I can discern is Greta Scacchi. Remember her? Waaaay back in the late 80’s she was the New Sexy Woman, but thanks to some really bad choices and large failures (she turned down the lead in Basic Instinct but instead did Shattered) and openly having a child with her first cousin and insisting there was nothing wrong with it, her career as a female lead was pretty much over before it began. And now she looks horrible. I mean like she had stroke while in the middle of plastic surgery bad. I don’t feel bad ragging on someone who’s pretty much pro-incest. I think Nature’s punishing her for risking insane four-fingered dwarves and making her too hideous for even her twisted cousin.

Y’ALL BEST BACK UP FROM THAT THAR ROBOT…

Serenity opens at number two and one of the many reasons I’m King of the Geeks (most of which are very, very, very sad), is that I tend not to be caught up in some of the biggest geek obsessions. This frees up the part of the brain most humans use for social skills. I’m not saying I use it, but at least I have the option. I never played Dungeons & Dragons, I read none of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, ignored every Star Trek after the original like they were episodes of Friends and I never gave a shit about Joss Whedon’s shows outside of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Whedon is pretty much a geek god, but not only did I ignore Buffy once it competed with Smallville, but I watched maybe three episodes of Angel, bought one issue of his Astonishing X-Men comic book and saw maybe 15 minutes of Firefly, which was the series from which Serenity springs. In fact, the most noteworthy thing about it to me was that Ron Glass was in it and Barney Miller was one of the best sitcoms ever made. What really turned me off to it was that Whedon was unusually heavy handed in its execution. It was a western set in space, which is oldest idea in science fiction (why do you think everyone in The Matrix wore dusters?) but you’d think Whedon created it the way he pushed it. It opened with a fucking country song and without the occasional shot of a spaceship, every episode looked like it was done on an old Gunsmoke set, all the way down to old-style revolvers being used. But what really, really, really sucked was the incredibly forced cowboy “patois” he had them speaking and it continues to suck in this movie. Him peppering it in typical uber-geek fashion with an Asian language (geeks have a thing about Asian culture thanks to anime, martial arts movies and a belief that Asian women will be more tolerant of small penises) doesn’t have near the effect he’d hoped it would. You want to see that done right, see Code 46. It’s almost Spielbergian how he beats over the head with “LOOK! IT’S A WESTERN! BUT IN SPACE! GET IT!?! IT’S A WESTERN, BUT I’VE PUT IT IN OUTER SPACE!” And it still looks like a TV show. Fox went cheap on the budget and it shows. But even this was Whedon’s fault, as he probably brought TV people with him, who had no idea how to make $45M look like $100M (this is what we call “loyal to a fault”). Here’s a thought. Try shooting someplace other than the fucking hills of California that have been used for 70 years by every fucking movie in the world to be the wild west. Go to Mexico, go to Italy, go anywhere but fucking California! And this is pretty much a season/series finale episode, where the major plot line gets wrapped up, but remains open ended to maybe make more. Also, some characters die and it’s so obvious who they will be, they might as well have been wearing the red shirts from Star Trek. That said, it’s not a bad movie, just a decent episode of TV show. That you’re watching for the first time. Because nothing and I mean nothing else is on. Farscape was better, hands down and it had a similar premise (group of outlaws on a ship fleeing from a tyrannical government ).

STARRING ALBERT FINNEY AND SUSAN DEY…WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT?

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is down to number three and I’ve accepted that I will most likely never see this, so you’re on your own here. While on one hand, I’m delighted to see stop-motion animation still in use beyond commercials, I still hate Tim Burton and am not thrilled with Johnny Depp and not even Emily Watson (whom I normally adore) is enough to get me in. And apparently every Brit who didn’t work on Valiant is here. Joanna Lumley, Christopher Lee (in the Tim Burton Vincent Price role), Tracey Ullman, Richard E. Grant and Albert Finney are also along for the ride. And speaking of Albert Finney, I recently had a need to find the theme song from that bad science fiction movie he made in the 80’s, Looker (“She’s a looker/with a beautiful face/she’s got it all, yeah/she’s got it made…”) by Sue Saad, which was covered later by Kim “Bette Davis Eyes” Carnes. Written and directed by Michael Crichton, it’s still a very timely movie as it’s about plastic surgery and could actually be a very dark comedy. Crichton’s version is funny too, but not intentionally. It also starred Susan Dey, so now you know you’ve got to see it.

IT’S LIKE THEY’RE READING MY MIND

A History of Violence opens at number four and I will see this. Not because I’m a David Cronenberg fan, because the man is just too weird for his own good (to direct the actors in the sex scene for this movie, he made them watch him have sex with his wife in something straight out of Monty Python) and not because this is based on a graphic novel (a.k.a., a really big comic book). No, it’s the simple knowledge that at one point, Maria Bello dresses up in a cheerleading outfit and has a sex scene. Here’s my money. I’ll be right over.

PRETTY WET. GET IT? THEY’RE PRETTY AND THEY’RE WET? SIGH.

Into the Blue opens at number five and if you want to feel old, fat and ugly, this is your movie. Combined, the bodyfat levels of the four leads and pretty model boy Tyson Beckford probably isn’t four five percent. But damn if it don’t look good. If eye candy is your game, this is where you go to play. Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker and Jessica “My Ass Could Start A War” Alba are the prettiest couple in the Bahamas and are apparently required by law to wear as little as possible. And it’s a damn good law. Scott “My Dad Was Sonny” Caan is Paul Walker’s best friend, a mob lawyer from New York and Ashley “Nobody” Scott is his slutty girlfriend and the moment they touch down, they too are required to obey this law, though to not quite the same effect. Tyson Beckford is a local crime lord who strangely obeys only this one law. You can’t really call it exploitation because Walker does play a diver and it is the freaking Bahamas. Just what exactly are you supposed wear when you dive all the time and the average temperature is 80 degrees every day? There is a plot, lifted pretty much directly from The Deep---pretty couple is looking for famous shipwreck, discover drugs which brings bad guys and there are animals down there that take a bite out of people---but it’s not about that. It’s about pretty people half-naked and wet in a beautiful setting. Years and years ago, I had my first dirty old man moment while catching an episode of the last incarnation of Flipper on TV one Saturday afternoon. The teen hero and his love interest were trapped in a shed during a hurricane and I couldn’t help but notice that she was pretty nice. My next reaction was to wash my vile brain out with bleach and hope I never saw that girl again. It seemed likely. She was a child actor on a syndicated show. Just where could this “Jessica Alba” person go? Apparently into a person so fine, we should force Mexicans and Danes to have sex to make more of them. You almost feel sorry for Ashley Scott. She’s walking around in less than pretty much anyone else onscreen and its doubtful if anyone even noticed. Hell, even when Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker was running around she was probably ignored. At best she was beating out Scott Caan, who was obviously doing his crunches every day too. Then again, if I knew I’d be shirtless around Paul Walker (again—they were both in Varsity Blues), even I would have to let the cheese go for awhile. Ah, who am I kidding? I would have just done what Josh “My Dad Is Barbara Streisand's Bitch” Brolin does and kept my shirt on the entire time---even when he’s fucking underwater. No, I’m not kidding. Dude must have some gut to do that. But he doesn’t care. He’s married to Diane “You’ve All Loved Me For 25 Years” Lane.

ISN’T THE POINT OF WHORING TO MAKE ENOUGH TO STOP WHORING?

Just Like Heaven is down to number six and also appearing in this is Donal Logue, who seemed to be destined for greater things after The Tao of Steve. Like John Goodman, he was a great roly-poly supporting actor, but unlike John Goodman, he actually got one great leading role. And a romantic one at that. But don’t cry for him Argentina, he got that sitcom on Fox, which means his car is paid for and if it goes into syndication (which it probably will, given how desperate the markets are for new comedies), he’ll never have to worry again and maybe stop doing shit like this.

WHAT DON CHEADLE IS TO DENZEL WASHINGTON…

The Exorcism of Emily Rose is down to number seven, followed by Roll Bounce at number eight and who do you call when you can’t get Nick Cannon? Wesley Jonathan. Yes, you know him. He plays the Black Best Friend on What I Like About You and was on that show City Guys. What’s odd is that Nick Cannon is actually in this movie in what is little more than a glorified cameo. It’s like they asked him and he said, “Look, I’m too buys making a really shitty movie with Cheech, but I’ll do a cameo and you should look up my boy, Jonathan.” And the difference between them is that Wesley Jonathan works out. A lot, as his chest is on display in this movie like he was Pamela Anderson.

I WON’T DIGNIFY IT BY LOOKING UP THE REAL TITLE

The Greatest Game Ever Played opens at number nine and the sub-genre of golf movies continues on unabated. In the end, they must all make money for them to keep making more of them. But no matter what, you’ll never get better than The Caddy, with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Okay, Caddyshack is actually better, but that’s it. Not Tin Cup, not Happy Gilmore and definitely not that “The Magic Nigger Is My Caddy” bullshit from Will Smith and Matt Damon. And despite the colossal failure of that film, it would cost you at the very lead $60-70M just to reunite the three main cast members now: Matt Damon, Will Smith and Charlize Theron.

AND YOU KNOW THE PROMO WILL BE “VIRGIN SCORES”

The 40 Year-Old Virgin has finally hit $100M and will now finally be pulled from release to get ready for the DVD which will probably drop sometime this Christmas. It’s the only reason it’s been kept out in so many theaters this long.

LIFE’S TOO SHORT TO WASTE OUTSIDE YOUR TV

Cleared out some more TV shows on my DVR…Just Legal isn’t the most original lawyer show in the world, but it’s appealing enough that I would continue to watch if it weren’t two seconds away from being canceled. Also on this show is Julie Warner, poor thing. She was the Young Hottie for all of three seconds and now she’s not just the mom, she the supporting mom. Ouch. Just how many women under 5’5” were supported by Michael J. Fox’s career anyway?…Commander In Chief, with the earth-shattering prospect that a woman could be president, totally pussies out and makes her an independent and it’s this lack of teeth that will cost it in the end. The best part about the show was her husband, who was her Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff adjusting to being “First Lady” and being passed over as being Presidential Chief of Staff. Ironic, no? The most interesting part of a show about a female president is still a man. And while it may seem a little misogynist to have the women be the hardest on her (and it’s done so heavy-handedly, it quite frankly is) the truth is, it’s usually your own who are the hardest on you. No one ripped Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice harder than Black people…David Spade’s show has some promise, but it’s very much in its beginning amateur stage. The writing can be cutting to the bone, but it’s actually Spade himself that’s part of the problem. He’s too busy being smirky and smarmy---yes, I know that’s his thing---but it undercuts some of the jokes, which would be better off served by being told straight. A decent bit about the smell of celebrity perfumes was ruined by the amateur delivery of one of the cast members and Spade’s interjections…Kitchen Confidential is well done and funny, but it’s also following the lowest-rated, best-written comedy on TV, Arrested Development (which is so funny, it may kill me), so yes, it’s doomed to failure. Thank god for DVD. I’ve enjoyed it so much I went out and bought the book on which it was based. It’s a shame this wasn’t picked up by HBO or even put on FX alongside Nip/Tuck because this man’s life was not G-rated. The chapter on his first job in a seafood restaurant ends with the head chef of that place fucking a new bride, in her freaking wedding dress, over a barrel in the alley behind the restaurant while the wedding party eats inside! And I haven’t even mentioned the drug use (catering on crystal meth). The character in the show based on him is post-this lifestyle. Funny still, but not nearly as much fun. And what’s with the least attractive member of the cast being the only gay character? Bad casting there…I tried watching one of the three---count ‘me, three---alien invasion series, which strangely all have to do with water, but I couldn’t stomach it. Yes, Surface is just that bad…and the Will & Grace live episode was decent, considering their glory days are literally years behind them. You could tell who had the real theater experience, which is why Alec Baldwin was the best thing about it. Debra Messing and Sean Hayes couldn’t stop giggling, which is funny in outtakes, but gets annoying during a show. Though the joke that broke her up was pretty good…and Smallville premiered with pretty much an homage to the movie. You had Young Clark in the arctic with a Kryptonian stone like the movie. He throws said stone which then builds his crystalline Fortress of Solitude like the movie. We know it's a Fortress of Solitude because the voice of Jor-El tells us like the movie. Jor El begins his training like the movie. Also we had tiny pieces of footage of the destruction of Krypton from the actual movie, bad Kryptonians who land on Earth and we're told they are “Followers of Zod", they leave a trail of destruction through a small town and they face off with Clark Kent as the female Kryptonian threatens his love interest. Unfortunately, it's a sad, disappointing non-fight (inexcusable for a season premiere) but it does leads to them being cast into the Phantom Zone pane of glass from the films. And as we know, the voice of Jor-El is Terrance Stamp, who played Zod. Oh, and Brainiac shows up, played by James Marsters, who played Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It’s going to be a fun final season.

“…THE MOVIE STAR, THE PROFESSOR AND MARY ANN…” ARE ALL THAT’S LEFT

Death went on a tear recently. Apparently New Orleans wasn’t enough. Gilligan had to go too. Yes, Bob Denver died. And would you believe, Don Adams too? Yes, Maxwell Smart is gone. And if my childhood TV watching wasn’t being decimated enough, Butch from the Little Rascals died. There’s a geek connection there too, because he played Jimmy Olsen in the Superman serials of the 40’s. It’s not entertainment related, but Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi Hunter also died---resulting in parties all over Europe, Argentina and Ohio. And where’s the movie of this man’s life? It’s about forty fucking years overdue.

IT’S LIKE STREETWALKING, ONLY NOT AS RESPECTABLE

So, guilt sent me out of my house again. My little Rock Chick wound up at the bar near my home again, so I had no choice but to stop by. This led to me running into a former co-worker whom I neither remember or cared to remember. And if that little forced conversation wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward enough, next came Rock Chick’s new co-workers hitting on me. Drunk, horny women are scary. Correction: drunk horny women to whom you’re not attracted are scary. Maybe it would have been scary even if they’d been attractive, but I probably wouldn’t have cared. As it was, just when this happened, Rock Chick and her boyfriend were leaving so I pretended we were all going to eat and ducked out. Besides, one of them looked like my sister, which means she kinda looks like me and my narcissism simply isn’t that out of control. Next I worked my first open house, or as I like to call it “Puttin’ My Ass Out On The Street For The First Time.” As I stepped out of the house, I could hear Donna Summer singing “Bad Girls” in my head. Yes, we’ve taken a step to be more earnest in our whoring. I don’t wear a tie to work now, but I was wearing one on Sunday afternoon as I was fighting my way through traffic (we should just expect that 5th Avenue is closed for a fucking parade every Sunday as rule) to get to East End Avenue in the 80’s. The Upper East Side is actually nicer than I remember, but it’s still a place of unspeakable evil. My job was to meet people in the lobby for an hour-and-a-half. When you work someone else’s open house it’s either for cash or clients. I need both, but this was only offering clients and that was good enough for me. Besides, it was only for 90 minutes. I’ve spent more time jerking…um, reading comic books. So Around The Way Girl’s now former roommates had yet another cookout. I’m developing a small admiration for her roommate who had his ex-girlfriends talking about him in his very own bedroom last time, because you’ve got to have something working for you to screw up as much as he did, but they’re still around. Not only that, but every time I go to one of these cookouts, I keep meeting very interesting women. Aside from Dorito Cheeseburger Girl and The Libertine, there was also AWB (Asian girl With Bottom) who is apparently turning away from a career in finance to be a pastry chef and was oddly insulted by my description of her (and the most frightening thing about that is that more people are reading this than I knew). And I’m confused about the insult. What’s bad about having rhythm and an ass? Especially if you’re Asian? It’s like a Black person feeling insulted because someone said they had soft, manageable hair and a mastery of birth control. Was it because I spelled Philiapina with a “p” instead of an “f”? Not to mention it’s me who should be insulted, considering she never bothered to return any of my phone calls. If I were a real salesman, I hardly would have given up after two or three. Yeah, I’m lazy too, but still… Added to this roster was Misspent Youth Nurse, who is a neo-natal nurse (who also knows Dorito Cheeseburger Woman) who had a wild teen life out on Long Island working underage in a club for cash off the books and dating a Mafia prince. Now she tells she tried to pass her niece off as her daughter to get a good apartment and that Gray’s Anatomy makes her feel better about her own life because she too wound up dating a resident. And before I left I met AWB’s friend who just gave up being a lawyer after nine years to start her own yoga studio. Yes, Another Hot Yoga Instructor! She wanted to buy a few bottles of red wine because she needed to “decompress” from the stress of her new life and since I was leaving I walked her to the local liquor store---which turned out to be closed. Which means I had to walk her to the next liquor store---which also turned out to be closed. Third time was the charm, because those two were actually where I’d only go in an emergency and the good one was still open. I then walked her back to the party, because my mother would kill me if I didn’t. It’s sometimes shocking to realize how southern I still am. Now, remember those very, very, very sad reasons why I’m King of the Geeks? Well, here’s one of them. When you meet Another Hot Yoga Instructor who buys not one, not two, but three bottles wine because it’s a nice night and she wants to “decompress” shouldn’t you make it your mission in life to help her? Not if you’re King of the Geeks. If you’re King you just drop her off and go home. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got some comic books to file. And maybe a little weeping to do. Okay, weeping first. But not together. You don’t want to get water on your comic books.

Home