Shiny Shiny Pants

Roadtrip!

2007-04-26T00:20:00.000-05:00

True, we'd probably have to take a plane, at the very least a boat, but I feel like cars would be involved at one point or another, so... roadtrip. It still counts damn it. Where are we going you ask? Dickensworld! What is Dickens World you ask? Let's let the fine English folks explain:

"Dickens World is a brand new, innovative and exciting indoor visitor complex themed around the life, books and times of one of Britain’s best loved authors, Charles Dickens. It will take visitors on a fascinating journey through Dickens’ lifetime as they step back into Dickensian England and are immersed in the urban streets, sounds and smells of the 19th century.

With a host of captivating attractions, Dickens World features one of Europe’s largest dark boat rides, the Haunted house of Ebenezer Scrooge, a state-of-the art animatronic show, Victorian School Room, 4D high definition show and Fagin’s Den. Offering a unique showcase for one of the world’s best loved storytellers, Dickens World will truly offer visitors the ‘day out of a lifetime’. Dickens World is based on a credible and factual account of Charles Dickens works and the world in which he lived. Working with The Dickens Fellowship great attention has been paid to the authenticity of the time, characters and story lines. It offers a new and entertaining way to enjoy Dickens and his characters as well as gaining an understanding of the times and conditions people experienced living in England in the early 19th century."

You're already packing your bags, aren't you? I mean, ghosts, urchins, crazy old women in wedding dresses? You don't get that at Disney World my friends, not even on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. And that description just begins to whet my appetite - whats in store for Europe's largest dark boat ride? What was Europe's largest dark boat ride before this? Who is going around measuring the length of dark boat rides? And what is a dark boat ride? I mean... the title sounds self explanatory, but, is the boat riding through something dark? Is it just dark inside of the boat? It's vague, that's all I'm saying. Do you come out of Scrooge's Haunted House with a new optimistic outlook on life, like the way you come out of It's A Small World with a deep paranoia that children are slowly starting to raise an army up against you? And who doesn't want to go into a Victorian School room? It's like school now, but back when they could still hit you. You know, when learning was fun. And Fagin's Den? Oh God, I hope thats a theme restaurant. All the waiters are small pickpockets. And a 4D HD show? Of what? Is that just going to be a 3D production of the life of David Copperfield where they just throw dirt at you to make you feel like you're there? If so, awesome.

The only thing I could think of that would be better than going to Dickens World is to work there. I mean, their help wanted section of the site is labeled "Can you meet our 'Great Expecations'?" I think I just shed a tear, it's so beautiful. Spending the whole day trying to convince a family on holiday from Slough that you'll shiv them unless they give you their watches - and getting paid for it! Though, I'm guessing they would have a pretty lousy dental plan, seeing how that would affect your performance and all. Though, I'm guessing English corporations, in general, have crappy dental plans. I mean, it's England. Bad teeth are as English as beans for breakfast.

The Dark Knight Returns

2007-04-25T18:57:00.000-05:00

This is all rather disheartening. They're shooting the new Batman movie in town right now - I know since every film student is simulteanously pulling their hair out/selling their bodies to get onto the set as PAs (it's all a little counterproductive if you ask me, but whatever), or they're scouring the south side in hopes of finding the mythical warehouse that supposedly houses twenty copies of the new Batmobile (Oh, goodness, that is going to end so well. "Film Student Violenty Beaten To Death In Search Of Prop Car. Grieving Mother: 'At least he died doing what he loved. I guess.'"). And of course, even if I wasn't in film school, the whole crashing buses through buildings and trying to light the city on fire again might have tipped me off a bit. But, this is all pointless now. Whats the point of making a new Batman movie when you have this?

The seemless camera movement, the flawless sound design, the breathtakingly real fight choreography. Who needs Christian Bale when you can dress up in a Halloween costume on your moms roof? Who needs Heath Ledger when you have a guy with a question mark shirt hiding in a port-o-john? Who needs Chris O'Donnell... actually that kid was probably on par with Chris O'Donnell now that I think about it. The way he just walks off getting hit in the head with a cane likes its an ice cream headache - he needs to be sitting across a table from Jame Lipton right now.

In all seriousness though, its fun to laugh at this, but then, I start to think about how blatantly bad it is, and the time they must have but into this, and... it kind of haunts me. Is it a joke? If it is it's brilliant, but, theres just... they must have had those fucking costumes, and the dialogue is the exact same stuff I would come up with when I played Batman as a kid - like line for line (I had the breast plate and everything, it was sweet). It's just... too subtle, to naive to be satire. It's like the film equivalent of a terrible American Idol audition. They can watch this over and over, and they just won't get it. So is it some wildly insightful piece of satire, like Sartre if he wrote a graphic novel, or is just, as wrestler1304 wrote, "probably the gayest thing i have ever seen"? I guess we'll just have to wait to find out.

One thing we do not have to wait to learn though, if Batman is being attacked by some anonymous hoodied thug with a big stick, and he just can't quite shake him, all Robin has to do is apparently threaten to hug him and he'll run off. Because no one wants to touch a 25 year old who walks around in public in ridiculously restrictive green underwear. No one.

(Link via ISB, via Boing Boing)

God, You're Mean

2007-04-16T02:35:00.000-05:00

I think theres an episode of Scrubs where they say that having a kid is basically like having a dog that learns to talk, and this short from Adam McKay and Will Ferrell basically backs that up. I mean, it's adorable to have a two year old cuss out one of the biggest box office stars in America, but won't there be some latent psychological effect of having your father's best friend call you a mean drunk? Probably, but nothing nearly as bad as what this kid has in store.

ED NOTE: Okay, Hi. So, pretty soon after I wrote this, this video became the biggest thing on the internet since that .gif of the dancing hamster, and they erased all the copies from YouTube. Pearl has been interviewed in People, and now Funny or Die, the site they launched with this little gem (seriously, I'd make some joke about if you could tie a sports theme into a potty mouthed two year old, Ferrell would have another hit on his hands, but I feel every blog and it's mother has already done it in the last week, so I'm just going to let it go) has been flooded with thousands of, really bad comedy shorts. Beauty of the internet my friends. One of these that you probably won't be hearing too much about is iGod, which was made by a kid I go to school with. It... actually isn't that funny, it's a pretty weak premise and then an anticlimatic punch line. But it looks pretty! We shoot on film, damn it! Um yeah... Hey, look, a guy jerks off in this one. Classic.

I Got A Weird Thing For Girls Who Say, "Aboot."

2007-04-16T01:56:00.000-05:00

Speaking of things the internet has drastically changed, let's talk about music videos. You know what they are right? Cool, let's go.

Broken Social Scene member, Peaches BFF, and all around Cute Canadian Feist just released two videos to help promote her new album 'The Reminder'.

The first is for 'My Moon, My Man', which is kind of like if Mike Nichols had directed that Ok Go video. It's bad enough that I'm banned from the treadmills at my school gym, now I just know I'll be wating to board my plane one second, and then being physically restrained by airport secuirty for trying to inspire a musical dance number on the moving walkway the next. It's a criminal offense. Feist only got away with it because they filmed it in Canada. Seriously, read the Patriot Act - they covered everything.

The second is for her song '1 2 3 4', which is similiar to the 'My Moon, My Man' video, except this is a more colorful and cheerful affair. The dancing, the amazing camera work, the song itself, this video just makes me happy. Kind of like a 'GAP' ad, except I don't hate the world when it's over.

The Shin's video for 'Australia' is kind of like a some odd marriage between a Benny Hill sketch and a Learning To Love You More assignment. Baloons! Orange Jumpsuits! Marty dressed like a shrub! Wacky! It's all a big complex and enjoyable set up that in the end wasn't really about anything. So, you know, like a Shins song.

Theres a clever little story in the video for The Hold Steady's 'Stuck Between Stations' (make sure you watch it till the end), but mostly it's just a showcase for the band to look like an actual band, rather than a novelty act like the 'Chips Ahoy' video kind of made them out to be. Added bonus, ample time to Craig Finn's crazy cool hand gestures.

The Arcade Fire aren't offically releasing any videos for 'Neon Bible', which means YouTube will be littered with amateur videos of kids running through trees to 'No Cars Go' to symbolize freedom from society. But whoever did this clip for 'My Body Is A Cage' sure as hell got it right - pick one of the best shot movies ever, string some clips together, and play it out slow. I would have never of thought of Sergio Leone and Win Butler in the same breath before, but damn if I don't now. Also, Henry Fonda should have really played more bad guys.

Hey, Chochachos!

2007-04-15T17:25:00.000-05:00

It's been over a month, yipes. It's just, things have been crazy, you know? Midterms, going home, spending Easter with Jesus - it's just been a lot. I even had an idea for a post a few weeks back, I thought, yeah, I'll come back, write this up, present it like a new gift to all of my friends, it'll be a good time. Then 'Time' magazine stole my idea. Swear to God, I even had a "the only thing the Internet has had a greater impact on than comics is porn" joke in there too. It's like 'Time' magazine is in my head (which is actually a delusion I've suffered from since they hired Joel Stein, but I digress). So then, I thought, maybe I could write up the food aspect of it, but no, Salon had me beat. And you know, so did Chow (home of the most obscure drinks on the internet). And then when 'B.C.' artist Johnny Hart died, I thought, "Hey why don't I use the occasion of his death to make fun of his terrible pun based humour and simultaenously pimp Christ Onstad?". Thanks alot, Huffington Post.

So, yeah. Anyways, read Achewood. It is a good time.

This Is How You Do It

2007-03-03T16:45:00.000-06:00

Sure, Justin Timberlake may have a career that sells out Madison Square Garden, allows him to win multiple Grammys, and gives him the opportunity to make out with both Cristina Ricci and Scarlett Johansson; but the sad fact of the matter is the dude just got shown up by a bunch of nerds from Portland. Because, let's face it, The Decemberists are nerds. It's the natural label that comes when you base your album around a song cycle based on a Japanese folk tale about a crane. Or when your album has a twelve minute suite based on a Shakespeare play. Or when you're from Portland. Any of these things will do it.

But with their non-green screened/Colbert sabotaged video for 'O Valencia', they've shown the Alpha Dog team what it really means to be cool. The story is basically a mix of Badlands and what Wes Anderson's version of 'Smoking Aces' would have looked like, with a whole bunch of awkward, grandiose dialogue added in for good measure. The difference here being of course that when everyone in this video acts cool, they're not trying to actually be cool. Except for the Piano Wire Girls, they were kick ass, straight up, no chaser.

It's surprising too, while both videos have around the same running time, I was surprised at how quickly this one seemed to go by, while I never actually saw the end of Timberlake's video because I had gouged my eyes out with a spork by the sixth minute. The key really seems to be the acknowledgment of the fact that adding some hackneyed story onto your video is going to be cheesy, no matter what grade talent is involved (and to be fair, I saw 'Black Snake Moan' last night, and Mr. TImberlake is actually a pretty decent actor), so you might as well just embrace it. And of course a fork stabbing will help any proceeding, because honestly, who doesn't love a good fork stabbing?

Also, all of this Decemberist YouTube trolling led me back to their 'Rushmore' themed video for 'Sixteen Military Wives', which has one of my favorite lines, I think ever: "I declare war. On Luxembourg."

Live Blogging Filling Out The Ballot For My Oscar Pool

2007-02-25T13:56:00.000-06:00

So there are the easy picks - your Whitakers, Mirrens, and Scorceses. Though, could Paul Greengrass steal it from Scorcese? If there's anyone who could upset it, it would be him - he's the films only big nomination, which kind of shows that the Acadmey saw the directing as the star of the film (which is true), and it was one of the best reviewed films of the year, and it was the first film to touch on 9/11, so they may want to acknowledge that. But most likely they won't, because I'm pretty sure the Academy is tired of smarmy film students quoting John Stewart, "For those of you keeping score at home, that's Three 6 Mafia - 1, Martin Scorcese - 0". And by the Academy, I mean me.

Did you know that the sound mixers have their own organization? It's called the Cinema Audio Society. And guess what - they have their own award. That's right. And guess what, every Society and Guild in Hollywod does the same thing. One of my production teachers is a three time "Grippy" award winner, swear to God. Anyway, my strategy? To vote along the guild awards for the technical awards. 'Dreamgirls' for sound mixing, 'Pans Labyrinth' for art direction.

Okay, you know that strategy I just talked about? It's bullshit. The Costumer Designers Guild Awards is split into three categories, for fantasy, period, and contemporary. Because they just had to be fair and reconize that all work can't be judged in one crass category of just plain 'Best', didn't they? They had to rub their noses in the Oscars face, by giving two of their awards to two of the nominees. Fuck. Is the 'Curse Of The Golden Flower' too over the top? Is 'The Queen' too minimal? Or are they impressed by that? Is that impressive though? They just wore a bunch of tweed. Fuck.

Okay, I just checked IMDb for who has won the best costume category for the last few years. 'Memoirs Of A Geisha' won last year, which shows they like the Asian things. They also gave awards to 'Return Of The King', as well as 'Gladiator', which hints that they kind of have a thing for flamboyant armor getups, again leaning in the favor of 'Golden Flower'. But they've also given awards to 'Moulin Rouge!' and 'Chicago', showing they have a tendency to go for the razamataz, so maybe a 'Dreamgirls' upser here? Damn it.

Okay, I went with 'Dreamgirls'. My theory? No one saw 'Golden Flower'. Shit. I'm sweating it, but I have to move on.

'Children Of Men' won the ASC Award. Duh. Name one movie thats used a camera better in the last ten years. Go ahead, I dare you.

Fun Fact: Click is an Oscar nominated film. For best makeup. Yeah. As much as people were amazed at how an elderly looking Adam Sandler could still make terrible poop jokes, I'm giving this one to 'Pans'.

Okay, my mother just called and said that theres an article on Berkshares in the New York Times today, so I'm going to try and track down a copy, because those things confounded me all summer.

So, apparently the article is in one of the regional sections that only gets sold in the Northeast, and it's part of the Times Select premium program online, which means I have to pay for it. I'm going to straight-up murder some one. Though, on the upside, I got a sandwich.

Are people over the Pixar thing? 'Cars' didn't create nearly the stir that their previous efforts did. I'm going with 'Happy Feet'. Penguins trump cars any day, hands down.

'The Departed' won the Eddie this year, which makes it pretty much a lock for Best Editing. Besides, no one can cut a montage to a Rolling Stones song like Thelma Schoonmaker. And cutting montages to Rolling Stone songs is really how editors judge their worth. No, really.

Any one want to make a side bet that when Al Gore accepts the Oscar for Best Documentary he'll end his speech by "raising their roof"? Any one? Five will get you ten.

I have no idea what any of the Documentary Shorts are about, but I like the sound of 'The Blood Of Yingzhou District'. Sounds snappy.

Foreign Film: This is a pickle. 'Pans Labyrinth' and 'The Lives Of Others' were both really good, and if I were being fair, I would spilt the award. But, I think more people have seen 'Pans', and theres such a big Latin presence in the nominations this year, that it'll probably get it.

Hey! That Berkshares article is in the national report section. Neat. Theres a little map in the middle of the article with Great Barrington starred off.

Score? I honestly have no idea. The academy loves their Philip Glass, but I think 'Pans' is going to take it again. And it should. And I checked off 'Listen' for best song. Because I don't care about that category at all this year (No DeVotchka love, really?), and am dreading having to sit through Beyonce's overwrought performances. Shes going to do the thing where she clenches her fist and pulls it in - three times in the course of one minute. I promise you.

I didn't get to go to the Animated Shorts program, so I'm picking 'Lifted' just because it's Pixar. I know I just said a second ago how the Pixar sheen has worn off... but I lied. As for the Live Shorts... it's probably going to 'Binta and The Great Idea', because its hart warming, has a positive message, was produced by Unicef, and is filled to the brim with cute African kids. But damn it, I'm putting down 'West Bank Story', the 'West Side Story' adaptation placed in an Israeli border town. Why? Because it was funny, entertaining, had some nice, subtle political jabs, and a man dressed in a menorah suit, that's why.

'Pirates' won almost every category at the Visual Effects awards (there are, literally five hundred awards given out), so I'm giving it best visual effects. Plus, I don't think anyone wants to give 'Poseidon' or 'Superman Returns' the vindication of being 'Oscar winning material'.

Screenplay is kind of iffy this year. Peter Morgan has won a few for 'The Queen', plus he wrote 'Last King Of Scotland'. But then Michael Arndt just won the Writers Guild Award for 'Little Miss Sunshine'. So what to do? I... I'm going with 'The Queen'. And for adaptation? Well. 'The Departed' won the Guild award, and 'Children of Men' wasn't even nominated there. But the writing awards at the Oscars have tendency to go to the more, progressive, cooler films that were actually better than the wons that won Best Picture (i.e., Eternal Sunshine, Talk To Her). So I'm going with 'Children Of Men', because as I've said before, it rocked my socks.

So the big one. Here's what I'm thinking. 'Little Miss Sunshine'. Not only that, but I'm betting on Abigal Breslin to upset Jennifer Hudson in the Best Supporting Actress. Because cute kids are just as exciting as redeemed reality show contestents, and it seems like the Academy really didn't want to give an award to 'Dreamgirls' unless it really needed to. So those are my thoughts. We'll see how I do in about two and a half hours. Oh, and want to look smart to your friends? Explain to them the reason everyone is laughing when Tom Cruise give Sherry Lansing the humanitarian award this year, its because Summer Redstone fired them both this year, and this a big kind of Fuck You to Viacom. Whee!

P.S. Try doing a Google image search for 'Dreamgirls'. It's uh... interesting.

Coming Up Next

2007-02-24T21:02:00.000-06:00

I think its going to be a funny year. The fact that the national media is embroiled in whether or not they should be giving this much attention while they're giving this much attention to the death of a woman most of America honestly didn't care about if they had any idea who she was in the first place is a good sign of the highjinks we're in for in the near future. Also going to be funny: movies. I saw 'Reno 911: Miami' last night (Which was pretty good, basically just an hour and a half long episode of the show, except they get to say fuck and show the most awkward sexual encounter ever captured on film), and before that they showed the trailers for what I think will probably end up being the two funniest movies of the year.

The American version of the 'Knocked Up' trailer gives you a much better idea of what the story of the film is going to be, while the international trailer shoots more of the atmosphere of the movie. In a related note, I plan on using "Fuck off" as a response in all of my conversations from now on. "Would you like fries with that?" "No, fuck off."

And I am slowly dying of jealousy that people in England can watch 'Hot Fuzz' right now while I have to wait a month and a half. I hope they choke on their Marmite, though they probably will anyway since thats just the usual human reaction to eating Marmite.

Also, seeing every member of The State show up in 'Reno' last night got me excited for 'The Ten', the new movie from the Stella side of the team.

And finally, in music news, Wilco just announced that the tracklist for their new album, 'Sky Blue Sky', which is coming out in May. Sadly, songs like 'Let's Fight', that they've been playing live recently, didn't make the cut, which just means that I'm going to have be shilling out thirty dollars for the Japanese import of the disc in order to get all the B-Sides they attached to it. And by shill out thirty dollars, I mean steal from the internet.

Clive Owen Is A Stone Cold Pimp

2007-02-24T17:44:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to come up with a better title for Clive Owen than that; it sounds too cheesy, to played out to accurately describe the man. But as of right now, I am at loss for a better word. Clive Owen is a stone cold pimp - scientific fact. It struck me yesterday as I was watching 'Croupier' (I know, I should have seen it long ago, but I'm just getting things I put on my Netflix queue in 2003 now), and I began to think back on his career. Sure, he's had some missteps (Did anyone, anywhere, at any point see 'Broken Borders'?), but in the last three years, it's amazing how he's honed his persona in a wide range of films. If you look at the posters for films like the intimate relationship drama 'Closer', or the historical action adventure 'King Arthur', or the stylized comic porn 'Sin City', or the twisty heist film 'Inside Man', or to the dystopian sci-fi thriller 'Children Of Men' (which I'm going on record as saying was my favorite film of last year) - they all have the same pull quote - "Clive Owen Is A Bad Ass." Sure, they're all from Jeffrey Lyons, who may or may not actually exist, but still, it counts.

So I decided to stack my queue with the aforementioned films as a part of a 'Clive Owen Is A Stone Cold Pimp Film Festival'. It was going to be great - I could dress in costume for each of the films, in a tuxedo for 'Croupier', in that spiffy overalls, sunglasses, and paper mask combo from 'Inside Man', and watching 'Sin City' would finally give me a reason to visit that 'Leather Daddy' store across the street from me. But then I realized something, something horrible. The one thing that first brought Clive Owen to my attention, that took my breath away except for one small hiss that went "Daaaaaamn" every thirty seconds or so, wasn't on DVD. But then I realized, I live in a world where YouTube exists.

'The Hire' films were a series of short films that BMW commisioned in 2001 and early 2002. Each film centered around Owen as a mysterious driver, who of course drove BMWs. They then got a ton of top shelf talent to work on each of them, and then showed them on the internet. These were like, one of the main reasons I bothered to show up to school for that year, waiting to watch them on a computer with an internet speed that had been updated since 1992.

"Ambush" - This was the second to last thing John Frankenheimer ever directed, and its full of the same kind of, blunt, grey European style action that he did for the last leg of his career, especially in movies like 'Ronin'. It's fitting that this is the first in the series, since where all of the subsequent entries try to tweak the car chase formula as much as possible, Frankenheimer seems perfectly content just to do it straight, and present it to you as entertainment. It's kind of like, the other directors here would freak out if their eggs Florentine were undercooked, while Frankenheimer would just order his eggs straight with a tumbler of whiskey. Because he had a drinking problem. And... I forgot where the joke was supposed to be on that one, sorry.

"The Chosen" - Ang Lee directed this while he was still riding the wave of being a visionary action director, a time when people were still blown away by 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' and were excited for 'The Hulk'. That would explain why the chase in this one is basically car ballet, and why the kid is Ang Lee's son. Why a mysertious holy child who appears to have been raised in some secluded monastery is able to purchase comic book character themed medical supplies, still remains a mystery by the end though. Because who needs logic when you have shamless self promotion for your next movie?

"The Follow" - Director Wong Kar Wai brings his usual mix of beautifully depressing romanticism to the least action oriented of all the shorts. Highlights include mostly likely by tomorrow night Oscar winner Forest Whitaker pulling out his best shifty agent routine (Every actor in Hollywood has a shifty agent routine, its how they entertain each other at parties), Mickey Rourke being creepy, and Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima looking sad and pretty. Clive Owen remains a badass throughout.

"The Star" - I often wonder about Guy Ritchie's motivations. He popularized this new genre of British Thug films, then married Madonna, made a movie with her that sunk his career, and has spent the last five years watching his wife slowly morph into one of those generic looking aliens that they show in the recreations in those 'Unsolved Mysteries' episodes where the trucker gets abducted and anally probed, all the while doing every thing she can to grasp onto the last shards of fame she has. I know you can probably shake off 'The Star' to being Madonna having a laugh at herself, but it's scary to see the level of loathing that Richie has towards his wife in this thing - and this is from five years ago, the early part of thier relationship. I just imagine Madonna walks through her kitchen with her fifteen person entourage and Guy Ritchie is just sitting there with one of those old stone wheels that you operate by foot petal, sharpening some sort of ancient sickle. "What are you doing Guy?" "Oh... you know... keeping up."

"Powder Keg" - 'Babel' director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his (after the tiff they've been having over the promotion of 'Babel, former?) writing partner Guillermo Arriaga throw enough of their trademark blend of third world politics and tragic familial miscommunication to create what I think might possibly be the most depressing car chase ever put on film. Instead of getting an adrenaline rush from watching Clive Owen out run a cadre of Mexican thugs, I was instead filled with the urge to call my mother and tell her that I loved her. Thanks alot, dick.

"Hostage" - The only thing thats really surprising about this one is that John Woo didn't manage to fit a slow-mo shot of doves in it somewhere.

"Beat The Devil" - I'm thankful for this for so many reasons. Mainly, I think it's probably the last piece of terrific James Brown out of his fucking mind material that we have from the recently buried Hardest Working Man In Showbiz. My guess is that they didn't even tell him that there was a script, they just put him in the car with Owen and as far as he knows, he really was racing for his soul. And it's a good thing that he won too, because I would have hated to see the Godfather Of Soul end up in Tony Scott's version of hell, where you're forced to spend eternity in an over stylized, neon colored world, where you're constantly subjected to random jump cuts and oppressive non diegetic sound. You just sit on a rock, saying "Is this really necessary?" for all of time.

"Ticker" - "Smoking Aces" director Joe Carnahan handles the last one in the series. It's pretty straight forward
as stories about heart transplants in the middle of a military coup goes. I guess. I think it says something about what I've come to expect from my entertainment, out of years of ever heightening story lines in TV shows, when I find something like this a little mundane.

What A Presidential Candidate's My Space Page Says About Them

2007-02-11T15:06:00.000-06:00

John Edwards: John Edwards wants you to hear what he has to say, and knowing that he's been out of politics (and the public eye) for the last three years, and that a failed vice presidential bid is the highlight of his resume, it makes sense that he's a little over eager to make sure people are listening to him. Honestly, I didn't even know that you could set up a YouTube clip to play as soon as you loaded a page, but Mr. Edwards has proved me wrong, because as soon as you get there, he's already asking you to stand up for healthcare. The rest of the page is fairly laid back, with a subtle beige and blue color scheme, all topped by a banner showcasing Mr. Edwards oddly youthful face. It's all very earthy, and very organic, very youth friendly - his top eight is made up of a collection of poorly lit dorm dwellers and frat boys, two young military members in Iraq, and his wife, Elizabeth, who apparently felt the need to get in on this. It all kind of screams, "John Edwards Is The Candidate Of The Youth Of America, At Least The One With A Name That Doesn't Sound Like A Terrorist".

Barrack Obama: Speaking of which. Barack Obama's site is kind of boring - the blue and white layout makes it look more like a Facebook page than a wild and expressive MySpace page. But the kicker about Mr. Obama's page is that he has nothing to do with it - it's all unofficial. Even still, the creator of the site has already surpassed their goal of 35,000 unsolicited adds, just a few hundred away from 38,000 (Edwards, in contrast, only has a little over 11,000 so far). At this pace, it seems that Mr. Obama could just come back to Chicago, eat himself into a Mr. Beef coma that would last until next November, and still win the election. When they woke him up to tell him the news, he'd probably just mumble "Cool," then go get some Fruit Loops and watch Blues Clues.

Tom Vilsack: Tom Vilsack's page accurately reflects his position in the race, since I would have no idea who he was or that he was running if it wasn't for the odd Orwellian banner announcing it on the top of the page.

Hillary Clinton: Hillary Clinton is in it to win it, and her MySpace page screams it out loud. It doesn't matter that she has more face recognition or money than any other candidate out there, her page is crammed with more photos to make sure you know what she looks like from every angle and in every color pant suit, and gives you multiple opportunities to spend money on every thing that you could possibly put the name Hillary on. There are banners and links for every conceivable internet group she could be a part of: Facebook, Livejournal, Flickr, MySpace (On her MySpace page, yeah), and every official and unofficial Hillary site in between. Try this out - look above your bed. There's probably a Hillary poster up there right now. Yeah, she put it up while you were sleeping. It's how she rolls.

John McCain: Do you remember the SNL skit from 2000, where all of the GOP primary candidates were sitting around in a hotel in New Hampshire, and Will Ferrell's George Bush says to Chris Parnell's John McCain "Oh, were you a prisoner of war, I hadn't heard"? That's kind of how Mr. McCain's unofficial MySpace page reads - "Oh, are you a patriot, I hadn't been told". The red white and blue font lay out, to the mildly conservative, Drudge reportish text design, the top 24 comprised entirely of military men, and the fact that he completely ignored the usual space for books and movies just to put in excerpts explaining his stance on various issues, everything here cries out to tell you that forget what you heard in 2000, John McCain is hardcore conservative.

Rudy Giuliani: As much as the McCain page reads like a headline from the Post, Rudy Giuliani's unofficial MySpace Page reads like a quiet editorial in the Times, the very definition of a moderate Republican trying to appear moderate (And yes, I know that the Post-Times comparison looks stupid since they used a Post cover for their profile picture, but he's kissing his wife on it, showing off his romantic, lively side, which is the antithesis of the Republican party, so they kind of equal themselves out). Its understated grey font on a white background, and it's lone photo of Giuliani's Time Man Of The Year cover all kind of say, "I'm classy, but I'm not going to rub it in, because that'd be rude." Shrewd Mr. Mayor, very shrewd.

Mitt Romney: Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is kind of a dark horse in the race so far, seeing as he's not really that well known nation wide. So what does he do? He goes alternative - he takes it to the Facebook, looking to get into the minds of the educated youth, make them think that he's hip. Listing the Kingston Trio in his favorite music is kind of working against that goal, but whatever. It's also fun to read his wall - which as of yesterday was littered with as many negative messages calling him a crap governor as there were ones saying how excited to see him speak in their town, but today, they're all gone. Though for some reason they decided it was fine to leave up the ones asking Mr. Romney when they were going to hang out or if he could give them the notes from the lecture last week. Put the upside of having your candidate on the Facebook? You can tell your parents that you just poked the governor. And they'll ask you what that means, and you'll just shrug, because honestly, what the hell is the point of poking someone on Facebook?

Mike Huckabee: Wow. I know candidates like to get their names out there as much as possible, but Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee should really consider getting a cease and desist order against whoever made his unofficial MySpace page for him. A collection of every YouTube clip Huckabee ever appeared in (I think one of Jason Schwartzman and Jude Law made its way into the bottom there too), every logo or seal that you could possibly equate with Mr. Huckabee, a slide show of photos of the site's creator with Mr. Huckabee, and blocks of text that have never had a chance of seeing a paragraph break, the page reads more like a newspaper covered wall of a potential stalker/assassin than a campaign promotion. Helping no one is the choice of the Pointer Sisters as the page theme song, or the gigantic Huckabee logo that's used as the background. It's like his eyes are following you. Seriously though, he should probably up his secuirty detail.

He Should Have Just Kept His Dick In The Box

2007-02-10T16:55:00.000-06:00

A List Of Things That Caught My Attention While Watching Justin Timberlake's Video For "What Goes Around Comes Around":

The Credit "Written By Nick Cassavettes": I understand that he wrote 'Blow', and directed 'Alpha Dog', and is the son of one of the greatest directors in American independent cinema, but you put that up on the screen and the only thing I see is "From the guy who made The Notebook".

The Dialogue: Seriously, someone wrote this? This sounds more like Cassavettes got drunk, and then tried to copy down dialogue from 'Body Heat', but when he looked at his screen the next morning its was just a long line of Zs from where he passed out, so he just went to the set that day and said "Hey, have you guys ever seen this movie? No? Oh that's right, you weren't even born when it was made. Hmm... Okay, how about this, have you ever seen a movie on Cinemax at two in the morning? Yeah, talk like that, okay? I'll be at the crafts table."

The Visual Metaphors: Throughout the video, Bayer cuts to what I guess you can really only call fire dancers (Is there a less literate name for it? Like, Pyroeur? I don't know), who are swinging around what look like flaming hoola hoops. And because the story takes place in some exotic, erotic Vaudevillian cabaret, Timberlake sings, on a circular stage, into a round microphone that I'm pretty sure hasn't been used since the day Jack Benny left the radio. But do you know what shapes all of those things are? Circles. That's right. They're round. I guess you could say, they come around. Because this video isn't just some poorly conceived attempt by all parties to appear cool - oh no, its deeper than that. It has levels, damn it.

Shawn Hatosy: I appreciate that he's part of the 'Alpha Dog' brain trust here, but come on, playing a thick street thug is one thing, but playing a guy who could a) get Scarlett Johansson and b) steal Scarlett Johansson from Justin Timberlake is another thing. A thing that's so far removed, it's in a different country. Wearing sunglasses and a fake moustache. And when you try to talk to it, all it will say is, "Me no speak the English." Though I have to admit that they build his character beautifully. Who wouldn't want to leave the sensual pop singer for his drunk faced friend who blurts out bon mots like "Of course you do! Of course you do. Let me tell you something, you're awesome, and you're awesome, and you're awesome, and you're awesome, and this deserves a toast." It's the definition of irresistible.

The Fight Scene: I know Justin Timberlake is walking that fine line between shunting off his boyband past completely and embracing the image of the tough loving adult pop star, and in theory, a curse filled fist fight where you come out on top sounds like a good idea. But no one looks good by the end of this scene. Mr. Hatosy's "character"(?) suffers the indignity of having his ass handed to him by the guy from N*Sync, his only defense seeming to be repeating "I like her too" in the highest pitch he can reach. And the only thing that I could think of when Mr. Timberlake lets out his angry side and begins with the punching and the choking, was this one time these two guys got into a fight at a party because the first guy didn't like the way that the other guy was looking at his collar. About three minutes of arm flailing later (I think they were attempting to punch each other), the first guy explained to his crying, pleading girlfriend, "I don't like it when people disrespect my style." He then made sure that his collar had not been unpopped during the tussle. Also, who the hell decided it would be a good idea to give Scarlett curls in this scene? Because suddenly we're supposed to dislike her character, so you give her a hideous haircut? Actually, that's not a bad idea.

The End: You know those bits that they used to do on Conan? Where Brian McCann would be in the audience, and then Conan would say something inconsequential, and he freaks out, and goes, "Where's my kayak?", and runs up the stairs, gets into a kayak, and then they cut to a piece of stock footage where a guy goes over a cliff on a kayak. That's what I was thinking about when they cut to the shot where Scarlett's car flips over. I think they just stole the clip from an old episode of 'Starsky and Hutch'. And an other question, did she crash into the burning wreck of another crash? Doesn't that deserve some sort of explanation? Or is it like in 'Crash', where people in LA just burn up old cars for some sort of emotional metaphor? I don't know. Also, the creepy little smile that Justin gives after we see her crash - I know that this is supposed to be some sort of edgy video fare, where we don't necessarily side with our pop protagonist, but dude, come on, that's just creepy. And Ms. Johansson, if you wish to remedy the fact that you're one of this generation's current ingénues who still doesn't have an Oscar nomination, I would sincerely start practicing my "Oh God, I'm going to die in a slow motion car crash" face. Because it needs work. Also, I was under the impression that after going through some sort of horrific car crash, people would end up bloody and broken, rather than perfectly made up and lying on the road like they had just decided to take a nap there.

Honestly, I yelled out loud at this video. After that fight scene, I just screamed "No! Ahhhhhhhhhh!" so loud that I scared myself. This video is so bad that it makes me want to give up on the world in general. That's it, where's my kayak?

If Prince Wants A Camel, You Get Prince A Camel

2007-02-05T00:33:00.000-06:00

So, that was disappointing. I realized when I woke up this morning that I didn't have any plans to watch the game, and it kind of started the ball rolling around in my head, what if I represent the antithesis of what everyone in this city is feeling right now? What if I have the saddest Superbowl Party ever? And I did. I cooked some eggs, a can of Heinz beans - bam, dinner for one. And that was gone before Billy Joel got through the National Anthem (On a side note, Marlee Matlin really showed him up while signing - the woman put her soul into that. When they got to the rockets red glare part, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had actually burst into a red glare - whatever that is exactly. Bravo, Marlee, Oscar caliber stuff there). And then the game was on. I watched it in the same clothes that I've been wearing all day - elastic band fleece pants, blue t-shirt, rattiest hoodie I own - on my couch. I fell asleep by the third quarter, so I didn't even get to see Rex Grossman work his way into the cholesterol clogged, hateful hearts of the sports fans of Chicago. I only woke up when someone from the party in the apartment below me went out into the alley and started to scream - "COLTS - WHOOOOOO!". I think he vomited a lung out. He then proceeded to yell some more.

One thing that didn't disappoint though? Prince. Like I said before, I've never been that big a Prince fan - what can I say, I'm not a very "sexy" person, so in kind of picking through the catalogue of music's history, I was never that interested in his stuff. But Jesus Christ on God mountain did he bring it tonight. I think its fitting that he did this about a month after James Brown's passing, because I would have no problem calling Prince the hardest working man in showbiz after this. I thought it was pretty good for a halftime show, but he really caught my attention when he started into the 'All Along The Watchtower' cover. It was really startling because I suddenly realized that I must not remember the words to 'All Along The Watchtower' at all. It wasn't until he got to the chorus that I realized he was singing the Foo Fighters.

He had me by the end of that. But then, holy shit. Before the show started, I was thinking that they were going to but up a tarp or something to keep the stage dry, but by the end, I almost think that Prince brought the rain. Because yes, I now fully believe that Prince can control the weather. He's that good. Playing 'Purple Rain' in the rain? And when he throws down the microphone at the end for the audience to sing, well, damn Prince, you can be all the funny little man with weird whims and funny suits you want - you've earned it.

I'm On My Fourth Heart Attack Of The Night

2007-02-04T16:01:00.000-06:00

Are you ready for some football? Because I know I am. I've got my can of Hormel's Chili and bag of Blazin Buffalo Dorritos ready on the go - will they somehow find their way into some sort of glorious union? Stay tuned my friends, stay tuned and see.

I honestly don't think I would care about the game this year if I wasn't in Chicago. The Patriots aren't playing, so I don't have to watch to know what my dad will be talking about for the next week; there won't be any movie trailers in the ads this year, and I'm not really in a rush to watch that K-Fed ad that's already been on the internet for a week; and I've honestly never been that much of a Prince fan, unless he's trying to buy a camel at three in the morning in Minneapolis. Plus, the Super Bowl is on CBS this year, which means that instead of getting Sydney Bristow in two lingerie choices or Meredith Grey coming this close to getting blown up (God, I was hoping so hard), we get Mandy Patankin and Thomas Gibson pretending that they don't hate each other on a new episode of Criminal Minds. Whee.

And on top of all of that, the New York Times answered the one question I always think about at the end of the Superbowl - where do the other teams hats go? As soon as the trophy is presented to Tom Brady to hold, he was always outfitted in a ridiculously oversized t-shirt and cap proclaiming the Patriots victory, which means that there has to be a box full of the other teams shirts, mocking them with the victory that never was. So where do they go? Answer: Africa, a land where the Buffalo Bills are the greatest football team to have ever attempted the game.

Also, I saw 'Pan's Labyrinth' last night, and well, lets just put it this way, I think Brian Urlacher eats children.

Sun Is In The Sky, Why, Oh Why?

2007-02-04T01:11:00.000-06:00

Hey! It's still freezing. I know it probably sounds like I'm over harping this, and should let it go, but honestly, it's become the biggest part of my life right now. As soon as you get inside, all anyone will talk about is how cold it is - and this doesn't spring from the awkward feeling of not knowing someone that well so you talk about the weather - people actually care. This is an actual conversation I overheard at the movies today: "So I killed a bear today. I made a coat out of him" "Where did you find a bear?" "Lincoln Park Zoo." "Is it warm?" "It was, but once it gave off most of it's bear steam, it was just kind of heavy, and then the blood started to freeze." "Damn, that sucks." "Yeah I know. Like, this bear had cubs too. I looked them in the eyes as I turned their mother into a coat." "What did you do with it?" "I threw it into a dumpster."

So, to summarize - cold. Which is why I'm excited for Thursday, when I get to see Lily Allen at the Metro, as part of her American coming out tour that kicked off tonight on SNL. It all seemed silly to me back in the summer, why Capitol would wait to release an album that was so sunny and fun in the middle of January. When its cold. (I'm not even kidding, I think Lake Michigan finally gave in and froze over) But I kind of see the appeal right now, because I'm looking forward to Thursday, hoping that it will be the one spot in the week when something is actually able to take my mind off of the facts that despite an entire tube of Burts Bees my lips have chapped open into a series of painful opens sores. And to their credit, Capital does honestly seem to be pushing her - the major television appearances, these Mtv spots:

But is it working? Asking around my school, no one has heard of Lily Allen. I put on 'LDN' the other night at a party, and the kids who had been giggle dancing their way through 'Thriller' seconds before (Art School Kids don't sincerely dance, I've learned that now) all kind of stopped. Oh, but if you put some Of Montreal song about turning into a penguin on, they'll be right back out there, giggling.

Anyway, here's Lily's newest video, for 'Alfie'. It's basically a literal interpretation of the song, which usually doesn't work - I'm looking at you, every Men At Work video ever made - except her brother is played by a puppet. It's basically 'My Cousin Skeeter', but with more cute English girls, less Bill Bellamy, and I'm guessing about the same amount of weed. Seriously, someone must have been injecting Drain-O into their vains to think that show was a good idea.

Seriously God, Why You Gotta Be Like That?

2007-02-04T00:15:00.000-06:00

There are moments in life when I think God enjoys being a dick - not in a malicious way, but like, if you were drinking buddies with God, and you passed out, he would totally sharpie a moustache onto your face right underneath the spot on your forehead where he wrote "I'm the guy who sucks." And as hard as you wash, you just can't get that off of your head before its time for that job meeting. "That was kind of a dick thing to do God." "Well, you should have cut yourself off man. You brought it on yourself." And he's right. Because he's all omni like that.

Anyway, this came up because someone decided that it should be -5 degrees while I partake in my yearly 'Catching Up With The Oscar Nominees To Ease The Pain Of My Lacking Social Life Routine', or 'February', to most people. And that negative five wasn't some sort of whimsical exaggeration - that's actually the temperature right now. Without the wind. And you best believe that there's wind. Because there is hella wind. I'm constantly walking around looking like I'm the middle of a seizure because I'm trying to keep my beard from freezing to my face.

And seeing as how it only looks to be getting worse (the high for tomorrow? A balmy 3 degrees!), I'll probably write more in here, since I've already done my homework for the week - and its not like I'm going to read or anything.

Oh, and also - Go Bears.

The Return Of What Once Was

2007-01-22T21:51:00.000-06:00

I was staring at the marquee of the Aragon theater as it flashed "Miller Time: 3:14, Miller Temp 22", as I waited for a bus which after twenty minutes I was pretty sure only existed in the imagination of the Mexican man leaning on the Red Eye box next to me. This was all after about an hours worth of waiting for trains with drunk Indian men, drunk college students with sandwiches who wouldn't stop talking about how much they were in love with their sandwiches, and a different set of drunk college students who thought it would be a good idea to toss a traffic cone across the El tracks, and then sit and dangle their legs over the edge like they were fishing in Mayberry. All of this, by the way, occurred the night before the Bears won the NFC Championship - this was just the unprovoked, normal amount of drunken revelry you'll find in the city on a Saturday night. As I finally gave in and started to hail a cab, I just kind of looked around and thought... hmm, I'm back in Chicago.

Which means I'll start writing in here again, if you still care to read. I felt kind of lazy while I was home, so lazy in fact, rather than explain why I didn't write in my blog, I'll let Michael Showalter do it. He basically sums it all up in a funnier way than I can. Also, he talks of shitting his pants in the Berkshires, something I think we can all relate to. Or at least I can. Also check out Showalter going all Charlie Rose on Zach Galifianakis' ass in the Michael Showalter Showalter. Watch him grill the bearded one about such pressing questions as "Seriously, you owe me some gas money."

A Very YouTube Christmas

2006-12-09T18:20:00.000-06:00

There was a chance that it was a passing fad, that, subjected to the relentless playing of Christmas music and terrible politically correct banners everywhere, that the Christmas spirit I felt a few weeks ago would be diminished by now. But my friends, I am still all about Christmas, and what's more, I am determined to drag the rest of you down with me. To start off, I'll give you what are probably two of the greatest Christmas songs ever recorded:

This should have never have happened. Bing Crosby had built a career on being the symbol of wholesome American values, where you croon sweet music, drink till you can't legally see anymore, and then go home and beat your wife. David Bowie had spent the last ten year dressing up like a girly alien, pretending to fellate his guitarist's penis on stage, and singing loopy songs about spiders. But some how, they came together to create one of the most beautiful Christmas songs ever. It's also fun because Bing clearly has no idea who Bowie is, or why he's standing next to him.

The Pogues album 'If I Should Fall From Grace From God' starts off with three songs about drinking, cursing, and gambling so much that God doesn't want anything to do with you, which makes the way 'Fairytale Of New York' begins all the more genius. Gone is that, quick Irish howling, and instead Shane McGowan croons over a slow piano piece. Its so soft and, kind of cheesy, that it forces you to listen. Which is kind of brilliant, since what follows is one of the greatest Christmas songs ever written. Sure, it's about drunks and heroin junkies, but honestly, what great holiday piece doesn't have some under current of depression? It's kind of what the holidays are all about, finding the ability to be happy in the middle of all the soul crushing sadness the world throws upon us. Plus, look quickly and you'll see Matt Dillon!

I've been listening to Sufjan's 'Songs For Christmas' a lot over the last few weeks, and the most impressive thing to me about the collection is how he manages to come up with new Christmas stories in what seems like a kind of played out genre. But sending some magical fairy cult to rescue your grandmother? Yeah, I got to give to him on this one.

I attended a live action performance of "A Charlie Brown Christmas Special" and "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" last night, and it was fantastic. The best thing about them was that they played them pretty much straight. They took some liberties in the Rudolph part, adlibbing in some jokes, which is fine, because as much as you love it, admit, its kind of stupid. Like think about the ending. They're all kind of rejoicing in the fact that they've all learned to be more accepting, and that Rudolph has come of age. Oh, but look, the prospector is alive because Abomniables can bounce, and... he's reformed! Is that it, did we wrap up every ludicrous plot line yet? Yeah? And its happy? Okay, lets go home. I'm not saying its bad, but there is room to mock it.

But thankfully the cast at the Annoyance Theater realized that the same didn't go for "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Other than talking flatly and shuffling around the stage, the cast played it completely straight. Which is the way it should be, because "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is honestly one of the greatest pieces of art ever created. There isn't a single thing wrong with it. I'm serious.

Okay fine, we can make fun of it.

I'm fairly sure that has to be real. The voices are too good and too perfectly recorded to be fake or cut together. Either way, its brilliant. The casting of Cox as Linus is just inspired. And also, Santa is about to shoot some bitches.

Merry Christmas!

Delusional Girlfriend Theater

2006-12-07T02:05:00.000-06:00

I think keeping tabs on the relationship statuses of celebrity is basically the entertainment alternative for people who don't play fantasy football. They both involve obsessing over people you'll never meet, and both slowly drain away from any chance you have of having an actual social life of your own. Frankly, they're American. Anyway - let's look at the boards. We may have lost Queen Amidala and her decoy to their respective hunky Mexican boy friend and skinny British fiancee (somewhere in Madrid, a sob rings out, followed by a muffled gun shot), but its all good. Because who needs them? They're skinny. And Rachel Bilson is now single. As is Scarlett Johansson. And I don't know about you my friends, but I am what they call "prime rebound material". Seriously, I have that written on a mesh trucker hat. It's very funny.

And then there was this, from the new issue of Filter magazine, the one with John Krasinski becoming the fifth Shin on the cover. They interview Lily Allen, and ask her about what type of men she actually likes:

"What kind of guy is Lily attracted to, anyway? 'They're all slightly overweight with facial hair and glasses; the Sean Lennon type,' she tells me after a moment of consideration. 'The more self esteem issues a guy has about himself and his physical appearance, the more attractive I find him. Probably because it make him easy to manipulate,'"

It's true, we're like emotional Playdo. Is there some sort of reverse laser surgery where they can screw up your eyes to the point that you require glasses? Because if so, I am so in. Slightly overweight? My nickname is Ponch, and it's not just because I'm a huge "CHiPs" fan (though I totally am). Facial hair? Oh yeah, and its patchy, its patchy as hell. It looks like I just cut my hair off, applied glue to my face, and threw the clippings into the wind to see whatever would stick. Self esteem issues? I think you know where that issue stands by the fact that you're reading my blog.

I can only pray that this wasn't a joke, and that guys like me are actually a 'type', and not just in the 'you're totally like my brother, I can tell you anything' type. Because seriously, that makes me want to bang my head against the wall, and I do, and it hurts.

A Modern Day Agora

2006-12-07T01:23:00.000-06:00

I'll bypass the usual apologies I type up for being away for so long. You know I still love you.

Dinosaur Comics posted this video yesterday, a CBC report from the early 90s on the new phenomenon known simply as "internet":

Things I love about this:

1. The initial dropping of "the" before internet and all of the hilarious "strange and futuristic" vibes it gives the report - and then the way they abruptly start using "the" in the middle of the report, like they suddenly realized they sounded silly.

2. Internet enthusiast John Allen praising the restraint on the internet, how people don't use the anonymity of the internet as a way to spread hateful putdowns. That fag would get pwned after three posts on an AICN message board. LOL.

3. The hard hitting piece on the origin of emoticons. :-[ See, I'm serious.

4. That the original use of internet was for the spreading of flirtations, debates, shared poetry, and midnight contract bridge games. Seriously though, where are these midnight contract bridge games because I so want in.

5. The British gentleman and his "deep and abiding passion of all things Thai".

6. The utter sadness in the fact that the Patty from Canada claims that internet has "more soul than any human" she knows. It's fifteen years later, but I have a fairly good idea that Patty is in the same spot now that she was when she wrote that.

I also just love how quickly things become outdated these days. Looking at the hundred year crawl it took from punch card machines to PCs, the fact that I'm laughing at this video from my wireless laptop 15 years later, it kind of makes me think that we'll be laughing about the technological advances that we make now in five years, and then we'll be laughing about things that we discovered five minutes ago. "Hey remember when you were going on and on about teleportation?" "Yeah, I literally just stopped talking about before you started talking." "I know, and I'm laughing because now it's old hat."

Talkin' Bout My Generation

2006-11-23T13:15:00.000-06:00

The passing of director Robert Altman is terribly sad, not just because we've lost one of the greatest directors of the last thirty years, if not ever, but also because it really illustrates the sea change between our generation and the one that is, with Altman's death, apparently dying out. For instance, let's take a look at some of the eulogies given by some of Altman's "Prairie Home Companion" cast members. From Meryl Streep:

“Bob's restless spirit has moved on -- I have to say, when I spoke with him last week, he seemed impatient for the future. He still had the generous, optimistic appetite for the next thing, and we planned the next film laughing in anticipation of the laughs we'd have. What a gent, what a guy, what a great heart. There's no one like him and we'll miss him so.

From Garrison Keillor:

“Mr. Altman loved making movies. He loved the chaos of shooting and the sociability of the crew and actors --- he adored actors --- and he loved the editing room and he especially loved sitting in a screening room and watching the thing over and over with other people. He didn't care for the money end of things, he didn't mind doing publicity, but when he was working he was in heaven.

He and I once talked about making a movie about a man coming back to Lake Wobegon to bury his father, and Mr. Altman said, "The death of an old man is not a tragedy." I used that line in the movie we wound up making --- the Angel of Death says it to the Lunch Lady, comforting her on the death of her lover Chuck Akers in his dressing room, "“The death of an old man is not a tragedy."” Mr. Altman's death seems so honorable and righteous --- to go in full-flight, doing what you love --- like his comrades in the Army Air Force in WWII who got shot out of the sky and simply vanished into blue air --- and all of us who worked with him had the great privilege of seeing an 81-year-old guy doing what he loved to do. IÂ’m sorry that our movie turned out to be his last, but I do know that he loved making it. It's a great thing to be 81 and in love."

And finally:

"I would like to send my condolences out to Catherine Altman, Robert Altmans wife, as well as all of his immediate family, close friends, co-workers, and all of his inner circle.

"I feel as if I've just had the wind knocked out of me and my heart aches.

"If not only my heart but the heart of Mr. Altman's wife and family and many fellow actors/artists that admire him for his work and love him for making people laugh whenever and however he could..

"Robert altman made dreams possible for many independent aspiring filmmakers, as well as creating roles for countless actors.

"I am lucky enough to of been able to work with Robert Altman amongst the other greats on a film that I can genuinely say created a turning point in my career.

"I learned so much from Altman and he was the closest thing to my father and grandfather that I really do believe I've had in several years.

"The point is, he made a difference.

"He left us with a legend that all of us have the ability to do.

"So every day when you wake up.

"Look in the mirror and thank god for every second you have and cherish all moments.

"The fighting, the anger, the drama is tedious.

"Please just take each moment day by day and consider yourself lucky to breathe and feel at all and smile. Be thankful.

"Life comes once, doesn't 'keep coming back' and we all take such advantage of what we have.

"When we shouldn't..... '

"Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourselves' (12st book) -everytime there's a triumph in the world a million souls hafta be trampled on.-altman Its true. But treasure each triumph as they come.

"If I can do anything for those who are in a very hard time right now, as I'm one of them with hearing this news, please take advantage of the fact that I'm just a phone call away.

God Bless, peace and love always.

Thank You,

"BE ADEQUITE"

Lindsay Lohan

Okay. I understand that Lindsay Lohan was probably upset when she wrote this, and that she's probably not the best example to hold up of the writing skills of the early 20s set, having gotten most of her education on film sets and in the bathroom at Butter. But still, wow. Even if she had spelled adequate correctly, I still have no idea what that would mean. It's like the cryptic slogan serial killers sign off with. Reading what Keillor and Streep wrote, I cried for Altman; reading Lohan just made me cry for my generation. Kids spend so much time writing in this James Joyce - MySpace stlye stream of conciousness that they never take the time to actually sit back and read, to learn what actual writing is.

And yes, I understand the inherent hypocrisy in the fact that I'm writing this in a blog. I'm sorry.

(Streep and Keillor via Ain't It Cool; Lohan via USA Today)

I'm Not Entirely Sure Where Sweden Is, To Be Honest With You

2006-11-22T00:30:00.000-06:00

I know, I'm posting like crazy tonight. Anyway. I tend to to skim over a lot of acts on music blogs, because I just can't absorb that much music that fast. So when I first saw The Knife, I just kind of kept going. Because I'm a fool. I figured, Daft Punk pretty much took care of my need for eclectic electronic pop by people who wore masks as a symbol against the image obsession in the music business. Which is a pretty heavy need in my life, oddly enough. And also, they're Swedish, and I felt like I was listening to enough Swedish pop lately. Like the other night, I watched nothing but Cardigans videos on YouTube. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Then the other day, I realized that the José González song in the Bravia commercial I've been watching obsessivelyey for the last year is a cover of The Knife's 'Heartbeats'. I know, like I said, I'm a fool. So I found a copy of The Knife's original, and I haven't stopped listening to it since.

The Knife - Heartbeats

How can you make a song about werewolves even better? Make the video about werewolves too! And, make it olde timey!

TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me

And I wasn't kidding about the Cardigans back there. If you look past their 'Lovefool', 'Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet' stage, they're actually pretty good. I really like this song, and this video. What? I think overhead shots are neat. That's all. Fine, and Nina Persson is pretty. Are you happy now? God, it's all about image with you. You make me want to wear a weird 'Eyes Wide Shut' mask and mope. Yes, you make me that angry.

The Cardigans - I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer

How Does It Feel?

2006-11-21T23:48:00.000-06:00

I was beginning to think that this movie didn't actually exist. I would hear that it was coming, but there was never a date attached, there weren't even production stills till a month or two ago. But now, we have a 'Factory Girl' trailer. And, well, it seems they made it into a movie alright. Sienna really looks the part, but God I hope she can act. All I really see her do here is look cute in some quick shots and then she gets drunk and slurs. I remember when this movie was announced, there was a story where they asked Bob Dylan to clear his name, but he said no, since the story basically revolved around him trying to save Edie from the factory, and that never happened. So apparently, they've changed it, so now Edie is torn between Andy and some charming, mumbling harmonica playing type whose name is absolutley not Bob Dylan. Oh, and if you look quickly, you'll see Jimmy Fallon and Mena Suvari. Yeah, I know, I forgot about them too.

I Know Nobody Likes Me. Why Do We Have To Have A Holiday Season To Emphasize It?

2006-11-21T21:34:00.000-06:00

Hi. It's been a while. No, I know. No seriously, I know. Just, stop talking. I've been looking at this page, thinking, oh, November 2nd wasn't that far away. And then I look at my watch and it's Chrono, 2.33'49. And I wonder when I bumped that button. But for some reason, this last month, I've actually been doing stuff. And, I apologize to you, reader. Where are my manners? So, what are the haps my friends? Yeah, that's right, I said it, and I meant it.

I enjoy Christmas. Enjoy in the mellow sense of the word, where you go kind of soft on the joy, you let it roll off of your tongue rather than stabbing whoever has the misfortune of being in your ear shot with your enthusiasm. Christmas is a day where my family gives each other gifts, the question of "What are you doing with your life?" doesn't come up until after the sun comes down, and no one is required to shower or change out of their pajamas. Which is a classier way of saying that we don't shower or change out of our pajamas. It's lovely. We eat cold ham. So obviously, I look forward to it every year as a day of calm, a day of peace.

But this year, I don't know why, but I am all about Christmas. There hasn't been a moment in the last week where my body hasn't been digesting a wonderful syrup based Starbucks/Caribou Coffee holiday themed beverage. I've reached a state of equilibrium where I think my body would collapse if I didn't have a Fah-La-La latte with me, which is kind of scary, but in a jolly sort of way. I've also been listening to SomaFm non stop, more specifically their XMas In Frisko feed, the only place to hear Nat King Cole and "The Lonely Jew On Christmas" back to back. Either that, or I've been streaming all five discs of Sufjan Steven's Christmas collection, because one version of "O Come O Come Emmanuel" just isn't enough. My only fear is that my Christmas spirit will peak somewhere around November 28th at 8/7c, approximately. And then where will I be? A grinch with 10 pounds on tinsel? And yes, even now, I admit it, that it is way too much tinsel to be healthy, but you don't understand, I'm really happy right now.

Respectable

2006-11-02T15:15:00.000-06:00

I kind of burned myself out on Nellie McKay last year. I loved 'Get Away From Me', but after listening to it a lot, the cleverness of the lyrics kind of die after a while, because you know what's going to happen next. It kind of becomes boring. And that was a problem for that album, because the lyrics carried a lot of it. Not that the music was bad, it just wasn't enough to bring me back after awhile. This would have been fine since this was all happening around the time that 'Pretty Little Head', McKay's follow up album was supposed to get released. But then it didn't. And then, in January, it wasn't released again. And then Sony dropped her from the label, and McKay went off to do 'The Three Penny Opera' on broadway. And I kind of moved on. Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, Lily Allen, Regina Spektor - they all released albums in the last year that kind of filled my alternative angry girl pop need. Not that my alternative angry girl pop need can ever be filled. Which brings me to Tuesday, when 'Pretty Little Head' was finally released on McKay's own Hungry Mouse label. Well, it came out on Tuesday, but I wasn't able to get it till Wednesday, but on the plus side, I got lunch at the pirogi factory - that's right, an entire restaurant devoted to pirogis. And an added bonus - I'm pretty sure the woman working the counter was a Bond girl in a former life.

It turned out to be the best Wednesday ever, because not only were the pirogis delicious, but the album is fantastic. I've realized that I've been using the word fantastic a lot lately, mostly because I like the way it sounds, so if anyone has a suggestion for a new word, well, that would be fantastic. The music is a lot tighter, the lyrics are still really smart, kd Lang guests on a song, which I'm pretty sure was on the Rumour Has It soundtrack, because they keep saying "Rumour has it" over and over again. So other than the visualizations of Jennifer Aniston and Rob Reiner cinematically violating the memory of 'The Graduate', it's a really enjoyable album. Here's a video for 'Real Life', which isn't that stunning, but the odd scenes of running in the dark and playing in a secluded cabin for a bunch of old people gives you a real feel for what this album is like (I meant that in a good way):

The Hold Steady, and especially front man Craig Finn, seem to believe in the same literary lyrics approach that McKay takes to writing. Which also might explain why they've put out three albums in as many years, if my idea of lyrical burnout has any merit. But I think 'Boys And Girls In America' finally overcomes that, when Finn actually tries to start singing, which makes the music much more noticeable, and enjoyable. I also love the fact that these guys are an ugly band. And not like, in the Weezer way, where they're weird looking but people still think the lead singer is cute, but honest to goodness ugly people. You wouldn't look at these guys twice if they weren't playing, which means they have to everything through the music. Or dress up like Zorro. (I like this video, but I think it falls into the kind of gimmicky, Blink-182 territory that a band as smart as The Hold Steady doesn't deserve to be in)

Also, I've been up all night, though I haven't been able to watch television because my roommate just bought the new Final Fantasy game and Holy God I hate myself for typing this sentence. Sorry. Anyway, I ended up trolling YouTube the entire night. Hence this post. But, it brings up the serious question of, when you mix Jenny Lewis, Sarah Silverman, and He-Haw together, is the result destined to be the greatest thing in the world?

Yeah. Pretty much. Also, in the wake of the Google buy out, where the world of YouTube, a utopian land of freedom and old videos of Mr. T calling people fools, has been transformed into a world of corporations bickering over copy right violations and kittens falling asleep, it interesting to see who the new emerging stars are. In the olden days of, last month, people loved the earnest kids talking into their cameras. They were all about the lonelygirl15s. But now that we're down to business, people aren't even pretending anymore. They just want to be Catwoman:

Plus, she uses the Pipettes. Segue!

They would have made a fantastic Haloween costume for you and two friends, but no, you had to be the sexy mental patient. Also, I'm sorry I said fantastic again. I'm working on it, I promise.

They're Actually From Sweden

2006-10-29T03:14:00.000-06:00

Hi. I'll level with you my friends, my mind is a little out of sorts this Halloween weekend. People are all sorts of dressed up (I sat next to a male Carmen Sandiego on the train tonight), which leads to people screaming at you, asking what you're dressed up as. "I'm not dressed as anything." "No, no, come on, what are you?" "It's a hat and a jacket!" "Are you a sailor?" "I'm cold, and increasingly pissed off." Plus, we fell back today, and I didn't realize it till 2/3 am. It's all fucked around with my head a bit. That and I'm a little hung over.

All of this has lead me to my couch, and having to choose between a 'Viva La Bam' marathon, a Hot Links infomercial, or videos on VH1. I know, apparently they still play music videos on music networks (except for MTv, they're deep into a 'True Life' marathon), but only at hours when no one will actually watch them. Brilliant! It's a bit funny though, the last two videos I saw were Regina Spektor's 'Fidelity' and Ok Go's 'Here It Goes Again', videos I saw on this here series of tubes a few months again. It seems like the networks are caught between trying to act like they're still important in the music industry or if they should just give it up and embrace their new network platforms completely (when will Bonaduce break? When damn it?), so in the mean time they're playing catch up with videos I've already seen and at the same time trying to act like they're introducing them to the world(Regina Spektor is a 'You Oughta Know' artist, thanks for the tip VH1!). It just seems funny that the only way that actual, listenable music is getting play on television is after everyone kind of collectively ignored it.

Anyway, that good music I said they were playing? I lied, that's over, we're back to the All American Rejects (though to be fair, Ben Kweller was just on). So I've turned to YouTube to find the videos that VH1 will get around to in January or so (none of these are really new, but again, I'm hung over, which means I'm lazy, and these songs are kind of simple, and oddly pleasing. Shiny in a way):

'We're from Barcelona' - I'm from Barcelona

Going out to all my Spanish readers. All two of you. Hi. I laughed the first time I watched this, at the school photo sets, the swaying, the dorkiness of the lead singer, the unnecessary wind effects, the fact that everyone else doesn't seem to be sure why they're in this video. Then I realized I had watched it five times. This video is like an infomercial for a cult, a cult where you don't have to wear some ugly purple jumpsuit. Which has always been my major hang up about cults. It's like, I want the sing and the glazed eyes, but I want to be my own person too, you know?

'Young Folks' - Peter, Bjorn & John

This has been one of my favorite songs of the summer, because honestly, how can you resist a good whistle chorus? You can't. You just can't.

'Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above' - CSS

They have a newer video out, which is pretty nifty, but I like this song better, and my head is a very delicate place at this moment, so... yeah.

'Us' - Regina Spektor

This is from her last album, but wow do I love this video. Wow, I'm going to bed.

I Suppose That's Just The Way The Cookie Crumbles

2006-10-23T20:36:00.000-05:00

I don't know how these things work, I'm not a wizard. The cape, well its more like a safety blanket really, but that's not the point. Fame is hard to figure out, while some of the most talented artists in the world toil in obscurity for their entire lives, hackier people shoot straight into the public eye, where they either stay or disappear so quickly it was like they were never there at all. I am looking squarely at you Lou Bega. Four straight months of everyone in my life singing your song or some version of it where they just put in the names they wanted to hear, and for what? An Applebees commercial? Was that your end plan? Did you ruin my summer of 1999 just for a plate of the baby, baby back ribs? You son of a bitch.

Anyway, Lily Allen is having a Lou Bega moment. It's kind of an old story by now, she posted tracks on her myspace page, we fell in love, she released her album (in the UK at least), and we fell harder. Apparently against the idea of making money, her record company decided to hold off on releasing her album in the States until January. A record company representative was quoted as saying "We're just swamped with all the money we've been taking in lately, we're a little behind on the counting. Johnson forgot how many zeros were in a billion, and well, its all just been a mess." But Lily has once again proved that you don't need a record company (or really, even a record) to be famous. I meant that in a good way, not the Paris Hilton way, just to be clear.

In the last three weeks, Lily has had her 'Grey's Anatomy' Moment, her MTV moment, started touring the states, has become the darling of the tabloids as the first famous person to agree that Paris Hilton and Madonna are worthless, and today released the third video from 'Alright, Still', for 'Littlest Things' -

She looks fantastic in noir. Anyway. What's to become of our Lily? Only time will tell. But I well tell you this my friend, I want some baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back I want my baby back baby back baby back... (Dear God, when do they say ribs? Never. They never say ribs.)

Animal News!

2006-10-22T00:19:00.000-05:00

We have gone too far. Sure, its easy to make fun of him. He can't fly, or run fast, or, shoot a bow and arrow. He's just generally not that super. And the green and orange ensemble isn't really helping anything either. But it seems now, after years of 'sea men' jokes, he has had enough. Because, Aquaman - is - pissed. The recent death of 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin was a tragic accident, though it seemed somewhat reasonable due to the fact that Irwin spent his life provoking animals past reasonable logic. But, what I'm saying is, was it? Irwin's death appeared to be an accident, but it acquired world wide attention. Now an attack on this man in Florida, with the same MO (though this one actually jumped out of the water to do it), suggests, maybe this wasn't just a one off thing. Irwin got our attention, this last case shows us that he's serious, and any of us could be next. Aquaman is the king of the sea. That's the majority of the world. And he's tired of taking our shit. I would just like to go on record as saying, I love Aquaman (especially 'new' Aquaman. A hook hand? The definition of awesome my friend), and would like to not be pecked to death by the flock of seagulls that live in the parking lot next to my building (Yeah, didn't think of that did you - seagulls are under his domain, since they're apparently from the sea. If he wanted to, he could just turn the entire world into the 'The Birds', except, you know, with just one type of bird. Still scary though.)

This story from NPR about a boy running with, then being chased by, then mounted by a deer while his entire cross country team apparently did nothing but take pictures and I'm assuming, laugh until they had trouble breathing is kind of a metaphor for adolescence. Picture one is the boy posing with the deer smiling, because at the start we're all cute kids, and we're excited about becoming adults. At picture two, we're starting out, and it's a little scary, but nothing we can't handle. Picture three, okay, somebody help me, I was wrong. Picture four, seriously you guys, this isn't funny any more! You give up on whining by picture five, because no one is listening. Picture five is either when you start playing football and drinking, or start painting your nails black and listening to My Chemical Romance. And drinking. Because by picture six, you have been fully mounted and licked by the deer. And you just kind of go with it. Because by picture eight, they're just kind of pushing you into the race again. And, like adolescence, its hilarious when it's not happening to you. Because that kid totally got attacked by a deer.

From the BBC: A Russian official has accused the King Of Spain of drugging a tame bear with a mixture of honey and vodka before hunting it down. I think this is an important opportunity for all of us. It would be fantastic if the world was thrown into war over the death of a bear. World War I was set off over the death of an arch-duke, why not a bear? If this situation escalates to the point of war, can you imagine the lesson the five of us left after the nuclear holocaust would take away with us? "You guys, we went to war over a bear. Man, that is silly. War is silly." We would all agree, and then Mary would succumb to radiation poisoning.

Also, vodka and honey sounds like a delicious way to get sloshed.

This video of a comedian doing some fifth rate Carlos Mencia shtick and being assaulted by two women when he asks - actually asks them- if they were offended by a terrible 'towel head' routine isn't strictly animal related, but watching him scream did remind me of the time I was at the circus, and they took away the unicycle from the Unicycling Bear - ironic, I know. We all laughed, and then when he tried to get it back they shot him with a tranquilizer dart, and he fell to the floor, drooling. And we laughed even harder. I'm not saying that I find animal cruelty funny, it was just - well the bear was wearing a hat. I guess you had to be there.

I Lost It

2006-10-19T22:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the last night of the Chicago International Film Festival. I've been to the movies for six of the last seven nights. I don't know why, but sitting on your ass can be oddly exhausting.

Dirt Nap

I can take joy in the fact that seeing this at a festival so long before it's release date, if it gets one, is that it means I get to be one of the first people to call it 'Garden State' for the middle aged set. It's not a fair thing to say, but I guarantee you, it's going to be said, over and over. And it's not D.B. Sweeney's fault. He just wanted to make his movie with his friends, and if your friend is John C. McGinley, and he'll do your movie, then you put him in your movie. In doing that, you've already built in an audience, but the flip side of that is that audience sees that Dr. Cox is in a 'finding yourself' movie, they're going to start comparing it to the other doctor's 'finding yourself' movie.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. You can almost see it as a rebuttal to 'Garden State', the cinematic equivalent of our parents telling us, "You think you got problems? You don't have problems. I've had all the same problems you've had for thirty years longer, and I didn't have a blog to cry about it on." Then they go and drink and turn up a Springsteen album to drown out whatever Coldplay album we're crying ourselves to sleep to. Which is a fair point to make, but do people want to see that? I can appreciate that people seeing movies about 20 somethings complaining about their lives can be obnoxious, but at least those movies usually end with a glimmer of hope at the end, but when you're characters are twenty years older, it all takes on a sense of inevitably, which makes the filmmaker work extra hard to get some entertainment out of the story. Which leads to the thinking behind 'Dirt Nap', where our main characters work out their problems by hitting the road and find themselves running into things like alligators and Ed Harris as an one armed carnie.

Other than McGinley's performance and Sweeney and Moira Kelly having a 'Cutting Edge' reunion, there isn't really anything on paper that makes 'Dirt Nap' sound original. And it's not really. A lot of the dialogue reaches to be both normal and entertaining, but fails at both, and some times things just happen so something is happening. You can tell that this is someone's first movie. But the performances are strong enough (Paul Hipp is as good at playing weak and indecisive as McGinley is at being angry and cocky, which says something) and the fact that Sweeney actually cares about his characters and the generation that they represent carries the film through it's rough patches. It's an honest film, which leaves you with a type of satisfaction that you don't usually get from movies. Plus, it has Ed Harris as a one armed carnie. I just wanted to make sure you picked up on that.

I Hope She Does The One About Prostitute Donuts

2006-10-17T00:02:00.000-05:00

It's hard to love Scarlett Johansson sometimes. I want to just write her off as the blonde, Sexiest Woman Alive (not that there is anything wrong with that), but every once in a while something she does reminds me that the same smart mousy girl from 'Ghost World' is living underneath all that bombshell. Like this. I'm told by chattering girls who go to Borders to read but not actually buy People and US that the cool thing for modern young starlets to do is to branch out from their acting careers to record a musical album. Modern day icons like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Annette Funicello come to mind. So why wouldn't New Scarlett jump on board, throw her hat into the over produced pop ring? But it turns out she's not just going to fill a disc of forty minutes complaining about the paparazzi or how sad it is that the stars are blind (seriously, what the fuck was that?) , but instead she's doing a disc of Tom Waits covers. Yeah. This is the Johansson Paradox, and it's killing me.

RELATED ITEMS!

Can't wait for the album? You want to hear Scarlett sing now? I suggest you visit Stereogum to hear her cover Gershwin's 'Summertime'... Or if you're in the mood for just some straight up Waits, I found this site, with a live recording from the 1974 San Diego Folk Festival. I really hope Scarlett does some nasal pitched ramblings in between songs, because really, that's half the fun... Bill Murray never comes to my parties, we just get Chevy Chase, and he steals our silverware... and in music related news, because it's music... MOKB has both video and an Mp3 of the new Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins song they performed on Conan Friday (not to mention an awesome photo). I recommend you download the song and watch the video. Why? Sweet dance moves, that's why.

Radio, Radio

2006-10-12T14:31:00.000-05:00

Attention public radio fans! I'm guessing all of you are still reading. Because honestly, who doesn't love the folksy charm of Garrison Keillor, the dry journalistic wit of Terry Gross, the desperate yet still amazingly patronizing tone Alan Chartock's voice takes on during pledge drives. Anyway. This American Life, is going to be offered as a free podcast starting this Monday. So no longer will we be hindered by the restrictions of time, or money, or owning a radio. I honestly haven't listened to TAL on the radio for a year, instead listening to it on my computer or watching it when they played NPR over the security feed in my old building. There's nothing quite like getting your news while watching a kid plead with a security guard, because that pot totally isn't his.

John Hodgman Bought Me A Hotdog

2006-10-01T21:18:00.000-05:00

The Hot Dog John Hodgman Bought For Me

That's a bit misleading, though technically true. He bought hotdogs for the entire audience, but I was a member of that audience, so, if you think about it, he bought me a hot dog. Sadly, it was covered in the mixture of salad and odd green, candied relish that Chicago insists on putting on its hot dogs. It's - it's not that it's bad, it just seems so unnecessary. Like they're ashamed of their meat. So they hide it behind a tomato. It's all very sad. It's like going on a date with a girl wearing heavy make up. You're pretty, stop dressing like some terrifying circus clown.

The reading began with a musical performance by Jonathan Coulton, who sings kind of, satirical folks songs. Like DaVinci's Notebook, but with an instrument. He's actually playing a show with Paul and Storm tomorrow night. He sang the usual fare, love songs of gigolos and mad scientists, and then sang Hodgman's theme song. Which, as you may have guessed, led to John Hodgman. Not that he had some grand, wrestler like entrance into the Borders reference section. He had actually been sitting in front of me during Coulton's set, and before that had been talking to those of us who had gotten there half an hour early. Still though, when you have your own troubadour sing of your praises, you look very impressive.

The Symbol On The Podium Means "It is time for hoboes to take over the United States government"

He then proceeded to have us recite the six oaths of the virtuous child, talked a bit about the history of almanacs, his history, and then he delved into all matters hobo, including how he originally had planned to use the hobo material from the book for a PBS documentary, where it would be narration going back and forth over a slow Ken Burns pan of the same photo of a hobo. Sadly, hobos don't show up on film, so the idea was scrapped. Coulton also played 'Big Rock Candy Mountain', but with the original lyrics, the ones written as a way to entice children to run away from home and join their hobo lives. I can only imagine what the woman behind them was thinking when they segued into the 'Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch' version of the song (which they were quick to point out, seemed dated even though the ad campaign has only been over for a few months).

They did a Q&A after that, entirely conducted through walkie talkies (invented here in Chicago as some odd man lurking in the corner was eager to point out). It was one of the least awkward Q&As I've ever been to, which says something about the other ones I've been to (some highlights: the 'Shopgirl' session where someone asked Jason Schwartzman and Clare Danes what it was like to work with Robin Williams, or the 'Half Nelson' one a few weeks ago, where they didn't even have the lights on, they did the entire thing in silhouette). He then ended the reading by throwing a piece of official John Hodgman railroad track chalk at a woman in the back, missing, hitting the ceiling, and dinging a man in the last row.

He signed my book afterwards, and after asking me what I was studying here, commented, "Well good, Chicago is the film capital of the world. If you like Joan Cusack movies." Which is now officially the line I'm going to use when ever anyone asks me why I decided to come here (because honestly, she is delightful). So, thank you Mr. Hodgman.

We're The Good Guys.

2006-09-30T16:58:00.000-05:00

So, apparently, the numbers are the core values in the equation that formulates the end of humanity. The DHARMA initiative was founded to find a way to manipulate these values, to change the destructive path of humanity. That didn't work so now they're injecting people with viruses. Or something. I really have no idea what I just wrote. This video is the culmination of the summer long webgame ABC has been running to keep fans interested in 'Lost'. I think they might have over done it though since I was obviously going to watch this Wednesday's premiere, but after watching this clip I felt so lost (it's a pun that will never ever die) and confused that I just wanted to curl into a ball and watch 'Deal Or No Deal'. That's the type of drama I can handle - it's like 'Lost', but in nice forty minute chunks. Will they or won't they make the deal? What is in their suitcase (a 'Pulp Fiction' reference? Oh those crafty writers)? Who is the banker? Can Howie Mandell reflect light off of his head in such a manner that it would create a lethal heat ray? All of that, plus, case model 14 is really hot. So honestly, who needs JJ Abrams?

My Name, Is Cassidy!

2006-09-29T01:08:00.000-05:00

Hey, what are you up to Tuesday night? Really? Well whatever it is you said, shut up. Because you need to be home, with your eyes firmly fixated at a television set, watching 'Veronica Mars'. Oh sure, you could watch it here right now (if you're willing to download a bunch of Microsoft software - which I'm not). But you know what, don't. Restrain yourself. Watch it on television. I know, it seems silly, antiquated, but believe it or not, they judge the success of television shows by how many people watch them when they're on television. 'Veronica Mars' is a terrific show, and if you want it to continue, you need to watch it, it's that simple, okay? I'm tired of everyone complaining, "'Arrested Development' was such a great show, why would they cancel it?" Because you didn't watch it. There. That's it. So watch 'Veronica Mars', do yourself a favor and tune in an hour earlier and watch 'Gilmore Girls' too. Or else you'll make the baby Jesus cry.

(If you didn't watch the episode and you're still looking for a Veronica fix, check out the new, moodier title sequence. I like the visuals, but the remix is so mopey. The guitar 'wah-wah's are so limp, they barely warrant my trademark and always hilarious shooting hand movements that I make at the beginning of every show. I say barely because, you better believe I'm still going to do them. And it's going to be sweet. Also, Mac and Lamb are regulars now, to which I say, hurray.)

LDN

2006-09-28T19:02:00.000-05:00

London is the prettiest city in the world. It's official. And let's forget about the delusional dreams of somehow wooing two of the most sought after women on the planet, if you lived in London, you could just buy a date with the coolest girl in the world. That, and brown sauce is readily available. It's not fair, it's just... not.

Secretary Of The Treasury Hobo Joe Junkpan

2006-09-28T15:22:00.001-05:00

I hate Radar Online, not only because I was highly disappointed when I found out their site had nothing to do with Gary Burghoff, but because they took what is by far the best title you could have for a story about John Hodgman for their interview with him, Hodgmania! Because really, it's the only suitable term to describe the state of the nation right now. You might not even be aware of it, but you're a hodgmaniac. Yes, that would explain the rashes.

You probably recognize him from his work on 'The Daily Show' as 'That Guy Who Makes Things Up' (which isn't really as specific a term as I thought it would be), or as his personification of the most used computers in the world. Those of you who still know what a radio is might know him from his work on This American Life (click here to hear his great 'Flight Vs. Invisibility' piece), or his book, 'The Areas Of My Expertise'. This is the 'Daily Show' interview that started his gig there (arguably the origins of 'Hodgmania'), and also made me run out and buy the book (he had me at "drawing of a bird with a hat"). In it he mentions the list of 700 hobo names in the book, and how he read them all to musical accompaniment. This list has also inspired the creation of E-Hobo.com, a web community where people have banded together to illustrate all 700 of Hodgman's Hoboes (plus the 100 extra names that were added to the new paperback edition).

He's currently on a literary tour for the paperback edition, and is stopping in Chicago this weekend. I'm nervous though, what will I say? How can you thank the man who taught you that you must tip the hotel lullaby singer $5 per song, and an extra $2 if they use a harp? How?

Seriously Though

2006-09-17T20:17:00.000-05:00

Since lonelygirl is a fake, apparently the new internet fad is looking for proof that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.
(Thanks Matt)

So, Apparently, I'm Not Dead

2006-07-06T16:47:00.000-05:00

Funny thing happened. Remember when I said I was getting into soccer? Well I did. To the point where I was watching the World Cup everyday, even if I wasn't entirely sure where the country playing was located, or, for that matter, that they had existed prior to the match. I got so involved with it, that I kind of stopped doing... things. Too terrified was I to get a job or do anything, productive, by the idea that I miss out on foreign men kicking around some balls. See, I got so into all of it that that phrase didn't even make me laugh when I just said it. Actually... that was a lie. But damned if I didn't try to fight it. But it's July now, and after about three interventions and countless awkward dinner conversations with my parents, the world cup is about to come to a close, when Italy and France play each other on Sunday. I've used this last week, where the games became more sporadic, to slowly reintroduce myself to society - getting a job, reacquainting myself with sunlight, etc. So now, I figured I'd start writing here again. It only seemed natural, since the people who read it have started spreading out over the world again.

Also, speaking of blogs that took the last month off, I can't recommend enough that you check in with BLOGregard Q. Kazoo, the official blog from the creators of 'Fosters Home From Imaginary Friends', where they post artwork and talk about the production of the show. And if you go there today, you'll see that they were nominated for best animated program under half an hour. Hmm... what's that I smell? Is it a segue? Hell yeah it is.

The Emmy nominations were announced today. And... I'm just going to leave it for now. But seriously, FUCKING STOCKARD CHANNING? It wasn't even for the 'West Wing' (way overnominated, again) but for that awful show that took Henry Winkler away from 'Arrested Development', and was cancelled this year. Because no one watched it. And it was awful. So let's leave Lauren Graham out in the wind because Rizzo graced television with her presence yet again. Yipes, just fucking yipes. And Lost? Did they forget about this show? They shouldn't have, after they gave it the award last year. Maybe they refused to award a show that actually surprised them. Or maybe they just forgot about it, they were too busy stuffing candy in their mouths. I don't know. I'm not a pyschic.

There were some bright spots. '24' led the pack with 12 nominations, getting it's first none Keifer Sutherland acting noms for Jean Smart and Gregory Itzin as everyone's favorite couple, the Logans. And if GOB gets a statue, angels will smile. But he won't. Because if history means anything, then look for Duckie or the spastic gay guy to win. And the angels will weep. And then begin sharpening their swords, readying for the coming war. Seriously. It's in the bible.

At My House, My House

2006-06-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

Continuing with the theme of Europeans acting like robots, my second summer obsession is Daft Punk. This is the thought process through which I began listening to Daft Punk: sitting in my room alone (this, by the way, is how most of my stories begin) I was listening to the LCD Soundsystem album, and I realized that I had been listening to that song incessantly since last summer, and I didn't really know what Daft Punk sounded like. All I knew was that their album had a picture of glowing television on it, and it freaked me out (reminded me of 'Poltergeist'). So, bored, I got some of their songs. Soon after I had fashioned a hat out of tin foil and was practicing my robot dance while repeatedly listening to 'Technologic'. As much as I enjoyed it, I wasn't proud of myself for liking it, because even now, I still have no decent way to explain why I like it so much. One of the most awkward moments I've had at school so far was one night, my roommate opened the door to find me, in my pajamas, with tinfoil wrapped around my head, dancing like a robot. I couldn't even eek out an "I can explain...", because what was the point? I couldn't. No possible way to make yourself look good in that situation. Luckily he was cool with it (he said he was jealous of my moves, but I think he was being factitious).

I wasn't planning on talking about any of this (especially the last part) when I got home, but somehow, Daft Punk came up. And apparently, people love Daft Punk. Or, at least enough of my friends like them enough that I don't feel like such an odd nerd anymore. Though, sadly, people actually like to dance to this music, so when I bust out my sweet robot thing, I look kind of foolish. But then again, anyone trying to dance next to Sam will look foolish. The man is a machine.

Anyway, for anyone who cares, there's an excellent recording of the Daft Punk show from Coachella a few months back here. YouTube is full of videos from the show, which was apparently a once in a lifetime experience. And not because they were dressed like robots, because they do that all the time. Why you may ask? Because they're kind of fucking awesome.

I'm Worried

2006-06-08T15:08:00.000-05:00

I don't what it is, perhaps the fact that summer so far has been a parade of the dreariest fucking days imaginable, but I've just started producing this extra energy, a way to compensate, mental warmth I suppose. Burning through unhealthy obsessions with random pop culture figures is nothing new for me, obviously, but I've been going at them at such a break neck speed in the past few weeks, I'm afraid I'll burn myself out before July gets here. My plan for the blog here over the next few days is to breakdown the things that I've become obsessed with, as a way to share, and hopefully, detox. So to start:

- Football. Like, the actual one, with the feet and all. After watching the champions League Final with actual soccer fans, I've begun the mental preparations necessary for giving my life over to the World Cup for the next month. I've actually spent the time reading up on teams and the like, and not that my time is especially jam packed and precious, but the fact that I've been able to tear myself away from the Shiloh Nouvelle Jolie-Pitt coverage is, in itself, a miracle. Football has also exposed me to my newfound hero, Peter Crouch, who has taken what was once the most shameful of white boy dances and turned it into a beloved sign of national victory.

Pictures Of You

2006-05-27T15:02:00.000-05:00

As requested:

So... technically those last two weren't part of the batch that I put up, I made the Sam one for a class, and I think I made the Josh one later because he felt bad that I didn't make one of him in the first place. And then I didn't give it to him. I thought it'd be more mysterious that way. I like them though. And the Sam and Jake one, when I try publishing it to the site, the back ground comes out black, and you can't see the text. And it makes Jake look kind of fat. And frankly, I just didn't want to hear you whine about it.

Bären!

2006-05-22T15:16:00.000-05:00

Germany doesn't have bears. Who knew?

I Feel God In This Chili's

2006-05-10T01:58:00.000-05:00

Whoever decided that May sweeps and finals should mix together is a sick bastard, and I hope he burns in hell. I have to type out camera/edit logs and peer evaluations, now, after having my ass thoroughly handed to me by 'Gilmore Girls' and 'Veronica Mars'. 'Gilmore' gave it's best, wacky town bit yet with a flood of troubadours descending on Stars Hollow, giving the opportunity for cameos from people like Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, and Mary Lynn Rajskub, proving she can be just as cute as Jenna Fischer when she's given the chance to get away from her frumpy Chloe routine and allowed to sing songs about '89 Volvos'. Yeah, you should really give up on any hope that this post will be coherent, since I've run out of food money, and have been living off of the 20 cans of creamed corn I bought for my final film project. And, creamed corn, I learned, is only part of a healthy diet, creamed corn alone will actually lead to blacking out in your kitchen, hitting your head on the cabinet, awaking and not only not knowing who's kitchen you're in, but that you're also really surprised to find you're in a city. I recovered quickly, but I'm still filled with shame that my first legitimate college black out story revolves around a Thanksgiving side dish. Only three days left though. As for the internet:

- 'Eternal Sunshine' was a pretty perfect movie, but if I had one gripe with it, it was the lack of talking fecal matter.

- If Jack Bauer was a 'Golden Girl', he would totally be Blanche. Because he's sassy like that.

- I wish toys had been so educational when I was a kid.

- When a man dressed as "Joss Whedon" calls you a nerd, you sir, are a nerd.

- To celebrate the fact that Wilco is coming to Northampton this summer, a link to The Rawking Refuses To Stop! post with some nice live Jeff Tweedy tracks. That was actually more of a coincidence. But a happy one.

I'm off to bed, but not before I watch the Veronica Mars finale, again. It was just that good. And aside from all of the story revelations, the highlight of the episode had to be when Dick referred to Mac as 'Ghostworld'. I did that messed up laugh when I think things are really funny. Then I felt sad. Not as sad when I learned today that for the last year I've been improperly sending my mail. Apparently there was a slot for such things, but honestly, who knew?

I Don't Need A Blade Shamus, I Just Have To Squawk

2006-05-05T03:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday would have been Audrey Hepburn's 77th birthday, which is reason enough to open the post with this picture.

I've fallen into a kind, tumbling routine, where I'm going from class, which doesn't really matter anymore, to filming, but between rain and a hundred thousand immigrants marching, my filming schedule has gotten so screwed up that I'm editing and filming at the same time, which I think is giving me an ulcer. Do people still have ulcers? I'm sure it's a serious thing, but I always just think of Oscar Madison or Trapper John, the only people I've known with ulcers. And yes, I've reached that point where I consider 70's sitcoms characters personal acquaintances. I've also hit that point where I've given up on human contact, and the days where I don't have any work to do, I just hide in a movie theater. I've become a mole person. I saw 'Silent Hill' last week. I didn't really want to, it was just there. It was just two hours of Rhada Mitchell (who, along with Sean Bean, just can't seem to find that right movie) screaming through a lot of fog and ash, then a siren sounds and people who are burning alive, or have giant metal pyramids on their heads come out and try and dance at her. Serve her if you will. That part is actually kind of fun, just for the sheer what the fuckedness of it all, but when ever the movie stops and tries to tell a story, the woman next to me who peppered the screening with commentary like "Damn, he ripped that lady in half" became more amusing. Because, he did, in fact, rip that lady in half.

I followed that up by walking north to the Loews to see Greengrass' 'United 93' ('Stick It' sadly, had sold out). I saw 'Bloody Sunday' at the Triplex four years ago, on a Sunday in the small theater, basically by myself. I flashed back to how great that was as the girls in the front row started doing some, inexplicable dance/dare routine, much to the amusement of the frat pack seated in the third row. I also realized that I was sitting next to a date, one where the guy felt the need to comment to the lady throughout the picture, "Oh, see that's the plane that's going to go into the towers". It wasn't as if there was going to be some twist at the end, it wasn't a Shyamalan picture. She knows that. You know how I know she knows that? Because she lived through it just like everyone else in the theater, you fucking idiot. He had a pretty nice outfit on though, which was probably enough to get him a second date. The movie itself? Incredibly well done, well acted, and Greengrass knows exactly how to use the audiences feelings against them, but without pushing into anything that would resemble sentimentality. It literally felt like a roller-coaster at the end, I was left shaking a bit, glad I had put myself through that, even though I had no idea why. It also made me miss Aaron Brown.

I saw 'Brick' again the next day, mainly because I had missed the start time for Hard Candy, so I killed two hours till the next showtime ('Brick', by the way, still terrific). And, as upsetting as 'United 93' was, I think 'Hard Candy' was even more upsetting. From the the sickly sweet innocence and the saddening probability of the whole opening sequence, to the whole cat and mouse game that it goes into from there, and then just everything that had to do with reproductive organs just made me really uncomfortable. Especially that last part. With the penis. It's a testament to Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson (who's resemblance to Will Arnett made me laugh at some scenes where I really shouldn't have) that the movie isn't deathly boring. It reminded me a lot of 'Phone Booth', just this time Kiefer Sutherland is replaced with a fourteen year old girl. Which is much scarier than it sounds.

I also had a fun audience experience here, where the kids in the back were playing a variation on the 'Penis' game, but instead of shouting 'penis' louder and louder, they were shouting "Has anyone seen my eye-patch?". I think they were doing it in pirate voices, but I might have added that part in my memory. I couldn't figure out why this would be so amusing until the woman two rows ahead of me turned around to give them the stink eye. I say eye, because, of course, she was wearing an eye-patch. The simplest explanation is always right in front of you.

A Note On Trailers:
Despite it's silly title, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, looks incredibly good. I think it's the best teaser trailer since the Garden State teaser two years ago, where you really have no idea what the movie is about, but you just want to see it. And, I know that An Inconvenient Truth deals with important issues that need to be taken seriously, but if you put out a trailer so full of itself as this one, you're just asking to be made fun of. I'm cereal.

Please God, Please Don't Let Me Be Normal!

2006-04-28T13:11:00.000-05:00

Today is the first time in the past week where I've actually been able to rest. Well that's not true, yesterday was, but I slept all day yesterday, then woke up to listen to messages that ranged from mocking me with the existence of Scarlett Johansson to the awesomeness of the guest stars in season two of Veronica Mars (which is true, though you also have to take into consideration that the girl working with Joss Whedon was an America's Next Top Model contestant, which kind of sums it all up). It was just a wave of nausea, as I realized, this was my life. Then I had a snack. The week leading up to that point was just kind of a blur, a jumble of film shoots and stolen naps in between. I stayed awake for 36 hours, stole some furniture, pushed a kid out of a window, ate some donuts, drove on Lakeshore Drive, ran a shopping cart dressed like a pink bug/car down my hall at three in the morning, watched a man get drunk and pass out before 11 in the morning (though he woke up to consume a beef sandwich in about 30 seconds), saw a man get blasted away by a shot gun, and bought about 20 cans of creamed corn. Oh, and I finally got around to watching 'The Station Agent'. Great movie.

But of course, in the few moments I had, I spent looking for useless crap on the internet. For, the, I'm thinking five of you who might actually read this. Everything I do. I do it for you.

- What's the best thing about Wes Anderson's Mastercard ad? Robert Yeoman finally gets a speaking part. The man just has 'it', it's undeniable.

- 'Strangers With Candy' was really the first in the recent rush of shows that worked at making it's audience feel, really, really uncomfortable. We now get to see how a condensed two hour version will feel.

- Ronald D. Moore is creating a spinoff of Battlestar Galactica set fifty years before the current series, concerning the Adama family and the creation of the Cylons. Me and my imaginary girlfriend are super excited.

- Feel like buying me something? No, you probably don't. But if you have a Veronica Mars fan in your life, this is the perfect gift. Even though it makes Kristen Bell look like a puppet. And puppets aren't nominated for sexiest vegetarian. Though she doesn't really stand a chance, not when she's running against such super studs as k.d. Lang and Ed Begely Jr. It doesn't get any sexier than an alpaca.

I should sleep though. I have to work on someone's project tomorrow, and then I plan on catching the best double feature ever.

I Wish It Was Last September

2006-04-18T04:03:00.000-05:00

I watched '24' last night, I'll watch 'Scrubs' tonight, and I'll watch two episodes of 'Alias' Wednesday night, as the show returns with it's first new episodes since Jennifer Garner's baby break, which are also the first two of what will be the final eight episodes of the series. What's funny about all of this is that this is exactly what I was doing five years ago (of course five years ago I didn't have this awesome beard - best choice I have ever made, ever). These are the first three shows that I ever obsessed over, that I made it a point to be home for every week, that I bought on DVD so I could suck all of my friends down into the glowing, week to week hell that is my life. I love these shows, and, wow, do I need a social life.

But now one of them is dying, by most accounts, a painful death. The first season of 'Alias' was, is, one of the greatest things to ever go on television, but after the 'Phase One' episode in Season 2, things started to slide off the rail (Evil Francie, Evil Lauren, Good Sloane, APO, Vampire Episodes), something series creator J.J. Abrams admits to. It's made watching this show a really, frustrating experience, seeing a glimpse of it's former greatness every now and then, but losing it the very next moment. It's like a big life lesson, some days will be as thrilling as when Quentin Tarantino tried to take over S-D6, but unfortunately most will be as boring as when Dixon gets all weepy and almost kills himself (we get it, you miss Diane). The greatest lesson 'Alias' has thought me over the last five years is, to quote another television classic, "You take the good, you take the bad, and then you have...". There's hope to be found though, in that the show is supposedly going to out on one of it's higher notes.

It's also weird how as 'Alias' shuffles off, the other two seem to be peaking in popularity. Scrubs is guaranteed to come back next year (which is basically the first time that's ever happened), and Kiefer Sutherland just signed on for three more years of '24', and just announced that preproduction is under way for the '24' movie, to shoot next year. Arguably, the show has hit it's stride, becoming a part of the zeitgeist like it never has, and if you needed more proof at how important '24' has become, look no further than the second card on this weeks Post Secret. Like you don't feel the exact same way.

It's Bad News

2006-04-15T23:10:00.000-05:00

One of the nice things about my building is that we get to see the security feed from the lobby as a channel on our cable line up, and they play NPR over it, so I can listen to This American Life without having to own a radio, sparing me from ever accidentally tuning into a boisterous, pseudo-authoritative morning DJ humouring some C-rate porn star's breathy stories of her wild life, all while his sidekick laughs that same exact laugh that all radio sidekicks laugh in every market in the country (it's terrifying, like there's a clone army of small little men with pony tails, who just cackle at anything. "Would you like onions on that sir?" "Ha-ha!" "Sir please" "Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha..." "Please sir, there are children present"). One of the perks of this is that one night, as I was watching the police taser and restrain one of our students, high on angel dust, after he had started broadly attacking guests at a party, I realized that I was listening to Greg Kot, author of the Wilco biography Learning How To Die, talking about the greatest albums that were never released. It was almost as entertaining as watching my school mate have a security guard's knee shoved into his back, but then they put on those plastic hand cuff things and the kid just started roaring his head back, and well, there really isn't much that can compete with that. Except of course, this.

But I've stuck with Sound Opinions, and now listen to the show weekly, either over my super exciting security feed on Saturday or as a Podcast on Monday. Look at me, with my fancy words. Podcast. Next thing you know I'll be going on about my robot butler. Actually, why don't we have robot butlers yet? They can carry us, but they can't clean for us? Just one more way 'The Jetsons' set me up for a life of disappointment. Shenanigans man, fucking shenanigans. It's a cool show though, a mix of reviews, random discussions about music, and artist interviews. They talk to Jenny Lewis this week, and even have some of her live tracks up on their site. Hopefully they'll be enough to keep you from crying as 'Portions For Foxes' is butchered in the ads for the new Lohan cinematic masterpiece. I'm super excited for this movie, but then I'm a sucker for an original concept.

I've also begun listening to KRCW's The Treatment a weekly film interview show hosted by Elvis Mitchell. Elvis Mitchell always bothered me a bit with his smarmy film guy act (especially when I caught him on the Today Show saying he thought Scarlett Johansson was fine as an actress 'as long as she didn't say anything'. Dick.), but one thing he was good for was an interesting interview, since he actually knew what he was talking about most of the time. And that's what he's doing on 'The Treatment' (instead of working for Columbia Pictures, the reason he was rumoured to have left the times in the first place), talking to people ranging from David Mamet to Rian Johnson about film. Speaking of Rian Johnson, have you seen 'Brick' yet? Or bought it's soundtrack yet? Because you need to. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Someone Cooler Than You

2006-04-15T00:26:00.000-05:00

Warm out today. Warm yesterday. Even warmer today.

Just because it was written by manatees doesn't make it false. It is hot. I worked on the film shoot again yesterday, and this time we were out in the park, where, among other things, I got to have the awesome job of sitting with the stuff. Even when it's nice out, I'm usually never in a position where I'm exposed to direct sunlight for more than an hour or two, so standing around in a park on the brightest day we've seen this year, my poor pale Irish skin was a lamb to slaughter. It's really unfortunate now too, because I've nurturing a beard along for the last month or so, and my hair has hit that point where it doesn't grow any longer, it just helmets out, so add that to a red face, and, I look like a pirate. And not, dashing, Captain Jack Sparrow pirate, more along the lines of a Mr. Smee, but without the glasses of course. It's sad though, I walk down the street, and I see the looks people give me, how they slowly try to cover their gold doubloons as I walk past. Fucking racists.

I saw Sonya Kitchell last night, performing at a bar on the north side of town. I've never actually been to a "bar" bar before, clubs like Helsinki and the Iron Horse have bars in them, but they're mainly clubs. This was a room attached to a bar, so every time the band would quiet down, the noise of about 50 drunken Friday night revelers trying to talk over a jukebox blaring 'Pyscho Killer' would flood into the room. This also led to my first time being carded by a scraggly looking bouncer, who I would have had trouble taking seriously as a record store clerk, who then proceeded to fire off instructions at me - "This room, that room, and the adjoining bathrooms, they are off limits to you. You go to that column there, you take a right, that's your bathroom, you take a left, you're outside, and you can never come back in, you're on fire, you're still outside, got it? You see that poster there, that amusing poster of an ostrich stealing a beer from a fat Irish cop?" "Yeah" "No, no you do not, you follow me?" "Not really." "Alright buddy, enjoy your show." I am forever to be called 'buddy' and 'sweetheart', I just know it. Anyway, the show itself was great, and would be more than enough to dispell your misguided notions against child prodigies. You know, if you have any.

California

2006-04-12T00:49:00.000-05:00

I worked a film shoot Sunday, which involved working from 9am to 11pm, getting to sit down for about 20 minutes in there, and then I woke up on 9 Monday to finish editing my project (finished with 3 minutes to spare, yeah I'm smooth like that), and then play it for my class. So today was a sleep day, when I finally got to remember what it felt like to rest my feet, and I got a chance to treat the sunburn I got standing outside all day (seriously, I got sunburned on my lips in 40 degree weather, I cry shenanigans). I'll tell more about the shoot when I'm done (rabbits! mayonnaise! other near death experiences!), but for now, I just wanted to comment on this story. Apparently Mischa Barton wants to leave 'The OC'. And I say, brilliant idea Mischa. And she says, sir, I'm going to need you to step back. It's amazing how much she looks like a threatening body guard. I gave up on 'The OC' about three months back, when Fox moved it to 9, against 'My Name Is Earl' and 'The Office'. I tried watching a bit of last week's episode when NBC tried tricking me into watching the pilot of 'Teachers' (which, despite the fact that it has Jenny from Alias, still isn't watchable), and now, Marissa is on drugs... again, Seth was on drugs, and now is all mopey, and breaks up with Summer for some horseshit reason, and Ryan is off being boring with some girl, who no one cares about. This show sparkled in it's first season, it was the funniest show on TV that just used the soap opera angle as a way to pay the bills.

But now it's just existing because it has to, it's just trodding along, with no where to go. They ruined it at the beginning of last year, where in the first episode where they introduced a slew of new characters who were... boring. And then they forced them on us for half the season, and when they were finally starting to grow on me (oh, look at Marissa's lesbian relationship, and there, Ryan's relationship with his kind of half sister, kind of), they kicked them all off. And they brought in Ryan's brother instead. Whoo! It all ended with Marissa shooting him, and me not caring (Logan Marshall-Green had the worst ends last season, getting shot by a 90 pound girl and then being tortured until he came out to his dad on '24)'. Now the show is just limping along, and if Mischa wants to leave, let her. The only reason she was enjoyable in the first season was to watch her and realize that she actually thought she was acting, and that she was doing a good job at it. But she wasn't, she just wasn't. You have the same reaction face for everything. Squinting your eyes a little more to show that you're hurt doesn't count. So if you want to go off into oblivion with Nicole Ritchie or Margot Kidder, or who ever is hip these days, knock yourself out. If that means the end of the show, even better, because it just means that the rest of the cast will be free to do worthwhile things. Adam Brody was in 'Thank You For Smoking' for about five minutes, but I can think of 10 of his lines right now, he's that good ("I'm going to impale your mom on a spike and feed her dead body to my dog with syphilis. It's an inside joke.")(Or, "That sand's not gonna rake itself, Hiroshi."). And he's going to marry Rachel Bilson, an actress who actually knows how to act cute, which is harder than you think. That's enough to get a career going, and then you can pick up more acting tricks as you go along. She has a movie with Zack Braff coming out this summer, 'The Last Kiss', so we'll see how it goes from there. Ben Mackenzie has been given so little to work with on this show recently ("Brood. No no, brood a little harder, but with softer eyes"), but in his few scenes in 'Junebug' show that if he has something to work with he can be really fucking good. Just watch the scene where he tries to tape the merecat special, or the looks he gives his brother at the church dinner. Peter Gallagher and Kelly Rowan? They've opened themselves up to be type casted as the best parents ever for the rest of their careers, which isn't a bad thing.

So go ahead Mischa, move on with your life. I can't wait to not hear more from you.

But We're Not Robots

2006-04-08T22:51:00.001-05:00

I have an odd relationship with Starbucks. I go there not only because it's name reminds me of Katee Sackhoff, but because it's the closest place where I can buy The New York Times. But I never feel comfortable standing in line there, the person in front of me ordering an intricate drink with words that contain syllables like 'ato', 'ano', 'cia' and then usually ends with the phrase "And the foam on that needs to be half half and half and half 2%. Seriously, it's important." I then follow them up by going, "So, is that one cold, or hot?" "Which one?" There's a pause here, as I just scan the board looking for whatever name I find amusing. "Sir?" "I'll have a caramel... machiato?" "Is that an order or a question sir?" "I'll have that. That thing I just said." "What size would you like?" "Small please." "You mean tall?" "You know damn well what I meant."

In the middle of all this though, I noticed the CD that they were hawking in front of the register was Sonya Kitchell's. Sonya Kitchell, a girl from Western Mass, who I saw sing at Helsinki three years ago. When she was 14. Which means she's 17 now. Which means I feel like a total schlep. Three years later, she'll be playing at a club in Chicago to support the national release of her album, while I'll be sitting in a dorm room in Chicago, eating Ramen noodles. It makes sense of course, because she has been working and promoting herself, and the fact that she has a beautiful, captivating voice probably helps too. I tried singing once, but it didn't end well. After what, in my opinion, was a rousing version of 'We Didn't Start The Fire', I was told that I sound like a frog, more specifically a frog that had been run over and then left to bake in the sun a little. My grandma doesn't really make sense when she drinks though.

In other wonderkids news, The Star Wars Kid has settled his court case against the kids who leaked his tape to the world. Recently released documents detail how he was just, mercilessly mocked, which despite what most people think, really isn't as flattering to the kid being mocked as they think it is ("No seriously, I appreciate the effort that went into drawing all of these pictures depicting how fat I am, but all I'm asking is that you look at why I might not be super excited about it."). On the bright side though, he really has become a phenomenon, more than most embarrassing internet videos ever become, getting him referenced on shows like 'American Dad' and becoming a running gag on 'Arrested Development' (We should really get a new tape). I'm sure he would have rather that none of this ever happened, but hopefully in a few years he'll be able to see something positive in all of this. One lesson I hope he learned: always make sure that you have a clear space when you're practicing your lightsaber moves (seriously, the only reason I could see for that rag to be there was for him to slip on it). And, more importantly, don't tape it.

Also, I wanted to mention this great article on Scrubs running in the Sunday Times (which I bought for a buck, rather than the 5 it takes to buy the Sunday edition outside of the New York area, since they were selling it Saturday afternoon.) It tells the tale of why the show has been noticeably goofier this season, and why it'll probably stay that way (a good chunk of that is due to the fact that Howie Mendell's 'Suitcases and Numbers' is the best thing NBC has going for them right now). So, sorry Jake.

Riding To Vegas On A Moped

2006-04-06T23:40:00.000-05:00

Scooter Libby has fingered President Bush as the one who authorized him to release a classified document that cited Iraq as trying to purchase uranium, to a newspaper reporter. I linked the BBC's story on it for a few reasons. One, they spell authorized with an 's', and I just think that's adorable. Two, they screw up and call libby 'Mr Scooter'. Here's the quote before anyone realizes the mistake. Or should I say realises:

'Mr Scooter, former chief-of-staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, is facing trial in connection with another leak.'

I always imagined Mr Scooter looking more like that guy, rather than a grumpy 50 something who is still called Scooter. Mr. Scooter wears nifty sweaters, zooms through the streets of Rome with Audrey Hepburn, occasionally tipping his head back to let out a hearty laugh that ends with a gravel voiced "Fan-tastic." And then he lights up a cool, refreshing cigarette. Because he's just not Mr Scooter, without his Malboros. God, I miss the 50's.

I also just trust the BBC's integrity a bit more than CNN's, seeing how they were willing to run this as their headline, where CNN chose to put it off to the side, choosing to go with the 'We Firmly Support America And It's Adorable Orphans' angle. I know it's a story, but, for God's sake, they have the conviction, the guy admitted that he conspired in the attacks, he's proud of it, he ends every court day with a variation on 'God curse you all', it's not like they need to drive it home this much. Maybe there was a chance that one of the jurors wasn't aware of the impact of 9/11, maybe they've been really caught up in a Dostoevsky book for the last five years, and just kind of missed all of this. Buildings fell down you say? Well, this is what I get for being a slow reader. It all just seems like pandering, the prosecution is trying to cover up past misstep by bombarding the jury with really, fucking sad stories.

Speaking of sad stories, apparently Google Ads is worried about me. Sam sent me an email today where he mentioned Sofia Coppola (and something about a spleen and a dog, in reference to her acting), and Google ads offered me up tests to see if I was contemplating suicide. I'm just surprised I didn't get an offer for free translation in there too.

I'm Only Sleeping

2006-04-05T10:25:00.000-05:00

There really isn't a greater feeling than shooting a project till 3 in the morning, and then waking up at 8 to get the equipment back in on time, to come home in the middle of 'My Super Sweet 16' marathon. Watching Bjorn throw up in the middle of his fashion show super party in a mall, well, it makes the fact that I've slept 10 hours in the last two days kind of all right. I've also discovered that the Dicovery Channel is the perfect channel to watch when you're too physically tired to pick up the remote, since it's almost guaranteed that I'll enjoy whatever they have on. I know nothing about motorcycles, or why there is an Orange County in New York, but I still find 'American Chopper' entertaining. Because, you know, they're gruff, and, mildly wacky. Oh, and they yell at each other. I guess you kind of have to be there. When that ends, it's all right, because the Discovery Channel has my back, with a show about real life giants. Did you know Abraham Lincoln was a giant? Because he was. Did you know he ate babies? Yup. For fuel. That's actually what one of the driving reasons for the South succeeding from the Union was, they were just fed up with Lincoln's Yankee, baby eating ways. Oh sure, we remember the slavery, but once they lost, all of the South's strong anti-baby eating positions were forgotten. Damned revisionist history.

The new season of 'South Park' is underway, tonight 'Family Guy' will be added to the pile of things the show rips apart. Though to be fair, I've read a lot of Chris Ware comics, and the main thing I remember about them is that they're so small and so many stories are so packed into his anthologies, that it might be possible that MacFarlane read the comics but forgot about it, and then just subliminally... actually no, that probably didn't happen. But if Ware uses this episode as a way to stir up some controversy, I know somewhere MacFarlane could get a little black mail (Seriously, super hero costumes are something reserved for when you get home, not during school). It'll be interesting to see how this episode is received, since 'Family Guy' seems to be loved by the same people who follow 'South Park'. It'll be interesting to see if this will back fire on the 'South Park' team, because if there is one thing I learned at school, its that people love to quote 'Family Guy'. We don't even do it to be funny anymore, it's more out of the fact that they've destroyed their brain cells to the point when they can only speak in second hand pop culture references that they don't even get. Good times. Also, in more South Park related... things, I was looking up Steven Speilberg's resume as an actor (my life, is just, so exciting) and found this short film he appeared in, which was directed by Trey Parker. This story explains it, but it doesn't explain how a major film studio was purchased by a wine cooler. All I know now is that my apartment is in sore need of a snazzy porcelain deer.

I'm going to sleep, but I thought I'd link this story first. That guy got off easy though, I was savagely beaten with a plunger for four hours after whistling 'Somebody Got Murdered' while standing in line a security checkpoint at Midway. The first two hours were because they thought I was serious, the second was just because the guy was a Sex Pistols fan.

In the fast I've found that I enjoy screetchy guitars and female vocals more than most of my friends, which is a shame, since, Giant Drag's 'Hearts and Unicorns' was one of my favorite albums last year, but I felt awkward about telling anyone about it, so I just sat in my car and listened to it by myself. Then my neighbor next door would give me weird looks, but I would just give him weird looks back, because I was not the one holding a rake in the middle of January. Anyway, these covers are a little more accessible, I've been listening to this 'God Only Knows' cover over and over for the last few days. I'm starting to like it as much as the original, which is saying a lot. And this Chris Isaac cover is alright, but its worth listening to just for the introduction. Cat head indeed.

A Dirty Word

2006-03-30T21:28:00.000-06:00

I went sledding once this winter. The day after thanksgiving. My, it was fun, we chortled merrily as we tobogganed down the hill. Surely this will a splendiforous winter, full of snow, and glee. I wore a T-Shirt today, not because I wanted to (I abide by a style philosophy where I cover as much skin as possible. The ladies love it, they love the mystery) but if I wore any more, I'd have to field questions like "Christ, did you just run a marathon? Because that takes training you know. Training, you do not have". And there is nothing worse than having to listen to a doctor go on and on about unnecessary health risks. Especially when you're trying to eat a meatball sub. Inconsiderate bastards. Anyway, it was in the 60s in Chicago today, which I guess means that it's spring (though I find the lack of mud disturbing). I feel cheated, I wanted snow damn it, I wanted to prove my worth, standing against a blistering wind on an 'L' stop. I wanted freezing cold misery, six foot deep misery, not just, blah misery, the type we've had all winter. This spring is quite nice though, not sweltering, not freezing, just cool. And, a 24 hour diner opened down the block from me, so I've got that going for me. I haven't gone yet, but if the stacked boxes of matzah and manischewitz in the window are any indicator, I'm in for treat. But then I'm a man who loves his crackers.

I was sick at the beginning of this week, and I slept through most of the past five days, but when I finally woke up, I found out that immigration had become the greatest matter of national security. Every day, I saw high school kids streaming from their schools to protest to unjust bills being proposed, and in no way leaving just because they wanted to get out of school. They will go down in history with that girl in my English class, who I always suspected was asleep with her eyes open, when she heroically stood up and walked out to protest the war. She promptly walked out to the stoop, and inhaled the freedom of her Camel light. You know, before the vice principal got all on her case. God, he was such a fascist. You know, this is how Nazi Germany started! Or you know, something like that. God, why do we even need to learn history? It's not like it's going to happen again. Hey can I bum one off of you?

Lou Dobbs has always scared me. And I'm not just talking about the hair. Though, good lord, look at that hair. It's terrifying. Every night his show leads with a story about how immigrants are ruining America. No matter what the actual lead stories of the day are, you can rely on Lou Dobbs to completely ignore it and instead talk about immigrants, or outsourcing, or... I honestly can never pay attention to what he's talking about, I just get so caught up in... the hair. I wonder what would happen if you set it on fire. My theory. Nothing. I think his entire head is flame retardant. I apparently should have been paying attention, since everyone seems to care about this right now, and Lou Dobbs is in his moment, covering the meeting 'El Tres Amigos' in Cancun (where, I think all international summits should take place. What better way to unwind after a day of discussing African aid plans than with a rousing banana eating contest?). Who knows if all of this will boil down to anything significant, most likely in another week, congress will be on to another hot button issue, something flashy, with pizzaz. Maybe like, bottling legislation. We can figure out what that actually means later. Anyway, whatever we move on to next, you can trust that Lou Dobbs will continue to spread isolationism to you, every night.

The worst thing about this college life is how Thursday has become Fridays, how I wake up Friday mornings expecting cartoons, and I get Katie Couric. Christ, does that wake me up. I also feel like I should be able to go see movies on Thursday nights too. I've tried weasling my way in, "Look, I know you have the reels already, and you're gonna watch them, what does one extra person matter? Huh, maybe Andrew Jackson would change your mind? Huh, maybe a Jackson? No, not Wolverine, he was a president. 20 dollars, it's a 20 dollar bill." It's around this point when it just turns into a long, long stare, and I sulk away. Anyway. Though it may feel like the only movie coming out tomorrow is 'Basic Instinct 2', there are other options if you don't feel like watching stiffly shot gratuitous sex in the middle of a bland story in a gratuitous sequel designed to jump start a future mental patient's career. Slither opens tomorrow, and I have a feeling that watching slugs infesting human beings will be less disturbing than watching Sharon Stone try to be erotic. Plus, it has one of the best casts in a good long while on it, with Nathan Fillion (O, Captain, My Captain), Berkshire native Elizabeth Banks (I take it on good authority that she smells like burgers), Michael Rooker, Jenna Fischer (Pam from the Office), and Gregg Henry. It was written by Fischer's husband James Gunn, who wrote the 'Dawn of the Dead' remake two years ago, which I, actually enjoyed, once I was forced to watch it. So I'm hopeful.

Speaking of 'The Office', NBC has been running 'April Fools Day' versions of their 'The More You Know" spots with the Office cast members (in character) giving advice that is actually useful, like John Krasinski's advice to avoid black jelly beans, Rainn Wilson advising you on how to deal with bears, BJ Novak on why taping yourself having sex is the worst possible idea you could do. Watch them here, it could save your life.

Most importantly though,Brick opens in New York and LA tomorrow, expanding to other markets (like Chicago, Boston, and DC) next week. That actually works out nicely, since it means I'll be able to see that and Lucky Number Slevin (which, I take from a credible source, will be the new hotness) back to back in a neo noir double feature. Because this is how I organize the events in my life. Seriously though, if you can, see Brick. No joke, no wacky non sequitur. Just see it.

Somewhere, Over The Rainbow

2006-03-30T00:13:00.001-06:00

Gadzooks! Is that how you spell gadzooks? It looks kind of clunky on the page though. Christ, I just looked it up, apparently the root of gadzooks is from God's hooks, a reference to the nails used to nail Jesus to the cross. I thought gadzooks was a phrase used by eccentric grandfather, with wired white hair. Like Doc, from 'Back To The Future'. Actually maybe I was just thinking of him, I don't think my grandfather has ever said gadzooks. Did Doc Brown even say gadzooks, or am I just making that up? Certainly seems like something he would say. I wonder if he knew it was a reference to the crucifixion. Maybe he started it, maybe he went back in time to watch the crucifixion (not sure why he would want to, but I also don't know why he would want to wear his hair like that, so I guess anything goes), and when he saw them hammer the nails in, he just kind of exclaimed, "Gadzooks!". Thousands of years later, the phrase stuck around. Wow, history is amazing.

What the hell was I talking about? Oh, 'Lost'. Gadzooks! Something finally happened, which was a nice change of events. There was a balloon! But Henry Gale was a black man from Minnesota! Locke inspected Sayid's old girlfriends house! Locke's pa is most likely the man Sawyer is hunting! The world's coolest black light poster is drawn on the back of the blast door! Food falls from the sky! Exclamation points abound! This the most excited I've been about this show since the beginning of the season, now that we're getting down to the final stretch, so the long breaks between episodes will get shorter, and the softer, character based (i.e. nothing happens) episodes will start to dry up. I also predict that Jack's weird ass, giant drill and Japanese lettering tattoo will play some role in the future, since his sleeves have been prominently rolled back recently, and especially since Sawyer made a crack about it in tonight's episode. I also think that Sayid will go apeshit on Gale next week, decapitate him and stick his head in the freezer. A cookie to anyone who understood that reference.

Veronica Mars was also excellent tonight, heralding the return of a possibly reformed Troy Vandergraff, and what most likely will be the setting for next season, which looked a hell of a lot like Sunnydale High before all the graduation fireworks. The best thing about the episode by far though, was seeing Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat in action, just a day after the official death knell for 'Arrested Development'. Cera was the best, giving a glimpse of what a real world George Michael might be like. And, wow, it was simultaneously depressing and heartbreaking watching him organize a group for a rousing game of two truths and a lie, knowing that no one cares but still doing it anyway. His few scenes tonight gave me a new found respect for how amazing he is at playing this character, making the passing of AD all the more painful. Whoever said TV was fun was a lying rat bastard. And I hope he burns in hell.

The past few days I've been trying to play catch up with things that I missed on my week away from the internet. The best is, undeniably, this. It's amazing how many shining moments are shoved into this short segment: the gold tooth man's smile, the amazingly detailed sketch, the crackhead theory, the leprechaun hunter, his ancient family flute, 'Give me the gold, I want the gold', and most of all the thinly veiled contempt the newscasters have for their audience. It feels like a 'Chapelle's Show' skit that wasn't written because, God why would you ever think of something like that? Ever?

Apparently, what will undoubtedly be the greatest movie ever made will go back for some pickups, to bump up it's rating to a hard R. How will it do this you ask? More snakes? More planes? Or perhaps the most perfect piece of dialogue ever written for the screen? What is this line you ask? Let my new favorite blog explain it to you in the best way possible.

New favorite blog. That implies that I had a previous favorite blog. Which implies that this all a sad, sad affair.

I Hear The Jury Is Still Out On Science

2006-03-28T12:47:00.000-06:00

It's over.

And if you're too lazy to read that article or tie the picture on the right with the previous sentence, Mitchell Hurwitz has said that he won't come back as showrunner for the fourth season of 'Arrested Development', which basically means the show is done, since Showtime doesn't want the show without Hurwitz. I guess that will show us for showing up to a show that no one else showed interest in. Hey, you know what was a really good movie? 'The Last Picture Show'.

I'll stop now.

You can get what might be the last glimpse of George Michael and Maeby on screen together this Wednesday on Veronica Mars, where the 17 year olds will be playing college freshmen to 20 something Kristen Bell's 18 year old Veronica. Creepy highschool teachers across the country pretend like they're not excited/deeply, deeply confused. And Mae Whitman, who played Ann on the show, has a new show, 'Thief', which premieres on FX tonight. Though I hear she's off the show after the second episode, when they just kind of forget about her.

Attack Of The Bible Sweater

2006-03-27T22:05:00.000-06:00

"You haven't updated in a week. Maybe that's because you're a lazy jackass. Maybe it's because you have mono. I wouldn't know, because you haven't been updating. jackass."

When the man is right, he is of course, right. I was home all last week, where there is no wireless internet connection unless I feel like walking down to the coffee shop, and you can probably guess how that thought process went. But I also was lucky enough to catch a cold from my father, the very same cold that he had caught from my mother earlier in the week. God, I missed my family. So, yes Sam, I am both lazy and sick. Happy now?

Many things happened in the past week, but I feel too sick to really sit here and fully explain them, so I figured I'd just rattatat them out, Jame Joyce style, or at least what I think is James Joyce style, since I only got about 50 pages into "Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man" before I realized I had no idea what it was about. But I enjoyed the use of the word 'snogging'. I'm reading James Ellroy's 'The Cold Six Thousand', a book about people involved in the cover up of the Kennedy assassination, and like all Ellroy books, it's filled with an entertaining mix of bitter cops, seedy pornographic underbellies, and the terribly violent murder of prostitutes. These are the reasons I came. The first word of the chapter I was reading while waiting for my flight at Midway was "Hate", which caught the eye of the woman in the sweater that looked like a knitted sunset sitting next to me, who, as I was turning my head to watch George Washington get trounced by Duke, felt the need to point out to me that, "While that book might be about hate, this one is all about peace and love." It was the Bible of course. The next 45 minutes entailed me staring at the floor, gently nodding my head, as I was regaled with a tail of how the Bible (her's was actually a day by day Bible, she suggested I pick one up next year, or if I wanted to I could start this year and just play catch up) changed her life, how praying for friends got her friends, and it wasn't a coincidence, it was a God-incidence. Only way to explain it apparently, by making up words. I got the feeling that she does this a lot, that the whole, spontaneous 'Hate' line was just an easy in, since she seemed to expect me to say no to every question she asked (Why yes, I do know they story of Job, oh, but you'll tell it to me anyway? Fine then), and she picked up that I knew a bit about the Bible, so I told her I was Catholic. I knew this was a gamble, either she would back down, sensing there was no chance of a conversion, or else try to buddy buddy me with more Jesus talk, except now she would expect me to answer her sometime. What I got was a speech on how to distinguish between the word of God and the law of man. I caught a break when she stopped to say thank you to a soldier in uniform, and we were called to our boarding lines (she of course in A, I, in the home for slackers, the C line). Obviously this woman was happy, and I admit that the praying for friends idea has crossed my miserable mind once or twice, but would it never occur to the woman that maybe I like being bitter and sad? Probably not, since it doesn't make sense. Unless of course you are bitter and sad.

So, I went home, my father shaved off his beard for the first time since... ever. I'm fairly sure the man was born with a beard, and it's almost as if he's taunting God with his razor wielding. My parents have redecorated their room, since they're putting our house on the market later this year, which gives the room a weird feeling, like no one actually lives in it, its like a tumor on the rest of the house. Things I learned over the rest of my spring break... reeybees is an acceptable Scrabble word, as is Gaayo. Me say gaayo. 'V For Vendetta' proved I could watch a guy in a mask for two hours and not get totally weirded out (of course Natalie Portman helped too). After watching 'The Chumscrubber', a movie about a kid who finally wakes up after giving up antidepressants (and then gets Camilla Belle at the end), I thought about 'Donnie Darko', a movie about a kid who saves the world when he stops taking his pills (and gets Jenna Malone, sort of), and 'Garden State', a movie about a kid who gives up his pills and wakes up (and gets Natalie Portman in the end), I said "Hey, a pattern!". Maybe all the Scientology talk of psychiatry being evil isn't so crazy. Because movies don't lie. And speaking of Scientology, this story of Issac Hayes not actually quitting South Park has been debunked in another statement. Which, if you read the first story, makes the rebuttal seem a little iffy. And I think I found my dream job, after watching 'Thank You For Smoking', which I'm fairly positive was not the message I was supposed to come away with. I saw it in New York, where I got a better chance to realize that Kim's Video is the greatest store on Earth. How about the greatest place on Earth. Yeah, I think I'm willing to go that far. I'm that type of person though.

Overall, my trip was sleeping and watching television, except with a different view out the window, and people to talk to. Which is always nice. And on a final note, Howard at Kushi Tan wrote about the Jenny Lewis show in Washington, but posted a picture he found that was from the Chicago show I saw. So I think I can post it. And I am.

The shot is from the exact angle that I had during the show, which makes me sure that the guy who took it was the large black man who pushed me with his belly into Ted and Amanda, causing me to hold me breathe and step on my toes for fives minutes while he took his pictures with his huge camera. Ah, sweet memories. The picture came out well. I think I named him Howard.

And on, seriously, the final note, Kate Mara, who played Alma Jr. (Do you call girls juniors?) in Brokeback, was on 24 tonight, and looks to rival Chloe in the crazy, so that made me feel a little better. And also, the woman who is playing the bossy Homeland Security Woman on 24 was also the Bossy CIA Woman in 'Syriana', if anyone else was wondering where the hell she was from. It really bothered me last week. Hopefully a second billed cast member from another film that was up for Best Supporting Actor this year will be on next week, because I enjoy nerdy little things like that. I feel sad now.

And I've Been Puking

2006-03-16T21:11:00.000-06:00

After the famine, my great, great, great, great grandfather and his remaining siblings, the ones who hadn't been eaten, were packed in the most efficient manner possible into steerage on a large, rusty boat, and after two months at sea, where, tragically, two more of his brothers were eaten (damn you, Jonathan Swift), they were finally and unceremoniously dumped on the shores of America. He and the generations that followed worked their blood, worked their sweat, but not their tears because it's physically impossible for Irish Catholics to cry, into making themselves a vital part of this country. I think of them tonight, on this St. Patrick's Day Eve, as I stare at the Sear's Tower lit green, and as that small annoying girl from down the hall, runs, screaming "Who wants to do an Irish Car Bomb?" (I'm not much of a drinker, but I'm fairly sure when a drink makes you think of the IRA, or for that matter, any terrorist organization, it's kind of against the point. I doubt it would be much of a buzz when you're thinking about children dying in an explosion, pawns in a battle they don't even understand. Or you, know, something along those lines), then trips, giggling on the floor. Or crying. I didn't care enough to find out which one it was.

I'm not entirely sure where I've been for the last few days, today was the first day where I actually felt like I was awake all week. My friend was telling me that not only is it possible for you to get mono without any sort of necking or canoodling involved at all, but that girls can carry it, spread it to guys, without feeling sick at all. I cried shenanigans. Actually, it was more along the lines of "Shen... shenan....." Then I just kind of fell asleep on my feet.

Of course, if I did have a contagious disease, what better way to spend my time than standing, squeezed in with a hundred of my closest strangers at the Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins show on Tuesday? I got there about an hour and a half before the show started, where I entertained myself by naming all the people around me. There was Ted and Amanda, Amanda being about 7 years younger than Ted, but she was totally at the same emotional maturity level, which is why they're so good together, why they're so in love, why they needed to remind everyone around them of this by gently holding, swaying, and kissing each other through out the show. Needless to say, I despised them. There was Tik, the 38 year old bouncer and father of two, who spent the night swigging back Heineken, since this wasn't exactly a crowd that was primed to become the next Altamont. There was Chris and Mary Ann, by far the oldest people in my section, Chris a big guy with a serious looking face, Mary Ann I'm positive was a second grade teacher. Then there was poor Amy, who's friend, I think her name was Sue, showed up late, which left her to the whims of Tucker, you might know him as that guy who seems to work at every Radio Shack in the country, who wowed her with his endless talks of every sensitive guy pop culture marker, running from 'Before Sunset' to Broken Social Scene.

The show opened with Whispertown 2000, who I thought were great and very charming, though it was impossible not to sympathize with them as they poured their hearts out to the stone faced indie kids standing before them, who gave absolutely nothing back. They deserved a better reaction, but apparently it's not cool to smile when you're cool. It's not cool to move either. Or breathe. Johnathan Rice cracked the crowd though, by being all detached and cynical. Apparently the only way to make cynical kids laugh is to make fun of them for being cynical. I suppose it's just a matter of science, when you come down to it. Rice's act also introduced us to Farmer Dave, who just might have been the highlight of the evening, the man with one expression; if everyone else was starting to convulse to the beat, or if Jenny was crooning on his shoulder, the man continued to look like people do after they hear a knock knock joke. Smiling, but you can't quite tell if he's smiling because he thinks its funny, or he's just humouring you. Plus, he was wearing a pretty sweet cowboy shirt.

But there was only one real reason we were all there. Jenny finally came out with the Watson Twins in tow (who kind of looked like two black haired Janel Maloneys), dressed in a kind of matronly, Loretta Lynn-esque dress. Between the gospel tones of the music and the way that everyone there was completely focused on the stage (I can't remember the last time I saw that happen), the show began to feel like a revival meeting, all of us willing to act on whatever she told us to do. By the time that her set was under way though, my head was fully consumed in a headache, which wasn't being helped by the fact that I had to stand on one leg not to bump into anyone surrounding me. It's a testament to Jenny and her band that I didn't vomit on Ted and Amanda, she kept me distracted from the fact that I felt like I was dying on the inside. But, I imagine that if I was being consumed by some sort of, 'Grey's Anatomy' worthy flesh eating bacteria, I still would have made it through the show. Jenny Lewis was playing guitar three feet away from me. Who needs a full functioning body when you have a memory like that?

Waiting For The End Of The World

2006-03-12T22:55:00.000-06:00

There's snow in San Francisco and I'm sitting through a tornado watch in Chicago. But this isn't what's worrying me tonight, this isn't what making me feel like four pissed off guys who I'm guessing are going to look a lot like Skeletor are going to go come through the sky on scary skeleton horses in the middle of the night. This is. Republicans are turning on George Bush? It wasn't until this very moment that I became ashamed to be an American. Now, well now I might as well be Canadian. That's how sick I feel (though for the sake of full disclosure, that might also be from the beef stroganof I made tonight). I'm deeply ashamed by Mitt Romney, the beloved governor from my home state (if there's one thing we love in Massachusetts, its a Republican Governor), a man who has spent his governorship working hard to make Massachusetts a better place, never once using his position as a way to showboat for the GOP, never once using the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a mere resumé builder. And now, after years of building up this sweet, valuable trust, he wastes it in a 15 minute speech, criticizing President Bush on spending? Just gut me with a knife governor, because you already have emotionally. Emotionally, I'm a trout, slowly drying on a rack in some God forsaken smokehaus. Don't these people get it? The inept cronies, the ballooning cost of an increasingly unpopular and seemingly unendable war, the cries of civil rights violations - those were all there before the election, we all knew about them as we went into the booths. And yes, the manslaughter angle is new, but we all know that was an accident. Are you going to stare me in the eye and tell me that you've never mistaken one of your best friends for a quail? I did not think so. None of this was the point though, there was only one thing that got the President reelected, and it's the one thing that he's come through on, in spades in fact. He kept the queers from marrying each other. There, right there. That's it in a nutshell. That's all the American people really worry about, that's what wins you elections. Governor Romney of all people should know this, since he is the man who valiantly went out of his way to make sure state clerks enforced an obscure law that barred out of state couples from obtaining marriage licenses, a law that was originally created to stop interracial marriages, in order to decrease the amount of same sex marriage licenses being awarded in the state. That, ladies and gentlemen, is commitment. But now it's about pork barrel spending? I call that a cop out. And you governor, I call you a coward. A coward with a terrific smile.

And all this cut and running is premature, especially now that the conservative philosophy is finally taking over the one demographic that actually matters - Hollywood. All of that talk about Hollywood taking a political stance was squashed last week when 'Brokeback Mountain', a progressive homosexual love story, was beaten out by 'Crash', a poorly written after school special that thought it was making profound statements about racism. The most liberal sect in the country gave a swift "no thank you" to the gay agenda. And look at television. You can just feel the paranoia dripping off of shows like '24', 'Lost', and 'Battlestar Galactica'(which had an amazing season finale Friday night, if, for no other reason, it proved that Dean Stockwell is still one 'suave fuck', even 20 years later), with their constant talks of 'moles', 'others', and 'cylons' (which are like robotic moles). And where did that paranoia come from? The Bush Administration of course. All of this is a direct result of the years of 'if you're not with us, you're against us' talk that's been coming from this administration for the last 5 years. We've had plenty of justified chances to desert the president, but now is not one of them. We need to stick by him, lest he become a modern day Van Gogh, mumbling to himself in the corner of his Crawford ranch, rubbing the stub that was left after Dick Cheney blew his ear off, unaware that all of the work he had done finally paid off as we quietly slip into a totalitarian government. The man has done too much to deserve to be treated like this. You hear me Governor Romney, you better change your... oh who am I kidding, I can't stay mad at you, not with those pearly whites. Do you use Crest? Yeah, yeah I bet you do.

(All of this had me in kind of a funk today. That is, until I found this)

Some People Juggle Geese

2006-03-10T16:33:00.000-06:00

It worries me sometimes that it feels like the people at the Sci-Fi channel are the only people who get me. They're the people who put Battlestar Galactica on on Friday nights, giving me a convenient excuse not to go out and make friends. I could probably make friends during the day, that is if the Sci-Fi channel didn't run a 'Firefly' marathon all day. Oh sure, I have all the episodes on DVD, and I've seen them all numerous times... but this way, I don't have to get up and put the DVDs in myself. It's amazing how big a part laziness plays in how I decide to live my life. But one thing that I've learned today watching 'Jaynestown', is that Gregory Itzin, President Logan on '24', played Boss Higgins. When you watch enough TV, it all starts to blur together, since the same crop of actors seem to guest star on all the same shows (in this same 'Firefly' episode, Daniel Bess, who played Rick in the first season of '24', not to mention Meg's first boy friend on 'Veronica Mars', is the mudder who takes one for Jayne). Now, look at that last sentence I just wrote. Despite how sad you might find it, also imagine what it does to me when I watch TV. I can't watch an episode of a show without my head turning into the IMDb page for the fourth listed guest star of the night. Sure, these types of facts come in handy with the ladies, but it kind of ruins the feeling of some shows, when a character comes on screen, they have to overcome a ton of baggage for me to buy the character. When 'Lost' premiered, the first thoughts that went through my mind was more "Hey, what is Agent Kendall up to?" and "I know he speaks English, I've seen him do it on '24' and 'Angel'." And I have to keep these thoughts in my head too, since on the few times I've tried to explain these things to people I usually just get icy glares, or things, usually pointy, thrown in the direction of my head.

Of course none of this will stop me from watching television. Like the second part of the Battlestar Galactica finale tonight, the return of the Discovery Channel's 'I Shouldn't Be Alive', the most terrifying show on TV (made by the same people who made the terrifying 'Touching The Void'. That must be a fun production company to work at) and of course the hour long 'Conan In Finland' special. He's going since, apparently, Conan is huge in Finland, and became bigger when he started saying he looks like their female president (Though from watching curling during the Olympics, I get the feeling that not only does he looks like their president, but possibly just everyone in Finland). But as I was watching this interview ( I tried doing a direct link to the video, but it wasn't working. If you feel like watching it, the link is in the article) he did with CNN's international show, 'Your World Today', and the anchor, I think his name is Brit, or it might as well be, says "But you know what it's good to see? Real comedy, with good language, and just clever thinking, that's what Conan O'Brien is really famous for." Conan seemed a little taken aback by it, as was I. Is Conan wholesome? I mean, it's true he's not exactly Lenny Bruce, but I think wholesome I think, Tony Danza. Of course Danza doesn't really count as a comedy. Not intentional comedy at least. Maybe like, Leno. But hell, Leno's stuff usually has more sexual content than Conan does, and once again, I think, technically speaking, you have to be funny for what you do to be considered comedy. Maybe a show where a masturbating bear and a vomiting Kermit live side by side is wholesome and clever, especially now that Carlos Mencia has a show where people tune into watch him giggle after he makes a joke that is incredibly edgy. Or wait, I'm sorry. I meant stupid and a pathetic attempt to be offensive. There's no reason to get angry at Mencia though, since he'll just end up in that run down retirement home where they put Andrew Dice Clay in a few years, as Conan moves to 11:30. I just never thought of his show as family friendly, due in large part to the fact that my mom hates him. She finds him weird and offputting. Which I guess makes sense, being weird and off putting is kind of like being offensive for smart people. Or at least that's what comedian tell themselves when they're doing shows in a dingy basement while Carlos Mencia sells out the Meadowlands.

Smack The Shit Out Of Jeff Zucker

2006-03-08T19:52:00.000-06:00

Dear NBC,

Stop it. The reason people copy videos, and post them around the internet? Because they like them, and they want to tell people about them, tell them about your product. It's a compliment, really. But apparently you don't feel that way, since you've threatened to sue You Tube for posting videos from their shows, including 'The Lazy Sunday' video, which became popular in the first place because it was circulated around the internet. It also appears that you took down the link I gave for the Natalie Portman video from the other night, instead putting it on your own site under this charming little banner: "Now, instead of searching the web for "borrowed" NBC highlights, you can go to the source! We've taken your viral favorites and gathered them into one convenient location. Watch. React. Tell a friend.". Aw, that's adorable. Naive, but adorable. Part of the convenience for people is that they can watch them on a lot of different sites, having to rely on one site that offers the video in one format isn't really convenient. It's actually kind of annoying, especially since you offer it in Windows Media Player, which doesn't go over well with most Macs. And now Fox is showing you up, by supporting the distribution of this 'Simpson's' promo from the UK -

See that there? See how I just put that up on my own site? Yeah, that's convenient. That's viral. What you've got going is more of a contained virus, which is boring. Viruses are only fun when they get out, and turn the world's population into zombie like rage heads. Or something.

So not only is Fox beating you in the ratings, but it's also beating you in the good will race. Way to go. If it wasn't for 'Scrubs', 'The Office', 'My Name Is Earl', and 'Conan', I would totally be done with you. Yeah, just imagine how much that would sting, to lose my precious, non Nielsen viewership. You're shaking in your boots, I just know it.

Sincerely,
It Doesn't Really Matter Since No One From NBC Will Read This, Unless Of Course They Decide To Send Me A Cease And Desist Letter.

All Things Go

2006-03-07T23:41:00.000-06:00

I applied to art school under the assumption that there would be little to no work involved. I was lied to.

I realize now that every possible things that could be written about the Oscars, every joke that could be made about the actual jokes that were made during the show have been made. I went 5 for 9 in my predictions, which... is a mixed bag, since I was hoping there would be upsets, and there were, just not where I wanted them to be. 'Crash' won. It seems like an upset, but looking back, should we be surprised that people in LA decided to honor a movie about themselves? It's kind of what the Oscars are all about. I was more upset by the mini sweep 'Memoirs of a Geisha' had going in the technical categories, especially Dion Beebe beating Robert Elswit in the best cinematography category. And then he had the gall to thank Sony for having the bravery to make this movie. Bravery? Bravery in adapting one of the most successful books of the last 10 years into a major studio film? The only thing I could say was brave about that production was in making a movie about Japanese people in English, especially when your star can barely make it through a thirty second award show bit with out sounding like a malfunctioning robot (Don't get me wrong, I love Ziyi Zhang, I think she's a terrific actress... when she knows what she is saying. Seriously, go pick up '2046', you'll see). Do you know the definition of 'shenanigans' Mr. Beebe? I think you must, because you just committed it.

Other than that though... I learned a few things. Jon Stewart is always funny, especially when you put him in the same room as the 3 - 6 Mafia ("For those of you keeping count at home, Martin Scorcese, 0. 3 - 6 Mafia, 1"). Why Keira Knightly is so attractive ("God Dust", according to Stephen Colbert). I laugh with Will Ferrell and Steve Carell. I laugh at Ben Stiller. Then I weep. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are the most talented actresses in Hollywood, I honestly didn't 't want them to stop their Altman introduction speech (It also got me really excited for 'A Prairie Home Companion'). And also, thank you Ang Lee, for officially killing "I wish I could quit you" jokes by making one in your speech. I would have been annoyed by it, but I can't get annoyed with Ang Lee. He's like your friend's dad who picks you up from soccer practice, and barely says 5 words in the ten years that you know him. Your dad's friend who makes gay cowboy movies. Actually, that sounded creepy.

So, feeling a little blue, what better way to pick myself up than watch two action packed hours of '24'? The return of both Kim and Tony? And the guy from 'Soul Man'? As is my birthright, I say 'Wicked'. And for the first hour, it fully satisfied my need, my need for speed. A real time race to contain a canister of nerve gas AND a middle age woman takes one in the leg? 'Crash' what? Dion Bebee who? But then hour two rolled around. Kim shows up, with creepy boyfriend/ therapist/ expert 'Van Dyke' wearer C Thomas Howell in tow, and then breaks Jacks heart by giving him the brush off. Tony wakes up and finds out Michelle is dead, then fills with himself with 'Soul Patch' rage. Fine, I like where this is all going... and then. I really feel confident about the state of our national security when the fictional TV show where, I'm pretty sure CIA agents are glorified and portrayed as much more exciting than they actually are, has it's headquarter's security breached over and over again. One of Julian Sand's oddly Russian bad guys opens a can of the SYNTOX nerve gas in the building, trapping everyone in sealed off rooms. Except for Edgar, because he's large and can't run as fast as the other, 'prettier' agents. Which I guess means that he had to die. And die he did. He died hard.

As the show has really defined its formula over the past few seasons (watch a rerun of season one, it's amazing how different it is), one of the nicest things that it's been able to do is to build these subtle character arcs into all the heavy plot, and I think one of the best ones has been the weird kind of relationship between Mary Lynn Rajskub's Chloe and Louis Lombardi's Edgar. They're both nerds, they're both weird looking (in the context of all the pretty pretty people that they work with and fight against), and both are stubborn and slightly annoying. But over the last year and a half, one of the joys of watching this show has been the few moments when they would show some actual concern for each other (Chloe covering for Edgar after his mom died, Edgar worrying when Chloe was almost killed at the beginning of this year) and then covering up their concern with their usual mix of bitterness and work ethic. Which made the last moment of last night's episode, as Edgar gave his last doe eyed expression as he mumbled "Chloe?", and she just had to look helplessly through the glass, crying. I'm also amazed at how far Rajskub has come since her days as "One of those people in the background" on Mr. Show to actually making me tear up. They've killed a lot of major characters on '24', characters that I liked more than Edgar. But never like this, never just so... sad. This was by far the best use of the 'silent clock' since Teri's death at the end of season one and, I'm, still not really over it. There's no joke here, but feel free to make your own snarky comment over the fact that I almost cried while watching television last night. You heartless bastards.

But there is happiness in the world. As evidenced by this. Watching this made me take back what I said about Natalie Portman's hair earlier, it must have just been what ever they put in her hair in that Vanity Fair shoot. She looks good with short hair, kind of like a punky Jean Seberg. And seeing her crash a bottle over her head might just be enough to make me forget about '24'. Edgar who... actually no. I'm still upset. Man, fuck you Jon Cassar, or Howard Gordon, or David Fury, or whoever is responsible for all of this. I need a snack.

Winners Are People Who Don't Lose

2006-03-05T01:30:00.000-06:00

Despite rumours you made have heard, I am not a man from the future. But I do like to act like it sometimes, like when I try to predict the Oscar winners:

Best Cinematography: Robert Elswit, 'Good Night, And Good Luck'

I don't really know how cinematographers go about voting, if the politics that plague the other categories figure in. I'm guessing not, cinematographers seem like a more grizzled crowd. But I hope Elswit wins, not only for the beautiful black and white photography in 'Good Night', not to mention the stuff he did in 'Syriana' this year too, but also for his career so far, especially for the stuff he did with Paul Thomas Anderson. I still watch 'Punch Drunk Love', and pick out new things that they did. But Rodrigo Prieto probably has a good chance of pulling it out for 'Brokeback'.

Best Screenplay, Adapted: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, 'Brokeback Mountain'

Two of the other nominees here ('The Constant Gardener', 'A History Of Violence'') seem to have been other wise deserted by the academy, and 'Munich' seems to have been nominated just because it had to, which leaves it between 'Capote' and 'Brokeback', and I think writers would much rather give an award to a guy who has been one of the best American writers for the last 40 years rather than that guy from "Judging Amy' who wrote his first screenplay on whim. That sounded meaner than I meant it to - I like Dan Futterman, and I like 'Capote', but 'Brokeback' was great, and McMurtry is way over due for writing 'The Last Picture Show'. So they'll win. That's what I was gettng at.

Best Screenplay, Original: Paul Haggis, Robert Moresco, 'Crash'

My least favorite film nominated in this category, but people really seem to like this movie, and the screenplay category is where they usually honor otherwise overlooked movies.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Michelle Williams, 'Brokeback Mountain'

This is a tough one to call, like I said before, but I think they'll want to give 'Brokeback' an acting award, and this looks the place to do it. Rachel Weisz has just as good a chance winning this, having won the Globe and the SAG, and either way, I'm happy.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Matt Dillon, 'Crash'

Clooney is the guy to beat in this one, since they obviously wanted to honor him this year, and he won't win in any of the other categories he's up for. But if anyone can beat him, it's Dillon, who has the nice, comeback kid angle, which might trump Clooney's 'Hollywood Golden Boy' angle. What I'm saying, is that there are angles in play.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Reese Witherspoon, 'Walk The Line'

She's won all the awards coming into this one, and she'll probably take this one too. Plus, she sings! Felicity Huffman is the only one who could give her trouble here, but I doubt enough people saw 'Transamerica' for her to be a threat.

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Philip Seymour Hoffman, 'Capote'

I was kind of against Hoffman until last night when I finally saw 'Capote', since I like Heath Ledger, and the way he beautifully underplayed his character in 'Brokeback'. I thought Hoffman was going to be doing big, showy, acting, which the Academy usually goes for, but I was really surprised by how restrained he was, especially considering he was playing a real guy who was known for being over the top. I admit that it felt much more like acting than Ledger, but I think more of that is that I've seen Hoffman in more roles than Ledger, and that he was playing a real person. With that in mind, as much as I loved Ledger and would like to see him win, I'm fine with seeing Hoffman win, since he probably will.

Best Director: Ang Lee, 'Brokeback Mountain'

Ang Lee has been making Oscar nominated films for the last 15 years or so, and he made the most nominated film of the year, so, I think its a fair bet that he'll finally get an Oscar.

Best Picture: 'Brokeback Mountain'

After seeing 'Capote' last night, I saw all the best picture nominees. It was really exciting for me, like the day I collected all the Pokemon (even that secret 151st Pokemon. That's how awesome it was). And, I honestly think that 'Brokeback' was the best picture of the year, at least out of the ones nominated here. It struck the best mix of characters and story, and just every aspect of it was incredibly well done. So, yeah.

Could I be right? I might. Ignore the fact that that was a rhyme. You're better than that.

Knock Yourself Out

2006-03-04T20:55:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to calm down a bit before the Oscars, so I don't completely burn myself out before tomorrow night. That sounds stupid, and it is, but it's a legitimate concern for me. My life - not all that exciting, and when something like the Oscars comes along, I don't have that much to keep me distracted until they happen. Luckily though, I've found some things to keep me distracted, mostly in the form of these Jon Brion songs. If you don't know who Jon Brion is, ask me sometime, I'll get all hyperventilated and offended and go off on a rant for half an hour, and then force you to watch 'Punch Drunk Love'. It'll be fun, try it. Most of the tracks were taken from a session he did at KRCW, and between these and the live EP Erin McKeown just released (excellent by the way), I almost want to move to Santa Barbara so I can listen to KRCW. I say almost, because I'm fairly sure it's impossible to get a hot dog in Santa Barbara without mango salsa on it, and I am not down with that.

What happens when you take sad, 'Sea Change' era Beck, and mix it with the slightly suicidal melodies of Nick Drake? You get these. And a little of this. So, watch out if you listen to those, because your mind will start to drift. I listened to that Pink Moon cover and it took me ten minutes to remember I was eating soup.

But now, I'm giving myself over to the Oscar rush, starting with the Independent Spirit Awards today. The Independent Spirit Awards are basically just the Oscars with a handful of movies that should have been nominated and movies that you've never fucking heard of tossed in for good measure. Honoring those smaller films makes it worth it though (even though almost all the prizes went to people who are nominated tomorrow night), since it gives movies like 'Me And You And Everyone We Know' and 'The Squid And The Whale' a final gasp at well deserved exposure. And, also, as I learned from Sam today when he mentioned that his professor's wife was nominated for an award, Sabina Murray was nominated for a best first screenplay award for 'The Beautiful Country', a movie which I don't think Jamie has forgiven me for making her see (Don't get me wrong, it was very good... but, you know... it was also sadder than a drowning bunny). She's much funnier than that movie would let on though, as I learned when she gave a reading at Simon's Rock a few year back. You can get a sense of her dry sense of humour from her book 'A Carnivore's Inquiry', which is kind of like 'The Bell Jar' with a lot more cannibalism in it. In other words, I highly recommend it. She lost tonight though, to Duncan Tucker and his 'Transamerica' script (it was a tough race too, up against the scripts for 'Me And You And Everyone We Know' and 'Junebug'). Ah well though. None of this open aired, casual attire hoohaery really matters, not in the context of the golden glitter of tomorrow night. That's when the stars shine. Then, and at night.

An addendum - The Independent Spirit Awards bounce around from channel to channel each year, so I wasn't aware that it was on AMC this year, mainly because I don't spend most of my time watching edited versions of Child's Play 4. It's just not my thing, that's all. Anyway, they'll probably be playing it throughout the weekend, if you want to catch them. Sarah Silverman hosts, if that means anything to you.

Four Hours In Chicago

2006-03-03T05:10:00.000-06:00

My roommate and I have a nice schedule set up, one where I always fall asleep early in the night, to be woken up when he returns at around 3 or four in the morning. And he's usually so out of it that I can do anything I want to over here, and it doesn't wake him up, which is wonderful, because I've been getting behind in my sousaphone practice lately. It's always kind of fun to be awake at this time of day, as the light starts to come up. It also allows me to take part of one of the oddest secrets I've seen since moving to Chicago - buildings love their fancy light displays, they make them noticeable and give them the chance to celebrate Greek Independence day, whenever that is. I say fine, and kudos. And the 311 S Wacker Drive building is a cool building (tallest in the world to not have a proper name attached to it, huh? Is that a fun fact or what?), cylindrical in shape, a nice compliment to the building block physique of it's neighbor the Sears Tower. In an attempt to make people in the surrounding buildings have an easier time getting to sleep, they shut off the lights at the top of the building at 10, though it doesn't really make a difference to me (I have a clear view of it from my room), in the total glow of the city. But every night at 4 a.m., it comes back on. Just, click. It stays on, and just fades into the daylight, so you can't really tell if it's still on or not. I stare at it during the day sometimes, never sure if it's on or not, if it's mocking me. Normal people don't have to deal with this, as far as they know, it turns on in the evening, goes off at 10. The fools, I think. The lucky, lucky fools.

It's Oscar weekend! Whoo! Or at least that's what all of the morning shows are trying to seem enthused about. I'm excited, but not in the same, freshly roasted coffee way they are. Mines more of a grinding feeling in my lower spine enthused. Which is the best type of enthusiasm, in my humble opinion. I've been thinking a lot about the best supporting actress category, a category known for it's supposed curse, for ruining the actresses who win it's careers (Where have you gone, Mercedes Ruehl, Mira Sorvino, Kim Basinger?). And even though highly acclaimed actresses have been winning it for the past few years, it seems to me that the curse is still kind of sticking around. Jennifer Connelly went into the production of 'The Hulk' with an oscar, and now this year her director and co-star are both attached to best picture nominees, while all she had was 'Dark Water'. Catherine Zeta Jones? Two sequels that no one really cared about, and it's a good thing 'The Terminal' was so God awful, otherwise people would have noticed she was terrible in it. Renee Zelwegger also made a terrible sequel, but to be fair, I haven't seen 'Cinderella Man', and if the release on that film had been handled differently, maybe she'd be nominated this year too. But still, she made 'Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason', so for all practical reasons, she's dead to me. Dead I say. Cate Blanchett... well she had a kid, and hasn't done anything since winning the award, so who knows. I think she'll be alright though. I mean, come on, she was Cubby.

Why am I so bitter about the fact that arguably every Best Supporting Actress winner since Angelina Jolie won in 2000 has seen her career decline since winning their Oscar? Because I love every actress nominated for it this year, and damn it I don't want any of them to go away. It also makes it hard to pick who the winner will be. And my back really hurts. And its 6 o'clock in the morning and I'm awake. These are all things that add to my general bitterness. Oh, and life in general. Add that in there. I almost hope that Frances McDormand wins, because even if her career takes a slide, she's still married to the guy who gives her some of the best roles that she's ever had. But she won't, because no one saw 'North Country'. Everyone did see 'Brokeback Mountain', which gives Michelle Williams an advantage. Between 'Brokeback' and 'The Baxter', she absolutely floored me last year, and she almost ruined 'Brokeback' for me, since even though I was invested in the main love story in the film, I began to lose sympathy for the Ennis character because of the terrible way he treated her. All that mumble about 'not fixing' and 'standing it' doesn't include at least pretending to be nice to her? Mumblin' bastard. Though in talking with my friends, it's become clear that I was alone in these feelings, and that most of them find her 'funny looking'. To them I say, and by 'them' I mean you since you're most likely reading this, I'll see you in hell.

Amy Adams character in 'Junebug' is kind of like the Alma you're supposed to feel for, the sweet naive girl married to a confused, simple man. I guess that makes it an easier role to play, but I could also see it becoming really annoying and grating if it hadn't been done by someone as sweet and talented as Adams. And she apparently can do a sweet Ariel voice, so more power to her. The only problem I really had with the Oscar nomination this year was that 'The Constant Gardner' was so overlooked (I would gladly switch out 'Crash' and Haggis for 'Gardener' and Meirelles), since I think it was my favorite movie of last year, and a large part of that was due in part to Rachel Weisz, in a role where she simultaneously shed the disgrace of 'The Mummy' films and lived up to the potential she showed in 'About A Boy'. Weisz has the kind of awards momentum going into Sunday, but then there is also Catherine Keener, (I haven't seen Capote yet, I'm going today though) who is kind of the actor's actress, with the type of career people really admire. And apparently, according to the current issue of EW, Academy members really loved 'The 40 Year Old Virgin', so you can't rule her out either.

Does any of this matter? Apparently the US government is totally inept, the middle east is about to blow up, and Jessica Alba is suing Playboy for saying she is sexy. So, basically, the world is ending. But I'm stuck in a small apartment, and am far too lazy to do anything about it. So yeah, the Oscars matter. Because I'm bored.

Amazing Adventures Of Molemen, Zombie Children, And Howler Monkeys!

2006-03-01T22:43:00.000-06:00

Ah, spring time. At least I think it's spring time. Growing up in the Berkshires, where spring lasts for about five seconds, just going from cold and snowy to cold and muddy, I'm not exactly sure what spring looks like. I think there are flowers involved. I'm not positive. I still don't know what we're having here in Chicago... it's cold, but crisp, sunny and windy. The only way I know it's winter and that I know we're coming out of it (other than the infallible meteorological practice of groundhog watching) is that we're moving away from the current crop of blindingly bad movies that are clogging up the theaters towards the kind of smaller interesting movies that have been coming out this time of year for the last few years. I saw Munich on Monday, which, was a moving experience. I'm not talking about the movie exactly (though it was pretty good), but, the actual experience of seeing the movie. People always claim that one of the reason that theater receipts are down and people enjoy watching movies at home is because they hate putting up with the crowds at the theaters. They've tired of putting up with people who come on dates where they guy apparently just wanted a nice darkened place to say obliviously annoying things to the girl, kids who like to pay 9.50 to sit in a dark loud room and play the fun game of 'Who can shout the stupidest possible thing at the screen in order to impress the rest of the kids here?', and old people who bitch through a movie they're in only because they read a good review in the New York Times but apparently still have no idea what the movie was supposed to be about. And I'm someone who still likes going to the theater. Sometimes you just need to see a movie with other people - like as much as I love 'Serenity', the few times I've watched it since it has come out on video just haven't given me the same experience as the two times I saw it with an audience. I feel like much more of a nerd cheering as spaceships fly across my screen at home, but when a hundred people are doing it with you, you don't care that you're a big dork wearing a 'Blue Sun' T-Shirt that I ordered over the internet. I mean, the hypothetical 'you' doesn't.

Anyway, I figured that with a more personal movie like Munich, a little silence and respect would be a better environment to see it in. So, what better time than a Monday afternoon? But instead of silence, I found that the entire movie theater was engulfed in a deafening shriek. My first thought was of course, "HOWLER MONKEYS!", and I took the appropriate measures of dropping to the floor in a swift barrel roll, and then crawling to the escalator, much to the wonder of the elderly woman validating her parking. I paid her no heed, knowing full well she would soon be monkey fodder. But as I made my way up the escalator, I realized that the howling was in fact children, streams and streams of them, coming down from the theaters. I feared for my life at this point, knowing that no amount of my super maneuvers would help me escape a hundred, brain eating children. I knew I was really in trouble when I looked back at the two men behind me, as one of them was hit square on the head with a bag of popcorn, and his friend laughed at him (because, what are friends for really?), so not only was I dealing with ravenous children, but apparently, they had super aim.

I'm positive that the only reason I'm alive to tell my tale is due to the teachers who were on the scene, who were as good at screaming as the children, declaring that girls bus was on the left, boys bus on the right. They cleared out behind me as I bought the my ticket, but I didn't really have a chance to watch them, since me and the usher both had to lean down and scream what we were saying through the small hole at the bottom of the booth. I remember when I was younger that there was a woman in the area who paid for high school classes to go see Schindler's List when it came out, but this was a class of second graders, so I doubt they would be going back to school to discuss the consequences of our middle eastern policies after a rousing screening of 'Syriana'. The only movie I can imagine they would be seeing is 'Curious George', and even though I've been out of public schools a few years now, I thought they were still pushing reading, or at least still pretending like they were. Hell, the kids themselves didn't have to read it, it could be read to them. But to be fair, it just wouldn't be the same without a calm and relaxing Jack Johnson score. Ah, taste the Hawaiian breeze.

After all the furious noise I had to go through to see the movie, I was looking forward to a nice peaceful screening. And I had it for a while, being the only person in the theater up until the beginning of the movie. And even though smaller crowds are a nice plus, one down side of seeing a movie on a Monday is that they apparently don't bother picking up after Sunday's shows - finding a seat was a minefield of napkins, bottles, and what I pray to God was an ice cream stain. But I found a nice little seat in the middle row, and I was ready for the show to begin, excited I would be alone. A man walked in just as the film started unspooling, and, through the first half hour of the movie, about 10 more Johnny Come Latelys showed up. And then left in the middle. Do they kill everyone on their list? Does it compromise their values? They'll never know. They'll never even know why it was called Munich. I imagined them just wandering from theater to theater, catching a few minutes here and there, watching movies like people look at pictures in a museum. What an odd and ambiguous world they must live in, where a stranger calls Harrison Ford to inform him that he's kidnapped his family, and Sam Jackson dons a fatsuit to get them back, only to end up at a wacky family reunion. They live in a world where movies don't make sense, where they have no resolution, where they all blend together and just go on and on forever. The movies are no different to them than actual life, which, is, against the entire point of movies. So as I left the theater dealing with the questions the movie posed (not to mention that sobering final shot), I was also dealing with the idea of this sad race of mole people coming into existence. Like, do they stay for the night shows, blending in with the normal crowd? Where do they go at nights? Is this what they do instead of making friends? Is this what I do instead of making friends? Am I really a moleman, only my school schedule doesn't allow it? That was ice cream on the seat next to me, right?

If you too wish encounter your local molemen, feel free to visit your local megaplex during the hours of 11 to 5 on any weekday. Maybe you can do it while taking in some of these fine films that will be coming out over the next few months: 'The Hills Have Eyes','Duck Season', 'V For Vendetta' (also, Natalie Portman hosts SNL this week. I don't know whether or not molemen will be involved), 'Brick', 'Thank You For Smoking', 'The Inside Man', 'A Scanner Darkly', and 'Slither". Ah, spring is just around the corner. Of course the molemen don't know that. I'm pretty sure they're blind. Which makes the fact they go to the movies even weirder.

My Television Overkill

2006-02-27T03:33:00.001-06:00

It's hard to be a guy in today's television landscape. Of course, it seems to me that most 'guys' don't really watch television except for sports, and the occasional episode of 'Family Guy', 'South Park', or '24' (Is there such a thing as the occasional episode of '24'?). I like to think of myself as a 'guy', but it has been made perfectly clear to me many times over that 'guys' don't have the tolerance for the soap opera style melodramatics that infest so many of the current television shows. The shows that I watch, that I obsess over. I try to point out to to my friends who feel this way that the shows I've dragged them into are just as melodramatic as the ones they refuse to watch - '24' is just a soap opera where the violence has been replaced with violence, and shows like 'Alias' and 'Veronica Mars' wear their soapy hearts on their sleeves, right next to the mysteries that propel the show. I explain to them that shows like 'The O.C.' (at least in it's first season) and 'Buffy' use the melodrama just as a means to an end, as an excuse to create and explore excellent characters who say funny funny lines. But they don't buy it. I also try explaining that there is a difference between doing these shows right and doing them wrong, making them just as bad as day time soaps (I'm looking at you, One Tree Hill. Actually, I'm not, that's kind of the point. That show is terrible). But still, they insist on calling me girly.

But I've tried to hold on to the one shred of my ever fading manliness over the last year, as 'Grey's Anatomy' has been building up steam. Between those terrible looking ads with 'Such Great Heights' in it that ABC used to first promote the show, to the terrible opening sequence it had, and the sudsy actions and unsympathetic lead character, I was fine not liking it. I felt pride in shunning the show, that I'd earned the right to go out and laugh with my fellow manly cohorts over not watching it (then promptly get my ass handed to me after I ask "How cool was Sandy Cohen last night?"). But I watched the episode right before the Superbowl episode, and for the last month, I've been watching every week, and on the nights where it's not on, I just lie awake, wondering, "Will George ever get a hiar cut?". I felt my last ounce of masculinity walking out the door, like John C McGinley slowly shaking his head while muttering "Oh Shirley" as it went. But I don't care, the show kind of got over that awkward hump that kept me away from it at the beginning, and has now picked up such a creative pace that I can't stay away. While I still can't stand Meredith, the supporting characters have built up enough presence to make me not even care what she's up to. Unless she's sleeping with George. Then I care. But I dare say that the supporting characters of this show have taken their place in the canon of great television characters. George joins the ranks of the Xanders and Marshalls of the world as another dorky and neurotic character who suffers an unrequited love for the main character on the show who is too caught up with the hunky lead to ever really notice them (Or, another way to put it would be the characters I wish I didn't relate to so much). Christina has the equal streaks of clumsiness and competitiveness to join the likes of Eliot and Cordelia. Alex also looks on track to be one of the great throw away asshole characters who ends up developing into just a slightly ass-holeish hero, like Spike or Logan (the Veronica Mars Logan. The '24' Logan is just straight up asshole, with a side of douche). And they got rid of the hokey opening credits sequence (where each medical instrument segued into something sexy, how clever!), instead opting for a classy little rack-focus number like the opening of 'Lost'. And hopefully tonight's episode was the beginning of the end of Meredith's whiny voiceovers, with the show being narrated from George's point of view ( though all of the talk of karma made it feel like a prettier version of 'My Name is Earl'. Or that episode of 'Scrubs' called 'My Karma', where a bumbling young doctor narrates how karma affects his life and those of the people around him. But other than that, totally original). It doesn't matter though, I'll still be back next week. That is if I can stand to sit down after all the wedgies I'm sure to get after this.

Oh, yes, writing about this show has reminded me that, the Olympics are finally over, so television is back. This week will herald the first new episodes of Scrubs, My Name Is Earl, and The Office since the first week of this month. And who needs a social life when the season finale of 'Battlestar Galactica starts this week? I know I don't! And Lost, after screwing us with a rerun of the pilot (I'm still pissed) is new this week, with an episode that isn't about Jack, Kate, or Sawyer ( wacky huh?). It's actually about Claire, and from the sounds of it, the flashbacks won't be completely useless this week, as we finally find out what happened to Claire during all that missing time last season. And as much as I enjoy watching network censored broadcasts of 'Final Destination 2', I'm much happier to watch a new episode of Gilmore Girls. Now if UPN would just take 'South Beach' out to the shed so it could go to that 'better place, where it can run and play all day' so Veronica Mars could come back with a suitable lead, then everything would be right in the world.

And, for serious, the last thing, does anyone watch 'The Boondocks'? The first few episodes were kind of clumsy, but I've been really impressed with the tone that it's been striking in the last few weeks. At the beginning it all just felt, sitcommy in a way, but it's now found this odd place where it makes really heartfelt social and personal statements in the midst of totally surreal situations. It's almost like a modern day 'Twilight Zone', a show using a genre as a way to get people to hear the messages it wants to tell. There wasn't a bit in their Martin Luther King Jr. episode, where they purposed that MLK Jr. hadn't died after his attack, but had just gone into a coma to awaken years later, and went on to show how he would fit into the pop culture and public discourse of today (it didn't go well), that fell flat. The jokes worked, and the message came across without feeling forced. And I realized tonight that an older episode where Huey and Riley go after a murderer with the help of two white Iraq war veterans (voiced, amazingly, by Charlie Murphy and Sam Jackson), only to be side tracked in a frivolous gunfight that occurs after the veterans accuse the store clerk of having a weapon, is a metaphor for the war in Iraq. It makes more sense if you see it. And it's like three in the morning, and the screen is starting to blur in front of me... so if any thing I just wrote makes sense, it's a miracle. Oh, one more reason you should watch 'The Boondocks', it has one of the best theme songs ever.

Oh, and before I pass out, I apologize for saying "For serious" back there... in my defense, I'm sleep deprived.

Edtv

2006-02-26T19:41:00.001-06:00

Mosquitos running rampant? Alligators in your backyard? A murder trial with enough morbidity to make it last through a single news cycle? Rest assured, Ed Lavandera will be there. Lavandera is a secret kind of treat for me, because as a person who spends far too much time watching television, I know that there is no better way to pass time than watching a block of cable news all the way through. The only challenges for anchors during the middle of the day is to keep up enough energy after they introduce the segment about Mardi Gras in post Katrina New Orleans for the fifth time that day. They also have to engage in that kind of emotional detachment that allows them to be all smiles after the Jeannie Moos story about wacky hats, and then turn all frowny as they introduce the piece about the 17 year old Palestinian suicide bomber. It's the same trick that Katie Couric pulls on the Today Show every morning, except there's a reason these people are on at this time of day, they're not nearly as good at it than Couric is. I still kind of believe Couric cares about what she's talking about in her pieces, even though I've been watching her do the same shtick for the last 10 years. The CNN anchors, it can be embarrassing how transparent they are, how little they care or most likely understand what they're talking about. Which makes their interactions with Lavandera all the more awkward, since he is basically CNN's punching bag. Every story that is just barely exciting and important enough to make the news, that's Lavandera's beat. Every hurricane that would come ashore, Lavandera would be there (unless of course it became a national disaster, then they send in Big Blue to take charge). As I was watching Lavandera stand in front of that not so Ricin infected dormitory Saturday, I just couldn't believe the stuff they make him go through. It couldn't actually be that his official status was "Almost Interesting Story Correspondent" (though he does look like the kind of guy who would take that, unfortunately)? Then, I realized, there was a thread. The first sentence of his reporter profile gave it all away. It's all just a matter of geography. The poor sucker.

If You Don't Know Me By Now

2006-02-25T17:33:00.000-06:00

On a day like today, where even the most sacred of places in America comes under attack, I find my that my Anglophilia reaches it's peak. Why wouldn't we want to live in England? The accent makes everything they say that much cooler (I'll always remember when my British cousins flushed my toothbrush down the toilet at my grandparents, it was really hard to get mad at them because when we caught them, they said "We flushed it down the loo". You can't get mad at that, you just can't), when you drink tea you look normal rather than looking like a nancy. That's another thing, if I were British, I would know what I was saying when I said things like 'looking like a nancy', and what he means when Charlie calls people 'ponces' on 'Lost', and people wouldn't shout back 'peace' when I gave them a two finger salute. And if I were British, I wouldn't have to troll through Google Video to watch episodes of British sitcoms. To be honest, I'm never entirely sure if British sitcoms are clever or stupid (it's such a fine line), because I can't tell if there is some sort of subtle social joke being made amongst the slapstick (a la 'Arrested Development') or if it's just your regular 'According to Jim' level excuse for comedy (The dramas on the other hand, you know if they're good or not, and on that note I would like to say that 'The Singing Detective' and 'State of Play' are some of the greatest things I've ever seen produced. Seriously, hunt them out. Literally. With a spear if you have to). And even if I'm missing some jokes on 'The IT Crowd', it doesn't matter, because the rest of it is just stupid enough to make me laugh. It was always advertised on The Ricky Gervais Show (but I think that was more out of the fact that Channel 4 was a sponsor of the podcast (and in a biparentheses note, all twelve of the first season podcasts will be available for download starting March 7th, and the second season will start being sold through Audible.com starting Tuesday (Who is Ricky Gervais you say? Shut up I say. As much as I love The American Office (which, now with the end of Arrested Development, is my vote for the funniest show on TV), it kills me that so many people who watch it don't understand why the 'American' is in front of it, because the original show was so perfect. Maybe they'll understand better when Gervais and Steve Merchant write an episode next season, or if they watch reruns of the British version that are now airing on PBS on Sunday nights (at least here in Chicago))) than out of the fact that they really like the show) and people keep raving about it over on BoingBoing after they watch it on the Channel 4 website. Well great I said, I too would like to partake in this television experience. Except no. You can't watch them unless you're in England (and you're running Windows). Hence the trolling. Oh, you know what else the English have? Excellent candy.

We're Just Tired Of The Bullshit

2006-02-23T23:02:00.000-06:00

I don't know where I've been this past week, but the fact that Mr. Mark Oliver Everett and his band the Eels have released a live album completely slipped by me. I didn't find out till Muzzle of Bees posted a review about it, and a link to the live version of 'Trouble With Dreams'. It's really good so far, the recording quality is great (much improved over their last live recording), but one thing that's missing? The stage banter. I'm not saying stage banter is necessary for an outstanding live album (I look at you, Kicking Television) though it can really make a live album too, if it's funny enough (Does anyone have a copy of Live Noise I can borrow? I miss it so). But E is a funny, funny man. Proof can be found here or by listening to 'Oh What A Beautiful Morning', their previous live album. And I know there was stage banter at the concert, I remember reading a review of the show in the times last summer, where they mentioned when a man in the audience shouted "Those are some nice looking girls you got there E", to which he replied, "Thank you, and by the way sir, you're not allowed to talk to me." That's my only complaint. It's a solid album otherwise, the strings are great, and he lays down a really good cover of 'Girl From The North Country'. So, you know... buy it.

Give Me Back My Family!

2006-02-23T00:38:00.000-06:00

The best resources for brilliant criminal masterminds? Movies that no one bothers to watch. Seriously, what's happened to Harrison Ford? Han, Indy, The Fugitive, the man was the icon of my childhood, one of the main reasons I got into movies in the first place. He's still got a presence (the one time I saw him down town, my mind froze. What do you say to him, as he, picks up his clothes, walks by me and, oh, gone, nevermind), but, he's got to stop. He seems hesitant to step back, to take on smaller roles in smaller, none action movies, but he would be so good at it, you can see it in what I like to call his 'acting stage', where he was in movies like 'Witness', 'The Mosquito Coast', 'Working Girl', 'Frantic', and 'Regarding Henry'. He would be even better in those types of roles now that he's older, he can work out a gruffer version of the type of role Bill Murray has been carving out over the last few years. And, give up on Indy 4. If they had gotten their act together over the last 10 years, it would be different, but now it just feels like they're doing it because they have to. And look at 'Phantom Menace', Lucas wrote that because he wanted to. Would it be all right if we just let this one cherished memory untainted? Jar Jar is a big enough taint already.

The World Has Turned And Left Me Here

2006-02-22T21:35:00.000-06:00

It seems like the world is taking a collective break from doing interesting things this week. The whole Dick Cheney incident last week has kind of put a cap on the interest I have in the complete ineptitude of this administration. What's that you say, you've sold away the rights to our ports to a country with terrorist ties? Nope, still not as good as the Vice President shooting a guy in the face. And television, my ever so trusted and loyal friend, has let me down as well. It's a sweeps month for God's sake, and there is nothing on. Executives figured... "Hmm, both the Olympics and American Idol are on? No, no... that right there, that covers every possible viewer we could ever get." So they leave people who watch, well, interesting television I suppose, out to dry. But there is hope in the world, how ever shining and brief it may be:

- If, for some strange and utterly alien reason you don't feel like watching the pilot episode of Lost for the 100th time (they actually threw a party to celebrate it. Show runner Damon Lindelof was quoted at the party as saying, "We were worried that people might start getting sick of us playing this episode over and over again, but then we said fuck it, they need us." He then stuffed cake into his mouth and washed it down by pouring two bottles of Cristal directly into his mouth) the fine folks at the government disowned PBS have your back. Tonight sees the kick off of 'Monty Python's Personal Best', a six hour series where each Python showcases their favorite sketches. It airs at 9 and 10 on most PBS stations for the next two weeks.

- I don't know what '24' fans in general look like, and frankly I'm scared to find out. My guess is that we're a horrifying mix of testosterone fueled jocks who dig on the action and torture, and pudgy pale television geeks like myself who tune in every week to watch the subtle character development that occurs as Jack struggles between his life and his duty. If this article is true, I imagine I'm going to get my ass kicked the second I say "I wonder how the movie will continue Jack's character arc?" in the theater. Then the guy will totally high five his buddy and say, "Whoo!"

- This live Shins recording is like peanut butter for the indie soul. I have no idea what that means.

- In a scene that makes the one from 'Bananas' look like an example of grace and poise, I gathered the courage to buy the new issue of Vanity Fair. And after I got over the erupting feelings of anger and jealousy toward Tom Ford, I learned a few lessons. Every picture in the portfolio has the star doing something wacky or sexy, that is except for Philip Seymour Hoffman. His is just a simple head shot - no crazy nudity, no wacky situation. I just imagine him showing up to the shoot, Ford goes "Philip, I want to dress you up like - ", that's probably as far as he got before Hoffman uttered a deep gravelly "Why don't you go fuck yourself?", then probably just grabbed the camera and took the photo himself. Lesson learned? The man is class, head to toe. I also learned that Michelle Monaghan attended my school. And then left it, to pursue an actual career, and she's now more successful than any of the people currently in attendance here will ever be. So, yay school. And as much as I admire Natalie Portman for totally shaving her head for 'V For Vendetta', her hair needs to grow back. Now.

Miss Teen Water Waster (A Mild-Mannered Rant In Two Parts)

2006-02-19T10:16:00.000-06:00

I was under the assumption that doing your laundry at 5:45 on a Sunday morning, you would be alone, you'd have your pick of the best washers and dryers, you wouldn't have to suffer the shame of judgmental strangers watching you as you struggle to pack down a pile of your unmentionables into a hole smaller than most frisbees. But in what is just another part in what is quickly becoming the way of everything in my life, I was wrong. Every washer was in use, at least half the dryers were going - could it possibly be that there were as many people with as dysfunctional sleeping patterns as myself? I was under the impression that at 5 on a Sunday 95% of my building would be teetering off into an alcohol filled dream world filled with marshmallow men and English rabbits, but did they all decide to throw a load in before they started their pre-game - a phrase, which I was led to believe (by Time magazine, my source on all youth related topics) referred to an actual game, where underage students who couldn't get drunk at the game got drunk in their rooms beforehand, so they could... I'm not even going to try and guess what the logic behind this is, since drinking and sporting events are both things way out of my comfort zone, never mind the two of them combined. But now people 'pre-game', by drinking before they go to a party. A party where they will continue to drink. I don't really care about the drinking part, but haven't we corrupted the heartland enough? We hip New England liberals, most of us are far too pansyish to step near a soccer ball (which isn't even a real sport in most parts of the country), but we feel fine using a term that was originally created to define an honored spirit building tradition. Is nothing sacred?

Before I started channeling Bill Sunday, I was writing about laundry. It wasn't that a lot of people were doing laundry at the early hour, just one person doing a lot of laundry. There was one girl there when I went to put my clothes in, the same girl was there when I changed them over and when I took them out. Except she wasn't on the same cycle as I was. Each time I went down there, she was tending a different washer or dryer, each one at some varying stage. I can fit all of my clothes into one small hamper, do them in one load. I tend to dress like a homeless person though, so I don't really figure I'm a prime example of the regular launderer, but for Christ's sake, she was carting away her clothes in a shopping cart, and this was just for her first trip. I know nothing about you Morning Laundry girl, perhaps you are an amazing socialite, burning through a world where there is no greater sin than to be caught wearing the same outfit twice, but somehow, I don't think so. Maybe you just think you are, an inverted Mrs. Havisham, where instead of wearing the same dress all your life you're compulsively changing your outfits for the man who jilted you all those years ago, lest you look out of date when he finally returns to you. Most likely though, you're just a silly teenage girl who spends too much money on clothes and appearances when it really doesn't make that much of a difference. Since you'll never read this, and would never listen to my opinion anyway, because, I honestly look like a panhandler, especially on laundry day, I can only hope that you do your early morning routines every Sunday, and hopefully I can switch to another day where I won't have to run into you. Because you bother me, and I like to be alone when I do these things.

Ice Queen

2006-02-18T20:43:00.000-06:00

I guess I just wanted to see how bad it really was outside, to see if maybe I was over reacting. I wasn't, it's cold, and I'm an idiot. I decided to walk up to the Barnes and Nobles, because if it's cold outside, the one thing I need of course, is books. And everyone was just superhappy to be working on a day like today. The joy was just, infectious really. I was going to tell the girl working the counter that they had Geoff Dyer's 'Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It' in a display of yoga and self help books, and that despite the title, the book had nothing to do with yoga, a fact they would have learned if they had just look at the back of the book. But then she was grumpy when I bought my book, so I decided to let her feel the wrath of some disgruntled 50 something when they realized that they bought a book about a writer's midlife crisis. Then she'll be even grumpier, and the world will be a little worse because of it. But I'll be here, most likely napping, so I won't really notice.

Current temperature: 2.

The Ice Storm

2006-02-18T15:36:00.001-06:00

So I fell asleep listening to This American Life. Oddly enough, it is really warm in the apartment, between the heating and the fact that the sun is shining at me right now, which makes for prime napping condition. And nap I did. It was a pleasant nap, one where I came to the conclusion that there must be a very limited amount of quirky instrumental music out there, since every NPR show uses the same music in their stories: Jon Brion scores, Yann Tiersen's 'Amelie' score, the instrumental tracks from the 'Lost in Translation' soundtrack, and Ratatat songs. I remember lying there thinking, why do I know all of these songs? Then I thought, wait, am I just making this up, am I sleeping? No, I don't usually debate myself when I sleep. Maybe I'm just lying here on the couch thinking I am asleep. Then I had to hit myself because I kept sleeping on my left arm, so everyonce and a while I had to slap my left hand because it had lost all feeling, but I was too tired to try and move myself, so I would fall back asleep for a few more minutes and then wake up to slap my hand around some more. It is going to be one hell of a weekend, I can tell.

Also, has anyone seen this boy? He was last seen leaving for a party at Clark and Division last night around 11. If found, please give him some soup. He loves soup. And his hair doesn't actually look like that. Thanks.

Current temperature in Chicago: 7

Ice, Ice Baby

2006-02-18T11:37:00.000-06:00

I remember on Tuesday, when I was walking outside, and I couldn't help but say to myself, "Oh, what a beautiful morning." It was 50 degrees outside, the sun was shining, it felt like the entire city had broken out into one big hoe-down, like that episode of Buffy, except with less spontaneous combustion. I remember that in my head now as I sit in my apartment, afraid to go outside because I'm fairly sure that I would instantly freeze, and fall apart into little chunks like that guy in 'Cube'. That happens you know. It's science, look it up. So as far as I can see it, me and God are in a game of chicken right now, a game which I do not plan to lose. Of course staying in my room all weekend means I'll be bored as hell, so expect frequent updates in an attempt to bring whoever has the misfortune of reading this down into my cold misery with me. I'm going to go eat some Applejacks...

Kids Sing, Kids Sing

2006-02-16T23:10:00.000-06:00

Ah, the world, it is alive. Try saying that with a terrible French accent, it'll make you feel better. And Lord knows, I need all the cheesy pseudo French expressions I can get today, because it is miserable in the Midwest. All that snow you heard about? Yes, none of that hit Chicago. Instead, I woke up to so much fog I thought I was having a dream about 'The Third Man' (it wouldn't be the first time), but no, just the beginning of what is possibly the grayest day in history (it didn't help that I had to watch 'The Last Picture Show' in class either). So where do I turn for some warmth, color and compassion? The internet of course:

- I don't have a hot sister, or for that matter a homely one, or one of any varying degree of attractiveness, but if I did and I were to accidentally see her in her underwear, I might have the same reaction that I did when I saw these pictures of Kristen Bell in Maxim. These pictures that I found out about only because they place the Maxims next to the New York Times at my local 7-Eleven. Ahem. Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas said in an interview with E!'s Kristin Veitch that it was producer Joel Silvers' idea all along, he of course coming from the film making philosophy that "nothing sells better than blood and broads". And it's a philosophy that's made him millions. But is it that simple? Sure, he's made his name on movies like the Lethal Weapon and Matrix franchises as well as dozens of other crappy action movies that you see on TNT at 3 in the morning, but were those just means to an end? A geeky, geeky end? Look at the evidence: Silver is executive producing 'Veronica Mars', a show which is relatively light on the action but heavy on the witty witty quips. The same could even be said about 'Lethal Weapon' scribe Shane Black's 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang', which Silver also produced. And even though it was heavy on the action, does it get any geekier than 'The Matrix', a story of a computer geek being rewarded for his hours of trolling the internet by becoming a hero? No, no it does not. And his list of future projects also clue me in to this being a man wanting to get his geek on, with the Alan Moore adaptation of 'V For Vendetta' coming out next month as well as the fact that not only is he producing the 'Wonder Woman' movie, but he got king of the geeks, Joss Whedon to direct it. All of this, coupled with this story make me think that, perhaps Silver is just a geeky little hippy deep down inside, and though he had to toughen up to make it through the cinematic system of the 80s and 90s, now that things have calmed down a bit, he's more comfortable letting his geek flag fly. As long as there is still a picture of a girl in a bikini standing next to a guy with a gun as the insignia. (He put it next to the dolphin).

- Speaking of 'El Hombre', one more reason why Joss is boss - he can make the word 'yob' sound cool (Though to be fair, that purse does bear a great resemblance to a battery powered device one places betwixt their nether regions).

- We you aware that they were making videos to accompany music now a-days? Amazing! First on the block, though she won't watch horses get whipped if it's being sponsored by KFC, Pam Anderson is totally cool making out with a guy while he boasts about hitting their buffet.

- We all know butterflies are cool, but you know what would be cooler? Making a third album.

- And finally, via BoingBoing, this clip of Django on some old news reel, which is really too cool for words. Especially my cheap, sarcastic words.

Started talking about the French, ended talking about the French. Proof that time is circular? Maybe, maybe not.

This Gummy Is A Good Gummy

2006-02-16T02:36:00.000-06:00

What did I learn from 'Lost in Translation'? Many, many things. How to open a movie, what I'm missing by not watching Japanese talk shows, that karaoke gets a bum rap in the States, just for a few examples. I also thought I learned that when American actors went to Japan to whore themselves out by doing commercials, that it is a soul crushing experience. But apparently I was wrong, and apparently I shouldn't use the word whore so willy nilly (for some reason people tend to get offended by it). I learned this a few months ago in a conversation with my friend's uncle, who works on these types of commercials, where he told me that the movie had missed the point of the ads. I told him he had missed the point of the movie, the point of course being Scarlett and her lovely doe eyes. Luckily he chose to ignore me, and continued to argue that those commercials were all about matching the essence of an actor with a product. He went on to tell a story about a Western actor selling air conditioners. Or radios. There was a car involved. And I think the ad was in the desert. Which makes me think it was the air conditioner. Anyway, the guy stared ( or was it glared...) and people loved it. The product whatever it was, was extremely successful.

Despite that pitiful retelling (forgive me, it's 3 in the morning) the story (or, the point he was making with it) stuck with me, especially in the last few months, as American celebrities have begun warming up and starting to sell products in America. Though, except for the trailblazing courage of the Catherine Zeta-Jones-es of the world, most of them are hiding behind their voices. Celebrities like Jeff Bridges, Sean Connery, and Gene Hackman have all lent their voices to different ads. The weirdest one by far though, has to be Kiefer Sutherland. It might just be my mind, but it seems like Sutherland's voice is being used to pitch everything, I know for sure that's him talking about the Intel chips being used in Macs. But didn't these people see 'Phone Booth'? Actually, I guess a lot of people didn't see 'Phone Booth', but if they had, then they would know that Kiefer Sutherland has the scariest voice in the world. Or if they had seen 'The Lost Boys'. Or 'Stand By Me'. ' Or one episode of '24'. Or if they had ever listened to... his voice. Instead they use his voice to achieve the regular, trust us about how great our product is effect.

The Japanese on the other hand? They get it. They use the Jack Bauer character as a kind of modern day Malboro Man gimmick. Do I want to be like Jack Bauer? Hell yeah I do. Then eat Calorie Mates. Hell yeah I will. Wait what are Calorie Mates? Does it matter? No. No it does not. Bill Murray would be perfect to sell Santory Whiskey with those dark mascara eyes of his, it probably would have been a fantastic ad if the director hadn't been such a jerk. Hollywood has never been an industry built on integrity, and as much as we like to fight against the idea and complain about it, we're just kidding ourselves. So if we're going to whore ourselves out, we might as well whore ourselves correctly. And there, I did it again. It just sounds so good... whore. It rolls off the tongue. And, that sounded dirtier than I meant it to. Sorry.

Kicking Television

2006-02-15T00:13:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I've slowly been gearing up for Valentine's day. And by gear up I mean I have slowly descended into an ever consuming pit of television. And it doesn't help that my roommate's parents sent us about five pounds of candy yesterday, along with a bunch of decorations. So not only have I set up permanent residence on my couch over the last 96 hours, but that residence now includes a string of paper hearts and a bowl a terrible 'conversation hearts' that I'm slowly picking at. All's not last though - as with all things in life, I've learned. Deep, deep, valuable lessons:

- The Dick Cheney shooting incident is the greatest piece of comedic gold yet to be produced by this administration, and that is really saying something. It's also created some great moments with my new favorite part of the government, the White House Press core. It's been amazing to watch Scot McClellan over the last few years, especially in the last year as things have really begun to spin out of control for the Bush administration. When Ari Fleischer left in 2003, the press was sufficiently whipped, so I guess they felt it was alright to hand off the job to someone like McClellan. I think up to that point Scott had just been that guy at the office who no one really knew what he did, but they didn't mind because he kept to himself and ate his lunch in the corner. But in the last few months, as Katrina broke and the media suddenly remembered where they had left their integrity (in the refrigerator, can you believe it?), McClellan has been getting tossed around like a rag doll. Harriet Meyers, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, Abrabmoff, the War, now the press core is asking questions like "At which point did you know Vice President Dick Cheney was the shooter?". Puppies on a linoleum floor handle themselves with more grace. So does this mean that we the American people will finally get some answers? No, no it doesn't. But it does mean that every morning at 11 we'll get a few laughs. And that's what's really important. Also, hands down the best joke to be made out of the Cheney thing - (made by the Daily Show and I think CNN actually used it as a headline) 'Cheney's Got A Gun'. Yeah, let that sink in for a bit.

- Jack Bauer is now more American than apple pie. One man fights to save the lives of thousands of innocent mall denizens, does it get any better than that? No, no it does not. This episode was full of 'America -F Yeah!" moments that '24' dips into every now and then (a terrorist turning on the other terrorists he was transporting the bomb with after a pool cleaner helped them change a tire and he saw some kids playing basketball in season 2 comes to mind), where we see just how precious our way of life, the thing Jack sacrifices himself to protect, really is. Of course with every shot of a kid innocently playing in the mall, I couldn't help thinking back to John Hodgman's story in his book "The Areas Of My Expertise", where he spends a few days at the Mall of America, where he had this exchange - "Working in a mall is a little nerve wrecking" she confides, "because as the largest mall in the United States, we are a prime target for terrorism." "You know what?" I say. "Fuck you."

- Also great about 24 last night, Timothy Omundson shooting himself in the head, which will make every 'Judging Amy' rerun TNT runs just a little more awkward to watch. Not that I watch 'Judging Amy' reruns. But if I did, I would say, wow, the cast from that show is really going off in different directions. Omundson playing a Russian terrorist on '24', Jillian Armenante as the screaming wife of the bomb guy on 'Grey's Anatomy', Dan Futterman getting an Oscar nomination for writing 'Capote' (also a weird little note, I'm watching 'The Birdcage' on TBS, and not only is Futterman in it, but so is Grant Heslov, who is nominated this year for co-writing 'Good Night and Good Luck' Is this the first time two writing nominees from different movies have been in a movie together? Does anyone care? Bueller? Bueller?). And Tyne Daly has gracefully bowed out of the limelight. So, everybody wins.

- If USA keeps their current schedule of curling, dog shows, Monk, and Law and Order reruns, they will become the most popular channel on television.

These were just a few of the things I picked up over the past few days. And, look, it's past midnight. I can go to bed now with the piercing loneliness of valentines day behind me, and look forward to the regular loneliness I face every day. But it's okay, because I know television will be there with me. Unless there is a black out. That would suck.

Hosers, As Far As The Eye Can See

2006-02-13T09:22:00.000-06:00

It says something that while watching the Super Bowl last week, I thought John Madden was a jerk while he was going on about how the Steelers didn't have a clear strategy. And I know nothing about football. Whenever I watch football, the only thing I think about it is, why do we call this football? The majority of the game has nothing to do with feet. Then I think, are there any more chips? But even though I'm caught up in these deep philosophical quarries while I watch these games, I'm still aware that game commentators are deeply annoying (except of course for Jerry Remy. I will never get sick of that man. Ever).

But that's what is so great about the Olympics. When I watch the Olympics, I need the commentators. All of the drama, all of the interest of the games comes from the commentators. Watching the ski jump, seeing men flying through the air on skis and not breaking every bone in their body, I was impressed. But apparently I was a fool. Apparently, that guy sucked, he sucked hard. His tips were all up in his face, and... he was... crossed. Oh yeah, look at the disappointment in his face. You can taste it. All these emotions, all these subtle nuances would be lost without the commentators.

I've been watching curling for 7 hours now. I fell asleep to men's curling, and have awoken to women's curling. In between, I dreamt I was a stone, hurtling across an endless stretch of ice. And every once in a while there was a penguin. I digress. Apparently the oddly cute American curling team, skipped (did I say that right Sam? Skipped?) by Cassie Johnson, is really sucking. Of course I wouldn't know that unless it was for the commentators. But now I find myself screaming in anger, going "No! How could you have missed that shot!", even though I'm not entirely sure how you actually make a shot in curling.

The commentators are so fantastic because they make me feel like I'm part of their world, they not only make me aware that there is a whole community out there obsessed with curling, but they make me feel like I want to be a part of it. At least part of it enough to find out where I can buy a pair of those shoes they wear that let them glide on the ice like that. During the men's competition last night, they were talking to the sidelines reporter about the condition of the skip's knee, and she was saying how during the world championship he turned to the reporters and made a joke about anyone having some cartilage to spare. There were a few things that struck me about that. One, do you really need a sideline reporter for curling? Two, that was not a joke sir. Jokes are supposed to be funny. But mostly what worried me was the word reporters. Plural. More than one reporter who covers the sport of curling. If there was one guy, from 'Curling Monthly' - fine. But two? That's just a waste. I'm guessing she reported the story wrong, and when the guy asked the second reporter if he had any questions, he just stuffed the free donut in his mouth and ran out the door.

Apocalypse Nowish

2006-02-12T23:15:00.000-06:00

I didn't see 'The Passion of The Christ', mainly because my grandma freaked me out by telling me over and over again that it was a moving experience. This is the woman who walked out of 'Pulp Fiction', but raves about a snuff film. As long as it's a snuff film about Jesus. Anyway, apparently Mel Gibson has taken the success as an excuse to load on the crazy. And load it he has. 'Apocalypto' is... I don't know. After watching the teaser, I have no idea what its about, except I know there was a panther in it. But the best part about the teaser? Gibson decided to put himself in it. Is he in the movie? No. Does he look awesome in a beard? Yes. Not the point. Wow, those kids look really happy to be working with him. And who wouldn't?

* There wasn't really a point to this post, other than to put this picture up. But I feel like it was worth it.

Because She, Charlie, Is A Nitwit.

2006-02-11T01:33:00.000-06:00

I don't get Chicago. It always has the reputation of being the cool, understated city, the city that's like that guy at the party who sits in the corner quietly sipping his drink while the guy over at the bar talks loudly about how crazy he and his friends are (this would be New York), Chicago of course knows the guy is a dirty liar, but he's too cool to care. He just keeps sipping his drink. Which happens to be an appletini. That's how cool he is. This is the city of Wilco, of 'High Fidelity', of 'This American Life'. A city which I have yet to find. Maybe it's because I inevitably spend most of my time in the South Loop, or maybe it's because the best parts of this city are being destroyed before I find out about them.

According to a story on last week's TAL, there is a chocolate factory in the West Loop, and if you were to stand on the right bridge (like perhaps the one I can see from my room?) the whole city would begin to smell like chocolate. That is until someone complained to the EPA. And the EPA, responsible government agency they are, told the factory to limit the amount of cocoa dust they released into the air (As for all of the coal plants in the Chicagoland area releasing more than the legal amount of particles into the air? They'll totally get to that later). So now it's gone. Now we're just left with that damp smell that comes from the street grates and the always pleasing aroma of exhaust. Maybe that person lived too close to the factory to realize how wonderful that smell is. Perhaps its how I don't understand how trees seem to be endlessly fascinating to people. But year after year, they are. And I live with it. I don't call the government and complain about the trees, not only because I'm a nice guy, but also because the government has stopped taking my calls, so it'd be kind of pointless to try anyway. And I'd call the guy a joyless bastard, but honestly, what's the point? I'm sure he knows it, and is probably proud of it, as the way most joyless bastards are. Stories like these always stick in the back of my mind, when I watch a movie with a character who is just such an unbelievable dick that I think it's poorly written, that no one could be that terrible, but then I think back to the chocolate guy, and go, "Oh wait, actually, they can."

I Swear To God I'll Stab You With A Fork

2006-02-10T17:04:00.000-06:00

If you don't watch Arrested Development tonight. Fox is dumping the final four episodes of the third season tonight at 8 (Or 7, for us here in "real" time) against the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. It's a nice way for America to show that they have no taste whatsoever as they overwhelmingly choose to watch the athletes from Moldova parade under some obscure metaphor for Italian history (I'm guessing it's going to be a giant wooden head) rather than watching one of the funniest shows ever on television. There's a chance though, that these won't be the last episodes, in fact, ABC has offered series creator Mitchell Hurwitz a deal for 13 episodes to air next season, and Showtime has offered the show a two season deal. The only thing standing in the way is... Mitchell Hurwitz. Hurwitz isn't sure whether or not he wants to put the effort into totally moving his show to a new network when it doesn't even seem like anyone watches it. And yes, it feels like people watch it, but then you might want to reconsider that we only know about 10 people total, and the world doesn't revolve around us. Though it totally should.

And in, semi-related, because Judy Greer was on both shows news, Tom Cavanagh's new show 'Love Monkey', has been cancelled. Which is odd, since Cavanagh was just on Conan the night before, and Ivana Milicevic was on The Tony Danza show the same day (Why was I watching the Tony Danza show you ask? Because it's awesome, that's why). So on the week when there was finally some publicity for the show? Yeah, it's time to pull the plug. Three episodes and no one's picked up on it? Well then, it'll never catch on. Kill it. Then wrap the body in a rug and drop it in a lake. And let's never speak of it again. Ah well. I was kind of sentimental about a show that had Ben Folds as a guest star. But then it kind lost me when it had James Blunt on as a guest star in the next episode... because he scares me. It's the way he just... stares at you.

Prose is for Prats

2006-02-09T03:12:00.000-06:00

There was supposed to be a third paragraph in that previous post. Things I wanted to say, to link, but I couldn't tie it in to the point I was trying to make. And I didn't even realize I was trying to make a point. How weird is that? So here is a list of the things I was planning on mentioning in the phantom paragraph:

- This American Life is becoming a television show (I was excited for this one, I even got a picture).

- The O.C.

- Bear Costumes.

- How Scarlett Johansson broke my heart.

- Blood Pudding.

- How Jenny Lewis makes things better.

- Making it look like your hat has eyes.

- Kanye to do his own jazzy theme.

- Smurfs.

- Why the first season of Alias was a thing of true beauty.

- That kitten continues to hang in there.

The fun part is to figure out how they could all fit together into a coherent statement. Technically this is my job, but... I'm tired.

I Don't Think They're Ready, Ready For This Jelly

2006-02-09T00:48:00.000-06:00

Do you hear that noise? No, besides that of your upstairs neighbors body slamming each other to the bass line of a System of a Down song. The other one. It's my head, and it's buzzing. I wanted to write something about the Grammys, but it's hard since I didn't actually watch the Grammys. Things happened, like Veronica Mars and Lost, and it was snowing, that was pretty, then I played this game where I closed one of my eyes and tried to grab a glass and I couldn't, I just couldn't. But it got me thinking about how this last year was a pretty exciting year for music. Or... at least it's exciting for me. Why? Because I am an average looking man.

I know what you're saying, that's not exciting, it is in fact, average. Let me take this time to tell you that you're wrong. The point is, the unspoken rule that you have to be good looking to be on television and magazine covers seems to be coming to an end. But is that really what we want? Odds are, you too, are an average looking person, with deep rooted self esteem issues related to the fact that you lack the ability to stick out in a crowd. We see the loads of beautiful people with pretty problems as they get torn through the tabloids, we don't feel bad about not being as famous as they are because we are not nearly as pretty as they are, it's justified. But now, people like Ben Gibbard are getting videos made devoted almost entirely to their faces. When it's Peter Gabriel, fine, I get that. But when it's the band members of Death Cab For Cutie getting three minutes devoted to their thoroughly average mugs? Well that just makes me feel lazy. I don't have an excuse any more, I can't get by with the old "Oh, I'm too plain for anyone to care" excuse. Honestly, look at them. I think I had an English class with the drummer once. I can't be sure though, because he's so plain he just kind of slips my memory.

I Blame Xenu

2006-02-07T02:03:00.000-06:00

It is impossible to get sick of Tom Cruise. Perhaps that's the mission in Mission Impossible 3, just a large group of people watching Tom Cruise movies, and a man in a white lab coat periodically sticking his head in to ask if they're sick of him yet. The answer will of course be no. Then that jazzy theme will kick in.

Actually no, it won't be that. But Paramount certainly seems to be testing the idea, since it put the MI:3 ad that aired during the super bowl into regular circulation. Maybe they didn't, maybe they're only airing it during the episode of Stella I'm watching at 2 in the morning, as a secret special treat for people like me who watch television in the middle of the night. But once again, I think I'm off. I also think I should wear a suit more often. Damn they look sharp. I mean look at them. Really, look at them. Seeing the ad wouldn't be strange except MI:3 isn't coming out till May 5th. May 5th, as in three months from now. So if you haven't gotten your fill of Tom Cruise in the last six months from his constant camera mugging and random public breakdowns, then you're in luck, because you'll get to see him look all angry as Phillip Seymour Hoffman shouts at him over and over again till it feels like they're a part of you, the little voice that helps you through those rough little patches of the day. Like when you run out of yarn and it's started to rain, and damn why is the yarn emporium so far away?

You know what would also be super? If instead of continually showing Hoffman shouting and Cruise smoldering (it's the only word that could begin to describe what the man does), maybe they could show more of the 50 people I actually care about who are supposed to be in this movie. Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, Simon Pegg (could zombies be part of the mission? I can only dream), Michelle Monaghan, Keri Russell, and the man among men, Greg Grunberg. Who, I should note, also looks incredibly sharp in a suit. But sharp suits aside, I'll probably see Tom Cruise hit that car a hundred more times before I see footage of any of them in the movie. Though seeing him hit that car is kind of funny. You know what else is funny? 'Road Trip'. It's on TBS right now, and apparently, they know funny.

Corned Beef and Anarchy

2006-02-06T04:11:00.000-06:00

The second best Super Bowl ad after the glorious return of Richard Dean Anderson? V For Vendetta. This movie makes me really nervous, not just because I really liked the graphic novel, but also because if they screw up another Alan Moore adaptation I'm afraid the man might kill someone. Lots of people. In a terribly grizzly manner. But the movie keeps looking better and better. The first trailer looked a little iffy, but after they published the posters and the second trailer, it looks like the minimal amount of blood will be spilled. And if that wasn't enough, the new trailer included this image, which means I've already bought my ticket.

Because I am a simple, simple man.

The film opens March 17th, St. Patricks Day. It was originally supposed to open on November 5th of last year, which is perfect since it was Guy Fawkes Day, and the whole story revolves around the Guy Fawkes mythology. But St. Patrick's Day is a good second to Guy Fawkes day, at least for the Irish, because the Irish love nothing more than a good story about fighting a corrupt British government. Except maybe Guinness. And doing jigs. Anyway... March 17th. And Natalie Portman hosts SNL on March 4th. Hopefully it will be funny, and not in the way 'Phantom Menace' was funny. You know... funny... with humour.

Return of the Angus

2006-02-05T22:29:00.000-06:00

I cried a little. When my roommate said "I don't get it," I threw a bowl of dip at his head. Covered in artichoke and spinach, I sent him out of the room, full of shame. I wasn't going to let him ruin what is probably going to be the best thing to happen to me all year. MacGyver came back. It doesn't even matter if Christ has a second coming any more, because I feel like I've been saved. Saved by a paper clip and a tube sock.

I feel more alive than I have in years. My head is buzzing, imagining all the things that he's been doing for the last 14 years. What was great about the commercial was that it suggests that Mac got over his whole, saving inner city youth from joining gangs and black rhinos from being poached phase, and got back to the basics: coming up with elaborate ways to escape and foil generic foreign thugs. But would we still be satisfied with the mere foiling of generic thugs? Now that we live in a post 9/11 world, where Jack Bauer comes up with different ways to torture information out of people every Monday (Jack is kind of the MacGyver of torture now that I think about it. A lamp and a sponge? That's thinking on your feet.), would we be satisfied with MacGyver simply leaving the bad guys locked in a warehouse, rather than leaving them riddled with bullets? Of course the television landscape that MacGyver first appeared in was full of macho, shoot first say a poorly written line right after you shoot heroes on shows like 'Miami Vice' and 'Hunter'; MacGyver was supposed to be an alternative. A hybrid to Hunter's Hummer. And as much as I love '24', what was nice about the commercial was it gives you the idea that that type of alternative is still out there. Of course now its relegated to commercials. But still. It's out there.

The point of all of this is that MacGyver is still awesome. Especially now that he got his haircut. Because I feel better gushing about people when they don't look like Patrick Swayze in 'Roadhouse'.

Unless I'm gushing about Patrick Swayze in 'Roadhouse'. Awesome performance, awesome movie.

She's Crazy About Me, Which I Love In A Person

2006-01-31T18:04:00.000-06:00

Comedy Central has just greenlit six episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program, set to star Sarah Silverman, which will air in the summer. Lauren Corrao, Comedy Central's exec Vp of development, decribed the pilot in Entertainment Weekly as:

''In the pilot, her remote control runs out of batteries and she has to get new ones because she can't stand the images on her TV, like children dying of cancer. She ends up meeting God, who's black and who she has sex with only to find out he behaves like a needy, insecure guy afterwards and she can't get him out of her apartment.''

Wonderful. Now just give Stella a second season and erase all traces of anything 'Redneck', and well, Comedy Central, I just might make an honest woman out of you yet.

Shiny Little Men, They're Everywhere

2006-01-31T08:25:00.000-06:00

Wow, today is a big day. Tonight is the President's State of the Union address, which I will not be watching since there's a new Gilmore Girls on opposite it. I'm not really ashamed of this since the address is basically just a preview of the talking points that I'll be consistently beat over the head with for the next year, so I'm in no rush to hear them, especially when I know that he'll just trip over his delivery and then smirk at the end of every sentence, as if to notify "Cool, right?" It's like his variation of a laugh track, his version of sticking his thumbs up and going "Ehhh...", which is probably what he really wants to do, though they've probably convinced him that that wouldn't play as well as he thinks it will. That's probably the reason that he stopped wearing the leather jacket during the 2000 primaries. And why he didn't marry Pinky Tuscadero all those years ago. Or why he didn't jump his bike over all of those garbage cans. Ah, the things we sacrifice for our careers.

But the only important thing to happen today already happened. The Oscar Nominations. And the biggest news among them? That's right, cinematographer Robert Elswit is now Oscar nominated cinematographer Robert Elswit. I was a little worried that he might split the vote between 'Good Night, and Good Luck.' and 'Syriana', but now that he got the nomination for 'Good Night' the work in both films will hopefully seal his win. I also just realized that the fact that I wrote that previous sentence could serve as a valuable clue to the state of my current social life. Anyway, Noah Bambauch got a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and honestly, anyone who writes a scene with a kid smearing his semen on library books deserves to win. Though apparently only screen-writers saw that movie, because if any one else had then they would have given a nomination to Laura Linney rather than Judi Dench. Honestly, Judi Dench? Were they really that hard up for Best Actress nominees? Did any one see 'Mrs. Henderson Presents'? I'm not sure if Judi Dench saw it, I think she fell asleep the night she was planning on seeing it because she took a nap before hand, and then woke up like five minutes before it was going to start, and then debated whether or not she was willing to miss the first few minutes, and then she probably just got a snack and went back to bed. Though one good thing about the fact that the Best Actress category was such a crap shoot was that Keira Knightley pulled out a nomination, which is great because it means that more people will hopefully see that movie, which I honestly thought was one of the best last year (it also had one of Donald Sutherland's best performances to date, and he didn't even get killed by a dwarf in this one). And you know what, I'm willing to give up my bitterness towards Dame Judi Dench's nomination, because she was in Pride and Prejudice. That's how much I liked it. And, on a related note, I highly enjoy watching the sport of football. Ahem. Some people say that Keira Kinghtley shouldn't have been nominated, that in all of her previous movies she was out acted by soccer balls, deteriorating monkeys and planks of wood. I say that this is erroneous (that monkey couldn't act for shit), and that she was able to tap into just the right amount of girlishness and stubborn feminism to pull off Lizzy Bennet. That and she is really, really pretty. I'm fairly sure that counts for something.

Oh, and William Hurt? And for that argument Frances McDormand? They're both great actors, but out of the cast of 'A History of Violence', him? He's in it for five minutes and I'm fairly sure he was on morphine the entire time. It was enjoyable, but it's kind of a waste of a nomination (Sutherland? Sarsgaard. Or, as the pirates convention would say, "SarsgaaRRRRRRRRD" Honestly, what does Peter Sarsgaard have to do to get a nomination? 'Boys Don't Cry', 'Shattered Glass', 'Kinsey', 'Jarhead'. Does he have to play a musician, is that what you want from him? Because he'll do it. He does a mean Smiths - era Morrissey). And no one in the academy saw North Country, they probably saw that McDormand used the same accent that she used in 'Fargo' and got all excited. Did S. Epatha Merkerson get nominated for 'Lackawana Blues'? I think she must have, since it's become federal law to give her an award for that. I don't even know what 'Lackawana Blues' is, but I feel the need to give her an award for it. I also think Jon Brion should have been nominated. Sure, he didn't compose any scores this year, but logic doesn't really play into the minds of Academy voters, proven by the fact that they seem to think that Clint Eastwood is the greatest American filmmaker working today. Because we can never give the star of 'Every Which Way But Loose' too many awards. The man acted with a monkey. And not some, "Peter Jackson - digital-monkey" crap, but an honest to goodness monkey. No amount of awards we give him will bestow the amount of honor that he truly deserves. But we have to try.

Poor Salesmanship

2006-01-30T02:01:00.000-06:00

Lou Rawls passed away on January 6th. A fact which apparently has yet to reach the people at Colonial Penn Life Insurance, who continue to run their ads with Rawls as a compensated endorser. I haven't reached the point in my life where I feel the need to buy life insurance, but I'm fairly sure that when people buy their policies, it's more as a precaution than an admission of their inevitable demise. Which is exactly the feeling you get when a dead man tries to sell you life insurance. So... creepy.

Keep Your Specs On

2006-01-29T23:09:00.000-06:00

'Brick' is going to be the best movie of 2006. True, I haven't seen any other movies that are coming out this year, so to say that is a little irresponsible and I'm probably getting ahead of myself. But I haven't seen anything else that looks half as good as this movie was. What else is going to beat high schoolers talking like they just walked out of a Hammit story? Joseph Gordon Levitt beating up on hash heads? Nora Zehetner as the second coming of Mary Astor? Have I asked enough questions yet? Am I getting through to you? I hope so. Apple finally put the trailer up the other day. Don't be fooled by the high school jokey jokes in the trailer. The Richard Roundtree scene is nothing more than what you see, and the stuff with Lucas Haas' mom doesn't go much further either. That's what's so great about the movie, that it doesn't really care that these are high school kids, it just deals with it as a straight up mystery. I promise you'll get so into it that you'll be talking like a hard boiled noir character till you destroy any semblance of a normal social life. And really, isn't that what we want from the movies?

The Man With A Magical Beard

2006-01-29T19:15:00.000-06:00

I like Fiona Apple well enough, but one thing you can't really say about her is that she has a super sense of humour. I don't know, maybe she has a large repertoire of knock-knock jokes that she slays people with, but she's never used them in public. Which is a shame, because knock-knock jokes are hilarious. And so is Zach Galifianakis. If you weren't aware that the man was magical from his failed VH1 talk show (actually, I don't really blame you if you missed that one, though it was pretty funny), or from his stint on the failed 'Tru Calling' (don't really blame you if you missed that one either), or from his role in 'Out Cold' (Um..). Let me regroup a bit. If you did miss his Comedy Central special or the Comedians of Comedy last year, then, you're a communist. And if you don't believe me, just look at the video for Apple's 'Not About Love', because if you need proof that he's funny, just look at this. He makes her smile. Fiona Apple, the saddest girl in the world, cracks up over him. Which is scientific proof that if you don't laugh at him, then you're kind of a grinch. And nobody likes a grinch.

Distinguished Gentlemen

2006-01-29T16:24:00.000-06:00

It's become obvious this last weekend why there is such apathy towards the political system in America. We are boring. People were upset that no one watched the Alito hearings, but I think those people would have understood why no one watched them if they themselves had actually tried to watch them. My theory? They were eating pie while they forced an unpaid intern to watch the hearing for them. I'm looking at you, Wolf Blitzer. That beard is fooling no one. I tried watching some of the hearings (during that stretch of the day in between MacGyver and West Wing reruns) but then I saw a squirrel running on the phone wires, which was much more interesting. God, that squirrel was really cute.

And it wouldn't be that unbearable if it wasn't so obvious that politics around the world were ten times as fun as they are here. Look at Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The man's going on 70, but doesn't look a day past 64 thanks to his face lift and hair transplants. And these aren't little skeletons in the closet, little "John Kerry's trips to the Botox clinic" embarrassments. He's public about the work he's had done, because he's a man's man. He boasts that he was able to negotiate a EU contract away from Finland's female president Tarja Halonen by using his 'playboy tactics'. Does it matter that this is the woman who is getting a bump in the polls due to the fact that she looks like Conan O'Brien? No, because as all real men know, we boast about anything that we can get. Anything.

And now, at a recent party rally where he was thanked by a bishop for his opposition to gay marriage and his support of family values, the prime minister thanked him by promising to be abstinent until the general elections on April 9th. This tactic alone probably wouldn't help make our anti-pro-gay-family-values whatever rallies any more interesting though. In fact it would make it worse, because if President Bush promised to be abstinent until the midterm elections, all that would mean to me is that he and the First Lady have been...intimate. Currently. Or for that fact, ever. I know logically that they have, but, it's like my teachers, or my parents. I, personally refuse to believe that my parents have ever had intercourse. I know that that flies in the face of my very existence, but you know what? I'm okay with that.

And you know what would have made the Alito hearings a little more exciting? More use of the word "whore". That's what the fine people over at the Saddam Hussein trial figured out this weekend. Hussein's co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim was dragged out of court after standing and shouting that the court was a "daughter of a whore". So not only is the court's mom a slut, but he also called it a girl. Double whammy. Saddam had his back though, shouting "down with traitors" and "down with the Americans". It's too bad things turned out the way they did, because Saddam would have been a great guy to have in your entourage. Having your back at the club, screaming "You best check yourself before you wreck yourself" to that guy who just looked at your girl wrong. And then hopefully there would be a dance off, because little known fact, Saddam is world champion pop and locker.
Or if that didn't work out he'd just pull out his patent "shoot my shot gun into the air" move. Because that never fails.

Things just went down hill from there though, with the defense team leaving the court in protest, and then Saddam leaving the court in protest of his new defense team. All of this happened on judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman's first day, taking over after the previous judge quit. I sure hope he had time to hang up his 'Hang in There' poster with the little kitty on a clothes wire before the trial got under way, because he's sure going to need it.

So what did the Alito hearings have? It was nothing but a bland white guy dodging questions from other bland white people for forty hours. The highlights included Ted Kennedy making Mrs. Alito cry by talking about some secret society at Princeton, and Joseph Biden talking about himself for half an hour and then wearing a silly hat (perhaps he's learned a lesson from Hamas?). We put so much stock in propriety and respect, when it's obvious that all politicians are a vulgar lot brimming with contempt for each other. Now, I understand more than anyone that there is nothing more healthy or American than a good dose of repression. But perhaps we should take a page from the greatest of American traditions, wrestling, and throw a little smack down in the senate every now and then, before all of this simmering agression erupts in some sort of unjustified use of preemptive force.

* Apparently wrestling isn't an American tradition, it is, in fact, Greek. But to be fair we're the ones who made it cool.

Technology Vs. Horse

2006-01-29T04:24:00.000-06:00

Adaptation is a dangerous movie. It's a movie that give hope to the thousands of overweight, sweaty, neurotic wanna-be filmmakers out there, that someone might actually find their lives interesting. But they won't. We're over weight, sweaty, and insecure - and unless you're Charlie Kaufman, you can't make that work. Especially now, since they already made 'Adaptation', because if you try to write a story about a screenwriter people write it off as an 'Adaptation' rip off. As they should. Because it is. Probably. Unfortunately though, it's not the neurotic ones you have to worry about. They wouldn't be able to make it past the third page before they talked themselves out of it. It's the ones who think stories about rogue screenwriters who are turned down for being too creative and thinking out of the box and eventually fight the corrupt Hollywood system to bring their glorious vision to the world (and somewhere in all of this get the girl, because there is always a girl) are really interesting. Because when you tell them that no one cares about that, then they just get indignant and keep writing the same story.

Also, Brian Cox is the shit. Not just in this movie, but everything he's ever been in. Except maybe 'Manhunter', but that's probably due to the taint that Hopkins put on the character. Even though Cox did it a few years before, you still just look at 'Manhunter' and go "No, wrong. You're doing it wrong," and then you realize you're talking to the television screen again, and go pour yourself a glass of water and hope no one heard you making an ass out of yourself. But the point is Brian Cox made me laugh when he was acting drunk in 'Super Troopers'. That was the point.

Pick up the Pieces

2006-01-27T19:30:00.000-06:00

First, it took me like half an hour to come up with a title for this. I was thinking, 'All to Pieces', but it felt too easy. It's hard to feel clever coming up with a pun-ish title about a guy who has been publicly humiliated over a book with 'Pieces' in the title. The book was called 'A Million Little Pieces' in reference to the fact that he fell apart into said pieces. So it's not really a joke to say he's fallen to pieces, because he already said it. As some one who was picked on as a kid, one valuable tool I picked up is that if you agree with your tormenter, they kind of lose interest. When a kid would call me fat, I would just kind of chuckle, say "You sure got me pegged," and then offer him some pie. Because I never went anywhere without a fresh baked pie. I think I was trying to make the point that you can't really make the joke if he already made it about himself. Or something like that. I tend to lose focus when I start talking about pie. Anyway, I ended up going with 'Pick Up The Pieces' because not only does it fit with the title of the book, and Frey's current situation, but it's an Average White Band reference too. Everybody wins.

Anyway, I think James Frey is in a pretty nice situation right now. Sure he's been publicly humiliated by being proven a liar, but oh, oh no, it's okay, because Oprah was there for him. Except now, not so much. I don't watch Oprah, not because I despise her, just because they air the show in the morning here in Chicago (Though I do despise her). Anyway. It looks like he had it handed to him and left with his tail between his legs. But now, well now he's golden. He's been emotionally destroyed on national television, he's sitting on a pile of money, and he has a history of drug use (sort of). All of this looks like the beginning of a destructive downward spiral that makes one hell of a memoir. Sure he kind of half assed it before, but now he's been handed a second chance to totally ruin his life. And after it's all done, he can write it all down, and maybe make it back into a certain little book club.

Though I guess if he was smart about it he could just skip all the destructive bits and then lie again.

Hat's Off to You

2006-01-27T07:15:00.000-06:00

There's been a lot of talk about Hamas's success in this week's Palestinian parliamentary elections. It's been suggested that this should serve as a sobering lesson for those who have been pushing so hard for democratic reform in the middle east over the last few years. Right, but more importantly, there seems to be a political lesson we can all learn here. Point of fact: hats. I don't know anything about Hamas other than that they all wear sweet green baseball caps. Well, that and that they're not really fond of Israel, but that's kind of a gimme. Other than that though, does it matter what their other social stances are? Bet you a nickel half the people who voted for them don't really know what they stand for - they were just in it to get a hat. And really can you blame them? If the GOP candidate was running on the promise of passing a federal law requiring the wearing of bow ties 24 hours a day, I'd still vote for them. Just as long as I got a hat.