Oops...

Britney Spears - Blackout (F) It is my solemn duty to tell you that I listened to this album by mistake. That is, even with my judicious avoidance of all things Britney, I found myself in the position of being forced to listen to it. Enough of it to get an impression, anyways.

Well, what happened was my car was in the shop getting the driver's door fixed, so's the insurance company gave me a loaner for a week. I couldn't plug in my Ipod anywhere-(Curse you, Nissan!), so I was stuck listening to the radio's top-forty station all that week. Now, you may think, "Hey, stupid! There's, you know, OTHER radio stations you can listen to, Einstein!" Well, yeah, but it seemed like too much of a bother to figure out how to switch stations at the time, you know? I'd be halfway to work, a Miss B. song would come on, I'd slap my forehead and go, "Shit, I was gonna change the station before I left my parking lot, ah, fuggit." And it went on like that all week. Boy howdy, was I glad to get my car back.

Anyways, looking over the production credits on AMG, a thought occurred to me. You've got all these producers and engineers with considerable 'street credit', like Pharrel Williams and The Neptunes working on her album. So, it's got a considerable dance club hook going for it. I suspect you'll be getting various re-mix versions by various underground DJ's being released on the club circuit coming out. You know, the Paul Oakenfeld "Gimme more' remix and such.

My thought was this: So you've got all these producers and engineers holed up in a studio for three months, fourteen hour days, crafting an album that has to appeal to as wide a demographic as humanly possible. So everyone in the process is under a lot of pressure. To make things worse, an advance track's leaked onto the Internet, making it imperative that the album get released sooner than later. You've got Jive entertainment execs on the phone, increasingly agitated, tempers are running short. Perhaps Pharell and the Neptunes get into a screaming match in the studio. A bottle of mineral water is thrown, the room goes silent. Pharell storms out of the studio to calm down, maybe have a smoke. ("Man, I swore to my girl that I'd quit this shit for good!) An older producer steps in, calms things down. Work continues. After what seems like forever, the end of the road is near. Morale improves. People discuss what they're going to do on their downtime. ("Shit, I'm goin' to St. Lucia for three weeks! Bring my fuckin' laptop with me, get some work done on a white beach!") Finally, the last track is mastered, and all that's left to be done is call the armed courier service to take the master tapes to the CD manufacturer.

Just as they're about to make that call, an intern pipes up, hesitantly. "Say, um, guys? I don't hear Britney's vocals on the tapes? What's goin' on?" The producers all look at one another. Embarrassed laughs and slapped foreheads abound. A quick phone call, and Britney's on the phone, doing her vocals. The process takes about forty minutes. They'll leave a couple of junior guys in the studio to do cleanup, process her voice so it sounds good enough. Dodged THAT bullet, at least.

So as the Neptunes leave for the airport in the limo Jive rented them, one turns to the other and says, "Shit, man. That album was a lot better before that white-trash ho' went and fucked it up with her, um, singin..." "Heard that, m'man. But you know... Nigga gots to get paid!" They laugh, clink together celebratory glasses of Hennessy, and head out into the night...

...And that's the name of that tune, Jack.

Good Grief! More Reviews!

Black Book (C-) A WW2 era thriller masquerading as a moral quagmire. Director Paul Verhoven's proven himself as one of the most perverse filmmakers this side of Takashi Miike. So this Dutch Jewish girl's friends and family are brutally murdered by the Nazis while trying to escape to Belgium. So she gets caught up in the local Resistance movement, and gets romantically involved with a Nazi official so's she can find out when and where members of the Resistance have been locked up. Along the way, she discovers that a Resistance leader has been selling out escaping Jews to the Nazis, and was responsible for her family's deaths.

The story winds up getting pretty convoluted along the way, (Wait, so the other Nazi official, the fat one with the gross sexual appetite wasn't the mastermind? So was it her family's lawyer? No, so it was the Doctor who was selling out to the Nazis after all?) to the point I'd have to watch it again to be sure. Lead actress Carice Van Houten is quite the little yummy, though. And this being a Verhoven flick, we get to see her nekked a lot. So, um, there's that...


Shrek 3 (C-) Offensively inoffensive. When you see a Dreamworks brand(tm) animated feature, you know what you're getting, and if you expected any surprises, well, it would be like flipping to your local newspaper's comic page and seeing Garfield slashing Odie's face off.

This one has Shrek tracking down another heir to the throne of Far, Far Away on account of he doesn't want the job of king. Meanwhile, the disgruntled Prince Charming stages a coup while Shrek's gone. So Shrek and his pals have to usurp Charming and convince Artie, the potential heir, to take the throne. It's all pretty lightweight stuff. The jokes come and go, and I found myself glad to see the end of it.

One thing I noticed, on the DVD extras, was the odd presentation of a couple of cut scenes. It's noticeable in the fact that they're presented as storyboard presentations by members of the Dreamworks staff, who pitch the scene to other members who laugh obsequiously. My question is, why? The scenes weren't that funny, which is why they were cut, so why were the writers all laughing at 'em? Were they that afraid of getting fired?



The Complete Peanuts (1950-52) (Fantagraphics) (A) -What makes this volume worth getting is this: Not only are you being introduced to the world of Peanuts, and subsequently you can decide whether or not it's worth your while to continue picking these collections up as Fantagraphics and the Schulz estate continue to release them...(oh, believe me, it is!)

...But you'll be astonished on how quickly Schulz found his voice as a cartoonist. The melancholy pervasive through his later work starts to come through as early as '52. When he starts doing Sunday strips, the composition really stands out.His line work is bold and confident. Ivan Brunetti's statement that Schulz was the 'Brando' of comics really doesn't seem that absurd, in retrospect.

The only thing that bothers me, in continuing to collect these, is watching his work start to slide in the '80's. That might be too depressing to continue buying these. And given the regularity in which these volumes are released, it'll be sooner then later.

More Sitcom crap...

Dialogue from sitcoms that you can stop watching after the first minute...

"Well, here I am at the lovely Healing Springs Spa! I still can't believe that I won the runner-up prize of two full days here that the publishing company I work for had that contest for! I wonder... who won the grand prize of a full week?"

"Hello, Shelley..."

"Oh, hello, Prudence, my office rival! Don't tell me you're the winner of the full week spa vacation!"

"Yes, Shelly...(tosses hair disdainfully) Once again, we see, even in a contest, you always come second! Ta-ta!"

"Ooh, that-that Prudence! I hope we don't get locked into the sauna room, where after a period of snide insults and witty comebacks, she tearfully reveals that the reason for her condescending treatment of me is because she secretly admires my youth, intelligence and talent, and is too emotionally closed off to open herself up to pursuing a friendship with me! After which, I hold her in my lap and comfort her and hold out a hand of friendship to her. Of course, once we are rescued, Prudence's bitchy persona will come to the fore and afterwards, it will be like our shared moment in the sauna will have never happened!"

------------------------------------------------------------------

"Great news, Chester!"

"Whatever could that be, Carlton, my over-sexed friend? You've found an Internet site offering 25% off Viagra?"

"Ha, ha, Chester. No, I've finally scored a date this Friday with Gretchen Olgorf, the Swedish exchange student!"

"But, Carlton... You've already got a study date this Friday with Clara Dumpty, the kind-hearted, studious girl who would be quite attractive if she didn't have her hair in a bun, and didn't wear chunky glasses, and who secretly has a crush on you!"

"Oops! And since her father is the professor of the class I need to pass this year, breaking off this study date with her will not be an option!"

"You've gotten yourself into quite a pickle, my horny friend!"

"Indeed. Say, I have an idea! If I convince Gretchen to head to the college library for a make-out session, I can juggle both dates at the same time!"

"Ooooo...And the winner for Stupidest Idea of the Year Award goes to...Carlton!"

------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mommy, look! I made a new friend! Can we keep her?"

"Oh dear, my precocious son! Bringing a dog into the house will have to be a family discussion. We'll wait until your father comes home!"

"But mommy, where will the dog stay until then?"

"Well, you'll just have to keep her in your room until after dinner, when your father will be having his boss over. Daddy's boss is allergic to dogs! Not only that, but the sight of a starving mongrel dog eating the roast turkey I'm cooking for dinner whilst giving birth to slimy, blood and mucus covered puppies will certainly reflect poorly on your father's boss while he considers giving daddy a promotion!"

"Aw, okay. C'mon, Barfy! Let's put you in my room with the broken door knob!"

------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hoo Dogies! Come see my latest money-makin' ider, brother Caleb!"

"Taters with gravy, brother Jethro! Yer always comin' up with money makin' iders to lift us up from our rural squalor, and we always wind up worse n' before! What hair-brained ider are you-all wastin' valuable time thet y' could be spendin' on tryin' to reapply fer welfare?"

"This-un's a winner, brother Caleb! I gots me some chemicals and a recipe I done downloaded from the intra-net-"

"The Intra-net? thet thang on the com-put-termafication device in our shared trailer?"

"Ke-rect! Anyways, I's gonna make us up a batch of what they calls, 'Crystal Meth'J! Then we's gonna sells it ter the city folks! It's a goldmine, Jethro! A goldmine!"

"Oooh... I hopes nothing bad is gonna happen from this here business venture of yourn! Like, I become hopelessly hooked on the product, smoke up the whole batch right before you gots a big deal to sell it to city folk who have made it explicitly clear that not delivering the meth when promised will result in your genitals being chopped off and fed to their Rottweiler, so you desperately try whipping up a batch of fake meth which gets our trailer blowed up, we each get extensive skin burns over 70% of our bodies, and our failure to deliver the meth to the city folks has us workin' for them as eunuchs in their crack-whore brothel..."

------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm home, Improbably attractive wife to whom I, a dumpy blue collar worker, am unreasonably married to!"

"Hello, my overweight, balding husband with muttonchops who wears the same flannel shirt over a white t-shirt day in and day out! My, you're home early!"

"Yes, well...I was fired from the bottle making factory that I work at!"

"Oh, goodness! Well, we have your unemployment insurance to fall back on, at least!"

"No, my wife, we do not. For you see, my sarcastic and overbearing tone which I use to great comic effect in the day-to-days of our marriage does not go over so well with the state unemployment workers, who have refused my claim!"

"Well, that's just great! Now I will spend the next twenty minutes worrying about keeping a roof over our heads and screech vile insults at you until you stomp off and hang out with your equally unattractive if slightly stupider friends in the local bar!"

"And I will counter your abuse with witty put-downs and comebacks of my own until I lose my patience and head off to the local bar, during which I will commiserate with my friends, who will remind me how precious my marriage truly is. I will then head back here to make amends, you will inexplicably fall for my overwrought hokum, we will make up, and my old boss will stop by and offer me a new job at a new bottle plant!"

"Oh, honey! I love you!"

"I love you too, darling. Now get your ass in the kitchen and fetch me a beer!"

"Worst (insert title) Ever"

Mainstream comics, that is, ones with superheros in them, are in a real quandary these days. With all the movies based on superheros coming out in theaters, you'd think we'd be seeing a upswing in comic book sales these days. I'm being generous here when I estimate the total regular audience for that sort of thing to be around a quarter of a million. While in and of itself, it's not a bad number, I suspect the average comic publisher is inclined to buy ice cream for every one in the office if sales on one of their comics tops 10,000 in a good month. Bear in mind, in those heady days of 'Bang-pow-zoom-comics-ain't-just-for-kids' in the late 80's, an acceptable title was one that sold at least 50,000, and sales of only 10,000 would've got the title in question cancelled.

The reason for this, of course, is the explosion of Manga titles in North America, and the audience that it captures. Manga's big success is that it's captured that Holy Grail of comic publishers here, namely female comic buyers. It's also created a type of comic buyer that's willing to go to such lengths as to teach itself to read the comic backwards. This is an astonishing feat in our fast-food pop culture. The big thing is, though, readers of translated manga are highly unlikely to buy domestic comics, and in fact, tend to view superhero comics in the same way that people with no interest in comic books at all view superhero comics.

As a result, superhero comic publishers are less likely to try different ideas for comics in terms of stories, and more likely to stick with the tried and true comics like Superman and Batman in an attempt to keep what little market share they have. What this means in practical terms is that if say, Brian Michael Bendis does a bang-up job on Daredevil, and Bendis' run pumps up sales of Daredevil a tad, then it makes perfect sense to get Bendis to start writing for Batman, and maybe Superman as well. The result of this is, if Bendis wants to do an original series for DC, he can put it in the closet for the foreseeable future, as his professional time will be taken up doing more fieldwork for DC. Also, it means that another writer with a less successful run ain't gonna be getting his big break writing for Batman, at least, not any time soon.

(Here's a tangent: Imagine a T.V. writer now who's been working for, say, 'Bionic Woman'. With the recent strike in place, his income flow has dropped to nothing. Manfully throwing back his shoulders, he gathers up his briefcase full of comic-book scripts and demeans himself to the professional step-down of auditioning for a shot at writing a 'Jonah Hex' mini-series. And there, in the DC reception area, are Joss Whedon and Ronald D. Moore, also trying out for the coveted 'Jonah Hex' spot...)

What you're finding now is writers like Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, and Garth Ennis who've made their mark with original series like, 'Transmetropolitan', 'The Invisibles', and 'Preacher' now writing 'X-Men', 'Nick Fury', and 'Planetary'. At this point, writing only non-superhero comics alone is something they can't afford to do. The goal for writers in their position is to jump from being big fish in the small pond of comics, to being plankton in the ocean of T.V. and film. The advantage of this move, of course, is that while they have to put up with the same petty ego battles and money grubbing overlords that they endured as comic writers, at least the money's worth it.

Which brings me to Garth Ennis' latest, The Boys (B) The premise being that in a world with corporate-sponsored superhero teams allowed carte blanche in dealing with supervillans, the U.S. government takes it on itself to hire a team of specialists to ensure that the superheroes are kept in line. Think of it as Ennis' version of Nathaniel West's "Day of the Locust". Personally, I'm more on the side of 'non-comic book person' when it comes to superhero comics, so I'm closest to an ideal audience.

It's not his best work, nowhere near the ribald fun of 'Dicks' or the epic scope of 'Preacher', but the twists and turns Ennis takes with the story are enough to keep me on board for now. I like to imagine him on his computer, late at night, typing away and screaming, "How d' ye like tha', Batman? Ah made yeh a watermelon-humpin' pervert, I did!" Extra points for using Simon Pegg of 'Shawn of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz' as a model for Wee Hughie, the P.O.V. character.

The problem with the comic, however, ties in to what I said earlier about trying to expand the mainstream comic-buying readership. This market that's in question wants to see Alan Moore's "Watchmen II: Electric Boogaloo" as opposed to Alan Moore's "A Small Killing". In other words, the audience wants to see the lives and loves of demi-gods in leotards, drawn as photo-realistically as an artist can, and told in the most earnest manner possible. To them, this comic is a frat-boy's wedgie. Put it this way: Years ago, Harvey Kurtzman pointed out the absurdity of Wonder Woman being able to deflect bullets via her bracelets without getting her wrists broken or being knocked over, and those general idioms still hold sway in the business. Ennis shows us a world where Wonder Woman is a bitter, drunken asshole. 'The Boys' has been already cancelled by Wildstorm, and I have a feeling it won't last too much longer in its current place at Dynamite.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As long as I'm geeking out over here, some quick thoughts on 'South Park'...

-The three-parter 'Imaginationland' starts out strong in the first part, carries through quite nicely in the second, and just kinda ends on a 'blah' in the third. I'm a little disappointed, mainly because having the infamous 'Christmas Critters' make a comeback had me hoping they'd be more integral to the story...

-Best Part: Cartman's obliviousness to the end of humanity's shared imaginative consciousness, just so he can humiliate Kyle in the most vile manner possible.

-Butter's last line. "Aw, shit!"

-"Guitar Queer-o" works for me as 1) I'm a huge 'Guitar Hero' nut myself, and eagerly anticipate 'Rock Band'. and 2) I've always hated that particular movie sub-genre the episode rips on, namely, the umpteenth million variation of 'A Star Is Born'. Needs more Cartman being a shitbag, though.

More Movie Ideas!

Untitled Michael Bay Project. - (aka The Greatest Fucking Movie that has ever or will ever be made!) -There's explosions. In space. Then we cut to Los Angeles. And there's more explosions. And a quick-witted, jive-talking black guy says, "Woo-wee! Hope all-ya-all white folks gots Explosion insurance!" Then we're in the President's office. And the president is an older, wiser man. And he's talking to his two advisers. One's arrogant and British. The British man says, "Mr. President, the explosions in Los Angeles... came from space." Then the president sighs and removes his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose and says, "Is there anyone in the world who can stop these explosions?" Then his other advisor, a sanguine man with a southern accent chimes in, "Sir, there's only one man who can stop these explosions..."

And we cut to Colin Farrell, working as an expert in his office doing his job. Only he's not doing his job, the scene's been edited to make the audience think he's doing his job, only he's goofing off. Then his hot model-secretary says over the intercom, "Sir, the government's here to see you!" and Colin Farrell laughs in an ingratiating manner, and tells his secretary to tell the government that he's not in the office, but it's too late. The two advisers are already in his office, with some FBI guys with guns. They tell Colin Farrell that the government needs his help to stop the explosions in Los Angeles, only by now the explosions are spreading out to San Fransisco and Sacramento. "Call me after the explosions stop in Seattle." quips Colin Farrell. "Why?" asks the advisers. "Because...", smiles Colin Farrell, roguishly. "My ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, lives in Seattle, and maybe the explosions will blow her up, and her new husband-"

And we cut to Brad Pitt being all Brad Pitt in Seattle, and he's a professional UFC fighter, and he's doing UFC stuff to an appreciative crowd, and just before he does something Cool, he cockily turns to one of his clients, and says, "Hey... I don't get outa bed for less than a million dollars, ya dig?". Then the client smiles nervously, and hands him a check for a millon dollars. Brad smiles charmingly, then does something like, I don't know, a wicked sweet Brazilian Ju-jitsu move that takes down this Russian dude to the crowd, and they go nuts, like the Second Coming or something. Then, in the locker room, Brad Pitt endorses the check to an orphanage, cause he's really a nice guy. His phone rings. It's his new wife, Angelina Jolie. They make sexy talk. We cut to her. She is in a business suit in an office and is obviously the boss of where she works. She is also pregnant. She coos her goodbyes to Brad, then just as she hangs up, some FBI guys show up at her office. They explain the situation with the explosions in Los Angeles, and ask for her help. She's the back-up in case Colin Farrell won't help them, and according to him, she's the #2 expert in these matters. Angie fumes. "He didn't teach me everything he knows, I taught him everything I know!" So Angelina Jolie goes to Washington to help the president, and to spite her ex-husband, Colin Farrell.

As Angelina's going to Washington, some explosions happen in Portland, Oregon. They're really cool, with the camera at an angle, and exciting Hans Zimmer music, and a tanker full of gas slides sideways, crunches a bunch of cars in its path, and goes caroming off the elevated freeway that it's on into an old gas station, where a crotchety old man is sitting on a rocking chair, scowling at passersby and whittling. Then the tanker explodes, throwing the old man into a tree, where he looks around in bewilderment. "Well, I'll be jiggered", he exclaims, covered in soot.

The result of these new explosions in Portland means that the problem is bigger than just Angelina Jolie can handle on her own. So she does some soul-searching, which means Angelina stares contemplating out a window while nibbling her massive lower lip. She rubs her swollen belly while violins on the soundtrack swell. Finally, she sighs and dials a number on her phone...

...that rings the number in Colin Farrell's office. He doesn't hear it at first, as he's nursing a bottle of scotch, and rubbing his finger thoughtfully on an old framed photo of Angelina Jolie that he keeps in his desk. After some back-and-forth snarking, Farrell reluctantly agrees to help Angelina track down the explosions. One more thing, Angelina says, reluctantly. Brad Pitt, her new husband, will be working with them. Farrell blanches on his end, then sighs, hangs up, and downs the rest of his scotch.

Anyways, to make a long story short, there's more explosions, Brad Pitt goes flying upside down through a window while firing two handguns at some bad guys, Steve Buschimi and Michael Duncan Clark show up as comedy relief, a helicopter crashes into the Griffin Observatory, Yadda yadda yah. Oh, and it turns out Colin Farrell was in fact, the father of Angelina Jolie's child. He blows up at the end, leaving a bittersweet montage as the credits roll of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie cooing over some little brat in a park somewheres. The End.

"Saw X: No More Mr. Nice Guy" - Hoo, boy, are you all in for it now! See, Jigsaw's warped legacy lives on! His cunning modus operandi has warped the mind of an impressionable young man (played by Shia LaBoeuf) into continuing Jigsaw's sadism-disguised-as-moral-righteousness mayhem! One victim kept their DVD rentals a day late? They have to eat their own tongue and eyes! One guy used Bittorrent? He's gotta kill, rape, and eat his daughter! Took up two parking spaces? Drano enema. Didn't replace the empty toilet paper roll? Sledgehammer. Testicles. You can't begin to imagine the crazy shit this new guy (dubbed "Brain Buster") has got in store...

"Boo!" - Get out those plans for a villa in Tuscany, Sholmo! This'un's here a licence to print money, practically! A young married couple starts their new life together in a little country house the grizzled locals claim is haunted! Complicating matters is that the wife miscarried their first child last month, making her a tad moody. Are the creepy little dwarfs the couple see glimpses of in the house just manifestations of their grief, or is there something more at stake here? The gimmick: During the movie, in random intervals, a grotesque undead monster suddenly pops in front of the camera and screams at the audience, scaring the shit out of them!

"Fred Basset: the movie" - keeping with the recent trend of strip-mining comics for film ideas, I give you this. We make Fred Basset CGI, with the voice of Sir Ian Mckellan. And the story is- oh, hell, I don't know, maybe Fred and his chum Yorkie (voiced by Stephen Fry) go looking for his lost collar or something. And maybe Sir Ben Kingsley can reprise his role as Don Logan from 'Sexy Beast' or something. No swearing though, it's a kid's movie. Look, I'm trying, okay? Tell you what, if this movie does happen, for reals? We can all go ahead and just declare Art legally dead...

"Pong: the movie" - Look, I said I was trying, alright?

"Die, Foreigner, Die!" - Hahh. Okay, so we go retro here. You got this rogue government agent who just decides to go apeshit and wipe out every non-American he sees from Albanian to Zulu. Guns, bombs, piano wire, the whole nine yards. Heavy on the red gravy, you dig? And we put Megan Fox (you know, the hot girl from Transformers?) in, and she's always reaching up to get something off a shelf, and she's got a tank top on and low-slung jeans so we're always getting shots of her bare stomach. Okay, that'll work...

"Ninjas and Kittens" - There ya go. Writes itself, really.

Wars Beyond The Stars... - Space opera set in a long-ago time, in a far-away galaxy... A young man who lives on a remote planet with a couple of robots encounters an old man who recruits him to help rescue a captured princess aboard- What? No, you're thinking of 'Star Wars', the 1977 blockbuster by George Lucas. My idea's totally different. Anyways, the princess is aboard this giant space station, and the head bad guy dresses in black and has his face covered- No, not like 'Darth Vader'! My bad guy's totally different! Look, read my idea first, okay? Alright, so the young man and the old guy and the robots hire this cynical spaceship pilot with a dog-like co-pilot- Hey! HEY! Can you even read English? My idea is nothing like that 'Star Wars' movie! Hello? I'm doing a 'homage' to Akira Kurosawa's 'The Hidden Fortress', only it's set in outer space! Can I continue? Thank you!

So the pilot takes them in his ship to the planet the princess is on, only it's been destroyed! Then they see the massive space station, only get this- they think it's a small moon, so they don't know how the planet was destroyed! It turns out the bad guy's space station blew up the planet- Huh? *sigh* NO. FOR. THE. LAST. FREAKING. TIME. IT. IS. NOT. LIKE. 'STAR WARS'! Yes, I know about the 'Death Star', I did not say, 'Death Star' anywhere in my pitch, did I? Well? Go back and read it. Go on, I can wait... No 'Death Star' anywhere, is there! Now, then, if I may finish my pitch...

The space station captures the ship in a 'Gravity Ray' (not 'Tractor Beam') and pulls it into a docking port on the station. Our heroes hide from the evil soldiers who search the ship, then the pilot and the young man slip from their hiding place on the ship to knock out a couple of evil soldiers and don their uniforms so they can sneak around the station and find the princess- What. No, you rolled your eyes at me. No, you rolled your fucking eyes at me like I'm telling you the plot to 'Star Wars'.

Okay, you know what? Fuck you. I can't believe you people. All you do is bitch and moan about how Hollywood hasn't made an original movie in years, that it's all comic-book adaptations and remakes... And then a visonary like me gives you a fresh, unadulterated original piece of quality entertainment that will be enjoyed for years, no, scratch that, DECADES to come...

And you piss all over it. Well, don't come crying to me to entertain you when you go to the theaters and all that's playing is, "Fart: the movie!", and "Fart: the Movie II", and "Saw 500: Jigsaw's Legacy's Legacy" and "Boring Romantic Drama where an Independent Woman Confronts her Terrible Past. (Her Daddy Molested Her)...I tried.

Lord knows, I tried...

Just look for the Union Label...

As of midnight, last Monday, as of 12:01 am, the Writer's Guild of America voted to go on strike, effectively crippling the nation's talk-shows and reality t.v. programming. Here, as far as I can understand, is their specific beef:

The Internet's become a pervasive aspect of our culture, and movie and TV studios are increasingly turning to the Internet as a distributor of not just promotional content, but actual content, in and of itself. The Writer's guild is concerned that any revenue gained of the aforementioned content to the studios is not going to trickle its way down to them in the form of residuals. It's another version of the Writer's strike in '88, when writers got shafted on residuals owing to video-tape sales and rentals. In essence, the issue of non-payouts for DVD sales sort of punishes writers for doing work that turns out to be popular.

In practical terms, since George Meyer wrote for 'The Simpsons', and since the Simpson's DVD boxed sets have turned out to be major sellers, Meyer doesn't see a penny off the DVD sales. (Well, in his particular case, since he's also a producer, he might-I'm not sure- but you get what I'm saying.) Hence, the hypothetical writer is stuck trying to get more work so's they can put foccacia on the table. And they can't spend as much time as they'd like working on their scripts, as their deadlines pile up.

In terms of the Internet, well, if NBC wants to broadcast episodes of '30 Rock' over their website, any money they get from ad revenue on NBC's site isn't going to the writers. While any money that the writers receive from such an agreement wouldn't be all that much, it'd sure be better than no money at all, if you see what I mean.

Here's my solution: Let ME come up with new shows and movie ideas for you, Hollywood Producers! Since I'm not a member of
the Writer's Guild, I won't come pestering you-all for any money! All I ask is a simple 'tip o' the hat' to my genius-ness! Gentlemen: start your Blackberrys...

T.V. Shows:

The Businesswoman...And the Fag! - She's a successful high-powered attorney who's sharing her condo in Manhattan with a gay guy! Get this... He's not just any 'gay guy'! Nope, this'uns a five-alarm-queer-as-a-three-dollar-bill FAG! (in pink, bold-face lettering with flashing gold filigree!) A gay man so gay he makes Chris Crocker look like Sly Stallone! He shrieks, flaps his hands excitedly, jumps up and down on the furniture, steals money from the businesswoman's purse to buy meth, and blows Latinos right there in their living room while she's throwing a baby shower. She reacts by throwing down her briefcase, putting her fists on her hips, and silently fuming!

The Chimpanzee...and the Kitten! - Twenty-two minutes of a chimp in a cage with a kitten! How fucking cute is that, I ask you? Go ahead, try and out-cute it, I dare you! Go ahead, I'm waiting... Well? You can't, can you? Coo and marvel at the chimp's almost human-behavior as it picks up and pets the kitty! Aww! (Course, the chimp being a chimp, it may just as soon fuck the kitten and bite it's head off as cuddle it, but that's show business, innit?)

Attractive Women in Skimpy Bikinis With Perhaps a Sheen of Baby Oil Upon Their Bodies Suggestively Leaning Against Expensive Sports Cars. - Exactly what the title implies. The only question is, will it be a full hour, or just a half-hour?

Redneck White Trash Teens Do Stupid, Self-destructive Stuff.- Teenagers from 'Underprivileged' environments spit, cuss like sailors (bleeped for television), smack each other in the head with blunt objects, ride abandoned shopping carts off cliffs, set themselves aflame, devour cleaning products like they were Beluga Caviar, scream, punch their girl/boyfriends, drink cheap beer, vomit, and get pregnant. Gives the viewer a sense of moral superiority, or if the viewer themselves is a dimwitted redneck, some good hobby ideas to get them out of the house.

Who's My Daddy? - An adorable little child goes door-to-door trying to find his biological father. It's a comedy with a heart!

Scream, and Scream some More! - Kid's game show where the contestants try to out-shriek one another. Whomever screams the loudest and longest wins a prize! Kids at home can play along!

Ain't This Some Life? - Blue collar home-based sitcom where a moderately successful stand-up comic plays an average working joe we can all relate to married to an improbably attractive woman. They spend the first twenty minutes screeching cruel insults at each other in a tone of such vehemence and volume that a sane person would leave the room in tears. Occasionally, an aged relative or their children enter the set, and everybody begins berating and insulting one another. The twist is, in the final two minutes, sentimental music plays in the background and everyone tells everyone else that in spite of it all, they do truly care for one another!

What A Ride! - A ruggedly handsome fellow with a devil-may-care attitude and his goofy sidekick travel the highways and byways of this nation looking for adventures, lending a hand to folks along the way, and teaching their new friends (and learning!) some valuable life lessons. They're also both sexual deviants with a penchant for brutal anal rape.

Two Minute Hate - for the Fox network. Screen is just a picture of Osama Bin Laden with some dubbed dialogue overlaid. Viewers get to scream at their T.V. for the next two minutes. And next week, Hillary Clinton!

Army Man - Made in conjunction with the U.S. Armed Forces. Hour long infomercial exploring your career options in today's armed forces! Learn a valuable trade! Travel the world! Make new friends! Learn what it's like getting half your head blown away by a I.W.D.! Marvel at the technical skill of the surgeons at Walter Reed Hospital as they perform extensive surgery on your mangled features so your hideousness makes your loved ones only recoil and cry in horror instead of vomit! Rehabilitate yourself after months of hard work so you can grasp a fork, work a t.v. remote, drool discreetly, and sign your name legibly enough to the form that denies your disability claim!

Tomorrow... my free-of-charge movie ideas! (or 'springboards', as the Hollywood insider jargon puts it...)

"Rosebud was his SLED!!!"

One thing that gets bandied about in the discussion of films is the preponderance of bloopers within. That is, errors in a film that certain eagle-eyed viewers catch that they are all too eager to share with the rest of us. Oddly enough, for my own part, I'm not such a continuity freak that such things really bother me. And really, pointing out a show's bloopers reminds me of this classic exchange from the Simpsons:

Doug: [wearing a T-shirt that says "Genius at Work"] Hi. A question for Miss Bellamy. In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

June Bellamy: Uh, well...

Homer: I'll field this one.

Homer: [to Doug] Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says "Genius at Work" spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?

[pause]

Doug: I withdraw my question. [takes a bite from a bar of chocolate]

Ultimately, in a good movie, any bloopers within aren't going to detract from your enjoyment of it. For instance, in the classic 'Citizen Kane', since no one is close enough to Charles Foster Kane to hear his final word gasped out, "Rosebud", how does the reporter know how to uncover its cryptic meaning? Unless you were to really think about it, you wouldn't notice that error itself. And on the other hand, in a Uwe Boll crap fest, f'r instance, someone ensuring that a SWAT team's uniforms and equipment are accurate isn't really going to obscure the simple fact that the movie is a celluloid turd.

Also, there is a point where verisimilitude in a movie detracts from the audience's pleasure in seeing the movie. Here's a hypothetical: Say you're seeing a drama about the intertwining lives of some residents of New Orleans, post-Katrina. One of the stars in the ensemble is an up-and-coming young actor, 'X'. 'X's role in the drama is of a young trumpet player who's developed an enthusiasm for Dixieland jazz. In the course of the film, the young musician serenades the other characters with an elegiac rendition of 'St. James Infirmary' in a scene that is meant to symbolize the destruction of not just a great American city, but an invaluable link to America's culture. Here's the problem: The scene is shot so we, the audience, can clearly see that the actor, 'X', is in fact really playing the trumpet, and not cut to a close-up of a session musician's hands on a trumpet. The audience, has in fact, been made into a jury, judging 'X's trumpet-playing, as opposed to an audience wanting to see a story unfold. And the mood is broken. The audience leaves the theater thinking, Gee, I had no idea 'X' was such a good horn player as opposed to, My, what a sad scene where Joey, the earnest young musician mourns his city in the most eloquent way he can.

That having been said, here's some bloopers from some famous (and not-so-famous) films that I've spotted. Next time you rent these ones, keep an eye out!

Dumbo (1941)- Elephants can't fucking fly! Even if the fucking elephant's ears were each the size of fucking football fields, the fucking elephant couldn't get off the fucking ground! Fuck!

Star Wars (1976)- How many physics lessons does Hollywood have to ignore? There. Are. No. Explosions. In. Space. It's a vacuum! Sound doesn't travel in a vacuum! Arrgh!

The Sting (1973)- Robert Redford and Paul Newman weren't adults in the thirties! They were toddlers! Are we to believe that toddlers are capable of being con-artists?

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)- Jimmy Stewart's character enjoys some colorful flowers. Trouble is, the movie's shot in black-and-white! Hello?

Say, What's the Big Idea? (1936)- Wop Dabney's character vomits a bathtub full of stomach contents on Lady Huffington's toy terrier, Flopsy, then in the next scene, Flopsy's totally clean! As if!

1941 (1976)- It wasn't made in 1941, it was made in 1976!

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) Ian Mckellan isn't really a wizard named Gandalf; he's a renowned Shakespearean actor from Britain. I bet he couldn't even cast a fireball in real life! Haw!

Schindler's List (1993)- Everyone knows the 'holocaust' was made up by the Jews so they could guilt-trip everyone else into selling 'em gabardine at cost. Jeez.

Amistad (1997)- Same goes for black people being 'enslaved'. Double jeez.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)- Malcolm McDowell has white hair; why'd Kubrick cast a senior citizen in the part of a sociopathic teenager? Couldn't he cast, you know, an actual teenager? Hey, Stanley, here's a tip: For your next movie, cast a teenager in the part you think a real teenager would be good for.

The Song of The Donkey-Raper (1983)- Muad J'abdoad is speaking Farsi when the locale is clearly Northern Iran.

United 93 (2006)- So if the towelheads delayed everyone's flight, why didn't people just book other travel arrangements? Dur!

Roadhouse (1989) Okay, so if this movie's set in 1989, how come some of the Jim Beam bottle labels in the bar are from the Jim Beam's 'new, improved' labelling implemented in 1990? Kinda makes you think...

Independence Day (1996) Bill Pullman was never elected to the office of President of the United States; he's a movie actor! Also, his name's 'Bill Pullman', not 'Thomas J. Whitmore'.

Donnie Darko (2001)- 'Cellar Door' are not the most beautiful words in the English language; the most beautiful words in the English language, are, in fact, 'Nickel Slots'.

Blade Runner (1983)-When Deckard arrives home, Rachel is already waiting for him in the elevator. However, a) Rachel has no way of knowing where Deckard lives, as information regarding a policeman's address is not given out to the public, least of all a replicant, and b) Rachel could not have followed him because Deckard was first taken by Gaff to Leon's apartment via police spinner, then Deckard drove home using his own sedan; and even after driving home, Rachel was already waiting for him. Also, I cry a lot for no reason whatsoever.

Rambo III (1988)- So, that one scene, where Rambo guts the Russian officer, and plays the officer's exposed ribcage like a xylophone? We hear two distinct tones when Rambo hits the same rib twice. Are we to believe that the officer has a magic rib cage? That is capable of making two distinct notes when hit in succession? Boy, I hope someone lost their job over that blunder...

"So who does watch the Watchmen, anyways?"

Let me just strap on my neckbeard, here...

Ah. There we go. Now, then.

Given the caliber of the people involved in the forthcoming 'Watchmen' movie, I don't see any nuanced, articulate meta-commentary of the superhero genre being part of it. It'll probably be that 'okay action-mystery-sci-fi' movie that eventually makes it's production costs back from DVD sales/rentals. (kinda like 'V for Vendetta')

What itches my neckbeard in this case, however, is that the original creator Alan Moore is stuck in a lose/lose proposition. His (and artist Dave Gibbons') original deal with DC/Warner stipulated that all rights to Watchmen reverted to them once it had gone out of print for a time. (In which case, as Mr. Moore had pointed out, he and Mr. Gibbons were free to make all the money they could from the slurpee-cup licensing.) Well, twenty-some odd years later, with the Watchmen graphic novel still in print, we can all see how well that deal turned out for them...

And let's face it, the reviews are going to nail him to the wall if it tanks ('Alan Moore's seminal 'Watchman' graphic novel flops on the big screen...') and in the unlikely event it's a success, ('Zack Snyder's take on DC/Warner's 'Watchmen' is boffo at the box office!'), he's not going to benefit in any practical way. Any money coming from DC/Warner on this is going entirely to Dave Gibbons, since Moore's previous comic-to-movie adaptations were such disasters, Moore wanted to disavow himself from them. (He eschewed any compensation from the studios after the train wreck that was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.)

Well, you may ask, you little rascal, you: "So why doesn't Alan Moore either A) demand more hands-on involvement like Frank Miller with Sin City or B) shut up and just take the Hollywood money like Dashell Hammett did? (As Hammett pointed out when asked if he was concerned that the studios would ruin his work, "Look, my books are still there on the bookshelf, they're fine.")

In regards to A),Watchmen isn't Moore and Gibbons' property like Sin City is Miller's, it's DC/Warner's. And Warner's is more likely to treat Moore like Disney treated Dave Stevens on the set of 'The Rocketeer'. That is, throw him off the set and dangle lawsuits over him to shut him up. And in the case of B), Moore has this pesky vestigial quirk perhaps unfamiliar to movie executives called a set of principles. These principles were what made him not do any more work for DC after he felt that he and many other talents were treated by the company as hired hands in a field. If he took any money from them after the fact, he'd look like a hypocrite. (Then, when DC bought out Wildstorm from under Jim Lee, Moore was still accused of being a sellout, since he was still doing work for Wildstorm.)

The point of all this nerdy indignation, I suppose, is that comics are not a stepping-stone to the wealth, glamour, and big titties that is Hollywood as some people might suppose. And secondly, work like 'Watchmen' doesn't lend itself easily to other mediums. It was specifically designed to work as a comic, and ideally, a comic it should remain. Put it this way: Could any of cartoonist Chris Ware's work be 'adapted' for film or T.V.? Nope. All the movie of 'Watchmen' is going to be is another trip to the money well by DC/Warner while Alan Moore, who raised up the medium more than a few notches in quality, and practically built the ground floor for DC's Vertigo line of 'mature comics', (Remember all those 'Bang! Pow! Zoom! Comics aren't for kids these days!' articles in mainstream magazines in the 90's?) gets roughly the same deal the 'Superman' creators got.

The other message to take away from this, is that if one wants to work in a medium where one wants to do thoughtful, more meaningful work, the comic book field is not the way to go. Let's face it, there's been quite a resurgence in good television in the past few years. The Wire, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Mad Men (off the top of my head) are all examples of this. Hell, even a lot of what you'd consider more mainstream T.V. fare is looking pretty good. (like 'House, M.D', 'Heroes' and 'Battlestar Galactica', to name a few. I imagine you'd still have to endure the same level of petty bureaucracies and corporate bullshit working in television that one does in a comic-book publishing house, but at least you'd be paid well enough to put up with it.

And hey, there'd be not a neckbeard in sight...

"...Run it up the flagpole, J.B...."

Mad Men (B+) My God, these long fingernails, this white beard... Last thing I remember, I was playing lawn bowling with these gnomes...

So how ya doin'? Good, good. Been busy myself... So, let's get to it. AMC's 'Mad Men' is a coldly nostalgic look back at the start of the '60's, and particularly, the rise of the ad executive as a force in American society. Unlike, for instance, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", it's not looking down on its characters from a very tall height. Actually, let's discuss what it's also not. It's not a bitter screed against advertising as a negative influence in the culture. It's not a Douglas Sirk type melodrama, though the colouring and settings seem right for that sort of thing.

What you've got here is creator Matthew Wiener's (Soprano's scribe) take on a period in America where we were right on the cusp of Utopia. The Cold War, if not outright won by capitalism and Democracy, had wound up beating the Reds into a corner. As a result, it seemed prosperity for every American was a god-given, hard-won right for every American; that they were reaping the benefits of suffering through the second world war and the Korean war. The only question was: How far can our dreams go? And here's where the Madison Avenue advertising executive comes in...

During this time, Radio, movies, printed media, and that new-ish one, television were doing their best to shoehorn Americans into a cultural square peg. It would be easier to shave off all the idiosyncrasies out of all those children of Irish, German, and English serfs than to cater to their odd customs. (While the Jews were as much a part of America as the other serfs, they brought with them the baggage of being outsiders from the Old Country. Even though their money was as just as green as everyone else's, Post-war America didn't really want to let them in the club. As for blacks in America, well, best that those people were seen but not heard. Not until Birmingham, five years later, anyway...)

Mad Men (the title's from a sobriquet they made for themselves; MADison avenue MEN, geddit?) revolves around one particular ad exec, Don Draper, as American a name as ever lived. Well, it's the name he switched with a dead Army officer so the former white-trash Dick Whitman could reinvent himself as the squarest peg that ever fit into a square hole. He's got a former model-turned housewife, two adorable little kids, and a place in the suburbs. On the outside, his life seems as perfect as one of those advertisements he's so good at creating. The catch is, having everything he's ever wanted, he's still painfully unhappy. (He makes impulsive plans to his subsequent mistresses to bolt off to Paris and Los Angeles.) In fact, one of the main themes of the show is how everyone in this place of privilege is so unhappy. It's made worse by the fact that they know they can't really complain about their lot in their life of privilege, and it would be small comfort if they knew their friends and co-workers were in the same boat as them.

What is really impressive about this show is how worked out it is. Not just in the minor details, like the costumes, props,and historical accuracy, but also in how each character's story resonates with each other's. Note how Don's cool demeanor plays off against frustrated junior exec Pete Campbell, in the scene where Campbell discovers Don's real past as Whitman. Campbell tries to blackmail Don into a promotion, and Don coolly calls his bluff and goes to Bert Cooper, the agency head's, office. When Campbell sputteringly reveals Don's deception, Cooper shrugs and says, "Who cares?"

I guess if I had any problems with the show, it's cleverness gets a tad oppressive. Some of the references are a bit too on the nose; the constant drinking and smoking, the Leon Uris novel, 'Exodus' and Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', fr' instance. Also, since there's so much story, some threads just get dropped off- the single mother-turned neighbourhood-pariah narrative just evaporates. And finally, the final twist of having Peggy give birth without her knowing she was even pregnant stretches credulity. (I'm hoping next season has her acknowledge her condition in some way- I mean, come on...)

I'm looking forward to season two, out in June 2008.

The 'P' word...

Knocked Up (B) Judd Apatow is the filmmaker Kevin Smith wants to be. Stay with me here. While the both of them make light comedies (featuring chubby guys hooking up with attractive women) and adding a smattering of profane humour, Apatow's clearly the better writer/director. (For one thing, he tends to hire actual professional actors, as opposed to high school buddies and his wife, who can't really act, if you know what I mean...)

In Apatow's movies, the humour is in the characters making accommodations in their lives, and discovering that having a steady relationship is actual work, and while the joy is fleeting, the obligations are never-ending. The comedy comes from finding joy in one's obligations. In this one, stoner Ben (Seth Rogan) gets T.V. worker Alison (Katherine Heigl) pregnant after a fumbly one-nighter, and she decides to 1) keep the baby, and 2) let Ben know about it, and thusly, let him into her life because of the kid. Now, this is, for a lot of 'semi-pro' film critics, where the movie gets weird...

I've seen quite a few of these guys (and one girl) rip on this movie for Allison's decision to have her baby. Huh? I guess since they can't relate to her character, 'bortin' the kid would seem to make the obvious result. The problem with that is, firstly, there'd be no movie. And secondly, it's not like a light comedy intended to highlight the responsibilities (and joy) of being in a committed relationship is meant to be 'pro-life' propaganda.

Knocked Up had several other points that I found extremely endearing, not only for their relative rarity in Hollywood but also for their rarity in America. First, the notion that a child can justify an effort to make a relationship work - I know I'm being terribly old fashioned about it, but the idea that a marriage is not first and foremost a lovely frolic through love candyland, but a very pragmatic social unit with obligations within and without itself is a notion that's quickly being lost. The idea that a couple might stay together "for the children" is treated like some kind of parental Jim Crow law, and the concept that an individual might act in a manner that does not indulge his passions, but serves a more common good is actually given some respect in this film.

The other point the movie makes is that marriage and family is really, really hard. That is, the obligations never end, and the rewards are increasingly intangible. I've looked at the above critics who say that Paul Rudd's (Allison's sister's husband) character is clearly miserable and I don't think that they realize that Paul Rudd's marriage is actually pretty damned typical of any long term relationship. The things he complains about are ubiquitous; the fight he gets in with his wife about spending time together and apart is a fight that every couple who has been together more than two years has repeatedly. He's not unusually miserable, and the marriage is not unusually dysfunctional. They love each other, they love their children, but having a family is work and it looks just like that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

next up is this parody video of the just-released Halo 3 for the Xbox360. I saw this before the actual promo, and had wanted to give Microsoft 'mad props' for making such a clever and funny take on 'gamer culture'. Since then I've seen the real promo, and it seems... well, kinda lame.

(video)

"Support Our Troops"

What does that mean, anyways? 'Support Our Troops'? The implication, of course, is that we 'support our troops' in their valiant struggle against oppression and fundamentalist control in Afghanistan. (Note: Being a Canadian, I'm talking about Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Sorry, everyone else.) and if we dare question the logic in sending our soldiers off to the World's Largest Litter Box without a specific agenda or return date, we're nothing but Commie-Faggot-Pinko-Puke-Gutted-Twinkle-Toed Scumfucks Whom Should Go Back To Skulking In The Shit-Filled Caves Where Al-Quida and the Demoncrats Are All Hiding. Can't we 'support our troops' by not thinking it's a good idea to dump them in the same spot where the Mongols, the British, and the Soviets all had no luck whatsoever in making an actual country out of a largely hypothetical one? If we're going to put our soldiers in harm's way, wouldn't the best way to 'support' them be to come up with, oh, I don't know...an exit strategy?

You know, let me back up here and try and clarify that statement. 'Support our troops'. Shouldn't it be more specific? How about 'Support our Brave Troops.' Yeah, that works better. Plays on the old heartstrings a bit more. Well, I guess it implies that we've got some not-so-brave troops over there. And heck, call me an old softie, but I think we should support our less-than-brave guys there, as well. Plus, "Support our Brave Troops, but to fuck with the not-so-brave ones" doesn't have the same, simple ring to it, though.

Well, while I'm on the ol' soap box, couldn't the phrase, 'Support our brave troops' imply, 'Support our brave, white, troops', as well? Now, I may be opening a can o' worms here, but I'm pretty sure that some of the boys over there don't just go by 'Scott' and 'Gord'. I bet there's a few 'Jamal's' and 'Umberto's' over there, as well. Last I checked, Canada was a multi-cultural country, and if Sanjeep and Raoul want to sign on in under the Canadian flag, well, welcome aboard, fellas. I'll bet you a dozen Tim-bits you give Paneesh, Chang, and Kwambo their very own M-4 and a set of desert camos, they'll do just as bang-up a job over there as Rick and Rob and Mike.

Then, you've got that tricky possessive pronoun smack dab in the middle there. 'Our'. 'Support OUR troops'. See, I pay taxes in Canada, and my taxes buy Sean and Jafar their plane ride to Kabul. Shouldn't I be getting some return for my investment? We lived in a free market, last I checked. C'mon, guys! Help me out here! Bring back something for me! A shrapnel-torn prayer rug, the skull of a terrorist, gee, even a small ball of opium would do! My taxes buy your bullets! One hand washes the other, is all I'm saying...

In conclusion, if you were to ask me, 'Do you support our troops?', then, by God, I would draw myself up to my full height, take a deep breath, and say, "Yes. Yes, I support our white and non-white, stuck-in-a-moral-quagmire, brave and not-so-brave, can't-even-get-me-a-taxpayer-a-simple-car-air-freshener-that-says-visit-lovely-Kandahar, troops!"

That definitely ain't gonna fit on a bumper sticker, though.

"Sophmoric is Liberal for Funny"

Judd Apatow's low-brow comedies have a lot going for them, particularly in the details. Take, for instance, Superbad (B-). The nerdy heroes, Seth, Evan, and their friend Fogel (who seems to be their friend more by social default than by design) are on a quest to get alcohol for a popular girl's party. By Evan's reasoning, this act will allow them access to said girl's and her friends' underpants and the rewards that lie within. The thing is, these boys are more concerned with getting laid simply to get the act out of the way, then to seek out sexual enjoyment for its own sake.

In a typical teen sex comedy, the protagonists go through a picaresque series of comical misadventures in an effort to get laid, and in the end, give the audience a warm-hearted message to go home with. Usually along the lines of, 'Friendship is important', or 'That hot girl you had a boner for turned out to be a genuinely decent person after all, and she'd be a better friend than a lover' or some other tired nostrum. I wind up being made to feel like I'm paying for my comedy in that case, like the filmmakers felt they had to justify the bawdy humour with a feel-good message.

There's a bittersweet undercurrent in Superbad, and it's about youth's anxiety towards facing an uncertain future, and the inevitable accommodations one must make to navigate one's way through that future. In this case, Seth is upset that his life-long friend Evan is off to Dartmouth with the squeaky-voiced Fogel as a roommate, while Seth has to settle for a local college. Evan is upset that his friend is upset, as well as discovering the aforementioned fact that adulthood is full of accommodations that he's going to have to make. In the course of the movie, they come to realize that perhaps being the guy who procures booze for a popular girl's party is perhaps not the best path to the glories that reside in her panties. And poor Fogel is stuck trying to catch up to Seth and Evan's level of anxiety. (Fogel spends most of the movie in the company of a pair of under-achieving policemen.)

What really makes the movie for me is Micheal Cera's perpetual look of worry throughout. Since 'Arrested Development', he's cornered the market as the living embodiment of teen anxiety. The movie also really has a handle on the profane wit that teenagers display amongst themselves. (Writers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg came up with the idea in high school.) The MOR soul-funk-r&b soundtrack is oddly appropriate. Only downside; The deluge of t-shirts proclaiming, "Pedro & McLovin for Class President" we're going to get hit with in the near future...

The Bourne Ultimatum - (B-) James Bond for the Target department store crowd. Matt Damon has a knack for portraying a neutral personality, and in the context of this movie, that's not a bad thing. (In my earlier comment on the previews, I offhandedly mentioned that Matthew McConnaghey or some other bland, if talented actor was cast as Bourne. Turns out, I was wrong on that point. The series' success hinges on Damon's bland neutrality...) In this installment, Bourne's struggle to discover how he became who he is gets challenged by an Agency operative trying to cover the agency's trail in creating the sub-structure that made Bourne.

It's a chase movie without an ounce of fat on it, which is where it's appeal lay for me. It doesn't give us any unnecessary back story; no sepia-toned flashbacks about Bourne's pre-Agency past, no angst-laden monologues by Pam Landy(name) over issues of morality. The thing is, this stripped-down level of narrative works against in in one scene where Bourne is with fellow disavowed operative Nicky (Julia Stiles- and why Julia Stiles? Oh, well...) There's a weird tension where you're hoping Bourne and Nicky don't start making out with each other, as it'll ruin the pacing of the entire movie. Damned odd thing to be worrying about in a thriller, I think. Also, director Greengrass' toned down the 'jitter-cam' aspect from the last one, which really helped.

Bioshock -Xbox360 (A-) Nice little fps-with-rpg elements, not unlike Deux ex or System Shock 2. Actually, I believe most of the people who worked on SS2 worked on this one. A survivor of a plane crash enters an underworld city right out of Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' and finds this world's gone to the dogs. (Well, Big Daddys, actually...) The storyline involves finding out why this utopia became a dystopia, and putting a stop to its spreading evil.
What puts Bioshock over the top in terms of the usual video game with a storyline, is not only is the actual story is engaging and complex, and not only is the player's actions tied to the story's outcome, but that the story in this case has a more complex theme than 'good triumphs over evil' or 'rescue the princess' or whateves.

It's a repudiation of the Objectivist ideology of Ayn Rand. (Note the founder of the underwater city's name, 'Andrew Ryan') The storyline points out that in a pure free-market economy, there can be very few winners (Ryan, his few followers, an usurper to Ryan's throne named Fontaine and his followers.) and losers of everyone else in the city. As a result, once a power struggle erupts between Fontaine and Ryan, everyone else's options are limited to a) choosing sides or b) starving to death.

While I don't think 'Bioshock' adds to the debate that video games can be Art (The developer's take on Objectivism is irrelevant to the actual game play, and really, once you've played it through, you're done.) it does make a good argument that a video game can be damn fine satisfying entertainment.

"None Shall Escape My Wrath!!"

I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets: The Fantastic Comics Of Fletcher Hanks, edited by Paul Karasik (B)

Amongst the sub-classes of comic fans, there's the group of hard-core nostalgia buffs who carefully and patiently unearth ancient comics to show off to each other. It's kind of like being a Yukon prospector, with the nostalgia buff carefully sifting through the mounds of accumulated detritus to pick out the nuggets of interest. Fletcher Hanks' work comes to us from the beginning of the Golden age of comics, where he had a very brief career in the lower end of an already disreputable publishing trade. (1939-1941)

Hanks' prospector in this case is Paul Karasik, Art Spieglman's assistant for Raw magazine, where a Fletcher Hanks story first re-appeared. The art is, on the surface, below journey-man at best. (It's pretty obvious where Hanks is just tracing backgrounds off of photos.) The stories, on the surface, are simplistic tales of Good taking vengeance over Evil. Actually, they all seem to follow the same tack: Evil commits atrocities, Good captures Evil and spends the rest of the story sadistically torturing and punishing Evil. I suspect it was the odd intensity of these comics which drew Karasik to them in the first place. 'Scuse me while I tangent...

I'm reminded of a bit on Robert Smiegel's 'TV Funhouse' where Smiegel takes on a forgotten T.V. cartoon of the late 60's called, 'Shazang'. The original story thread, I recall, had a friendly genie helping out two lost children trapped in the Middle East of olden days. A villain would threaten the kids, and the kids would call on Shazang to use his genie powers to save them, and perhaps humiliate the villan in the process.

What Smiegel did is to ramp up the genie's whimsical sense of justice to a pathological level of vindictiveness for comic effect. Here's the clip:




Back to Hanks. The only real difference between Hanks' body of work and Smiegel's 'Shazzang' is that there was a) slightly less poo, vomit, blood and cannibalism in Hanks' work and b) Smiegel was exaggerating for comic effect. You get the impression Hanks was like a Depression-era version of Travis Bickel. Don't take my word for it, though. Check out this eight pager, 'Stardust Vs. The Fifth Column Again'...

Whew! I suspect Hanks didn't take his acts of vengeance any further because he didn't have the imagination and his time in comic books wasn't rewarding enough for him in the long haul.
Karasik's afterword in the volume takes the Fletcher Hanks story into the macabre. An interview with Fletcher Hanks Jr. (who, really, deserves a book of his own -here's a profile) reveals that his dad was 'a no-good bum', an abusive alcoholic who left his family in 1930. After the elder Hanks gave up on comics, there's no information about him until 1970, when the police found him frozen to death on a park bench. Seems he wound up sharing the fate of his villains in his comics. It's this information about the man Fletcher Hanks that gives his work a dark, Freudian twist to it. Frankly, knowing what I know now, it really makes these simple-minded comics hard to read.

Hooray For Hollywood!

"Hey, kid, how ya doin' and welcome aboard the film set. In order to get your job as a production assistant here, you must've won out over a couple hundred other applicants. That's quite an achievement. I see by your resume that you spent four years at film school getting your BFA. Mmm. Let's see... Tuition is about 40 thou a year... so multiply that by four... Jeez, that's a cool hundred and sixty grand you're on the hook for! Too bad being a p.a. only pays eight bucks an hour. Well, if you live the spartan and austere life of a monk for the next thirty years, you should be able to pay that off..."

"So! To business... My name's Kyle Randall, I'm the third unit director on this set. But don't call me Kyle, or even Mr. Randall. Nope, when you're addressing me, the first and last words out of your cheesepipe have got to be Sir. Got that? Try it on for size. Good. You'll be reporting to me mostly through the time you spend on this set, though I plan on being in one of the makeup trailers most of the time, boinking one of the makeup girls. That means you'll be running around looking for me, and taking the heat for not being able to find me. When you do find me, you'll mostly be running personal errands for me. You know, dropping off and picking up my dry cleaning, taking my Audi TT to get washed, purchasing crack cocaine from the bad side of town, and picking my kid up from the elite private school he goes to. Oh, he's got ADD or something, and he likes to stab people and things with a pencil."

"When I'm not using you, you'll be helping out Gunther over there. See Gunther? The blond, middle-aged guy with the enormous beer gut? Yeah, that one, the guy urinating in the bushes in the front yard over there. He's in the Electrician's Union, and he pulls in seventy-five K a year. Hm? Doing what? Oh, he gets power cables from the truck in the morning, and unspools them to the power generator. Then at the end of the day, he rolls them back up and puts them into the truck. No, he doesn't plug them in or unplug them; that's another union guy's job. He's usually too drunk to do that task, so you'll be basically doing his job for him. Yes, that's right, you're still making eight bucks an hour. Yes, he's a member of the Electrician's Union, um-hm. His English isn't very good, so expect to be yelled at in drunken German most of the time. I do believe also, when he's in his cups, that he can get quite randy, so expect to have him try and have his way with you. Sexually, I mean. Well, he is in the Electrician's Union, after all. Yes, I suppose there's harassment laws and all that, but look, you really don't want to be blacklisted as a troublemaker around here, do you? I suggest you let Gunther have his way with you. It's easier for everyone in the long run, and besides, you might make a new close friend! Haw, haw."

"And when me and Gunther's not using you, you'll be working 'Security'. That means you'll be standing on the outskirts of the set with a walkie-talkie with your arms folded across your chest. We've closed off this street to traffic, so you'll be diverting cars who try to come through here. Despite the walkie-talkie, you'll essentially have no authority whatsoever, so when understandably pissed-off drivers demand an explanation from you for the massive inconvenience you're causing them, you'll be on your own. No, actually, the walkie-talkie isn't connected to anyone, it's just for show. You're there to take the heat, really. I'm not sure if we even have a permit to shoot here, that's not my department, so if the cops show up, stall 'em. Also, you'll be working with that big, bald guy in the black shirt and sunglasses over there. Yes, the one with the prison tattoos up and down his massive arms. I think his name's, 'Fuckpig'. You can learn a lot from 'Fuckpig', really. Notice how he adopts a superior attitude to any civilian who comes near the set. Oh, look, he pushed that kid off her bike while screaming, 'This is a closed set, bitch! Move along!" Now he's urinating on her bike!

Good old 'Fuckpig'! Um, I should mention that when I say, 'working with Fuckpig', I really mean, 'doing both your job and his', since when he's not punching old ladies trying to cross the street, he's passed out from shooting heroin in the port-a-potty. Interesting note: Though 'Fuckpig' and you have the same job, he's making forty an hour! Mm, yes. Forty. Well, he's a paid up Union member. Which Union? I'm not sure, really."

"Oh, right, that's another thing. You'll notice how everyone around here acts like they're some sort of super-human demi-god that deigned to come down from Olympus to make a movie. That's S.O.P. for the movie business. Since you're low man on the totem pole- well, actually, you don't even rate a spot on the pole, really - expect to be the butt of everyone else's jokes. That's called 'hazing' and it's quite common on movie sets. We like to call it 'paying your dues', but really, it's just the manifestation that we're all conscious of the fact that our jobs, and by extension, our lives, are vestigial flailing failures. We're all quite bitter about the path we've taken, resent your youth and optimism, and will be taking out our frustrations and disappointments on you."

"What's the movie about? My, you are eager, aren't you? Well, that's a good sign! I've been involved with this production since day one, and as far as I know, it's about lesbian space vampires. Yes, that's right. Yes, they're lesbians. Yes, from outer space. Mm. Actually, if this movie ever sees the light of day, it'll be a direct-to-video release that goes straight to the bargain bin at Blockbuster two weeks after it hits the 'new release' shelf. I believe when it was pitched to the studio producers, it originally started out as a young girl's coming-of-age story. My goodness, what a picayune path the movie business is, eh?"

"Look, kid. I like you. Really. Even though I'll be regularly screaming abuse at you in front of the cast and crew, and especially when there are attractive women present, and slapping the proffered lattes you bring me out of your hand because 'there's too much foam' or something, I really like you. Perhaps because you remind me of a young me, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and rarin' to be a part of the magic of the cinema. So, move in closer and I'll impart to
you the secret of the movie business."

"Yes, closer."

"I SAID 'CLOSER', YOU LITTLE SHIT!!"

"There. The secret of the movie industry is this: All movies make money. Even the shitty ones. Even the god-awful, hacked-out, indifferently acted-produced-directed ones. Someone put up huge sums of cash to finance this picture. And that some one's almost certainly got insurance on their money. And if they don't, it's a tax write-off. And, even if by some act of God, this picture makes a dime, the money guy will turn around and plow that dime into another tax write-off. And so on and so on, amen. But why, you ask. You don't think anyone in their right mind would do all this shit for free, do you? Well, you practically are, but that's because you think you're 'paying your dues', and one day it'll be you standing around with the air of a god, wearing headphones not connected to anything, sipping five dollar lattes, surveying your domain like you're the lord of all creation. All the while, a baseball cap with the movie's title sits atop your swollen head while men and women who actually make things and have actual, useful skills kowtow to your every petty whim."

"The movies that people watch and enjoy, you know, the type of films that inspired you to follow your path, were made in spite of this system, not because of it. If you really wanted to make movies, you wouldn't have gone to film school in the first place. You'd have bought a second-hand camera and just. Started. Making movies. Granted, once you reach a certain level of skill and attention as a filmmaker, this system becomes indispensable owing to it's innate efficiency.
But really, for the most part, a truly good movie's dependence on this system we're locked into is non-existent. You really should've figured that out before you took on that crushing debt. In order to pay that off before you're old and grey, you'll be stuck on sets like this, crapping out schlock for a paycheck. Well, you could always go work for your dad, and make your own movies on your own dime, I suppose. But then you wouldn't be able to impress girls at bars when you try and pick them up, would you?"

"Wow! You should really look at yourself in a mirror! You just aged a decade in two minutes! Ha-ha, I love that. See, petty ego battles and power games are really why I stay in this business. Yes, crushing the hopes and dreams of the young are all I pretty much have to look forward to these days. Well, that and porking script girls, actually."

"Okay, so your first errand of the day is to head to the DMV and wait in line for several hours to renew my driver's licence for me. Then, head over to this address on the bad side of town to purchase some crystal meth for me. Yes, mm-hmm, out of your own pocket. Well, I'll say I'm going to reimburse you, but I'll brush you off until the shoot's finished, then I'll just threaten to turn you over to the cops for trafficking, and blacklist you from working on a movie set for the rest of your life. Hurry! Go! Oh, and pick me up a Venti Latte on your way back as well, would you?"

"Not too much foam, mind, or I'll slap it out of your hand in front of everyone else on the set to their glee and your humiliation!"

"Ha-ha! Look at him run off on his stubby little legs! He's gonna work out just fine!"

Botox Culture

"That said, there are a lot of awfully talented people around. I'm more inpressed with what I see today in mainstream comics than what I saw during my Lampoon days. They do tend to look alike, but the level of quality in draftsmanship is way up there. This is what I call the 'botoxing of America'. It's like music. The work is all a little better than the work from years ago, but none of it is great. There's no one that stands out, because there's too much of it. It's true in movies, true in literature, true in books, true in publishing, true in music. There's too many comics. There's too many good guys."


-from Comic Book Artist magazine, April 2003- interview with National Lampoon art director Michael Gross (1970-75)


...Which sums up my attitude to most mainstream entertainment today. Because there's so much money tied up in the production of a movie, or a music alblum or a t.v. show, the suits feel that they absolutely MUST have a hit. As a result, the commercial process becomes even more ruthlessly Darwinian- Executives become even more pusilaminous, and creative types, either out of cowardice or sheer economic neccesity, conform to what's more of 'the next big thing'. As a result, you get work that has it's low points filled in, but has it's high points filed down. Thus the reference by Mr. Gross to 'Botoxing'.


I'm gonna go out on a limb here and point my stubby little finger at two specific reasons why a lot of stuff coming out of the pipeline these days is so bland. One is the prevalence of 'market research' for entertainment like movies, t.v. , and well, music. ("What did you like best about the movie?" "When the hero got the girl?" "What did you like least?" "Um, when the hero lost the girl?" ...oh, bugger...) By pandering to a market that tells it, somewhat sheepishly, what that market would like to see or hear, the entertainment industry shoots itself in the foot. People don't know what they want to see until they've seen it. Otherwise, we wouldn't keep getting all these flops like "Evan Almighty" and that new Lindsey Lohan movie coming out, wouldn't we?


The second reason is CGI. Hear me out. Traditionally, the craft of filmmaking is the craft of solving problems. The lead actress cut off her long, red hair halfway through the movie, throwing the continuity off and we've got no time to get a wig? Film a scene where she just came out of the shower, and her hair's in a towel. Harrison Ford's too sick to shoot an elaborate fight scene with a sword-wielding maniac? Just have him groan in exasperation and shoot the fellow. You get the idea.


When you 'go to the CG people' for a shot, however, you're short-circuiting the whole process of story-telling. There's no wit, no craft, no pleasure in seeing a movie that's heavy on the CGI. It's like you're being bullied into enjoying yourself. "Dammit, we had an army of CGI studios work on this background of Civil-war Atlanta burning to the ground for eight months! You, the audience, are going to sit there in your seats and watch this three minute-long scene that essentially stops the movie dead in its tracks, or so help me, WE'LL TURN THIS CAR AROUND!!"


It makes directors sloppy and lazy, hamstrings the editors, and most importantly, turns the movie into a ride at Disneyland, instead of an engaging story. The upside, I guess, is that some spotty nerd who got a two-year certificate at some 'media training center' gets a job, at least...("Hey, ya know the embers flickering off the torches in the background there in that one shot?" "Eeyeah..?" "Our studio worked on those! Man, the procedurals on those were a bitch!" "Oookay, then...")





Which is why Transformers (D) stunk. Okay, I bitched about this movie before, but in my defense a) I was in another city without anything to do, and b) it was hot out and the theater was air-conditioned. Wait, what am I saying? I have no defense. Well, it was my twelve dollars and not yours. Anyway, I fell asleep halfway through the movie, woke up three-quarters of the way in, (really.) and didn't think I missed a single thing. That's how dreary it was. Autobots fight Decepticons, Shia LeBoeuf macks on Megan Fox, Micheal Bay mixes his usual visual bombast with an early 80's teen sex comedy, references are made to the 'Transformers' t.v. show...and we're done.





The Simpsons Movie (C+) What's going on here is the beginning of the end. The t.v. show's been on for so long now that it's hit critical mass a long time ago in terms of its being surprising and entertaining. Well, it's still entertaining, but in the same way that old chestnuts like the comic strip 'Garfield' are. The people involved in the Simpsons realized this a long time ago and are on the horns of a dilemma. If they stick with the show, they've all got big, fat paychecks for the forseeable future. In the entertainment industry, that's never a bad thing. However, if they all walk away from the Simpsons, they are free to head out for new territories, without the financial uncertainties that people in their position usually have. In this case, the answer seems to be thusly:


"If the movie is a smash hit (and it certainly looks that way.), we all can stop doing the show now and re-unite every few years to crap out a sequel every so often to satisfy Fox's coffers, and to be honest, our own. For both us, and the Fox network, this is a win-win situation."


The only question is, when will Fox drop the Simpsons? I'd like to think this upcoming season is it's last, but considering that in Fox's accounting ledgers, the Simpsons is the only consistent money-maker it's got on the shelf.


As for the movie itself, eh, not bad. It's an episode drawn out to movie-length meant more to reassure than to astonish. The only gag that stuck in my mind was Bart's nude skateboard run, and the controversy it ignited ruined the gag before I saw it. Let it die, fellas. Let it die.




Smoking Aces (C-) What we have here is a case of an American director (Joe Carnahan) trying to do what Guy Richie and Matthew Vaughn do so well and falling on his face. It's a 'gangster' pic where several different 'hitmen' try to take out one oily Vegas magician at the same time. Meanwhile, he's being protected by his own hired hands and the FBI, who want to have him name names. The only way this could work is as a farce, but Carnahan chooses to play it straight. Since he also wrote the script, it's really strange to see a director who fights his own work. Any quirks in the movie are tangential, and don't add up to anything. (The aggressive kid with a boner, and Jason Bateman as a depressed lawyer-I honestly thought his character was going to tie in later...)





Extras: the T.V. Series (B) Ricky Gervias occupies a unique space in the contemporary comedy firmament. The 'comedy of embarassment', if you will. It originated in England, where a sense of propriety is held in higher regard than over here in the colonies. However, with the relative success of 'Borat', the american version of 'The Office', and Larry David's 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', the 'comedy of embarassment' seems to be taking hold over here as well. It's humour based on characters without the willpower or common sense they require to achieve their goals constantly making social gaffes. It's both painful and funny at the same time.


Gervais' character in this one is a struggling actor, 'Andy Millman' who spends the first season trying to ingratiate himself with the rich and powerful in hopes of getting his own t.v. series off the ground. Season two has Andy's series getting made, however, since he's too weak-willed at his core to stand up to the B.B.C. producers, it turns into an insipid run-of-the-mill sitcom which "relies on silly wigs and stupid catch-phrases" to get a laugh. Naturally, it becomes quite popular with most people, while reviled by the cultural elite.


The following clip with David Bowie perfectly sums up the series in a nutshell: Andy trying to rub shoulders with the high priests of the current landscape, and immediately getting shot down for his troubles. Enjoy...