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January 30, 2004
Hun-tastic
Following up on the historical killer toys, here comes the first picture, of Attila the Hun.
Based on this, I'd say it seems fairly clear that "historical accuracy" is not what McFarlane is going for.
To my mind, at least, this makes the concept a little easier. Like figures based on a fictional movie depiction of a killer, or comic book. It seems highly unlikely that any of the toys are going to actually look like the real human beings.
But keep the discussion going on the board if this image inspires any further thoughts. Having seen it, are you more or less likely to buy these toys, or boycott them?
(by comparison, an image of Rasputin as he appears in toy form based on the Hellboy movie)
Always a pleasure to help
Andy Klein tips his hat to me while writing one of the few reviews of The Butterfly Effect that actually gets it.
I've never known Andy to actually wear a hat, however.
(yes, I know "tip of the hat" is an expression, so no stupid b.s. about how I don't know common expressions, please).
Posted by LYT at 1:49 AM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2004
Tomato, Tomahto
Word History: The spelling gauntlet is acceptable for both gauntlet meaning “glove” or “challenge” and gauntlet meaning “a form of punishment in which lines of men beat a person forced to run between them” but this has not always been the case. The story of the gauntlet used in to throw down the gauntlet is linguistically unexciting: it comes from the Old French word gantelet, a diminutive of gant, “glove.” From the time of its appearance in Middle English (in a work composed in 1449), the word has been spelled with an au as well as an a, still a possible spelling. But the gauntlet used in to run the gauntlet is an alteration of the earlier English form gantlope, which came from the Swedish word gatlopp, a compound of gata, “lane,” and lopp, “course.” The earliest recorded form of the English word, found in 1646, is gantelope, showing that alteration of the Swedish word had already occurred. The English word was then influenced by the spelling of the word gauntlet, “glove,” and in 1676 we find the first recorded instance of the spelling gauntlet for this word, although gantelope is found as late as 1836. From then on spellings with au and a are both found, but the au seems to have won out.
This answers the question I asked about the two meanings of gauntlet. Quad erat demonstrandum.
Bowling for Consistency
Not that contradictions are anything new for Michael Moore, but Marc Cooper at the LA Weekly points out something I didn't even think about:
"Some of those on the left who didn’t go off the deep end for Dennis opted for a truly aberrational choice — former General Wesley Clark. Bloviator Michael Moore issued one of his tiresome e-mail directives to his fan base anointing the former NATO commander as the preferred progressive choice. Go figure. If you’ve seen Moore’s amusing but intellectually scrambled Bowling for Columbine, you know that the movie suggests that gun violence at home is directly linked to American foreign policy. The Columbine shootings took place, Moore emphasizes, on what turned out to be the single heaviest day of NATO bombing of Kosovo. That war, of course, was directed by General Clark. Oh well, just a minor contradiction I suppose."
Smackdown Your Vote
First Howard Dean yells like Ric Flair, now Al Franken bodyslams a nutty Lyndon LaRouche follower.
If these trends continue, what happens next? Some ideas, based on past wrestling storylines:
Jenna Bush breaks away from George and marries John Edwards. The two declare themsleves owners of the South and secede from the Union. Laura Bush responds by challenging Jenna to a "spanking match."
Meanwhile, John Kerry dons a Howard Dean mask and has sex with the corpse of Mary Jo Kopechne. Dean responds by forming an elite clique with Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich, who use steel chairs to attack anyone who dares try to take the nomination from Dean. Dean is actually banging Laura Bush behind the scenes, so the Secret Service and CIA rig everything so that Dean gets to hold onto the nomination for as long as he wants.
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party change names to the RAW party and the Smackdown Party. As always, they pretend to be competing while answering to the same corporate owners. Ralph Nader runs again, but you have to pay $10 a week to even hear what he has to say, since pay-per-view is the only way he can get on TV.
Mexico invades U.S. with an army solely consisting of colorfully masked men. However, they end up only fighting each other, and never getting matched up with actual American star players.
Canada begins to develop weapons of mass destruction, and becomes the most anti-American country in the world, at least until the U.S. "special enforcer" John Ashcroft goes up there and challenges the P.M. to a beer drinking contest. Right when it's about to start, Ashcroft sucker kicks the guy in the stomach, stuns him, and sends him to Guantanamo. John Kerry, in a surprise heel turn, becomes the new Canadian leader, after saying "I tried to be a nice guy, but you called me 'French looking.' Well, now I am! French looking to deliver an ass-whuppin!"
Commentator Rush Limbaugh dons a cowboy hat and insists on being called "Good Ol' R.L." He promptly suffers two strokes and has to kiss George Bush's ass in front of a horrified hometown crowd in Cape Girardeau.
Tony Blair accuses Bush of "besmirching" him.
Shoot. How could I have forgotten?
Eric Almendral was at the party last night. Man, how could I neglect to name-check the party man? One other thing to note: When the official photographer took my picture, he asked if I knew any gang signs. Well, Agnes Bruckner came up with one for The Woods, but I ended up doing the John Cena "Word Life" sign, figuring someone might recognize it.
A brief comment about libertarianism, too: I find it a little disingenuous when someone says, "I'm not conservative or liberal, I'm libertarian." Most libertarians lean one way or the other.
Larry Elder, for instance, whose primary concern seems to be low taxes and unregulated business, is a strict constitutionalist who seems fine with corporations and state governments oppressing you so long as the federal government doesn't, and agrees with boycotts against gangsta rap. That may be libertarian, but it's also conservative.
Bill Maher, on the other hand, is mainly concerned with government not oppressing his right to smoke and womanize, and is incensed when his tax money goes to fund art projects. He's also a big animal rights guy. That's not 100% liberal, certainly, but it's leaning liberal compared to Larry, who periodically complains that Maher is not a true libertarian (Larry's pro-death penalty and anti-isolationism, though, which aren't classical libertarian principles.)
I've been saying for a while that I'm a civil libertarian and an economic moderate socialist. Unlike Stossel, I simply don't believe that big business left to its own devices will be inherently moral -- I think it will inherently lead to monopoly. My favorite response to economic libertarianism comes from cranky California Democrat John Burton, as quoted in Patt Morrisson's January 26 L.A. Times column:
"I think conceivably if we get rid of all taxes, except taxes on the poor, we'll have a lot more millionaires in the state. It won't do us any...damned good [ellipses are in original column: I'm not ommitting anything], except when they buy three or four cars. They won't be paying vehicle license fees on them, but maybe we can get them on the sales tax.
And then of course we can compete with Malaysia and this cheap labor they have in China. Then we could reduce the minimum wage down to 35 cents an hour. And I think that would work. Of course, then somebody might want to start getting machine guns and stuff to stop any revolutionaries from moving into their neighborhood. And I think after it works for about six months everybody will be moving out of California. Not just because of [the] business climate."
Chappelle's Show = GENIUS!
Wow. The "Black Gallagher" skit was good enough, but the spoof '50s sitcom about a white family named "Niggar" was hilarious and fearless. If you have cable and are not watching this show...you suck. Start now.
A while back, Jeff Wells did a survey about who people respected in Hollywood. I picked Chappelle, among others. He's made bad movies before, but whe he gets to make the movie he wants, it will be great. Trust me.
Posted by LYT at 1:47 AM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2004
Gotta go to the John
Active afternoon, this. I started to hold a miniature Bart Freundlich film festival in my living room, but it was tough. See, The Myth of Fingerprints is a movie full of pregnant pauses, and my neighbors like gangsta rap. It's incongruous. I yelled at them a bit, with little effect. Liked the movie OK despite the background soundtrack. Started watching World Traveller (this is all in preparation for watching Bart's big studio debut, Catch That Kid), then got the Call From Paul.
Paul O'Donoghue, that is, firebrand freelance reporter and king of the Santa Monica surf. I'm trying to persuade him to get a blog, as I think the world would be all the better for it.
Paul was my designated driver and colleague for the evening's entertainment: a press club party to honor John Stossel. For those who don't know, Stossel is a right-leaning "consumer advocate" for ABC's 20/20 program, whose consumer advocacy usually consists of running a piece like "Is genetically modified food bad for you?" and coming to a conclusion along the lines of "Hell no! Those stupid environmentalists are just nuts!" His new book has some title about how he bravely takes on the liberal media.
Some well-meaning fellow on LA Observed was upset about the Stossel-honoring, and in talking about a competing party with a $22 admission price, claimed it would ultimately be cheaper when one factors in the free wine at that one, versus parking and booze prices at the Stossel one. No offense, brah, but wrong. Paul and I snagged a free parking space right in front of the restaurant (albeit across the street), and at 6:45, were told it was open bar until 7. If you work quickly, you can get a good buzz in 15 minutes.
Scary fliers being placed on tables read "Get John Stossel in your classroom!" Quotes from teachers inside the brochure say things like "Best educational material I have seen." Look, I understand the need to be lazy -- when my little brother wears me out, it's just plain easier to watch cartoons with him than to actually engage his mind all the time -- but teachers, if you're relying on John Stossel videos, God help you. There's an ordering form attached, which literally reads (capitalization theirs): "Help get John Stossel's Message to Our Next Generation." The official website is www.intheclassroom.org, an operating division of the Palmer R. Chitester Fund, Inc, whatever that means.
In the interest of being Fair and Balanced (TM), HERE'S A LINK to the truth about Stossel.
I tried to persuade Martin Devon that this was too creepy. That if you replace "John Stossel" in that flier with "Ralph Nader," he'd be freaked out. He wouldn't admit it. And maybe he wouldn't be freaked out. But I suspect he'd politely dissent, at least.
Martin and Paul and I figured out pretty quickly whence the free food was originating, so we all stood in the same place we dubbed "the gauntlet." (where does that phrase "running the gauntlet" come from, anyway? Isn't a gauntlet a glove?). We were soon joined by Tiffany Stone, who wasn't as quick or obnoxious about grabbing the food as I was.
Unfortunately, when Stossel got up to talk, he blocked the path of the servers, and they had to find an alternate gauntlet route. Damn you, John!
The first guy Paul and I talked to was kind of a creepy Stossel supporter, so we got away as quickly as possible.
Cathy Seipp had previously promised that if drinks were not cheaper than usual, she'd buy me one. Weeelll...here's the thing: They were free for about 15 minutes. But after that, they were overpriced. Cathy did not buy me one. What do you guys think?
I introduced David Poland to another friend as "Jeffrey Wells." In response, he introduced me as "Luke Ford." He claims that was unintentional.
Speaking of Moral Leader Mr. Ford, he showed up in a black leather jacket, apparently going for the Bad-Ass Biker Rabbi look. We spoke briefly -- he sounds amenable to being in my movie, The Dogsauce Brothers (I want to have him introduce it, and proclaim it horribly immoral) -- but he turned away as soon as a pretty girl showed up. Never even had a chance to be offended by my shirt, a French Socialist Party antiwar T-shirt. A couple of French journalists liked it, though.
Matt Welch and Kevin Roderick humored my comments about wrestling for about two minutes, then politely excused themselves. Can't say I blame them.
Seen, but not greeted: Larry Elder, whom I enjoy as an entertainer despite thoroughly disagreeing with; RiShawn Biddle (sorry man, Paul wanted to leave); and Rand Simberg, whom I think I got off on a bad foot with when I first met him and mischaracterized him as an astronomer. RiShawn looks like he's lost some weight.
MIA (unless I missed something): Michael Collins, a happy drunk no more.
Others I talked to included Norm Jensen, Ross Johnson, Jill Stewart, the lovely Sharan Street, Amy Alkon, Emmanuelle Richard, and at the very very last minute, Moxie. I regret not having more time to talk with Amy's hilarious friend Lena Cuisina.
John Stossel's talk was not bad, given that I was predisposed to hate it. A synopsis, more or less: "Hi! I'm not liberal or conservative -- I'm libertarian! Those liberals hate me because I'm not liberal, and I like free markets. Free markets are good, because freedom is good! But I don't hate liberals, that's just a marketing gimmick. I like freedom. And I'm libertarian. Reason magazine is great. Also they're sponsoring this evening. Buy my book!"
My favorite Stossel moment was during the '80s, when he asked pro wrestler "Dr. D" David Schulz if wrestling is fake, and got knocked on his ass. Nonetheless, the slickness and self-deprecating nature of his speech earned my polite applause.
More on this later if I remember anything more through my booze-addled haze.
Know Jack?
To feed the ongoing discussion about McFarlane's historical murderer toys, HERE'S AN IMAGE of what the Jack the Ripper figure will look like.
(more images likely coming Friday)
Posted by LYT at 1:45 AM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2004
Clone Home
The Clonetrooper as he appears in the next Star Wars film.
Things to do before turning 30
Jaye Barnes-Luckett finally gets her driver's license.
Stuff
Boy, the weather is kinda sucky right now. Warm day, but with cold winds. The weird conflict of temperatures makes you sweat and feel cold all at once, like having a fever.
On the plus side: In your face, Spielberg! I told you to release the freakin' Indiana Jones DVDs individually. Noooo, you wanted more money by forcing people to pony up for the lousy third movie.
Thankfully, 20/20 video sells them individually in the used section. Seeing as how they're used, my $10 for Raiders, er, I mean "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark," goes directly to 20/20. Had you sold them individually, I might have shelled out $15 for a brand new one when they came out, and you'd have made some profit.
What's interesting now is that DVDs are cheaper than actual movie tickets -- I just bought Terminator 3 at Cockbuster for $10. At Hollywood Video a coupla weeks ago, I got X2, Finding Nemo, and Bowling For Columbine for a total of $30. (Yes, folks, movie tickets in my neighborhood run about $9.50-$14. This is true.)
This will hurt movie ticket sales. Guaranteed. Watch the studios push for "priced-to-rent" DVDs even heavier than they have been.
Damn
About a week ago, a colleague of mine offered to bet me $50 that Sean Astin would win Best Supporting Actor this year.
I should have taken that bet.
"Mommy, buy me the whore-killer!"
Any serious discussion of this issue on a toy-related message board will inevitably degenerate. I'd like to have a serious discussion on my board of the following issue, though:
McFarlane Toys just announced the new line-up of its "Monsters" action figures. Series 1 was traditional-type monsters like Dracula and Wolfman. Series 2 was an S&M-themed take on The Wizard of Oz.
Series 3 is called "6 Faces of Madness," and is made up of real-life historical murderers:
ATTILA the HUN
JACK the RIPPER
VLAD the IMPALER
BILLY the KID
RASPUTIN
ELIZABETH BATHORY
This may be slippery slope time. One could claim that Dracula, Leatherface, and Norman Bates are based on real people anyway. One could also say that there's little substantive difference, other than time, between this and toys of, say, Charles Manson or Osama Bin Laden. Military doll collectors already own WWII German soldiers.
No doubt they'll be stylized in a McFarlane vein so as not to resemble actual human beings, but more monstrous things. So does that make it OK? If there were a figure of a zombie Hitler complete with mini-gas chamber and dead naked Jew, would that be acceptable? I'm thinking not. Would it be acceptable 2,000 years from now, when no-one with first-hand knowledge of Hitler is still around?
For the purposes of this debate, assume the figures will be as cool as they could possibly be (i.e., even though we know they won't be fully articulated, how would you react if they were -- assuming that's what you want in a figure?).
I'm not saying we should censor anything. I'd just like to hear some opinions: Is this appropriate? Most likely they won't be sold in regular toy stores for all the kids to see.
Me personally? I'd say not all of these are in the same category. Jack the Ripper may well be a composite of many people, and as an individual with any specific look will be inherently fictionalized. Attila the Hun and Vlad the Impaler were political/military leaders, in an era when most such people ordered executions of their enemies. Billy the Kid has been a toy before, usually as a hero, so it may be appropriate revisionism to recast him as a murderer.
That leaves Rasputin and Elizabeth Bathory. I think Rasputin may have been a toy before, based on the animated film Anastasia, in which he appeared as a cartoon villain. That movie was aimed at kids, and is arguably much more inappropriate than a collector line aimed at teens. A comic-bookish version of Rasputin will be in the Hellboy movie, and get a toy there. This is arguably in a similar league to Jack the Ripper, except that Rasputin was clearly a specific real person who did horrific things. Still, this may be a case like Billy the Kid, where a mass-murderer version may be a legitimate correction of the record.
Elizabeth Bathory murdered young virgins to bathe in their blood, in hopes of staying young forever. Her story has taken on mythic dimensions, but it's true. I hereby dub her the least appropriate in the line. We'll see how the figures turn out, though.
Posted by LYT at 1:43 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2004
Never too late to pontificate
DA GLOBES
Best Film, drama: Return of the King. Ehhh, predictable
Best Director: Peter Jackson. He may have worked the hardest, all-in-all, so OK.
Best actor, drama: Sean Penn. Sean's good, but it's the same old thing from him.
Best supporting actor. Tim Robbins. Once again, playing a head-case leads to an award.
Best actress, drama: Charlize Theron. Practically preordained, as his her inevitable Oscar for same.
Best screenplay: Sofia Coppola. Oh, HELL no. Of all the things that made Lost in Translation good, the screenplay wasn't it. It's hard to imagine there even was a screenplay, and if there was, that the actors didn't ignore it and ad-lib a lot anyhow.
Best actress, musical or comedy: Diane Keaton. Best over-actress, maybe. Her endless crying montage was painfully bad.
Best supporting actress: Renee Zellweger. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Everyone I know thought she was the weakest link in Cold Mountain. To win over Patricia Clarkson and Holly Hunter is ludicrous.
Best foreign language film: Osama. Didn't see, but the title alone screams "relevant!"
Best actor, musical or comedy: Bill Murray. I can go with that, though Lost in Translation is really only a comedy in the loosest sense.
Best film, musical or comedy: Lost in Translation. Finding Nemo wuz robbed, and I think most of America might agree with me on that.
I don't watch enough TV to comment on the TV awards. Now, onward to the Oscars!
It's a Mad, Mad afterlife
So long and farewell, George Woodbridge. May you reunite with Bill Gaines, Antonio Prohias, Dave Berg and the usual gang of idiots in the next world.
Priorities
I imagine readers will expect me to pontificate upon the Golden Globes, but I didn't watch them. The Royal Rumble was on pay-per-view, and Max ordered the webcast (50% cheaper than cable PPV, but with a choppier image).
And frankly, I'm much more interested in the notion that Chris Benoit won the Rumble than in the degree to which Sean Penn was or was not graceful in acceptance. Benoit has been touted as a top talent for years, but never quite made the A-list. When he won the WCW world title and then left for WWE the next day, his win was invalidated. Last year he almost made the main event of WrestleMania when it looked like Kurt Angle might not compete. Instead, he got drawn into tag team feuds with the likes of Rhyno for most of the year.
This win should make him A-list for sure. The only Rumble winner not to go on to bigger things was Big John Studd, who retired soon afterward. Benoit's now guaranteed one of the main event matches at 'Mania against the champ -- by rights the Smackdown champ (Brock Lesnar), but speculation has it he'll go after RAW champ Triple-H instead. That's because they're clearly building to a Lesnar-Goldberg match at 'Mania, which will undoubtedly overshadow in hype whatever match Benoit gets.
Posted by LYT at 1:41 AM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2004
CK and ye shall find
Louis C.K.'s back in full effect. Max and Matt and I checked out his act tonight. About 50/50 for familiar vs. new material, but the new stuff is gold. Check out sound bites at his site.
My apologies to Louis for sitting up front. After the show, he asked me not to next time, as seeing familiar faces isn't comforting from the stage, I guess.
Anyway, Louis has a sitcom tentatively slated for next season. He also swears that the long awaited DVDs of his masterpiece Tomorrow Night will be available soon. This is all good news.
I'm at a bit of a loss here...
Can someone, anyone, explain what SpongeBob Square Pants and Metallica are doing on THE SAME MASS-PRODUCED T-SHIRT?
I mean, I like 'em both, but this just seems weird.
[Due to this particular entry drawing a lot of spam, comments are closed. You may still talk back on teh message board}
Posted by LYT at 1:40 AM
January 23, 2004
LA Weekly parties gettin' better all the time
They've figured out that having a special guest encourages turnout, even when that guest is one of your own writers, i.e. Marc Cooper.
The free food had some variety this time, too. Mushroom pastries instead of the usual cheese sticks.
Marc's shorter than I expected, but a very charismatic speaker. If the Al Franken/Al Gore radio network ever gets off the ground, I'd suggest Marc be in the running for a show.
Having just gotten back from Iowa, he gave a talk on how the campaign was playing up there. Basically, he says, voters are being pragmatic even in this early stage -- almost all Dems are antiwar, but it doesn't matter to them that Dean and Kucinich were the first antiwar candidates, because they want someone who can beat Bush, and see their best shot in Kerry or Edwards (my thoughts: Not Kerry, he's too generic. Regular readers may remember me touting Edwards way back when, but I gave up on him when it looked like he had no momentum. Now that he does, I say he's not a bad choice.) Marc thinks Dean has to come first or second in New Hampshire or he's done, and that Al Sharpton could be a major spoiler in South Carolina, splitting black support away from Edwards, who's the natural favorite in the South.
In keeping with my oft-fruitless attempt to bring more Lefties into the press club (Marc says he's not that leftist, but it's all relative -- "moderate" at the Weekly means "liberal" at the press club), I tried to persuade Marc to be more involved. Nothing much happening there -- he seems to have too many disputes with other members.
His take on the New Times was interesting -- thought that it could have at one time really exploited the Weekly's weaknesses, but that at this stage it'll take something radically different to compete, and Citybeat probably won't be it.
I wore my infamous "Fuck Bush" shirt. Needless to say, it got unanimous praise from this group.
Possibly the nastiest political analogy ever...
"A Democratic presidential primary contest is like a tape worm: long and with an inconclusive ending, copulating with itself all the time, but with no real climax -- except that the results tend to come out covered in crap." -- Ian Williams, AlterNet.
Posted by LYT at 1:39 AM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2004
God Grief
Dr. Ted Baehr notes with dismay that the vast majority of Christians do not have a biblical worldview.
Never does he consider the obvious -- that since the vast majority of those in his own faith disagree with his nutbag interpretation of the Bible, he' s most likely wrong.
Finally...Rose McGowan and Alyssa Milano toys!
Click HERE. Articulation fans like sean may be disappointed.
This is a wrestling post -- you might wannna skip it
Though if you're a woman who watches The OC, you have no moral high ground on me. Just sayin'. Watched some of that show tonight for the first time, and saw people my age playing high schooler. Didn't buy it. Maybe that's the point.
Dave Chappelle's show is back, and it's still good. Dave's Sam Jackson impersonation is priceless, and the sketch about racial "drafts," NFL-style, was classic Dave.
Meanwhile, on The Daily Show, John McCain could barely conceal his contempt for Bush. I wish he'd have run again this year.
But back to wrestling. I seldom buy wrestling magazines anymore (they were my lifeblood during the teenage years), but the PWI year-in-review issue is always worthwhile, as it's the only major publication with objective achievment awards. PWI was a bit of a joke back in the days when they kept up what we fans call "kayfabe" (the pretense that wrestling's 100% on the level), as they'd complain about Vince McMahon making wrestling entertainment, when of course, as everyone knew, it was a pure sport.
They've backed off from that since. Shows like Tough Enough forced them to.
Anyway, this year Kurt Angle won a record five awards: Wrestler of the year, most popular wrestler of the year, comeback of the year, feud of the year, and match of the year. Brock Lesnar was the co-winner in those last two.
This is close to correct -- Brock and Kurt are the best in the business today. Objectively, Kurt is better -- he's an olympic gold medalist while Brock is just an NCAA champion, and Kurt has more microphone skills. Still, Brock had a better year, and wasn't on the shelf as long. I'd give him wrestler of the year. Match of the year is definitely the Ironman match between him and Kurt -- good for the fans for figuring that out. I'd have to give comeback to Goldberg, though, in terms of impact on the shows.
Rookie of the year and inspirational wrestler of the year went to Zach Gowen, the one-legged wrestler. He is indeed remarkable and inspirational, but I tend to think that the rookie of the year should have potential for career longevity. Two years ago, Brock, Randy Orton, and John Cena were all in the running.
No offense to Zach, but once the novelty of his one-legged skills wears off, he may be toast. He won one match that I recall this year. True, it's all fixed, but...every other match featured him getting dominated by someone more established. Sylvan Grenier and Matt Morgan have better potential for longevity.
Most improved - John Cena. Absolutely. And all because he dressed as Vanilla Ice for the Halloween episode in 2002.
Tag Team - Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas. Maybe for pure skill, but Eddie and Chavo Guerrero were by far the most entertaining team this year, and Eddie a.k.a. Latino Heat has mad skillz himself. The Guerreros wuz robbed - they got third runner up! (after America's Most Wanted and the Dudley Boyz)
Most hated - HHH. Yup. That stupid water-spitting bit is really old.
Editor's Award - Bret Hart. Hart is a legend, no question. But why not honor the Road Warriors this year? They redefined tag team wrestling, and are arguably the greatest team of all time. Hawk died this year; honor them before Animal dies.
If you're a wrestling fan, who would your choices be in those categories?
Best quote from the issue comes in Dan Murphy's column on the 10 most ridiculous moments of the year. Number 9 is Hulk Hogan's masked run as "Mr. America."
"Vince McMahon banished Hogan from Smackdown shows, and who showed up but Hogan's close personal friend, the masked Mr. America. While there were a few similarities between Hogan and the 6'8" hooded wonder (eerie orange skin, partiality to legdrops, 24-inch pythons), Hogan contended he and Mr. America simply worked out and tanned together. Just to make things a tad more ridiculous, throw in a one-legged wrestler, a pot-bellied Roddy Piper, Rikishi, a coconut, Sean "Has It Really Come To This" O'Haire, and Vince McMahon, and stir the ingredients vigorously. Then fire Hogan (er, Mr. America) and Piper for real, send O'Haire back to "B" show purgatory, and have Brock Lesnar throw the one-legged guy down a flight of stairs. That's conflict resolution, WWE-style."
Cracked me up, anyway. The year-end ish of PWI, cover-dated April 2004, is now available on newsstands everywhere.
Posted by LYT at 1:37 AM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2004
State This!
It's late, and I'm boozin', so may not be at the top of my game, but you guys love this, and so do I.
LYT vs. GWB round 3! (I really hope this is the last round, and that next year it'll be LYT vs. HD, or JE, or even -- huh-huh -- WC)
General thoughts: I heard a bit of the State of the Union live, and noticed that GWB has finally picked up his Daddy'S speaking device of saying the last few words in a key sentence like a Dalek. The Simpsons parodied this on the episode where Bush Sr. moves in next door, having him say "And that is why I will continue to oppose teen alcoholism IN-ALL-ITS-FORMS!" (Dr. Who fans, think "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!").
On to the specifics:
We can go forward with confidence and resolve — or we can turn back to the dangerous illusion that terrorists are not plotting and outlaw regimes are no threat to us.
Whose dangerous illusion was that? Oh, that's right -- YOURS.
The killing has continued in Bali, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Mombassa, Jerusalem, Istanbul and Baghdad.
The terrorists weren't demonstrably in Baghdad until you invaded, GW.
Our law enforcement needs this vital legislation to protect our citizens — you need to renew the PATRIOT Act.
NO. No no no no. Show me how many guilty terrorists you've actually caught thanks to the PATRIOT act, and I'll reconsider.
As part of the offensive against terror, we are also confronting the regimes that harbor and support terrorists, and could supply them with nuculer, chemical or biological weapons.
"could" is a very iffy way to put it. ANY nation conceivably "could." When it comes to those likely to do so, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia top the list. But they're our friends, right?
Last month, the leader of Libya voluntarily pledged to disclose and dismantle all of his regime's weapons of mass destruction programs, including a uranium enrichment project for nuculer weapons. Col. Gadhafi correctly judged that his country would be better off, and far more secure, without weapons of mass murder.
So nuclear, er, nuculer weapons are "weapons of mass murder," eh? I assume we all agree that murder is bad. Where then is our moral high ground, if we maintain more such weapons than everyone else put together?
America is committed to keeping the world's most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the world's most dangerous regimes.
Except us. We reserve the right to use them preemptively.
I gave to you and to all Americans my complete commitment to securing our country and defeating our enemies.
Yeah, great job dealing with that massive blackout on the east coast that wasn't even caused by terrorism.
I have had the honor of meeting our servicemen and women at many posts, from the deck of a carrier in the Pacific to a mess hall in Baghdad.
Seriously, dude, you might not want to remind people about the aircraft carrier thing, especially since you declared the mission accomplished at that point.
I know that some people question if America is really in a war at all. They view terrorism more as a crime — a problem to be solved mainly with law enforcement and indictments. After the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1993, some of the guilty were indicted, tried, convicted and sent to prison. But the matter was not settled. The terrorists were still training and plotting in other nations, and drawing up more ambitious plans. After the chaos and carnage of Sept. 11, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States — and war is what they got.
Serious straw man argument here. No-one I know believes legal papers alone would accomplish anything. Just some kind of due process. Any kind. Seriously, we cut you a lot of slack in 2001, George, and you gave us nothing.
We are seeking all the facts — already the Kay report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.
Do you see the semantics here? We didn't find weapons of mass destruction. But hey, we found "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." Anyway, I thought this war wasn't about that, but about liberating the Iraqi people. I know you change the answer every time we nail your specious reasoning, but try to stay on message, Mr. Prez.
From the beginning, America has sought international support for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have gained much support. There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.
You see what he's doing here? Putting Iraq and Afghanistan in the same sentence to make them seem analagous, when they aren't. The Taliban shielded Al Qaeda, and Iraq did not. Iraq was not a threat to us. Hence the revised reasoning that we fought them to free the Iraqi people. Because we've already proven they weren't a threat to us. Also we bribed many of our so-called coalition partners, like Turkey, and threw petty temper tantrums at allies with legitimate disagreements, like France and Germany.
To cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda, the Voice of America and other broadcast services are expanding their programming in Arabic and Persian — and soon, a new television service will begin providing reliable news and information across the region.
I like this, except that I fear our president also finds Fox News "reliable."
begun to phase out the death tax
Which affects only about the richest 2%. AFTER THEY'RE DEAD.
We expect third-graders to read and do math at third grade level — and that is not asking too much. Testing is the only way to identify and help students who are falling behind.
Really? The ONLY way? Checking their homework doesn't sorta give you a clue?
One of the worst decisions our children can make is to gamble their lives and futures on drugs. Our government is helping parents confront this problem, with aggressive education, treatment and law enforcement. Drug use in high school has declined by 11 percent over the past two years.
Great, throw more kids in jail. Let's start with yours and Jeb's.
The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football and other sports is dangerous, and it sends the wrong message — that there are short cuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character. So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough and to get rid of steroids now.
How is this the federal government's business? All you Republicans who claim yours is the party of freedom, pay attention.
We will double federal funding for abstinence programs, so schools can teach this fact of life: Abstinence for young people is the only certain way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. Decisions children make now can affect their health and character for the rest of their lives. All of us — parents, schools, government — must work together to counter the negative influence of the culture, and to send the right messages to our children.
More abstinence education. Pathetic. Anyone who advocates this should be forced to take a vow of celibacy. And anyway, masturbation also avoids sexually transmitted diseases. Ditto handjobs. Can we teach that? This isn't really about disease, is it?
A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization. Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under federal law as the union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states. Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.
Just because Clinton did it doesn't make it "liberal," or right. And since when do you care about "the people's voice"? The majority of people in this country DIDN'T VOTE FOR YOU! "Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage" How? What qualifies as "sanctity" -- Britney Spears' marriage?
By executive order, I have opened billions of dollars in grant money to competition that includes faith-based charities. Tonight I ask you to codify this into law, so people of faith can know that the law will never discriminate against them again.
"Discrimination" is not the same thing as "not getting billions of dollars in grant money." If it is, I say the government is discriminating against LYTrules.com
So tonight, I propose a four-year, $300 million Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative to expand job training and placement services, to provide transitional housing, and to help newly released prisoners get mentoring, including from faith-based groups. America is the land of the second chance — and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.
I'm actually with him on this.
We can trust in that greater power Who guides the unfolding of the years. And in all that is to come, we can know that His purposes are just and true.
His, yes. Yours, no. I need another beer.
Posted by LYT at 1:36 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2004
Getting LOST again
Time to continue the LOST IN THE BUSH tale. When last I was typing we were on a road trip. A fun trip, too, even though we didn't get to stop at In-N-Out burger because two of our party have dietary restrictions.
Also, Kevin's directions were kinda vague at best. To me, he had simply said to use mapquest to find Moke Hill (well and good, but presumably there's more than one house in Moke Hill?). To Julia he'd been slightly clearer, but we found mapquest severely at fault in this part of the state. Joe got a little agitated, and we made fun of him for doing so. Being lost afforded us the opportunity to buy beer, however.
and soon enough, we arrived at the fine home of Kevin's mom Kriss. In the best sense possible, her house feels like a mom's house (actually, she's a grandmother, but younger than such a tag might make you think). As this was just before Christmas, and I knew full well I'd probably be spending 12-25-03 alone, I reveled in this atmosphere. Nice to have a taste of the family Christmas vicariously. Kriss later said she'd have to adopt me as temporary family while I'm here. Alas, I couldn't stick around right then -- the Christmas season requires my full attention at work, and their Internet connection was abysmal even by dial-up standards.
Kriss was a real trouper that weekend, I must say, providing pretty much non-stop food and carrying on as normal while her house was invaded by about 20 or so mock soldiers. When we would bed down for the night, precious little floorspace was left; one person described the scene Saturday morning as resembling the Jonestown Massacre.
Even the best-supplied mom can run out of bedding supplies for that many folks, so I slept on a pillow of towels on the floor in a back room. My sinuses were troublesome to others -- note that since I sleep alone 99.9% of the time, snoring is usely a non-issue, but it seems I do it badly enough to drive whoever was sleeping beside me on the floor out of the room. We're even, though -- he put his arm around me in his sleep, which felt a bit like being slapped with a clammy cut of cold meat. I honestly don't remember who specifically this was that I'm referring to, so no slur is intended here.
Joe, bless him, can't bring himself to be nasty even when his sleep is disturbed, so every once in a while he'd wake me up and say something like "I'm really, really sorry, but you've got to turn over on your side." To this day he still apologizes for waking me. We all should be so nice.
Saturday, I drank beer all day. Haven't done that since the heavy metal convention I attended while in college. In my defense, I think Steeples was the first to break beer in the a.m., and I followed his lead.
In the afternoon, I went over to the local gas station to improvize some scenes with my fellow onscreen redneck, Brian (one of three Brians, so I can't tell you his last name for certain). I loaned him some of my wrestling clothes for effect, and had the classic redneck STIHL chainsaw cap (a person wearing one walked into the gas station later that day. Also, the local diner had a Confederate flag with Hank Jr.'s face on it, and the caption "If the South would have won, we would have had it made!" And there was some guy just randomly cracking a bullwhip.)
The gas station scenes weren't in the script, but Kevin wanted us to have a little backstory. Shelli did the filming, and it basically played out like an evil, racist version of those scenes in King of the Hill where the gang drinks beer in an alley. I'm very proud of the footage. That was a wrap for the first day.
Our next scene was shot the following night, in which Brian and I drive a pick-up truck, pick-up a deserter, and deliver him right back to his superiors. It took a while to get right once we determined that our deserter, Ian, should greet us with the line, "Hey fuckers!" Funny every time.
There was no beer the second day, and when a run was finally made, it yielded Coors Light, which is nasty-ass crap, but I confess I had one or two.
Some of the behind-the-scenes footage I shot involved a series of breakfast-eating images, Shelli and Aran rehearsing their fight scene, and a 20-minute discussion between Chris and Matt on the merits of newspaper comics. Maybe they'll be on the DVD.
Joe came down with a fever, but did his stuff nonetheless, with an energy. As I told him then, the sickness would go, but the good memories will remain.
Ride back to L.A. was uneventful, save for some really high winds at one rest stop, and the absence of cow odor.
We made a freakin' feature in a weekend. Kevin's almost done editing it too.
Pics, from Kev's site:
Beth and Shelli as the Renegades
JBL, Chris Sivertson, Julia Carpenter and Eddie Steeples in soldier gear
Sweet! Hitch-a-Hiker!
sean (connery) posts on the message board about new developments on the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.
If any of you out there read this blog but not the message board (link at the very top of this page), you're missing out, and this is a really good example of why.
Did anyone see the Howard Dean speech from last night?
I saw it, and thought, "Wow, he's totally cribbing from Ric Flair."
Others saw it and thought it somehow made him a raving madman. I suspect those others have never fired up a crowd in their lives -- you get back the energy you give. To surmise that the fist-pumping in question represents the way Dean would actually work with others is disingenuous or naive, like assuming that, say, Schwarzenegger will punch and sexually harass anyone who doesn't work with him in Sacramento.
Never underestimate the wrestling demographic. Minnesota did.
Posted by LYT at 1:34 AM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2004
Dr. Ted Baehr speaks!
I wonder how many of the celebrities on THIS PROMO FILM are aware of the true depths of insanity contained within the Movieguide reviews.
Also wonder what Richard Ashcroft and/or the Rolling Stones think about their music being appropriated.
Much to no-one's surprise, again...
Who stands to benefit from Bush's Mars mission? Why, Halliburton, of course!
What the world needs now...
One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come, he to justify
One man to overthrow
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
One man come on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the name of love
What more in the name of love?
Early morning, April four
A shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride
Posted by LYT at 1:32 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2004
Good readin'
Found THIS LINK at Michael Moore's site. It's an interview with linguistics professor George Lakoff that touches on the origins of liberal and conservative worldviews, as well as marketing in politics and why people vote as they do. Speaking as someone who markets himself as a brand as much as possible, I found it quite insightful, and a fun read too.
It's like they can't even pretend to be honest any more
Few things that caught my eye in the news about the current administration:
1. Much to no-one's surprise, the Iraqi oil contract goes to...Halliburton.
2. Dick Cheney, facing a supremem court case over his secret handling of the president's energy taskforce, goes on a duck-hunting vacation with Justice Scalia. Scalia claims this is no reason to recuse himself from the case.
3. Bush bypasses confirmation hearings to install Judge Charles Pickering, a man notable for dismissing perpatrators of an 8 foot burning cross placed on an interracial couple's lawn as guilty of merely "a drunken prank." Again to no-one's surprise, Trent Lott is coming to his defense.
If Bush loses the election, it may be because of this kind of overplaying of his hand.
Now, let's talk dinosaur fossils and evolution...
Evangelical Christians accept science over ancient texts when it suits them to do so.
Kevin Ford a threat to America?
This is kinda scary. I hope it's not a result of them following my links.
Posted by LYT at 1:29 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2004
Republicans prove they have pathetically thin skins
...as seen in this boo-hoo Repub account of the Moveon.org awards.
Yo, righties: Try reading Counterpunch or something that actually does set out to attack you all personally. This'll look like a summer breeze by comparison.
And by the way, Bill O'Reilly just compared the ACLU to the Nazis. I see no outcry on the right about that.
(thanks to Martin Devon for the link, though I know he disagrees 180 degrees with my take on it)
LOST 'n' space
It's time to write a bit about LOST IN THE BUSH. But to do that, I should probably first explain, to those of you who don't know, who Kevin Ford is.
Kevin is a childhood friend of Lucky McKee's from Calaveras County, CA. The two first met in a Spelling Bee, for which they both won trophies (I won't say who placed higher, but the winner still gloats to this day).
Kevin's been making films from a very young age, including the original RAINBOWHEAD (soon to be remade with me in the lead) and the "fan fiction" of THE HOBBIT PART 7. I got to see a couple of these during the BUSH shoot. Most prominent among his recent works are the longform Jane's Addicton DVD THREE DAYS (as co-director) and the political documentary THE PARTY'S OVER (as cameraman and brief on-camera personality). He was an editor on MAY, and lives with that film's star, Angela Bettis.
I've become really good friends with Kevin in the past year, though I'm sure our paths crossed a few times on previous occasions. He's seldom seen without a camera in hand -- many of the films he makes are Dogme/Cassavetes style, with people playing versions of themselves. At a party that was held for some out-of-town friends, he filmed the party action, then came up with another narrative that was going on in the background, occasionally taking groups of us to different locations to flesh out the story.
Anyhow...LOST IN THE BUSH, as far as I can tell, is his first scripted feature. He planned the whole thing out, had at least three units filming simultaneously -- him on first, Joe Bettis on second, Shelli Merrill on third, and my good self doing some behind-the-scenes stuff -- and we made a feature in a weekend, a war movie shot almost entirely in Kevin's backyard, garage, and driveway.
The film is set in the near-future, with a reinstated draft and a national militia operating on behalf of the Homeland Security Department. The story focuses on a unit full of fuck-ups and rejects, on the hunt for draft dodgers but mostly fighting amongst themselves. Eddie Steeples plays the main character, the only man in the unit with any apparent conscience or sense of decency left. Kevin's friend Aron (sp?) is Jones, the principle aggressor and troublemaker of the bunch. The rebels are played by Shelli Merrill and her friend Beth (I didn't have time to memorize many last names, sorry!). Other faces possibly familiar to readers of this site include Jaye Barnes-Luckett as a militant right-winger, Matt Shebesta as a rapper, Chris Sivertson as a Cassandra-like psychic, Kevin himself as a medic addicted to snorting sugar, and yours truly as a redneck who somewhat defensively claims he tried to register for the draft but was rejected for being an alcoholic (methinks he lies).
Julia Carpenter was the driver for our trip up to the town of Mokelumne Hill, and Joe and Steeples were also in our party. The trip made me realize how nice it is to take road trips with people of my own age. As great as many of my journalist friends are, there's always that little bit of disconnect, that moment when you want to put Metallica in the tape deck and they tell you, "That's not music," or when you mention that Layne Staley just died and they don't even know who you mean.
We tried taking the shortcut road (99 rather than 5), but the tradeoff is that it's almost all cow pasture all the way up, and the odor can get to you.
(Gotta take a break from typing right now. More later)
Photos from LOST IN THE BUSH
Now posted at Kevin's site. None of me, but some good images of the likes of Eddie Steeples (Torque) Julia Carpenter (The Big Weird Normal) and Shelli Merrill (All Cheerleaders Die), among others, all looking good.
I realize I haven't really written about that shoot at all on this site. Maybe I'll try to recall the whole thing soon. I did take photos, and Shelli took photos with my camera, so I'll have to upload those at some point too.
Thing is, Tech Guy's consumed with other improvements to the site, which will be getting a bit of a facelift this year. Nothing you like will be eliminated, but the look should be better, and the blog easier to link to (like linking to individual posts might be possible, which it isn't now). Maybe, just maybe, we'll finally deliver the flash game too.
I think I must have been Hispanic or Italian in a past life. I always want to sleep mid-afternoon, then stay up to insanely late hours.
My Beavis talking figure will not shut up any more, and it's driving me nuts. I don't have a screwdriver small enough to get the battery out.
Posted by LYT at 1:26 AM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2004
Who needs first-hand experience? I have an ideology!
In the new documentary The Fog of War, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara looks back on his career, and revises his opinion on Vietnam, especially after meeting his Vietnamese counterparts many years later.
But who needs such first-hand evidence? Movieguide's "Christian" movie reviewer Tom Snyder (not the former TV host) is convinced he knows better than the man who was actually there:
Did Bush know?
Most conservatives think that anyone who'd even dare ask that is cuh-raaaaazy and on the fringe.
But this article makes a decent case that if he didn't know something, it wasn't for lack of evidence.
Posted by LYT at 1:25 AM | Comments (0)
January 7, 2004
Stupid White Men
Republicans, of course. Two on my mind since I read the LA Times. One is our Governor, and as a film guy I feel eminently qualified to point out the stupidity of one of his "State of the State Address" comments:
"I am a salesman by nature. And now most of my energies will go into selling California. If I can sell tickets to my movies like Red Sonja and Last Action Hero, you know I can sell just about anything."
The thing is, as any cinephile would know, Arnold didn't sell tickets to those movies -- despite his presence in them, both were colossal flops, Last Action Hero embarassingly so (I liked it, but that's neither here nor there).
OK, next one is worse. Ready?
A conservative group, the Club for Growth, has funded an anti-Howard Dean TV ad that apparently says the following:
"I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freakshow back to Vermont, where it belongs."
The president of the club says of the ad, "What we're trying to show is Dean is supported by the cultural elite and not by anyone with middle-American values and finances."
Now, if I had the mentality of a right-wing blogger or Fox News host, I might say something in response like, oh, I dunno, this just proves that conservatives are objectively anti-freedom. They hate our ability to choose what we eat, drink, read, and drive. They hate Hollywood because its movies generally depict good triumphing over evil. Hell, Republicans are objectively pro-evil!
I don't talk like that, of course. The sort of thing I do is point out that anyone I know who even vaguely qualifies as "cultural elite" hates body piercing and Hollywood blockbuster movies every bit as much as most Republican senators do (though the latter group tends to give movies starring Herr Governor a pass).
I don't drink lattes. Nor do I drive a Volvo or generally read the NY Times, though I'm not opposed to either idea. I love sushi, body-piercing, freakshows, and Hollywood, however.
Go Dean! (but does he actually stand for those things?)
Posted by LYT at 1:23 AM | Comments (0)
January 6, 2004
Reader letter of the day
"I'm not sure why I am so offened by your praise of Scarlett Johanssons ass crack, but I am. Maybe it is age, but you had me, then you lost me."
What is THE DOGSAUCE BROTHERS?
I've been dropping references, and I know some of you are curious. So here's the deal:
All my life, it has been my dream to make a movie. This year, before I turn 30, I plan on doing just that.
The screenplay is not yet written (I'm up to page 17as of this posting). I'm not even 100% sure where it's going. The budget will be non-existent.
Lucky McKee and myself will play the title roles. Joe Bettis is tentatively set to be my D.P., and John Daily my editor. As I'm still writing it, I can probably work anyone in who wants to be in. If you can come to L.A. and would like to help, I'd be happy to have it. Scheduling TBA.
Posted by LYT at 1:22 AM | Comments (0)
January 5, 2004
Jail to the Chief?
No, this is not a Bush-bashing post. But guess who's running for president in California's primary?
Peter Camejo, who recently ran for governor, is running in hopes of being the Green Party nominee. I think he'd be a good president.
But the biggest surprise is the candidacy of LEONARD PELTIER. Yes, THAT Leonard Peltier. The one in the Rage Against the Machine video.
He's in prison for what will likely be the rest of his life, but that only stops him from voting, not running for president.
For those who don't know, Peltier is the American Indian Movement activist accused of shooting a federal agent, as documented in the film Incident at Oglala, which makes a pretty good case that Peltier is in fact innocent, though he may be taking the rap for someone whose identity he knows.
Bill Clinton considered pardoning him, prompting protest marches by the FBI in Washington. Bill O'Reilly picked up on it, and presented Peltier as a cop-killer. Most liberals believe he's innocent. As was Clinton's wont, he caved to pressure and only pardoned a bunch of corporate crooks.
Peltier will not win, of course. But it's a fascinating hypothetical -- what if an imprisoned felon were to win the presidency?
I say vote for him. We're long overdue for a REAL American as president.
Posted by LYT at 1:21 AM | Comments (0)
January 4, 2004
Major, major omission from my movies list
Somehow, I didn't get Irreversible in there. Consider it somewhat interchangeable with Beyond Reanimator, depending on whether you're in the mood to get your shocks straight or cheeky.
A few predictions for 2004...
David Twohy's The Chronicles of Riddick will be a really good, dark-toned sci-fi flick. Unfortunately, audiences and critics just won't get it, and the "evil Star Wars trilogy" will not happen.
Meanwhile, the Garfield movie will suck balls, but it'll still make a fortune. Even I will go see it. The day after it sets a new weekend box office record, Peanuts: The Movie will be greenlit.
Howard Dean will totally school George Bush in the debates, but it won't affect his popularity at all -- the next day, pundits will fall all over themselves to explain how Dean was "mean-spirited." [wrong: Dean didn't get the nomination]
Bush will say something stupid and/or indefensible in his State of the Union address, as he has done every year so far. When he is called on it, he won't respond, but various Fox News hosts will explain the ambiguous nature of the words he used.
The Olympics will happen somewhere. I forget where. There'll be some sort of controversy over whether U.S. networks should air them live or not, despite being in a different time zone. I will pay no attention at all to this.
North Korea will act like dicks. We'll ignore them, since they have nothing we want.
I'll finally quit talking about it and actually make a movie.
Rush Limbaugh will write a book about his battle with addiction. It'll do well at first, until everyone realizes it sucks.
The Woods will make Agnes Bruckner famous, and start Lauren Birkell down that road. Several males will adopt Agnes' Woods outfit for the West Hollywood Halloween parade. None will be as convincing as Randy Ostrow.
Ronald Reagan will die. Republicans will start a movement for Reagan to replace Ben Franklin on the $100 bill. Democrats will go out of their way to make phony speeches about how they actually thought Reagan was a great man.
Michael Moore's next movie will break opening weekend records for a documentary. Some of the facts in it will be dubious. There will be attempts on his life.
My Valentine's Day solo streak will once again remain unbroken. [this turned out to be wrong]
Lucky McKee's next directorial project will feature a female protagonist in a horrific situation.
I will buy a bunch more McFarlane Toys.
My living situation will be thoroughly different by year's end.
Check back in a year to see how I did.
Review of the M-3D DVD with my commentary
Check it out.
The keeper quote: "Thompson sounds like 'Daily Show' correspondent Mo Rocca, but 99% of his jokes fall flat and plenty of profanity spills out"
What can I say. At least I own up to my own incompetence on the disc itself. I am curious as to why profanity would bother anyone watching a porn DVD.
If the review makes you wanna buy the disc, click the "merchandise" link at the top of this page.
Posted by LYT at 1:18 AM | Comments (0)
January 2, 2004
The Duds of 2003
Some writers crave doing worst-of lists more than any other, as it makes them feel superior to put down the work of others. I don't get a particular glee from that, but I am upset if my time in a theater is wasted. Some people think critics just love to put down everything, but I'd love for all the films I see to be good. It's just that when they're not, and especially if I feel I could do better, I feel they should be scolded a bit so that maybe they'll get it right next time.
Normally, about this time every year, there's some film that everyone loves that simply isn't good at all in my eyes, and I feel the need to cry out with every fibre of my being, "What is wrong with you people?" In hindsight, I find that some people are starting to come around to my negative appraisal of Gladiator. Schindler's List is one I'll always be in the minority on.
This year, there was nothing so egregious -- in fact, the four films on my overrated list are all indisputably well made. I just think that three of the four induce people to believe that there's more to the film than is really there, and in the third case are entirely blind and unwitting to a dubious racial subtext. If you're a regular reader of mine, no surprises here:
1. American Splendor. Moments of this film are great...but only moments. That one scene with the snow, where Paul Giamatti steps out of the film frame and into the white room of the blank page was brilliant, as was the one where Joyce waits to meet him for the first time, and envisions different drawings of him. So why couldn't the rest of the movie be that good? Having the real Harvey Pekar in it was a distraction, and made the thing feel like a big-budget home movie, and the cancer story got short shrift, all in all. Was there even a proper story? I didn't hate the film, but I'm hard on it because it could have been great, and only momentarily got there, while every other critic seems willing to pretend it's a flawless masterpiece.
2. Kill Bill, vol. 1. I saw it twice, and I may even get the soundtrack just because it reminds me of Montreal. It's slick, visually cool, and well put together, but I found the movie utterly soulless. Maybe I'm being too much of a bleeding heart liberal here but...Uma's husband is killed, offscreen, and we never know anything about him that would give us a reason to care. Her unborn daughter is apparently killed too, only not. For this, she's justified in killing and mutilating about 100 people, including a mother right before her daughter's eyes? Doesn't add up for me.
Supporters of the film use the same arguments I heard for Femme Fatale, a flick I despised last year. First, "Oh, you don't like it because you obviously didn't get all the homages." BZZZ! Try again. Maybe not all, but a lot, and sorry, the anime in it isn't very good anime. Second argument, which almost contradicts the first, is "Well, the references aren't important -- it transcends them and presents them in a new way." Maybe. But still, if I don't care about Uma, none of that matters. Sonny Chiba is great in it, but he reminds me that I'd rather be watching The Streetfighter.
3. In America. A well-made, believable tale of an Irish immigrant family, but... What follows is a repost from the Cutting Board:
"IN AMERICA SPOILERS BELOW [italicized]
It's not that Djimon (Hounsou) helps the white folks and THEN dies, it's that he solves all their problems BY dying. For their story to be resolved, they need to:
a. save their baby
b. pay their hospital bills
c. get over their son's death
Djimon's death achieves (b) with his will and sorta achieves (c) as well because it gives them the catharsis they need. The film strongly implies that it achieves (a) as well, with his dying lifeforce somehow transferred into the baby by prayer. This isn't an entirely new idea -- The Green Mile springs to mind. Both well made films, but uncomfortable for me in that regard."
END SPOILERS
Richard Roeper says he'll refund the money of anyone who doesn't love the film. I'd like to see Spike Lee get a big group together to march on Roeper's house and bankrupt him.
4. A Mighty Wind. The bluegrass parodies are hilarious -- so why not script the rest of the movie too? Christopher Guest and friends ham it up before the camera with ever diminishing returns; had they actually prepared material, I imagine it could have been great. Instead, it feels like friends fucking around. Which it is.
Noble failures: Hulk (daring visual style, long and pointless exposition that takes an hour to tell us that Bruce Banner gets green when he's mad), The Order (good story, execrable special effects that aren't needed in the first place), Wrong Turn (good 80s-style cannibal redneck flick, shame no-one saw it), Cabin Fever (fun, but could have been better), House of 1000 Corpses (ended just as it was getting good), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (don't show us Leatherface's real face, dumbasses!), Underworld (more action, less mythology next time), Dreamcatcher (first half is good horror, second half shifts in tone into unintentionally hilarious dementia), Once Upon a Time in Mexico (Johnny Depp was great, too bad Antonio Banderas was supposed to be the star), Phone Booth (good middle section, but beginning and end are useless padding on what should be a short film), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (didn't look or feel finished), Capturing the Friedmans (I wanted to know the director's point of view, and he never gave it).
Not as bad as you'd think, but still not good: Boat Trip.
The worst, in no particular order:
Wish. This horrendous affront to my senses was the worst film I saw this year, and may even beat out The Ladies Man as worst film ever. It screened at the Valley Film Festival; to my knowledge, it has no distributor, and will probably never get one. Using the narrative format of Slacker, it's one of those movies where two characters have a conversation, then one goes off and meets another person, they interact, then that other person goes off to do a scene with someone else, and so on, until it all comes back around. This is a terrible format for a movie, but even if it weren't the thing would still suck -- it assumes that cross-dressers, nerds with thick glasses, and delusional actresses are inherently funny still. If the film-makers are serious about their craft, they need to really take stock, and next time out do the exact opposite of everything they did the first time. I say this with love.
The Medallion. Why, Jackie Chan, why?
Stuck on You. Time to put the Farrelly Brothers out to pasture. Let them become special ed teachers or something.
Deliver us from Eva. I really dig Gabrielle Union, but she sorely tests me in this clunker.
National Security. How many more movies can $20 million-a-picture Martin Lawrence make wherein he acts like a jackass and goes on about how the white man's keeping him down?
Winged Migration. It's just a bunch of birds flying. Nothing else. Oh, except the occasional bit of French accented narration: "Ze BURRRRRRds 'ave returned to zee nest!" The most boring film this year.
House of the Dead. When you have to splice in video-game scenes in lieu of actual effects, it's a bad sign.
Chasing Papi. Hey Latinos: 20th Century Fox thinks you're idiots.
Bringing Down the House. You got me straight pukin', boo.
Marci X. Made on the false assumption that anyone anywhere would want to see Lisa Kudrow trying to rap.
Gigli. Not so much abrasively bad as astonishingly ill-conceived. When the gangsta-rapping retarded kid played by Justin Bartha mentions that Baywatch makes his penis sneeze, you wonder if you've entered some parallel dimension where this stuff is actually comedy gold.
My Boss's Daughter. Ashton Kutcher may make a good movie one day...
Just Married. ...yep, maybe one day...
Radio. "All this time we thought we were teachin' him...he was teachin' us."
Seabiscuit. "They say we took a broken down horse and fixed him up, but we didn't...he fixed us."; "It's better to break a man's leg than break his heart."
People I Know. Forget Jude Law and Ewan McGregor -- Al Pacino gets the award for worst Southern accent of the year. Ping-pong = "Pang-pahwng."
Owning Mahowny. Philip Seymour Hoffman mopes around a lot. I didn't like this last year either, when it was called Love Liza.
Teknolust. Tilda Swinton plays three clones who have to inject semen into their hands to survive. Do you really need to know more?
Assassination Tango. Robert Duvall is a great actor, but a lousy director. Even The Apostle, for all its fabulous acting, is poorly scripted, shot, and edited. This one's far worse -- Starring Duvall and his girlfriend who never acted before, it's about a hitman who goes to Argentina and then spends the whole movie learning the tango. Hard to believe such a modest actor could be so colossally self-indulgent.
And Now Ladies and Gentlemen. Speaking of self-indulgent...if you're 60 or older, and wonder why teenagers hate old people...Well, it's because they make movies like this one. Claude Lelouch's boring romance plays like your most tedious neighbor's vacation slideshow. Jeremy Irons has a brain tumor, sails to Morocco, and meets a lounge singer who blacks out a lot. They fall for each other. She sings. He gets accused of burglary, which might be exciting if any of the other suspects had been developed in any way as characters. Irons has flashbacks to past crimes, which play like rejected Monty Python routines. All slow as molasses.
The Life of David Gale. I guessed the climactic plot twist just from watching the trailer. How about you?
A Man Apart. Vin Diesel made it for a paycheck before he got famous, so I don't blame him, but I do blame you if you actually go see it. Emoting is not the bald guy's strong suit.
Rugrats go Wild. Odorama gimmick aside, this was infantile cartooning at its most abrasive. Talk of eating diapers is not funny, just really unpleasant.
View From the Top. "You put the wrong emPHAsis on the wrong syllABle." Yes, Mike Myers, indeed. And you put the wrong "movie" into my local "theater." Please stop it.
Newsflash
When it comes to carving turkeys, Joe Donnelly is an amateur. Just thought the world should know.
Aside from that major faux pas, however, he's a good host.
Posted by LYT at 1:16 AM | Comments (0)