Glenn Shadix 1952-2010

I was sorry to hear that one of my favorite character actors died today at the age of only 58 after some kind of fall. Whether it was in Beetlejuice or Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or even Planet of the Apes, he always made me smile.

Sir Spudnik Von Trap

Every time I'm convinced that I never need to see anything steampunk ever again, thank you very much, something wonderful like this steampunked Mr. Potato Head comes along and proves me completely wrong.

More here.

Kristen Bell Mondays

Song of the Week: "A Year Without Rain"

I really dig the new single from Selena Gomez & the Scene. A lot of her music right now sounds like 1987 to me, but in a good way. So, I'm closing out the summer with this track.

Sunday Hottie 292

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Epic Mickey

The entire opening cinematic has been posted online. I've been excited about this game since it was first announced. I love how rooted in 1930s Disney this opening is. If either of my parents are scoping this, it's coming out for Christmas...

MasterChef

I don't have a whole lot to say about this week's episode. I wasn't surprised by any of the eliminations; Slim and Tracy were obviously on borrowed time--time they didn't manage well--and frankly, after last week's burger competition and "I don't want to let you down!" noise, it really seemed like Jake had just stopped putting everything into the competition. I don't know if I'm misjudging him or not, but his suddenly ultra-laid back attitude started to come across this week as just not caring much anymore. He didn't even seem that fazed to be knocked off the show.

Okay, Joe Bastianich, your mommy is Italian, we get it. Stop Alex Trebek-ing the place up. And he had another drama queen diva moment when he threw Slim's dish in the garbage. It just never comes across as anything but bitchy.

I think Whitney's time is almost up now. They've given her every chance in the world to prove herself, and I think they'd love for America's MasterChef to be this child prodigy, but her inexperience is hampering her at nearly every turn.

Last night, Becca cooked those truckstop burgers I was coveting. They're in the MasterChef cookbook. The barbecue sauce is impeccable. I can't imagine eating a better burger than this one, honestly. And it's so tender and soft. No wonder the grill was destroying those things with bleu cheese inside; it's a very soft burger that would be easy to get wrong. But it's so, so, soooo good. I wish I was eating them right now.

This is the best thing the show's given me.

Another Random Runaways Pic

I dig this shot of Jackie and Cherie.

A Few Brief Reactions to the President's Speech

1. Anyone expecting anything other than vague platitudes about how great America is and how the future's going to be better... well, you should know better by now.

2. Obama's speeches are actually getting more bland as his term goes on.

3. What is he so fucking afraid of? That they're going to say something bad about him on Fox Noise? Grow a pair, Mr. President.

4. The Iraq War hasn't ended, we've just pulled the majority of troops out. Stop putting the cheery "Mission Accomplished" spin on this.

5. I get it, the troops are pure magic in combat boots. Yes, these people make a lot of sacrifices to do a hard job that not many of us want to do. But, you know, some of them were raping and torturing and murdering people in Iraq, so let's not gloss the history out of all proportion, alright?

6. I think it's particularly galling the way Obama kept trying to ennoble the Iraqi people considering he didn't mention how many are dead because of the US and what we've done to set their country back. As Firedoglake noted, he kept making the Iraq War sound like some kind of American gift to the Iraqi people, and I found it pretty offensive. Yes, America made sacrifices. But so did Iraq; they made more sacrifices and will continue to make them in, let's be totally honest, our quest for a gas monopoly.

7. Quit sucking up to the pro-war crowd. You got elected, stop trying to prove you're the guy for the job and do the job.

8. To to those of us who were against the war the whole time and who have been talking about all the government needs to do to pull out of the recession: "It's time to turn the page." Really? That's it? Why not just come right out and tell us to go fuck ourselves? Remember when Bush used to smirk and shrug and get that tone in his voice like "What, you really expect me to be accountable?" That's what Obama is starting to sound like to me.

9. Where are the damn specifics, Barry? What are we going to do about the problems we've got at home? What's the bottom line? Tell us, damn it. We're adults, we can take it. You'd have to be a deluded moron not to know there are serious problems in America. Offer us something more than the vague need for green industries and education. Give us some damn numbers.

That's the shit that really bugs me the most in political speeches. President after President will recognize that we have an impending energy crisis, or a looming environmental crisis, or an economic collapse, or a health finance problem, or an incredible poverty gap, etc. But when it comes time to actually do something, it's all stuff that's going to happen in some vague, undefined future. No President is actually going to get to it. That's tomorrow's problem. Today's just about getting re-elected and making sure no corporation ever has to pay its taxes and grinding down anyone in the bottom 99%.

That's what makes my disappointment in Obama so epic: that he sold himself to us as the guy who was going to take on these tasks and fight the right people, and then turned out to be too gutless to do anything other than play the same game everyone else has been. And the shitty thing is, I knew he wasn't going to be the one to fix it all. I said during the primaries that I had concerns about his ties to corporations, his wife's ties to corporations, the fact that he thought of unions as special interest groups, etc, and I was basically yelled at by liberal bloggers and told I was spoiling the progressive party and that Obama was going to lead us into the light of universal health coverage and green industry and fighting the banks. And I knew it wouldn't happen. I knew it.

I supported Obama after he won the primary because he wasn't John McCain. Because he didn't have a schmuck like Sarah Palin in the wings. And I started to hope and, of course, that was my mistake. And I tried to hope, but hope doesn't get you anywhere: actions do. And Obama's actions, or lack thereof, have been a disappointment. "At least he's not Bush" isn't good enough.

10. When the Democrats lose their majority in the fall--and I suspect they will, since the disapproval numbers are climbing, the unemployment numbers are climbing, and there are no signs of the recession ending, which all spells blaming the party in power--is it really even going to matter? I mean, the Democrats have already proven themselves to be cowards who aren't any more interested in doing what they're supposed to be doing than the Republicans. It's all about moving corporate donations around, anyway.

Things will probably get worse under a Republican Congress, but I don't really see them getting better with the Democrats in charge, anyway. Everything will be pushed into the future, and people will continue to fight over total bullshit like prayer in schools.

I care less than ever.

Film Week

A review of the films I've seen this past week.

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES (2008)
Sweet, heartwarming, utterly implausible fairy tale about a white girl coming of age in rural 1964 South Carolina under the watchful eye of her black fairy godmothers. I don't say that to denigrate the film, but to be realistic about what it is. I actually really, really enjoyed this fairy tale, and found it filled with characters I came to love. Dakota Fanning stars, in a very good performance (as I said yesterday, she really is very talented), as Lily Owens, a 14 year-old girl being raised by her overbearing father in a shack. Her best friend is Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson), the housekeeper, who is beaten by racists for trying to register to vote. The two of them run off, Huck Finn style, and are taken in by a trio of sisters, the Boatwrights--activist June (Alicia Keys), fragile May (Sophie Okonedo), and the majestic, all-knowing August (Queen Latifah, whom I've always adored as an actor much more than as a singer). There, Lily discovers truths about herself and her late mother, learns about the warmth of the family you make in the world, and feels the first stirrings of genuine love, while Rosaleen learns that black women can be outspoken and brave. It's painted in very bold strokes, but not in a way that's patronizing or cutesy. It's a very easy movie to like, and just because it's really a fairy tale, that doesn't mean the emotions aren't genuine. About the only thing this movie gave short shrift that I would've liked a little more depth on is the relationship between Lily and her father (Paul Bettany). It's a little too complex for a movie like this, and I think there's more to it than simply making her father mean and then, out of necessity, Lily's villain. He obviously loves Lily and is concerned about her; it stings him when she says, in the heat of a fight, that she hates him. But really, I found it enchanting. ***1/2 stars.

NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU (2009)
Not as good as its sister film, Paris, je t'aime, which I liked quite a bit. That film was more varied in its subjects, whereas this American film sticks pretty much with flirtations and meditations on the nature of romance, despite the limitless possibilities of a place like New York. It's very telling, I think, that a lot of the classic New York actors don't appear in this film; I kept hoping at least Sigourney Weaver or William Hurt would make an appearance. Like all anthology films, it's a mixed bag; some segments are good, some aren't, some are missed opportunities. My personal favorite was directed by Mira Nair, and starred Irrfan Khan and Natalie Portman as diamond dealers, both involved in strict religions, who have a moment of mutual... something. There's also a nice segment with Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman as a married couple that I really liked. The rest comes and goes in moments. Not bad, but it feels like a film school experiment that hasn't been fully realized. *** stars.

THE DAY THEY ROBBED THE BANK OF ENGLAND (1960)
I really enjoyed this heist film. In 1901, Irish nationalists call in an American (Aldo Ray) to help them rob gold bouillon from the Bank of England, which is an impenetrable fortress. Ray becomes friendly with one of the Scotland Yard officers in charge of guarding the vaults (played deftly by Peter O'Toole, contrasting with Ray's wooden acting) in order to get information. The writing is a little slack, and it's pretty cheaply made, but it's well-plotted and, at just under 90 minutes, it doesn't ever drag. The movie's final act, as Ray and his team race against time to tunnel under the vaults during a bank holiday while Peter O'Toole starts to suspect what's happening and the Irish nationalists try to stop the robbery when politics turn in their favor, is fairly gripping. ***1/2 stars.

LORD JIM (1965)
I found it hard to grasp this film, with Peter O'Toole as a merchant captain accused of cowardice, who begins transporting arms through the Orient. I just didn't care for it; like a lot of epics from the 1960s, I found it overlong, prosaic, and dreadfully dull. I don't think anyone involved in this film, with the exception of James Mason (who doesn't come into the film until long after I'd stopped caring), really understands the spirit of author Joseph Conrad. I think a more metaphorical approach would've aided director Richard Brooks better than the one he uses, which is essentially to take the blond, blue-eyed white man and put him in an adventure against a bunch of swarthy foreigners in exotic locations. But it doesn't work as a swashbuckler, either, because it's just so slow. Still, the sight of Eli Wallach as the villain did provide some brief amusement; of the vast amount of cultural stereotypes I've seen him play, Asian wasn't one of them until now. Read the novel instead. ** stars, mainly for Mason and the beautiful cinematography by the great Freddie Young.

MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA (2008)
I think I'm just done trying with Spike Lee. Always too long, always misogynistic, always meandering with too many characters and too many subplots. There's a lot of potential in this very long film, and some great scenes that nearly work, but it needed a much tighter hand. ** stars.

THE RULING CLASS (1972)
A quirky, often very funny British class satire starring Peter O'Toole as a deluded earl who think he's God, but later thinks he's Jack the Ripper, and in either case believes he's something apart from human and pointedly narcissistic. O'Toole plays Jack, the 14th Earl of Gurney, who inherits the title after his father accidentally hangs himself. The first half of the film shows Jack as a monk in a white tuxedo, breaking into sudden, quick musical numbers and a feckless, offhand sense of manners. It's a study in British peculiarities of politeness, as the family decides the only thing to do is get Jack married and produce an heir and send him off to the madhouse before he enters the House of Lords. As the film moves on and Jack's delusion is broken, only to be replaced by one more fitting to the British upper class, the film takes what we've had--a gentle ribbing at the subtle hypocrisy of British manners--and turns it into something darker and more savage, with implications that this is what the members of the upper class truly transmit from generation to generation: not the care and culture of England at all, but a sort of madness that can easily bloom into something dangerous. The biggest criticism of this film seems to be that it meanders in the second half, as it becomes something more pointed and less spirited, but I think that's part of the point. I don't see it as meandering so much as a heaviness that's essential to the film's point. I thought it was excellent, and one of O'Toole's many great performances. I also enjoyed the supporting characters, but none more than Alistair Sim as a befuddled bishop, and Arthur Lowe as the mouthy, Marxist butler. **** stars.

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951)
Another film about robbing the Bank of England, this one a spectacular comedy. Alec Guinness stars in this classic as a slightly eccentric, very secretive bank clerk with an idea of how to rob gold bouillon and secret it to the continent. He's in luck when he meets a man, played by Stanley Holloway, who makes Eiffel Tower paperweights. The entire cast is very good--I even saw Audrey Hepburn shuffle through--as Guinness and Holloway set their plan in motion and watch it unravel as they're forced to improvise. A very funny movie, with some great set pieces (a chase down the Eiffel Tower, the run from seemingly the entire police force), and a brilliant twist ending. One of the best comedies I've ever seen. **** stars.

MacGRUBER (2010)
Not as bad as I'd heard, not as good as I'd hoped. Jorma Taccone directed this movie, so if you didn't like Hot Rod, you know what you're in for. I thought it took a smart tack in being so firmly what is is: a parody of 80s action flicks, only about a guy who is a total mook who fucks everything up. Taccone knows how to work a cultural cliche into something absurd, and as trashy and raunchy as the film is, it's mostly funny. (Even if it does have Kristen Wiig in it, whom I am starting to really despise, and the one person I find even less funny, Maya fucking Rudolph.) I don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone who didn't have a very specific sense of humor for it, but I enjoyed it. And Val Kilmer is funny as the villain; too bad he burned so many bridges, he's really talented. *** stars.

Social Networking

BECCA: Before we go to bed, let me just get on Facebook and feed my fish.

ME: Ha ha, you said you'd never get on Facebook, and now you're addicted to a social network beloved by old people.

BECCA: I'm not addicted, I just don't want my fish to die.

ME: Your virtual fish? Oh, jeez, this is the neo-pet all over again. I should just spare you the heartbreak and poison them now.

BECCA: Not Iggy and Finley!