Movie Firsts

I don't think Booksteve intended to start a meme with this post, but I couldn't resist doing this myself.

1st Dracula Movie: I believe it was the Bela Lugosi version.

1st Disney Movie: Sleeping Beauty, which was also the first movie I ever saw.

1st movie I saw without my parents: The first movie I ever saw alone, without my parents or friends or anyone, was a showing of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. My Dad dropped me off and picked me up. I was 12. It was one of a few times I saw that movie, but the only time I saw it alone.

1st movie I had to stand in a long line for: Return of the Jedi, when I was 5.

1st movie I saw with a girl: I really can't remember. The first time I saw a movie with an actual date was The Fugitive, I think, with Jenny Bradley.

1st James Bond movie: The Living Daylights. Not the ideal first Bond experience.

1st adult date movie: Well, The Fugitive was in high school. I'm going to say Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, which was the first movie Becca and I saw together, on Christmas Day 1994. That was our second real date.

1st X-Rated film: I don't remember. When I was a kid I was watching scrambled Playboy Channel. The first movie I ever saw that had an actual X rating was Midnight Cowboy, except I think it was re-rated R for home video.

1st Marx Brothers film: Duck Soup. I saw it on cable one morning at my Dad's house. I was immediately hooked.

1st movie on videotape: Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'd seen it in the theater with my parents, but when my Dad bought the VCR it came with Raiders. I'm not sure what the first movie was that I saw on VHS that I'd never seen before. Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown, maybe?

1st animated feature film: Again, Sleeping Beauty.

1st favorite film star: Harrison Ford.

1st film star I got an autograph from: Brinke Stevens.

1st film star I saw in person: I think Brinke Stevens!

1st WC Fields film: The Bank Dick. Still my favorite of his films, but there isn't one I don't like. Although I'm not crazy about You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, but I really don't care for Charlie McCarthy.

1st M-rated film: I have no idea!

1st R-rated film: RoboCop. It traumatized me for a while. In the theater, that is; I think I saw other R-rated films on video, like Predator, before then.

1st movie on DVD: Lost in Space was the first movie I bought on DVD. No, wait, actually my Mom gave it to me for Christmas the year I bought my player; I actually had the disc before I had the player, which Becca and I pooled our money and bought a couple of days later. I don't know what the first movie I saw on DVD was that I'd never seen before.

1st blaxpoitation film: Coffy. Damn it, I love Pam Grier.

1st martial arts film: I couldn't tell you for sure. When I was a kid, one of the things my Dad and sister and I would watch on local TV were martial arts flicks, but I never knew the name of any of them.

1st screwball comedy: Depends what you consider screwball, I suppose. The first one I saw where I was actually aware of what a screwball comedy was, was It Happened One Night, which I saw in high school.

1st Cary Grant film: I think it was Houseboat or Father Goose or That Touch of Mink or something. My Mom loved him, so I know I saw a few movies when I was younger, but before I was so interested in that type of movie.

1st Clint Eastwood film: Every Which Way But Loose, when I was really, really young.

1st favorite actress: Drew Barrymore, because we were the same age.

1st favorite movie song: "The Bare Necessities." I had a record of Disney songs.

1st favorite movie cowboy: John Wayne. My Grandma loved him.

I Am So Glad Wonder Woman Didn't Get Picked Up...

Rob Bricken at Topless Robot has a really interesting review of the unsold pilot which you should really read to get a sense of just how stupid this thing was really going to be.

We dodged one hell of a bullet.

Happy 70th Birthday, Jurgen Prochnow!

Film Week

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

HOWL (2010)

A unique, fantastic movie about Allen Ginsberg's masterwork. I love the experimental, yet very linear structure of this movie. Basically, you have James Franco, excellent as Ginsberg. The filmmakers (who also made The Celluloid Closet and The Times of Harvey Milk) interweave interview footage with Franco as Ginsberg along with impressionistic flashbacks, scenes from the 1957 obscenity trial of the publication (with Jon Hamm and David Strathairn as the competing lawyers), and animated scenes depicting imagery of the poem itself with Franco as Ginsberg reading the poem. So what we get is an overall impression of the poem itself, what it meant to its author, what experiences and feelings informed the work, and what the public's reactions were to it. It's a fascinating movie. **** stars.

Daisy Time

Oh, Joe Bastianich

I'd forgotten just how deep my loathing for you is.

"Oh, you made a risotto for Joe Bastianich? Uh oh." Cut to Joe Bastianich, all Gollum-eyed and hunched over, acting like he owns risotto... Ooh, I judge you with my eyes.

MasterChef is going to be a trial this year, I can already tell.

Everything's just so made-for-TV. There's no concern for whether food is any good, it's all about who was a marketable story and who will jump through idiotic hoops to get on TV. It's so slick and cynical, and so far I hate everyone involved, including my TV stalwart Gordon Ramsey. (Yeah, yeah, you've been to India, so only your curry is authentic.)

Actually, I did like two people for sure. The Scottish woman who didn't make it on the show, and the guy who cooked the alligator meat. Although I did have to give a hollow laugh when he said Gordon Ramsey was a son of a bitch who was straight with you. Tell that to the guy he made run around the warehouse before rejecting him.

This Is What Sarah Palin Calls Gotcha Journalism

“And in a shout-out, gotcha type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly. And I know my American history.”

No she doesn't. She knows she doesn't. If she did, she wouldn't have said the stupid shit she did. To paraphrase Hank Hill, did all of those words fall out of her mouth at random, or did she mean to say that?

What I especially hate about Sarah Palin, is that I'm convinced she knows she's ignorant and that she's in over her head. She's in this for the celebrity and the power. I don't think she knows in her heart why she wants to be president at all. I think she just wants to do it because she thinks she can. It's like winning America's biggest pageant for her, and she can trade it in for another reality show deal or a fluff position with a publisher or become a Fox News anchor or something. She panders to the most ignorant of the Teatards and Republicans because that's the quickest way to win. She's an unprincipled hypocrite, and I think she knows and doesn't care.

So she'll cry "gotcha journalism" at anyone who puts her in a position to reveal her true ignorance, because she can't win on ideas or political debate or anything but her media whoring (and, of course, the media plays their part with the eagerness of a puppy starved of affection--she denigrates the media, yet without them, she wouldn't exist).

What a parade of idiots politics is.

Well, There You Go

Even a broken clock is right twice a day...

A couple of quick observations about Rep. Anthony Weiner's admissions today

:: Even though Breitbart turned out to be right, he's still been wrong countless times. And though I'm really disgusted that he's right, I'm more disgusted by the undisguised, unfettered glee with which he want after Weiner.

:: Rep. Weiner owning up to it was the right thing to do, but I'd have respected him more if he owned up right away. Seriously, just answer "Yeah, that's my dick, so what?" You look like a hypocrite and a dolt when you drag it out, especially when you're demanding moral accountability from your colleagues in Congress. I do agree with Weiner's decision not to resign, but it still hurts to see one of the last good progressives degraded by his own stupid actions.

:: Weiner was pretty stupid to do something like this when he knows he's a target of the right wing. And he's young enough to be tech-savvy, come on. He knows how the internet works.

:: Even though the media will be on this for days, we don't need to hear any more about what might happen in his marriage. That's a matter for the people actually in the marriage.

:: Weiner has a surprisingly nice body. Just saying.

:: Can the media go back to talking about jobs and the debt ceiling now, like they fucking should be?

This has been a colossal waste of time. We don't make these people sign morals clauses.

UPDATE 5:30 PM: Also, interesting theory going around that Breitbart already had this information and timed it to distract from Clarence Thomas.

Kristen Bell Mondays

Song of the Week: "Dream Police"

I've never had Cheap Trick up before. They've never been one of my favorite bands, but they've got a couple of songs I really dig, and this is one of them. Here's the promo video from 1979. Also: I still think this song should've played over the end credits of Inception. Just to take the self-important piss out of that snoozefest.

Sunday Hottie 331

ADRIANNE PALICKI