Brrrrr!

Bailin' Palin

Picture via AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

Everyone’s scratching their heads over Sarah Palin’s resignation. I did think her resignation speech—especially the actual text, with all of those CAPITALIZED WORDS and EXCLAMATION POINTS!!—was hilariously adorable. Extra points for having your family onstage in front of the media with you while trying to excoriate the media for having too much of an interest in your family. It’s been a futility to suggest that Palin stop using her family as campaign props if she wants to keep them out of the public eye.

Why did she resign? I don’t know, but I’m sure we’ll find out eventually. I think it was pretty stupid to announce that she didn’t intend to run again in 2010, then decided to quit because she didn’t want to be a lame duck governor. Why not just not announce anything about 2010, then? For now she’s got a book to write, because you can be illiterate in America and still become a bestselling author. Dan Brown does it all the time. There’s also talk that some kind of criminal investigation is going to come down on her, but if that’s the case, resigning is a dumb thing to do; resignation is something corrupt politicians can usually trade for a lighter sentence.

If she’s quitting now (and let’s just call it that—quitting; little miss “Country First” is a quitter) to focus on a presidential run in 2012, it’s an idiotic decision. It’s not smart to run for president as a governor who wouldn’t finish out a single term. Not that it matters to her fans, who will love her no matter what and believe the claptrap about wanting to protect her family from mean ol’ David Letterman. If she really wanted to protect her family from ridicule, she’d give up politics and stop enjoying her celebrity so much and stop making her supposedly wonderful mothering ability part of her public persona. Instead, she drags her family into the spotlight with her and refuses to leave. She paints a big fucking target on them and then cries foul when someone takes a shot, bemoaning the “politics of personal destruction” after she tried so hard to do the same in the presidential race.

But the people who are so strangely devoted to her as a personality won’t care what she does and will support her unflaggingly, no matter how corrupt she may be or how incompetent she is. And those people are apparently unaware of how stupid and shallow she makes their shared beliefs seem to a lot of other people. Luckily, those people don’t constitute a majority, and even though the far right thinks she’s an amazing demagogue, I’d be surprised as hell if during her eventual presidential campaign she wins the primary, let alone a presidential election. Even I give America more credit than that. Bailin’ Palin couldn’t handle being the governor of one of our least populous states for an entire term, but she’s competent enough to lead one of the most populous nations on Earth? Please.

She’s also threatened to sue any media outlet that says her resignation is due to the ongoing criminal investigation, which is just the kind of thing an innocent person does. Palin is a bully and a coward, a self-important nitwit who takes pride in her ignorance and her self-righteousness.

Hey, maybe she’s just a quitter. Maybe she’s just giving up. Maybe she’s cutting and running. Maybe she’s just in over her head and doesn’t want to do it anymore.

Sarah Palin is a joke.

I can only hope she’s irreparably damaged her laughable political career.

80s Revisited: Star Trek

After enjoying the recent Star Trek remake/reboot/whatever in theaters, I decided to sit down and take in the first movie series again. It was nice to really just sit and watch them for the first time in a while (especially for Becca; she'd never actually seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture all the way through, so for her it was like getting a new Trek movie). Here are my overall reactions.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Directed by Robert Wise; screenplay by Harold Livingston, story by Alan Dean Foster; produced by Gene Roddenberry

I've actually always liked this movie. And watching it again just strengthened my enjoyment. It's much more like the television series than people give it credit for (and not just because it uses a premise--as Harlan Ellison pointed out--that the series had used two or three times). It's interesting to see how the characters have grown, too, with Kirk more driven and Spock less human and McCoy much angrier. Because this film was set years after the series and was supposed to be the Enterprise's return to action, the movie takes the time to set up the characters and how the crew reunites and reconnects. It's a pretty epic movie, and a thoughtful one. I think it's the only one of the Star Trek movies that is really a science fiction movie and not an adventure in outer space. This isn't to malign any of the other movies, but this is the only movie that doesn't have an action plot (no one even fires a phaser) with the exception of IV, which is more whimsical. It acknowledges outer space as a dangerous environment to work in and gets across the utterly strange possibilities of a limitless void.

One of the most interesting criticisms of this movie that I've ever heard is that it feels too old-fashioned to be immediate--"How the past saw tomorrow" is how the writer put it--and while I see that as a valid criticism, I don't think it stops the movie from being enjoyable. The movie takes its plot seriously and treats it in a realistic and thoughtful manner. And it's very much in the spirit of the original series. I would've loved to have seen this series continue with these characters. In a way it did, though; Becca pointed out that the movie is really the seed of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is very true--Decker and Ilia are Riker and Troi (until halfway through, when Ilia becomes Data), V'Ger prefigures the Borg, and the tone is very similar (though less self-important, which was always one of the problems on Next Gen). This is somewhat of an unfairly dismissed film in the annals of Trek. The movie series was never this epic again.

(Grain of salt: the version I love is the 2001 Director's Edition. The original theatrical version, which I saw on video in 1985, is harder to come by.)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Directed by Nicholas Meyer; screenplay by Jack B. Sowards, story by Sowards and Harve Bennett; produced by Robert Sallin

This is the movie where Harve Bennett was brought in as executive producer and Gene Roddenberry was shunted to the side as a consultant. Star Trek II is the cream of the crop, the best and most exciting of the Trek movies, and the one with most of the best acting. I can't really say anything about it that other people haven't said repeatedly in the past. Honestly, I think this is the last truly great Trek film. Even though it's a major departure from the tone of the first film, it's just as devoted to the growth of Kirk and Spock as characters and the idea of exploration, even if the exploration takes a darker turn. It's a great movie. I've seen this so many times and so often that I don't have much to "revisit," as it were. Let's move on.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Directed by Leonard Nimoy; screenplay by Harve Bennett; produced by Harve Bennett

A missed opportunity. After the epic treatment of the first movie and the exhilaration of the second, Star Trek III is a little movie with a hastily put together plot that lets down the major emotional/character cues--the death of Kirk's son, the rebirth of Spock, the destruction of the Enterprise--and robs them of their impact. I almost wish they hadn't have bothered to make this movie if this is all it is: just a way to undo Spock's death. I remember writing an alternate storyline for this movie with some friends that involved the return of Spock much earlier in the film and involved the Romulan unificationists and more character development for Saavik (an interesting character completely undone by this movie) and David (before his death at Klingon hands). I'm not claiming my version was "much better" or anything; I just did it for some friends to show how much more epic the script could've been.

And even in this sparse script they can't find anything for Uhura to do other than take over a transporter room and then say "See you on Vulcan" and disappear from the movie for an hour? Give me a break; there's nothing going on, anyway. Why not put her on the Enterprise and let her witness the death of the ship as well?

Not that there aren't things to like here; the characters are there, and the fight between Kirk and Klingon Reverend Jim on the Genesis planet as it's breaking up around them is pretty neat. But it feels like an episode of a TV show. It's a letdown after the first two movies, and basically turned Star Trek into just another movie series.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Directed by Leonard Nimoy; screenplay by Steve Meerson & Peter Krikes and Nicholas Meyer & Harve Bennett, story by Nimoy & Bennett; produced by Harve Bennett

Here's what I like about this movie: Leonard Nimoy purposely designed it to be fun and uplifting, a comedy that families and fans could enjoy instead of another round of phaser fire in space and death. That's pretty nice. And it works, too. It's a funny movie, a nice movie, with a lot of classic character moments. But it's also pretty slight.

This movie always used to have a reputation, at least in my neighborhood, as being the one everyone liked and the best of the series. Really, I think it's just the most likable. It's not made exclusively for fans, even though it continues the varying story arcs (other than Saavik's; she's just sort of dumped on Vulcan, and her goodbye scene is only thrown in for the fans who need the canonical explanation for her disappearance--really, it could have been handled in one line of dialog, but since Meyer created the character, maybe he wanted to see her off with his return to the series). And it has an ecological message that's easy to agree with (and surprisingly graphic footage of whale slaughter). It's funny. It's a nice movie.

But it's not much more than that, honestly.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Directed by William Shatner; screenplay by David Loughrey, story by Shatner, Harve Bennett & Loughrey; produced by Harve Bennett

Is this movie as bad as fans say? Yeah, pretty much.

It's not the plot that bugs me, although it is underwritten--it's the characterization. The characterizations are, for the most part, bad. And for the most part, it's not the little jokes at the characters' expense that rankle me--although I have always hated Scotty hitting his head on a perfectly obvious support buttress. It's the larger things, like McCoy's guilt over euthanising his father, and Spock's feelings of inadequacy over being half human. That in particular seemed to me to be perfectly resolved at the end of the previous film, when Sarek basically says he was wrong to disapprove of Spock's decision to enter Starfleet and the friendships he has built (and one of my favorite Spock lines, "Tell my mother I feel fine"). Spock has always been my favorite element of Star Trek, and I didn't like seeing him here as little more than the puppet of a silly plot.

And the way McCoy and Spock betray Kirk... I know it makes Sybok seem more powerful, but it really only makes Shatner look more egotistical. Only Kirk can resist this would be prophet! It plays like Shatner's Mary Sue movie.

I have always liked Laurence Luckingbill as Sybok, though. He's an interesting character. Pity they didn't do something more interesting with him. Maybe next time I write an outline for an alternate version of Star Trek III?

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Directed by Nicholas Meyer; screenplay by Meyer & Denny Martin Flinn, story by Leonard Nimoy & Laurence Konner & Mark Rosenthal (the guys who wrote The Legend of Billie Jean, Jewel of the Nile and Superman IV); produced by Steven-Charles Jaffe & Ralph Winter

This is probably the best note they could've gone out on, and I think it's probably the best Trek film since the second one. But it also bugs me that the impetus for this film seems to be merely to bridge the "continuity gap" between the original series and The Next Generation (which would only be further expounded on in Star Trek: Generations). Therefore, the movie mostly services fans, but it has fun within that framework. I get bored during the prison planet sequences, but I like Captain Sulu and I love the scenes with Spock and Chekov doing the whole Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson thing (including Spock's comments about "an ancestor of mine"--that was fun). Too many of the Trek films--such as the basic story arc between the second, third, and fourth movies--seem to exist just to refer to the other movies. I think there are a lot of Trek fans who would rather that the films fit into an established tapestry than actually be enjoyable. At least this film proves that you can do both. It's a fan service movie, but it's not joyless because of it.

I broke off there; I'm not interested in visiting The Next Generation just now. But I will say that, as lesser as the other movies are, I didn't consider it a waste of time watching them again.

How's the Veronica Mars Movie Coming?

"I don’t think it will ever happen, and here’s why: Rob Thomas and I had a powwow, and we were both 100 percent on board. We took our proposal to Warner Bros. and Joel Silver told us that there is no enthusiasm to make a Veronica Mars movie, and that is unfortunately a roadblock we cannot compete with. Maybe if we bombard them with letters? Maybe they will change their tune." -- Kristen Bell to Entertainment Weekly

It bums me out, but since Rob Thomas has also talked about this already, I'm not really surprised. I guess you could argue that the problem with Veronica Mars has always been that there's just not enough fans to satisfy someone behind a desk somewhere. (And I do include myself in that since, unfortunately and despite my curiosity, I never watched Veronica Mars while it was actually on.)

A lot of the argument against a Mars movie is that Kristen Bell is 28 now, and that they'd have to ditch the central concept of the show (the high school and college setting, the class warfare, etc) and make it "just another detective movie." But I think the writing on that show was very special, and I think as long as Veronica is essentially the same character--and as long as they don't forget to give Enrico Colantoni a lot of screen time--Thomas and Bell could pull it off.

It's unfortunate that they'll probably never get to.

Train vs. Tornado

Here in Illinois, too.

Film Week

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

JONAS BROTHERS: THE 3D CONCERT EXPERIENCE (2009)
The funny thing is, the Jonas Brothers are obviously all about sex. They can flash purity rings and talk about abstinence all they want, but the entire concert "experience" with these guys hangs on sexual energy. It's quite a workout; they're competent musicians, even if some of their songs sound the same, but it's the way they run around and do backflips on stage, or get close enough for the audience to touch them, sweating as they make all kinds of movements designed to ratchet up the sexual tension and drive the girls in the audience wild. I mean, Jesus, these guys rush out with foam guns and shoot their loads all over the audience. They are dry-humping (foam-humping?) the audience like crazy, and the audience is having a rapturous time. And I don't know, I think it's pretty cool--rock music, and even pop-rock, is about fucking. Talking about purity is a way to sell it so that parents will be comfortable with it. It's insidious, but it's kind of genius, too. Anyway, I dug the movie--the concert is filmed incredibly well, and the editing gets across the manic energy of the stage show. I wish they'd made these kinds of films back when there were bands that were really, really worth seeing in concert. But as I've said before, I dig the Jonas Brothers. (Maybe not as much as my wife, but, well, you know.) **** stars.

P2 (2007)
Engrossing little horror film about a woman (Rachel Nichols, very beautiful and a great screamer) held captive in her office building's parking garage on Christmas Eve by a night guard (Wes Bentley) who is in love with her. It's creepy as hell, and Nichols is very sympathetic as she tries to escape and evade Bentley and his insane mindfuck. It's pretty graphic, too, but not in a cruel way, I think. It's not the torture or the graphic quality of a lot of modern horror films that bother me so much as the cruelty of many of them. This isn't one of those. I think it sort of got ignored, but it's a fun thriller. ***1/2 stars.

PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009)
Wow, what a disappointment. What a disappointment, too, to see so many film critics and people online basically apologizing for not liking a movie they feel like they're supposed to like. I don't know what the hell has happened to Michael Mann in the 21st century, but his films just haven't been up to par (I really didn't like Collateral). You'd think this story--Melvin Purvis' pursuit of John Dillinger--in the hands of Mann would be something amazing. But it's just not about anything. There's no insight, no character--it's just stereotype of manliness vs. stereotype of manliness, portrayed by a couple of actors who have made the decision to sacrifice their talent to franchise movies like The Dark Knight and Pirates of the Caribbean which require none. And I can see Mann's themes here--that people who can't give up their personal attachments are more vulnerable, and the passing of decisiveness as the price of becoming more civilized. But Mann doesn't make those points with this movie, nor does he make any other point. Some stuff happens to people you can't tell apart because they all look the same and dress the same and their characters are so undefined and they're barely even named, and it all happens on digital film of such low quality it looks like it was shot on a camcorder, and then it's finally (finally) over. Any larger implications (the building of the Mafia, the building of the FBI) are raised but never built on, except for the (kind of slimy) moral equivocating that Dillinger and Purvis aren't so bad in comparison because, hey, they're not trying to be dictators. I think there's still to be a great version of the Purvis-Dillinger story--they've all been vaguely unsatisfying in some way, although I still think the Warren Oates movie does it best--and this didn't even come close. But at least Christian Bale looked sexy and they used the great song "Ten Million Slaves" by Otis Taylor. That's pretty much it for me. ** stars.

WHAT GOES UP (2009)
Steve Coogan as a journalist who keeps making up his stories and is sent to a small town on the eve of the Challenger disaster to do a story about Christa McAuliffe. Instead, he gets drawn into the suicide of an old friend, a teacher whose students--all of them outcasts--mourn him in their own way. Coogan is always good, and some of the students--particularly Hilary Duff as the girl in love with her teacher--are interesting. But the movie never really comes off. I think this is a movie that really wanted to say something, but couldn't quite figure out how to. **1/2 stars.

CARMEN JONES (1954)
Modern updating of Bizet's opera about a man jealously driven to possess the beautiful Carmen. Dorothy Dandridge, whom I'd never seen in a movie before, plays Carmen Jones, with Harry Belafonte as the soldier who loves her, and they are both excellent. Their singing is dubbed because the music of the opera remains intact (and it's quite the vocal heights the singers reach). Beautiful to look at, beautiful to listen to, and well-acted indeed. **** stars.

DR. SEUSS' HORTON HEARS A WHO! (2008)
I hate when movies like this happen: the animation is excellent, but the story leaves so much to be desired. I really despise these attempts to make Dr. Seuss "relevant" to adults by taking poetic messages of loyalty and open-mindedness and turn them into heavy-handed, simplistic faith allegories and midlife crisis symbolism. But at least there's the requisite fart jokes and fucking dancing animals for the kids. Some of the vocal performances are quite good--Steve Carell, Carol Burnett, and Will Arnett especially--and the design of the film itself is wonderful. But it's a hollow experience that goes with the magnificent visuals and the excellent animation. Christ, how can Jim Carrey still mug at the camera when you can't even see him? ** stars.

GONE BABY GONE (2007)
Casey Affleck stars as a detective hired to find a missing child whose mother (Amy Ryan) is a junkie. Of course, as he gets deeper and deeper into his investigation, he finds all kinds of corruption and sickness in his town. Ed Harris has a great role as a hardass cop. I found myself riveted to this movie--I think, in many ways, this was the movie Mystic River could have been if it hadn't been so self-serious. This is a tight, competent crime movie which hangs on moral decisions which are actually argued. **** stars. Ben Affleck directed; I hope he gives up acting and just focuses on directing.

BRATZ (2007)
It's pretty much what you think it is, but worse. None of the kids in the movie can act worth a damn, even as we're supposed to be impressed with their friendship and with the fact that they're all apparently good at everything they ever try. The conflict is manufactured, and the film's anti-clique stance seems particularly hollow--the argument against social stratification is weak-willed, since they only thing they can come up with is that it's somehow crazy, CRAZY, for kids who have similar interests to hang out together at school. Chelsea Staub, as queen mean girl Meredith, is the only actor who gets it, and she is fantastic. She's as good as Ashley Tisdale in the first and especially second High School Musical. It's too bad it's in such a crappy, crappy movie. * star for Staub.

RESCUE DAWN (2006)
Werner Herzog's fictional version of his documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, with Christian Bale as Dieter Dengler, a German-American pilot shot down in the early days of the military escalation against Vietnam and held in a prison camp. It's a hard film to take sometimes. It's not badly-made--not by a long shot--but the way Dieter has his humanity constantly stripped from him until it's nearly gone is very hard. I wept when this movie was over, just because I was so relieved. Bale's performance in this movie as a man who tries to keep his almost blind hope that things will work out, eventually transforming into a shell determined only to survive, is very powerful. Some of the imagery--particularly the flight and crash sequence--is breathtaking, and Herzog's larger idea of men who face desperation in the defiance of nature, one of his biggest themes, is ever present. Jeremy Davies' performance didn't bother me as much as I see it has others, but he does seem to be auditioning here to play Charles Manson in a different movie. **** stars.

BEOWULF (2007)
I'm so torn on this movie. I've made no secret of my hatred for motion capture, and this movie doesn't do much for it. I don't quite get the point of it. Once again, it's not animation, and looking at this film makes you painfully aware of the limits of motion capture special effects, since the creatures born of pure animation--or motion capture enhanced with animation--are astoundingly good (I'm really only referring to Grendel and the Dragon). And the limitations keep calling attention to themselves. Human beings don't move correctly--we're still stuck with movements that look like dead-eyed zombies floating in water. Movements are too broad, too slow. Little hair movements are too prominent, as though forelocks have lead weights in them. The focus on little details like arm hair and cloth texture do nothing to disguise the imperfections of the larger picture, like the stilted, floating horse movements or the fact that Beowulf himself never evolves from looking like a character in a video game's "cinema" sequences. Some of the faces--especially Anthony Hopkins and, in some scenes, Angelina Jolie and Brendan Gleeson--are so realistic that they look like the actors' real faces have been digitally added to the animations. But they do nothing to disguise the weird, plasticine skin or the fact that the special effects artists still can't realistically convey weight or heft or gravity. And why have the designers taken Robin Wright Penn and rendered her conventionally "pretty"? I ask only because she doesn't look like Penn at all--like they've given her a digital facelift--when so much emphasis is placed on making the characters look as much like the actors as possible (even Grendel looks like Crispin Glover). Perhaps, given some of the superheroics, Beowulf can only be satisfyingly told in animation. But this isn't animation--when you take Angelina Jolie's head and paste it on lingerie model Rachel Bernstein's body, that's special effects. Where I'm torn is in the script and the performances. First of all, some of the vocal performances are incredible. Ray Winstone's Beowulf is the best thing he's ever done--he's excellent in the role, and turns Beowulf from a heroic archetype into a human being. But his performance is constantly undercut by the constant visual reminders that this is some kind of special effects stunt. One of the supposed benefits of motion capture over genuine animation is that motion capture allows for more subtlety of expression, but that kind of mimicking of reality--instead of a consistent stylization--just forces you to think about the visual effects instead of the "performance" or the story. Crispin Glover, Anthony Hopkins, Brendan Gleeson, and John Malkovich are all good, and all let down by an unperfected gimmick that kills the illusion they're trying to build. In his earliest scenes, Anthony Hopkins' character, King Hrothgar, looks like Anthony Hopkins' head has been stuck on a neckless lump of undefined eraser. Gross. And as for the script, which is by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, it's probably the best version of Beowulf that could be hoped for. It deviates a lot from the text, but those deviations make it more immediate, more visceral, perhaps the ultimate meditation on the meaning of heroism and the loss of such heroism as the price of civilization. There's a great line that Beowulf says, something like "The time of heroes is over. It has been killed by the Christ-God, and left us with weeping martyrs, and fear... and shame." That's a wonderful line in a script that is so aware of the passing of a certain time in history and a transition to another one. But the script, too, is let down by the motion capture, as little details in the quest to create life--and not the reflection of life, as in actual animation--make the viewer all too aware that they're not being told a story, but sold a gimmick. *** stars, mainly on the strength of the script, the actors, and the sequences with Grendel and the Dragon which are truly exciting.

SEX AND DEATH 101 (2007)
Whatever. I'm so sick of comedies "about" sex; they're as hollow as the message they're pushing about love. And is this all Winona Ryder can get now? She used to be so damn good. * star.

I SHOT JESSE JAMES (1949)
Samuel Fuller's directorial debut is the story of Bob Ford, James' killer, who murders his friend for the ransom so that he can marry the woman he loves. Ford becomes a marked man--everyone wants to take out the man who took out James--and is haunted by guilt. John Ireland is good, if rough, as the tortured Ford. Not one of Fuller's best, but not a bad movie. *** stars.

THE BARON OF ARIZONA (1950)
Another early Fuller, with Vincent Price in a very good performance as a Spanish monk who forges ownership documents and marries the surviving member of a Spanish family in Arizona, making himself lord of the land and suing the US government over his "rightful" ownership. It's a true story, too. As is usual with Fuller--and one of the reasons I like him so much--the film is actually a character piece inside of a story about corruption, crime, and love. *** stars.

THE BURNING BED (1984)
This TV movie has always been kind of a big deal, and with Farrah Fawcett's passing, I thought I'd sit down and watch it (it plays on cable a lot). It's okay. Fawcett's alright in it as an abused wife, but Paul Le Mat has the more difficult job of portraying a monster and making him all too human. **1/2 stars.

One Day

The Health Report Is Now Closed

I'll probably have intermittent updates in the future when I make progress, but it's not really helping me anymore to talk about it every week. It wasn't always the easiest thing on my blog to write, and it's not rewarding anymore, so this weekly feature has been canceled.

Michael Jackson the Man

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Michael Jackson’s spiritual advisor, called in to WGN News this morning and talked about how disgusting the Michael Jackson Death Spectacle is. Now, I agree with him on the one hand—this constant outpouring of grief has gotten ridiculous. It’s turned back on itself; it’s not about grief, it’s about going to a big concert or being a part of this giant circus.

But Rabbi Shmuley goes way, way too far when he says he’s horrified that people are mourning this celebrity icon and not the man who actually died and his “quiet acts of kindness.”

First of all, we only knew the celebrity icon; Michael Jackson went to insane lengths to hide the man from the public. Yes, all we knew was the insane “Wacko Jacko” image, but he did nothing to dispel that but occasionally raise a weak voice in dismissal. And you know, that’s fine. I don’t begrudge anyone their privacy.

But it would be inappropriate for me, someone who just liked his music and his dancing and The Wiz and Thriller to mourn him as a man. I didn’t know him as a man. I have no personal connection with him. But I did have a personal connection with some of his music; and like everyone’s personal connection with any music, it was a one-sided relationship. It was about a certain place and time, a reminder of a bygone time in my life that I keep with me but don’t revere, and music that, however much anyone tries to convince me otherwise, was good. Why should I mourn a person I never knew? I note the passing of a man who produced something that was a big deal for me when I was 7 and still remains a pleasant experience.

Mourn the man? The man was an accused child molester. I don’t know what “quiet acts of kindness” Rabbi Shmuley refers to. I don’t care. Michael Jackson, the man, was an intensely private, increasingly bizarre, pathetic caricature of a human being. That was his public face, when he wasn’t hiding it behind a sheet. I don’t know who this person is that black people are calling a black icon or an important figure in black history. That person only exists in their minds. I’m skeptical of any movement led by Al Sharpton, because they’re usually about more public exposure for Al Sharpton than anything else. Alicia Keys? Please. She once said in a Blender interview that she thought the entire child molestation charge (which was not the first time he was accused) was Michael being framed by the white establishment because white people want to tear down rich black celebrities. Which just shows you she’s not firing on all thrusters.

So no, Rabbi Shmuley, the man doesn’t deserve to be mourned by the public. He doesn’t deserve to have the kind of funerary games reserved for antique heads of state. The media’s obsession with reporting every single aspect of the long, unending, Leninesque display is tiresome and asinine. As I’ve said a few times, I note the passing of a recording artist whose work brings me joy. But seeing image after image of Michael Jackson nearly dropping his baby over a railing to a hungry crowd below because he’s too childish and immature and ignorant to know you can’t hold a baby that way… I’m not going to cry over the loss of a manchild whose inability to grow into adulthood led him to endanger his child and hurt the children of others. No way.

Jessica Hahn Is 50

Happy birthday, Jessica Hahn. You were in the first issue of Playboy magazine I ever looked at. And it was in fact my Dad's. So thank you very much.

T-Shirt Idea #10

Is This the Whole Point of CGI?

I can't wait until we've finally run out of animal species for hacks to make talk, dance, and have 'tude in movies. Is this the only reason computer effects were invented? So that we can constantly sit through guinea pigs, chipmunks, cats, dogs, and a thousand other animals--not to mention the robots--dancing and saying retarded catchphrases? Are you as sick of this shit as I am?

I don't want to see any more animals or robots dance in movies.

Ghostbusters III

The internet has been losing its collective shit for the past month or so over reports of an upcoming third Ghostbusters movie. Most of the same actors, possibly the same director, with script duties handled by a couple of guys from The Office.

I have to say, on paper, it sounds like a dream to me. Eliza Dushku might play one of the new Ghostbusters. Bill Murray held out until Ernie Hudson was given more to do in the screenplay. Ivan Reitman probably directing, which is kind of cool, even though I don't think he's made a single good movie since the original Ghostbusters--and I'm including the lame-o Ghostbusters II, which this movie could make up for if it's good. I want to be optimistic and not be one of those guys who "worries" over the quality of a movie instead of just seeing it or not.

But I already know that the internet--the depressing, cliquish, intellectually smug internet--is going to hate this movie. Completely. The way the internet hates anything. It's the same thing over and over--a sequel to a long-beloved movie comes out, and everyone's excited for a year, and then right before it comes out everyone starts getting nervous, and the naysaying begins about a week or so ahead of time, and then everyone decides on the first weekend that they despise it, and then all of those excited idiots join in the cacophony of "Waaaaah! My childhood memories mean nothing now! My childhood was raaaaaaaped! Waaaaaah!" and "Waaaaah! Why can't today's movies be as 'good' as they were when I was an undiscerning 6 year-old who thought everything I saw was great? Waaaaaaaaah!" The kind of thing that makes the internet so boringly repetitive to read.

The Phantom Menace. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Anything made by a filmmaker who has a cult following. Ghostbusters III. I hope the movie's good, but I'm not going to share my optimism for something that's going to have a lot of useless negativity associated with it just because everyone's frustrated with not being 6 years old anymore.

Because regardless--absolutely regardless--of the quality (or lack thereof) of Ghostbusters III, the self-appointed tastemakers will be too "smart" to enjoy it.

This Is the Way the World Ends; Not with a Bang But a Meme

Splotchy tagged me on this incredibly bleak meme created by a fellow I don't know called JDC.

The question is:
"You wake up tomorrow and every person on the planet has vanished. What do you do?"

The replies are:
Day One
Week One
Month One
Year One

DAY ONE
I admit it: after scanning TV and radio and driving around looking for someone, I'd do a lot of crying that day. I think the loneliness and the silence would be overwhelming. Would there be animals? Gosh, so many dying house pets. It would be just me and my rabbit, then. And with no one to maintain the power or the production of food, I'd be thinking a lot about my options running out.

WEEK ONE
By now, I think I'd be writing things down; just a record of the end of humanity. I don't know who or what will be left to read it, or will find it in the future, but it's the only way I could probably make sense of the sheer enormity of being the only person left on the planet.

Probably, I'd have moved into the local Wal-Mart by now. I could build Thumper a very large play area and have food to feed him, and a supply of food for myself (for a couple of weeks at the most). I could stock up on supplies for my eventual move (I'm not going to sit here through the winter if I'm the only person left) and use the exercise treadmills and bicycles to get myself in shape to survive.

MONTH ONE
Using my time in the Wal-Mart to get in shape and stock up, I'd have stolen someone's SUV by now and be filling it with tents, weapons (for possible hunting), fishing gear, seeds, notebooks, and other items I could use. Probably some books, too, to fill time. Assuming Thumper is still alive, I'd be getting gear ready for him, too--a collapsible cage, something for him to travel in, lots of food and hay--because I'm not abandoning him. A bicycle and some tires and an air pump and tire repair kit. Car supplies. Some CDs for the journey. Gas will be in the pumps for a while, so I think we can make it into California before winter. I'd gather up as much food and water as I could carry and prepare to scrounge what I can along the way.

YEAR ONE
I've always liked boats; when I get to California, Thumper and I can locate a sailboat and take off west. Maybe someone will be alive out there. Maybe it will be just me. I suppose I'll just keep going and writing and reading and killing time until I die. What else is there?

Bleak.

I tag MC.

Kristen Bell Mondays

Giallo

Trailer for the new Dario Argento movie. I will see anything he does, even if it has Adrien Brody in it.

Song of the Week: "Walk, Don't Run"

I just read that Bob Bogle of the Ventures died a couple of weeks ago. "Walk, Don't Run" is one of the best instrumental rock tracks ever, and it's about time I had it up. I remember this one from way back; my dad used to play bits of this and "Pipeline" on his electric guitar. This is a cover of a Chet Atkins song Bogle knew from an LP; this single was turned down by every record label before being self-released (by bass player Don Wilson's mother) in 1960. It got them a distribution deal and made it to number 2 on Billboard. I don't know if people really consider this surf rock or not, but it's always sounded like it to me.

Sunday Hottie 231

ARIELLE KEBBEL