January 2003 Archives
January 18, 2003
Heaven
I got my Buffy DVDs Friday. I never need to leave the house again.
Posted by Stan on January 18, 2003 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
January 16, 2003
The Protest
So, okay, I was gonna go to Washington this weekend to protest what’s apparently been dubbed the “war on Iraq.” I’m not exactly sure I agree with the chosen preposition, but that wasn’t why I was protesting. At any rate, we had a couple of meetings about it, and everything was going well…until Tuesday night. Teh horrar.
Honestly, my feelings about the war really had little to do with wanting to protest. I am indeed against the potential war, but not really enough to protest it. Mainly, I did it to meet girls. I am a sad, sad man.
Things didn’t work out, though. As it turns out, I’m not likable or charming in any way. I, of course, knew this in advance. I was hoping I’d be able to trick some of the ladies into believing otherwise. I think when I punched the leader of this youth rally team spirit rah-rah organization in the mouth, they officially turned their backs on my sweet lovin’.
The problem: I’m indifferent but opinionated. This is a somewhat deadly combination. Add to it the fact that I’m tactless, loud, and sarcastic — it’s like social life poison. Also, it apparently causes fistfights among political circles.
So we have this meeting. I missed the first one on Sunday because of the Joe Don Baker movie, so the ladies were very insistent that I be at the meeting last night. If I didn’t show, I didn’t go. I love threats that rhyme.
Apparently, very few people showed up to the meeting on Sunday. I think it was because of the short notice (I was e-mailed about it Saturday night, and while I could have gone, I imagine quite a few people had other things already planned). So, as an incentive for people to get all fired up about their apathy, they created the rhyming threat. It was effective, as it got me to go to the meeting.
I had some time to kill. I had a farewell drink with one of my professors and a few of the students at some dive (trust me, Coke tastes better when served in spit-washed glasses), I had dinner, then I sort of wandered around for an hour before the meeting started.
We met in a little pseudo-cafeteria, and the place was brimming with automatous ideology. There was this strange politically charged fervor that I have never before witnessed in the flesh. Honestly, I hate to be a spoil-sport because I know a lot of people in this country get off on things like this, but I thought it was more than a little creepy. I spent most of my time standing in a corner, despite waving, noisy whispering, and occasional nudging to join the few friends I had in this group.
Then this guy starts speaking, and suddenly we turn into the cast of Les Misérables. He’s leading us to some form of revolution. George W. Bush is the new great dictator (thoughts of Charlie Chaplin bouncing a globe off the ceiling immediately entered my mind…) who must be stopped before he destroys peace for the entire world. Though based on his complete incompetence I see Bush as a pawn of his cabinet, I think that point is still somewhat valid.
But he continues: we, in our efforts to save the world, need to protest this war to preserve the freedom of Iraqis.
Huh?! What freedom? Okay, sure, Bush is a horrible, menacing dictator who is destroying our country. But what the hell is Saddam Hussein? He’s not exactly Abe Lincoln. Mainly, my thoughts on the war is that, yeah, Saddam Hussein and his little regime should be probably be dismantled one way or another. My problems with the war — and the reason I am willing to honestly protest it, even if it is just to meet girls — involve the improper motivation for the war and the government using false scare tactics to create support.
They want to fight this war, and they want to win it, because they want oil. Oil is good. Dismantling Saddam’s government is good, because then his people might not try to make us — and others — explode for a few decades. Also, he’s kinda evil. But when they say things like that, it’s all a load of crap. The bottom line: if we seize control of the country, we get all the oil. And oil is good. Or so the oil lobbyists tell the Congressmen as they slip massive wads of cash into their suit pockets.
Ranting aside, I’m still wondering what freedom he’s referring to. And I expressed this sentiment in a statement identical to that. This caused some sort of bizarre, icy silence. I’m not sure if the silence was because I dared to interrupt Jean Valjean up at the podium, or if it was because they secretly knew I was right, but they got so swept up in being complete idiots that they all kinda forgot.
He said, “The freedom to make their own choices. The freedom of democracy.” Again, that gets a big “Huh?” from me. Has he ever heard of this country before? Is he maybe confusing it with Indiana? Sure, they held a free election that was a joke, but they don’t have a whole lot of freedom over there. Also, they get killed a lot by their government for no particular reason.
Most of the people in the room must have been thinking the same thing because the murmuring started. And Jean Valjean knew he was losing them, so he elaborated: “If we go in there and start bombing Iraq, we will take more lives than we’ll save.”
This was a baffling continuation of what he had just said, but it got the audience back on his side. I was the enemy again. So I said loudly, “How do you know that those same lives won’t be taken by the Iraqi government? Just as much death with none of the democracy.”
That’s when the fistfight started. He sashayed toward me in a huff, and everybody started yelling random and incoherent things (I swear I caught something about a rubber duckie and pickle brine). I don’t really know what he planned to do to me, because I was too busy punching him in the mouth. I’m not really strong, and I’ve never really been in a fistfight (unless you count the time in fifth grade when I dropped a guy with an unexpected hit to the gut after pretending to be nice and friendly-like — I stole that one from Cagney), but this guy was a bigger pansy than I am, and my lack of depth perception managed to come in handy: I aimed for the eye, but I got him square in the jaw. It was a nice hit, and my entire arm fucking hurt for an hour. I’m such a wuss.
My memory of the actual physical confrontation is fuzzy and bizarre, like an Oliver Stone movie without the overacting. It’s basically just a haze of people shouting, a guy moving toward me, and me reacting without actually using my brain (which was the damn thing that got me in the trouble in the first place), and then I was outside.
I got one good hit in the mouth, and then I was grabbed from behind by some Middle Eastern-looking dude and a black guy who I think was in my U.S. history class a few semesters ago. Anyway, I basically got booted out of the meeting and out of the cafeteria. I gather they probably won’t welcome me with open arms in the event that I show up on Columbus Drive on Friday.
Hrm, in retrospect, I guess I still haven’t been in a fistfight, per se. Yeah, I hit a guy with my fist (and it was fun, too, until the throbbing set in), but he didn’t hit me back. He was too busy trying to maintain some sort of authority by screaming “GET HIM OUT OF HERE” and pointing furiously at the door while his cronies ejected me.
Lessons learned:
- When invited to cheesy political rallies, DO NOT CONTRADICT THE HEAD SPEAKER
- When attempting to meet women, DO NOT PUNCH THEIR LEADER IN THE MOUTH UNLESS YOU PLAN ON USURPING CONTROL OF HIS HAREM
- Never leave the house under any circumstances.
Overall, it was a productive evening.
Anyway, I guess I should probably throw away the phone numbers I got…
Posted by Stan on January 16, 2003 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | Classic Issues, Stories of Hilarity and Humiliation
January 13, 2003
To Kill a Cop
To Kill a Cop was a 1978 miniseries, based on a book by Robert Daley, that became the pilot for a (very) short-lived TV series. It’s not the greatest movie ever made, nor is it the greatest miniseries ever made, but I was surprised to find that I liked it a hell of a lot more than I probably should have. I decided to watch it, figuring I could waste an hour and a half making fun of Joe Don Baker in another Mitchell-esque role. Of course, it turned out to be twice the length, but by the end of the first part, I was surprised to find myself hooked. I wanted to see the outcome, so I spent another hour and a half watching the dramatic conclusion.
The premise has three main story threads that all come together in the end. The main storyline consists of Joe Don Baker, the chief of detectives in the 98th precinct of the NYPD, trying to piece together a series of race crimes, starting with the murder of two white police officers. As he does so, he runs into opposition at pretty much every turn. This whole story, in addition to solving the case in the end (and proving Joe Don is da man), introduces a whole police-corruption angle that I imagine was more thoroughly explored in the series itself.
The second thread shows us the series of crimes: Louis Gossett Jr. recently returned from Africa prepared to continue a revolution that apparently died a decade prior, and when he finds out that nobody cares about said revolution, he gets pissed. He recruits a group of black thugs, the guys who killed the two cops, and they form an organization called FEAR (I swear to God, it stands for the Freedom and Equality Armed Revolution). Basically, they spend their time robbing banks and sending nasty notes to newspapers indicating that their revolution will succeed.
The third thread is the sort of humdrum, hokey melodrama — a staple of 1970s cop shows. Desi Arnaz Jr. and Diana Muldaur are newly partnered street cops, and of course, romance soon follows. Well, not really romance. Basically, they make googly eyes at each other, get into a car chase, and afterward they walk through Times Square, and Desi Jr. nods toward a cheap motel, and they wander toward it, arm in arm. His father would be proud.
Soon, these storylines begin to merge. FEAR decides that the next two cops to be murdered need to be in the limelight, so that there will be a huge turnout at the funeral. Huh? It makes sense later. So Gossett fingers Desi and Diana, who were all over TV after their car chase. They kill Desi and wound Diana, and then things start to fall into place. Basically, when the entire precinct — along with a huge crowd of well-wishers — shows up for the funeral, FEAR is going to open fire from the top of the church. They’ve got rocket launchers and M16s and grenades. So that’s why they were robbing all those banks. FEAR’s theory is that, if they do something as big as this, the Revolution will be out there, and their group will grow larger and more powerful. Etc.
Of course, as expected, Joe Don comes to the rescue at the last minute. Using the amazing power of observation that is an asset to any detective, he realizes that the FEAR men, posing as police officers, did not have the black “mourning” stripe on any of their badges. Therefore, they must die. There’s a big struggle, but of course Joe Don triumphs. And he’s a public hero, so the scandal the precinct captain was planning on tossing his way is now tossed out the window. Hooray for Joe Don!
Now, you might be wondering: why did I like this movie? Three simple words: Joe Don Baker.
I’ve always thought Joe Don Baker was a good actor. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I’ve always liked him. I don’t like most of the characters he plays — the greasy, womanizing, hard-drinking, tough guy — and I don’t like many of the movies he has been in, but I’ve always thought he turns in good performances. Considering the low-brow characters he plays, his performances lend a surprising amount of pathos to the B-movie tough-guy hero. He’s not a tough-guy with balls of steel — the way Joe Don plays them, they’re always these sad-sack losers laying on the machismo because it’s cool.
This movie fully exploits that potential. He’s not even a tough-guy hero here; he’s just a sad-sack loser thrust into the position of hero by his duty as a cop. They are sure to reinforce that: he ruins his entire personal life because he is a cop. He’s married to the badge, not to his ex-wife or floozy girlfriend. That’s mostly what I liked — they had three hours to develop his character into a likable, but still flawed, person, and they actually pulled that off.
The same could be said for the Louis Gossett Jr. character. Here’s a man in pain, forced out of the country to avoid prosecution, fighting in Africa for years. He finally returns to find that all of his old friends — including former NFL player and blaxploitation superstar Rosie Grier — have gone straight. Most of them are fighting “within the system,” but Gossett insists that they just sold out. He wants to fight — he needs to fight, because the bastard cracker pigs killed his wife and kids. You know he’s wrong and totally misguided, but you still feel for him.
Since they spent an assload of time developing characters that mostly died, this was more of a straight drama than a raucous (read: crappy) action movie. Surprisingly, though, the action sequences were well-done. The car chase essentially ripped off The French Connection, but it was still well-done. It was no 25 mph jaunt through the South Bronx. And Joe Don’s fighting and shooting at the end with the FEAR guys, including Gossett, was pretty decent too. It was satisfying as a conclusion to the movie.
The one other big thing that I dug was that it was actually shot on location in New York. This was back in the good ol’ days, before every single goddamn miniseries and TV show was shot in Canada, and it makes excellent use of its locations. The 1970s sepiatones never looked so vibrant. Also, you gotta be down with a movie whose central location (the 98th precinct) is roughly a block away from the firehouse they used in Ghostbusters (you can see it in the background in several shots).
Rating: I hate to admit it, but *** 1/2 (out of 4)
Posted by Stan on January 13, 2003 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Reviews
January 12, 2003
Wow
My life reached an all-time low point today. I carved aside three hours and twenty minutes today to watch a Joe Don Baker miniseries/pilot from 1978 on the Encore Mystery channel or whatever the fuck it’s called. And because I decided to watch this, I’m missing out on a meeting downtown, which I was e-mailed about (I appreciated the short notice) during the movie and which starts in 20 minutes. I was told the meeting wasn’t specifically important, but fuck, I should’ve been there.
But that’s not the thing that gets me. The thing that really frightens me about this whole situation is that I actually liked this Joe Don Baker miniseries.
Posted by Stan on January 12, 2003 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
January 5, 2003
Failure and Other Stuff I’m Good At
So I’m failing my African history class. I don’t know why this just dawned on me recently. I guess it’s because, according to the syllabus, I shouldn’t be failing. However, the syllabus hasn’t been followed since the second day of class.
Over the past two days, I wrote a 15-page paper for the class detailing everything I should have learned from the four mock conferences I missed; additionally, I incorporated the final mock conference, which we haven’t yet done, into the paper. Just in case.
She might not accept it. I wouldn’t fault her if she didn’t; it’s not her fault I cut the majority of classes and it took me nearly the entire semester to realize these mock conferences, on which such heavy importance was placed for seemingly no reason, actually replaced the two papers we were supposed to write.
Strangely, though, I’m not entirely concerned. My main goal was to get a D, and I’d still like to achieve that goal, so hopefully this paper will help me out on that. However, if it doesn’t and I fail, oh well. The main problem with it is that my parents will bitch at me, but I’ve already got the excuse ready, so even that’s not a big deal. The main thing that keeps me wanting to pass this course, logically, is the fact that if I don’t, I have to take another history, thereby putting me even further behind than I already am. If it weren’t for that, I would have given up by now.
On an unrelated note, I finally got the cheesy little brochure with details on auditions at the Lyric. The short of it is that I won’t be able to do that until I graduate from college, and that’s assuming I don’t move to Los Angeles right away (as of now, I have no plans to for at least two years after I graduate).
Mainly (and here comes the long of it), it boils down to the fact that it’s a full-time job. Even the supplementary chorus is essentially full-time (at least during the weeks of rehearsal and the show, which are inconveniently during school time). And even during the off-season time, there are still rehearsals two days a week, and even if I did manage to perform some magical scheduling axxxion or something and talk to my professors and finagle my way into doing both at the same time, there would still be an irritating number of problems.
Say, for example, I take night classes, so I can make my day rehearsals, have an hour for dinner, and then go to class in the evening. That might work, assuming I talk to my professors in advance, explain my situation, and get permission to miss during performance nights (which in itself would be a feat of magic or possibly bribery). But then factor into it that I’m essentially on call, like a doctor. They try to get ahold of me, but I’m not home or have my cell phone off because I’m in class, and suddenly I’m fired. Or maybe they do get ahold of me and ask me to come in when I have a class, so I explain my situation. I’m fired again.
It’s basically the equivalent of applying for a well-paying, full-time job and then saying, “Oh, by the way, I can only work two days a week because I’m going to school.” It’s just not in the cards right now.
Posted by Stan on January 5, 2003 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | School Rants
January 2, 2003
Sitting Here
I’m not doing anything right now. I’m trying to will myself to do something, but I’m really just sitting, staring at my computer screen. Now I’m writing in this blog to create the illusion that I’m doing something.
I have to write a paper for my African history class, and I haven’t even started researching. I should be doing that, because I need to turn it in on Monday.
I have to do another draft of my final paper for Aesthetics of Cinema. I should be doing that; it’s also due on Monday.
I have to rewrite a story for Fiction Writing — and when I say “rewrite,” I’m not talking about taking out a line or two and rephrasing a sentence. I mean, a massive overhaul, adding entire sections to it to clarify vague stuff, rewriting all the dialogue, changing locations, changing motivations, changing characters, etc. I should be doing that; it’s due on Tuesday.
I have to pare down my script for Writing For Television, eliminating all of the redundant dialogue or pointless stuff. I should at least be doing that, since it’s the easiest thing to do because I just need to remove stuff; there’s nothing that can be added. Also, it’s due on Wednesday.
And yet, I’m doing none of these things. I worked a smidge on the story earlier, but then I got bored. What I really should do first, because it’s the most difficult, is the African history paper, but I can’t will myself to get the ball rolling on that, even with the knowledge that if I don’t write this paper (and write it well), I will fail that class. And I’m not exaggerating; I will literally fail if I even half-ass this paper.
But I’ll probably end up doing that paper and the one for Aesthetics on Sunday night, and I’ll rewrite the story on Monday night, and I’ll edit my script on Tuesday night. Because I’m a procrastinator. Also, I’m lazy. Also, I don’t really give a shit about anything this semester.
Oh well.
Posted by Stan on January 2, 2003 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | School Rants
What the New Year Means to Me
I watched the entire thirteen hours of Buffy yesterday, and I’m all the better for it. It was the only thing I was looking forward to. And now I’ve gotta get started on all that work due next week, which I decided not to do right away but now have no real ambition to do. So that’s something to not look forward to.
Here’s what I was wondering all day yesterday, though. FX, masters of horrid self-promotion, played a commercial roughly 750 million times advertising their airing of Armageddon next Tuesday, and the thing that baffled me was that the announcer kept saying, “…broadcast with limited commercial interruptions.” But I can’t help wondering why, aside from the fact that it’s obscenely long (for such a bad movie) to begin with, they would do something like this.
Generally, advertisers have no objection to stretching a 150-minute movie out to five hours (see TNT and/or TBS) as long as they don’t think people will shut it off. But maybe that’s the problem. Armageddon is a bad movie, one that can barely hold someone’s attention with no commercials. Stick in a break every 15 minutes, and I could see some problems.
But that can’t be it. The advertisements create the illusion that this is a very important, heavy film like Schindler’s List, so it has earned and deserves the limited commercial interruptions because, dammit, it’s worthy. But as anybody who has seen more than 5 seconds of Armageddon will point out, that is simply not true.
Then I realized something: this is the network that plays The Devil’s Advocate, The Specialist, Diabolique (the terrible remake, not the good one), and, God help us all, the Howie Long vehicle Firestorm. And they’re proud of this semi-nightly cavalcade of crap. So, to FX, acquiring the broadcast rights to Armageddon is the closest they’ll ever come to airing a good movie (because, bad as it is, it’s head and shoulders above everything else they play), so they feel they have to give it the Schindler’s List treatment.
And that’s good for FX. They’re movin’ on up to that de-luxe apartment in the sky. But that doesn’t make Armageddon good. It’s still as crappy as ever, but relative to their normal feature programming, it’s the multi-Oscar-winning masterpiece that will one day form the model of a perfect utopian society.
Oh well. At least they redeem themselves by tossing Buffy at us twice daily.
Posted by Stan on January 2, 2003 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
January 26, 2003
Daredevil
So I saw a trailer for the new Daredevil movie, and I gotta say, it looks pretty damn good.
You’ve got Ben Affleck as the superhero with two major problems: (1) he’s blind and (2) he stuck a wirebrush down his throat. You’ve got Jen Garner, looking hotter than ever, as…well, I dunno what the hell she’s supposed to be, but as long as she looks hot and kicks ass, it’s enough to get my ass in the theatre. You’ve got Jon Favreau, fatter than ever, looking like some freak Orson Welles-Marlon Brando monster, wedged into a chair in a lower Manhattan café for all eternity. And you’ve got Colin Farrell, master of really poorly faking non-Irish accents, as the neo-Nazi bad guy. Ooh, and we mustn’t forget Joe Pantoliano as the annoying-as-all-get-out reporter, and Michael Clarke Duncan as the huge black guy who stands around looking menacing. And the almost certainly frightening cameos by Kevin Smith and Coolio.
I hate comic-book movies because most of them fucking suck, but this one looks like a keeper. Okay, actually, it also looks like it sucks, but it’s got the Jen Garner factor, and it’s got a pretty decent cast. So yay for Daredevil. And yay for Jen Garner.
Posted by Stan on January 26, 2003 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
January 25, 2003
Weight Loss
I’m a fucking chubby piece of shit. I’m not fat, really. Well, maybe I am. But I prefer to think of myself as chubby.
But I have a new weight loss goal in mind. I just bought a large t-shirt. Yes, a large. There were no extra-larges available. I want to lose enough weight for it to not be form-fitting, and I want that to happen before it fades. It helps that it’s fade resistant, which will buy me some time, because I’m not off to a very good start.
Here’s how not to start your diet: a half-dozen Dunkin’ Donuts in the morning (don’t forget the 12 oz. coffee with cream and sugar), followed by a sensible six hours of Cheez-It munching, followed by a nutritious (and delicious!) dinner of McDonalds. God, I’m a fucking chubby piece of shit.
But that’s all over now. I’m back on the diet. And I’m exercising again. The damn exercycle thing is no longer covered in wall-to-wall shit from the Sister Dynasty. I can actually get to it without Indiana Jones-esque maneuvering. One of these days, I might actually get back to my target weight of “looks decent in a large t-shirt.” Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get down to the svelte 174 I weighed when I was 16.
It could happen. Just as soon as I finish the other half-dozen donuts…
Posted by Stan on January 25, 2003 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Random Musings
January 24, 2003
Commercials
I hate commercials. A lot. Granted, I don’t watch them often (thanks to the magic of a taping shows — yeah, I’m not cool enough for TiVo yet), and when I do they’re muted, but there are occasions when the remote is on the other side of the room, so I’m subjected to the horror of commercial advertisements.
My least favorite string of commercials running right now are the ones for Bass Ale. This has little to do with my one-man crusade for temperance, because there are otherbeer commercials that amuse me. I’ll get to that in a moment, but now for the Bass Ale commercial. Okay, so you’ve got this guy sitting in an abandoned factory, telling this story. It’s a long, long, boring, pointless story that goes absolutely nowhere. Then there’s this little montage of the bubbling amberness of the beer, followed by the tagline, which is something like, “Bass Ale — always leaves you wanting something more.”
Now, here’s the thing about this commercial. It doesn’t leave me wanting more. I think it’s supposed to; I think that’s the goal of the pointless story. When the dude stops talking, you’re supposed to say, “Gee, I want to hear the end of the anecdote.” But I don’t, and nobody in his or her right mind would ever want to hear the end of that story. In fact, most consumers would have slipped themselves a nice cyanide capsule shortly after they thankfully cut these inane stories off.
And yet it’s subtly effective. Check this out: when I see these commercials, I listen to the story, it makes me contemplate the virtues of suicide, and then it’s over. But then I think to myself, “You know what? I bet I’d actually enjoy that story if I was wasted.” Then I go out and buy a six-pack of Bass Ale, and they stay in business for another 225 years. Consumerism at its best.
But here’s why advertising is so ineffective lately, in my not-so-humble-and-often-loudly-voiced opinion. They don’t advertise anything. Sure, the ads are amusing and clever and — very rarely — touching. But very few of them actually have anything to do with anything. What the fuck are they selling? Who cares? It’s funny! There’s effective advertising.
The only company I know the name of anymore is Empire Carpet. Why? 588-2300, EmPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE, that’s why. A jingle that gets down into your soul and tells you, “Buy carpet.” It advertises its product and then kills you with a jingle. Plus, it’s got the Empire Carpet Guy. Also, Menards uses the exact same tactics: awful jingle, hilarious pitchman, and it advertises what it’s actually selling. So I know Menards and Empire, that’s good. I’ll have pliers and vinyl siding for the rest of my life.
I watched a commercial today that made me laugh so hard I almost pissed myself, but I have no idea what it was advertising. Beer, I’m guessing, but only because of the half-second shot at the end where the guy is at a bar with his friends trying not to look humiliated. But nothing in the commercial really said, “Hey, beer is cool. Let’s consume some and then drive. I’ll bring toll money.”
Here’s how it went: the guy sees a hot chick moving in down the hall, so he writes a little Post-It note: “If you need ANYTHING, come to apt. 240.” But the note won’t stick, so he goes and gets some duct tape and, obviously, a knife to cut the duct tape off (because few men are strong enough to rip duct tape straight from the roll — we can’t all be Hercules). Despite that minor logic flaw, you have a guy with a knife and duct tape standing outside the apartment door. The girl opens the door, screams, and slams it. Then there’s the in-the-bar-humiliation shot. Oh, beer.
So I remember the entire scene. I remember the fucking specific apartment number of the guy. And yet I don’t remember what it was advertising, other than the vague “beer” theory. This is the way it is with so many commercials. Am I the only one who just doesn’t remember the products but remembers the clever little scenes? Am I the only one who doesn’t even care?
Anyway, I’m done with my whiny piss-rant.
Posted by Stan on January 24, 2003 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Random Musings
January 23, 2003
Ho-Hum
Sometimes I get the feeling that my entire life would be better if I just packed up all my shit, got in my car, and drove until sunrise. And wherever I was when the first sliver of actual sun appeared over the horizon, I would remain forever. Things would be better, starting fresh, having no past, no identity.
That’s the fantasy, anyway; I know that wouldn’t be the reality. Unless TV has lied to me, I know that if I left, one of two things would happen: (1) I would get murdered by someone who preys on people who want to disappear, or (2) I would be sent to a brutal hell dimension where I would be enslaved and abused until I was no longer useful. Either way, that probably doesn’t seem like such a good thing.
Still, it would be nice to go to a big city or a small town and just get lost. It’d be nice to start over. No need to worry about the mistakes of the past; I could concentrate on making brand new mistakes.
A good idea was donated to me by a friend. Something he said brought back a memory from junior high, and that memory spurred dozens of other memories of that bizarre and hilarious time in my life. He said, “Hey, you should write about that.” Yeah, I should. I’ve got a vague idea of thematic elements that could loosely tie together a series of short stories about the most memorable experiences in junior high.
It’s pretty odd, though, how I don’t remember as much about high school as I do about junior high. Well, I do, I guess. I have memories, and if I strained hard I could remember vividly. And when people jog my memory, the specific icident becomes clear in my mind. But never as clear as junior high. I wonder why that is.
I’m gonna go read.
Posted by Stan on January 23, 2003 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em
January 20, 2003
Born Romantic
See, the cool thing about the movies is that they can educate as well as entertain. For example, in the film Born Romantic, I learned three very important life lessons:
- After I abandon for my girlfriend for eight years, realize it was the worst mistake of my life, and then try to get her back, I should not — I repeat, NOT — masturbate in her kitchen sink when she’s nice enough to let me stay at her place because I’m homeless.
- If I want to get attractive women to fall in love with me, all I have to do is dress up like Dean Martin, hire a wedding band, perform “L-O-V-E” for her, and then learn how to salsa dance. It’s all so easy, why didn’t I think of that before?
- When trying to win over the oddball girl who wears a neckbrace not because she’s injured, but because she doesn’t like her neck, it’s probably a bad idea to rob her.
These universal truths are all explored in Born Romantic, a British comedy-drama filled with quirky characters who can’t seem to handle romance.
It stars Craig Ferguson, from The Drew Carey Show, as a Dean Martin-obsessed, unemployed, recently divorced (but still living in the same unsellable house with his ex-wife) schlub. He meets Olivia Williams, from Rushmore, at a salsa club and falls instantly in love. But she just wants to be left alone, which is a shame, because she’s hot.
Another plot thread involves Eddie, played by Jimi Mistry, who’s a terrible thief. His gimmick: he and his partner stake out ATM machines, wait for people to get their money, and then chloroform them as they’re leaving. As he says, “Stealing’s the only thing I’m good at — and I’m not that good at it.” So, running from the cops one night, he ends up in a salsa club, where he meets Jocelyn (Catherine McCormack). She wears a neck brace for no reason, she professionally puts flowers on graves for people who cannot do it themselves, along with hilariously tacky decorations. He’s smitten, because she’s a weirdo, and he’s a weirdo. They’re perfect for one another.
The third story revolves around Fergus (David Morrissey), who is chasing the girl he left eight years ago because he thought he was going to be a rock star. When he gets booted out of his band, he goes to London to find Mo (Jane Horrocks). He spends his days at the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, waiting for her to show up. He starts putting up posters all over the West End, and when he finally finds her, he gets what he deserves — a slap in the face.
All of these stories are connected by two things: salsa, and a cab driver named Jimmy (Adrian Lester), who drives most of these characters around. He’s a typical smarter-than-anyone-would-expect-of-a-guy-in-his-lowly-profession kind of character, spouting off succinct truths to help each of the characters find their romance. But at the same time, he’s neglecting his own happiness because he can’t (or won’t) get over the death of his wife.
Everything gets complicated pretty quickly: when Frankie, the Craig Ferguson character, finally woos Eleanor (Olivia Williams) into going back to her apartment for a shag, his ex-wife barges in with false tales of an open and unhappy marriage. Eddie accidentally robs Jocelyn. And Fergus convinces Mo to take him back, but they both revert to the same behavior that made him want to leave in the first place.
But this is a comedy. And, what’s more, it’s a feel-good comedy. So all of this quirky insanity, all of these developments, are designed to be paid off simply, easily, and quickly. And they are. And it’s surprisingly satisfying, because even Jimmy the broken-hearted cabbie gets his in the end.
It’s predictable, but it’s funny. It’s been done before, but it’s still well-done. I liked it.
Rating: *** (out of 4)
Posted by Stan on January 20, 2003 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Reviews
January 19, 2003
Changing Lanes
Holy shit, did I love this movie.
Also, I hate it when people say Ben Affleck is a terrible actor. I dunno if they’re jealous or bitter or just idiots, but — despite terrible judgment calls on some movies (but I dunno, I’d do Armageddon and Pearl Harbor if I got the ass-fat paychecks he did, but Phantoms, yo?) — he proves in this more than anything I’ve ever seen (maybe Boiler Room) that he’s one of the best young actors working today. Also, he has cool hair.
And Samuel L. is the man, but that goes without saying.
The thing I admired most about this movie was that it developed and maintained strong, deeply conflicted characters. And it didn’t descend into horribly unrealistic violence to solve all the problems. Sure, there was violence, but it wasn’t unrealistic (who hasn’t wanted to loosen the nuts on a lawyer’s tires after he bankrupts you?). And it didn’t really solve the problems. It made things worse.
Plus, it had a happy ending that didn’t seem like a gargantuan cop-out.
Rating: **** (out of 4)
Posted by Stan on January 19, 2003 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Reviews
Minority Report
Well, I rented Minority Report on DVD. It was surprisingly scratch/fingerprint-free, so for the first time in the history of renting DVDs from Blockbuster, I was able to watch a movie from beginning to end without the DVD player spazzing out. That was nice.
I really like Minority Report. The script, by Scott Frank and some other guy (it’s Frank’s script, dammit, so fuck the other guy — he doesn’t even deserve to have his name looked up), creates the best sci-fi in years. Unlike most recent sci-fi, it doesn’t make the mistake that cool futuristic gadgets/special effects/kick-ass action sequences make the movie. Minority Report has all of those things in spades, but it has more: pathos in its characters, philosophical thematic elements (fate vs. predetermination vs. technology vs. humans), and a noirish plot that doubles and triples back on itself in ways that would even make Brian De Palma stop and say, “Wait, what just happened?”
BUT.
There are two big things I don’t like about Minority Report. They are, in order of horror, Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg.
Tom Cruise sucks. That’s the easiest way to put it. The man can’t act, although you have to give him some credit for trying so hard, even though he fails miserably in every effort. But here, he pretty much stinks up the movie. Fortunately, he’s not so bad that he makes a movie unwatchable. He’s just sort of there, being out-acted even by the lowliest supporting player, not really bothering anybody and not really trying hard enough to fully ruin the movie.
But he’s not good. He’d be all right if this was a raucous action movie like his Mission Impossible series, which require no real acting ability. But that’s not what this is. In all of the scenes that set up Anderton’s emotional torment — which is really the meat of the movie; if you don’t buy into Anderton’s traumatic past, the movie implodes — you just see a guy reciting lines, blank-faced and fake-crying so badly only Ed Wood would love it.
In addition, I don’t really think this role lends itself to a big-league A-list star (of course, that’s more of a Spielberg problem than anything else). Every time I think about a guy who would be better in the role, I come back to Neal McDonough, who plays Gordon Fletcher in the film. Few people have any idea who he is, which I think would play better. Instead of staring up at the screen and saying, “Hey, look, it’s Tom Cruise,” you’d get a guy who you don’t really know, who you wouldn’t be associating with any kind of personality. Moreover, he can actually act — as he proves every week on Boomtown — so instead of seeing a blank face, you see a character.
Tom Cruise just doesn’t have that ability. He’s too big a star with too little talent.
And then there’s Spielberg. Why the hell does he try to ruin every single one of his movies by trying to make it appeal to every single cross-section of humanity? He got lucky with Minority Report, because the script is so fucking great a blind man with Tourette’s syndrome could direct it and make it good, but he still tried really hard to ruin it. For somebody who is so good at seeing a script and visualizing it masterfully, you’d think he’d realize that this movie is not conducive to commercial appeal. It has a built-in minority audience (get it?), and all he does by making it appeal to more people is alienate the people it would appeal to in the first place.
Casting Tom Cruise was his first big mistake, as I’ve already mentioned, so I won’t dwell on that again. My other big problem (along with a couple of minor problems) is the cop-out ending, where good triumphs over evil and everybody rides off in the sunset. What the fuck?!
I’m not some big cynical “wow, happy endings suck” kinda guy, but Philip K. Dick — whose short story the script is based upon — is. And the script reflects that. And, up until the cop out, the film reflects that. I do admire the fact that, even while it’s copping out, it still makes sense thematically. The whole concept of predetermination and free will against prediction and fate is still all there, right down to the end.
But it’s still a cop out. And it’s still a happy ending for the sake of commercialism. Everyone must feel good at the end of the film, even though this is a thought-provoking film that, in the end, should make you pause and make you think about the themes explored. One of the good things about Spielberg, his abilities as a filmmaker, and the fact that he’s automatically box-office gold, is that he can really take the time to explore ideas instead of just plot, plot plot. But instead of leaving me thinking about what it’s about it, leaves me thinking, “Gee, what a cop-out.”
He did the same thing with A.I., which was absolutely brilliant until the last half hour. Had they just faded out when he’s calling to the Blue Fairy…my God, that would’ve been tremendous. BUT NO. IT KEEPS GOING. And the entire movie is ruined. Thanks, Steve. But fortunately, he didn’t botch Minority Report — probably because he didn’t write the script for this one — but the ending still bugs me. The only way it works is if you buy into the whole “oh, it was all a dream” theory, which is a sound theory that I would buy into if I didn’t know full well that the reality of it is that Spielberg copped out and didn’t go for the dark ending he was building to. Again.
In summary, I can’t wait for Indiana Jones 4, especially if they don’t use the M. Night Shyamalajzxbsldjksjhvkjncbkjhsdkfgjhr script.
Rating: *** 1/2 (out of 4)
Posted by Stan on January 19, 2003 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | Reviews
