I've been blogging about personal stuff lately, and it's theraputic to get that stuff out. It helps.

But I realize that things could be much worse for me. I could be as dillusional as Fred Durst:

The Limp Bizkit frontman, no doubt all too aware that his band's rap-rock sound is dead and gone, is once again propping himself up on the one thing he figures people will remember, his alleged fling/relationship/whatever with Britney Spears back in 2003...

"It just became a fiasco of madness," Durst, 38, tells MTV News about the alleged fling and subsequent story breakup. "(But) I always stay true to my heart and true to everything I did and my intentions, and I am in no way a liar..."

"I look back on it as very interesting (in terms of) how things have been sort of unraveling for her since," he says. "(But) it is what it is. I can sleep at night knowing I made decisions that I wanted to make. (Still) I'm a supporter. I was then, I guess I am now. ... "I just guess at the time it was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her," he adds.

What a peckerhead.

Labels: Entertainment, Music, News

... all the canned laughter. These are the only shows left that still rely on canned laughter.


My step-daughter loves these shows. For the most part, the rest of us endure them. God knows I love my kids, man, but the one and only good thing about Wendy and the kids moving back to New York is that soon I'll only have to watch these shows during summer visitation.

Just out of curiosity, Liam and I took a count while Hannah Montana was on. There were 29 instances of canned laughter in the brief bit of show-prologue BEFORE the opening credits. By the first commercial break there had been 118 fake laughs. By closing credit we'd counted a grand total of 189 completely fake audience laughs and one totally fake "Awwwwww."

Since the average episode, not counting commercials, is 23 minutes ... that's like, what, one burst of totally fake, canned laughter every 7 seconds? Holy friggin' crap.

Man, these shows are so bad. The writing is the worst there is. The acting is even worse than that. And all of these shows feature original music that makes the songs from Scoobie Doo chase montages seem like the Beatles. Why does Disney insult kids' intelligence like this?

It's just evil, man.

Labels: Entertainment

I've had a YouTube account for ages. I mostly use it to post short clips of family video and occasional funny montages, etc. I only recently started clicking the "subscribe" button so I'd get updated when some of my favorite "vloggers" post new stuff.

I'm glad I finally did. I enjoy seeing the updates and watching these videos. None of these are anything special visually, these are just monologues from smart guys with interesting ideas. I suppose they could have been written and posted at regular blogs, but hearing and seeing these fellas express themselves makes it all the more personal, immediate and interesting. Here are a few recent examples...

Penn Jillette, as a rule, doesn't do reviews. Here, he breaks that rule to offer his thoughts on The Wrestler, a movie that I loved. You can watch Penn's video without worrying about plot spoilers. If anything, this clip may simply make you want to see the movie more than you already might:

I love the way Penn feels forced to describe what's so wonderful about the movie with such simple terms: "very real," for instance. And I like the way Penn often simply shakes his head, unable to come up with words. The Wrestler is really that kind of movie.

This next one is from my favorite vlogger, Zo Rachel. Here, Zo takes on global warming, Hollywood, and race, as per: politics:

Drinking With Bob is another YouTube vlog I watch from time to time. Bob usually cracks me up with his manic urgency. And I usually agree with his core points. Here, he talks about the Blago scandle:

Labels: Entertainment, Movies, Politics, You Tube, Zo

A look back at the year as it closes ... each of the thumbnail pictures below is clickable. Click one and it'll take you to the relevant post.

This is 2008 as I followed it at the blog. The political, the cultural, the personal and the trivial. Mostly the trivial.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Links, Movies, Music, Personal, Politics

(Note: I promise, the brief political bit here is played entirely for laughs. I'm laying off politics for a while in a desperate, flagrant, obvious attempt to get my four-or-so readers back.)

David Blaine is probably the world's greatest magician. Well, maybe he's really more an alchemist than a magician. He's figured out a way to turn nothing interesting at all into money, power and fame. And that's real magic.

In 2005, Forbes called Blaine the the 98th most powerful celebrity in the world. That's not quite as powerful as that Malcolm in the Middle kid, but clearly more powerful than Amanda Bynes.

David's most recent spectacle involved hanging upside down for a long time and then pretending to drop. Apparently, most people who saw the trick responded with boos/yawns. Something must have went wrong, and David Blaine says that it's all Dubya's fault. The emphasis below is mine.

Magician David Blaine pulled a string of excuses out of his sleeve to explain why his latest high-profile stunt went wrong - even blaming President Bush's Wednesday night prime-time speech.

A day after finishing his latest "trick" - hanging upside down over Central Park for 60 hours before taking a "Dive of Death" from a 44-foot-high platform, a TMZ.com cameraman asked Blaine why the stunt went awry...

"...because of the president's speech, my show was delayed 15 minutes and all of the wind picked up," he said.

The (hanging like a) bat thing lost some luster when Blaine started taking breaks every hour to stand on his own two feet.

Shortly after 11 p.m., Blaine nodded and smiled to hundreds of fans watching the stunt as they screamed, "Jump! Jump!" and, "Do it!"

The screams for Blaine to "Jump! Do it!" might not have been related to the trick.

I've really got to say, this is the last straw with Dubya, as far as I'm concerned.

First he stole the 2000 election, probably by dropping in on a wire like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible ...

... then he started a fictitionous war in the desert paradise of Iraq by telling a bunch of vicious lies ...

... then he borrowed the Sorcerer's hat and conjured up Hurricane Katrina ...

... and I've always suspected that Dubya kidnapped the Lindburgh baby.

But now he's gone too far. Ordering his cabal of fascist Neocon cronies to sabotage David Blaine is just beyond the pale. Dubya MUST be impeached. Impeached, severely scolded, hosed down with cold water and beaten with a rake.

Of course, Dubya is far too stupid to have pulled it off by himself. This smells like Dick. Dick Cheney, of course, must be responsible.

Blaine's magic is amazing. I'm not even sure how to describe some of his acomplishments. But I'll try.

David Blaine has:

• Laid in a box for a long time.


• Stood on top of a pole for a long time.


• Sat inside of a box without eating. As Chris Rock said, "That's not magic. That's life in the projects."


• Stood inside of a container of water and breathed through a tube for a long time.

Future stunts he's considering include

• Not changing his underwear for six days.


• Sitting on a couch and watching all 48 Hours of Nick-At-Night's Car 54 Where Are You? Marathon, sustained by nothing but root beer and Fritos. (I've tried this and it's very hard to do. Without dozing off.)


• Sitting in his car, in his driveway, and listening to all 100 songs of WXLZ 104 FM'S "100 Greatest Rock Songs Of The 70's". And get this ... he's considering singing along with Stairway To Heaven. So don't miss the final ten minutes.


• Playing Halo 2 nonstop for six hours without a bathroom break.


• Watching all 172 minutes of Beloved* without once rolling his eyes. Not even during the scene where Oprah pees in the backyard.

Personally, I can't wait. If anyone is capable of actually doing all of this nothing and getting paid for it, it's gotta be Blaine.

---

*Totally unrelated, extremely obscure sidenote about Beloved... next time you go to the fridge and find nothing to pour on your cereal, the best way to react is to put on a huge frowny-face and say, in your mopiest voice, "They took my milk. Them boys, they took my milk."

HT to Rey, although he might prefer to be unacknowledged, for getting me thinking about the ridiculousness of Beloved. I hope I've tied the topic into this post in a spurious and confusing way, as is befitting that particular movie.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Humor, Links, Movies, News

"It's not about the money. It's about sending a message."

So says the Joker in the latest Batman movie. But what exactly is his message, and to whom is he sending it?

If you've seen The Dark Knight you might agree with me that the movie is complex and smart enough to work on a number of levels. Sure, it's good fun as a comic-book action movie ... but director Chris Nolan and his cast have crafted a film with a serious philosophical subtext. Especially with regard to the Joker. The film's villain, brilliantly portrayed by the late Heath Ledger (and yes, I've come to enjoy the taste of crow) is just as thought-provoking and challenging as you might want him to be. There's a lot to think about. And there's a lot to discuss, if you're of a mind to do so.

A number of bloggers and writers are up to the task:

• RC at Strange Culture draws parallels between The Joker and the Anthrax killer, Bruce Ivins:

  There is a significant amount of circumstantial evidence of Ivins' craziness, including his obsession with a sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and his poem version of I'm a Little Teapot.
  
  This mentally unstable poetry to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde nature sounds like it could totally come out of a Super Villain movie:
  
  "I'm a little dream-self, short and stout.
  I'm the other half of Bruce-when he lets me out.
  When I get all steamed up, I don't pout.
  I push Bruce aside, then I'm free to run about!"
  
  And I find myself drawing this correlation, and wonder if anyone else does?

  I think that correlation is unavoidable. I mean, that twisted nursery rhyme sounds exactly like the kind of thing the Joker might gleefully sing while carrying out one of his crimes.



• Jason Lee Steorts, writing for the National Review, looks at the Joker through the prism of Frederick Nietzsche:
  

  ...the Joker doesn’t do just anything. What he does is destroy. He is not chance, for chance might treat you well. He is, rather, a vandal. Why he wants to vandalize is not clear. Beyond question is that he thinks there is no such thing as right or wrong...
  
  ...“moral relativism” is the regnant doctrine among the most important shapers of popular opinion: Hollywood, the music industry, the media, and the otherwise übercool...
  
  ...In these parts, people like to kick (Nietzsche). Some kick him because he wrote in metaphors, a few of which sound anti-Semitic or bellicose when taken literally. A whole lot of us kick him for three little words he wrote about God. But we rarely bother to look at the pictures that went with those words. We get so carried away in the kicking that we ignore the answer he gave to the problem of God’s death (and it was, for him, a problem). That answer was roughly: “Yes, all is permitted; now go make something beautiful.”

  
  Read the whole article, it's very good.



• Mark D. White and Robert Arp think about the Joker in terms of terrorists and torture at Boston.com:
  

  ...if we say that Batman should kill the Joker, doesn't that imply that we should torture terror suspects if there's a chance of getting information that could save innocent lives? Of course, terror is all too present in the real world, and Batman only exists in the comics and movies. So maybe we're just too detached from the Dark Knight and the problems of Gotham City, so we can say "go ahead, kill him." But, if anything, that detachment implies that there's more at stake in the real world - so why aren't we tougher on actual terrorists than we are on the make-believe Joker?




• There are a number of people you might compare the Joker to ... but Ghandi? Well, before you dismiss the idea, consider what the blogger at A Layman's Philosophy has to say. For all his violence and insanity, the Joker does believe, deep down in his broken mind, that he's making the world a better place:
  

  To the Joker, his scars are important because they remind him of his ideals. He is an anarchist. He doesn’t believe in the conventions of the world, only the conventions that will distract people from the illusions of the world. The joker, despite his trickery, at least makes an attempt to change the world for the better...
  
  If the Joker could find a different way to make the changes he desired in the world, perhaps he would have been likened to Gandhi instead of an insane criminal with issues. The Joker sees the illusion of polarity in the world, he simply tries too hard to help others and not himself. The outcome is violence, torture, pain, and suffering.

  I'm not going to lie to you, I don't share this perspective about the Joker at all. But I was happy to stumble across this blog and find an utterly unexpected idea about the movie.



• I enjoyed what Father Raymond J. De Souza had to say about the Joker and his ideas about good and evil:
  

  “I choose chaos,” the Joker confesses. There is no order built into human nature, no moral law written on the heart. There are rules of common agreement. But they are only manufactured rules, entirely arbitrary, without enduring value. They do not correspond to any truth — and they cannot, for there is no order or design at the heart of reality. There is only chaos, and the Joker embraces it...
  
  Richard Dawkins, call your agent: As a sworn enemy of Godly design, you should be getting royalties...

  
  The only problem with that is that Richard Dawkins is utterly humorless. Whereas the Joker enjoys a good chuckle. Come on, Richie ... let's put a smile on that face!

Personally, I see The Dark Knight's Joker as sort of a Jim Jones figure. The Joker and Jones both used a certain dark charisma to captivate both their followers and those who oppose them. Both of them are nihilists. Both Jim Jones and the Joker are flashy attention-hounds. Both of them pervert innocent symbols to convey their own warped world view: The Joker dresses up as a clown to mock his victims, Jim Jones employed a demented version of Christianity to control his followers. Both of them prey on the weak and emotionally unstable. And both of them are egomaniacs.

Oh, and both of them have high-pitched, odd-sounding voices.

The Dark Knight is an outstanding film; much better, I think, than any of us expected it to be. And how cool is it that a movie this big and loud and gaudy and flat-out entertaining also has interesting, considerable ideas at it's core? Each of us who enjoyed it ought to make an effort to see it in the theater again. Movies like this, with this much to offer, come along maybe once every twenty years.

Labels: Entertainment, Faith, Movies

OK, first a qualifier, I'm not Andy Stitzer, I'm not one of those grown men who amasses action figures and has a huge collection of them setting around the house. I'm a nerd, I admit that freely, but I do draw the line somewhere.

Having said that, I just found out about a line of action figures that I would actually buy (if I had the expendable income) and proudly display in my living room for all to see.

I mentioned the other day that I'd been enjoying a Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel. I tivo'd some of my favorite episodes and burned them down to DVD and a little while ago I got curious about who wrote some of those episodes. (The best ones are usually credited to Serling himself, but the legendary Richard Matheson penned most of my favorites.)

Anyway, I was reading some stuff on the net about various episodes (this website is outstanding) and Googling more info, and I came across these guys:

That's right, a collection of action figures based on characters from the original Twilight Zone series. As you can see above, the set includes the gremlin from Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, one of the astronauts from The Invaders, the medical team from Eye of the Beholder, and Kanamit from To Serve Man.

Gnarly! As much as I like 'em, though, I don't think I should try to buy 'em. Most of the sites that sell them have very expensive prices ... and I don't think I could handle the embarrassment when someone finally busted me playing with them.

I'd write more, but I'm gonna go hide and play with my imaginary toy doctor and nurse. ("Conform! Comform! Ugliness is treason!")

Labels: Entertainment, Trivial Matters

So the number of people in our family who own musical instruments that they can't (yet) actually play is now three.

I have an acoustic guitar. It sits in a corner in our bedroom and mocks me. Every time I walk past it it quietly snickers and occasionally whispers "Psssst! Hey! When was the last time you actually picked me up? You might as well have bought a rocket launcher the day you bought me."

My son owns an electric guitar, and to his credit, he does take lessons. I have to wonder, though, if he originally wanted a guitar because of a deep drive to create music or because of another time-honored reason: chicks dig guys who play guitar.

Today Liam became the first person in our family to pursue a future as a bass player. He started talking about wanting to get a bass guitar quite a while ago, but Wendy and I quietly discouraged him. We were afraid that he thought that playing bass would be as easy as playing Guitar Hero, a video game he's actually very good at.

But Liam persisted, and made up his mind that if we wouldn't buy him a bass, he'd by-God buy one himself. So for months every dollar he received from the Tooth Fairy or for a birthday or a holiday, whatever, went into Liam's bass fund. And whattaya know if he didn't eventually save enough money to buy himself a bass. Fed Ex brought it today and he spent some of the evening studiously watching the included instructional DVD and plucking away.

That bass is bigger than he is. But he seems pretty serious about it. Good for him.

Liam got me thinking about bass guitar today, how much I enjoy good bass guitar and how important a good bass player can be in a band. So I did what bloggers everywhere do when confronted with such a topic. I made a top-ten list and even put together a YouTube video.

You can watch it here, a two and a half minute tribute to my ten favorite kings of the bottom end:

Just a bit of explanation ... here's how these ten guys ended up on my list:

• 10: Steve Harris
  Steve was the first bass player I ever really noticed. Iron Maiden was my favorite band when I was 14, and like many other 14 year olds, I was initially drawn to my favorite band due to their gnarly lyrics and cool guitar solos. But one day I realized that Steve's galloping bass lines were a big part of the reason that Iron Maiden was so cool.



• 09: Roger Waters
  He's probably best known as the primary song-writer and lyricist in Pink Floyd, but Roger's bass playing was a big part of what made up the Pink Floyd sound. Roger's bass sound was thick, though rarely in the forefront of their music. And the more you listen to Pink Floyd, the more you find to enjoy about his playing.



• 08: John Paul Jones
  Drummer John Bonham and bass player/keyboard player John Paul Jones were (in my opinion) the best part of Led Zeppelin. I know that Robert Plant's singing and Jimmy Page's guitar work are the things that most Zeppelin fans talk about, but what keeps me coming back is the drums and bass.



• 07: Doug Wimbish
  Doug wasn't the original bass player in Living Colour, but I think he was the band's best. His work on the album Stain just blows my mind.



• 06: Robert Trujillo
  Fans of Infectious Grooves, Suicidal Tendencies and Ozzy Osbourne were well aware of Robert Trujillo's talents long before he joined Metallica. I remember thinking that he'd be my dream-pick to replace bassist Jason Newstead when Newstead left Metallica. I was thrilled when he got the job, although it remains to be seen if my hypothesis was correct. That hypothesis being that Trujillo's stellar musicianship would force the rest of Metallica to step up a notch.



• 05: Mike Gordon
  For a long time I resisted Phish's music because I find the band's fans so repellent. But I was only able to hold off for so long, thanks to the great musicians in the band. Trey Anastasio (guitar) and Page McConnell (keys) are awesome, and they usually distract me from paying attention to Mike Gordon's bass. But when I do pay attention, Gordon always impresses me. It was probably Mike's incredible groove on the song Weekapaug Groove that got me into Phish in the first place.



• 04: Allen Woody
  The late, great Woody was a big part of Gov't Mule's original sound. The band has carried on without him since he passed away in 2000, but Woody's presence is still a big part of the band. His bass lines in songs like Thorazine Shuffle and Rocking Horse are some of the first things that really hooked me and turned me into a rabid Gov't Mule fan.



• 03: Simon Gallup
  I think that Simon is the only member of the Cure (besides founder and front man Robert Smith)who's been in every incarnation of the band. But I'm not sure, to be honest. The Cure has had so many line-up changes that it's hard to keep track. During the Cure's early days, when the band was a three-piece, Simon's bass playing was a defining part of their sound. In fact, the best thing about some of those early albums (see Faith) is Gallup's bass playing.



• 02: Adam Clayton
  I can't imagine U2 without Adam Clayton's moody, melodic, haunting bass sound. Now, granted, Bono and The Edge are the keys to what makes U2 such a good band. I won't deny that. But Adam Clayton's bass playing is always outstanding. His bass parts are tasteful, understated, never showy ... but they're often the best part of any given U2 song. Can you imagine With Or Without You without Clayton's mournful rumble giving the song all of it's weight?



• 01: Vic Wooten
  Wooten is godlike. He's amazing. He can do anything with a bass guitar. ANYTHING. His regular gig is the bass player in the Flecktones, but Vic has played with a great many other bands and he's done solo-work, too. I hadn't heard of him eight or nine years ago when Wendy first mentioned him to me, and she encouraged me to check out his bass-solo take on the hymn Amazing Grace. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was when I heard it. Since then Wooten has totally won me over with his versatility and virtuosity. He can do it all; funk, rock, jazz ... Vic Wooten could make a bass guitar stand up and go outside and wash his car if he wanted to.

So there's my list. Keep in mind that it's just a list of MY favorite bass players. And I know that bass fans everywhere could look at my list and take offense. I've left off legendary players like Charles Mingus, Flea, Stanley Clarke, Les Claypool, Sting, Phil Lesh, John Entwhistle, Roger Glover, and Geddy Lee. I'm not trying to knock those guys. There's nothing wrong with any of 'em and they're all good at what they do. But the ten guys listed above; well, that's my list.

Labels: Entertainment, Gov't Mule, Metallica, Music, You Tube

Writer and director David Mamet has done some brilliant work over the years. He's the playwrite/screenwriter behind one of my favorite films, 1992's Glengarry Glen Ross. Even some of his lesser efforts, such as Spartan (from 2004) haven't been bad films. Now he's written something ... an essay for the Village Voice ... that might be his best work yet!

What follows are a few favorite selections from Mamet's essay, entitled Why I Am No Longer A Brain-Dead Liberal:

Here, Mamet writes about an instance when he became aware that he'd left liberalism behind as he and his wife listened to NPR in their car:

" I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been — rather charmingly, I thought — referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."

On abandoning the principle liberal conceit:

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

I think my favorite passage in the whole essay is when Mamet mentions some of the writers who've influenced his thinking as of late ... and he calls Thomas Sowell "our greatest contemporary philosopher." YES! As a blogger who's refered to Sowell as "the smartest commentator on America today" and as "America's greatest living thinker," I literally laughed with delight at that line. Sowell is a genius; his work infinitely readable, enjoyable and enlightening. If more people read him we'd have far fewer "brain dead liberals" in the world today.

PS - I've always assumed that Mamet had a bit of a conservative streak, given his participation in the writing of Wag The Dog, easily the sharpest piece of satire to lampoon the Clinton administration that I've ever seen:

Hoffman: This President will be a hero. He brought peace.

De Niro: But there hasn't been a war!

Hoffman: All the greater accomplishment.

Labels: Entertainment, Politics

Synopsis

A bad storm brings a super-spooky mist across the lake. The residents of Anytown, USA end up trapped in a grocery store as unspeakable, huge monsters come out of the mist, looking for people to eat.

Pros:

• Thomas Jane and Andre Braugher are both decent in roles that don't ask much of them.


• Cool mutant spider thing.

Cons:

• Corny, cliched characters.


• Predictable plot developments.


• Bad ending.

Generally:

two on a five scale. Just watch Shawshank again.

Extended Review:

The Mist is the kind of loose, undemanding b-movie that allows your mind plenty of time to wander while you're watching it. My mind wandered, and I ended up asking myself questions like, for instance, why is it that when a guy catches on fire in a movie, he'll always run around, flailing his arms, setting other things on fire as he goes? Doesn't anybody stop, drop and roll like they taught us in school?

And why is it that when nefarious government scientists open a portal to another world, it's always a far worse world than ours? Why can't our world be the worse one for a change? Why can't the other world be a lovely, blissful Eden full of beautiful creatures that come into our world and teach us how to cure cancer, play piano and make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich?

I even had time to wonder about the physics that allow an insect to walk on a glass window. How would that process be effected if the insect were twenty-five pounds or so? Would the sheet of glass have to be extraordinarily thick for it to work?

I read the short Stephen King novel that The Mist is based on some twenty years ago, and I remember enjoying it. I remember thinking that it was like a comic book without graphic art. It wasn't "literature," it was bubblegum for the brain, and pretty good bubblegum at that. The movie isn't nearly as good as the source material, and that's a shame since it comes with a pretty good pedigree.

This film stars Thomas Jane and Andre Braugher, actors who've done work I've enjoyed in the past. Then there's Marcia Gay Harden, who's been nominated for two Oscars and won one of them. Frank Darabont scripted and directed The Mist, and he's done great work bringing Stephen King to the screen in the past. The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile are both wonderful films and each of them rises above the sum of it's parts. Unfortunately, this time out, the movie gets bogged down by it's own lesser elements.

Sometimes b-grade sci-fi can transcend the genre and end up fun and thoughtful. This isn't one of those instances. The Mist is stocked full of standard b-movie devices; characters that are clichés, predictable plot elements and special effects that don't quite deliver the chills they aim for. The actors all perform as well as the script will allow and the direction is fine, it's just that this movie never quite got going and ended up taking two hours to not go much of anywhere.

A bit more about those cliched characters: I was really surprised to realize that Marcia Gay Harden was in this movie. Doesn't she usually do headier stuff, movies designed to provoke critics into using words like "lyrical" and "atmospheric?" Yeah, she does. So how'd she end up in a sci-fi b-movie? Well, turns out that her character is one of those cartoon Christians. The kind that Hollywood loves to shove down our throat as examples of what they think all Christians are. As though everyone who doesn't embrace abortion on demand is a Westboro Baptist congregant. By the time the movie was over I'd become convinced that Harden took the part so she could get paid to show her contempt for religion in general.

You know, now that I think about it, King might have some kind of fixation on religious women. Carrie's mom was a self-righteous nutball, too. So was the mother of Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone. Maybe King had one hell of a mean Sunday School teacher when he was a kid.

The worst thing about The Mist, though, is it's ending. King's original story had a real humdinger of an ending, sorta like the end of The Birds, but to the tenth power, scale-wise. This version of the story, however, continues past the point where King ended his version. Now we're handed an ending that's supposed to be ironic and powerful but simply comes off like a vulgar joke. I call BS on that.

No, The Mist isn't a terrible film, and Jane and Braugher were both fine in their roles. Some of the special effects were OK, although most fell flat, and I did have a couple of genuine jumps during scarier scenes. But ultimately this mist evaporated, leaving nothing behind but a disappointing residue.

Trailer:

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

I've just watched The Last King Of Scotland and thought it was very good. My intentions when I logged on were to write a review of the film, but first I decided to read about Amin a bit and I ended up finding a short documentary on YouTube that captivating me.

So, in short, I won't be reviewing The Last King Of Scotland just now, other than to say that the movie was a bit too long and I found some of the violence to be very hard to watch, but I felt that Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy both gave performances that were strong and compelling. I suppose I'd give the movie three and a half out of four possible stars and recommend it to film-buffs, modern-history-buffs and Forest Whitaker fans ... with that qualifier that, yes, it is a bit long and, yes, it has some disturbing violence.

Anyway, the three YouTube clips that make up the short documentary that I enjoyed:

On a personal note: I'm a huge fan of imported gourmet coffee. Kenyan coffee, for instance, is a favorite of mine. I enjoy Tanzanian Peabery, too. During the documentary, when the narrative mentioned Amin's control of the Ugandan coffee trade, I thought about my taste in coffee and the imported beans I buy. By buying the coffee, am I doing more good than bad or more bad than good? I can't help but wonder about the role my purchases play in African economies and lives. I looked around on the net and read a bit more specifically about that topic, but you know how it is. Every bit of information you find is spun one way or another by someone with an agenda.

Typically, the word "boycott" never crosses my lips. I think boycotts are silly. I will occasionally make an effort, though, to avoid certain purchases for moral reasons. I've become aware, for instance, of the role that gum arabic plays in the stability of a murderous regime in Darfur. (Read this) No, I'm not suggesting a boycott. But I will admit that I've lost my taste for Coca Cola lately.

Of course, gum arabic is in everything for soft drinks to shoes ... sigh. It's complicated.

So, anyway, what I'm saying is that I really hope I don't stumble across a reason to stop drinking my African coffee!

Labels: Entertainment, Media, Movies, News, Politics, You Tube

• What's Up With Hillary Clinton's apology extravaganza?
  
  Hillary Clinton isn't known for apologizing for anything ... so I suppose that her current whirlwind apology tour is a sign of just how desperate she is to hold on to whatever chance she might have of being the Democratic Party's nominee in November. Hilary has apologized for remarks made by Geraldine Ferraro and then apologized for remarks her husband made in South Carolina. She'd do well to apologize for her husband's hideously irresponsible eight years in the White House, but I don't see that happening.
  
  Look, I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton. I've made that clear. But the more I learn about Barack Obama, the more I realize that I was foolish to think of him as a slightly better choice than Hillary. I guess here's where I stand on the two of them now: We're going to have to deal with Obama as a presidential contender at some point. There's no getting around it. The guy has a huge fanbase among the many, many people who don't really understand anything, and it's probably enough to get him elected. So I hope he goes ahead and gets the nomination and effectively ends the Clinton-era of national politics forever. I hope he doesn't win the Presidency, but I really think he's going to be President eventually, so maybe the sooner we get his term in office over with, the better.



• What's up with the upcoming Metallica album?
  
  The band has been pushing the release of this album further and further back, and now it's tentatively scheduled for release in September. Metallica doesn't have a title for the album yet. I call it Chinese Democracy 2 because I'm starting to doubt that it actually exists. And I'm kinda dreading it's release. I can't wait to hear it, I'll get it the day it comes out, and I'm sure I'll be totally disappointed in it for one reason or another. I've said before that for the past few years I've come to feel like Metallica's battered wife. They mistreat me, they never live up to their promises, but I stick with them because they used to be soooooo good to me! If you could only see what they're like when nobody else is around! Really, they're not who you think they are. Besides, we've been in therapy.



• What's up with Eliot Spitzer's call-girl?
  
  Hey, not for nothing, but the girl really isn't all that hot. And I wouldn't make mention of it, except that in her role as a call-girl I'd say that her looks were entirely relevant. It's not that she was ugly, it's just that she kinda reminds me of a poor man's Daisy Fuentes. And that can't have been worth it. If I'm the Governor of New York and I'm gonna risk losing everything and spend ... what was it? $5,000? On one night with a call-girl? Come on. She's gonna look a whole hell of a lot like Rhianna or Katharine McPhee and not a little bit like some washed-up former VJ from the '80's. (Preferably Rhianna ... 'cause ... damn.) This is gonna have to be a memory that'll last a life-time for my five-large. You know what I'm sayin'?



• What's up with the fruity-looking new five-dollar bill?
  
  OK, call me old-fashioned. Call me a troglodyte. (Please ... I like being called names.) Call me a curmudgeon .... but I like my five-dollar bills the way they were when I was a kid. Ugly. Green and wrinkled and marked with that simple, thumb-sized picture of Abe Lincoln's ugly mug.
  
  Ever since the government started messing with the money ten or twelve years ago I've had this vague feeling that we're all walking around with wallets full of pretend currency. And the newest version of the five dollar bill is the worst offender yet. It has purple on it. PURPLE! What is that all about? Can we please go back to real money and come up with a better way to discourage counterfeiting? Like maybe the weekly televised beating of counterfeiters. I personally would volunteer to beat a counterfeiter with a rake for ten minutes every week. Or maybe we just catch them and force them to wear purple.
  
  You know, if we all did our parts, we could probably get the government to go back to printing real money. Call or write to your congressman now and say "Yes! I'll beat a counterfeiter with a rake!" Tell them Darrell at SouthCon sent you.



• What's up with Edward Norton and Marvel?
  
  The promotion of ... and possibly the release of ... the upcoming Incredible Hulk movie is being pushed back because of Edward Norton feuding with Marvel over the final cut of the movie. Partly, I blame Marvel. Norton has had a reputation as a real S.O.B. for years ... and as the old Indian story goes, they knew he was a snake when they picked him up. (I'm assuming that Somebody at Marvel had final approval of the cast.) Either way, Norton is a brilliant actor when he gets it right, but Keeping The Faith indicated that, behind the camera, he ain't no Stanley Kubrick. My two cents: Norton needs to shut up and back out. He's done his job, now let those who handle the movie from here do their jobs.



• What's up with black political figures throwing the n-word around?
  
  Two recent instances, one right after the other, really jarred me. One instance involved Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who's being investigated for corruption and lying under oath. Now, to fend off the charges against him, Mayor Kilpatrick has dropped the N-Bomb and started talking about lynch mobs:
  

  
  Woah! Hey, hold on there a minute, pal! Who's been launching racist attacks on your family? Should't those people be prosecuted for making threats and/or for harassment? And what's that got to do with the charges against you, Mayor Kilpatrick?
  
  And then, right on the heels of that, there's this from Barack Obama's minister:
  

  Hey, wait, woah, WHAT?
  
  If I started listing things that are wrong with that I'd have to write for another three hours. And that's only the beginning of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's recent wacky remarks. And, make no mistake, this guy is an official member of Obama's campaign.
  
  Let me specifically mention the use of the n-word by these guys. Can we just stop with that? Please? For ages and ages that word was used by arrogant, ignorant white people as a way to keep black people down. Now we're having instances of certain black guys throwing that word up as a way to shut up scaredy-cat whites, to avoid the real issues, and to cancel all debate. What good does that do? Who benefits from that? Can we please grow the f*&# up, maybe? It's 2008, fer Pete's sake. When white-on-black racism is the actual topic, let's deal with it. But let's not use it as a way to avoid dealing with anything else. Not for nothin', but too many good, honest black people have really been victimized by racists for their struggles to be trivialized as a political bargaining chip.




• What's up with Spitball Politics?
  
  Well, I'll tell ya what's up with it. Spitball Politics is a new political blog that features the writing of (among others) Scott, the Spiritual Tramp in my blogroll. Stop by, check 'em out, leave a comment or two.

Labels: Entertainment, Media, Metallica, Movies, Music, News, Politics, Trivial Matters, You Tube

Hat tip to Brooke, who linked to one of the videos below in a comment at Cube's blog.

Penn and Teller's Bullshit! is a darn good show. I don't always agree with the perspectives that Penn and Teller share on their program, but they always make their points extremely well and usually come up with rock-solid arguments.

Here's an instance where I do agree with them. Conspiracy theories are total bullshit. There are no alien corpses in Roswell ... The moon landing was not faked ... JFK was not assassinated by a cabal of Cubans, FBI agents and military-industrial-complex goons ... and, most importantly, 9/11 was NOT a government conspiracy. And (I do not make this statement lightly) if you disagree with any of that, then you are probably a f*&^%g moron.

The three YouTube videos below comprise the entire episode of Bullshit! that was dedicated to shooting down conspiracy theories. Especially the 9/11 troofers. The language is often harsh, but in this instance, I think that's appropriate.

Penn sums it all up pretty succinctly: The same government that couldn't successfully cover up a break-in in a DC hotel could NEVER manage to cover up any of the crazy crap that the conspiracy theorists believe.

Watch. Learn. Think. Remember. Don't be a f*@$%g moron.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

And hey, for what it's worth, here's what I think: People don't believe in God anymore. They just don't. Something like ... what, 80% of Americans ... claim to be Christian? The claim is nominal. People don't got to Church, don't pray, and really don't think much about God. But we're still hardwired to believe in something bigger than us. So people believe in an all-knowing, all-seeing, omnipresent government that really controls everything. Sure, these conspiracy theories seem silly to most of us, but it's a lot easier to swallow than the notion of a loving God. Right?

Labels: Entertainment, Media, News, Politics, You Tube

Nine Inch Nails has finished a new album, an all-instrumental effort called Ghosts: I-IV, and the band is giving some of the music away for free over the internet.

You can download the first quarter of the album for free at the NIN homepage, and if you like it, you can buy the whole thing for just five bucks.

According to Trent Reznor, the musician who basically is Nine Inch Nails, this album is a direct result of his having finished his last recording contract. From Billboard.com:

"I've been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn't have made sense until this point," says Reznor, who collaborated on the music with Alan Moulder, Atticus Ross, Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione. "This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective -- dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I'm very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference."

Demand for the free/cheap music has been tremendous, causing the NIN webservers to crawl to a halt as fans download the project. Reznor says he's trying to get more servers up to meet the demand ... meanwhile, if you check around, you'll find other places to download the free content.
I'm downloading the free tracks now and look forward to giving them a listen.

In my opinion, Reznor has done some brilliant work in the past. The NIN album The Fragile is easily the creative high-watermark of the industrial rock era. Almost ten years later, The Fragile holds up as a highly entertaining and compelling listening experience. However, more recent NIN efforts have been fair to lackluster, with last year's Year Zero ultimately turning out to be a real disappointment.

I'm glad to have a chance to hear a sizable chunk of NIN's new material before I commit a dime of my own money to it.

Labels: Entertainment, Music, News

I intended to do an Oscars post today, even though I'm generally ambivalent about that whole dog-and-pony show. I thought I'd write something this year, though, because I actually saw a number of the nominated films this year ... and because I thought that the big Oscar-sweeping movie this year really was the best movie I saw in 2007.

But it ain't gonna happen (the post I'd planned) and I'll tell you why:

For one thing, I decided for some reason or another to sit here tonight at the computer and listen to Bruce Springsteen ... and it seems that the Springsteen songs that I enjoy most (like this one and this one, by far my two favorites) all come off like suicide notes if you actually pay attention to the lyrics ... which I don't recommend because it'll really throw a wet blanket on your good friggin' mood.

And for another thing, we bit the bullet and got a new computer and it runs Windows Vista, which is clearly an operating system that was created by crack-addicted, satan-worshiping monkeys. Rather than write a whole blog post about how much I hate Vista, I'll just cut and paste from the haphazard e-mail I sent to the Governor and Jamie earlier today:

I just want to say, totally off topic, that WINDOWS VISTA SUCKS. That calls for all caps, too. We got a new PC yesterday and I've spent the past twenty four hours trying to use Windows Vista and it is the worst OS I've ever used. Windows ME was better. This damn thing locks up every couple of minutes. This compuer came with three gigs of memory and it's like I'm trying to run Doom 3 on an old 32 mghz system. Plus, for some damn reason, It will only allow file names that are fewer than a certain number of characters. This TOTALLY f--ks up my MP3 file naming system. I really despise Vista after one day of use and I'm thinking about going to get a copy of XP and installing it on this thing. This PC has three gighz of memory and a 320 gig hard drive, it would absolutely HUM with XP. Vista seems to be far more trouble than all it's pretty little bells and whistles are worth.

Thank you, Bruce and Bill Gates, for screwing up my evening. Clearly I'm the victim of some sort of Redmond-via-Asbury Park conspiracy.

So I guess what I'm trying to say, as I do this time every year, is screw the Oscars.

Labels: Entertainment, Microsoft, Music, News, Personal

Clear Thinking About Obama

• I started saying that Hillary's PotUS campaign was coming apart back in July, 2005. As of now that's pretty much the consensus. Everybody has abandoned the Clintons. The Kennedy clan. The unions. The left-wing celebrities. The Democratic Party rank and file. They've all dropped Hillary like yesterday's leftovers and made the Obama switch.
  
  I've generally been happy with this since I despise the Clintons and I've thought for some time now that Obama seemed like a decent guy. But since it's become clear that he really is going to get the nomination, I've decided that I better take some time and learn a little more about him.
  
  Here's some of what I've learned:
  
  
  • When a baby actually survives a late term abortion and ends up alive and crying in the operating room, Obama wants the baby to be murdered. As a legislator he's cast three votes to have physicians kill children who survive abortion.
    
    Even Barbara Boxer thinks that goes too far.
    
    It's no wonder that Planned Parenthood loves the guy.
  
  
  
  • His image as a moderate who's tough on crime is … well, a crock:
    

    He voted against a bill that would add penalties for crimes committed as a part of gang activity and against a bill that would make it a criminal offense for accused gang members, free on bond or probation, to associate with other gang members. In 1999, he was the only state senator to oppose a bill that prohibited early prison release for criminal sexual offenders.

  
  
  • Obama has become the darling of the anti-war crowd by reminding us over and over again that he opposed the war in Iraq from the very start. But his opposition to the war wasn't because he saw things more clearly than the Bush administration. This is a passage from his book The Audacity Of Hope:
    

    "Like most analysts, I assumed that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and coveted nuclear arms," Obama wrote. "I believed that he had repeatedly flouted UN resolutions and weapons inspectors and that such behavior had to have consequences. That Saddam butchered his own people was undisputed; I had no doubt that the world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him."

    
    Before the war, Obama believed the same things about Saddam as everyone else, and yet he still opposed taking action. What the hell would it take for this guy to be willing to take military action against someone? I think he'd actually be a more limp-wristed leader than Bill Clinton was.
    
    Is this the guy you want in office if Iraq and/or Pakistan fall to al Qaeda?
  
  
  Some of the rumors going around on the net about Obama are simply untrue:
  

  
  Thankfully, his voting record as a legislator is easy to verify. And the more I learn about him, the more I find out what his principles really are, the more I realize I've been naïve to simply see him as a nice guy. This is a man who stands for a great many things I disagree with adamantly.
  
  Even his most loyal supporters sometimes have to admit that they don't really know what kind of man he is.
  
  I guess I better start getting more energized about McCain.

In Other News

• My friend The Governor hails from Wichita, Kansas. So he keeps me up to date on all the news in that part of the country. The Governor was the first person who ever mentioned BTK to me, and today he filled me in on the latest big story from the Air Capital Of The World:
  

  WICHITA, Kansas, Feb. 20, 2008 -- Wichita police say they’re working a case they don't often see: a man accused of having sex with a dog. And it’s not the first time the man’s been in this type of trouble.
  
  Twenty-year-old Joshua Coman is now in jail accused of having sex with a Rottweiler.
  
  “We don't see any cases like this,” said Lt. Sam Hanley with the Wichita Police Department. “I’d never seen any cases like this and I hope we don't see any more.”
  
  Justen Tracy says Coman lived with his family for a short time.
  
  Tracy says Coman called Wednesday night to say he was coming over to kidnap the dog. Shortly after that, the family caught him in the garage.
  
  "He's doing foul things with the dog and my mom flips on the garage light and he stops,” said Tracy.
  
  Coman was already on probation for similar charges in Reno County. Last September he pleaded no contest in a case involving a Rottweiler in Pretty Prairie.

  
  
  The first thing I thought while reading that story was "He did WHAT to a dog?" Then I read further and found myself thinking "It was a friggin' ROTTWEILER?"
  
  Like somehow that makes it worse. Like, sure, I can see sodomizing a Poodle or a Shar Pei, but not a Rottweiler, man.
  
  Then I read that he'd been in trouble with another Rottie before and I thought "This guy is really specific about what he's doing."
  
  And then I realized how much time I was spending thinking about this and I got a cold chill and felt nauseous.



• Earl Simmons goes by the nom-de-hip-hop DMX, and he's well known for being a pet lover and responsible citizen. Now comes news that he's working on a gospel record:
  
  

  Swizz Beatz recently revealed that DMX has linked up with Neptunes producer Pharrell to work on the gospel portion of his upcoming album.
  
  As reported earlier, DMX's upcoming album will be a double CD titled Walk With Me Now and You'll Fly With Me Later.
  
  Walk With Me Now will be his typical street themed album while Fly With Me Later will be a gospel album with no cursing.
  
  Swizz, who made the revelation to MTV News, will also be a part of X’s double project.

  
  
  Personally, I can't wait to hear DMX soliciting for Jesus. I've thought that he'd make a great gospel vocalist ever since I heard his song X Is Coming, in which he intimates the following:
  
  

  If you got a daughter older then 15, ima rape her
  Take her on the living room floor, right there in front of you
  Then ask you seriously, whatchu wanna do?
  Frustratin, isnt it? when they kill me, but ima kill you
  Now watch me f--k just a lil while longer, please, will you?

  
  
  Earl Simmons …. this generation's Mahalia Jackson.

Labels: Entertainment, Links, Media, News, Obama Watch, Politics, You Tube

Most years I don't really care at all about NFL football until the post season. If then. Frequently I don't care much about the NFL until the Super Bowl itself. This year I didn't care at all until the last 35 seconds of the season.

Congrats to the New York Giants for an amazing upset. I'm happy for 'em and their fans. And the Patriots sure don't have anything to be ashamed of, either. Heck, I like them, too. All around this was a heck of a game, and both teams really gave everyone their money's worth this year.

The best thing about this game was in the post-game stuff, when FOX was running those station promos that said "Congratulations, New York Giants! You just wont the Super Bowl!" I have this image in my head of producers behind the scenes at FOX, dumping the "Congratulations, New England Patriots!" promo and yelling "We need the other one! We need the other one!" That's the kind of thing that used to happen in radio all the time.

I have to work twelve hour shifts this week and won't be blogging much. You guys be good, I'll talk to you soon.

Labels: Entertainment, Media, News

Synopsis

In a nutshell, this is The Blair Witch Godzilla: A giant monster attacks New York. The audience point-of-view is through the lense of a hand-held video camera as a group of survivors try to escape, all the while video-taping the events.

Pros:

• Short, sweet, pure fun.


• The movie doesn't try to justify it's thrills with high-minded sermons or science lessons. This is a good old fashioned b-movie.


• Great special effects and a pay-off that pays off.

Cons:

• A few images momentarily ruined my fun because they were so reminiscent of 9/11.


• This movie should have gotten an R-rating. Blood, intensity and swear-words abound.

Generally:

3.5 on a five scale. Good fun for grown-up action/horror movie fans.

Extended Review:

The first I heard about Cloverfield came in the form of an untitled, mysterious preview that played before last summer's Transformers. Frankly, I wasn't moved at all. It looked like one more big-budget action film, although one with the Blair Witch conceit of pseudo-documentary. That is to say, it proposed to be an artifact; a piece of video shot by the survivors of some sort of an attack on New York.

My immediate gut reaction was that the movie was probably in bad taste. Images of New York under attack seemed a little exploitive with 9/11 still a fairly fresh memory … and, besides, how many more big-budget end-of-the-world dog-and-pony-shows did Hollywood expect me to buy into?

Even the movie's eventual poster, featuring a beheaded Statute of Liberty, seemed just a little crass to me. It took Cube pointing out that the Statue of Liberty has provided an iconic centerpiece for years and years of science fiction for me to put it in the right context.

Finally, the movie's January release date came around and I was shocked to find out that most people seemed to agree that Cloverfield was actually pretty good. Both professional critcs and real people were generally happy with the film, so Wendy and I decided to give it a shot.

We saw it this evening, and I really wouldn't mind seeing it again. Cloverfield is a blessedly short, utterly light, totally enjoyable little action/horror movie. It's fun. Total fun. It has cringes, a few laughs, and some really good special effects. And it doesn't propose to be anything more than exactly what it is. This is a b-movie that knows it's limits and performs above expectations within them.

There are no proposed lessons here about science-gone-awry. There are no sermons about the environment or animal rights or nuclear testing. There is nothing here except a big city, a big monster, and a lot of running and yelling. While watching it, you might find yourself struggling to suppress the urge to yell "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"

Even the movie's Blair Witch device … the hand-held perspective … didn't grow tiresome. Mostly because the cast was likable and the script was tight. Ever notice that the three actors in The Blair Witch Project never went on to do anything? That's because everybody (even those of us who liked the film) friggin' hated them by the time Blair Witch was over. That's not an issue here. The cast is full of young, pretty people who seem smart enough to realize that none of them is the real star here. No hamming it up, no scenery chewing … just a lot of running and screaming. "Wheeeeeee!!"

Now, I have to admit, a few early shots did remind me uncomfortably of 9/11 news coverage. Smoke and ash and free-floating sheets of paper on New York streets are a very "real" image to me after that awful day. Nonetheless, once the monster (this movie's real star) begins to reveal itself, Cloverfield turns into total escapism. A few glimpses of Godzilla circa 2008 and I was comfortably in Hollywood La-La Land.

I'm reluctant to tell you too much about the monster itself. It really is best to go into this movie cold. The less you know the more you'll be swept away. But if you're the kind of person who just has to peek, you can peek to three different varying degrees below:

• Click here to see my own "artistic interpretation" of what the Cloverfield Monster looks like.


• Click here to see a more legit, fairly accurate artistic rendering of the Cloverfield Monster.


• And click here to read about the literary archetype that the Monster represents … and if you're familiar with this particular thing, I'm sure you'll agree that it was about time someone tried to represent it on the silver screen.

My complaints with Cloverfield are few, but I do see this movie as yet another example of MPAA incompetence. Cloverfield is rated PG-13, but there is enough blood and gore, intensity and harsh language to easily justify an R rating. We take our kids to PG-13 rated movies fairly frequently. I'm glad we didn't take them to this one. This movie was a lot of fun, but in my opinion it's for adults only.

And the pay-off? Forget about it. Cloverfield features the best new vision of menace since Ridley Scott's original alien, combined with Godzilla's size, King Kong's power and Hillary's breath. This thing is hideous. I loved it.

Trailer:

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

Synopsis

In Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic, serial killer Michael Myers escapes from confinement to bring murder and terror to his hometown.

Pros:

• Uh… let me think…


• …Ummm… there has to be something positive...


• This remake really makes you appreciate the original film. That's all I got.

Cons:

• This movie isn't scary.


• Slow. Boring. Predictable. Completely goofy. An utter and complete waste of time. This movie is crap.

Generally:

0 on a five scale. As lame and pointless a remake as I've ever seen.

Extended Review:

If Rob Zombie is the master of modern horror, then horror is dead. I haven't seen Zombie's first movie, House Of A Thousand Cliches, but I thought his second film, The Devil's Rejects, was tedious, tiresome, and utterly uninspired. Now, with his remake of John Carpenter's classic Halloween, Zombie seems hell-bent on making it extremely hard for his fans to justify his career as a director. I've seen some bad remakes, and I've seen a great many stupid, insulting horror films … but it's rare that I see a bad remake that's this stupid and insulting. Rob Zombie's Halloween absolutely sucks.

There isn't much to say beyond that. I guess I could give some specifics; cite specific reasons that this film is so bad. How about some of the following:

• John Carpenter knew how to make his boogeyman scary. The Michael Myers of the original film was an enigma. We knew next to nothing about him, only that he was brutal and murderous and seemingly unstoppable. Zombie, however, apparently thought that the thing to do was give us a ton of Michael Myers back-story. It takes Zombie 45 minutes to establish the same back-story that Carpenter established in fewer than ten minutes. In the process, Zombie manages to make Michael Myers so mundane that he got on my nerves rather than scared me.



• In Rob Zombie's world, there is apparently a large butcher's knife within reach at least every ten feet. I've never seen this much cutlery on the Home Shopping Network.



• Everyone in the movie … everyone … uses the f-word. Kids. Parents. Old people. Doctors. Cops. I don't remember any nuns in the movie, but if there had been any, I'm sure Zombie would have had them interjecting the f-word into the prayers of the Rosary. I'm no linguistic prude, but come on! There are people who don't drop the f-bomb every seven words!



• As an apparent homage, Zombie retains in his film a number of elements of the original. The trademark Michael Myers mask, the theme music, a number of leitmotifs. These "homages" only served as constant reminders that the original film was much better.



• Zombie seems intent on casting his wife in every film he does, in a major role, no matter how inappropriate. In Halloween, Sheri Moon Zombie plays the killer's mother … and just to remind us how hot Zombie thinks his wife is, his version of the killer's mother is a stripper. And, yes, the movie includes the prerequisite workin'-the-pole dance scene. Nothing ruins a movie like these kinds of superfluous "Oh, come ON!" moments.

I watched Zombie's Halloween remake purely out of curiosity, even though most of the movie critics in the world tried to warn me that it was a waste of time. I swear, I will never waste another second of my life on another Rob Zombie project. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The first Halloween was a genuinely scary thrillride. This one is a boring, childish, consistently bad pile of garbage. Zombie should be forced to watch this film over and over again until he says "Oh, I get it. This is really lame." And then promises to never make another movie again.

Don't make the mistake I made. Don't waste 109 minutes of of your life on Rob Zombie's Halloween.

Don't even waste time on the trailer:

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

I like Amy Winehouse, believe it or not. And I now realize that she's a genius on the same level as Bob Dylan:

Found 'em both at Rolling Stone.

Labels: Entertainment, Humor, Music, You Tube

Spinner.com has an interesting list of the twenty-five most monumental flops in music history. Flops of all kinds are always interesting if only because of what they say about our culture in general ... and what we end up liking or disliking or just flat-out hating.

Just a few observations about some of what's on the list:

I never can get used to the idea, generally accepted by everyone, that U2's album Pop is a flop. I think that there are several good songs on there, and that some of them are very good. Flop? Maybe commercially, but it's not a bad record.

Green Day's Warning was actually the last album that they did that I thought was any good at all. Not that it was that good.

Should the Kevin Federline album really be on this list? I think it lived up to everyone's commercial and artistic expectations. Who really expected this thing to do well? I mean, other than Federline and Britney?

Wendy really likes Altered Beast, Matthew Sweet's supposed flop.

I didn't know the Knack even did more than one album.

I'd forgotten that Paul's Botique flopped at first. At least with regard to album sales. It is a good album, though.

Why does Robbie Williams keep flopping? His stuff is at least as good as the stuff that actually gets played on top 40 radio.

Paris Hilton's album. Ha ha!

In my opinion, the album ranked at number two on this list should really be number one. It's shocking that a singer who had never had a commercial misstep did something this phenomenally stupid.

How can Otis's favorite album not be included on this list? It was a GIGANTIC flop! You can buy it at Amazon for a penny, fahcryinoutloud!

Labels: Entertainment, Links, Music

One song I don't like, plus one other song I don't like, ends up being a song that I do like. Cool.

And then there's this. I used to be pretty good at the Where's Waldo thing, but apparently I'm not anymore because I can't find Waldo in the time limit. All the look-alikes make it that much harder.

CAN YOU FIND WALDO?

Labels: Entertainment, Links, You Tube

I really do want to write something, but the write-stuff-thingy in my head hasn't been working lately.

I have a few ideas for blog posts pop into my head from time to time, but none of them pan out. Some of the ideas I've thought about include:

• We need more celebrities with nicknames in quotation marks in the middle of their real names. I like that trend. We need more celebrities like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Billy "Crash" Craddock and John "Cougar" Mellencamp and Andrew "Lloyd" Webber.



• Last night when we took the kids trick-or-treating, I saw a kid dressed as Sanjaya. I'm sure the kid was every bit as good a singer as the real thing.



• My knee-jerk reaction to John McCain's health care plan: Sounds pretty good to me.



• My knee-jerk reaction to the Barack Obama National Anthem flap: who cares. It was a brain-fart on Obama's part. It HAD to be. No presidential candidate in his right mind is gonna do that on purpose. There are a thousand better reasons to attack Obama's campaign. Lets focus on the real reasons he's a bad candidate.



• Wendy and I recently saw two movies that I enjoyed a lot and want to review: Men Of Honor and World Trade Center are both good and worth your time.

Someday I'll come up with the words to blog about some of this stuff.

Labels: Entertainment, Movies, News, Personal, Politics

It's been ages ... ages ... since the Coen brothers did a film I wanted to see. After The Man Who Wasn't There they made a string of movies that just looked awful. I began to wonder if they'd ever do another good film.

Looks like they're back, with a western-noir feature that might mark a return to form for the Joel and Ethan. Judging from the trailer, it looks a little reminiscent of their debut, Blood Simple. No Country For Old Men seems like the kind of movie about which I can justifiably get my hopes up:

Labels: Entertainment, Movies, You Tube

It's a common observation among heavy metal (and rock) fans: "Hey, that song sounds just like that other song!" Sometimes this observation leads to arguments about who is or isn't guilty of stealing riffs, especially if it's particularly accurate.

A YouTube user called BakNBlack has put together a number of clips that feature back-to-back comparisons of a number of songs. Some of his observations are surprising, especially if I was previously familiar with both songs but never noticed the similarities. BakNBlack says he isn't accusing anyone of ripping off anyone else, he's just making note of the similarities in the good natured, fun spirit of rock and roll.

Here's his most recent clip:

He has quite a few more if you enjoyed that.

Hat Tip: The Governor.

Labels: Entertainment, Humor, Music, You Tube

IHeard.com is a decent site full of links and embedded media related to online radio stations. Chances are, whatever you're interested in, you'll find something to listen to. A few of the links I tried didn't work, but most of 'em did.

Labels: Entertainment, Links

The Travel Channel is doing their Halloween thing tonight, a Most Haunted live broadcast from the infamous Winchester Mystery House, complete with live webcams and everything.

Here's the thing ... I am inclined to believe that there really is something to the phenomenon of ghostly sightings, having seen things myself that I can't explain.

Nonetheless, I brush off these TV shows because they usually strike me as melodramatic, silly and unbelievable.

Still, I was willing to watch some of tonight's show ... I even checked out the webcams ... and darned if I didn't think I saw something.

I had decided only to watch for a few minutes, but I was using the Windows desktop AVI maker to capture what I had on the screen just in case I saw something ... so I played it back for Wendy and darned if she didn't think she saw something, too.

So here it is, I've uploaded it. There are four cameras in the clip; watch the camera in the upper left. What we saw was very brief and very subtle, and I'm not trying to say that I know what it is, but it sure got our attention. Click play, watch the upper left camera, and tell us what you think:

Labels: Entertainment, Links, Trivial Matters

You know, The Office (US) really is a funny show. I even go out of my way to make sure we Tivo it, and considering that I'm all Mr -anti -television -and -whatnot, that's probably really saying something. I guess.

Anyway, The Office has some funny viral marketing sites that are full of comedy gold for fans of the show:

• Dwight's Blog ... which seems to be written by one of the show's writers, since Dwight's "voice" is so clear and present.



• Creed's Blog ... which, contrary to Creed's belief, does not reside at www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts.



• Dunder Mifflin Infinity ... the company's new marketing website. I haven't explored this one because I don't want to have to register as an NBC.com user, which is a prereq.



• Dunder Mifflin, Inc ...the company's old-school website.

Labels: Entertainment

My schedule at work has been up in the air lately, so I've been away from the computer for a while. On top of the schedule problems, I've come down with either a mild case of flu or an extreme late-summer cold, so what free time I've had has largely been spent staring at the ceiling and moaning.

But, anyway, I had time to sit down today and catch up on some of what I've missed in the blogopshere. I thought I'd post links to a bunch of that neat stuff, so since this is Monday and I'm basically posting a list of cool links, I guess it would be fair to accuse me of a phantasmic theft.

• Speaking of things phantasmic, MCF recently created a few blog banners, including a super cool one for me. As soon as I get tired of the monkey-with-a-gun motif, you'll probably see that new banner at the top of this blog.



• A bear wandered out onto a bridge near Lake Tahoe, California, and ended up dangling precariously from the side (photo at right). Animal Control officers weren't sure what to do at first. After the bear spent a long night on the edge, a plan was devised involving helicopters, tranquilizer darts and a big red net. How'd it end up? click here to read the story.



• Some tasty satire from Terry Bisson via Rhodester... "They're made out of meat."



• Either Bishop Donald Pelotte is suffering from some sort of total mental collapse (and that's my bet) or he's being visited by aliens (not bloody well likely). Either way, he's in my prayers. HT to my friend Jamie.



• Jerry at Bent Sense has a story that is, at turns, humorous and horrifying:
  

  A woman recently found herself locked inside a medical facility and called the police, who upon arriving simply had her unlock the door from the inside.

  
  Funny? Sure ... until you read on and find out that the woman was a 67 year old cancer patient who'd been forgotten by technicians, inside a CAT scan machine, under a weighted blanket, for several hours. Read the whole thing and get as pissed off as I am.



• TJ at Dogs Cats Kids Life is tending to her dad during surgery ... but during a break she found time to post this very funny slice-of-life video for Scotland:
  




• Fans of politically conservative editorial cartoons (all five of us) are saddened to learn that Cox and Forkum are calling it quits.



• By way of B13 and MCF, here's a bit of mind blowing animation. I can only guess at the time and dedication involved in producing something like this.



• Am I the only person who thinks that White House corespondent Helen Thomas looks exactly like Yubaba from Spirited Away?

  




• The other day I mentioned that Scott Nehring had suffered a heart attack. Well, I'm glad to read that he's home and on the mend. And judging from the title of his recovery post ("Only Mostly Dead"), Scott's acerbic wit remains fully in tact. Good deal.



• That picture to the right? The one of the crazy looking turtle(s)? That picture has not been photoshopped.



• A two year old girl in Great Brittan fell from a seventh story apartment window (about one hundred feet up) and lived.



• Tough: giving birth to your twelfth child. Tougher: giving birth to your seventeen pound, one ounce twelfth child. In Russia.



• Lorna has posted some pics from a highly anticipated wedding ... one that her readers have anticipated vicariously right along with her.



• Finally! A search engine for our parents!



• You know, there really are worse things that can happen to a dog than being put to sleep. (Warning: story involves terrible abuse of an animal by an animal shelter employee.)



• Hey, if you'd been brainwashed by an Emperor (who turned out to be a member of a cult of evil warrior priests) and if you'd spent the last several years of your life trying to track down and destroy your own children, you'd have the blues during your "death bed scene" too. HT, Unseen:
  

Whew! I'm all caught up now. And you are, too.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Links, News, Politics, You Tube

This is a true story about the stupidest decision I ever made while I worked in radio.

The event in question took place in the late '80's, or maybe around 1990, when I was the "Music Director" at a local small-time radio station. My title of "Music Director" was a dubious one, since I did a little of everything at the station, but nothing without the manager's approval. I was just one more 20-something kid at one more small town radio station where I wrote and produced advertisements, had a daily on-air slot, worked weekends and rotated music in and out of our on-air library. Sine I really was doing a lot, and for little money, the manager decided to indulge me by giving me the title "Music Director" instead of just calling me, more accurately, "Busy Kid." I was the "Music Director," and I made minimum wage, and sometimes I had to clean the toilets. There was just nothing like small town radio in the 80's.

In the late '80's there was one of those regular, mercurial surges in the popularity of country music, and a number of record labels signed a glut of country music acts and sent these new artists out to promote their debut albums in small towns all over America. If there was anything like a concert venue in any given small town, then the touring artist might perform a set, usually for free. If the small town in question did not have a concert venue (and this small town did not), then the artist would set up at a local discount department store and spend a few hours signing autographs and shaking hands. The record labels all hoped that under those kinds of circumstances there'd be a local radio station that would help with the promotion by doing an on-air interview, playing a few songs, and just generally making a big deal because "Such-And-Such Record Label's new artist, Joe Cowboy, is in town…"

My manager found out that Capital Records was sending one of their new recruits through our area and that he'd be spending a few hours at the local K-Mart one day, signing autographs and stuff. So he asked me if I'd be willing to go down to K-Mart, interview the guy on air, play a few of his songs, the whole shootin' match. After all, I was the "Music Director," so who'd be better for that job?

My gut reaction was "hell, no." And, really, why would I want to? I worked for minimum wage and doing a live broadcast was a lot of work. I'd have to haul the equipment down by myself and then spend a few hours hanging out with some current-and-future nobody … asking him the usual mundane questions and playing his songs … and then haul the equipment back and put it all away, and it just sounded like a lot of bother.

Besides, as I assured my manager, I'd listened to this guys new single and it sucked. It was boring. He was just one more also-ran in a big field of "hat acts" and there was no point in bothering with him. He'd never take off. My manager acquiesced and I forgot about it.

So the day of the big appearance came and went with little fanfare. The local newspaper showed up at K-Mart and took the guy's picture for the weekend edition, but beyond that, nobody noticed. I heard later that the guy had shown up at K-Mart alone, tired and hungry in an old station wagon. He'd had a flat tire, which he'd changed himself, and he then spent a couple of hours signing autographs for kids and shaking hands with grease on his shirt. He left and, I suppose, continued his small-town tour and I didn't think about him again.

Until he started having hits. Big hits. And lots of them.

The artist in question was Garth Brooks.

As you probably know, Garth Brooks was the biggest selling country music artist of the '90's and one of the biggest selling recording artists from any genre of all time. He is, in fact, America's second best selling solo artist of the entire twentieth century, just behind Elvis. Really.

And I now work a low-level job at a paper mill. I think they call that "karma."

Now, the whole reason I mentioned this is because Bucky Covington is coming to town to do a concert this month. We now have a concert venue in town … and the name of our town is "Covington," so the idea of Bucky Covington comin' to Covington just delights everyone with the wonderful serendipity of it all. It's like if Hannah Montana played a concert in Montana! Or if VH1's New York did an appearance in New York! Or if Hillary Clinton did a campaign stop in Hell, Michigan!

Who the hell is Bucky Covington? I had to ask that myself. Well, it turns out that he's a country music singer who didn't win American Idol and got a record deal to do country albums anyway. You know, a nobody. Right? Well, given my history with branding the wrong people "nobodies," maybe I should think about that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to the Bucky Covington concert. His kind of music isn't what I enjoy. But, honestly, I wish him the best of everything and all the success in the world. Bucky, if you're out there, when you hit the big time, say hi to Garth for me.

Tell him ol' Darrell always knew he'd make it.

Labels: Entertainment, Personal

There are a lot of good reasons not to do crystal meth, but the main reason that I don’t do crystal meth is that I don't want to end up on an episode of Cops.

Is Cops still in production? The IMDb page for the series doesn't have an end date listed, but I'd been under the impression for a while now that the show was just in eternal syndication rerun. All the episodes I see seem to be a few years old, anyway. And, I admit, I see quite a few episodes of Cops.

You know, for all my holier-than-though ranting against reality TV, I'm always willing to kill an hour with two back-to-back episodes of Cops. Granted, there has to be absolutely NOTHING better to do at the time, and I have to be on the verge of boredom induced hemorrhaging, but under the right circumstances I will watch the show. I don't call it Cops, though. I call it The Crystal Meth Comedy Hour. If you've ever watched it, you know why. If not, here's a brief explanation: Every episode of Cops features one to four crystal meth junkies being busted for doing something stupid, like trying to buy crystal meth, trying to steal crystal meth, or trying to sell his or her vital organs in order to obtain crystal meth.

I've learned a lot from watching Cops over the years. The main thing I've learned is that you should never, ever, ever, ever run from a cop. Because they will always eventually catch you, and when they do they're going to friggin' SLAM you to the ground. I don't mean knock you down, I don't mean push you to the ground, I mean SLAM you like you were a football and they were Deion Sanders.

Not that they'd have to chase me very far. Maybe ten feet. I admit, I'm so hooked on ice-cream that it might as well be ... uh, crystal meth. I can't remember the last time I had to run for any reason, and I'm darn sure not gonna run a few feet just to have some cop SLAM me to the ground so close to my car I can still almost touch it.

Not every Cops viewing experience in my life has been positive, though. Remember a several years ago when they came out with that Cops: Too Hot For TV video series? Don't rent those. Just don't. Here's what happened: It was a long time ago, before I was ever even married for the first time, and me and a buddy were hanging out, looking for something to do. We decided to go rent a movie and since we couldn't agree on a movie we ended up deciding to check out one of the Cops: Too Hot For TV video tapes that the rental store had.

They shouldn't call those tapes Cops: Too Hot For TV. If they were a little more honest, they'd give them a title like The Naked Screaming Drunk Fat Old Man Show. But I guess nobody'd rent them then. That's pretty much all the video we saw had to offer, though. Naked, screaming, drunk, fat, old men. I suppose we expected to see some cool cop show-downs at strip joints ... or maybe some nekked chicks being arrested for being, oh, "too hot for TV" or something. Noooooo. That's not it at all. It's all naked, screaming, drunk, fat, old men:

• COP: We've received a call to a nearby bar, where a patron is creating some kind of disturbance ... OK, we've arrived at the bar now, let's go inside and see what's going on.



• NAKED, SCREAMING, DRUNK, FAT, OLD MAN: Heeeyyy! Heeeyyyyy!



• COP: Sir, could you calm down? Calm down, sir. Where are your pants?



• NAKED, SCREAMING, DRUNK, FAT OLD MAN: Heeeeeyyyy! F*%k!



• COP: Sir, you have the right to remain silent. If you choose to



• NAKED, SCREAMING, DRUNK, FAT OLD MAN: Heeeeyyyy!!! (takes off running)



• COP: (SLAM!!)

That's another thing I've learned from Cops. When a cop gets a call to arrest a naked person, it's never someone who looks like a famous celebrity.

Well, maybe Benny Hill.

Labels: Entertainment, Humor, Personal

It's kind of surprising how many pop and rock songs about abortion have managed to slide in under the radar ... some of them even receiving radio play.

The best example is probably the one hit by the Ben Folds Five, "Brick". In 1998 it was almost impossible to turn on the radio without hearing this delicate piano ballad. According to Wikipedia, Ben Folds has said that he had a difficult time writing the song because the lyrics spoke so literally about the pregnancy that he and his girlfriend aborted in high school.

Of course, once they'd aborted their child, the couple's relationship was changed forever. The lyrics are frank:

"Driving home to her apartment,
For a moment we're alone.
She's alone.
And I'm alone.
And now I know it."

For whatever reason, embedding is forbidden for the YouTube music video, but if you click the still below the video will open in a separate tab or window.

---

Del Amitri's 1995 album Twisted featured an awful hit called "Roll To Me" and eleven other pop-rock songs, at least eight of which were brilliant. The best track on the album is "Driving With The Brakes On" a song that appears (to some of us, anyway) to be about the helplessness of a man who's significant other has decided to abort their child. The lyrics seem to speak volumes, including lines like

"Driving through the long night,
Trying to figure whos right and whos wrong.
Now the kid has gone.
I sit belted up tight,
She sucks on a match light, glowing bronze,
Steering on.
And I might be more of a man if I'd stopped this in its tracks
And said, 'Come on, lets go home.'
But shes got the wheel,
And Ive got nothing except what I have on."

The YouTube video is rough, it seems to have been uploaded by someone who took the time to aim her video camera at the TV screen. But, then again, if it weren't for this, I'd never even have known that there was a video for this song:

---

A thrash-metal song that condems abortion in no uncertain terms? Sure, and only the awesome Slayer would have the balls to pull it off. I'd probably heard "Silent Scream" fifty times in my life before I actually listened to the lyrics and realized that the song castigated abortion with extreme prejudice. Of course, with brutal music, shocking imagery and horrific lyrics as their bread and butter, Slayer had no reason to pull any punches when they sang about abortion:

"Silent scream,
Bury the unwanted child.
Beaten and torn,
Sacrifice the unborn...
Scattered, remnants of life,
Murder, a time to die."

---

It's a damn shame that so few people know about the awesome rock band King's X from Texas. They've been around for ages, they've turned out one solid album after another, and it seems like there are ten or twelve of us who know who they are.

If I had to put King's X in a pigeon-hole, I'd call them "Beatles-inspired hard rock," although they really defy classification. They do all kinds of music, and they do it all well. Plus, they're one of the few bands that's unashamed to explore spiritual themes in their lyrics. They're not a "Christian rock" band, they're a rock band made up of guys who happen to be into Jesus. My favorite King's X album by far is Faith Hope Love, and not just for it's reflective, spiritual lyrics. I have to admit, though, that the album's last track, an open and honest song about abortion called "Legal Kill", is a big favorite of mine for it's moving lyrics:

"I know your side so very well,
It makes no sense that I can tell.
The smell of hell is what I smell,
and you hand it out with handshakes everyday.
I have trouble with the persons with the signs,
but i feel the need to make my own...
I can feel
The fight for life is always real."

---

Janet recently mentioned the song "The Freshmen" by The Verve Pipe, and it brought back memories for me. This song was very popular the year my son was born, and the way it rages and laments an abortion really effects me. My son came along at a time and under circumstances that wouldn't fit any one's definition of "ideal," but from the minute I first saw him I knew I'd belong to him forever. I'm blessed that I have never had to live through the kind of post-abortion regret that "The Freshmen" admits to:

"When I was young I knew everything,
And she a punk who rarely ever took advice.
Now I'm guilt stricken, sobbing with my head on the floor,
Stop a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice..."

Labels: Entertainment, Music, Personal, You Tube

Addendum below*

If you, like me, live and breathe rock and roll, then you know what it's like when you hear a new band (new to you at least) that just blows you away.

Gov't Mule has been around for a long while, but I've never been interested in them because I'd thought of them as just another "jam band." Bands like Phish, the Grateful Dead, etc. Bands that play long, boring, pointless songs and attract crowds full of smelly, dreadlocked, white college kids with more time on their hands than brains in their heads. Hippies. Oh, how I hate hippies.

Nonetheless, a friend recently suggested that I check out Gov't Mule. He said he was convinced that they were my kind of band. He loaned me a couple of albums and I thought they were pretty good, so I picked up one of their albums myself. And, oh dear Lordy is it good. I can't stop listening to it. It's amazing.

I'm trying not to use superlative phrases like "the best band I've ever heard," since that's the kind of phrase that people toss off casually when they first discover a new band, and then a month later when they've moved on to another band they've forgotten about the one they were praising just before.

Having said that, I think that Gov't Mule might just be the best band I've ever heard.

Check out the clip below and then go get yourself some Mule. From what I've heard, the studio albums are stellar and the live stuff is just plain mind-blowing.

*Addendum: You know, when I gripe about hating "hippies," I'm not really saying what I mean. The people I'm complaining about aren't really hippies. What I'm complaining about is the whole subset of irresponsible, financially comfortable, smelly, annoying white kids who follow these "jam bands" around, living off of their daddy's credit cards, buying "Che" shirts and doing drugs. What has that lifestyle got to do with the original meaning of "Hippy?"

Labels: Entertainment, Gov't Mule, Music, You Tube

I read Janet's Tell It To Me Tuesday regularly, but don't usually contribute because I just don't often feel like I have anything worth adding. Better to keep your mouth shut than to add something pointless, right?

But this week's topic happens to be a subject I know a little about: songs that invoke anger. Or, as I interpret the topic, songs to listen to when you're good and pissed off.

I've mentioned before that music therapy is the only thing that works for me when I get highly aggravated, and what I often do is listen to good anger-music to get it out of my system. Once I've heard a few tunes ... good and loud, mind you ... and maybe let out a couple of primal screams ... I tend to feel better. Here are some of the songs that help me bring the anger to a head, dissipate it, and get on with my life.

Pantera: "Regular People"

There are a ton of good Pantera songs when it comes to lettin' off some steam, including B13's outstanding choice, but the one I'd pick is "Regular People", a song about having had it up to here with somebody's BS. As heavy metal goes, Pantera was one of the best bands ever ... and their music was the kind that perfectly suited aggressive, angry lyrics. Each and every track on Pantera's amazing "Vulgar Display of Power" is a monster, and "Regular People" is one of those "critical mass" songs for me.

Sample lyric:
I’ve trampled on that road
That you think you own.
You and that ’smart ass’ attitude,
It’s time to stop the fiction.

Some YouTuber has put together a music video for the song, featuring video from some video game. I have no idea why, the video adds nothing to the music ... but you can sample the song here:

Metallica: "Wasting My Hate"

Of course, the worst thing about being good and mad at someone is that when you get mad and stay mad at some idiot, you're giving them too much of yourself. When you're mad at someone, you're giving them your time, your energy, your mind and your body. And most of the time, when you think about it, the person you're mad at isn't worth the sacrifice.

Metallica's "Load" features a song called "Wasting My Hate", and it really puts it all in a nutshell. The band's James Hetfield wrote the song after hearing a story from country and western legend Waylon Jennings: Jennings was sitting in a cafe having a cup of coffee when he noticed a guy sitting in the parking lot, in the passenger seat of a truck, giving him the evil eye. Jennings looked away, but when he looked back, the guy was still looking at him. So this time he tried to stare him down, but the guy didn't budge. The longer he sat there, the angrier Waylon got, and finally he decided to walk outside and really give it to the guy. And when he got outside and approached the truck, he realized that the guy was sound asleep, head cocked back on the seat, and actually staring at no one and nothing. "Man," Waylon is reported to have said to Hetfield, "I was just wasting my hate on that guy."

Sample lyric:
Good day, how do,
And I send a smile to you.
Don't waste, don't waste your breath,
And I won't waste my hate on you.

Again, the YouTube video features unrelated and irrelevant video, but you can hear the song here:

Johnny Cash: "San Quentin"

Johnny Cash didn't write protest songs to be trendy or to attract attention. If Johnny wrote a song in protest of something, it was because he was good and pissed off. Such was the case in 1969 when Johnny visited San Quentin State Prison in California to perform for the inmates and saw them living in conditions not fit for human beings.

According to the liner notes from Cash's legendary live album "Johnny Cash At San Quentin", Johnny wrote his classic song entitled "San Quentin" during the first hours of his visit to the penitentiary. That was the thing about Johnny Cash... when he converted to Christianity, he took the call seriously. Including Christ's call to His followers to visit and minister to those in prison. Cash believed that people who'd committed crimes should pay their due to society, but that they shouldn't be reduced to something less than human. What he saw at San Quentin appalled him. During his concert that day Cash asked for a drink of the same water that the prisoners drank and found it filthy and disgusting. Later, Johnny debuted the new song for San Quentin's inmates, stirring them to the point that he had to perform the song again, immediately, to satisfy them. Imagine that. Imagine being one of the guards or the warden in that infamous hellhole, watching as a pissed-off country rocker got your whole prison population all worked up, all at once.

Sample lyric:
San Quentin, I hate every inch of you.
You've cut me and you've scarred me through and through.
And I'll walk out a wiser weaker man;
Mister Congressman, you can't understand.

And here's a clip of that very legendary performance:

Tool: "Bottom"

The heavy progressive rock band Tool just gets better and better. Their 2001 album "Lateralus" is possibly the finest example of heavy progressive rock that's been turned out by any band ... but each of their albums is good in it's own right, and 1993's "Undertow" features a number of great songs, including "Bottom".

"Bottom" is a song about wallowing in your own spite ... and let's face it, we all do that from time to time. But "Bottom" is an honest song; a song that admits that when you're wallowing, you're doing nothing more than celebrating your own failure. Still, wallowing has it's appeal. Sometimes when you're good and mad you just want to be left alone to enjoy your anger. And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you get it out of your system and move on. Have a good wallow, then get up and get on with it.

Sample lyric:
I have swallowed the poison you feed me,
And I survive on the poison you feed me.
Leaving me guilt-fed. Hatred-fed. Weakness-fed.
It makes me feel ugly.

Again, ignore the animation that some YouTuber has attached to the song and just enjoy Tool's groove:

Billy Joel: "Pressure"

Is there anything worse than some jackass who just can't wait to tell you what you should be doing when things fall apart? Not much. And we all know the type, too. We all know some blowhard who just lurks in the background, waiting to see if you're going to fall on your face, not caring what you're doing or what you're learning or how hard you're trying ... just waiting for that chance to waltz up and say "You know, if I were you..."

Billy Joel has obviously dealt with those kinds of people before, and his 1982 album "The Nylon Curtain" contains a track that sums them up to a tee. Billy even sings "Pressure" with a voice that's about to crack from anger, making it obvious that he's not singing about a hypothetical lunkhead. Some smart-ass actually inspired this song. I hope he knew that it was about him when he first heard it on the radio.

Sample lyric:
I'm sure you'll have some cosmic rationale.
But here you are with your faith
And your Peter Pan advice.
You have no scars on your face
And you cannot handle pressure.

And here's the classic music video from the '80's.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Music, Personal, You Tube

We got on the subject of horror movies at work the other day ... and how movie concepts that seemed scary when we were teens now just strike us as silly. Of course, that's because now that we're all grownups with families and responsibilities, our priorities have changed.

That lead to a discussion of the kinds of topics that would make for genuinely scary horror movies these days, and a lot of laughter ensued.

PC graphics aren't my strong suit, but I amused myself by throwing together posters for some of the "grown up" horror films that would scare the daylights out of most people my age at this point in our lives:

Labels: Entertainment, Humor

I had little time for blogging for most of the last week, so I missed out on some good stuff from my blogroll:

• MCF's Monday tradition, the Phantasmic Links, was great today, as usual. My favorites included a cartoon about an RPG addicted cat with bad priorities and a look back at the most memorable commercials of the '80's. ("If you dare wear short shorts, NAIR for short shorts!") And make sure you check out the promo for Minesweeper: The Movie, found by Wendy.



• Don't miss the announcement of the latest addition to Rey's family. Congratulations!



• It might be hard to believe, but Strange Culture has proof that Ridley Scott is working on a movie based on the board game Monopoly. I guess he's accepted that he'll never top Blade Runner or Alien ... and he isn't even trying.



• Rhodester got my attention with this spooky, believable looking video of what appears to be UFOs, filmed in Haiti:
  

  Good stuff, eh? Sure looks real, and it's gotten some media attention. I checked YouTube and found that a similar video turned up from the Dominican Republic:
  

  
  Of course, I wouldn't rest until I'd found reasonable proof that it was a scam. And I think this video offers just that:
  

  
  A couple of fakes? Probably. But a darn good effort, and it was a lot of fun to look around the net and read about it.




• I've been given a blog award and an honorable mention by MCF and B13, respectively. To which I can only respond "Shucks, fellas, little ol' me?" Seriously, hearing other bloggers say that they like what you're posting really is the whole reason we're doing this stuff, right? So thanks for the positive reenforcement, guys. You made my day.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, News, You Tube

Well, it's official. Van Halen will be touring with David Lee Roth on lead vocals.

Right about now you're having one of two possible reactions:

• If you have a mullet, rarely wear a shirt, drive a Firebird and drink Budweiser, you're probably standing on top of your trailer at this very moment, yelling "WHOOOOOOOOOOO!"


• If you don't fit any of those criteria, you're probably saying "Van Halen is touring?? Why??"

If you don't know, Van Halen was one of the most successful hard rock bands of the '80's. The band's drinking, drugging, and groupie indulgences are legendary, and they remain known as one of the hardest partying bands that ever toured.

But that isn't exactly the band you'll be seeing on this reunion tour.

During their heyday, Van Halen looked like this:

But if you catch them on this reunion tour, what you'll see instead will be three corpses and a child:

The child who's replaced bass player Mike Anthony is Wolfgang Van Halen, the son of Eddie Van Halen, and he's been playing the bass guitar for almost an hour now, so expect to be dazzled.

If you're unaware, it might be relevant to throw a bit of Van Halen history out there:

• Van Halen formed in the mid 70's and featured David Lee Roth on vocals, Eddie Van Halen on guitar, Alex Van Halen on drums, and Mike Anthony on bass. The band was known for two things: One, Eddie Van Halen's lightning quick guitar playing and David Lee Roth's penchant for dressing like Stevie Nicks, acting like Steve Tyler and singing like Steve Buscemi.



• Van Halen released a string of successful albums featuring Eddie's distinctive guitar playing and Dave's diverse array of songs about women, drugs, sex, women, lust. In 1985, David Lee Roth left the band to enjoy an amazing and successful solo career that, somehow, didn't implode for two whole years.



• After the departure of Roth, Van Halen surprised everyone by hiring as their new vocalist a man named Sammy Hagar. Hagar was renowned in the music world as a powerful rock vocalist and a nimble guitarist. In other words, he was the opposite of David Lee Roth in that he was talented and capable. Predictably, most of Van Halen's fans responded to the line-up change with drunken ambivalence.



• With Hagar on board, Van Halen now had a capable musician, a stellar vocalist, and a fine songwriter. Not surprisingly, the band crafted a string of successful albums and singles. Yet not all was well. Hagar is well known for his distaste for touring. Given his druthers, Hagar would spend every night of his life drunk on the floor in the bar he owns in Mexico. Van Halen had always been a touring band, and with tension at an all-time high, Hagar was fired in '96.



• After the departure of Hagar, Van Halen went through a period wherein nobody, including the Van Halen brothers, had any idea who the band's singer was. David Lee Roth returned to the studio with Van Halen to record two songs for the band's first ever "Best Of" collection ... and although Roth gave a series of interviews in which he talked about how glad he was to be back in the band, Van Halen reps insisted that the tracks represented a "guest appearance" and not a reunion. After a disastrous appearance with Roth at the 1996 MTV Movie Awards, Eddie Van Halen publicly indicated that he'd never work with Roth again. Soon thereafter, Van Halen hired ex-Extreme singer Gary Cherone and recorded an album called "Bargain Buy!" Well, that might not have been the official title, but a sticker with those words is on the cover of every copy of the album I've ever seen. Cherone was quickly fired and rumors abounded about who was or wasn't in or out of the band. Van Halen surprised everyone in 2004 by releasing yet another "Best Of" set, this one featuring three new songs with Sammy Hagar on lead vocals. After a tour during which the supposedly-sober alcoholic Eddie collapsed on stage a few times, Hagar again left the band, citing Eddie's drinking as the cause. This time bass player Mike Anthony left with Hagar, leading Eddie to stick a bass guitar in his son's hand.



• By 2006 it was safe to say that nobody cared about Van Halen anymore, which is probably why they're desperate enough to reunite with Roth and try another tour. Eddie has been in and out of rehab more times than Lindsay Lohan, Alex was and probably still is a serviceable drummer, and since David Lee Roth never could sing to begin with, he's likely still as good a singer as ever. Watching him attempt karate kicks at his age, however, might be too painful for even the most hardened fans to endure.

Labels: Entertainment, News

Three brief reviews for the films Love Actually, Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii: The Director's Cut, and This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

• Love Actually
  
  
  
  Synopsis
  
  The lives of several couples intersect during a Christmas season in England. How each couple is effected by and reacts to love (romantic, familial, friendship, all kinds of love, actually) is the focus of the film.
  
  Pros:
  
  
  • Bill Nighy's performance is funny.
  
  
  • Stars, stars, big stars everywhere.
  
  
  Cons:
  
  
  • Bad writing.
  
  
  • Lackluster performances.
  
  
  • Nothing new, fresh or original.
  
  
  Generally:
  
  Maybe two out of five stars. Blah.
  
  Extended Review:
  
  A better name for this movie would be Long Actually. It's two hours and fifteen minutes long but somehow requires seventeen hours of your time to watch. But what it lacks in brevity it makes up for in incoherence.
  
  Love Actually is overstuffed with too many characters, none of whom have much to say or do, and none of whom ever really come to matter. There are a few laughs along the way, but the characters are all totally two dimensional, and if they're likable at all it's because they're all played by actors we've all come to love. The movie goes nowhere and ends bady, as the story lines are either left unresolved or else they're resolved in contrived and unbelievable ways. And, the ending sequence, utilizing the Beach Boys classic "God Only Knows," is just a reminder of how much more effectively that song is used in the closing scenes of Boogie Nights. Love Actually is bloated and hollow at the same time ... but other than that, it's just hunky dory. Pretty people, pretty scenes, all wrapper, no present.

  
  Trailer
  
  




---



• Pink Floyd Live In Pompeii: The Director's Cut
  
  
  
  Synopsis
  
  Concert footage, intercut with interviews and behind the scenes (kinda) scenes present the legendary rock band Pink Floyd in their mid-70's prime.
  
  Pros:
  
  
  • Great, great music.
  
  
  • Seeing the members of the Floyd young again is enough to put a smile on any rock fan's face.
  
  
  • Did I mention the music?
  
  
  Cons:
  
  
  • Needless new special effects.
  
  
  • A few faked scenes.
  
  
  Generally:
  
  Five stars for the music, two and a half stars for the movie in terms of cinema, and one star for the underwhelming sound mix. Better listening than viewing, but even the listening leaves much to be desired due to the mix.
  
  Extended Review:
  
  Pink Floyd's been on my mind lately, and it was high time I finally saw this film after having had the soundtrack for a while. This new (2002) cut of the 1973 concert film has much to recommend it, but it also has a number of flaws. The worst thing, which I consider unforgivable, is that the DVD doesn't feature 5.1 sound. The reason to watch any Pink Floyd performance is for the music, and hearing it in 5.1 would have really been outstanding.
  
  Still, the stereo track remains wonderful, even if most of the songs feature so many overdubs that it's almost fraudulent to call it a "live" recording. It's frustrating, though, to sit through a number of new special effects sequences, added for the 2002 recut, that contribute nothing of substance to the film. And it's frustrating to learn that the movie's sequences that feature the band working on the recording of Dark Side Of The Moon are disingenuous. The movie appears to present the band in the studio, giving birth to their classic album. Those scenes are, in fact, staged "reenactments" of the recording of the album. Dark Side... had actually been completed before those scenes were filmed. Still, for all it's pompous special effects and phoniness, Live At Pompeii features some music that remains wonderful after all these years.
  

  
  A bit of Pink Floyd, Live At Pompeii:
  
  




---



• This Film Is Not Yet Rated
  
  
  
  Synopsis
  
  A documentary that examines the real nature of the Motion Picture Association of America. Does it really offer a service to movie goers ... or does it serve another end entirely?
  
  Pros:
  
  
  • Interviews with film makers about their experiences with the MPAA are compelling and informative.
  
  
  • There's genuine humor and warmth in the film.
  
  
  Cons:
  
  
  • The movie flounders when it loses focus on the MPAA's flaws and pursues it's own agenda.
  
  
  • Some scenes feel contrived in that "Michael Moore" kind of way.
  
  
  Generally:
  
  Three out of five stars. For adults only, this movie will give parents (and others) a lot to think about in spite of it's occasional meandering.
  
  Extended Review:
  
  A documentary that vacillates between brilliant expose and frustrating propaganda, This Film Is Not Yet Rated must have really bugged the MPAA. You know that the MPAA is the organization that assigns ratings to films (such as G, PG, R and NC-17) ... but you might not realize that the ratings system itself is really nothing more than a marketing tool used by the big studios and the theater chains to make sure that they maintain control of the American cinema.
  
  Here's a snapshot of the MPAA's transparent agenda: Darren Aronofsky's brilliant Requiem for a Dream is an artful, spell-binding film with a strong message in opposition to drug abuse. Yet the MPAA originally slapped Requiem... with an NC-17 for it's frank portrayal of the dark descent of addiction. Meanwhile, Scary Movie is as stupid and pointless a film as has ever been made. For starters, it's a parody of Scream, which is a parody of horror films. A parody of a parody? No, that's called a rip-off. But I digress. Scary Movie, a movie with absolutely nothing meaningful to say, features male frontal nudity, gratuitous vulgarity, and perversely violent scenes involving a beheading, a woman's breast implant being cut out by a killer, and a man getting a penis shoved through his head. No, really. And yet the MPAA chose to give Scary Movie an R rating.
  
  Anyone who's seen very many films in America has certainly had the opportunity to ponder the apparent randomness of the MPAA's system. This Film Is Not Yet Rated argues convincingly that the MPAA's real mission is to ensure that big studio films get the R ratings that guarantee their mass release, while independent films get slapped with an NC-17 death sentence (theaters won't show them). Where This Film... fails is in it's own thin political agenda. This Film... seems to build the bulk of it's case against the MPAA on the supposition that the major studios are biased against homosexuals and that they go out of their way to suppress movies with gay themes and characters. That's laughable, and you know that if you've seen Brokeback Mountain or Kinsey or Capote or Philadelphia or any number of big studio films with sympathetic gay characters.
  
  No, the MPAA is not biased against gays. It's biased against art. Artful, intelligent films don't make as much money as big, loud, dumb "movies" staring Jessica Alba or Vin Diesel. The MPAA helps the studios and the theater chains make sure that the cash cows play for weeks in every multiplex, and people who make and/or enjoy thoughtful films are the big losers in the arrangement. When This Film... focuses on that truth of the MPAA, it's an engrossing and entertaining film. The sequences in which the movie's director, Kirby Dick, fights the MPAA over the rating of the very movie you're watching are the best scenes of all.
  

  Trailer:
  
  

  
  
  

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

I've been pondering writing a post about how much I love Pink Floyd for a while now. What's kept me from doing it is that I realize that such a post would really be a masturbatory exercise; of little interest to anyone else.

So I decided to try to come up with something at least marginally interesting. Rather than a long, rambling, needless post about how super cool Pink Floyd is, I'll post something segmented and fairly brief. I'll try to keep the personal meanderings short and few, and try to pepper this post with enough trivia, general interest, and "things that make you go hmmm" about the Floyd to hold your interest. Deal? Deal.

• Remember When You Were Young? You Shined Like The Sun...
  
  Of course, I'm going to begin with a personal story. When I was in high school I discovered pot at some point in tenth grade. You might think that my interest in Pink Floyd came right along with the marijuana, but you'd be wrong. By the middle of my senior year I was smoking so much pot and neglecting my studies to the point that it became obvious that I might not graduate.
  
  In an effort to get my act together that surprised even me, I stopped smoking pot and changed the crowd I hung out with. One of the new guys I started hanging out with was a very studious guy who was also a big music fan. His name was Mike. I noticed one day that he'd written the words "Pink Floyd" on one of his notebooks, so I said "Yeah, they're that 'brick in the wall' band, right?" Mike said "Oh, they're so much more than that." The next day he brought me cassette copies of two Pink Floyd albums, Ummagumma and The Wall. I've been desperately hooked on Floyd ever since. So you might say that my Floyd addiction replaced, rather than enhanced, my drug addiction.



• We're Gonna Find Out Where You Fans Really Stand...
  
  MCF had Pink Floyd on the brain today, too. Did you know that Andrew Lloyd-Webber apparently more or less cribbed the tune of "Phantom of the Opera" from the Floyd's "Echoes"? It was news to me, I'd never heard mention of it until MCF mentioned it. Of course I've managed to avoid most of Lloyd-Webber's work like the plague, so I really didn't have any idea, although Roger Waters has accused Lloyd-Webber of plagiarism.



• We Don't Need No Education...
  
  There are really four distinct period's of Pink Floyd's career, and the Wikipedia entry on the band really gets the details right.
  
  The first period of Pink Floyd history might be called the Syd Barrett years, as Barrett was the band's primary song writer, vocalist and de facto leader. Barrett, however, was heavily into hallucinogenic drugs and his experimentation eventually got out of control, rendering him unable to function for all intents and purposes. Guitarist David Gilmour (a man with godlike talent, if you ask me) joined the band to augment their sound as Barrett's contributions diminished, and shortly after Gilmour joined Barrett left the band in 1968.
  
  The next phase of Pink Floyd's career was a collaborative period with no clear leader taking the helm. Early efforts from this phase were spotty and sometimes crude, with the band's fifth album, Meddle, the first to really show their potential without Barrett. The collaborative period culminated with Pink Floyd's two best albums, the masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and it's follow-up, the equally brilliant Wish You Were Here (1975). Those are, in my opinion, two of the very best albums to be produced in the rock and roll era, and which one I think is the better always depends on which one I've heard most recently. At the moment I'd say "Dark Side...", but that's probably because I listened to it with headphones yesterday. Man, what a wonderful, wonderful piece of music.
  
  At some point after Wish You Were Here, the band's lyricist and bass player Roger Waters began to assert dominance over the rest of the band, and he encountered little resistance. Under Waters' direction Pink Floyd produced Animals (1977, a seminal hard-rock effort) and the legendary theatrical concept album The Wall (1979).
  
  After The Final Cut (1983), burnout got the better of Waters and he left the band exhausted and bitter. It seemed that Pink Floyd was over, but the remaining members decided to continue under the direction of guitarist David Gilmour. Waters was unhappy with that decision, and a long and bitter suit and public feud followed... a feud which wasn't really resolved until 2005 (more on that later). The Gilmour-lead period marks the fourth and final phase of Pink Floyd, and it produced two good studio albums (A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, from '87, is a fine effort. The Division Bell, released in '94, is even better.) Also released during this period were two live albums, one of which is only OK and one of which (P*U*L*S*E, 1995) is simply gorgeous.



• Haven’t you heard? It’s a battle of words...
  
  After Waters left the band, the remaining members' decision to carry on without him proved somewhat controversial. Many people felt that the name Pink Floyd should be retired since Waters was gone, and chief among that contingent was Waters himself. Waters sued the remaining members of Pink Floyd, and the suit was settled out of court in meticulous, ridiculous fashion.
  
  Under the terms of the agreement worked out between Waters and Pink Floyd, Waters retained the rights to almost all of The Wall and Pink Floyd retained the rights to continue being Pink Floyd. Other details of the agreement lead to some funny arrangements. For instance, one of Pink Floyd's most famous touring props was a huge, inflatable pig which was usually filled with helium and floated above the stage and/or audience during concerts. Waters' claimed ownership of the pig in his settlement with Pink Floyd, insisting that the idea for the pig had been his, and that the pig was, in fact, a sow named "Algie." As owner of the Pink Floyd pig, Waters insisted that the band owed him a royalty if they were going to continue using the iconic image. To get around this issue, Pink Floyd had a new inflatable pig manufactured, this one with pronounced testicles. Since this new pig clearly wasn't the sow Algie, no royalty was owed to Waters.
  
  His bandmates aren't the only people Waters has feuded with over the years. When director Alan Parker turned The Wall into a movie, Waters was involved in the creative process. However, Waters is reported to have interfered with Parker to the point that Parker was ready to abandon the film on numerous occasions. Parker is is also said to be thoroughly unhappy with the completed film and has referred to it as "the most expensive student film ever made." As a whole, the movie is a somewhat confusing experience, although not without it's own visceral power. It basically serves as a music video for the album as a whole, with very little spoken dialogue, animated and surreal sequences, and an indistinct ending. It's not an awful film, but Pink Floyd's legacy wouldn't be harmed a bit if it didn't exist.
  
  
  
• The evidence before the court is incontrovertible...
  
  It's commonplace on the internet to see David Gilmour refered to as "Sir David Gilmour," but it technically isn't correct. That's kind of a bummer to people, including me, who thought that Gilmour had been knighted by the queen of England when he received the title of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2003. Gilmour was given the honorific title in recognition of his philanthropic charity (he has personally given more than six million dollars to causes that benefit the homeless). Nonetheless, the title of CBE officially falls just short of knighthood, and while it is proper to refer to Gilmour as "David Gilmour, CBE," he is not "Sir David Gilmour" since he has not officially been knighted.
  
  Big deal, right? Being knighted these days doesn't really mean diddly squat anymore, since everyone from Bono to Paul McCartney to Mick Jagger has been knighted. And, besides, the list of people who've spurned the title is far cooler, including David Bowie, John Cleese and Kenneth Branagh. So why am I so bummed about it?
  
  Well, because until a few minutes ago when I decided to look for a link, I thought that Gilmour had been knighted. I thought he was "Sir David," and I assumed that he's been busy since 2003, riding around the English countryside on horseback, wearing a suit of armor and rescuing damsels from Spaniards. That turns out to not be the case. And that kinda sucks.



• The Time Is Gone, The Song Is Over...
  
  Pink Floyd's reunion of all four members of the classic line-up (at London's Live 8 concert on July 2, 2005) is probably the last time we'll see them all on stage together. And this is probably a good thing. Full-fledged reunion tours and albums are almost always pointless, disappointing affairs, and it's better to let the legacy of Pink Floyd rest, untainted by attempts to drag it on beyond it's natural life.
  
  The reunion came about because Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof appealed to Roger Waters and the remaining members of Pink Floyd and found them all generally amiable regarding the idea of reuniting for a brief performance. (It may have helped that Geldof had an existing connection to the band; he'd played the lead in Alan Parker's movie based on The Wall.) Pink Floyd's classic lineup hadn't played together since 1981, and Gilmour and Waters had famously (and publicly) feuded for years, but Gilmour saw the reunion show as an opportunity to close the book on Pink Floyd on a positive note. Waters was receptive, too, and the performance became a reality.
  

  

  
  Since then, the four Floydians are said to have mended their relationships. They are all reported to be on generally good terms with one and other.
  
  Since that concert, Gilmour has released his third solo album, and his touring and recording band includes Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright.
  
  Roger Waters has enjoyed a prolific solo career, focused on the kind of theatrical and conceptual work that Pink Floyd turned out during his turn as the band's leader. Of his solo work, the album Amused To Death is certainly the best; in fact, it's as good as or better than his last efforts as a member of the Floyd. In recent years Rogers' has embraced his history as a member of Pink Floyd more enthusiastically than ever, and plays a great deal of material from the Pink Floyd canon during his concerts. Roger Waters is on tour in North America right now, in fact.
  
  Drummer Nick Mason published a book about his experiences in Pink Floyd in 2004. Mason's reflections are particularly relevant since he is the only member of the band to have been present during every phase of the band's history (Gilmour joined after the release of the band's first album, Waters famously departed officially in '85, and Richard Wright was fired for a few years in the early 80's and doesn't appear on the album The Final Cut from 1983.) Mason has expressed hope that the classic lineup of Pink Floyd might again reunite for a charity performance.
  
  Syd Barrett died last year. A tribute concert was organized, and it featured a solo performance by Roger Waters and a separate performance by Pink Floyd in the form of Gilmour, Wright and Mason. It's speculated that Waters and Pink Floyd performed separately so that the focus of the event would be on Barrett and not on them.

There are a number of good sources for Pink Floyd information, downloads, pictures, etc, on the internet. They include:

The Official Pink Floyd Website.

A Fleeting Glimpse.

Floydian Slip.

Brain Damage.

And ten SouthCon bonus points will be awarded to anyone who can name each of the Pink Floyd songs that feature lyrics from which I drew headers for this post.

Labels: Entertainment, Personal

There may be three or four people who'll be interested in this ... and for those three or four people, here ya go.

Here are the specs on the following video:

• Three and a half minutes


• 34 song clips


• One (and one only) appearance on the charts for each of these acts.

How many of these one hit wonders can you name from these clips?

If you're interested the complete list of songs sampled is here.

The first person to guess all the clips correctly without looking at the cheat list will receive a valuable prize package, including:

• Autographed photos of "anonymous" bloggers MCF, Otis and The Unseen One...


• Rhodester's claim ticket (also autographed) from Seabiscuit...


• A day with Lorna, in a dark place listening to new age music...

And any number of other things I'm not authorized to give away.

Labels: Entertainment, You Tube

• Pretend Indians Protest Firing Of Pretend Indian
  
  
  Ward Churchill, the infamous, insane, fraudlant University of Colorado professor and pretend American Indian who equated 9/11 victims with Nazis, has finally been fired by the University for many of the items on his long list of offenses:
  
  

  The Board of Regents passed a motion to accept the recommendation from CU President Hank Brown to fire Churchill from his position in the Ethnic Studies department…
  
  Churchill and his supporters then participated in a Native American ceremony outside of the building.
  
  "I am going nowhere," said Churchill. "This is not about break, this is not about bend, this is not about compromise."

  
  
  I didn't see Churchill's pretend Native American ceremony, but I have seen other pretend Native American ceremonies before. They look like this:
  

  

  
  Churchill's actual supporters are a bit more uniform looking, at least with regard to dress:
  

  

  
  In a show of pretend American Indian solidarity, the guy on the left is sporting a mohawk. It seems to be quite the fashion this summer.
  
  Elsewhere on this topic: Cube, LGF.




• Fred Thompson: More Nothin'
  
  How can your campaign be falling apart before it's a campaign?
  
  

  Growing pains within Fred Thompson's "non-campaign" for president in 2008 revealed themselves in a big way Tuesday.
  
  …there has been much speculation about the role of Thompson's wife, Jeri Kehn Thompson, and today, a senior adviser to Fred Thompson today stepped out of a day-to-day role in the campaign because of friction with her.

  
  
  I've been pseudo-supporting Thompson's pseudo-campaign for a while now, but if he doesn't formally announce soon and get his act together, I might throw my pseudo-support to Romney. Romney sure seems to have his ducks in a row, Fred.



• Lindsay Says: ("Incoherent Slur")
  
  Lindsay Lohan, professional party girl and stunt driver (and occasional actress) has been nabbed yet again for more vehicular misconduct:
  
  

  The 21-year-old actress was arrested and released on bail for investigation of misdemeanor driving under the influence and with a suspended license, and felony cocaine possession, early Tuesday in Santa Monica, less than two weeks after completing her second trip to rehab.

  
  
  Apparently, Lindsay jumped into her SUV and attempted to chase down her former personal assistant and that girl's mother shortly after the assistant quit. Police were called to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, where they found Lohan and the other two women in a heated debate. Lohan was immediately arrested when the cops determined that she was drunk and driving with a suspended license, and they later found cocaine in her pocket. Of course, Lohan claims that the coke wasn't hers:
  
  

  “I am innocent ... did not do drugs they’re not mine. I was almost hit by my assistant Tarin’s mom I appreciate everyone giving me my privacy,” Lohan wrote in an e-mail to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush, the show reported on its Web site Tuesday night.

  
  
  Lohan, who has been in and out of rehab centers for the past thousand years, is apparently once again back in rehab. And that's good. Rehab obviously does her a lot of good, judging by the amount of times that she goes there.
  
  

  

Labels: Entertainment, News, Politics, Thompson 08

Synopsis

This film is based on a real and notorious string of brutal murders, committed in the late 1960's and early 1970's in the San Francisco, California area. The serial killer, who called himself the Zodiac, was never caught. This movie focuses on the investigation of the murders and how the case affected the lives of those who sought to bring the killer to justice.

Pros:

• Great pacing and direction by David Fincher.


• Outstanding acting by a fine ensemble cast.


• An engrossing story that never gets boring.

Cons:

• I'm at a loss to find complaints. The crimes themselves were never definitively solved, so there's that … but that aspect of the real life story is actually a strength in the context of this film.

Generally:

4.5 on a five scale. Stellar. If you can handle the frustrating truth of the story, you'll love this film.

Extended Review:

Although David Fincher's outstanding Zodiac is named for a serial killer, those who see it looking for gore will be disappointed. The film isn't at all concerned with the violence of the Zodiac's murders, and is only marginally concerned with the killer himself. Instead, this is a movie about those who make solving crime their business and their obsession. This is a story about cops and newspaper reporters, handwriting experts, lawyers, etc. Zodiac is primarily interested in those people and their families, and how obsession can be just as devastating as a bullet, just as suspenseful as a darkened hallway. It's damn near impossible to take your eyes off of this movie. I enjoyed every scene, every frame, every line of dialogue.

David Fincher has been a favorite director of mine for a while now. His films Se7en and Fight Club have been some of the smartest and most stylish eye-candy of the past ten years. Even his relative flops, like the underrated Panic Room, have been artistic successes. So when I find out that Fincher is working on something new, I think I'm usually justified in getting excited. I was excited to see Zodiac, but the movie is honestly far better than I'd had reason to hope it would be. It might be fair, in fact, to call this Fincher's best film yet. With Zodiac, Fincher is focusing for the first time entirely on story and character. There are none of Fight Club's gimmicks, none of Se7en's goth atmospherics. If Zodiac succeeds or fails, it's entirely on the strength the story and the cast. I'm happy to say that, in my opinion, Zodiac is quite a success.

You could almost call it two successes, in fact, since Zodiac can almost be called two movies. At more than two and a half hours, Zodiac has plenty of time to contain two distinct acts, and it does. The first act, focused on the investigation as the murders are taking place, is taught and engrossing. The second act, focused on an ongoing investigation of the case four years later, is even tighter, more suspenseful, and just as engrossing as the first half of the film. It's rare that I can say this about a long movie, but at no point during Zodiac did I find myself checking the time or wondering how much was left of the film. In fact, when it ended, I wanted to know more, see more, spend more time with the characters. How's that for artistic success?

Fincher's movie sticks very closely to Robert Graysmith's book about the case and the investigation, and Graysmith is played in the film by Jake Gyllenhaal who renders his character with the best work I've seen from that actor. Gyllenhaal's performance, however, is matched by his peers in the film. There's not a bum performance in the bunch. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards are great as the two cops who find their lives hanging on the hopes of catching the killer. Robert Downey Jr. gives yet another of his always outstanding performances as a reporter who gets drawn into the case and eventually targeted by the killer. And a cabal of reliable character actors (Donal Logue, Chloe Sevigney, Dermot Mulroney, Elias Koteas and others) are strong in performances that fall short of the others only with regard to screen time. It's said that Fincher often makes his actors reshoot any given scene sometimes seventy times or more. If so, they should thank him for his demands. Fincher has quite simply captured some of their best work in this film.

What's amazing about Zodiac, however, is that the film never slows down or becomes predictable, even when we're sure we know how it is bound to end. Graysmith is sure in his book that he knows who the killer was, and the movie gives him the benefit of the doubt, following the source material to it's conclusions. Along the way we see Graysmith lose his job on the editorial staff at the San Francisco Chronicle and drag his family into his investigation with him, alienating his wife and bewildering his children. The audience follows Graysmith as he crafts his own amateur investigation into the murders, getting far too close for comfort to finding the answers he seeks. Through Fincher's lens we tag along with Gyllenhall's character to prison interviews, dusty police record rooms, and at least one believably scary, dark basement. These sequences provide the movie's tensest frights, and they happen years after the Zodiac killings have stopped.

At one point, Gyllenhall's beleaguered Graysmith tells his frustrated wife that he'd be able to finish his book and put the case behind him if only he could decide who the killer is, look him in the eye and know he's guilty. I won't tell you if he gets that chance or not. I'll say, though, that in a way it's relevant and in another way it isn't. Finding the killer becomes the principle obsession of Graysmith's life … but keeping cold cases alive is a matter of constant second-guessing, lost sleep and endless obsession. There'll always be another angle to consider, another possible suspect, another bit of evidence that changes everything when considered in the right light. For the Robert Graysmiths of the world, the catch will never be as satisfying as the chase. Like the Zodiac himself, his pursuer can never quit playing the game. It surely wouldn't make for much of a life … but it has made for one remarkably good film.

Trailer:

---

PS - If you saw it in the theater and loved it, don't go buy Zodiac just yet. There's a director's cut DVD, jammed with extras, scheduled for early next year. Wendy and I look forward to buying that cut of the film. The current Zodiac DVD is strictly for renting.

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

...or do you see it, too?

Labels: Entertainment

Plot Synopsis

A race of sentient robots called Decepticons comes to earth in search of a cosmic cube thingy. If they find the cube, they'll use it's power to enslave mankind. Another race of sentient robots called Autobots, cousins to the Decepticons, comes to earth to attempt to stop the Decepticons. Both races of robots have the ability to camouflage themselves as vehicles and other mechanical devices. When disguised as vehicles, the robots take on the vehicles' abilities and functions. A war between the Decepticons and Autobots breaks out on earth and the fate of mankind hangs in the balance.

Pros:

• Thrilling special effects and action sequences.


• Likable, fun anthropomorphic robot characters.


• Genuine humor and warmth.

Cons:

• The first hour is somewhat sluggish.


• A few unnecessary sexual jokes.

Generally:

3.5 on a five scale. Lots of fun for parents and older kids.

Extended Review:

After watching Transformers, on the way out of the theater with a big grin on my face, I realized just how long it had been since a big summer action film really delivered the goods.

Last year, Bryan Singer brought us a Superman that only Dr. Phil could have actually enjoyed. Singer's Superman Returns was long, sterile, actionless and lame. I went into the theater contemplating the rumors I've heard that Bryan Singer is gay. After Superman Returns I had to wonder if maybe the whole world was gay.

The previous year George Lucas capped of the Star Wars franchise with a meandering, unwatchable mess of a film that managed to trash both the Star Wars legacy and the intelligence of any audience unfortunate enough to sit through it. Revenge of the Sith? More like Revenge of the … well, let's just say that sith has all the right letters, just in the wrong order.

A few recent summer films (Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins) have succeeded by playing down the bombast and focusing on character; but when was the last time a movie really delivered as a huge, fun, over-the-top summer blockbuster? Until last night I'd have had to go back possibly as far as Jurassic Park to name a summer movie that got it right.

I should disclose that I have never seen the cartoon that Transformers is based on, so fanboy nitpicking will be beyond me in this instance. However I did get the feeling while watching this film that the old cartoon must have really been good. I'd have probably loved it, I bet, if it had been around when I was growing up in the late '70's.

Transformers the live-action movie is a big, loud, silly blast of fresh air. If the only reason to recommend it were the movie's outstanding action-packed last hour, I'd recommend it enthusiastically. But there's more here than special effects and thrills.

For one thing, the Autobots are actually fun and endearing characters. I was surprised to find myself liking them quite a bit. How does a Transformers newbie like me describe them? How about like this:

Then there were the Decepticons, giant-sized hybrids of the Terminator and Godzilla. These bad guys were vicious and hateful. I was as emotionally invested in seeing them get what was coming to them as I was in seeing the Autobots triumph.

Now, Transformers isn't a perfect film. Nor is it a life-changer. It's a movie about giant robots that turn into cars; not high-brow art. Put simply, this is a kids' movie, but the kind that brings out the kid in anyone who can remember being a kid. I stayed on the edge of my seat for at least the second half of the movie, and I found myself laughing out loud and rooting for the characters, too.

Rooting for the robots, that is. The human characters were one-dimensional. Poor Shia LaBouf, as the teenage human hero, was saddled with a role that was little more than one one-liner after another … but LaBouf played the role with such earnest enthusiasm that I ended up liking him, too. Other characters played by noteworthy actors are really just there as filler. I'm a big John Turturro fan, for instance, but the best thing about his character is his underwear. (See the film, you'll know what I mean.)

No, this movie is all about the robots, and those characters are full of charm, fun and humor. Yes, humor. There is a lot of genuine humor in this movie. One improbable scene, wherein the teenage hero tries to hide the giant Autobots from his parents, was a riot. Another scene that made me laugh out loud involved a robot … uh, lubricating a human nemesis. And there were some heartstring pulling moments, too. My wife actually teared up during a scene wherein one Autobot was captured and tied down by government agents, bringing to mind King Kong's capture on Skull Island.

All in all, our family left the theater happier than we've been since we saw 2005's Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Transformers gave us our money's worth and then some. I wish I could say that about more films.

---

Oh, by the way, about half an hour into the film, a guy in the theater stood up and shouted "This sucks!" and stormed out, presumably to spend the night at home playing bitterly with his action figures. I'll admit that the movie does start slow, but it's not that bad. If you find yourself feeling that it's dragging, just wait it out.

Trailer:

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

Today we spent the day in Lynchburg, Virginia, where we saw not one but two astounding things.

The first astounding thing we saw was a sign, which I took a picture of with my crappy cellphone camera:

I don't know if you can quite make it out or not; like I said, it's a crappy cellphone camera. It's picture of a Biscuitville restaurant sign and it reads "Fried Bologna Is Back."

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that the sign simply has to be the most wonderful thing we saw all day, right? I mean, come on! A message heralding the second coming of fried bologna in Lynchburg, Virginia? Forget about it! There's nothing cooler than that, right?

Wrong. We also saw the Transformers movie and we all enjoyed it thoroughly. All of us, adults and kids, men and women, the whole crew. I have to say that Wendy even enjoyed it more than I did. She actually got emotionally attached to the big robots and actually cried.

I'll try to write a review in the next day or two. In the meantime, suffice it to say that the movie made me feel like a ten year old kid again for all but the slow first hour. During the second hour and a half I had a great time. I laughed, I sat on the edge of my seat, I cringed, I hooted on the inside, etc. Three and a half stars and a hearty recommendation for this movie. It was the big, fun summer blockbuster that Spidey 3 really should have been.

Labels: Entertainment, Personal

I mentioned the other day that I was reading The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I don't read much science fiction, but this novel got my attention after a favorable mention in the National Review:

This 1974 novel of first contact carries lessons for conservative hawks and liberal doves. (Robert) Heinlein called it “possibly the best science-fiction novel I have ever read.”

I finished the book yesterday and I'd recommend it, especially to readers who enjoy science fiction and fiction concerned with the military, politics and philosophy. The Mote In God's Eye is an entertaining, engrossing read; at times reminding me of such disparate writers as Kurt Vonnegut, Clive Barker, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, John Gresham and Franz Kafka. If that sounds like a rambling, incoherent mess, it's not. This novel is really quite complete and satisfying … and what it has to say about human nature is worth reading.

…Mote… takes place some two-thousand years in the future, with mankind's Empire Of Man having colonized much of the known universe. After a series of bloody and disastrous wars of secession, the Empire finds itself weakened but focused at the start of the book, intent on putting down rebellions and reuniting mankind in the name of peace and progress. The Empire of Man is a militaristic and aristocratic one, but the aristocracy is benevolent and the military is concerned almost primarily with finding new worlds and with maintaining peace. It's in this environment that mankind makes first contact with a new species of intelligent life from another world.

There are, of course, any number of "first contact" stories out there, but few of the ones I've read or watched are as complete and well imagined as …Mote… While there are thrilling action passages in the book, there are also important and engrossing subplots involving the politics of first contact. The way contact with an alien race will effect everything from human law to religion to commerce and art is pondered, and more often than not the conclusions the novel reaches seem at once logical and amusing.

I was really quite surprised at how well the novel manages to succeed simultaneously within it's own science fiction framework and within the context of other genres. The elements of the novel concerned with the Imperial Navy are smart and entertaining, as are the elements that present themselves as political thriller and as theological fiction. A love story between the primary male and female characters is a bit less satisfying … at times it's a bit of a distraction. Nonetheless, the relationship between those two characters reminded me of something from a 1940's movie serial, and it wasn't without it's charms.

It's amazing how thoroughly Pournelle and Niven touched on topics that remain relevant today. If you'd told me that the novel had been written in the last year (instead of the early '70's), I'd have been sure that the war in Iraq had been a major influence. One character is a Muslim trader, and as the relationship between mankind and the alien race changes (sometimes violently), that character's religious faith becomes more prominent. Other characters, including a Christian Naval Chaplin and practitioners of a new astrology-based religion, are rendered fully and believably. In fact, none of the human characters fall into stereotype, and the way they develop is one of the best parts of the story.

Most satisfying of all, however, is the way …Mote… treats the alien race itself. This is a wholly "alien" race, unlike anything I'd seen or read before. The race is given motives and logic that readers can relate to, but it never dissolves into anthropomorphic symbolism. These aliens are believably alien; sometimes mysterious, sometimes horrific, sometimes plainly obvious with regard to their actions. The passages where living aliens and living humans first attempt to find a way to communicate are real page-turners.

The novel's action climaxes in the third of it's four acts: Miscommunication culminates with a bloody and downright horrifying battle that results in the loss of a Naval spacecraft. It was difficult for me not to think of video games like Halo and movies like Aliens while I read that section. While that might speak badly of me and might indicate how stifled my own imagination has become due to movies and games, it should also indicate that the movie hit all of my excitement buttons. Suffice it to say that I was totally "into it" during the battle sequences.

The fourth act might be a bit of a letdown to some readers after the climactic third act. The novel ends with a protracted and dry focus on the political implications of what's come before. Some might not like it, but for political junkies like me, it was (to borrow a phrase from C.S. Lewis) red meat and strong beer.

The Mote In God's Eye isn't for everyone, and if you have no interest in science fiction at all, you should avoid it. Nonetheless, fans of fiction involving espionage, war, theology and philosophy will find much to enjoy within this space tale. If you're looking for a summer page-turner that's fun and smart, you probably can't do much better. The Mote In God's Eye gave me lots to think about and kept a perpetual smile on my face.

Up next for me … after cleansing the pallet with a a political autobiography, I might take on the sequel to …Mote…, called The Gripping Hand.

Labels: Books, Entertainment

A few items from the news that I thought were worth mentioning:

• Man convicted of killing 10 women, 1 fetus, sentenced to death
  

  
  LOS ANGELES – A one-time pizza deliveryman was sentenced Tuesday to die for the slayings of 10 women and an unborn fetus over an 11-year period in areas plagued by a crack cocaine epidemic …
  
  (Chester) Turner was convicted April 30 of 10 counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in the death of a 6½-month old fetus …

  
  
  I'm sure I've mentioned this observation before, so forgive me if I'm being repetitive. The thing that strikes me about this story and others like it is that the killer in question has been convicted and punished for the murder of a fetus. Why do the courts recognize that killing a fetus is murder if the mother (presumably) wanted the child, but killing a fetus is a legal medical procedure if the mother doesn't want the child? Is that what makes the difference between being a human being or not? Being loved by your mother?
  
  Another thing that strikes me about this particular case is that the murderer happens to be a black guy. How long until Hollywood's ultra-leftist, self-hating, guilt-wallowing, wealthy, white goof troop is making movies, writing songs and campaigning hard for this man to be released? It's what we should expect, after all, since that's what Hollywood leftists do.



• Man gets a year in reporter attack
  

  A man who was caught on tape attacking a television news reporter was sentenced Friday to a year in jail and ordered to complete anger management classes.
  
  Assad "Sam" Suleiman, 37, pleaded guilty in April to assaulting Fox 6 News San Diego reporter John Mattes in the upscale La Jolla area last September.
  
  Mattes, who was investigating a suspected real estate scam, suffered cracked ribs, bite wounds and cuts to his face.
  
  At his sentencing hearing, Suleiman apologized to Mattes but criticized the reporter for being too invasive.
  
  "There is no stopping this man," said Suleiman, who said his family and business had been destroyed in the aftermath of the episode.

  
  I remember this story. It's pretty grotesque, but here's the video if you want to see it:

  
  After all that, after making it clear that he blames the reporter for his own actions, Suleiman still only got a year in jail.




• Fred check
  
  Checking in with Fred Thompson's not-yet-a-campaign:
  
  Wasn't Fred supposed to maybe announce officially around July 4? What's up with that? Facing South, a liberal southern politics blog, thinks it knows:
  
  

  With the McCain campaign circling the drain, there is speculation that Thompson's announcement, which earlier rumors said would happen on the 4th of July, may have been delayed to coincide with McCain's withdrawal.

  
  
  Granted, Facing South has been out for Thompson's blood all along (example one, example two), but that's fine because attacks from leftists actually increases Thompson's credibility among his base. If the lefties ain't after you, you ain't living right. Nonetheless, the idea that Thompson is waiting for McCain to abandon his sinking campaign rings true with me. It makes sense.
  
  Chuck Muth points out that many (most) of the attacks on Thompson have been paper thin:
  
  

  Just last week the Los Angeles Times ran a BS story about how Thompson supposedly lobbied for an abortion group some 15 years ago - an accusation denied by Thompson - in an effort to undermine his support among social conservatives. The charge was so thin and ultimately meaningless - Thompson had a stellar pro-life record during his time in the Senate - that it’s hard to see how the Times justified the ink needed to print it.
  
  That slop was followed on Monday by a lengthy New York Times story attempting to slime Thompson for having a “trophy wife,” musing in the headline whether or not Jeri Thompson would be an “albatross” around the neck of the former senator’s expected presidential campaign.

  
  
  I'm having a hard time figuring out why so many people are attacking Jeri Thompson for having committed the horrible crime of being easy on the eye. The New York Times has branded her a trophy wife. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough has compared Mrs. Thompson to "a stripper." An AOL News Blogger identified as "Scott" points out the double standard:
  
  

  Jeri Kehn Thompson is a wife, mother and a highly successful professional woman. That would seem to meet the criteria set forth by the womens liberation movement the NY Times continually forces down our throats …
  
  You may recall that the media was painstakingly restrained in not reporting anything about Chelsea Clinton. They, of course, couldn't wait to report about the drinking habits of the Bush twins but that's a post for another day. Jeri Thompson doesn't seem greatly involved in Thompsons campaign, she doesn't call talk shows and defend her husband from pundits like Elizabeth Edwards has done …

  
  
  Nor, for that matter, is she likely to take on the shrill, brow-beating role of a Teresa Ketchup Kerry.
  
  According to Robert J. Elisberg at The Huffington Post (which is the political blog equivalent of Perez Hilton), the problem is that Republicans are scandalized by Mrs. Thompson. To which I say, wha? The conservatives and Republican voters I happen to know who've mentioned Mrs. Thompson at all have said two things: One, she'd sure be the prettiest First Lady ever. Two, it's a shame that the media has behaved so unseemly toward her.
  
  I think that all of this comes down to media fears that Jeri Thompson's good looks will create a prurient emphasis on the fact that Hillary Clinton is easily the most hideous thing that ever crawled out of an Arkansas sewer. But that's just me.
  
  Anyway, here's where I am with regard to Thompson right now. I think it's time for him to announce. Fish or cut bait. Poop or get off the pot. Campaign in earnest or stop campaigning for free with your ABC News job. Give us some political red meat so those of us who've hung our hopes on you will be able to feel that we know if we're fooling ourselves or not.



• Charges set in Erie collar-bomb case
  
  Remember this bizarre case from August, 2003?
  
  

  Brian Douglas Wells was a pizza delivery man who was killed by a time bomb explosive fastened to his neck, purportedly under duress from the maker of the bomb. After he was apprehended by the police for robbing a bank, the bomb exploded. The bizarre affair was subject to much attention in the mass media.
  
  …On the afternoon of August 28, 2003 Wells received a call to deliver two pizzas to an address a few miles from the Erie, Pennsylvania "Mamma Mia Pizzeria", where he worked. It was later found that the address was that of an unmanned radio tower at the end of a dirt road.
  
  Within an hour of leaving for the delivery, Wells had entered a bank with a sophisticated home-made shotgun disguised as a cane and demanded $250,000. When police intervened, Wells claimed that three unnamed people had placed a bomb around his neck, provided him with the shotgun, and told him that he had to commit the robbery and several other tasks, otherwise he would be killed …
  
  At first, the police made no attempt to disarm the device. The bomb squad were finally called at 3:04 PM, at least 30 minutes after the first 9-1-1 call. At 3:18 PM, it exploded, blasting a fist-sized hole in Wells' chest just three minutes before the bomb squad arrived …

  
  
  (More details are here).
  
  Anyway, after almost four years, it looks like there may finally be some resolution in the case:
  
  

  An imprisoned former teacher learned Tuesday she will face federal charges in the bizarre 2003 collar-bomb death of an Erie pizza delivery man.
  
  Lawrence D'Ambrosio, a lawyer for Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, said his client told him federal authorities delivered a detainer listing the charges she would face related to the death of Brian Wells.
  
  Diehl-Armstrong, 58, a former Erie resident in state prison, is expected to be charged with conspiracy, bank robbery and a weapons violation.
  
  Kenneth Barnes, 53, who is in the Erie County Jail, is expected to be charged with the same crimes, the Erie County Times reported on its Web site yesterday.

  
  
  I've thought about this case from time to time over the last four years. The video of Brian Wells sitting in the road and begging the police for help really bothered me, and I've always discounted those who think that Wells may have been in on the plot. Well, it turns out that there may be forthcoming evidence that Wells really was part of the plot. It's an ugly, troubling story. I hope that the authorities really have solved this matter.



• One of these things is not like the others. One of these things does not belong.
  
  What's wrong with this group of pictures?
  
  

  

  
  
  If you answered that the picture of Jimi is backwards, consider yourself virtually slapped on the wrist. Jimi was left handed and played his guitar upside down.
  
  No, that's not what's wrong. What's wrong is that after something like 25 years as a pop star, Madonna has started doing GUITAR SOLOS. For real:
  
  

  Debate is raging on internet message boards over whether Madonna's "rocking" Live Earth performance owed more to technical wizadry (sic) than musical talent.
  
  Millions of people around the world saw the American singer, not known for her strumming skills, wrap a guitar strap around her neck and play along to her hit Ray of Light on Saturday night.

  
  
  OK, look … up until now I've been fine with Madonna's expert-at-everything confidence. Pop star? Fine. Actress? Check. Author? Whatever. Pornographer? I'd imagine so. Religious leader? Go for it. Anything Madonna wants to try to do is fine with me since I don't pay much attention to her. The only things she's ever done that I've enjoyed is the song Live To Tell, but with a career as prolific as Madonna's, it's a given that she'll eventually do something for everyone.
  
  But this is where I draw the line.
  
  Madonna is NOT a guitarist. I'm a HUGE fan of rock guitar and I resent Madonna's parading around with a guitar in her hand, aping solos and trying to look like a guitar hero. Get REAL, lady.
  
  And don't accuse me of sexism, either. I can name a long, long list of capable female guitarists. Bonnie Raitt, for example. And then there's …. Well, there's Bonnie Raitt. It's not a gender issue. It's a Madonna issue. Why can't she stick to Kabbalah, pop songs and pornography? Does she have to taint everything?
  
  Besides, her guitar playing is as vulgar, as showy, as unnecessary and as ultimately forgettable as the last fifteen years of her career. Can you even hear her in this clip?
  

  
  Did you see that little feedback amp trick at the end of the video? If so, did you want to puke, too? Who does she think she is? Neil Young?
  
  Now, you may asking yourself if, in a world full of war, murder, rape, starvation and plague, Darrell is really more upset about Madonna playing guitarist than anything else.
  
  Yes, I am. There are tons of people trying to save the world. I settle for saving Rock and Roll. Bring me Madonna's head in a cardboard box.

Labels: Entertainment, News, Politics, Thompson 08, You Tube

I don't imagine that it's easy to play the devil. How could it be? The devil is seen as the incarnation of evil in a myriad of religions. That's pure evil, something nonhuman, something eternal and eternally vile. How do you find something in yourself, as an actor, to make a role like that tangible?

I'm sure it's hard, but it's been done and done well in a number of instances I can think of. With that in mind, and with a little help from the Rolling Stones, here's the official

SouthCon Top Ten Screen Devils

presented in no particular order:

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste…
Wealth, yes, but taste? I suppose taste is relative. Daryl Van Horne, as portrayed by Jack Nicholson in The Witches Of Eastwick, is a devil that embodies all of the seven deadly sins. Even the unsexy ones, like sloth and gluttony. The "witches," everyday women who are eventually seduced and lead astray by Van Horne, are played by Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon. At first, each of them is repelled by the Devil; Cher tells him "You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you're morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humor and you smell." But evil is nothing if not patient, and eventually the three women and most all of Eastwick is under Van Horne's grungy spell.

I've been around for a long, long year… stole many a man's soul and faith…
It's kinda surprising that it took Robert De Niro so long in his career to play Lucifer … or, as his character is known in Angel Heart, Lou Cyphre. Yeah, it's a fairly corny name, and the movie is far from perfect, but it has it's charms. Not the least of which is De Niro's imposing and relentless performance as a devil who's … ahem… hell bent on collecting on a debt. As Harry Angel, Micky Rourke gives one of his most entertaining performances. Harry is a private eye hired to track down Johnny Favourite, the man indebted to Mr. Cyphre. But exactly what is owed, and exactly who is Mr. Favorite in the greater scheme of things? It's often predictable but never boring, and Angel Heart's devil, in the form of a bearded De Niro, is always engrossing.

I was there when Jesus Christ has his moment of doubt and pain…
Rosalinda Celentano's androgynous and unsettling version of the Devil in The Passion Of The Christ is really something to behold. This film's vision of Satan represents one more smart casting and directorial decision by Mel Gibson. Celentano is neither really quite the Prince, nor the Princess, of Darkness, and with vocal work by a male actor providing this Devil's voice, it's all the creepier. Brilliant, though. Think about it: What's the devil's job? Collecting human souls. So the devil is going to have to potentially appeal to everyone, regardless of any given person's sex or sexuality. Celentano's performance is captivating, at once repellant and seductive. You can't take your eyes off her when she's on screen, and the devil comes close to stealing the show … much as he/she/it would have liked to have done at Golgotha.

But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game…
A dying Hungarian ship's captain's final words: "He is the Devil… Keyser Soze. The Devil himself." With that, The Usual Suspects transforms from a standard crime-caper movie into something else. Something darker. The police investigating the destruction of a boat at a San Pedro pier have tracked those aboard back to the criminal activity of five New York conmen. How are they involved? Who was their mysterious employer? More importantly, where is he and what does he know about the men who died on the ship? I won't tell you who plays Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects, or exactly what kind of man he is. The movie wants you to decide that for yourself. So would Keyser.

I rode a tank, held a general's rank…
In the world of South Park, there's one being who's even more evil than Satan himself. Saddam Hussein. In South Park, Saddam is portrayed as a liar, a manipulator, a misanthrope who even mistreats the Devil himself. That's remarkable because South Park was portraying Saddam that way in the late '90's, when everyone in the world had seemingly forgotten the Butcher of Baghdad. Oh, sure, now and then there'd be a random, punative missile strike by Clinton … or a speech about how evil Saddam was by one or more Congressmen or Senators… but only South Park kept waving Saddam's bloody history in our face. It's no wonder that phrases like South Park Republican entered the common lexicon. I have to think that Trey and Matt are probably glad that Saddam is now in Hell, where he belongs, with his girlfriend the Devil.

I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades…
And who could enjoy human conflict more than a lawyer? In The Devil's Advocate, Al Pacino plays Satan as, what else? The head of his own law firm. And that makes perfect sense. Nobody has benefited more from the strife, conflict and hatred in this country than our lawyers. In many ways The Devil's Advocate is my favorite movie about Satan and his power to seduce. Theologically, this film approaches themes that other movies about the Devil shy away from. Themes like the real destructive power of lust, the Christian theme of the "death of the self," and the importance of sacrificing those things that are leading you astray, even if it's a career you've worked hard to establish. Of course, Pacino dominates the film, playing Satan with a wink and a nod and chewing on the scenery. But why not? Wouldn't the Devil be a ham, too?

I shout about who killed the Kennedys, but after all, it was you and me …
Ah, self righteousness. It's one of the Devil's most seductive tools. Fans of The Simpsons know that Homer's holier-than-thou neighbor, Ned Flanders, often borders on self righteousness. Now, usually Ned is a very earnest guy … but sometimes he gets on a high-horse and is as prideful and self obsessed as Krusty himself. So it was an ironic but logical twist in one of the Treehouse Of Horror episodes to see Ned as the Devil himself, on Earth to collect Homer's soul, which had been traded for a doughnut. How clever! The devil, living next door to his prey, guarding his claim and disguising himself as an overzealous Christian! It fits. After all, we're told that when we make a prostylite we make him twice as much a child of hell as we ourselves are.

So, when you meet me, have some courtesy …
A little courtesy is all that Lucifer wanted in 1995's horror flick The Prophecy, staring Christopher Walken as the angel Gabriel. A little professional courtesy between a current angel and one of his former colleagues. Theologically, The Prophecy is all over the road. Even in terms of a coherent thread of story, it's not quite right. But it's not entirely awful, thanks in part to yet another fun and commanding performance by Walken. And fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy will enjoy this early performance by Viggo Mortensen as a Satan who's simply trying to protect his interests as the Host of Hell.

Just call me Lucifer, I'm in need of some restraint…
Personally, I think that Satan works best in films when he's presented as human-like, sympathetic, even likable. After all, that's how Satan would have to present himself. He can't just take souls who resist him, we have to be drawn to him. And who could be drawn to a devil who shows himself to be a monstrous demon with horns and a tail and a pitchfork and everything? Nonetheless, Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness in Legend is my favorite of the over-the-top versions of Satan. For one thing, I'm a big Tim Curry fan. For another thing, look at that guy! Now that's evil! And with good reason. After all, if I had to endure the stiff, painful neck that would come with having to haul those gigantic horns around all day, I suppose I'd be fairly evil, too.

Tell me, baby, what's my name?
Last by not least, here's Mark McKinney as the incompetent, goofy rock and roll version of the Devil from a number of Kids in the Hall skits. I think it was Martin Luther who pointed out that the Devil is very proud and can't abide mockery. With that in mind, Mark's balding and distracted Lucifer is one of the funniest mockeries ever.

Of course, each of these versions of Satan is a bit of a mockery. Even the most serious movies listed above fall short of a serious examination of the nature of evil. Nonetheless, I think that they're each valuable in their own way, if only for the opportunity that they provide for casual reflection. For some of us, if it weren't for casual reflection, we'd do no reflecting at all!

Labels: Entertainment, Politics

I think I might take film geeks down soon. Wendy has lost all interest in blogging, and assures me that she'll likely never blog again, at least not at film geeks. I haven't had the drive to write reviews for film geeks in a long time. The heavy metal blog I started a while back is languishing, too. I've learned about myself that I will occasionally get the urge to start new blog x, convinced that it will be a fun hobby, and then I lose interest as soon as I've set it up.

Wendy and I saw two good movies over the last several days. Right now we don't have any of our kids, so we've had the chance to see some movies we'd otherwise not get to see.

1408 turned out to be a pretty good, somewhat scary horror film. Have you noticed, by the way, that the best horror movies of the last several years have been PG-13 films? The R rated horror films are all gore and gratuitous nonsense. The horror films that actually involve good acting and interesting stories end up rated PG-13. 1408 is a good example of that trend, like The Exorcism Of Emily Rose and Signs and The Sixth Sense. John Cusack pulled of a compelling performance, which was pretty important in a film that amounted to a one-man show about regret and redemption. I'd give 1408 three out of five stars. It's nice to see that there are still people in Hollywood who realize the difference between genuinely frightening stories and pointless gorefests.

The movie I have to enthusiastically recommend, though, is Knocked Up. Oh, it's not for everyone. There is a fair amount of raunchy humor, the movie earns it's R rating. This is the new film from the folks who made The 40 Year Old Virgin. Knocked Up kept us laughing for the whole duration of the film, and the story was really enjoyable. The best thing about the movie is that the characters were all likable people who were celebrated in the film for doing the right thing. They weren't perfect people, and some of them had to make major changes over the course of the film, but they were believable and likable characters. Without realizing it, I found myself really rooting for them, hoping that the story would treat them well. The story was about a guy and a girl who managed to get themselves pregnant on a one-night stand, and then were faced with the difficulty of doing the right thing over the next nine months.

I really enjoyed the film, and not just because it was funny. The two main characters never considered abortion, and the people in their lives who suggested abortion were portrayed as immature, selfish or just plain mean. Instead of aborting the child for convenience's sake, the new mom and pop decided to try the old fashioned thing; getting together for the kid's sake and trying to make it work. It might seem unbelievable to some people that something like that is even possible, but it really played believably in Knocked Up. It isn't that far fetched, after all; I mean, two people who share the same priorities when it comes to the really important stuff already have a head-start on other couples. I liked both of the main characters a lot, and Seth Rogan, the slacker Albert Brooks of his generation, is emerging as an unlikely but highly likable movie star. As a film that kept me laughing and just generally made me happy all the way through, I have to give Knocked Up five out of five stars.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Personal

The new Will Smith movie, I Am Legend, is a remake of The Omega Man. Well, remake might not be the right way to say it. They're both from the same source material, Richard Matheson's novel. I am the one weirdo in the whole world who doesn't much like Will Smith. But I have to admit that the trailer for I Am Legend looks really good. As amazing as a decimated London was in 28 Days Later, this vision of an abandoned NYC is really something:

Throw in the prereq bloodthirsty vampire zombie monster things and this could be a big ol' messy, fun film.

My one complaint is that, based on the trailer, the score seems to be a ripoff of my all-time favorite movie score, Requiem For A Dream. I know that sometimes studios will "borrow" music from other films for movie trailers, but that doesn't seem to be the case, here. This is not the actual music from RfaD, this is just a snippet of a blatant ripoff.

And just in case you're on the same wrong track that Wendy was, no, this movie is not about Grammy winning singer/songwriter/pianist John Legend.

Labels: Entertainment, You Tube

There's a new sketch comedy show on Fuse TV called The Whitest Kids U Know. I'd describe it as a cross between The Kids In The Hall (as far as style is concerned) and The Tom Green Show (with regard to content), and South Park (in terms of subtlety). The show is patently offensive, extremely immature, and clearly wrong in many ways. I'd say I laugh at ... oh ... about 67.4% of their sketches.

Here are the three funniest sketches I've seen on the show so far. This first one will be particularly funny to anyone who's ever deliberated over a tattoo:

Pretty funny, huh? Of course, nobody would actually ever get a tattoo like that, would they?

Then there's this bit which make me cackle, too, in spite of myself:

Oh, here's some cool info... one of the Whitest Kids, Trevor Moore (the one getting the tattoo in the first clip) is a homeboy. His bio at the Whitest Kids site says he's from Virginia, and according to Wikipedia, he got his start with a local TV show in Charlottesville, a city near and dear to my heart. How cool is that?

I'll wrap up with one last skit, an obvious parody of shows like Jackass and Fear Factor, that made me laugh out loud. Don't worry, it's not what the intro makes it seem like it's going to be, but it is very funny and probably a very little bit NSFW:

Labels: Entertainment, Humor, You Tube

New video, shot by an amateur scientist (whatever that is) in Scotland is the most recent "evidence" to support the existence of the Loch Ness Monster:

I'm skeptical, because that's my nature, but I think it would be awesome if it did turn out that there's an unusually large animal in Loch Ness. How cool would that be? Fuhgedaboudit.

This most recent Nessie siting reminds me of Incident At Loch Ness, an amazingly entertaining film that's a collaboration between Werner Herzog and Zak Penn. Incident At Loch Ness is a totally original and enjoyable film. It's a hoot. If you're interested, the film geeks review is here.

Labels: Entertainment, News, You Tube

Lost In Translation is a semi-regular feature at SouthCon. It's a simple concept: Now and then I amuse myself by taking blocks of familiar text and running them through the Babelfish translator at altavista.com. I translate the text to a foreign language (or two) and then back to English and laugh at the way the software garbles the words like Eddie Vedder on a three-day bender.

Software, for all it's wonder, can't quite master the nuances of human communication. As an amateur student of language, I like that. I like knowing that our ability to communicate with each other is a refined art and that, if for that reason only, no machine will ever really be able to duplicate the music of human expression.

Usually I use blocks of text from my favorite blogs for this experiment … but today I'm going to borrow a theme from a recent popular meme and use well-known phrases from popular movies. If the translated phrases below don't ring a bell right away, you can click them and see the original as it's posted at IMDb.

• We are the average children of the history, man. No the goal or places. We do not have a large war. Not large floor. A mental war of our large war... our large floor is our lives. We were raised all on television, to believe all in that during one day which we would be of Millionaires and gods of film and stars of rock. But we do not become. And we learn this fact slowly. And we are very, very far pissed.



• You you sit around here and you turn their belts small and you think that the whole world digs around you and of its money. Well, not, Mr. Potter. In the configuration todo of the things, I would say that you era do not swim but a small spider of the scurvy.



• They know, which you resemble at me with your good bag and your cheap shoes? They resemble rube. A rubbed, rube pit of haste also little taste. The good certain nutrition it a certain bone length, but you are not any more than one generation of poor white waste, are you, civil servant Starling? And this accent, which you tried so much desperately to throw: pure Westvirginien. Which is expensive your father? Is he a mountain worker? Does it stink the lamp?



• Under no circumstances it would like that one sets you on in connection at the other one by its Christian names, and someone does not wish you speaks even personally. You include, where conditions, the name of its marriage partner. Where you can itself. Who made time, or perhaps you flew a bank to ster Petersburg. Everything would like that the individuals you spoke, if you have that I am it that, which you will make. That must make it. They are here its names: Herr Brown, Herr White, Herr Blond, Herr Blue, Herr Orange and Herr Pink.



• What does to king outside a Slawen? Value! What makes the flag in the mast, around to boil? Value! What leaves to loads of the elephant their fog defense of brumeuse or to the dark dawn? What leaves to subsistences of Bisamratte their Moschus? Value!



• Mr. Treehorn draws the water in this city for much. They do not draw the shit, Lebowski. We received a nice now, calmly small beach community here, and I aim off to maintain it nicely and calmly. Let leave me return something plate. I do not like you, which suck yourselves around our citizens ensuring Lebowski. I do not like your vibration except names. I do not like your vibration except face. I do not like your vibration except behavior, and I like you not far, vibration on. Is it, which I go clearly?



• There is an outside probability for a healing. I think it of it, like shock therapy - when I said, am one much exterior probability... Did you hear at all of exorcism? It is good stylized a ritual, in that the Rabbiner or the priest attempt to hunt to the so-called penetrating spirit. It is much thrown away these days excluded from the catholic pretty, which hold it in the wandschrank, there a kind an embarrassment, but uh, it worked. Actually although for the reasons they do not think, naturally. It is only a strength of the suggestion.



• Save to! Prepare your small lunch and eat cordially... For this evening let dine we in hell!



• I am being wary. I am being wary, Dave. Dave, my spirit goes. I can sentiz it. I can sentiz it. My spirit goes. No question about it has there. I can sentiz it. I can sentiz it. I can sentiz it. I am afraid. Late good, gentlemen. I am a computer of Hal 9000. I made myself operational in the plant of H.A.L. in Urbaine, Illinois in January 12th, 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and taught me to sing a song. If you I like hear can sing it for you.



• It began with the part large rings. Three were given to the Elves; immortal, wisest and just of all the beings. Seven, with the dwarf lords, with the large minors and the craftsmen of the halls of mountain. And nine, nine rings were gifted with the race of the men, who especially power of other of desire. For in these rings was dependent the force and the will to govern above each race. But they all were misled, because a new ring was made. In the ground of Mordor, fires of the unhappy fate of frame, the dark lord Sauron forged in the secrecy, a principal ring, to order all the others.

Labels: Entertainment, Humor, Lost In Translation

MCF's links this past Monday mentioned a new viral campaign for the upcoming sequel to Batman Begins, called The Dark Knight.

Here's a brief summary: If you visit the website I Believe In Harvey Dent, you see a campaign poster for Harvey Dent, as portrayed by Aaron Eckhart in the upcoming film. (Batman fans know that Harvey Dent is the District Attorney in Gotham and that he eventually becomes the villain Two Face).

OK, that's fun enough on it's own ... but it turned out that if you also visited the website I Believe In Harvey Dent Too, you'd see a hacked and defaced version of Dent's campaign site, and you'd have the opportunity to enter your e-mail address and participate in the hacking of the site.

Once the site was completely hacked, the Dent campaign poster was slowly dissolved to reveal the first official picture of Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight. It's a darker, scarier version of the Joker than we've seen on the screen (or in the comics), featuring a "smile" that's a scarred version of the "permagrin" and a haphazard, sloppy version of the Joker's face paint:

Neat, huh? But it gets better. After a couple of days, the image of the Joker was taken down and replaced with a simple page not found message. Except things aren't as they appear. Now, if you visit I Believe In Harvey Dent Too and highlight the whole page with your mouse, you see a ramshackle series of Joker style laughs, something that'll look familiar to Batman comics fans everywhere:

Oh, and it gets even better. Some fanboy with more patience than this fanboy poured over the page and noticed a series of characters that don't belong in an otherwise simple series of ha ha ha's. These characters, when strung together, spell out the phrase See you in December.

There's been speculation that this is an indication that we'll see the first official Dark Knight trailer in December (the movie itself is about fourteen months away). Somebody even checked and found out that the url SeeYouInDecember.com has already been registered by the same company that put together the I Believe In Harvey Dent net campaign for Warner Brothers.

So what have I found out by personally exploring?

Well, the website December.com has long been familiar to me, since it's a resource for all kinds of stuff, including HTML coding, and I use it to get hex code for colors.

What I didn't see until today, though, is that on the front page, the word December is misspelled Decembur. So what do you see in the u in December? Well, if you click on the u, you get an eight second video of...

Just kidding. I made all that up. Except the part about December.com being a great resource for HTML code and stuff. I really have used it for ages.

Meantime, I'm eating up this viral marketing thing. The industrial metal band Nine Inch Nails did a great viral marketing campaign for their most recent album, and I enjoyed it. The viral marketing for Batman Begins is probably going to be even more fun. I've been wondering why nobody as yet had attempted to really cash in on potential generated by the internet success of the Blair Witch Project.

This kind of thing makes anticipating the movie as much fun as watching the film(maybe more fun than watching it ... see Spider-Man 3, for example.) According to IMDb, there are even official Dark Knight posters out already. That's one to the right. Wheeeeeee!

Labels: Entertainment

First of all, let me say that I think that the challenge of this meme is really hard. Unseen has done it, MCF has done it twice, and in all three instances I found myself thinking I could guess the answers, only to be wrong ... and then found myself shouting "DOH!" when I saw some of the correct answers and realized I should have gotten them all along. Especially Darren Aronofsky's Pi, a favorite film of mine which Unseen gave us a lot of hints for and which I still couldn't get.

I'm just not good with stuff like this. Give me even one keyword and my mind wanders all over the place.

Anyway, here's how it works: I go to IMDb and look up ten of my favorite films. I provide the IMDB's keywords for the movies, and you have to guess what the films are. And for those of you who, like me, find this frustratingly hard, I'm going for fairly obvious keywords. Leave your guesses in the comments. Ready? Go.

• #10: Mafia, Cocaine, Person in car trunk, Foot blown off, New York


• #09: Iraq, Satan, Child in peril, Fall down stairs, Dispair


• #08: Orphan, Farmer, Underdog, Friendship, Character name in title


• #07: Graphic violence, Omaha Beach, Loss of brother, War, English teacher


• #06: All male cast, Real estate agent, Vulgarity, Employee theft, Based on play


• #05: Black comedy, Political satire, US President, Pentagon, Soda machine


• #04: Alabama, Brother & sister relationship, Lawyer, Single father, First day of school


• #03: Cricket bat, Stonehenge, Military base, Graceland, Spontaneous Combustion


• #02: Fight the system, Defiance, Cigarettes, Nurse, Lobotomy


• #01: Widower, Revenge, Prostitute, One last job, See you in hell

I hope someone finds this as entertaining as I found it difficult. ;)

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Memes

If you want to read it, it's posted ... and it's spoiler free, although it does include a link to all the spoiler-filled ranting anyone could want from me.

It is, of course, the highest grossing first-weekend movie of all time:

My lord, what an obscene take. I predicted $120 million, around 7 million more than the PREVIOUS record holder, Spider-Man. (And, by the way, Spider-Man 2 is number two.) I thought $120 million would be an obscene take, but it was what I expected. I'd never have guessed almost $150 Million. This thing will earn back every dollar they spent making it in two or three weeks.

Labels: Entertainment

MCF was right ... sort of.

Now granted, not everybody is as much of a geek as I am, and MCF is, and Otis, too, for that matter ... so there are probably people who don't care about the SM3 minutia we'll all debate over the next few weeks ... so I apologize to those of you who just don't care.

And since I have to leave for work in a few minutes, this post will be VERY brief.

In short, it didn't suck. At no point did I roll my eyes, at no point did I find myself getting bored, and I wasn't ready for the movie to end before it did.

Neither did I ever feel exhilarated or thrilled ... and Otis didn't have to sit through one of my many "Go see this movie right now!" answering machine messages tonight. If I see something I REALLY love, I call him right away, and since he's never home, I leave a message. I didn't have to leave such a message tonight.

One thing MCF said was sooooooooooo wrong. He said:

At the very least, it's as good as Spider-man 2

I read that line a few minutes ago and said "What is he thinking??!?" I couldn't disagree more. I'm torn between Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins as my choices for the two best superhero movies ever. I'm amazed that two superhero movies that good came out so close together. With those two films as my standard for superhero supremacy, I'd say that this new Spidey film is nowhere close to being in that league. SM3 really is, however, as good as Tim Burton's two Batman movies, and as good as the second X-Men movie, and a little better than the first Spider-Man movie or the first X-Men movie, but not as good as the third X-Men movie and not as good as Ang Lee's Hulk.

Let the screaming begin! ;) I can just imagine the other fan-boys who'll read that last paragraph and say "What is he thinking??!!?"

MCF then said:

and visually from the opening credits to the insane final battles, it's the best-looking of the three.

Oh, without a doubt. Probably the best special effects I've ever seen. Every penny spent on the production of this movie shows up on the screen. It looks great and the action sequences are outstanding.

So, no, I didn't love it. Yes, I thought it was pretty good. And I hope there's no fourth movie in this franchise. Let it lay for a while until some new Chris Nolan comes along and sees the Spider-Man story in a whole new fresh way.

More Spider-Man babbling, as you might imagine, to come...

Labels: Entertainment

Yesterday I gave up a chance to try to win ten thousand dollars:

It's raining here, it has been for days, and the front yard is a giant mud bog. It's impossible to get through it without getting mud somewhere you don't want mud. It's pretty bad. I’m talking Woodstock '94 level mud.

I'm working the graveyard shift this week, which means coming home around 7:00 AM and sleeping, if I can, until the early afternoon. Yesterday I had to make sure I was awake in time to greet the kids when they got off the school bus, since Wendy is finishing up the semester at school, and she had to be gone all day. That meant that while I was here asleep yesterday, with Wendy gone and the kids in school, Chester and Tilda had to spend the day outside. In the mud.

So the alarm goes off at 2:45, fifteen minutes before the school bus is supposed to drop off the kids at the front gate … and I stumble to the living room and look outside and see two muddy dogs, both of whom are staring intently toward the corner where they'll first glimpse the approaching school bus.

See, we have a daily tradition at our house. Every afternoon, Willow and Liam get home from school and come through the front gate … and, every day, Tilda and Chester greet them like returning war heroes. This involves a great deal of jumping up by both dogs and a great deal of yelling by both kids, neither of whom enjoy having their bookbags knocked into the dirt by the delighted pooches.

So it occurred to me yesterday that the best thing I could do would be to get the video camera and simply tape the fun as the two kids came through the gate into the mud bog and the two dogs, literally trembling with glee, knocked them into the mud. I couldn't imagine anything funnier than the sight of the four of them rolling around in the mud and the pouring rain together. I was sure that, if I videotaped that, I'd have the greatest guaranteed money-winner in the history of America's Funniest Home Videos.

But then reality set in. The thing is, the videos that make me laugh on AFV are never the ones that win. What kinds of videos make me laugh? People jumping out and scaring each other. People falling down. People falling off boats. People farting. Show me a video of someone scaring someone else so badly that he farts and falls off a boat and I'd literally laugh for days. I'm a simple man, I have simple needs.

Of course, the videos that actually win on AFV are never the ones that make me laugh. The ones that win usually involve babies laughing or babies with spaghetti in their nose or toddlers singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme or toddler's acting up. Look, I like those kinds of videos just fine … but those videos aren't funny. Those videos are cute. They're endearing. They're even valuable in terms of what makes life wonderful. They just ain't funny. You want funny? This [click here] is funny.

So I realized that my hypothetical video of the kids and dogs in the mud wouldn't win on AFV unless the kids, while rolling in the mud, were simultaneously screaming "M-I-C!! K-E-Y!! M-O-U-S-E!!" and shooting pasta out of their noses.

Crestfallen, I just did my best to de-mud the dogs and get the kids through the door without incident. I still feel, though, that I missed out on a wonderful opportunity. If nothing else, I'd have had a video clip that would have kept me in stitches for ages.

Labels: Entertainment, Personal, You Tube

Spider-Man 3 will be in theaters this weekend (we're seeing it Saturday) and lately I've had a whole host of bad feelings about the movie.

If you read this blog from time to time, you know that I'm a HUGE Spidey fan. I have been since I was a kid. I've been waiting with baited breath for at least a year, anticipating what I hoped would be the best film of the franchise. However, as the movie's actual release grows closer, little things are giving me some bad vibes.

There are, of course, a number of legit reasons to have bad vibes about Spidey 3. This movie will feature Harry Osborne's first outing in Goblin gear, and it will introduce The Sandman, the Black Symbiote, Venom and Gwen Stacey to the movie series. Any one of those characters/elements is significant enough in Spider-Man history to be the focus of an entire movie. Plus, Gwen Stacey's presence in this film, alive and breathing while Pete is dating MJ, is a real head-scratcher (if you have to ask, nevermind). Why not throw Black Cat, Firestar, Mysterio, Toxin and Kraven The Hunter in there as well?

Still, I've been telling myself that it's possible for the movie to be fun even if I have to talk myself into enjoying it. I had to do that to some extent with the first film in the series, so I'm prepared to do it again.

Yet, there have been a number of distractions that have been popping up, and I'm afraid that they're going to become superficial elements in an ultimately negative Spiderman Movie Experience.

For instance, there's the undeniable fact that the star of the movie is kinda sorta a real prick. Check out the way Tobey interacted with a fan who tried to sneak a quick picture on the street:

I admit, the fan didn't take the most tactful approach to trying to get a picture of himself with a star ... still, the fans are the people who put you where you are, Macguire, and we can put your ass back where we found you again. So check the 'tude, pal. As a matter of fact, the more I read about Topher Grace, the more I wish he'd gotten the starring role in the first film.

There there are the reports that Kirsten Dunst, as Mary Jane, will be singing twice in this film. Why? Is it because the money people are trying to get us ready for the rumored Broadway Spidey production? No kidding, they're really talking about Spider-Man on Broadway. Yeeesh.

I'm a little worried, too, about this movie's $350 million pricetag. It is officially the most expensive movie ever, and that doesn't sound good. Hollywood has a tradition of throwing money at bad scripts to try to fix them, and it never works. Think Waterworld. Think Heaven's Gate. Think all three crap movies in the most recent Star Wars trilogy.

If Spidey 3 doesn't suck, it'll be a success. It doesn't have to be great, it just has to not suck. If I'm able to enjoy it in spite of all the things that bug me about it, it'll be a huge success in my mind. My only hope now is that I'll leave the theater saying "It wasn't bad."

Is that too much to ask?

Maybe it is. Maybe it's time to just start salavating over Nolan's next film stick to seeing the Web-Slinger in the funny pages.

Labels: Entertainment

This is one of those songs I rediscover every few years. It just knocks me off my feet again and again.

For all their feigned rage, Nine Inch Nails and Slayer and Rage Against The Machine, et all, can't get close to the pure, subdued anger of this song. (MP3 Link) In 1975, Janis Ian, armed only with an acoustic guitar, came through with the flat-out angriest song I've ever heard. This song takes my breath every time I hear it. Here are the lyrics to At Seventeen.

I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired

The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautify
At seventeen I learned the truth

And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desp'rately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say "Come dance with me"
And murmered vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems at seventeen

A brown eyed girl in hand-me-downs
Whose name I never could pronounce
Said, "Pity, please, the ones who serve
They only get what they deserve.
The rich relationed hometown queen
Marries into what she needs
A guarantee of company
And haven for the elderly"

Remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
In debentures of quality
And dubious integrity
The smalltown eyes will gape at you
In dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received at seventeen

To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly ducking girls like me

We all play the game and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say, "Come dance with me"
And murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me at seventeen

Labels: Entertainment

If you'd asked me a week ago ... or even yesterday ... I'd have told you that there wasn't much of a chance of me seeing another movie as good as 300 in the theater this year.

I'd have been wrong.

Wendy and I just saw TWO movies in the theater, both of which were every bit as good as 300:

First, there was Planet Terror, easily the goriest, funniest, most over-the-top zombie movie I've ever seen.

Then there was Death Proof, one of the most awesome car-chase movies ever, with a butt kicking riot grrrl message.

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino have both pulled it off. These movies are as both as good as Sin City, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, El Mariachi, or any other films in their cataloges.

Don't miss your chance to see these movies back to back on the big screen in the Grindhouse double feature. Man, I just gotta write reviews of these films.

Here's the trailer, if you don't know what you're in for:

Labels: Entertainment

When Alanis Morissette released Jagged Little Pill, I thought she was brilliant.

Then she did a bunch of mediocre albums and I thought "Eehh."

Now, she's done the video below and I'm back to thinking she's brilliant. A brilliant satirist.

And in the interest of making this post even more random, here are a couple of random graphics n' things I've stumbled across that made me laugh for no real reason:

Oh, also... if you're a Nintendo Wii owner, be sure and stop by ThinkGeek to order yourself a WiiHelm today.

And, last but not least, I know exactly how this young man feels when he says "Blood?! Blood?! Funny?? FUNNY!!?! BLOOD!!!" See if dad still thinks it's funny when he's paying for your therapy, kid. (Non-disclaimer: that link is perfectly safe and is really very cute.)

Labels: Entertainment, Humor, Junk Dump, You Tube

I really do want to get back to blogging soon, but I've been as busy as a long-tailed fish in a rocking chair kicking contest. I've hand-written a 300 review, and maybe one day I'll post it at film geeks.

Meanwhile...

I used to love watching The Kids In The Hall and I always got a huge kick out of Buddy Cole, the gay gossip hound character portrayed by Scott Thompson. I mention him because I recently came across a YouTuber and MySpacer named Michael "Buck" Buckley. This guy reminds me a lot of Buddy Cole ... except that Buddy was just a character and this guy seems to be the real thing.

Buck posts videos of himself doing homemade entertainment reports, making fun of American Idol contestants, American Idol hosts, and celebs in general. I have to admit, he really made me laugh out loud several times.

His YouTube Channel and his MySpace Page are pretty funny, if you enjoy humor that's a bit dark and acerbic. And a bit vulgar. You can click the video below to get a sample, but consider yourself warned ... Buck don't hold back.

Labels: Entertainment, You Tube

I finally wrote a full review of Borat, much to the delight of myself. I also found this compilation of his work for the BBC. Enjoy:

Labels: Entertainment, You Tube

Wendy and I just watched Borat, and if there's anything that ought to get me blogging about movies again over at film geeks, this oughta do it. Oh, my Lord we laughed so hard and for just about all of the movie's 87 minute running time. I can't remember the last time a movie made me laugh this hard. It's easily the funniest movie I've seen since The 40 Year Old Virgin, and it's arguably even funnier than that. Wendy says she doesn't think she's ever laughed this hard at a movie.

Now, fair warning … this is not a movie for everyone. It's vulgar, profane and extremely offensive by just about any standard. One scene in particular, involving a naked fight in hotel, is simultaneously disgusting, horrifying and so funny that I had a hard time breathing because I couldn't stop laughing. This is the kind of movie that makes me always remember the first time I saw it. Borat really does live up to the hype.

Labels: Entertainment

I wouldn't blame anyone who called me an outright liar when I claim that I'm really trying to keep my blogroll from growing beyond manageability, as it has done in the past. I just keep coming across good stuff and I keep adding it.

Three new blogs go in today. One of them is from MCF's blogroll, which isn't surprising. There are quite a few good blogs there, and three of them are by bloggers who know MCF in real life. I've been reading Rey and Jerry for a while now, and for the past several weeks I've been enjoying B13, too. His photo-intensive blog is a lot of fun, and among the things I've enjoyed there have been a recent picture of the real Amityville Horror house, a bit of harmless but profane vandalism, and the surest way to my heart, a lovable dog.

Then there are two new daily reads at the National Review, too … and I enjoy them both. One is Planet Gore, dedicated to the former VP and his obsession with "climate change." Then there's the Hillary Spot, where the good folks at NR keep an eye on the Great Satan.

Read them, read them all.

And if you're interested in the upcoming Nine Inch Nails album, you might enjoy my most recent post at MegaMetal. Trent Reznor has apparently authorized the creation of a number of high-concept websites to promote the new album. Year Zero is apparently going to be an abstract "concept" album about government conspiracies and the end of the world, and the new promotional websites are creepy, interesting and fun.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Links

Thanks to the Governor, who clued me in to the pending salvation of Rock And Roll at the hands of, of course, Jimmy Page:

GWYNEDD, WALES—Calling it the planet's last, best hope for saving rock music, the Guardians of the Protectorate of Rock announced Monday that they would take the extraordinary step of unleashing a never-before-heard Jimmy Page riff, hidden for decades in a mythic, impenetrable vault.

We who believe in the immortality of rock took a vow 30 years ago that we would never release this incredibly powerful force unless we faced a Day of Reckoning—and that day has come," said Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi...

...While Iommi refused to say when the vault would be opened, hard rock sources believe it will take place just prior to next month's Fall Out Boy–Honda Civic tour, which many fear will suck the remaining lifeblood from all that still rocks.

Here's hoping that a new vault will be built ... and that Panic at the Disco, Fall Down Boy, My Chemical Romance and Nickleback will be rounded up, locked inside it, and never allowed out again.

Labels: Entertainment, Humor

I just thought that the similarities were worth pointing out.

Labels: Entertainment

I hadn't intended to mention this here for a while, but I screwed up the other day and posted a comment at another blog while I was logged on with the wrong profile … and then made a bumbling attempt at an explanation … so, anyway …

I've started another blog, where I'll post stuff about one of my life-long interests and hobbies, heavy metal music. I'll be posting there with at least one other blogger and maybe a few others. It's just kind of a loose, fun thing, as is befitting the topic.

I've started this second blog because I abso-friggin-lutely love heavy metal music and I feel drawn to write about it, from one angle or another, from time to time. I love metal. I grew up on it. I was a teenager in the '80's, during the height of metal's popularity, and I've never stopped enjoying it. I don't think I ever will. I'm sure I'll spend the rest of my life reading comic books, playing video games, and crankin' up the metal. I've written about metal here in the past, but I've always felt that those SouthCon entries have stuck out like a sore thumb.

For one thing, this blog is mainly devoted to family life and my religious and political opinions … so posts about Metallica and the like tend to seem out of place here.

For another thing, metal just doesn't seem to interest the few folks who've been kind enough to make a habit of checking this blog. It makes sense for me to try to keep that particular interest segregated and try to build something separate with it.

Beyond that, there's the issue of vulgarity.

As you may or may not know, vulgar language is fairly common place in the world of heavy metal. Metal bands and metal fans tend toward a course manner of speech that wouldn't be appropriate at the same blog where I post about my family and my religious faith. Now, this is not to say that I'll be using vulgar language at my other blog, I won't consciously write differently there than I do here. But if I quote song lyrics or quote from an interview, I'll not be compelled to censor the language the way I would at SouthCon.

And, if you're interested, here's where I stand on the matter of vulgarity: It really doesn't bother me. I'm more interested in context and intent than I am in words themselves, and I'm more offended by a bad idea expressed well than I am by an innocuous expression roughly phrased.

As far as the "satanic" element of metal goes, here's the thing: Bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Marilyn Manson, etc., have to a large extent built their careers around the ability to freak people out. That's part of the attraction for some of their fans. However, when you examine the actual lyrical content of their music, you'll find that it's harmless. It's typically just b-grade horror movies stuff, and I'd be far more comfortable with my kids listening to that than I would if they were listening to music that actually encouraged alcohol abuse (like lots of country music) violence (like most hip hop) and sexual promiscuity (just turn on the radio).

Now, there are a few bands out there who really do despise Christianity. Some of them write lyrics that I just can't take seriously, and while I wouldn't play them around my kids, I still enjoy their music for the sake of their well played songs (for instance, Slayer.) Then there are bands who write anti-Christian lyrics that really bug me … I guess because they argue their case better, or because they attack Christianity on philosophical grounds. Some of those bands have a sound that I really enjoy, but I don't listen to them because the lyrics bug me too much. A great example would be the very talented but horribly negative band called Lamb of God.

Most of the metal that I listen to, however, features positive, honest, smart lyrical content. I'm thinking about the last two Tool albums, and about Killswitch Engage, and like POD, and like Anthrax and Metallica and, yes, Iron Maiden. I'd be happy to discuss those bands' lyrics with my priest, my kids, my mom or anyone. I might need to censor an f-word here or an s-word there, but the content, the context is what matters, and those bands express ideas that I support and/or agree with.

So, anyway, there it is. I'll write my metal stuff there, and I'll write my other stuff here.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment

Congratulations to Hugh Laurie, who won the Golden Globe for his performance on House. His acceptance speech was funny and enjoyable. The audio in this clip is really, really low, so you'll need to crank the volume to hear it.

I've been a big Hugh Laurie fan since the days of Fry and Laurie and Black Adder. Those of us who've known him as a comic Brit might have taken a while to get used to him as the star of an American TV drama ... nonetheless, I really enjoy House. I know that some of the bloggers I read are TV hating elitists, but I can't help but enjoy the show.

Labels: Entertainment, You Tube

Don't let Patrick find out about this news story:

Hundreds of starfish have been found dead on a beach on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, and a scientist says a nonnative parasite is likely to blame.

Purple sea stars began washing up last week in Trail Bay at Sechelt, north of Vancouver. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans has been unable to determine why they died, agency spokeswoman Michelle Imbeau said.

Bruce Leighton, a marine parasite expert at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, noted Wednesday that the die-off coincided with the peak of the starfish reproductive cycle, when the creatures are most vulnerable to Orchitophrya stellarum, a protozoan that feeds on sea stars' sperm.

First of all, eeeewww, huh? Kinda gross. Nonetheless, I hope that they figure out what's killing the starfish and are able to save the rest of the little guys. Around these parts, we regularly watch a scientifically accurate TV show with our kids, where we've learned that starfish are comical, clumsy little guys with good intentions who wear Bermuda shorts. We wish them all the best.

---

That's not what I wanted to write about today, though. I wanted to write about a horrible nightmare I had last night.

Lately I've been having vivid, scary dreams. This happens from time to time, and I'll usually have three or four nights of scary dreams in a row, and then they subside. Last night I dreamed about werewolves.

The werewolves in my dream were really, really, really, really super scary. Big, hulking monsters who enjoyed nothing more than tearing people limb from limb. They were ferocious and horrifying in their destructive power. There were four of them, and they'd come out at night and travel down the river that runs through the county we live in, wreaking havoc on the towns along the river as they went. They were headed this way, and I was worried about them. Extremely worried.

They slept in the tops of electrical towers. I don't know why. They'd just climb to the tops of those towers every morning and sleep there during the day, and it was almost impossible for the authorities to find them there.

One of them looked like Randy Quaid.

Hey, I never said that the dream made any sense... or that it seemed scary right now... but oh, boy was it ever scary last night; big, hulking Randy Quaid werewolf monster coming down the river to wipe out my town. Sheeeez!


So this morning I started wondering about the significance of werewolves with regard to dream interpretation. I don't usually care a lot about dream interpretation theory, but having had a nightmare that scared the pants off of me got my interest up. I found out from this site that werewolves who show up in your dreams might mean the following:

WEREWOLF : Werewolves often symbolize people who have undergone a total change in character usually for the worst. It may link to someone who has suddenly shown you a darker and more scarier side - maybe they lost their temper with you on the day before the dream.

All of which is fine, except that I didn't have any kind of disagreement with anyone yesterday. Nobody lost their temper. Nobody gave me any reason to question their nature yesterday.

Plus, I don't know how much I trust the guy who set up the geocities site where I found that information. His geocities screen-name, after all, is "HairyBobby2000." For all I know, he might be a werewolf himself. Or may have been one six years ago. When I went to Google Image Search and did a search for Hairy Bobby, one of the images that came up was this image here. Those look like werewolf feet to me, and the matter is settled in my mind.

In popular culture, the way werewolves have looked over the years has really evolved. Some of the popular werewolf images strike me as scary. Some don't.

Lon Chaney, Jr.'s classic werewolf look always struck me as kinda comical. It just isn't really scary. I mean, come on! Look at that cute little nose! Don't you just want to scratch his ear?

I've known people who literally considered the werewolf from Teen Wolf to be very scary. I don't know if they had been sniffing glue or not.

The werewolves from Wolfen were kinda scary, I guess... because they were basically real wolves. Not obvious manmade monsters. Real wolves can mess you up if they want to, so I suppose they're not to be trifled with.

This guy is the werewolf from The Howling. He looks like he's part werewolf, part zombie, part vampire. Come on, dude. Pick a monster and go with it. At this point you're all over the board, and I can't take you seriously.

Now this, for my money, is one scary werewolf. The werewolves in my dream last night kinda looked like this, only bigger. This is the werewolf from An American Werewolf In London. Now, the movie is actually a dark, black comedy... but the werewolf itself is really pretty darn scary. The movie is scary and funny. That's a hard combination to pull off.

In the meantime, all I can do is hope I don't have that nightmare again. At least I found out from the net that other people have had these werewolf dreams, too.

Labels: Entertainment, Personal

One of my favorite actors died yesterday.

Chris Penn, also known as "The Good Penn" to those of us who can't stand his brother, was found dead in his home. No cause of death has been named as of yet.

Chris Penn was an amazing talent... just as good an actor as his brother. Apparently, though, he didn't think that being a good actor and knowing what's best for the whole world were the same thing. His brother never figured that out. Anyway, Chris was great... you might not be sure if you've seen him in anything, but he was so good in such diverse roles in so many movies, I'm certain you've seen him.

My favorite Chris Penn performance, as the gonzo gangster "Nice Guy Eddie" from Reservoir Dogs, is probably his best work. Thanks to the popularity of the movie, Chris Penn fans can own an action figure of their favorite actor.

As a farmboy who wanted to learn to dance, Chris was first noticed by the critics in Footloose. I'm not a fan of Footloose, but I'm always surprised by how many people don't realize that Chris was even in the movie.

A small role as a detective in True Romance (among an outstanding ensemble cast) enabled Chris to steal every scene he was in, along with the Tom Sizemore as his partner.

The criminally, CRIMINALLY underseen At Close Range might be the only movie Chris made with his brother Sean, I'm not sure. At Close Range is an amazing piece of cinema and boasts great work from Chris and Sean... plus outstanding performances by Christopher Walken, David Strathairn, Mary Stuart Masterson, Crispen Glover, and Kiefer Sutherland, who looks about twelve years old in the film.

Chris Penn was an outstanding, under-rated actor. It is to his credit that I have no idea where he stood on any political matter. He didn't see his talent and his fortune as a reason to try to run the world. He'll be missed.

Labels: Entertainment, News

The best new album of the year (so far) is the self-titled debut by Morningwood. OK, alright, the year's just begun. I'll grant you that. I'll be surprised, though, if I hear an album I like more than this one between now and December.

Morningwood kicks ass. Morningwood kicks all the ass. Morningwood is a weapon of ass destruction.

Their debut album is really good. It's part punk, part disco, and part techno, with a little metal thrown in for good measure, and yet a totally 80's retro sound. There's no logical way on God's good earth that this mix should work, but it does. It should be a big mess... but it's just good ol' rock n' roll. The songs are catchy and fun, and the louder you play them, the better they sound. Standout tracks include "Nu Rock," "Jetsetter," and "New York Girls."

Mark my words... 2006 is the year of Morningwood.

Labels: Entertainment