Last week, Fox News host John Gibson took the high road toward criticizing those who would dare to criticize the president and his Iraq War. On his syndicated radio show, Gibson played a tape of Daily Show host Jon Stewart's tear-filled post-September 11 monologue and ridiculed it. Show co-host (?) "Angry Rich" called Stewart a "phony" because, in Gibson's opinion, it is inconsistent for a person to feel badly about September 11 and criticize the president.

Forget for a moment that this doesn't make sense, and let's leap into the mind of John Gibson, Bush Acolyte. Bush has polarized the country, and he has polarized its opinions, especially for Republicans. I'm not sure that Republicans actually believe half the things they say, because if they did, then perhaps they should look into careers as mental asylum inmates. But for the sake of argument, let's pretend that they actually believe what they say. This means that Republicans believe that criticism of the government, President Bush, or his policies, including (but not limited to) the Iraq War, is a rejection of American values and an implicit endorsement of terrorism. Does it stand to reason that, because you're against the war, you are necessarily in favor of terrorism? Only in the tortured minds of Fox News correspondents does this hold true.

How disingenuous and irresponsible for John Gibson to suggest that it is impossible to simultaneously feel sorrow for September 11 and contempt for President Bush. How are these opinions inconsistent? Perhaps it's the delusion that President Bush somehow "saved" the nation after September 11? How would he have done this? He did send troops to Afghanistan, but shortly afterward, he diverted those resources to Iraq. Here's inconsistency for you: suppose that a nation attacks us. Our only logical course of action is to retaliate. Suppose, also, that there exists a nation that has never attacked us. Should we divert resources from the nation that did attack us to the nation that didn't? Even though that action sounds really stupid, it's what happened. Iraq never attacked us. Why did we attack them?

As Jon Stewart pointed out on last night's Daily Show, it's only Republicans -- only Republicans -- who are calling their opponents' patriotism into question. Why resort to this tactic in a debate? Is it because they're out of real arguments and have to resort to the ad hominem attack? Is it because they can't debate properly? Is it because they're immoral, selfish douchebags? I think the answer is "(D) All of the above."

Yes, John Gibson earns the distinction of being a SEDHE Villain of the Forever for being one of the aforementioned immoral, selfish douchebags. He also earns that distinction for not only mocking legitimate sorrow but also for encouraging another September 11 attack.

Posted by Mark at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In 1843, British writer Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol," a little story about the true meaning of Christmas. In 2006, "A Christmas Carol" is still one of the most enduring Christmas institutions, right up there with Santa Claus and Jesus.

Its endurance has occurred partly through the four hundred thousand film adaptations of "Charles Dickens' immortal classic." By my count, there are no fewer than seven film adaptations of "A Christmas Carol." And will I go through them all? You betcha. In this list, I will name only the actors who played Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, and Jacob Marley (in that order), as they are the main characters.

A Christmas Carol. Dir. Brian Desmond Hurst. Perf. Alastair Sim, Mervyn Johns, and Michael Hordern. Renown Pictures Corporation, Ltd., 1951.

This was the first widely released version of "A Christmas Carol," and it is sometimes known by the name "Scrooge." Also notable as the first -- and last -- non-musical version of "A Christmas Carol" to use all British actors.

Scrooge. Dir. Ronald Neame. Perf. Albert Finney, David Collings, and Alec Guinness. Twentieth Century Fox, 1970.

The next major version of "A Christmas Carol" to hit the theatre was ... a musical! Albert Finney sang and danced his way through Dickens' story as though it were completely natural. Kudos to veteran musicalist Leslie Bricusse for putting musical numbers in places where they more or less belonged. "Thank You Very Much" truly showcases how clueless Scrooge is, even toward the end of his journey. I love the scene of Scrooge in Hell when they bring out his chains and attach them to him. And what's Alec Guinness doing here?! Obi Wan Kenobi plays a Jacob Marley who delights in seeing Scrooge tortured in Hell by having huge chains attached to him and being forced to live in the only freezing room in the whole place (as an ironic punishment).

"Mickey's Christmas Carol." Dir. Burny Mattinson. Perf. Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, and Goofy. Walt Disney Pictures, 1983.

The metaphysical implications of this version of "A Christmas Carol" are astounding. Here, you have a universe of characters -- who are already fictional -- acting out a fictional play. But kids don't care; they just like cartoons. Scrooge McDuck finally gets to act as his namesake; for years, Scrooge McDuck was miserly but likeable. Here, he's downright mean to everyone: Mickey Mouse, his nephew (who is also his real nephew) Donald Duck, and Goofy, who, even as the ghost of Jacob Marley, is hilariously clumsy. This Mickey Mouse short is only half an hour long, but an excellent adaptation nonetheless.

A Christmas Carol. Dir. Clive Donner. Perf. George C. Scott, David Warner, and Frank Finlay. CBS Television, 1984.

This version of "A Christmas Carol" was a made-for-TV movie starring George C. Scott as Scrooge and David Warner as Bob Cratchit. And what does George C. Scott do? Kick ass and take names, of course! His grovelly voice is perfect for shouting, "Bah! Humbug!" at the ghost of Jacob Marley (played by David Warner, who would later go on to torture Captain Picard -- who later portrayed Scrooge -- in the sixth-season Next Generation episode "Chain of Command"). But it's still a little weird to see George C. Scott smile.

Scrooged. Dir. Richard Donner. Perf. Bill Murray, Alfre Woodard, and John Forsythe. Paramount Pictures, 1988.

This is my favorite version of "A Christmas Carol." The story is set in the 1980s and morphs Scrooge into Frank Cross: a cold, heartless television executive. Jacob Marley becomes Lew Hayward, the former television executive whom Frank replaced when Lew died; and Bob Cratchit becomes Grace Cooley, a single mother and Frank's long-suffering personal assistant. This is a very imaginative re-telling of the story, as it coincides with Frank's network's production of "Charles Dickens' immortal classic, Scrooge" (which, of course, is wrong, as Dickens' story was not called "Scrooge," but that's television for you). All the elements of the story, though, are 100% intact in this version of the story -- visiting his brother with the Ghost of Christmas Present and watching him and his friends play a 19th-century party game becomes watching his brother and friends play Trivial Pursuit. The film benefits from Bill Murray, who is able to be cold and evil as well as compassionate. But what is Bobcat Goldthwait doing here?

The Muppet Christmas Carol. Dir. Brian Henson. Perf. Michael Caine, Kermit the Frog, Statler and Waldorf. Walt Disney Pictures, 1992.

The last good Muppet film was this one, a derivation of "A Christmas Carol" that, like the other Muppet films, casts the Muppets alongside real people. Michael Caine does an excellent job as Scrooge, especially considering that he has to act off of puppets. An interesting adaptation involves Gonzo and Ratzo Rizzo as the "narrators" of the story, probably because they couldn't think of a part that Gonzo could play. After Jim Henson died, Disney tried to package all his stuff for mass consumption, resulting in a lot of terrible Muppet films. This one, thankfully, is not one of those. Jim Henson would approve.

"A Christmas Carol." Dir. David Hugh Jones. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Richard E. Grant, Bernard Lloyd. Hallmark Entertainment, 1999.

In between starring as Captain Picard in Star Trek: Insurrection and then re-igniting his career with X-Men in 2000, Patrick Stewart starred in this made-for-TV version of "A Christmas Carol" that aired on TBS. For Stewart, a classically-trained Shakespearean actor, playing Scrooge hardly involved him lifting his little finger. He is great, of course, but the decision to give him some stubble always made me uncomfortable. Come on, folks, it's either mutton chops or it's nothing. Even better than this -- and I've never seen it; I've only heard about it -- is Patrick Stewart's one-man show where he performs "A Christmas Carol." As in, he's all the characters. Now that would be an even better version to watch.

There are other versions of "A Christmas Carol" out there (including some trash called "A Diva's Christmas Carol"), but I find that these are the seven "canonical" examples of holiday cheer. You can keep your twenty-four hours of A Christmas Story; I'd rather have twenty-four hours of Scrooge.

Posted by Mark at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef on South Park, is leaving the show, reports BBC News.

Hayes, a proponent of Scientology, was apparently upset by South Park's ridicule of Scientology, the ridiculous religion founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Matt Stone, South Park's co-creator, makes it appear as though Hayes is being hypocritical: "In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show."

Posted by Mark at 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That's right; I said it. Brokeback Mountain, which critics everywhere are fawning over, isn't a great movie. I mean, sure, it's okay. But eight Academy Award nominations great? Not at all.

Brokeback Mountain is a story about two Wyoming cowboys and their homosexual love affair over the course of twenty or so years. It's based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx, who also wrote the source novel for 2001's The Shipping News. Unlike other films based upon previous works -- in which there's usually too much material to fit it all into a movie -- Proulx's short story didn't have enough material to fit into this movie. As a result, director Ang Lee fills the movie with sweeping vistas and a repetition of the same chords over and over again on the soundtrack. Seriously, how did this movie get nominated for Best Original Score? It's the same four measures of music over and over and over for two hours!

The second half of the movie feels forced, as Heath Ledger's wife, Michelle Williams, finds out about his love affair with Jake Gyllenhall, and eventually divorces him. Ledger becomes a loner and drops out of most sociable life. Gyllenhall marries the daughter of a farm-equipment salesman and becomes a successful farm equipment salesman, too. One could suspect that Ledger's lack of success is due to his constant fear of being discovered as gay. Plenty of opportunity is given to this film to explore Ledger's fear, but it is mentioned only superficially. Unfortunately, that would have been a better movie.

Also, the end of the film presents an interesting dilemma for the audience. It's perfectly ambigious -- "perfectly" in the sense that there is absolutely, 100% no way to figure out what really happens. (I'll leave this sentence ambiguous in case you haven't seen the movie.) It's either really good writing or it's really bad writing to leave an audience without any clues.

So, what do we have, here? A story of forbidden love? Extra-marital affairs? If it were any other movie, then Brokeback Mountain would have gone to video without a peep from anybody.

But they're gay, so it's a novel new idea! Holy crap! There are gay people? Jesus Christ, I had no idea! Oh, man; a movie about gay people! How bold! How daring! Never mind the mediocre story and obvious attempts by Lee to fill space; there's gay people! A tour de force! A triumph! Michelle Williams is "a revelation"! Brokeback Mountain will change the way films are made forever!

Except, all of that is overblown crap. To anyone who's been thinking in a progressive way for the last ten years, gay people aren't a novel idea. It's also not like they've never been represented on stage and screen before, either. This isn't a "triumph." Rent was hugely successful on Broadway, and there were gay people there. And in the movie version, too. Brokeback Mountain is, to Hollywood, what Margaret Cho yelling "Bush sucks!" is to one of her shows. It's an attempt at cheap applause. Of course the audience at a Margaret Cho show is going to scream and clap and get rowdy at the line "Bush sucks," because they all agree with it. Likewise, Hollywood is going to pat itself on the back for being progressive when Brokeback Mountain comes out, because they all agree with it. (Hollywood is pretty self-congratulatory, anyway. Who do you think are the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?)

This film is either preaching to the Hollywood choir or to the choir of people who already know that there are gay people. Two groups of people won't see this movie: (1) people who don't think it looks interesting, and (2) people who hate gays, anyway. The second group is never going to see a movie that homosexualizes the cowboy, one of the sacred ideals of masculinity in the United States. Brokeback Mountain is novel in the sense that it takes one of American heterosexuality's greatest ideals and turns it on its head. But that's about it. The first group of people aren't going to see it no matter what, because they saw the trailers -- filled with Wyoming vistas -- and decided there weren't enough explosions. And the progressives? Hollywood will go to the movie and applaude itself. The other progressives will go to the movie and come out bored and frustrated. Bored that the movie was so boring. Frustrated that an important issue was portrayed so blandly. Seriously, if you remove the homosexuality, what is there to this movie? An extra-marital love affair? I wrote four of those movies before breakfast!

If you want to watch a movie and feel like you're being progressive, go watch Crash, which is a much better movie. Also, Munich, Syriana, and Good Night, and Good Luck are better movies. (Crash is pretty awesome, though.) And yet, Brokeback Mountain will win not because it's a good movie, but because it's a mediocre movie about an important issue. Aristotle said that the ideal play is both dulcis and utilis: pleasing to watch, but also filled with good lessons. Even though he was probably gay, too, Aristotle would fault this movie on dulcis grounds. Then he would go see Batman Begins, which has more explosions (and is actually a better movie).

Posted by Mark at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Brian informed me a few weeks ago that he had heard from David X. Cohen that Futurama was coming back. Then again, Cohen, executive producer and co-creator of the best cartoon series that was never respected by Fox, has said that a lot.

But there may yet be hope! After Family Guy was canceled by Fox, it was picked up by Cartoon Network for its Adult Swim block of programming and soon became one of Adult Swim's highest-rated shows. Family Guy also blew Fox executives away with its tremendous DVD sales. All of these factors prompted Fox to un-cancel Family Guy, the first time a show has been completely canceled and then brought back.

Futurama had a similar history. After four seasons of placing the show in the 7:00 time slot -- something for which the show was not designed -- and routinely pre-empting it and not promoting it, Futurama was canceled. It was also ported to Cartoon Network and soon became Adult Swim's highest-rated show. Futurama fans thought that a similar miracle could happen to their show, but they have been waiting longer than Family Guy fans had to wait to get their show back on the air.

Variety, the entertainment industry trade daily, reports today that Futurama might be coming back. If you can get through the trade jargon ("cabler" apparently means "cable network," but I have no idea what "skein" means), then it's a hopeful article. If you can't get through the trade jargon, click on the underlined words in the article and you will be directed to the appropriate entry in Variety's dictionary of entertainment industry slang. (Turns out "skein" means "TV series" for some reason.)

But you shouldn't get your hopes up just yet. Futurama is much more of a niche show, and Fox never liked it because co-creator Matt Groening retained more creative control over it than The Simpsons, Groening's other show. Networks hate not being in control, and in DVD audio commentaries, Groening suggests that lack of control is one of the reasons why the show was canceled.

Posted by Mark at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Most high school students who learn about the 1950s have been trained to hate Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, who intimidated the government from 1950 to 1954 with his allegations of communism. Students who learned about McCarthy in a history class should probably have been told that most of the people he accused of being communists turned out to be communists. "McCarthyism," though, was always about using the lowest of tactics, usually intimidation, to get someone to admit something. It was also about casting a wide net in an attempt to catch a few people who may have been genuinely guilty of a crime.

But Good Night, and Good Luck isn't about whether or not McCarthy's ends were right. The film -- as Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) makes clear -- is about the means by which McCarthy goes about accusing actors, Congressmen, and Army officers of being communists. McCarthy's strategy was to break down his opponents, embarass them, and generally bully them with rhetoric that didn't make sense but sounded good on television. In the film, Murrow acknowledges that, while it is important to investigate allegations of Communist infiltration, it is equally important to adhere to due process. McCarthy's tactics revived the phrase "witch-hunt," meaning an investigation undertaken with guilt presumed and all facts used to support that presumption of guilt. Indeed, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible during the 1950s as an allegory of "McCarthyism," the modern-day synonym for "witch-hunt."

The film depicts Murrow as a crusader for democracy, armed with only producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney, who also directed the film) to defend him against the power of television. CBS, the station on which Murrow appeared, wasn't as worried about the political bent of Murrow's newscasts against McCarthy as it was worried about the loss of advertisers due to the broadcast of such a controversial topic. The end of the film reinforces a truth that holds to this day: no matter how good a televison program may be, if it doesn't bring in ratings, it's gone. Clooney depicts Murrow as someone who stands up for what he believes in; Murrow suggests it's his duty to take on McCarthy, as he believes that there is no justification for what McCarthy is doing. He urges the higher-ups to let him take on McCarthy because, as he puts it, sometimes there aren't two sides to an issue: sometimes, something is just flat-out wrong. There's no way to present McCarthy objectively because there is no objective way to say that his tactics are somehow justifiable; any moral person would understand that what he is doing is totally wrong, and for the press to pretend that there is a morally upstanding "pro-McCarthy" side would make them complicit in his witch-hunting.

Given this article from The New York Times Review of Books, it looks the media today are in trouble. Large media corporations -- Clear Channel, Infinity Broadcasting, Viacom, the Sinclair Group -- are buying each other up and consolidating within markets. A few years ago, Congress eased restrictions on how many media outlets a company could own within a given market. News is no longer about reporting facts; it's about making money. Arguably, our pining for a time long since past when the media were objective might be romanticizing the history of media, but what about Edward R. Murrow? What about Woodward and Bernstein? What about people who have searched for the truth? I'm remided of the motto of my hometown newspaper, The News-Herald: "Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a virtue." (Turns out that that quote comes from ... Joe McCarthy! No, just kidding; it comes from a 19th century French writer, Anne Louise Germaine de Stael.)

The lesson -- and there is a lesson -- to be learned from Good Night, and Good Luck is that you shouldn't back down when you know you're right. There are a lot of people out there who are afraid to speak up about the truth of things like, oh, I don't know, the Iraq War. We've seen that the administration consistently smears these people, even when they come from the Republican party. We've seen that corporate news companies -- the "mainstream media" -- will print only what will sell newspapers, not what is true. It's high time for this to change. Anchors from CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, and the major networks -- as well as the owners of all those networks -- should look at Strathairn's Edward R. Murrow and be ashamed of themselves.

Posted by Mark at 3:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last year, a very indie horror film grossed out and entranced moviegoers to the tune of $18 million its opening weekend, which was last Halloween. The film, Saw, cost a mere $1.2 million to make. Two months after its opening weekend, it had grossed $55 million in the United States alone. The first film had such a good showing that the sequel was approved for production during the first film's opening weekend. Saw was about a serial killer named Jigsaw who, a cancer patient himself, felt that too many people didn't appreciate the lives they had. So he kidnapped them and put them into elaborate booby-traps in order to "test" how much they really wanted to live. If the victim solved Jigsaw's little puzzle, he went free. If not, he was horribly killed.

One key to the success of Saw, besides its gross-out factor, was its emphasis on psychology. Jigsaw, represented by a creepy puppet in the "instructional" videos he plays for his victims, was always one step ahead of his victim and the audience. Just as soon as we thought that the victim had circumvented Jigsaw's trap instead of legitimately solving the puzzle, we were horrified to learn that not only has Jigsaw anticipated this circumvention, but had taken countermeasures to punish the victim for cheating at what he calls his "game."

Saw II is a sequel that is just as much worth its salt as the first film. James Wan and Leigh Whannell co-created the concept and story for the first Saw, with Wan directing the feature film and the demo that was shown to Hollywood producers. The director has changed, but Whannell remains one of Saw II's co-writers, along with director Darren Lynn Bousman. This keeps the sequel in synch with the first -- in multiple ways, as it turns out.

As before, Jigsaw has kidnapped someone and placed him in a situation in which he must solve a puzzle or die horribly. This time, however, Jigsaw has kidnapped several people. Whereas the first film was a study in individual action under duress, Saw II is a study in group dynamics under duress. As you might predict, some members of the group want to work together so that they can all get out together. Others are staunchly opportunistic and individualistic and will work only to save themselves.

As before, there's quite a bit of psychology in the film. Just when you thought you had the film figured out, Bousman and Whannell throw you a curve ball. This is what M. Night Shyamalan used to be like, before he resorted to stealing other people's ideas and coming up with lame-ass "twists." Jigsaw, who plays a much larger role in the sequel, is a frail, middle-aged man dying of cancer. But that doesn't mean he still doesn't understand human beings, and particular human beings, especially.

But here's something new. The film engages in a debate about intellectualism vs. brute strength. Several characters in the film represent the intellect and try to work their way through Jigsaw's puzzles with their minds. Other characters represent brute force, trying to use physical power to find their way out of the puzzle. The movie comes out on the side of intellectualism, as all the characters who think that they can beat or bludgeon their way out of their predicament end up meeting horrific fates. Compared to Armageddon (or any film directed by the creatively-challenged Michael Bay), which typifies the anti-intellectualism of the time in which we live, Saw II is a very extreme warning to those who believe that complex situations can be solved by beating, hitting, forcing, or threatening.

Yes, it's more gruesome than the original, but that's not a bad thing. It has all of the thematic elements of the first, and then some. This is a very good sequel, especially given that the director has changed. Normally, a change in director means that the film's tone -- something that audience comes to expect to remain unchanged -- changes, also. Saw II has the same tone as the original, helped in part by the fact that the cinematographer is the same, which means that the sequel looks the same as the original.

It looks like Saw is a film franchise that will be around beyond these two films. And that's good, as long as the quality remains consistent. Although it makes you wonder what's wrong with Leigh Whannell that he can come up with such ingenious and disturbing methods of death for multiple films.

Posted by Mark at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Only real geeks would have any idea who Michael Piller is. Along with Rick Berman, he became an executive producer for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and later, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. He was not involved with Enterprise.

Michael Piller died Tuesday of cancer at the age of 57. Many Star Trek fans liked Piller better than Rick Berman, whom they felt didn't exactly understand the Star Trek universe (at least I know that Larry Garfield of E Pluribus Forum has nothing but hate in his heart for Rick Berman). When Rick Berman became more involved in the creation of Star Trek: Voyager, Piller took over operations at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, keeping the series in its Dominion War plot arc, but making the stories more humanistic. Piller, I feel, is responsible for making the writing on Deep Space Nine the best of any Star Trek series.

Posted by Mark at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A palindrome is a word that is spelled the same forward and backward. This movie ends just where it begins: with confusion. It's like an episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, but not as funny.

Aviva is a teenage girl who wants a baby, going so far as to have sex with a boy just so that she can get pregnant. Palindromes presents a unique situation: Aviva wants to have a baby, but her parents want her to have an abortion (usually, it's the other way around). Aviva's mother reveals that she had an abortion years ago, when Aviva was three years old. Her mother was pregnant but couldn't support a second child.

Her parents completely ignore the fact that Aviva, even though a teenager, desperately wants a child, and so they force her to have an abortion. The film implies that the abortion is botched somehow, but we can't be sure, since the discussion between the doctor and the parents about what happened during the abortion appears only from Aviva's point of view, and it is distorted because she is still partially unconscious.

Following the abortion, she runs away from home, first hitchhiking part of the way with a man who later turns out to be an accused child molester. This man doesn't approve of her running away from home and so tries to take her home. She abandons him and hides in the truck of a truck driver named Joe. Aviva is almost pathological in her desire to have a baby, convincing herself that she is in love with Joe after they have sex. When Joe ditches her, she wanders for an unknown amount of time.

She stumbles upon an exceedingly, irritatingly Christian family who takes in children people don't want. As it turns out, the family is so Christian that the father, conspiring with a doctor named "Dr. Dan" and a local named Earl who lives in the nearby woods, murder abortion doctors. "Earl" turns out to be the very same "Joe" who met Aviva earlier in the film, and he is charged with murdering an abortion doctor. The murder goes awry, Earl (whose real name is Bob) is killed by the police, and Aviva returns to her family.

Solondz takes an approach that is unclear and confusing: he has several different girls play the part of Aviva. In some cases, the girls look similar enough that all you notice is that Aviva looks different, but you're not sure why. When Aviva is played by an overweight black girl, the effect isn't as much artistic as it is confusing, especially since we're unprepared for it.

The movie seems to come out in favor of abortion, since it depicts the Christian "Sunshine" family in a satirical light, as well as depicting the father as a hypocrite for being "pro-life" yet murdering abortion doctors. The only underlying theme appears to be that Aviva wants a baby. We have no idea why she wants a baby; the film doesn't delve into her motivations, and this is one of its shortcomings. The film merely chronicles her almost pathological attempts to have a baby and even to fall in love. Aviva doesn't know what love is and she cannot see beyond her blind desire to the fact that she can't raise a child.

I watched this film at Ned's request and I'm unsure of what the film is trying to say. It doesn't approve of the anti-abortion philosophy and it presents Aviva as very uncertain of herself and so blinded by her desire to have a baby that she ignores common sense. She wants to be a wife and mother but doesn't understand, realistically, what that entails. She's infatuated with the idea of having a baby, but we get the impression that she's definitely not mature enough to be a mother.

This is a key problem with Palindromes: it tries for profundity by being ambiguous. The ambiguity, though, never gets to the profound because it's too ambiguous. We, the audience, must fill in too many blanks. The apparently pro-life argument in the movie, represented by Aviva, is a terrible pro-life argument because Aviva is crazy. A lot of this movie doesn't make sense, either because I'm not smart enough to understand it, or because it doesn't make sense.

Posted by Mark at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Via Boing Boing comes something particularly hilarious.

Someone had the bright idea to create a movie trailer for the film The Shining, editing the trailer so as to make it look like a romantic comedy. If you had never seen The Shining, then after watching this trailer, you'd be convinced that it was a film like My Girl or even Jack Nicholson's own As Good as It Gets. What's priceless is the choice of background music for this trailer. It's completely inappropriate.

The New York Times even wrote an article about it:

A few weeks back, he said, he entered a contest for editors’ assistants sponsored by the New York chapter of the Association of Independent Creative Editors. The challenge? Take any movie and cut a new trailer for it — but in an entirely different genre. Only the sound and dialogue could be modified, not the visuals, he said.

Mr. Ryang chose “The Shining,” Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. In his hands, it became a saccharine comedy — about a writer struggling to find his muse and a boy lonely for a father. Gilding the lily, he even set it against “Solsbury Hill,” the way-too-overused Peter Gabriel song heard in comedies billed as life-changing experiences, like last year’s “In Good Company.”

Posted by Mark at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Don Adams, who played bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart from 1965-1970 on TV's Get Smart, died today at age 82. Adams was hilarious with physical comedy and frequently played the comedian to Edward Platt's "The Chief" on Get Smart. Ed Platt died in 1974. Perhaps the funniest moments between Maxwell Smart and the The Chief were when Smart insisted on using the "cone of silence" to discuss top secret information with The Chief. The only problem with the cone of silence was that anyone else could hear what they were saying, but they couldn't hear each other. Get Smart was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry as a parody of James Bond films. Maxwell Smart was as bumbling as James Bond was resourceful, and yet somehow he still had a job. His sidekick, Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon, usually found a way to get both of them out of a situation that he had gotten them into. The series was also a satire of Cold War espionage, as both CONTROL (the U.S. intelligence organization) and KAOS (the Soviet/German intelligence organization) were equally inept.

Don Adams reprised his role as Maxwell Smart in the 1989 TV movie Get Smart, Again!. In 1995, Fox tried to revive Get Smart, this time with Maxwell Smart as the chief of CONTROL and Andy Dick as his son, Zach Smart. The series didn't go too well.

You may also remember Don Adams as the voice of Inspector Gadget.

Posted by Mark at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In 1996, Scream revitalized the slasher flick, the genre born from John Carpenter's 1978 Halloween, in which a knife-wielding maniac attacks teenagers. Seriously, they're called "slasher" films because, without many exceptions, the killer uses a knife to kill his victims. A knife is far more intimate than a gun -- you could shoot someone from one hundred yards away, but that doesn't inspire terror. The goal of the maniac in a slasher film is to inspire terror in his victims, letting them see him and come to a horrible realization that they're about to die.

Wes Craven, the guy who brought you a new twist on the slasher flick in 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street with the novum of a supernatural killer, once again turned the genre on its head in 1996. Scream was self-aware unlike any slasher film before it. It was at once a prototypical slasher film and a film that made fun of the clichéd conventions of the genre. For a while, everyone was making slasher films. And they then stopped because they ran out of good ideas.

Cry_Wolf is not a good idea. See the underscore in the title? The movie attempts to be tech-savvy, bringing the slasher film to the "IM generation" of teenagers at college right now. These kids are connected to their friends via instant messaging on the computer, via their cell phones, and via instant messaging on their cell phones. Early slasher films were morality plays in which no character got any less than he or she deserved. Cry_Wolf could be a commentary on the depersonalization of the college environment through the use of electronic messaging, but it decides part of the way through the film that it doesn't want to be about that.

But wait? Isn't Cry_Wolf set at a prep school? Isn't this high school? Not on your life. This movie is about college, and anyone who disagrees is a stupid baby. "Prep school" is used as a proxy for "college" for some reason. I don't know why screenwriters Beau Bauman and Jeff Wadlow decided to make a film set at college and then called the college "prep school," but it's clearly college. Do you know of any co-ed prep schools? And I don't mean private school. I mean "prep school" as in, you get sent off to this place for nine months out of the year. You live there and you go to school there. This is not Lake Catholic High School. This is college.

And at college -- I mean, high school -- we use AOL Instant Messenger to communicate. I thought maybe AOL wouldn't agree to have its name used in conjunction with this film, resulting in a nebulous, generic IM program that looks a whole lot like AIM. But I was wrong. Again. The words "AOL Instant Messenger" are prominently displayed in close-ups of computer monitors. Looking back, why not? AOL's got a good thing going. They're setting up the current generation of high school to think that AIM is just what college kids do, like going to keggers and hooking up every night of the week. That way, they can justify higher ad rates and install more spyware on unsuspecting students' machines. Damn, I love product tie-ins.

So here's the deal: some girl gets killed at this prep school. A bunch of friends decide it would be a lark to make up a "forwarded email" in which the killer is a serial killer who's going to strike again. The only problem is that the stuff they made up actually starts happening. Man, it would be great at this point to talk about how anonymous electronic communication makes misunderstanding even more possible, and make it hyperbolic by having the "misunderstanding" turn into murder . . . but we're not going to. Heck, let's start in that direction and then totally abandon that line of thought. (This is what the screenwriters were thinking. I know. I was there.)

The main character is a transfer student who's been in trouble at lots of other prep schools. But he hasn't really been in trouble. He's just taken the fall for others because he's a Nice Guy. As the national representative for Nice Guys Everywhere, let me state that this guy goes beyond Nice Guy. He ventures into Stupid Guy territory. "Nice" is staying up all night with someone who's having some sort of crisis, foregoing sleep for yourself. "Stupid" is admitting to commiting a crime that you didn't commit just because you don't want to see the real criminal put in jail. Oh, and the guy is British for some reason. "Hey, here's this crazy movie, and let's make it exotic by having the protagonist be British!" Just imagine if they'd tried that for The Terminator. Sorry, this guy doesn't belong in the Nice Guy club because he's a big dope.

Why am I complaining so much? Because I was bored. Yes, this movie is actually boring. And the first half is really boring. A couple times I thought about leaving altogether. (Oh, and the dialogue was written by George Lucas while he was taking LSD.) If you're going to bill this as a scary film, let's see something scary!. There aren't even any real "jump" moments. Sure, there's a lot of chasing, but that isn't scary. That's vicarious exercise. By the end of some of these scenes, I had had a good virtual workout, but I wasn't any more scared.

Do yourself a favor and save your seven dollars for a bucket of popcorn for when you go to see Corpse Bride next week. Unless you want to spend seven dollars to see Hotty McHotterson Lindy Booth, who plays Nice Guy's love interest. But you could just wait until this came on TV to see her. So avoid this movie and go spend the money on nachos next week. Trust me, it's a better investment. At least the nachos won't be boring. And if you want to watch a good slasher film, go and rent Halloween or Friday the 13th. Heck, it's nearing Halloween time; one of them has to be on TV somewhere in the world.

Posted by Mark at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

American Dad just used the word "junk" to describe particular parts of the male anatomy. Finally, my words have caught on!

Posted by Mark at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The Exorcist it is not. The Exorcism of Emily Rose, while it deals with the esoteric topic of exorcism, bears little relation to that other movie.

What you don't learn from the commercials on TV is that Emily Rose is a courtroom drama. About half of the action of the film takes place in a courtroom, at the trial of Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson), who has been accused of negligent homicide; that is, by not doing something, he contributed to someone's death. And whose death is it? Yep: Emily Rose has died. The very first thing that happens in the film is the medical examiner coming to the Rose family's house to determine a cause of death. The story of Emily Rose's exorcism is told in flashback during the course of this courtroom drama. Some people think she was psychotic; others think she was possessed.

First, this isn't your average horror movie. The first half of the movie contains a lot of "jump" moments and a lot of creepy moments. You have to ask yourself: is Emily Rose possessed? What's going on, here? While the flashbacks -- which are subjective -- definitely presume demonic possession, the objective parts of the film aren't so sure. There really is a serious question as to whether or not Emily Rose was possessed, even if the movie's tone comes out in favor of possession, not psychosis.

The second half of the movie focuses more on the trial. If you like Law & Order, you'll like this movie. Otherwise, you'll be bored in between the horror moments. Emily Rose would like to be a big, important debate about spirituality. It even brings up an interesting point: demons exist whether you believe in them or not. Maybe God exists. Maybe I'll remember where I left my pants. The movie tries for the profound, but gets mired in the fact that it's a horror movie.

Tom Wilkinson is great, as always. Laura Linney is adequate, as always. In fact, everyone in this movie does as good a job as can be expected in their respective roles. But ... it's a horror movie! By the end, when the film gets to its most profound, you'll find yourself saying, "Are you kidding? This is a horror movie!"

"But, Mark, you shouldn't pigeonhole this film into a particular genre." That would be a great statement to make, except that the movie pigeonholes itself. It makes use of the conventions of the horror film -- the jumps, the creeps, the hand-held camera during the creepiest parts (brought to you by The Blair Witch Project) -- but wants to be more than a horror film. That's great, but it would require writing and directing of tremendous, maybe superhuman talent. In the end, Emily Rose is a horror movie, and it's a pretty good one if you want a few scares.

Posted by Mark at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Bob Denver, the man who played Gilligan, first mate of the S.S. Minnow on Gilligan's Island, died Friday at the age of 70.

The CNN article above reminded me that Bob Denver had previously played Maynard G. Krebs, Dobie Gillis's beatnik best friend, on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. "Krebs, whose only desire was to play the bongos and hang out at coffee houses, would shriek every time the word 'work' was mentioned in his presence," says the CNN article. I'm starting to think they were making fun of beatniks!

Posted by Mark at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's just like last Labor Day weekend, except I'm seeing the movies by myself. I'll have to remedy that. (Maybe I'll see Closer again in December, hopefully with similar results.)

This evening, I went to see The Skeleton Key. The film is set in an old Southern mansion in the swamps around New Orleans. The final shot of the film was an aerial shot of the mansion and surrounding swamp. As I watched this, I thought morbidly, "That house is probably underwater by now." All kidding aside, New Orleans is a great place to set a creepy film. It has the proper proportions of history, intrigue, magic, and the supernatural to make a good story.

The Skeleton Key, like many films of today, bills itself as some sort of supernatural film. Sadly, like many films of today, it ends up being a "psychological thriller." I want ghosts! But the ghost-to-not-ghost ratio in this film is more a fraction than an integer. This isn't to suggest that the movie isn't entertaining; it's just didn't quench my thirst for ghosts.

The story is rather predictable and, despite assertions (mostly on the insipid IMDb message board) that the ending is "good," the ending is also predictable. The ending is sort of a twist, but it's a predictable twist. Does that make sense? In terms of the plot, it was a twist, but you could figure out that's what was going to happen.

Aside from that, there are about exactly three scary parts, and none of them is actually that scary. They're "jump" moments. And what the crap is John Hurt doing here? It's like Marlon Brando in The Score or Frank Langella in Masters of the Universe. What's a good actor doing in this movie? And to what use is the award-winning British actor put? He's a freaking mute! They could have gotten Yahoo Serious at half the price, and he's Australian, which is close enough for a role in which he doesn't need to talk!

The saving graces of this film are Kate Hudson and Joy Bryant as her friend, both of them Hotty McHottersons. Sure, it's an okay thriller film, but at the end of the day, it's all about how many times you got to see Kate Hudson in a camisole and short shorts.

Posted by Mark at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A cursory glance of the Internet Movie Database has revealed that there will be a Futurama movie in 2007! The information was updated on IMDb on July 17. Hopefully, this is true.

Posted by Mark at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Unbelievable. Horrible. James Doohan, who played Capt. Montgomery Scott on Star Trek from 1966 to 1969, and again in seven Star Trek films and the Next Generation episode "Relics," died this morning at age 85. Doohan disappeared from public life last August, when he revealed that he had Alzheimer's Disease.

His character, Montgomery Scott -- affectionately called "Scotty" by his crewmates, was the archetype of Starfleet engineers. In every episode, he managed to keep the ship together despite seemingly insurmountable difficulties. He later confided in Enterprise-D chief engineer Geordi la Forge that the secret of his success was to tell the captain it would take double the time it would actually take to perform repairs. That way, when repairs were complete in half the time Scott said they would be done, the captain was impressed.

Doohan was Canadian, even though his character was Scottish. Like Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov with a Russian accent, Doohan played Scotty with a Scottish accent.

Doohan is survived by the rest of the Star Trek cast, except for DeForest Kelly, who played Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy. He died in 1999.

Posted by Mark at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The Onion AV Club has an interesting interview with Billy West, the voice actor behind Fry on the ill-fated Futurama and Stimpy on Ren and Stimpy.

One of the questions he answers is why Futurama, a great show, was canceled. Not only was it on at 7 PM -- the time-slot of death -- but it wasn't promoted by Fox, since "Fox kept trying to hide it because they couldn't have control over it. How are you going to explain to the media world, 'It's a success, obviously, because we had nothing to do with it. We didn't put our seal of death on it.'"

More important, however, is West's take on regular actors getting into the voice business. In his opinion, "celebrities" get jobs in Disney features not because they're good voice actors, but because they can be marketed along with the film:

They're already looking to see what Billy Crystal is doing. This doesn't make sense, to do what they do—spend zillions on visuals, and then have this totally fucking flat-lining voice track. You know, "Hey, I'm Will Smith, I'm a clam! I'm Will Smith, I'm a kangaroo!" All you bring to the performance is your own ego. They're just being themselves. Let's put it this way: Cameron Diaz is the highest paid voice actress in history: $20 million for Shrek. Why? Because she has a 9-foot mouth? That works somewhere else, but not on tape! [Laughs.] It's like what the hell is that all about?

Voice actors got to be where they are because they're good voice actors; likewise, Cameron Diaz is famous because she's a good (?) regular actor. No one knows who Maurice LaMarche or Frank Welker are, but everyone knows Will Smith, and film companies try to draw unwitting moviegoers to crappy films (cf. Shark Tale) with the promise of their favorite big-budget stars.

Posted by Mark at 3:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Dave Chappelle was on the NPR show Fresh Air today. It is available from NPR in evil streaming RealAudio or evil streaming Windows Media formats. The interview, though, is not recent; it's from last year and was re-aired today to take advantage of the hype surrounding Chappelle's sudden flight to South Africa.

Among one of the things that interested me was that Chappelle talked about how he was the first member of his family since the end of slavery to not attend college. His father was a music professor and his mother was a Unitarian minister. After graduating from high school, he set off for New York at 17 to try and make it in stand-up comedy, to the disappointment of his mother and grandmother. Usually, you read about success stories where a particular person was the first person in the family to graduate from college; here, he's the first person to not graduate from college.

Posted by Mark at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Good riddance. This past Tuesday, Enterprise, the bastard child of oft-villified Star Trek executive producer and once-great Trek writer Brannon Braga, went off the air. Enterprise left me with a sour taste in my mouth -- like rancid onions -- since the first episode. Here was my initial reaction when Enterprise debuted a few weeks into my freshman year in college:

Let's talk about Scott Bakula again. His character bothers me. He's very gung-ho in that "Fine, I'll be the only one who stands up for what's just!" attitude that all the other Star Trek captains had. The only problem is that the other captains showed a human side; we could see the difficulty it took to arrive at their decisions, and we could appreciate their humanity. Captain What's-His-Name has no humanity that we can see; he's just gung-ho and sometimes comes off as arrogant. When the Shapely Vulcan Female confronts him (go on, pick an occasion, any occasion), she accuses him of being arrogant, and he proceeds to act arrogantly! I can see why the humans of this time period don't like the Vulcans; they're always right! Scott Bakula and all his friends onboard are arrogant, especially that Texan engineer fellow. I don't like him much.

And that lady figured out the Klingon language pretty quickly. For a language that has no relationship whatsoever to any known Earth language, that's impressive. If she's not in the pantheon of Greek gods, then she should be: as the goddess of linguistics or something.

Yes, let's talk about the ship. Looks a lot like an Akira-class up on top, doesn't it? And what's up with all those touchscreens? I thought the producers said this would be mostly dials and switches (of course, I guess this is all part of the adjustment from the 1960s vision of the future with 1960s technology, so now we have to re-think everything). Still, for a ship they claimed was going to be like a submarine, it's pretty roomy and it has all the superfluous lighting of the other ships from past series. If Starfleet were a real entity, I don't think their primary concern would be backlighting the wall for dramatic effect.

And while I'm complaining, remember in Star Trek: Insurrection when Riker calls for the manual control joystick? Was that corny or what? I mean, talk about an attempt to please dumb non-Trekkers. There's a joystick on the navigational console, for crying out loud! And why does Riker have to use the manual control thing? There's a helmsman; I'm sure he's more qualified than Riker to drive the ship.

But back to Enterprise, now. Kids, cover your eyes; it's time for the "grease me up with the antidote scene." Yikes! I'll admit that I laughed and laughed through that entire scene. It really did look like second-rate softcore pornography, and on a Star Trek? I was okay with Rick Berman and the Dominion War, but this really crosses the line. The close-ups of Texan Engineer really weren't necessary, and we didn't need such a visual indication that the quarantine chamber was a little chilly. Yes, even chaos theory agrees with the notion that removing that scene would have absolutely no effect on the rest of the show. Fortunately, I was pleased to see in the third episode (the "psychotropic pollen" episode) there was none of that sort of thing, so I guess they decided that pleasing irate Trekkers was more important than garnering ignorant viewers on UPN.

The characters and plots were uninspired and the show suffered from the same "alien-of-the-week" phenomenon that plagued Voyager in its last years. Enterprise was a feeble attempt to continue an ailing empire, and for what? For the sake of money. Voyager was the flagship production of UPN, the ailing, chintzy United Paramount Network. Enterprise was the only thing keeping the network afloat, and it suffered from a lack of ratings. There were a few die-hard fans, and these fans tried to keep the show going by actually attempting to raise enough money themselves to produce another season, but Berman and Co. said, "No, thank you." Star Trek had been on the air continuously since 1987, when Star Trek: The Next Generation revived the brand. After eighteen years, the quality of the shows went down. Unlike Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, or even Voyager, Enterprise did not go out on top. It was canceled. A fitting ending to a crappy show.

Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card, writing in the Los Angeles Times, does not lament the death of Star Trek. "The original 'Star Trek,' created by Gene Roddenberry, was, with a few exceptions, bad in every way that a science fiction television show could be bad," he writes. "Nimoy was the only charismatic actor in the cast and, ironically, he played the only character not allowed to register emotion." The other spin-off series, says Card, were limited in the same way as the original: "The later spinoffs were much better performed, but the content continued to be stuck in Roddenberry's rut." His hypothesis for its longevity? People had never read good science fiction before. Star Trek was their first taste of science fiction, and like the couple that has their first sexual experiences on their wedding night -- and terrible experiences, at that -- they don't know that science fiction can be better.

I've always liked Star Trek, and Deep Space Nine had writing that was unparalleled. Each week, they tackled some contemporary issue in a new and interesting way, making use of what Darko Suvin called "cognitive displacement" in order to make its audience see the same old issues -- evil being done for good ends, attitudes about homosexuality and racism -- in new lights. Star Trek, the original series, was full of interesting ideas that were executed poorly. Enterprise was full of bad ideas that were executed well. Perhaps, someday, Star Trek will come back, full of new ideas that are executed as well as was done on Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and (occasionally) Voyager.

Posted by Mark at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week, The Amityville Horror (2005) opens, introducing a new generation of people to a story that's about thirty years old now and now truer then it was back when the original film, The Amityville Horror (1979), was released.

Back in 1974, Ronald Defeo, Jr. murdered his entire family in the infamous Dutch-colonial house on 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island. At the trial, Defeo claimed that he had seen the devil and that demonic voices had forced him to kill his family.

Fair enough.

About a year later, the George and Kathy Lutz and their family moved into the house. They were told up front that the Defeo murders were committed there, and they bought it, anyway (it was only $80,000). Once they moved in, strange things started happening:

They began to hear mysterious noises that they could not account for. Locked windows and doors would inexplicably open and close, as if by invisible hands. George Lutz, a sturdy former Marine, claimed to be plagued by the sound of a phantom brass band that would march back and forth through the house. When a Catholic priest entered the house, after agreeing to exorcize it, an eerie, disembodied voice told him to "get out."

After the aborted exorcism, the events began to intensify. The thumping and scratching sounds grew worse, a devilish creature was seen outside the windows at night, George Lutz was seemingly "possessed" by an evil spirit and green slime even oozed from the walls and ceiling. The family was further terrified by ghostly apparitions of hooded figures, clouds of flies that appeared from nowhere, cold chills, personality changes, sickly odors, objects moving about on their own, the repeated disconnection of their telephone service and communication between the youngest Lutz child and a devilish pig that she called "Jodie." Kathy Lutz reported that she was often beaten and scratched by unseen hands and that one night, she was literally levitated up off the bed. (From "Amityville: Horror or Hoax?")

These strange things culminated in a hellish night during which the family fled the house, never to return.

But their story has, rightly, been called a giant hoax, and no serious paranormal types consider it to be "a true story." Once strange phenomena started occurring, the Lutzes didn't call the police. They called up a family friend, Jay Anson, who was a novelist. It was Anson who penned The Amityville Horror in 1977, an account of the horrors the Lutzes faced at 112 Ocean Avenue. Anson also worked on the screenplay for the 1979 film, but died before it was released (how mysterious . . . or not).

The house was built in the 19th century, and no family before or since the Lutzes (with the exception of the Defeos, of course) has ever had any paranormal experiences there.

Additionally, the Lutzes make claims that are not true:

• The "built on an Indian burial ground" explanation so popular in contemporary horror films comes from the 1979 film and the book. No evidence to substantiate this claim has ever been found, and area historians say that there were no Indian settlements where Ocean Avenue is now.
• The mysterious "red room" from the film that was supposedly not in the house plans was in the house plans. The 1979 film shows the room behind a cinder-block wall, but the room's entrance was merely blocked. Furthermore, the entire room wasn't painted red. (And it probably wasn't a Portal to Hell.)
• The Lutzes have changed their story over time. Facts change from the book to television interviews (especially an episode of In Search Of in which they reveal all-new facts, like their daughter's eerie singing).

Hopefully The Amityville Horror will be a good movie. What I do not hope is that people keep attempting to pass this off as a "true" story. Its veracity is in question (and that's putting it lightly), and there are plenty of substantiated hauntings elsewhere in the world.

Posted by Mark at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Boing Boing's link to an NPR interview with The Daily Show correspondent Stephen Colbert may not work so much. The blog which hosts the interview, On Lisa Rein's Radar, appears to be swamped. The interview is also available in evil RealPlayer or evil WindowsMedia streaming audio format at NPRs' website.

Posted by Mark at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a list of this year's Best Picture Oscar nominees:

• The Aviator
• Finding Neverland
• Million-Dollar Baby
• Ray
• Sideways

Two of those -- Ray and The Aviator -- are big-budget Hollywood films. The other three are more "independent," in that they weren't produced by one of the major studios (Warner Brothers, Paramount, Columbia [that's Sony]), New Line, or Universal). Guess what four of them are: biopics! These are all biographical films with some level of truth to them. Let me tell you about some films which didn't make it to the Oscars:

• Garden State
• Hotel Rwanda
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Kill Bill, Vol. 2
• House of Flying Daggers

Some of these films have been nominated for a few Oscars in other places (Kate Winslet of Eternal Sunshine is up for Best Actress; Don Cheadle of Hotel Rwanda is up for Best Actor), but for the most part, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the "Academy" in Academy Awards) played it safe this year. All of the above films were terrific, but they weren't biopics. I have seen four of the five above-mentioned films and none of the films nominated for Best Picture, so I suppose I have no grounds for complaint. Nonetheless, I can't imagine why a film as good as Garden State received no Oscar nominations. Neither did Kill Bill, Vol. 2, which was a fantastically-written movie. If you went to the first Kill Bill for ass-kickage, then you went to the second for great writing (normally, I hate Quentin Tarantino dialogue, but I actually liked it in Kill Bill, Vol. 2).

I suppose Hollywood thinks it's being "cutting-edge" in picking biopics for its awards (it's an unusual genre), perhaps in an attempt to appear cutting-edge. It wasn't that long ago (1997) that, for one year, independent (non-big studio-produced) films ruled the show. Only one Hollywood film, Jerry Maguire, was nominated for Best Picture, and it lost to The English Patient. The other nominees were Fargo, Secrets & Lies, and Shine. In practically every category, Hollywood films were shut out by small, independent films like Sling Blade, Trainspotting, Lone Star, and Michael Collins. Then Hollywood got its act together and started making better films (1997 was the Year of the Big Budget Action Spectacular: Independence Day, Twister, The Rock). Now, though, it decided to go the extra step and shut out the better films altogether. You see, the Academy is made up of anyone who is involved in the film business in Hollywood. If you're an actor, director, or producer, you're a member. They're voting for themselves! It's almost as self-congratulatory as the Screen Actors Guild awards, where members of SAG vote for their favorite members of SAG for the year ("We did such a good job, we deserve an award!"). The Golden Globes, on the other hand, are selected by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press, people who don't have a stake in who wins or not.

I suppose if you vote for a mediocre actor and you want a little statue, it behooves you to vote for your own mediocre film instead of a better one. Not that all of the films selected were mediocre, but compared to the films that could have been selected, they're ... well, not as good.

Posted by Mark at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

MSNBC is reporting that Johnny Carson, host of The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992, died today of emphesyma at the age of 79.

Johnny Carson was a class act all the way. The end of his stint on The Tonight Show was, in many ways, the end of the great era of television. Johnny presided over seven U.S. presidents (and, thankfully for comedy, he said, seven vice presidents), the change from black and white to color, and a moon landing.

Johnny Carson was funny in a way that I have never since seen a comedian be funny. You can't say that he wasn't raunchy, because he really was, though he wasn't explicit about it. There were subtle innuendoes in many of his jokes ("A woman came up to me after the show yesterday and said, 'I want to capture you on canvas.' I said, 'You want to paint my portrait?' She said, 'No, I've got an army cot in my Winnebago'"). He artfully mixed visual humor with puns and slapstick to create a hilarious show. One of my favorite sketches from his show features Hamlet as a sales pitchman ("To sleep, to die, perchance to dream. Aye, there's the rub. Mentheladum deep heating rub. There's no beating deep heating," "And as we pause, let me ask you, are you suffering the slings and arrows of painful hemmoroidal itching?"). Another great sketch is Johnny's take on Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine, but with Ronald Reagan and Jim Baker. I won't repeat it here because it has to be watched, and no amount of artful typing can convey the effect of watching the sketch.

The banter between himself and Ed MacMahon is unrivaled in the history of television. Johnny made Ed crack up so many times on camera that it's hard to count. Johnny was a master of improvisation, taking a funny situation and running with it (Johnny, as his character Aunt Blabby, got annoyed with Ed's repetition of what he had just said: "Why do you repeat everything I say? I can go to Taco Bell for that!"). Especially funny was their banter whenever Ed was a little bit tipsy, which happened a lot throughout the 1970s.

As Michael Ventre's euology at MSNBC observes, "The day that television died was May 22, 1992. The day it was buried was today."

Posted by Mark at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jerry Orbach, who played Lt. Lennie Briscoe for twelve seasons on Law & Order, died today of prostate cancer at the age of 69. While I had heard he was undergoing cancer treatment, everthing seemed to be going well. I had heard that he would reprise his role as Lt. Briscoe on a new Law & Order spinoff entitled Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

Please read his obituary, courtesy of The New York Times. It details his achievements, which go far beyond playing Lt. Briscoe. He was also an accomplished Broadway singer and dancer.

Jerry Orbach will be missed by both fans of Law & Order and non-fans alike.

Posted by Mark at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

After the train wreck that was Blade 2, I had ambiguous expectations about Blade: Trinity, the third installment about the half-vampire vampire hunter. All in all, Blade: Trinity wasn't a bad movie at all.

Except for the copious amounts of product placement.

The Apple logo is everywhere in this film, most notably on Jessica Biel (alias Hotty McHotterson). She's an ass-kicking, bow-and-arrow-wielding vampire killing machine. And what does she do while she kills vampires? Listens to her iPod!. That's right, kids: Blade uses Apple products, and he's badass.

This is one of the most shameless examples of product placement I've ever seen. Jessica Biel puts her iPod headphones on, turns on the music, and then kills vampires. Every kid in America is going to want one an iPod. Why? Because it's super badass. Pretty soon, iPods will appear in most films. George Lucas likes making money. Perhaps the DVD "Special Edition" of The Empire Strikes Back will look something like this:

Posted by Mark at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, kids. Halloween is in two days. An article at X-Entertainment inspired me to wonder: what are the best scary movies ever? This Halloween, find someone you love [to scare] and sit down with them on a comfortable couch [and then when they're not looking, put on a creepy mask and scare the crap out of them!] and watch the Best Scary Movies Ever (in no particular order, that's for sure).

1. Scream (1996)

Wes Craven did it again, revitalizing the scary film genre with a twist. While Scream was a return to the old horror film formula, it was simultaneously self-aware, making fun of the conventions of scary movies at the same time it utilized those conventions. The killer in this movie is super-scary if only for the voice modulator he uses over the phone.

2. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Zombies! George A. Romero began the modern zombie film genre in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead. The plot? Some people in a farmhouse are beseiged by the undead. Zombies chasing people is pretty scary, and George Romero followed this up with a remake of the original in 1990 which was just as scary.

3. The Evil Dead (1981)

Here's where it all started: four friends go to a cabin for the weekend and unwittingly release ... the evil dead!. Filled with more gore than you can shake a severed arm at, The Evil Dead bombards you with blood and guts, including a spectacular head-melting scene at the end.

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Before the franchise went to hell (no pun intended), Freddy Krueger was creepy ... as hell. In the first film, he was a scarred, undead monster with a razor-fingered glove. Holy crap! He spoke very little, except when it was absolutely necessary to