Yahooie Kablewie!

Rest in peace, Walter Cronkite

2009-07-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

The death of Walter Cronkite may just be the death of respectable journalism as we know it. He was called "the most trusted man in America." Archie Bunker called him a pinko. His tearing up while announcing the death of President Kennedy could be considered sincere or pretentious, depending on who you talk about.
Cronkite was one of the first journalists in America to say the Vietnam War was unwinable. Two weeks ago, Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense and architect of that war, died. Many conservative people I know say McNamara should have never been in the position. But some people may say that Cronkite should have never said what he said about Vietnam even though McNamara has publically admitted himself mistakes he made.
Many Americans believe the government should have some control on the media. I'm not one of them.
William Randolph Hearst helped start the Spanish American War in 1898. He ran a smear campaign against hemp and marijuana to control his his interests in the timber industry, thus getting the growing of both illegal in America.
Cronkite was more or less removed by CBS in 1981, at a period in which the news became more sensationalized. He was 64 at the time and some say he was getting too old for the way things were becoming. I wonder what Cronkite would have thought about the media storm following the death of Michael Jackson.
I always wonder what he would have thought about all the people on the TV picking sides with political parties. Bill O'Reilly, Keith Oberman, Glenn Beck, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Dan Rather, Rush Limbaugh, Chris Matthews, Shawn Hannity.
First Tim Russert and now, Cronkite. You won't find any more objective or impartial anchormen out there now.
Which is a shame.
Someone had to announce the news of Kennedy's death. The assassination of an American president is an awful thing and Cronkite expressed the feelings of many Americans when he got choked up, cried a little and carried on. He also expressed the excitement of many Americans when he cried tears of joy when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon.
Both were critical moments for America. One was the lost of its innocence. Another was an assurance that everything was going to be alright after the political and social upheavals of the 1960's.
Cronkite might have been a pinko to some but he just said what was on many Americans' mind about the Vietnam War. He also said this in 1968 when LBJ, a Democrat, was President.
But Cronkite was a journalism first and he remained objective. When he said, "And that's the way it was" he meant that's the fact.
There'll probably never be another man like Cronkite who sat in front of millions of Americans and reported it the way it was, instead of the way he wanted it to be.
Rest in peace, Uncle Walter.

Worst Oscar show ever

2009-02-23T12:56:00.001-08:00

I always watch the Academy Awards, but this year, I was conflicted. It seemed, well, terrible. Hugh Jackman hosting. Slumdog Millionair the sure thing. What was the point really? The Oscars used to be the senior prom of movies. Now, it seems like the homecoming dance. No one really cares anymore.
With the SAG awards, the Golden Globes, the People Choice Awards. It justs seems like a little too much at once.
The problem started when they moved the awards from March to February a few years back, given voters absolutely no time to make a decision, so they do what Emmy Award voters have openly admitted to doing, voting based word of mouth. I don't think most of the people who voted for Slumdog Millionaire actually saw the movie.
There were little surprises for a show that was 3 and a half hours long. Well, Penelope Cruz won, proving that anyone reciting Woody Allen's mindless banter can win an award. Heath Ledger won, but really, did you honestly think he wouldn't? He deserves it, but I still wonder if he was alive today, would he have even been nominated. Kate Winselt won, finally. Sean Penn won again, knocking Mickey Rourke off that pedestal he has been on since December. Danny Boyle won Best Director. I like Boyle. I just think he should have been sharing the stage. Speaking of sharing the stage, why do we need the entire cast and crew to get up when a movie wins Best Picture. This has happened over and over again. It needs to stop.
Another thing that needs to stop is the questionable clapping that comes during the In Memoriam montage of people. I know they are applauding the memory of Paul Newman and Bernie Mac, but whatever happened to a moment of silence. And who thought it was a good idea to focus on Queen Latifah singing? Give these people a few moments of time and decency.
There were a few flubs. Will Smith's "And boom goes the dynamite," mess-up and Alan Arkin screwing up Phillip Seymour Hoffman's name. Well, let me, just say, if you can continue to get nominated while belching your lines, then who cares what they call you.
Let's go back to having one previous winner read off the list of nominees and showing their clips. Having actors more or less kiss the ass of the nominees got old after a while.
Speaking of old, where were they? Too many young people. This was like returning to your high school after 15 years and thinking, my God, who the hell is this. I want Jack Nicholson looking all cool in the front row not Mickey Rourke looking like he's at an AA meeting.
Hugh Jackman did an okay job, but I think they need to give Jon Stewart another chance.

Zane's 2009 Oscar predictions

2009-02-20T21:11:00.000-08:00

Zane’s 2009 Oscar predictions

Since The Dark Knight didn’t get a Best Picture nomination, expect it to win many of the technical awards like best sound and best sound editing. It might even pick up a few awards for best visual effects and make-up.
As for Heath Ledger, expect a very mushy scene. I’m almost sure, Ledger’s little girl is going to be on stage accepting the award as people around the world cry. I mean, let’s face it, the Best Supporting Actor category is a sympathy vote category often reserved for veterans actors. There’s no more sympathy than giving an award to a man who died when he was 28. But I wonder if Ledger would have even been nominated if he was still alive today.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman won a few years ago for Capote in one of his few roles where he doesn’t belch his lines. Michael Shannon is the obligatory, “We feel you did a good job, but not a cold chance in hell” vote. Both Josh Brolin and Robert Downey Jr., two former teen actors and children of famous actors, are more deserving for Milk and Tropic Thunder. But does the Academy really want to reward an actor for portraying the man who came up with the “Twinkie defense” or an actor making fun of method actors and playing it in blackface, nonetheless.
The Best Supporting Actress category is a tricky one. It’s either veteran actresses or up and coming actresses who never get another shot at this time of glory ever again. Viola Davis is a favorite for Doubt, but but Taraji P. Henson might get it for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Marisa Tomei already won, so this is one less award for The Wrestler. Besides people are still mad that she rightfully won for My Cousin Vinny against the Woody Allen penned role for Judy Davis. Amy Adams is a great actress, but this is her second nomination in a few years. She’s got more to come before a win. Some people are still not over being freaked out by her musical performance at last year’s Oscar show. Penelope Cruz might upset the vote. Typically, actors of Woody Allen’s films get wins, but since the movie didn’t get any other nominations not even for writing, it’s a stretch.
As for Best Actress, it is none other than Kate Winslet. Why? Because she’s reached that milestone in which an actor goes from being nominated a few times to being nominated several times. No one wants her to go home empty handed. Also, Winslet is probably the only actress under 40 who doesn’t feel she has to look all anorexic. Meryl Streep is good, but she’s always good and won twice already, even though it’s been like 25 years since her last win. Streep will get her third Oscar, just not this year. Don’t expect another upset like last year with the award going to Melissa Leo from Frozen River. No one saw this movie. The nomination is recognition alone. Angelina Jolie might have been good in Changeling, but she won 10 years ago. Also, she’s up against Kate Winslet. Anne Hathaway is still young and will win one day, just not this year.
As for Best Actor, I hate to say it because we’re all going to have to say it without laughing or cringing, Academy Award winner Mickey Rourke. I know, it sends chills down my back. This might not have been too much of an exaggeration back in the mid-80's when Rourke was an up and coming actor appearing in critically acclaimed movies, but he has more or less screwed up his career for 20 years now. He really doesn’t deserve it. Quite frankly, this movie didn’t revitalize his career. Robert Rodriguez casting him in Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Sin City did. Frank Langella deserves it more for his portrayal of Nixon, but that film is too political. Milk is political but Sean Penn plays a gay guy which next to playing psychos and mentally challenged people is almost surely a nomination. But Penn may have shot himself in the foot when he made that comment at the SAG Awards about this is between just him and Rourke. No, it’s not. Brad Pitt’s a pretty boy and has reached Cary Grant status. Pitt has proven himself a good actor but it’s going to take him about 20 more years before he wins this award. Richard Jenkins is another deserving veteran actor, but the nomination alone is recognition for the little seen The Visitor, but don’t be surprised if this is the upset of the night.
Best Director will go to Danny Boyle. This is the first time in a long time that all nominated directors have had their movies nominated. Stephen Daldry will one day win, when he does a more high profile movie. David Fincher has proven that he can make “happy” movies. Gus Van Sant may one day win, when he can make more mainstream movies like Good Will Hunting. Ron Howard’s already won and Frost/Nixon is too political. There’s still some resentment for The Da Vinci Code. Slumdog Millionaire is Boyle’s baby. A nice good job for an independent director.
But don’t expect Slumdog Millionaire to get the Best Picture win. And here’s why? Best Picture is a thumbs up to the producers. It’s also a British movie. Also, not one single actor from the movie was nominated. How can a movie be so good that not one actor could be recognized out of four categories. This has happened before with Braveheart and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but those movies were epics and the Academy loves epics.
Good reviews mean absolute dick when it comes to picking the Best Picture. Forrest Gump was despised by some of the top critics in the country. It wins.
Another con is that Slumdog Millionaire has already won a lot of awards already. This is the Golden Globes still trying to live down that Pia Zadora vote or the SAG awards which are just silly. Yes, it won the Producers Guild award but that was expected same as the BAFTA Awards.
Call this the Brokeback Mountain syndrome. Whenever a movie gets a lot of pre-Oscar awards and critical praise, expect the unexpected. Yes, a movie might have won that award, but this is the freaking Oscars.
Finally, Academy voters might see through the fact that Slumdog Millionaire is nothing more than liberal guilt. It’s set in Mumba, which people couldn’t locate on a map until a few months ago. But what really hurts this movie is a debate if it has one or two directors and how the child actors may have been exploited.
So, who’s going to win? Expect the Curious Case of Benjamin Button to win. It will take the other awards like best make-up and art direction and cinematograhy and such. It’s also a period piece movie, which the Academy just drools over. There’s a Forrest Gump/Shakespeare in Love/Chicago quality to the movie, in other words, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Saving Private Ryan and The Pianist may have been better made movies, but we really can’t throw our balls on the line. The Academy is probably saying, “C’mon, we voted for The Departed and No Country for Old Men when we really wanted to dote on Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. You owe us for this one.”
Frost/Nixon and Milk are too political and these movies never win, unless they are documentaries. Milk also got mixed reviews, just as Button, but Button didn’t get snubbed at the Golden Globes. The Reader is another movie that’s too political. It’s a period piece movie, sure, but Kate Winslet win will be enough to appease the movie’s makers.
Slumdog Millionaire might pick up a Best Screenplay win and it might beat out Wall-E for Best Song, but you won’t expect much gold from the Academy. Slumdog Millionaire is nominated for 10 awards. Don’t expect it to get more than half. Button has more nominations and ergo, it will get more wins. It just makes sense.
(I know, I’m probably pissed off the Slumdog Millionaire/Danny Boyle cult out there
who spend countless hours on the Internet looking for any negativity, but I just feel too much is being made about this movie.)

Won't Get Fooled Again

2009-02-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

I guess every major restaurant or company is entitled to one blunder. Ford had the Edsel. McDonalds had the Arch Deluxe. Remember the whole invisible cola craze of the early 1990's.
Anyway, Papa John's Pizza, which is my favorite pizza restaurant had a special this past Valentine's weekend. Maybe you got snuckered the same way we did. Heart-Shaped pizzas. It seemed like a good idea. My fiancee got some for us. Little did we find out until we got home that we had been bamboozled for what was basically melted cheese on one big cracker. Now, we live about 40 miles away from the nearest Papa John's. She just happened to be in the town on Saturday anyway. I was going to take her out to her favorite Mexican restaurant but we settled on "special" pizzas
Hindsight is 20-20, but when I saw them, I went ballistic. When I saw how much she had paid, I nearly had a shitfit. Usually, I have a shit fit after I eat Papa John's. Anyway, our Valentine's Day was soured by overpriced thin pizzas which were hard as a rock. It tasted like the cardboard pizza you get at Wal-Mart for $1.25.
Needless to say, I was in the doghouse for my reaction, even though I had every right to get angry considering what they advertised looked a whole lot better than what they gave us.
This isn't the first time we've been duped on Valentine's Day. Our first year together, we went to a surf N' turf dinner special. Well, the turf was actually good tender steak. The surf was three jumbo shrimps which the waitress forgot to bring out until we were already looking over the check. The dinner salad consisted of diced lettuce with dressing on it.
Sometimes, it's best to steer clear of all "specials" for special occasions. Go with what you are used to.

And don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!

2009-01-20T09:57:00.001-08:00

In all fairness to former President Bush, he is right. History may me judge him very different. Let's face it, Harry S. Truman wasn't so popular at the end of his term, but people have recognized him as a good, but not great, President. Nixon dominated the last half of the 20th Century, just as Sen. Bob Dole said.
I think the only President to receive a mulligan is John Adams, because he was sandwiched between Washington and Jefferson. That's like being George Lazenby in the Bond movies. Even the 1980-81 cast of Saturday Night Live had Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy.
So, will history judge Bush more fair?
Only time will tell. A Presidency is judge by who comes before and who follows after.
Clinton was sandwiched in between two Bushes. (Okay, I'm not going to elaborate with a pun here.)
Anyway, the Bush/Cheney administration might be seen as either a quasi-Fascist dictatorship or a stepping stone. We don't know what will happened in the next generations or so.
But, I want to honestly know, whether conservatives and Republicans would have gone so light on Gore if he had been President.
If, the Sept. 11 attacks, happened on Gore's watch, would people have been willing to pass the Patriot Act?
Would you have been willing to enforce stricter guidelines on FFA regulations and more or less being forced to strip before getting on an airplane?
Would you have questioned if Gore had done away with Habeas Corpus?
Would you have been repulsed by the actions at the Abu Grahib prison?
Would you have allowed our government to detain people, without charges, at a Gitmo, on suspicions of having terrorist links?
Also, how would you have liked it if Gore's press secretary told people they needed to watch what they said after 9/11?
These are the problems people like me had with the Bush/Cheney administration. We let the terrorist win by acting this way.
It's just like George Orwell's 1984.

Joe the Blunder

2009-01-16T19:46:00.000-08:00

In today's society of blogs, vlogs, Myspace, Facebook, etc., people can still live private lives.
However, you can not say that you are not the story when you are half way around the world reporting for what shouldn't sound like, but is, a TV station. As a news reporter myself, I know that if I am arrested for whatever reason, it will be news, just because I have decided to take this position.
Samuel J. Wurzelbacher Jr., aka Joe the Plumber, wants to have it both ways. He wants to be in the media spotlight while at the same time mocking people for putting him in the media spotlight.
I got two words to solve this problem: Go away!
Yes, you can leave. I assure you, Joe, if you went away today, we wouldn't care about you tomorrow. I'm sure you would end up maybe being a punchline on whatever I Love the (insert decade here) show they do on VH1.
But aside from that, no one would care if you dropped off the face of the earth.
However, now, you have decided to write a book, because apparently, that's all conservatives like to do now is write books telling us how stupid we are. Well, if we're so stupid, why do you expect us to read your books?
He's reporting for Pajamas TV, which no one, not even the people at Pajamas TV, knew existed until here recently.
Even worse, Wurzelbacher is even being considered for a 2010 election to Congress. Well, I have a message for all the Buckeyes, get registered to vote right now and keep this man out of Washington.
The last thing we need in D.C. is another arrogant man who people want to have a beer with.
Wurzelbacher took the initiative to inject himself in the spotlight. Joe, no one told you to talk to Obama about his tax plan. But even if you did, you still should have told McCain to lay off after he said you name repeatedly sounding like Papa Smurf.
You intentionally went on all those talk shows and you made your endorsement for the McCain-Palin campaign public.
You even decided to get a manager.
Wurzelbacher, you have done everything imaginable to make yourself a celebrity. Therefore, you are totally entitled to whatever scrutiny the general public wants to put you through.
But this can be very easily solved if you leave the limelight behind you.
We won't care. Honestly, we won't care one bit if we never have to hear about you again.

Is GOP dead?

2009-01-02T20:09:00.000-08:00

Say Republican and what do you think of? Abraham Lincoln. Teddy Rooslevelt. Eisenhower.

So, how did we go from I Like Ike to laughing about someone tossing shoes at Bush. Easy. Because, the GOP just ain't what she used to be.

It all started with Nixon with his outrageous paranoia. Then, it was elevated with Reagan's "Good Morning in America" blindness. The sad part about Reagan was that we had elected a senile old man who was probably in the early stages of Alzheimer's before he was sworn in to a position where his finger was near the atomic button.

Can Bush be the final nail in the coffin?

Probably not. Republicans are still going to be around but I think they will return to the third party status from which they evolved nearly 150 years ago.

The recent election has shown that the majority of Republican voters are southerners and white. More importantly, it has shown it is the party of the ignorant, by allowing all those false emails being spread as the gospel. It is the party of the racists. If one Democrat made a comment about McCain's disabilities, the Republicans would have had a shit fit, yet, they told us to chill out when they wanted to call Obama Osama and talk about welfare babies this and fist pump terrorist that.

Under Bush and the Republican controlled Congress and Senate, America became a nation of hate and intolerance. The recent incident involving nine Muslims kicked off an airplane for having a conversation that wouldn't have turned heads if it had been said by white people is proof. The GOP wants America to return to the utopia white Americans were promised in the 1950's where they thought blacks and other people of color knew their place.

Hopefully, that doesn't happen.

If the Republicans want to rebound in 2010, they must see the hypocrisy written on the wall. It's time to drop the whole conservative label because I've realized that most conservatives aren't Christians in the true sense, nor are they willing to fight for their country. The only think conservatives care about is pushing their own agenda of do what we say.

Well, GOP, you have less than 2 years until the next election. I wouldn't waste a single day if I was you.

5 People the World will Miss in 2009

2008-12-31T22:25:00.000-08:00

So many people passed away in 2008. It's a shame some of them didn't have just one more year on this earth. Here are five people we'll never be able to replace.

1. Heath Ledger - I didn't like him at first, but after seeing Ledger in Brokeback Mountain and The Dark Knight, he had the ability to be one of the greatest actors in this world. His small role in Monsters Ball was the best thing about the movie. His death caused by an accidental overdose to prescription medications was the wake-up call the world needed not to keep ingesting itself with pills that we know aren't safe to begin with.

2. Tim Russert - In this era of Keith Olberman and Bill O'Reilly jockying for very biased viewpoints as anchors, Tim Russert remained fair to everyone he interviewed. He didn't go light on Democrats, Republicans or anyone in between. More importantly, he showed his interviewees a level of respect at the same time as he grilled them on tough questions. When people pass away, we generally romanticize their lives and only speak well of them. When Russert was alive, people only spoke well of him. He was a good man and a damn good journalist. The news media will never be the same again.

3. Paul Newman - He had it all. Money and fame. But Newman said he really wanted his charity work to be his legacy. Newman raised and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. He used his fame for something really good. He help bring happiness to the lives of children suffering from cancer and other diseases with his Hole in the Wall camp. For that, his opposition to the Vietnam War and being named on Nixon's hate list is just a mulligan. He was also faithfully married to his wife Joanne Woodward for 50 years. That says a lot about his character.

4. George Carlin - The First Amendment means a lot and for Carlin, it meant the right to say, "Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits" whenever he wanted to. Carlin fought the long hard fight in an era of civil rights progression to prove that the First Amendment wasn't just some words in the Constitution. Carlin was also one of the first people to publically say that he didn't believe in God or in Heaven or Hell. He had disdain for all forms of government and all politicians, Democrat, Republicans, etc. Unlike his contemporary Richard Pryor, Carlin failed to be silenced by a declining health or his age. In fact, the older Carlin got, the more angry he got at a society turned into a materialistic gilded age. It wasn't the drugs that killed Carlin but hereditary heart problems. It's a shame he wasn't around to see the collapse of Wall Street and the auto industry, the 2008 election in full, and everything in between because it would have given him endless material.

5. Peter Christopher - You may never hear the name Peter Christopher again. He only published one book, Campfires of the Dead, in 1989. However, Christopher was a great mentor to many other aspiring writers out there. He was a fiction writing professor or mine at Georgia Southern University. He wasn't an easy A. He expected you to come to class every day and be prepared. He expected you to participate in group discussions and he expected you to write a story only you could write. I didn't always agree with his criticism but I wasn't supposed to. He was fair and he was tough. But more importantly, when he gave you a compliment on a story, you knew that he really meant it. They say, those who can't do, teach. That isn't true. Peter Christopher could write. But he also knew that people need someone to kind of point them in the right direction. I wished he was able to publish more books in his lifetime and become as popular and celebrated as one of his favorite writers, Ernest Hemingway. But I'm grateful to have known him and to have been a pupil of his. Peter Christopher was my friend and he will be missed but not forgotten.

People the Whole World Can Do Without

2008-06-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you think the world would be a better place if all the people who thought they were better than everyone else just went away.
I nearly got into a scuffle with a neighbor of my stepdaughters. You see, today, we helped her move into her new apartment. After the traumatic last two weeks she had, she could finally move out of her sister's house. She even had gotten a promotion at work. Many people at work had bought her flowers.
Anyway, one of my stepdaughter's neighbors decided to shoot his mouth off. She had parked her car ACROSS the street while we got the trucks in the driveway to pack things. Her next door neighbor said, "Don't park that in my driveway!"
Mind you, this is across the street from the neighbor. It isn't his property. It belongs to the City of Broken Arrow.
It took a lot of energy not to go next door and cold cock the son of a bitch. First off, it's assault. I go to jail. He wins. Second,Oklahoma has the stand your ground law which states that you can justifiable kill someone if they are threatening your livelihood, or your family. Third, fuck the fucking fucker! Someone that bitter at life is bound to have a heart attack one day or a stroke or get his fucking ass whacked by someone who didn't consider 1, 2 and 3.
After he noticed that we were all leering at him with the "Just who the fuck do you think you are!" gaze, he backed up and said he didn't want to risk backing into her car when he backed out of his driveway.
Bullshit!
People say I am bitter. I ridicule a lot. I never have anything nice to say about anyone. I do. I have a lot of nice things to say about my friends. If I didn't, they wouldn't be my friends.
But I am sick and tired of everyone who thinks just because they make a little more money, drive a nicer looking car, have a big house or even have a bigger job think they are better than me.
People make smug comments that since I am a reporter, they shouldn't say stuff around me because I will report. I'm a reporter by profession. That's all. The other day, the retiring school superintendent gave me a hug and thanked me for all the stories I've written about the schools. She was talking about the good stories. There were bad stories. But you take the good with the bad. She didn't think she was better than me.
But many people do. Many people think they are better than you or me. They're not. They're insecure. Anyone who has to show off what their money can buy has major identity issues.

You Really Don't Owe Politicians Anything!

2008-06-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

Today, I was having a small conversation with a family member. She said she was going to vote to re-elect Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) because he helped her son get into West Point. Fair enough. I can accept that. I can't accept that she said, she felt she needed to give back. Give back what? A politician used his influence to help his constituents out. Novel idea. It's amazing what elected officials think they do extra for us.
I've met Sen. Inhofe briefly and as an Oklahoman, I am not voting for him. He is too old and too sure of himself to stay in D.C. another six years making us in the state seem like slack-jawed fools.
But really, we don't owe politicians anything. They think we do. Everytime, there is an election year, the ball gets to rolling, things LOOK like they are going to happen but really never do, at least for another four years.
When I lived and worked in Americus, Ga. there was a county commissioner who had no listed number, didn't give out his cell phone number and was almost impossible to get on the phone at his place of business.
There was another county commissioner who had a listed number, but no answering machine and no way to leave a message. You pretty much had to cross your fingers when you called him. Other south Georgia politicians lived on the philosophy that they made the rules and everyone else should be kissing their hairy bean bags for allowing them access to the air they breathe.
Here in Oklahoma, I've run into county commissioners who don't return phone calls, don't want to give out their cell phone numbers and only have their county barns open from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. They're even thinking of taking Fridays off to adjust for the high gas prices.
I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton, because she was a woman. I voted for her because I thought she was the best candidate. But many people think women should have voted for her just because she was a woman. No, the same way, people shouldn't vote for Obama because he's half black or McCain because he's disabled or a Vietnam vet.
Electing a politician on the philosophy that he did something for you is what is wrong with America.
Politicians should want to do stuff for their constituents. It's their damn jobs. It's not quid pro quo. It's "I'm a public servant. Tell me what to do." Many politicians make more money than I do and I sometimes have to eat a bigger shit sandwich.
When a politician finally gets around to fixing the roads in your area after five years of complaints isn't enough to garner a vote.
This is laziness and sloppiness. If you're not willing to give up two years, four years, or six years of your life devoting to helping hundreds or thousands, or even millions of people, then, for God's sake, don't run.
Maybe some of these young ambitious people who be able to get in to make a change.

Never Cry Wolf

2008-06-13T20:34:00.001-07:00

I guess the powers that be with the San Diego Public Schools district and California Highway Patrol thought they were genius. To get a message along about drunk driving, they would tell students at a high school a few of their fellow classmates were killed over the weekend. But it was a tactless ploy to get students to see the dangers of drunk driving.
Regardless of how the students found out it wasn't true, in an assembly or through hallway talk, it was a sorry excuse for a lesson. What if one of the students had a mental breakdown upon hearing their class mate was killed? What if someone had fainted and needed medical treatment.
But the bigger question is, what's going to happen when it happens for real? Will the students believe the authorities?
Since the shooting at Jonesboro, Ark., I've read many school district must tell the students at the beginning of the day there will be a fire drill and then have to check which students are absent, just in case.
Back when I worked in Americus, there were a few training exercises of law enforcement and emergency responderrs. One was a crashed plane at the airport. Another had something to do with an incident at the youth detention center. It wasn't until later, after I had grabbed the camera, and hotfooted it over to the scene that I learned this was just an exercise. Later, when word spread over the radio of a chemical spill at a factory, I didn't believe it. It was the real deal, this time.
In the very least, school officials and members of the California Highway Patrol owe the students an apology. I'm not saying that heads need to roll. Nothing that drastic. But these teens have lost a little respect for the authorities.

This Week in God

2008-06-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

This past week, Okla. Gov. Brad Henry did a smart thing. He told the Christians in the state to go suck it and vetoed their golden bill that basically would have made Oklahoma the dumbest state in the nation when it comes to education. You see, State Rep. Sally Kern with her "I think homosexuality is a bigger threat to America than al-Qeada" rant and Sen. Jim Williamson, both are Republicans, had proposed a bill that would have basically allowed everyone to have straight A's by simplying answering "God did it" or "Satan did it" on all tests and assignments. This bill actually got up to the Governor's desk. That's how far it passed before someone, and Gov. Henry doesn't have a lot of balls to begin with, said no way.
Pardon me for saying, it is time to tell all the Christians to stop. Stop what you are doing before someone gets hurt! Seriously hurt! Stop your preaching! Stop handing out the New Testaments at county fairs! Stop coming by my house on Saturday mornings. Just stop!
Stop forcing people to pray in school. Take the Ten Commandments down from the courthouses and just stop!
If we are going to judge people based on the Ten Commandments, then the jails will be overcrowded. Adultery alone will have the prison and jails bursting at the seams.
If you care so much about what life lessons your child gets, then by all means, quit making the teachers do it. Pray with them before school. Teach them the difference between right and wrong. Teach them to be humble. Teach them to love everyone regardless of how they are treated.
I finally got around to watching Jesus Camp, which is both the funniest and scariest movie I have seen in a while. Most of the adults and kids speak in tongues and many of the kids are prepared for a world that will forever kick their ass unless they're learn to shut the fuck up once in a while.
Jesus Camp focuses on three kids, Levi who has a rat tail and looks like he belongs in Deliverance. He was saved when he was five because his parents forced him to and have brainwashed him. His mother, very creepily, calls him to come be close to him and a chill went through me.
Then, there's Rachael who bugs people at bowling alleys by passing out those nice little comic booklets which tell them they are going to hell if they don't repent and be saved immediately. Racheal can't bowl worth a shit because she is too busy praying before she bowls. God isn't listening. she gets a gutterball. Rachael is also somewhat racist because she approaches three black men who are minding their own business and repeatedly asks them if they were to die today, do they think they would go to heaven. When they answer yes, she scoffs and walks away, muttering, "I bet their muslims."
Rachael is very irritating, but not as irritating as Levi whose rat tail becomes even more obnoxious as the movie goes on.
The third child is Tory, who dances for the Lord, but must not catch herself dancing for herself. "Dancing for the flesh" she calls it. This girl is headed for a nervous breakdown by 21.
I laugh at a movie like this because I've seen people like this. I've witness these outrageous people all my life, mocking my and my friends because we have a drink or two every now and again. Many of my female friends have been mocked because they are pretty. Basically, these people are dangerous to everyone including themselves.
Listen, whatever spirituality you have is your business. Not mine. I claim to be Jewish, because I don't claim Christianity anymore. Jesus was Jewish so I just go with that. All Christianity is just a spin-off of another religion. It's like Fraiser. Okay, to be far it's like Star Trek: The Next Generation. In many ways, it's superior, but it will never be as the original.
There are still some good Christians out there, but they are silent. They let people like Ted Haggard, Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts tell them what to do and when they question, they tell them they are wrong.
I've glad we have Bush as a president. This goes to show you what happens when we have a president who is too busy letting the Christians tell him what to do.
I guarantee you, if we did elect Gore, we would have kick the Taliban's ass and all driving fuel efficient cars being and I would have to pump more than $40 for only 10 gallons of gas.

Is this Hillary's Last Hurrah?!

2008-06-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

You have to wonder, if Hillary was a man, would both the Democratic Party and Republican Party had treated her the same. She cried and got votes. W. Bush cried and got votes. The only difference is that Hillary was criticized by the same people who praised Bush for showing humanity.
A woman stood up at a McCain campaign rally and asked, "How do we beat the bitch?!" People laughed and McCain was a lost for words as he was unable to respond.
If the same woman had asked McCain, "How do beat the Negro? The colored boy? The Moos-limb?" McCain would have come unglued. So would have both parties.
I admit. Hillary Clinton isn't perfect. But, if she was a man, with her credentials, she would have been President a long time ago.
No, she is a woman. Time's over for her to keep playing in the man's world. Now, it's time for her to go back in the kitchen and bake some cookies, right?
Wrong.
It's a shame many women allowed this to go on. Mean Girls don't end at high school.
Anytime a woman achieves some level of success or power, she is automatically a bitch.
Nancy Pelosi is a bitch?
No, Ann Coulter is a bitch and Katherine Harris is a whore. Yet, their exploits have been allowed by a party which was once praised as abolitionists.
Seriously, what happened to the Republican Party?
More important, what happened to the Democrat Party?
Rather than have a woman president and a woman house speaker, the Dems decide to go a different route.
I got nothing against Obama, but honestly, people went soft on him. We've gone soft on McCain. Yes, he is a Vietnam vet.
I know quite a few Vietnam vets who are assholes. I know quite a few Vietnam vets who went home and made the next 20 years of their wife and kids life a living hell.
If someone had called McCain a gimp or a cripple, they would have been burned at the stake. And let's not bring up that whole Savings and Loans deal.
In my opinion, Hillary got a raw deal.
The only options left for her is a consolation prize as a running mate, which isn't written in stone.
What about 2012? If Obama is elected, now way will the Dems want Hillary running against him. She'll have to choose, the Senate or the White House. By that time, will she ever put her faith in us again?

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

2008-04-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in which you just have to relish the idea of how dumb people are to be caught committing criminal acts. I like watching shows about dumb criminals and hearing stories from law enforcement about how stupid people can be.
If you're going to video tape a criminal activity, don't let people watch it. Don't let people catch you with it. We've seen videos of people damaging houses, shooting people with paintguns on the street and even torturing and burning alive a dog. In these cases, people let the tape get out of their hands, because they were too stupid in the first place.
In the case of those teens in Lakeland, Fla. they were going to post it to YouTube. What are these people, fucking stupid? Don't they know this is just a slam dunk for the prosecution?
Not only do we see their faces clear as day beating the hell out of a girl, but we hear them chanting. Stupid.
They are all charged with felony assault and battery and kidnapping, but I wouldn't hold my breath about them being sent up the river for a long time. Most are juveniles, which means it's the YDC for them, so they can grow up to be adult criminals and beat up their kids and whore themselves out and be totally toothless by the time they are 30.
But hear is the really stupid part, they filmed it and were going to post it for the whole word to see.
I don't like seeing girls beat up each other, especially chubby hussy like these.
Not a lot of other people do, too, because that's just stupid.

Unions Part 2

2008-04-04T08:42:00.000-07:00

Another thing I would like to add about the Writer's strike and the upcoming possible strike by the Screen Actors Guild this summer is why is Hollywood so pro-union but the movies they make are really anti-union. I mean, you got the pros, Norma Rae, Matewan, Harlan County War and then you got the anti-union, Gung Ho and North Country, which really make union workers out to be a bunch of hollering, sexist, unintelligent rednecks. Gung Ho! has auto workers screaming at their union delegates who are trying to negotiate contracts. North Country presents union workers as sexist pigs. Blue Collar presents them as thieves. F.I.S.T. and Hoffa presents them as crooked and involved with the Mafia. Even American Dream, Barbara Kopple's Oscar winning documentary which seemed to be a follow up to Harlan County War made the meat packers look like complete idiots, doing everything wrong, not letting their union delegates negotiate contracts, physically fighting with each other and telling anyone who had a bright idea to shut up! Even Robocop and Robocop 2 present the striking police officer in a negative light. So, tell me, why is it all union this and union that in Hollywood with the WGA, the SAG and the DGA.
In Hollywood's opinion, all of their unions are important, but the auto workers, the teamsters, the meat packets, the police and even the teachers are greedy nobodies.
For shame, Hollywood, for shame.

How Union Politics Have Ruined America

2008-04-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

Well, let's see the writers have been busy since coming off strike. If the two part episode of this week's CSI: Miami is any indication of their intellect, it just goes to show that skill is not needed to be part of a union. I mean, c'mon, does anyone in Hollywood really know how extradition works. It's a lengthy process involving paperwork, requests, deniables, waivers, appeals. I'm not saying CSI: Miami is the best show on TV, but it definitely is the cheesiest.
South Park let the WGA have it and they should. I can't defend the WGA, being a writer myself, when they produce crap like Cavemen.
Beverly is a union supporter. I'm a union supporter when they work the way they are supposed to. If we didn't have unions, we wouldn't have had stuff like minimum wage, 40 hour work weeks, paid time off, paid holidays, sick days, etc. To that, I am grateful. However, it seems unions have gotten greedy. They want something for nothing and they expect to get it.
Having done some grading work and painting work in my time, I could be considered a rat for not being part of a union, but where is it written that all work must be performed by unions. That's what really irritates me, unions have stomped their feet and said that such truck drivers, dock workers, construction workers, iron workers, and even grocery store workers must be part of a union. Really, why?
Indirectly, because of unions is why we have so many illegal aliens working in nurseries, on farms, and such. Unions have made it almost impossible for employers to pay people their requested pay for doing something like bagging groceries. Granted, it's the employer's fault too as they are cheap themselves. But, unions were formed so people wouldn't be treated like endured servants. However, somewhere along the way, we got sidetrack. We gave the unions more, more, more. And the unions realized they could be crooked about it. I mean, Jimmy Hoffa might be dead but his legacy lives on.
I mean, really isn't paying union dues a euphemistic way of saying we're paying for the opportunity to work.

You've Been Warned

2007-02-18T16:04:00.000-08:00

I hardly ever spoil the ending of a movie or a book, but since this book has been out for nearly 30 years and it sucks anyway, I'm going to save a lot of parents a lot of money and a lot of time explaining.
This whole weekend, I've been wondering, where have I heard of this book "Bridge to Terabithia" before. Well, I did a little research on the Web and remember the book from my childhood. A lot of children were and still are subjected in the 4th-6th grade to this story about children playing make believe and only to find out (WARNING) the girl dies from an accident at the end.

Yes, I maybe be awful, but you'll thank me later. The new movie is being advertised as a Lord of the Rings/Chronicles of Narnia style of movie. As a writer, book reader and movie lover, I feel a triple duty to warn you not to take your kids to see this movie unless you they already fully understand death. And while I'm talking about death, this book, a 1978 Newberry Award winner has been applauded for tackling the subject of death. If the book didn't end with the girl's death, it wouldn't have ever been published. I know a lot of people like the book, but I never have because it's a book that cops out about kids playing make believe by offing one of them. A Taste of Blackberries, another book about the death of a child, focused more on the death.

I know I'm going to make people mad, especially if their child googles Bridge to Terabithia and finds this, but I've seen reference made to the death on Amazon.com and other places.

2007-01-01T20:25:00.000-08:00

Hannibal Lecter is one of the greatest movie villians of all time. I saw movie villains because as a literary villains, he just isn’t scary. That might be the reason Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar. I started Red Dragon but never finished it. I read The Silence of the Lambs and concurred with a teacher of mine who has a doctorate in English that the movie was better than the book. I read half of Hannibal, before realizing it was as absurd as many people had said.
Hannibal Rising is the shortest of all Hannibal Lecter books. Fans expecting to find how Lecter became a murderer will either be let down or satisfied with this book. I don’t think many people will consider it the best in the series. The biggest problem with prequels is that the ending is already known. Prequels seem like plot exposition. Anyone who read Larry McMurty’s Dead Man Walk pretty much knew who would make it and who would die.
In Hannibal, there was mention of Mischa, his sister who is killed and ate by the Nazi Germans. Well, the basis of Hannibal Rising is the death of Mischa and the effect it had on Hannibal Lecter. This book is merely a revenge story as Lecter seeks revenge on the Nazis who did this horrible thing to his daughter.
I wish Harris focused more on the love between Hannibal Lecter and Lady Muraski, his Japanese stepmother. There are little hints at romance, but Harris doesn’t expand on these.
How Lecter got his appetite for human flesh is suggested but never really explained. It almost makes me feel that Thomas Harris has another book lined up detailing Hannibal Lecter’s life between the end of this book and Red Dragon. There is a cliff hanger feeling. Considering that Harris has written only four novels in 25 years and this is his first book since 1999, Hannibal, which was the first book since 1988's The Silence of the Lamb, it’s hard to tell if there will be another Hannibal book. I hope it doesn’t turn into those God awful Godfather ripoffs.
I can’t conclude this review without mentioning Hannibal Rising is already set to come out this year in 2007. That might explain why much of the novel has a screenplay written atmosphere to it. I’ve checked www.imdb.com and see Harris is listed as a screenwriter and Anthony Hopkins is nowhere to be found.
If you’re a Hannibal Lecter fan, you might want to check this out. But don’t expect Harris to explain the youth of him.

Christmas/Holiday Movies

2006-12-22T20:48:00.000-08:00

Ones to watch

A Christmas Story - The movie that made "fudge" a substitute for "fuck." What else do you expect from the director of Porky's, Black Christmas and Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things? Not a holiday classic. This movie is great.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - The movie that shows just how nerve racking spending time with family can be. Also, Chevy Chase's rant about his boss is priceless.

Bad Santa - "The Nutcracker Suite" has never been used so appropriately. It's also about time a Christmas movie had a few hundred uses of the word "fuck" in it. One of the few instances when a funny name "Thurman Merman" works.

The Ice Harvest - Heist movies are never about the heist which is usually boring. (See Heist.) They're about the aftermath when the double-crossing starts. This is a like an old-fashioned film noir mixed with the quirkiness of Fargo. Connie Nielsen is great as a femme fatale. In 2005 when this movie came out, it seemed a little absurd mobster Randy Quaid could be shot in the face with buck shot and live, then there was that incident with Dick Cheney.

Lethal Weapon - Holiday depression meets the buddy cop movie. A look back when Mel Gibson actually was cool, Gary Busey was aggressive when he needed to be and Danny Glover "I'm too old for this shit!" was still fresh.

Scrooged - Okay the movie falls about in its last 15 minutes as Bill Murray seems to ramble on and the cast sings, "Put a Little Love in Your Heart," but Murray is on fire as a man even Ebenezer Scrooge would hate. It takes a lot to make a man a prick, but likeable. No one does it like Murray.

It's a Wonderful Life - I hate people saying this movie was too gleeful for a post WWII era. It wasn't. It's actually a dark movie. It's just that the actors seem to be stuck in a different movie. This is one of Jimmy Stewart's best roles and isn't Donna Reed just hot. I know she's been dead for nearly 21 years, but she just sparkles on screen.

Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer - The quintessential Rankin/Bass animagic production. Every production over the next two years failed in comparision. It's also takes a lot of balls to make Santa Claus an asshole.

Crash - Usually when movies are set at Christmas time, it's just backdrop. This is a lot different. Here the Christmas decorations are used as a reminder of what Christmas should be about harmony in a city where people can't get along with people of any race.

Emmett Otter's Jug-Band Christmas - Forget that bastardized version with Kermit the Frog added as a narrator. This is Jim Henson's best work. Imagine The Gift of the Magi with Muppetts, a lot of catching tunes and a message that is easily implied.

A Charlie Brown Christmas - The production quality sucks. It looks like it was made by film students at the last minute, but it works in a way I can't explain other than I just like it. It's a show that doesn't preach, but just lets you know what Christmas is all about?

Ones Not to Watch

Surviving Christmas - How could a bad idea suck so bad? That's all I can say about this movie.

Christmas with the Kranks - What could have been a terrific spoof of suburbia at Christmas time is a mean spirited cornball comedy. Tim Allen needs to be barred from making any more Christmas movies.

Just Friends - Ryan Reynolds and Chris Kleins play two dorks turned into hunks who want vie over the chance to fuck Amy Smart. This movie is awful in so many ways. It should be viewed as sacriligeous that it's set at Christmas time. Also, Ryan Reynolds fat guy accent is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July - A hokie bloated Rankin/Bass animagic production that involves something about a carnival, Frosty and his family melting and Rudolph's nose not glowing. I don't know. I don't remember much and neither will you.

Die Hard 2 - How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice? Only in Hollywood. This is the type of movie you just want to pick about its problems. With 90 minutes of jet fuel, why hover over Dulles International the whole time? I once flew from Tulsa to Atlanta in 90 minutes. Also, it a jet liner explodes on a runway, wouldn't the people in the terminal and a ten mile radius hear it. How could terrorists anticipate a snow storm at a specific airport on a specific date. Who the fuck moves a terrorist prisoner out of a country on Christmas Eve anyway? And why the fuck doesn't John McClain call his wife back to tell her the situation. Okay, the action scenes are good, but this is very close to being the Plan 9 from Outer Space for Generation X.

Enough is Enough!

2006-11-26T19:45:00.000-08:00

Why are people so uptight about Michael Richards using racial slurs, especially when the same people mad about it where too busy laughing at Borat.

How many times did Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and dozens of Def Comedy Jam performers rag on the white people in the audience, who weren't heckling, but where just there for the show? I'm not saying this excuses it, but what is worse than what he said in the nightclub is the apologies he has said since.

John Rocker, Mel Gibson and now Michael Richards. Rather than apologies and say, "I'm not a racist." Just say, "Hey, this is still America, damn it! I got mad! "

I've known people who have never said a dirty word and have never opened viewed their dislike toward anyone else, but they say something like "black lady" or "colored person" and all or a sudden, they are labeled a racists. No, they're not. Racism isn't just restricted to WASP. It's everywhere.

A derogatory joke is still a derogatory joke, no matter who is telling it. If a Jewish person tells an anti-Semitic joke, it's still an anti-Semitic joke. I mean can the man who really made D Ali G or whatever the fuck it is call be excused because of his religion.

We shouldn't get mad when a comic who is having a rough night says some angry things. We should get mad and very worried when those angry words turn into angry and violent actions.

Michael Richards doesn't scare me. A lot of other people do.

Rest in Peace, Robert Altman

2006-11-21T19:12:00.000-08:00

There's a good possibility Robert Altman's eulogy will be spoken by more than one person at the same time. Altman liked to have actors overlapping their lines because that's what it's like in real life. In a crowded restaurant, no one ever shuts up and lets a small group of people converse.

However, it was also veiwed as a distraction. Altman was never meant to be a highly successful director. Critics were quick to write scathing reviews of some of his movies, such as Dr. T and the Women, Ready to Wear, Popeye just as they loved his other movies, Gosford Park, M*A*S*H, The Player, Nashville. Warren Beatty has said he wanted to kill him on the set of McCabe and Miller. Studios didn't like him because he wanted to cast Elliott Gould in roles Elliott Gould never gets. However, The Long Goodbye, a modern, well 1970's update of the popular book starring Elliott Gould is worth watching once, if not again.

A lot of Altman's movie were worth watching once, but I wouldn't recommend them again. Movies like Short Cuts, based on the works of Raymond Carver. It's a nice movie, but at times, some of the stories don't work. I liked The Gingerbread Man too, but afterwards, I thought it was a nice try at southern film noir.

As a matter of fact, Altman seemed to take all genres and turn them on the edge. M*A*S*H, his most successful movie came about when he was in his 40's. It was also the biggest fuck you to Nixon and Vietnam. No mention of Korea is made in the movie, I think. It's a shame the football game at the end doesn't sit well with the rest of the movie. Nashville was a nice look at the new South as well as providing actual good country western music, written by the actors in the movies themselves. Popeye was a big disappointment, even though it's a nice kids musical. The Player is probably the biggest fuck you to the same Hollywood that forever shunned him.

His lifetime Oscar this past year was merely a sympathy vote. Altman deserved an Oscar about 20 years ago. He deserved the Nobel prize for Tanner '88, quite possibily the best satire about a political election, especially since it was filmed on actual campaign trails. If Pat Robertson and I ever end up in the same afterlife, I want to ask him bluntly, did he really believe Kevin J. O'Conner was a real reporter or knew he was an actor when he gave that canned response.

Seeing Altman and David Lynch chatting at the Oscars in 2002 was quite possibly the strangest thing ever telecasted on TV, but like Lynch, Altman didn't pander to the critics or the mainstream audience. He made movies. Some were good. Some were terrible. Some were inbetween. But he never gave up, even when he was diagnosed with cancer. A lot of actors, not stars, love him for it.

Rest in Peace, Robert Altman

Movies of Altman's I recommened
- The Player
- M*A*S*H
- Nashville
- The Gingerbread Man
- Cookie's Fortune
- Tanner '88
- Popeye (You got to give the man props for casting actors who remind you of the characters from the comic, especially Paul Smith as Bluto, Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl and Paul Dooley as Wimpy.)
- Short Cuts
- The Long Goodbye

It's Not Like They Have Much to do This Weekend Anyway

2006-11-11T19:38:00.001-08:00

Advertised as the "First Time Ever," Cinemax, that nice cable pay network that shows more soft porn that Republicans would wish has made the nerds around the world happy with an all-weekend run of the Star Wars movies.

Yes, all six of them and it's the special editions. Yes, there's Greedo shooting first and "Close the blast doors" then "Open the blast doors! Open the blast doors!"

Thankfully missing is the girly-man scream of Luke Skywalker falling down the abyss after his defeat from Darth Vadar from the Special Edition of The Empire Strikes Back.

However, in Return of the Jedi, George Lucas pissed me off, again. Sebastian Shaw, the actor who first played Anakin Skywalker only gets his death scene. His reunion with Yoda and Obi-Won Kenobi has been remasterd with Hayden Christiansen digitally inserted in.

What the fuck?

If that's the case, where's Qui-Gon Jin? How about Mace Windu or that female Jedi with the big tits. Why not have Ewan McGregor? We all know Alec Guiness hated his role as Obi-Won Kenobi. Genuine class, my ass.

You still have about 36 hours from this posting to watch them all if you got Cinemax West.

Don't the Door Hit Your Ass on the Way Out

2006-11-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

People call Donald Rumsfeld "Rummy." I call him chickenshit. After a deadly month in Iraq and a start of another deadly month here in November, he has cut and run.

Yes, Rumsfeld is gone. Bye-bye you son of a bitch.

Twenty-three years ago, you were friendly with Saddam Hussein, now you're glad he's going to die by hanging.

Kurt Vonnegut called you the stupidest man in America.

You care more about how much you walk in one day.

So, what if you helped the paramedics with the wounded at The Pentagon on Sept. 11? It's called instinct.

The President went with the Defense Secretary he had, not the one he wished he had. It's a shame though.

If you ask me, Rumsfeld needs to stay in, however, he needs to receive no pay for what he has done. He needs to sit and work day and night, 24/7 to figure out an exit stragety. Yes, I am glad he is leaving, but he's pulled the McNamara move. Leave when he knows the shit is about to hit the fan, so it can splatter on someone else.

Yes, the shit is about to hit the fan. Hussein is set to die. What do you think that's going to do in Iraq. Yes, people are cheering, but some are jeering, with machine guns and bombs. Not IEDs. Fucking bombs that kill and maim people.

Tuesday night, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld probably got together and said, If the Democrats take the Senate, we'll one up them.

Do I think things will change? No. Bush will veto any bill he doesn't like, making him the biggest cry baby living. I say they should impeach Bush and Cheney, but impeaching two consecutive Presidents. Not a good idea. Also, it's sets up a defeat in 2008.

To all those who voted for Bush and now are rethinking, I have this to say:

Fuck You!

You didn't make a mistake. A mistake is calling someone by the wrong name or accidentally setting your alarm clock for P.M. instead of A.M. You elected a man, who did the exact opposite of what he said he was going to do. Twice. They say the only second chance you get is to make the same mistake again. Well, this is one major motherfucker of a mistake.

So, thank you, you let your hatred of Clinton cloud your judgment. Al Gore may have been a one term President, but to paraphrase Trent Lott, America would have been a better place.

Underrated Horrors/Thrillers

2006-10-29T14:36:00.000-08:00

1. Session 9 - Okay, so maybe David Caruso was a bigger joke in 2001 than he is now with his stoic performance on CSI:Miami, but this is still a scary movie. Five construction workers are in an abandoned mental hospital cleaning it of asbestos, when strange occurrences happen and one of them becomes obsessed with the audio tapes of a patient. This movie was never destined to be a big hit, which is why the main critics didn't review it and it was basically forgotten.

2. Eye See You - The history behind this movie is probably more infamous than the movie itself because it was considered one of the biggest studio mistakes ever after $60 million had been spent and the movie was shelved. Then came The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Originally titled De-Tox and released in Europe theatrically, and in the U.S. on DVD/Video, this movie has the stigmata of being a mistake. It actually is a thriller about an alcoholic cop chasing a serial killer, only to find the killer has trailed him to an Wyoming mountain retreat in the dead of winter. The question is who is the killer and who will he strike next. This movie isn't a slasher movie like Mindhunters. Many of the cops at the retreat live. While not one of the best movies of Stallone's career, it is nice scary movie to watch.

3. Paradise Lost 2: Revelations - While many people remember Paradist Lost, a documentary about the brutal killing of three children and West Memphis, AR and suspected witchhunt of three teens for the crime, this documentary is more of a follow-up than a sequel. John Mark Byers, father of one of the murder children, is a walking contradiction. Even though all three teens are in prison for the rest of their lives, he still harks on the murders as if he's gotten something to hide. A hypocrite, he shows the same theatrics we've seen in Susan Smith. One of the most chilling scenes is where he returns to the scene of the crime and burns the ground (maybe wanting to destroy evidence that could implicate himself.) The movie ends with no conclusion. It just shows us that some people get away with things. Byers is singing badly to a gospel song and the titles show he has since been arrest for drugs. Hannibal Lecters scared me because he could have been real. John Mark Byers is a real person.

4. The Challengeling - Hard to believe at the end of 1970's at a time where Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist and Halloween were changing horror, one ghost movie, a lot better than The Amityville Horror, would be scarier than hell. George C. Scott plays a musician who's suffered the lost of hiw wife in daughter in a traffic accident and moves into an haunted house. Reportedly inspired by true events in 1960's, the scene of the girl seeing the drowning boy in her bedroom floor is one of the scariest images ever on screen.

5. The Village - Why do people hate this movie? Maybe, it's because they expect a twist and what they get is a frightening look at a society not much different from our own. Sure, the dialogue is silly. The acting is low key. Two Academy Award winners. Two Academy Award nominees and Opie Cunningham's daughter upstages them all. And I could have done without the celebration scene in which we view another period movie where people dance. But the true horror of "Those Who We Do Not Speak" is that they are really monsters. They are human beings with the best intentions and despite all their efforts to invoke fear for peace, there is still violence regardles. The elders of the town are some rotten people. Doesn't William Hurt's character remind you of Bush-Cheny-Rumsfield in how he pooh-poohs Joaquin Phoenix's request to do changes. Is Brendan Gleeson's character inspired by Colin Powell. This movie could have been considered a companion to Fahrenheit 9/11, but every critic decided to blast it, because it wasn't real. Neither was The Wizard of Oz and people love that fucking movie. Here, they feel they have been bamboozled by a pseudo-thriller. Maybe how we've been bamboozled by a pseudo-President. The truth hurts.

The 5 Most Overrated Horror/Thrillers Ever

2006-10-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

1. Rosemary's Baby - Rosemary is supposed to be the key to this movie, but Mia Farrow plays her like an a cliched dimwit, with dialogue like "Hey, let's make love!" and ditzy saying while being raped by the devil, "This isn't a dream. This is really happening!" Awful, just awful. Oh, and I, of many people, have wanted to see what the devil baby looked like. Farrow's reaction when seeing it is so goofy, I'd assume she had a little acid reflux.

2. Wait Until Dark - Sure, it contains that scene of Alan Arkin jumping out of nowhere to grab Audrey Hepburn. But wait, Alan Arkin? Audrey Hepburn? In a thriller? The biggest problem with this movie is casting. Richard Crenna seems to phone in his performance. Also, what's the point of having Arkin dressing up as different characters to confuse Hepburn's character if she is fucking blind? For a blind woman living in New York, Hepburn has an open door policy that would have no one outside of the realm of make believe would have.

3. Alien 3 - One of the most anticipated sequels ever is nothing more than a drab and dank movie about another alien chasing doomed people around a lot of machinery in an area they just can't escape. Some people like this movie for its AIDS allegory. Others like it because people hate it so much. Well, it should be hated. This movie does an injustice to his predecessors, not only by killing off characters we've come to like, but by degenerating the clever Alien concept into just a slasher film.

4. The Blair Witch Project - So many people have hated this movie over the past years, there's nothing new I can say that hasn't been said already. Rather than badmouth the movie itself, I will badmouth the media hype which surrounded the movie. P.T. Barnum would have been proud of how Artisan and E! Entertainment made niave teenagers and college-age students believe the Blair Witch really exists. The reason people hate this movie is because Madison Avenue made people believe the movie would provide answers when what they got was the equivalent of watching a home video of a bad camping trip. This is why The Last Broadcast, an equally nauseating tale of people searching after the New Jersey Devils only to die in the woods, is often never shown, because it sucks.

5. Series 7: The Contender - Okay, sure, it's supposed to be a satire about reality TV, people's love and hate of violence, and how people will do anything to be famous. However, the movie might have been more satirical if the contestants were volunteering, not being forced. No explaination is made why they are being forced because it's series 7 and we should have known, duh. What is promised is a horrofying look at fame turns into some silly movie about teen lovers being forced to hunt each other. The death scenes are meant to be chilling, but I'm wondering if some old man is bludgeoning your daughter in front of you, wouldn't you stop him? The movie's climax plays like it belongs in an Ed Wood movie. I know what you think, I don't appreciate the syle or can't handle the violence. This is another slasher movie disguising itself as a clever movie only a handful of people understand. The scariest thing about this movie is that a lot of well-respected critics couldn't see through it.

Say a Prayer for the Youth of America

2006-10-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

It's not a good time to be a kid. A judge has dismissed the child pornagraphy charges against this Karr guy. You know the one who said he killed Jon Benet Ramsey and the DNA evidence wasn't there.

Let me just say, this, if this Karr guy comes within 10 miles of me or anyone I know, he's going to be in big trouble.

Now, there's this Mark Foley guy who the Republicans are trying to pin his exploits with minors on Democrats, the "liberal" media which reported on it (Ironically, it was ABC who aired a special on it. The same ABC who bent over backwards to make the Clinton Administration looks like fools in The Path to 9/11) and the good ole' alcoholism and Foley's own abuse as a child.

Let me, just say, if this Mary Foley guy comes within 20 miles of me or anyone I know, he's going to be in big trouble.

Both Foley and Karr belong to placed in criminal population in San Quentin. Then, they will understand the true meaning of abuse.

Now, we got school shootings again. But it's no longer the kids doing it, it's now the adults. You know, it's gotten so silly at some schools that parents aren't even allowed to walk into the schools their own tax dollars pay for. A Wisconsin lawmaker wants to give the teachers guns. Yeah, that's a bright idea.

Not to undermine the Amish school shootings, but we're talking about a very religious section of the American population here. I guess God being in the classroom has nothing to do with it when a crazy motherfucker comes there.

Here's an idea. See above. Put these sick people who harm children in prison now. This is the only way you'll make the schools and the children safer.

All we hear are stories about dog owners going to jail for having pitbulls and rockweillers and such that attack children, well, dogs aren't the only animals that need to be put in chains. It's about time we played dog catcher.

Huh?

2006-09-28T16:42:00.001-07:00

The other night, my girlfriend and I noticed a movie on our DISH that just read "Movie." Intriqued, we decided to watch it. Not long into it, I realized that I was watching a movie about Kurt Cobain's life, well, not that, but inspired by it. I was watching Gus Van Sant's awful movie Last Days. Let me just tell you how bad this movie is. Cobain would blow his brains out, if he was still alive, after watching it. I stopped watching after 20 minutes. I couldn't watch anymore. It was terrible.

What has happened to Gus Van Sant. He made great movies at once, like Drugstore Cowboy and To Die For. Then, he got all high and mighty when he made Good Will Hunting, I guess. Then, he remade Psycho and Gerry, which is like Waiting for Godot in the desert. It's interesting if you ever felt like watching two guys try to jump up on a rock without achieving it for 15 fucking minutes. Don't even get me started on Elephant.

And why make a movie about Kurt Cobain's life or inspired by it? Kurt Cobain was a no talent hack. Sure, Nevermind was cool and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was great, but how many of you Gen Xers have listend to some of the tunes after all these years. My God, they were awful. What were we thinking? Everybody I know owned a Hootie and the Blowfish album and after their moment of clarity, they said, "What the fuck was I thinking?" Why can't we admit the same thing with Nirvana.

Nirvana will never stand the test of time like other bands, because they didn't do much with the time they were given. Kurt Cobain wasn't the John Lennon for Generation X. He was a dirty piece of white trash who had his moment in the sun and couldn't do anything else.

How come people don't praise Joe Strummer or Joey Ramone or Steve Ray Vaughn or Jerry Garcia or any other musicians that have died but played longer than a few years on MTV?

I'm sick of Kurt Cobain. It's been 12 years. Time to move on.

Same for Tupac, too.

New Rules

2006-09-07T19:51:00.000-07:00

- Disney shall make no more inspirational sports movies. This is the same studio that gaves us Gus about the football kicking donkey. While I'm at it, Mark Wahlberg should quit playing every day people who gets shots at the big time. Boogie Nights, Rock Star, Invincible. Oh, and he should apologize for I Heart Huckabees.

- It's 2006 and it's time to stop blaming Clinton for everything that has gone wrong since his presidency. Granted, he was no angel, but Bush has fucked up far worse than the Republicans could have ever have dreamed Clinton would have. I'm a little worried when the Republican party, which has been in power for four years, is still insecure.

- If you have to pay more than $5 for a meal at a restaurant, the clientele should at least be required to dressed nice. How many times have you gone to a restaurant at lunch time only to be seated next to ditch diggers who smell like ass? Or you go out for to a nice restaurant for dinner and in comes a sweaty bunch of guys who have just finsihed playing a pick up game of basketball for two hours. This is why God invented truck stop diners.

- Child molestors who confess faslely to killing children don't deserve to sit in first class. They deserve to be thrown out of the plane from 30,000 feet up, with no parachute in a swamp full of hungry alligators.

- If white cowboys are going to make fun of Muslims for the way they dress and blacks for their African wear, then fair is fair, it's time for them to make fun of you. Oh, if you don't wrangle cows, you're not a cowboy. If you have sheep, you're a shepherd. This is the 21st century. If cowboys, are going to be allowed to dress up like mythic figures, then I think that opens the door for the rest of us, which is why I don't criticize Renaissance festivals.

- Not liking Brokeback Mountain doesn't make you homophobic. Not liking The Passion of the Christ doesn't make you anti-Christian and not liking Do the Right Thing doesn't make you a rascist. I know people who haven't seen any of these movies. What does that make them, homophobic rascist atheists? No, it just means they don't watch a lot of movies. 'Nuff said.

- Homeland Security needs to use it's money to lojack all white kids in America under the age of 16, so everytime we turn on the TV, we don't have to hear about them being lost. White kids are always being kidnapped or wandering off. Whatever happened to keeping an eye on your kid?

- Alcoholics and people convicted of drunk driving, must suffer the punishment of having to listen to another alcoholic's "How I Nearly Destroyed my Life" story every hour of every day of their fucking life. Not every teenager wants to get blind, stinking drunk, so quit bombarding them with these criminals who want forgiveness for their careless actions. Lock them up and throw away the key. Don't let them anywhere on a school campus. Hey, alcoholics, this is the world's small violin playing, "My Heart Breaks for You!"

- A DVD of a movie must only be released once in a generation. It must include the rated and the unrated version, the theatrical version and the director's cut, all interviews, documentaries and special features. Just because a bunch of nerds don't got girlfriends to spend their money on, that doesn't mean every two or three years, we must expect them to buy a new Star Wars saga DVD and The Lord of the Rings trilogy DVD, because it's got 15 minutes of new never before seen footage. I think a 25th anniversary edition is just enough time. Speaking of DVDs, Kevin Smith is not permitted to host the deleted scene section of his movies. He talks so much about a scene by the time we finally see it, we don't care anymore. We're just thankful now that he's not talking for a few minutes.

- This is for J.K. Rowlings, by all means, kill Harry Potter, please. If I knew for sure, Harry Potter was going to bite the dust, I would actually sit through of those movies.

Axis of College Football Evil

2006-09-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

As a sports writer, as well as many other beats, I've learned over the past 10 years that when college football season starts, there's three teams that curve the spine of every sportscaster in the nation. I've talking about the University of Georgia, the University of Michigan and the University of Oklahoma. Every year, no matter how good these teams are, every sports caster in the nation must make then out to be fools. Last night I was watching the Oklahoma/Alabama-Birmingham game when the sportscaster from TBS (?) was on the side of UAB the whole game, even at one point saying, "What a tackle?" totally ignoring the good pass and catch by Oklahoma for a pedestrian tackle near the sidleline. The only sport TBS is good at broadcasting is Atlanta Braves baseball.

Why do people hate these teams and relish University of Southern California, Miami, Florida State and Texas. Sure, Texas and USC played in the national championship last year, but how come everyone was waiting for Ohio State University to collapse in 2002 after beating Miami in a nail biter?

It's no doubt that ESPN hates UGA and Terry Bowden always wants to play devil's advocate, but what journalistic talent do these idiots have. Terry Bowden's only claim to fame is that his daddy squirted him out of his dick many years ago. That's it.

Say what you will about Bob Costas and Al Michaels, but at least they know what they are talking about before they get in front of the camera.

Now, are you ready for some football?

Very Good, Mr. Sulu

2006-08-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you've caught the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner, but if you did, you have to agree with me that George Takei is one funny motherfucker. While being the butt of a lot of the jokes for being gay, Takei showed comedians Patton Oswalt, Andy Dick, Fred Willard, Kevin Pollack, and Lisa Lampanelli how to really roast someone. He joked that this was the first time he had seen the front of Andy Dick's face and how Shatner's acting is the only thing to make him want to gag, adding he wished his life partner could suck like Shatner's acting.

I laughed so hard it hurt.

Barf or Bomp?

2006-08-16T19:26:00.001-07:00

I once noticed a woman who shall remain nameless wear a shirt revealing her cleavage, even though I had never seen her wear something like it before. I admit there was something sexy about her in a dirty, oh my God, I can't believe she turns me on manner. I told my friends I didn't know whether to jerk off or throw up when I saw it.

Which brings me to this: What should someone do who sees this?

JonBenet

2006-08-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've met and talked with John and the late Patsy Ramsey and let me just say, I never suspected them of killing their daughter. However, in all due respect, I found them to be a little pompous. If this man, John Carr, who is suspected of killing Jon Benet is the true killer, then, there's still hope for OJ to find the real killers.

It Happens in Threes

2006-07-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

Some of this is inspired by recent events.

- It is not news when Lance Bass announces he's gay. I couldn't be more sure of that had he just offered to give me a hummer. It is not news when anyone announces they are gay, unless it's Bush or Cheney. Then, it's news, because the Apocalypse is around the corner.

- When a 70 year old person causes a car accident, they are as much as responsible than a 17-year-old who causes a car accident. Yet, I don't see anyone wanted to require graduation requirements for senior citizens.

- Shaky camera moves don't give a movie or TV show more of an edge or real life feel. It just irritates me. While we're on the subject of movies, I could live another 80 years and never hear Gilligan's Island be discussed in a movie again, it would be too soon. While we're talking about TV and movies, a dumb TV show begats a dumb big-screen movie.

- If you're old enough to legally drive a car and you still can't wait for the next Harry Potter movie, then you're stuck in a period of arrested development. You need help, before your parents kick you out of the house.

- Angelina Jolie might be a homewrecker, but so is Brad Pitt. I don't care if Jennifer Anniston is Nurse Ratched behind close doors. They were married and he committed adultery. Enough said.
- When an actor doesn't make a movie for a few years, (Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jane Fonda), it's not a big deal. When someone applies and interviews for work, but can't find anything for several years, it's a big deal.

- Quit expecting too much out of M. Night Shyhalaman's movie. The Village was a great movie, so what if the monsters were fake. It's a movie. It's make believe. How come no one mentions Wide Awake, when they talk about his movies. Mean Streets sucked big green donkey dicks, but Scorsese was able to rebound.

- Of course, Andrea Yates is insane. But not guilty? I don't think so.

- If you make more than $30,000 a year and you're in debt, it's your own damned fault. The best way to avoid debts, is to not live outside of your means. They comes a time when Wal-Mart becomes your friend. It's when you get your first job that doesn't pay well. People who make $50,000 a year and have bounced back from debt have nothing to tell me about money management.

- Old people rapping is not funny, never has been. Maybe it was funny at one time back in 1985 for about ten minutes. Since then, it's not been funny. It will never be funny. Old people hate rap music rather than embrace it.

- If it's Christian rock, it's not Christian music. It's got to be one or the other. Which is it?

- Any thing that is sold related to Christ for a profit is sacrilegious. If we're going to criticize Scientology as a cash cow, then we got to look at all the million of copies of the Left Behind books sold. Or how about the hundreds of millions which were made off The Passion of the Christ? Remember when Jesus through the money panlers out of the temple.

- Everyone has the right to visit America. Everyone has the right to live in America. But if you're going to work and expect John Q. Taxpayer to help you out, get a green card or become an American. When you want to have a different flag around and talk about your rights, then you're stepped over the line.

- There is no reason to re-enact Civil War battles every year. It's not about heritage, it's about a nation not even a century old not getting along and nearly destroying itself.

- Elvis Presley, Tupac Shakur, Ken Lay, and Adolf Hitler are all fucking dead. Dying was the best thing to happen to Shakur's career. Before that, he was a mediocre singer and a terrible actor. Now, he's the fucking John Lennon of rap music.

- "One Nation, under God," implies America a nation founded on religious freedom is a Christian Country. It isn't. We've had three very religious Presidents in power for the past thirty years and you know what, things haven't been working out well. Remember when everyone went nuts over JFK being a Catholic.

- If I lived to be 100 yrs old and never year "God Bless America" sung ever again, it will be too soon. This is one of the most pompous songs ever written. How about "God Bless the Earth?"

- If Aaron Neville was the worst singer to have sung the national anthem, then everyone else must have been living in a cave on Mars all their life, with their fingers in their ears. I've heard so many people sing this song out of key so much, I really think we might want to look into another song for the new millenium.

- If an embryo is the start of life, then our birth dates really don't mean shit then. I guess that's what it meant by "...an itch in your daddy's pants." Now, I guess we should have itchdays, instead of birthdays.

- The next time you're behind me in Wal-Mart or Ralph's or whatever, please wait an extra five seconds for me to put my cash back in my wallet before you throw your vagiklean on the counter. Quit being in so much of a fucking hurry. However, if you're going to stand there and double check your receipt with every last jelly bean you bought, then please go somewhere else. Oh, the white trash that shops at Wal-Mart must walk in single file down the aisle when there is more than two of them, instead of the massive 7 person plus configuration you have with the old fat grandma in the motorized cart and the 13 year old girl holding a baby, which might be hers and it might not. Whatever, she's pregnant nontheless and got two visible tattoos on her shoulders. And the whole congregation is doing that slow death walk as if there the cart is a casket. Please for the love of God, move. Oh, isn't it ironic that most of the people who crowd the deoderent/soap/shampoo aisles always look they really need it. Maybe that's why they always stand there, looking confused as if they're Star Jones standing in front of the buffet table wondering what to eat first.

- A 50 year old man will never change his views on Jews, woman, or whatever. If you're driving drunk and over the age of 21, then let me introduce you to the world's smallest violin playing, "My heart breaks for you."

- Alcoholism is not a disease. Cancer is a disease. Alcoholism is avoidable, cancer is not. It's too much. If we're going to call alcoholism a disease, then obesity is a disease, nymphomania is a disease and drug addiction is a disease. Alcoholism is what happens when you people get sick and tired of your shit and call you on it.

- Clog dancing belongs at the county fair and on Hee Haw. It doesn't belong on TV being passed off as the next biggest thing.

- Auto racing is people driving 120 mph in a circle. It is not a sport.

- Speaking of sports, women can play sports. When they play professionally, it's a big deal. When they play bad professionally, it's not a big deal.

More Bitch and Griping

2006-07-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

I am not a parents, but after what people tell me, I don't need to be, because I have this moronic thing called common sense and thinking.

- If you're still living with your parents, then you should be obliged to tell them where you are going when you go out. If you're going to be late, then you should tell them. If they give you a curfew and you break it, then you're in trouble.

- Yes, you should want your child to eat healthy, but, you must let them make their own choice. What you choose to serve your child to eat in your own home is your own business. The school's shouldn't change everything to suit your wishes for your child's health. There's always home school.

- Keep watch on your child at all times in a store. If you bump into a friend in the store, keep watch on your child. If the child gets bored and wanders off, go after the child immediately, and get them. You're there to shop, not to socialize.

- There is a thin line where it goes from discipline to abuse. Don't be surprise when someone calls the cops on you for using broom handles and metal belts on your child.

- If your child is obese, then it is your fault for feeding him too much. If you have to put locks on the cabinet doors, then you're doing something wrong. Rather than contacting the news programs about your obest child, tell them about all the kids who only get a good meal through the school's and eat ketchup on crackers for supper. They're the ones who really need help. All your child has to do is nothing to solve their problem.

- You have a kid, you have a responsibility. I don't care if you forgot your diaphragm. I don't care that condoms aren't your bag. You got a kid now. It's not an accident and it's not a mistake. An accident is something unavoidable like tripping and hurting your knee. A mistake is calling someone by the wrong name. Sex is never an accident or a mistake. It is what it is and if you don't know what you're doing, then you don't need to be having sex.

- When your children go to someone's house and act disruptive, then those people have every right to get on to your kids. That's it in a nutshell.

- Tell your kids to say "please" and "thank you." You will get compliments about how nice your kids are. It's a win-win situation.

- Kids should be taught to respect and fear rifles, shotguns, pistols, and firearms. It's a weapon, not a gun. It's for killing and not for fun.

- A dress code isn't going to keep the kids from shooting up the schools. The only way to prevent it is to get the right people in the schools who treat all the kids as equals despite who their parents are and punish the jocks and the preppies just as fairly as they punish the slackers.

- Mothers should be called mothers and fathers should be called fathers. If you want your child to call you by your first name, that's fine, otherwise, correct them.

- Don't take your young child to an R-rated movie. Don't take your child to an intense PG-13 movie. So, you have to go watch Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. The people watching Clerk 2 in the next theater will thank you.

- Teach them that racism and bigotry is wrong. Whoever you don't like, your child will end up dating, come hell or high water. If you don't like gay people, you're going to have a gay child. If you hate blacks, then you're child is going to date a black person. If you don't like Democrats, then you're kids are going to vote Democrats. It's alright to have an opinion, but opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one. Don't let it get out of hand.

- And please, please, give your children actual names for people. If you're naming your child after a comic book hero or a fictional mermaid, then you're already moved to -1. Madison and Tyler are names, last names. Skylar is on letter short of Skylark. Here's the way it works, you give your child an embarrassing name they don't go by and an common they do go by. Don't name your kids after fruits and vegetables and don't name them after forms of percipitation. Flower childs are long gone. It's about time Generation X-ers got with the program and they only way to prove to the Baby Boomers that they can be good parents is not shouldering their children with too much of a burden. And you start that by giving them a common name.

- Finally, you might not be able to give your child everything they want. You might not be able to give your child everything they need. But as long as you give them your unconditional love and let them live their own lives, then you've done your job.

So, it's Come to This

2006-07-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

Not to add to the never ending ramblings that seem to be attributed to Andy Rooney, George Carlin, and Robin Williams, but here it goes:

- If you can read this, thank a teacher. Marines need to be thanked for serving our country, but I don't think they should be thanked for my ability to read. I have never had one Marine encourage me to read but I did have a lot of teachers.

- God will not pass you to the lowest circle of hell just for not forwadding on that same email your over zealous family member or friend keeps sending you every other month. I respect their beliefs as well as my friends. You're just making the other 14 percent of those who don't believe in God win, so stop sending these emails.

- God doesn't belong in the classroom. He belongs in the hearts and minds of those who believe in Him. This world is the classroom. Science, match, history, social studies, reading and english belong in the school's classrooms. If God is the answer to everything, try it on the next test you take and let me know what the score is.

- I do believe global warming is a threat. I don't believe all that Al Gore tells me is true. But I don't side with Sen. Jim Inhoffe either. Also, I refuse to watch anything with Tom Brokejaw. It's supposed to be hot in the middle of July and it's quiet cold in the month of January usually. It's the way the world climate works. It's always either too hot or too cold for everyone. If everything was just the right temperature, there would be nothing to bitch about and 85 percent of all conversation in America would cease.

- If your kid is screaming and crying for no reason in Wal-Mart or McDonald's, then you as a parent should shut them up. Otherwise, it will take a village to. Yes, I am criticizing your abilities as a parent, but it's not about you, it's about your kid learning to behave, so they don't turn into an adult who thinks they should get all they want. The earth needs one less Paris Hilton running around.

- Speaking of kids, no, I will not pay $2 for a chocolate candy bar that I can get for 40 cents at Piggly Wiggly, so your child can got to basketball camp. If a child really wants to go, but you don't have the money to spend, then the child should do some fund-raising efforts, such as car washes. Standing outside Wal-Mart, pestering every customer is not a fund-raiser. It's panhandling.

- Turn off your damn cell phone when you are in a restaurant! At one time, having a phone brought to your table was a sign of importance. No, it's just annoyance. They were originally called car phones for a reason. No one wants to hear you tell your sister what you are doing. If you're in a store talking, then once, you get up to the cash register, it's time to get off the phone and conduct business.

- If I am eating, I don't answer the phone. Don't leave a condescending message on my answering machine just because I wasn't in good reaction distance to the phone. If I don't call back in less than 24 hours, I probably had more things to do than sit around all day and answer the phone.

- CNN is biased and Fox News is biased. That's where the balance comes in.

- The war in Iraq is wrong. There are far worse atrocities that have been going on in South America and Africa for decades now. If oil wasn't involved, we wouldn't be over there.

- Speaking of oil, Libertarians who drive hybrid cars should quit telling us we shouldn't be bitching for paying $3 for a gallon of gas. With minimum wage at $5.15 for more than nine years now, we have every right to bitch. They say if you don't vote, you shouldn't complain about politics. Well, if you don't buy gas, you shouldn't bitch about the prices.

- Quit complaining about your social security, but refuse to pay school taxes. In some ways, it's a shame we've resorted to lotteries to help fund schools because, people don't want to pay their taxes and get away with it just because they're old or don't have kids in the schools. Social Security is revenue for taxes that are taken out of paychecks. Someone who makes $15,000 a year is taxes less than someone who is taxed $35,000 a year. You may not get a high paying job with an education, but it does help.

- There have been no mass deaths from prescription pills in Canada, so I don't see how harmful they are if brought into America. So, the executives of Pfizer won't be able to buy everyone in their families new Porsches with their Christmas bonuses, it's not the end of the world.

- You can't criticize drug pushers and users and be one yourself. Rush Limbaugh belongs in jail with all the other people convicted of drug crimes like him.

- Yes, what Jane Fonda did in the Vietnam War was wrong, but why did we only hear about it again in 2004 when John Kerry was running for President and haven't heard anymore since. Monster-in-Law was awful, but we didn't hear it then. It's Jane Fonda, the spoiled rich daughter of Henry Fonda. It's like Paris Hilton or Nicole Ritchie having an opinion on Bush. No one should take it serious. If it was Mother Theresa, then I can understand the outrage.

- Speaking of Vietnam, we must remember those who served. That means the WWII vets in control of a lot of VFW and the American Legions need to tell the Vietnam vets it's time for them now. Soldiers who served and fought in Vietnam deserve more than a wall remembering their fallen. They deserve respect. And while Bob McNamara is still alive, they deserve an apology. The Fog of War wasn't one.

- Bill Clinton didn't dodge the draft. He just did what every other aspiring teenager in that era did. He got buddy buddy with some politicians who kept his name out of the draft board. Just because Clinton was from Arkansas and grew up not-rich and from a non-influential family, doesn't make him a draft dodger.

- For the Department of Defense, the secretary must have at least served in the military. Dick Cheney got five deferrments during Vietnam. If not in the military, in some method of law enforcement.

- When the Vice-President of America shoots a man, accidentally or intentionally, it is news.

- If you don't like what's on the TV, then change the channel. If a boob offends you, then you got more problems than you know what to do with.

- If you don't like a book, don't read it. You're just waisting money, buying a book to burn. The writer's gets royalties either way.

- If you don't like this blog, then don't read it. Don't bombard me with emails. Turn off your computer and do something more productive.

Soldiers are not Body Parts, Either

2006-07-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Not to be blunt, but there is something seriously fucked up when Bush is opposed to stem cell research when Orrin Hatch and Bill Frist are in support of it. We're talking about Bill "You can get AIDS from tears, maybe" Frist and Orrin-Fucking-Hatch. Orrin Hatch!
Bush used his first veto for this?
Honestly, I have no opinion on stem cell research. Maybe it will work and maybe it won't. This is Bush versus science, because he doesn't understand it. Tony Snow said Bush considers it murder. Well, if Bush can consider Mike Brown doing a heck of a job in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there's no telling what his idea of murder is.
What's even worse, DHS should take all those children from those thoughtless parents who used their kids as leverage for this trivial topic.

I think it's time Bush got impeached. And I got an idea that can still put a Republican in the White House in 2008. I don't like Republicans, but I do believe there is a time for a change. So, here it goes, Republican voters take note. You've lost this election. It's already certain. You didn't do much after your victory in 2004. God proved that he didn't want you all in power.

So, here's what we do.

Once the Democrats take control of the house, they get a House Speaker. By February of next year, we impeach Bush and Cheney and get them out of office. The U.S. Constitution gives the House Speaker the right to be the President. Now, you got less than a year before the Iowa Causcus begins. If you're lucky, 10, maybe 11 months before the New Hampshire primaries. A President can't prove himself in less than two years, unless you run him against Barry Goldwater.

Bada-bing, bada-boom, a Republican wins 2008.

It's worth a try. Any thing is worth getting Bush and Cheney out of office.

Hotter than Hell

2006-07-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

If you don't know, it's hot. It's also Summer. I've come to expect this type of heat at this time of year. I know Al Gore would have me believe it's because of global warming, but maybe it's the work of manbearpig.

Husbands and Wives

2006-07-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

Dean Koontz isn't expected to hit one out of the park every time at bat. That may be the problem with his latest book, The Husband.

It's starts off great with the protagonist, Mitch Rafferty, a landscaper, finding out his wife has been kidnapped and there is a $2 million ransom on it. Then, he watches an old roommate of his get gunned down in the middle of the street. The cops are on him and then...nothing.

The Husband is a short book, but it still seems to drag on at times as Mitch runs around southern California trying to get the ransom. He only has 60 hours and there's a lot of revealations. There is one chapter in which we meet Mitch's eccentric father, before he is killed. The mother is mentioned more, but really is just a plant.

Sometimes, books are for everyone and sometimes, they are written for devoted fans. The Husband is for Koontz's devoted fans. Some of his good work, Shattered or The Voice of the Night, has relied on simplicity and sometimes he's great at the absurd, Tick Tock and Demon Seed. However, The Husband good have been a nice companion piece to Intensity, but he should have made the kidnappers more developed. I like the part with the wife, Holly, but the title is The Husband, not The Husband and the Wife. Maybe Koontz felt like he would have been repeating himself with Intensity by focusing more on the wife.

Anyway, it's worth a good summer read.

No Fat Hicks

2006-07-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

Bart Simpsons once said, "TV sucks!"

He was right. After the listing of the Emmy nominations this week, let me say, it does suck.

What are the five funniest sitcoms and comedy series on TV?

Arrested Development (Dumb)
Curb Your Enthusiasm (Lame)
The Office (Never watched a single episode and no regrets)
Scrubs (Is this show still on the air?)
Two and a Half Man (What the fuck?)

Okay, so many people out there are praising that Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office got nominated, but where's My Name is Earl, Family Guy or South Park. Fuck smart comedy. Give me smart comedy with an edge. At least Entourage didn't get a nomination. It got one for Jeremy Priven, which is more than it deserves. Priven deserves it. The show deserves to be shown to medical patients who can't avoid anthestiology.

I say Arrested Development should give its previous Emmy back. Making a show with funny named characters isn't ha-ha funny. George Michael. Bob Loblaw. Oh, my God! That is so funny. I can't stop laughing. Hoo-ha! Oh, that's good stuff. Either fuck your cousin or don't fuck your cousin. Dream On made a better episode about cousin fucking that was actually funny.
If a TV show is going to show footage for a commercial, then we expect to see that footage in the following episode. That whole thing with Charlize Theron was awful.

While Jaime Pressley got a nomination and deserves to win for My Name is Earl. Where is Ethan Suplee's nomination? They must think it's easy to be a dumb fat hick with a heart of gold.

Lost didn't get nomination, but Jorge Garcia deserves an Emmy for making Hurley the only character we care about on a show which could try the patience of Mother Theresa. Hurley is a manic depressive has more money than he knows what to do with, but no one believes him and has to bury his girlfriend while at the same time worrying about eating to much. A little R.P. McMurphy, a little bit of the charm John Candy had, sprinkled with the simpleness of Tom Hanks and Garcia has overall made Hurley the only character on the show to stand up to Sawyer without having to fuck him.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

2006-07-05T19:17:00.000-07:00

Or more importantly, a God.

Less than 24 hours before his 60th birthday, Bush receives news of the death of his good buddy, Ken Lay. While everyone is making a big fucking deal about the President's birthday, God is there to interject.

But let me say this, God let Lay off easy.

He should have gone to prison, where he deserves.

Or maybe he did, if you know what I mean.

Indepedence Daze

2006-07-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

It's July 4, Independence Day, so let's reflect on what that means. Right now, we have a President who wants Amendments to the Constitution to make it a federal crime to desecrate the American Flag and to make it a federal crime for gays to get married.

At the same time, he is angry that the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, will not let him do whatever he wants to with detainees at Gitmo.

He also wants to prosecute the media for just reporting what the federal governments are doing with taxpayers' money.

Happy Birthday America!

Just next year, don't send a party invation to little George W, please.

There's Always Abortion and Non-Christians

2006-06-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

Well, it's strike two for Congress. They were unsuccessful with Bush's proposal to have the government define marriage as a union between a man and a woman and they've been unsuccessful with yet another attempt to make an amendment to make it illegal to desecrate the American flag.

That leaves an amendment to outlaw abortion or an amendment to make it illegal to be non-Christians. Anything else they have to amend might actually benefit Americans rather than punish them for breathing.

Well, stranger things have happened.

Congress better be careful the rest of the year or else they're out of the game.

Represent this!

2006-06-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

When I think of this marriage amendment Bush tried to pass, I'm wonder something. Maybe the reason it hasn't been brought up earlier, is that everyone has the decency to not bring it up.
Well, I don't.
If a marriage is between a man and a woman, then, technically, a man who has a sex change to become a woman can marry a man and it's perfectly okay. Right? Or what about a woman who has changed to a man can marry another woman. Right?
I don't know. Would this be a loophole people could use if this was ever amended to the Constitution.
Again, Congress doesn't want to wage minimum wage, because it might cut jobs. As if people are living high on the hog right now at $5.15 an hour, which is $206 a week if you're fortunate to work 40 hours and most people aren't for insurance reasons. That would be about $10,000 a year, before taxes.
Maybe if those unions hadn't endorsed Kerry in 2004, it could have been raised. We can't have our union boys make just twice as much as minimum wage can we, especially for pedestrian jobs on assembly lines. People making $6 an hour at Wal-mart do more work than some member of the UAW who puts the tires on cars.
You know what cuts jobs, undocumented workers?
If the minimum wage is raised, then the amount of money that can be taken out for Medicare and Social Security can be raised and that solves that problem. The reason social security is in such a problem that really isn't a problem right now is because too the old farts on it hired undocumented workers and paid cash. Therefore, no social security has been paid in.
It's nice to know that the 535 people we elected to run our government are looking out for us where it really matters.

My Day Job

2006-06-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

If anyone is interested in seeing what else I do, mainly for a living, check out www.neighbor-newspapers.com. Clink on the Wagoner Tribune link and my other work is.

It's not TV, it's POS

2006-06-11T18:26:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, the 2005/2006 TV season sucked. Even The Sopranos was awful. Survivor is nearly dead. Deadwood will be dead after this season. I haven't watch it, so I guess there's no reason to start now. 7th Heaven found some resurrection even though I think the producers wanted to keep a leash on Jessica Biels until she was 90. Will & Grace is no more, proving there is a market out for the irritable gay neighbor. Alias has been neutralized. 24 is better as it gets more and more absurd. (Don't you think Mary Lynn-Rajskub "Chloe" is the hottest computer geek on TV ever.)
Again, there are new shows with "The" in the title. The Unit. The Wire. The Shield. (I haven't watch one minute of one episode of any of these shows. I just don't get The Shield. Maybe it's Michael Chiklis. No, it definitely is Michael Chiklis. )
We might have to create a new day of the week if there is another CSI, Law and Order or Dateline. CSI is good. CSI:Miami is bad acting at its best. David Caruso's Horatio Cane will have a terrible time in old age if doesn't stand up erect some more. CSI:NY needs to do away with one of those guys with the thick accents. It goes against the rules. You can't have two guys on a TV show with thick New Yawk accents. The King of Queens did fine with Lou Ferrigno as himself.
The Simpsons is good. Family Guy is great. American Dad sucks. King of the Hill is the one worst show on TV now. I never though Stephen Root could irritate me, but if I hear his Bill Dauterive or Buck Strickland one more time. I'm going to kill him. And someone needs to tell Mike Judge that Hank Hill, Peggy Hill and Bobby Hill are now idiots. I used to think Brittany Murphy was being a prima donna by limiting her duties as Luann. Now, I think it was the smartest career move she could ever do.
Close to Home has proved that a prosecutor can have 20 high profile cases within a year. Yeah, right. Invasion is the show that has more commercials than it knows what to do with. Lost, or as I call it, Locke, finally did away with Michelle Rodriquez only to make Hurley's life more hell by doing away with his girlfriend. What else do they have to tell us about these people's lives before they were on the island other than Sawyer played baseball and football while in high school. I think no one really cares how Locke lost the use of his legs. Speaking of which, how can Terry O'Quinn well into his 50's be the son of Kevin Tighe and Swoosie Kurtz? No way, no how.
The only breath of fresh air this year is My Name is Earl, with one of the funniest ensembles ever on TV. Ethan Suplee's Randy Hickey is by far one of the best TV personalities ever. Anyone with the man-child attitude to have a tea party with a mechanical dog and make it look sincere is on to something.
Of course, the summer is just gearing up. We got another Hell's Kitchen and another Entourage. Speaking of Entourage. Does anyone watch this show?
Anyone?

Amend This!

2006-06-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

President Bush must love gay people and Mexicans. You know why? Without them, he would be nothing. Not saying that he's anything of any importance right now. He's basically turning the Presidency into what Potsy from Happy Days has done to the best friend sidekick. You know he's always going to be there, but he will never really have anything important to do. Just a quick laugh.
The U.S. Senate voted today 49-48 against Bush's proposed Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to literally ban gay marriages. I know it means the federal government will not recognize gay marriages, but it's one branch of government saying the other should be a "yes" branch. Our judicial system while flawed, is the only thing that keeps us from being barbarians. We've pretty much turned into a plutocracy, so it really doesn't matter anymore. But our laws are important. An Amendment, or law, saying gay marriage is not legit, opens up a big huge dam with too much water to come through.
Today, it's gay people. Tomorrow, it's people of a different social class. Then, it's people of a different race can't get married. Only women of child-bearing age can be married. Men who are sterile cannot marry. The next thing you know, divorce is illegal. Men can beat the shit out of their wives and we don't do anything.
You the computer analyst had it wrong. When 2000 came around, we went back to where we were in 1900.
What's sad is 48 Senators are in favor of this bullshit? Shame on all of you.
If marriage is so fucking sacred, how can Michael Jackson get married twice?
If marriage is so fucking sacred, how come Terry Schiavo's husband was wrong? How come her parents had more control? When a father gives away his daughter to be married, he is putting his daughter's life in his son-in-laws' hands? So, who was more closer to Terry Schiavo than her husband?
If marriage is so fucking sacred, then how come Laura Bush always has that horrid look in her face. I've never seen a woman so sick and tired in my life.
I'm not saying everybody should like gay people. It doesn't make you a homophobe. I didn't like The Passion of the Christ, it doesn't mean I'm an atheist. But this has been the most intolerant years in the U.S. since black demonstrators got the fire hose and angry German shepards.
I received an application from the local Elks Lodge. It asked if I had ever been in an organization that wanted to overthrow the government. Well, I must answer yes, because I want this administration out of power as soon as possible. There's an election later this month, June 30, Tuesday. Mark it on your calendar. It starts here. Vote for tomorrow.
Bush likes gay people and Mexicans. Without them, he'd actually have to do some work.

This Week in God, 6-4-06

2006-06-04T18:39:00.001-07:00

Well, they've won.
A bill has been passed that makes it illegal to protest near military funerals.
The right wing has won.
But it's the extreme right wing.
It's the right wing that believes Jonathan Edward's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was too liberal.
Fred Phelps, who looks like Skeletor from He-Man and his outrageous congregation at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas have been protesting military funerals, claiming that it is God's punishment to the soldiers for America's tolerance of gay people.
First off, what tolerance?
With Bush pushing for an amendment that more or less outlaws gay marriages, I am led think anything short of lynching, hanging and burning gay people is Mr. Phelps' idea of tolerance. I won't call this man a pastor because he isn't a man of God. I have met many men and women of God and there have love, peace, and tolerance in their souls. This man's soul is full of his own agenda. He's drunken on his own ideas for how the world should work. And his congregation is even worse. Remember what Obi-Won Kenobi said. "Who's more foolish; the fool, or the fool that follows?"
Well, obviously the fools that follow, all the way to Capitol Hill.
I know Congress doesn't want to say they will condone protests at military funerals by allowing the Westboro Baptist Church to do so, but don't they realize that's what the First Amendment is all about.
Hey, I don't like people who protest military funerals, but if some ignorant assholes want to do it, then that's their right. Just as much as it is my right, to flip them the bird and say, "Fuck you!"
Maybe, Bush and many members of Congress should have done that. I'm waiting for an American president who will grab his crotch and say "Suck it!" to the religious fanatics. I vote for someone like that.
In their twisted minds, the people of Westboro Baptist Church think that by Congress passing this law, it furthers their cause that the U.S. Government is showing more tolerances on gays and pushing itself away from a Christian-based country. These people have won their battle.
If I'm wrong on this, may God strike me dead.

This Week in God, 6-4-06

2006-06-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

Blast from the Past

2006-05-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

Desparation aired this week. When it comes to Stephen King adaptations, it's probably in the middle, not good, but not all bad. For TV programming, it's at the top. One of its strength is that it isn't a mini-series and many of King's television work has been too slow to even care.

King wrote the teleplay for the movie as well as executive producing it. For twenty years, King has never directed a movie. The only movie he ever directed was such a flop, it's hardly ever seen anymore. Occassionally, the Sci-Fi Channel will air it on a slow weekend.

Maximum Overdrive is a movie that people shouldn't take seriously. It is a comedy that wants to be a horror movie, but was made as a science fiction movie. That may be its problem. It's a B-movie made in an era of blockbusters. It has also been called the worst movie since Plan 9 From Outer Space. The movie as about as many goofs and flubs as that classic, but then again, so did Star Wars. (The scene where the storm troopers knocked his head on the door is priceless.)

Released in 1986, but set in 1987, the plot revolves around the world being caught in the tail of a comet, which causes trucks, jeeps, steamrollers, and bulldozers to come to life and people start dying. At the end of the movie, we learned that it might have been the works of aliens. I don't think King is for sure. For some reason, regular cars and motorboats don't seem to be affected. At the same time, the appliances go haywire. Gas pumps don't want to work correctly and arcade video games can give off enough of a electrical shock to kill anyone who touches it.

When King wrote the short story "Trucks" in the early 1970's, he probably was making a statement about the energy crisis. The story ends with people at a truck stop being forced to pump endless gallons of gas into vehicles or else, the trucks will destroy them.

Maximum Overdrive which is based on the story follows the same premises. Tractor trucks go crazy at a truck stop outside of Wilmington, North Carolina, and kill anyone who dares to cross their paths and then circle the truck stop like in an old western movie.

Now that gas prices are nearly $3 a gallon in parts of the country, Maximum Overdrive seems more like a unsuspecting parody rather than a supernatural thriller. The vehicles are so blood thirsty they kill everyone they can first off. But what's to do when the gas runs out. At one point in the movie, the gas at the station does run out, so a gas truck must be brought in to fill up the tanks, so the humans can continue to pump.

What's funny about the movie is the people trapped at the truck stop feel they are slaves to the trucks, but it's the trucks are the ones who are too dependent. The gas truck can't even connect it's hose to the valves.

1986 wasn't a good year for directorial debuts. Emilio Estevez who has the lead as Bill Robinson, the truck stop's short order cook, also directed and starred in Wisdom, a forgetful Bonnie and Clyde wannabe for the 1980's.

With the exception of Estevez, every other actor in the movie seems to be from the Whatsername category. Pat Hingle has a nice role as the greasy Boss Hogg twin, Hendershot who owns the truck stop and calls everyone Bubba as he chews on cigars and has an arsenal of fully assault weapons and explosives to take over Grenada. Yeardley Smith, the voice of The Simpsons Lisa Simpson, provides most of the comic relief as a young newleywed who turns "Curtis" into a sentence. Frankie Faison from The Silence of the Lambs has a nice role as truck driver who's toy truck with the infamous green goblin hood ornament becomes the leader of the fleet of evil trucks. Do the Right Thing's Giancarlo Esposito has a small role as a man who is electrocuted by touching an arcade game. If you blink, you'll miss the former Mrs. Donald Trump, Marla Maples, in a small role. This was her first movie and she didn't make another movie until 10 years later with Executive Decision. King himself as the first speaking role trying to do a North Carolina accent over his Maine accent.

I'd like to think King told his actors not to take things seriously and they did. It's hard to take a movie like Maximum Overdrive seriously even when you can see what King is trying to do. At one point in the movie, characters are traveling through a sewer underground and one of them says, "How many people do think have peed in this?" How many sewer scenes in movies have you seen where that issue has not been addressed?

If you're lucky for a scary man vs. machine movie, go see Duel or Joyride, if you're lucky for a comedy, then Maximum Overdrive is the movie for you.

This Week in God, 5-21-06

2006-05-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

Well, The Da Vinci Code has just opened this week and many people are not happy with it. Why? Because it's not based on truth. That's probably why the novel the movie is based on has been sold in stores and categorized in libraries all across the county as FICTION.
Fiction is something that is mainly not true.
A short word for not true is false.
So, why the hub bub, bub over the past few years over this book and movie?
This past week Tulsa World ran a cartoon parodying The Andy Griffith Show in which Opie has "666" in his head. That's a little extreme, isn't it? Especially, since Ron Howard is one of the few child actors who's been able to maintain a steady and healthy family life, as well as evolving into a separate successful career without plowing his BMW around a Redwood tree with a BAC of O.59.
And the movie stars Tom Hanks, so it can't be all that bad. Even when Jimmy Stewart was making those dark movies with Hitchcock, we steal couldn't get past the fact that it was little Mr. Smith turning Kim Novak into a sick twisted version of a person he thought is dead. We knew it was nice little George Bailey spying on Raymond Burr.
If anything else, The Da Vinci Code in my opinion, is just a cash cow. And what's funny is that everyone is wanting real estate on Bovine Avenue.
If there is only something worse than someone authoring a book which story he probably doesn't believe in (c,mon, do you actually think Stephen King believes in evil cars and cell phones turning people into zombies) it's that people have written countless books debasing The Da Vinci Code.
Remember, this book is considered fiction.
How come no one wrote books debunking The Bridges of Madison County. Because that book is a pile of shit.
The Da Vinci Code has been a success. So have the Left Behind books? So, where's the outcry over those books? Tim La Haye and Jerry Jenkins are millionaires now writing fictional accounts inspired by the Bible. The rapture hasn't happened, so how do we know everything that happens in those books is true? We rely on a suspicion of disbelief.
Oh, well, who cares?
Selective beliefs are what Christians and all religion is about.
Isn't it?
I mean, if you believe this and not that. What's the big deal as long as you believe it?

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Go Up to be Cowboys

2006-05-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

Living in Oklahoma for over three yars now, people in other parts of the country often ask me what is the big deal with Bedlam. I tell them it's just some silly college rivalry between Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma when it comes to sports. Now, I can say that Bedlam has stretched to the graduation ceremonies.

Today, President Bush spoke to those who were graduating, some of which refused to walk protesting the President, who gaved a canned speech about how good the economy is going and how college graduates can expect to have good jobs with higher salaries.

Bullshit!

Every commencement speaker at every college says that. It's an encouragement to those who have spent two decades of their lives being taught in school only to be working a get-by job at Wal-Mart. It's a way of saying, "Hey, you're pretty much fucked, but if you want to still dream, then, I will play Mr. Sandman."

The sad part about Bush's speaking is that he once again has to one up his father, who spoke in 1990 at the school. (Coincidentally, Nixon is the only other President to have been commencement speaker at OSU.)

Nixon, Daddy Bush, Lil' Bush. Not a good track record for the college.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Cowboys.

For Christ's sake, people refused to walk during graduation, and I don't blame them. A graduation ceremony is supposed to be about the students (unless it's one of those silly pre-school graduations, which is no accomplishment. Taking a nap is not scholastic achievement.)
Bush's speech was far more important than the hard work the graduates has done over the years. It's nice to know that Bush spending more taxpayer's money to receive an honorary doctorate from a college who's basketball head coach pleaded no contest to driving drunk. (Oh, so that's why they wanted him to speak. I see.)

It rained on the Spring 2006 graduates at OSU and the weather didn't cooperate either.

A Month Without Tourists

2006-05-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

I believe in the right to protest. I believe in freedom of speech. Therefore, I am conflicted by the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who protested today. If they are here legally, then they can sound off like you got a pair. If you're not here legally, then they can shut the hell up!

I know that sounds harsh, but 24 hours isn't going to do much, especially when the U.S. and Mexican goverments aren't going to do a damn thing to remedy the situation. I think if migrant workers want to become U.S. citizens, then they should start the process. But we all know that some of them just want to work and save up their money, so they can go back home to support their families. That's noble, but it's still illegal.

I've said before that the U.S. government should go after those who knowingly employ undocumented workers, but we know that isn't going to be the case, not with Bush in office and not with any other President who wants to keep his job.

Why don't the Mexicans in Mexico fight to change their country? I mean, President Fox of Mexico makes Bush look like Mr. Belvedere. So, I propose something to all Americans now that the tourist season is coming up with summer.

Americans don't visit Mexico for one month. Mexico is home to Cancun, where people just love to go. I say, don't go to Cancun. Mexico, like a lot of tropical places, gets a good percentage of its money from tourist dollars. When I was making international reservations for Dollar Thrifty, people were always going to Cancun and Caba San Lucas. If the Mexican government wants to let America know how important immigrants are to the workforce, then we'll show them how important American tourists are to Mexico.

However, I seriously doubt many of the pro-American anti-immigrant people out there will refuse a trip to Cancun, which just goes to show one of the things that is wrong with this issue.

The Boobs vs. The Tube

2006-04-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it's National Turnoff week. Activists are asking people to watch less TV and spend more time doing other things, as if we spend sixteen hours a day watching TV. When I was working as a reporter, TV was my only friend, especially after ten hours a day putting up with bullshit. I rented cars over the phone once, meaning that I spent more than eight and half, almost nine hours a day at my place of business. About three more hours commuting and about 6-8 hours sleeping.

I know that many people blame television as the decline of the western civilization, but let's face it, who always saying that, conservatives, Christians, and mainly Republicans, who have the same argument that TV is too liberal, as if 7th Heaven, Highway to Heaven, and Touched by an Angel were all flukes.

The reason people hate TV is because it is the only thing high society can't control no matter how many restrictions they put up. What I mean by that is over the centuries, culture was exclusive to those who attended operas, theatre, symphonies, and so forth. Reading was once considered a mark of high society. It isn't as much anymore. Then, the motion picture came along and people expected the worst. However, the Great Depression came along.

High society rejoices! Poor people can't go to the movies because they're broke. But believe it or not, people do go and watch movies about rich people. Let's face it, when you're poor, all you can think about is being rich.

My mother, who grew up in the 1940's once said that the local movie theater in town had a policy that stated that if parents carry their children in their arms, the kids can get in free in the movie theaters and my grandparents took advantage of it.

Then, the 1950's came along. Pop culture was rising with the television and pop albums by Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and so on. So, they have been tauting rock and roll as the work of the devil for decades now.

But what to do about that little box in the living room? Well, let's have the FCC tell people what they can watch and it lasted for two decades. Then, in the 1970's, cable came about, so fuck the FCC, we want to hear comedian Robert Klein say "shit" on HBO.

But we want more TV, because we're playing too damn much for cable. (We still are.) So, people buy satellites to get odd stations. A few companies realize they're sitting on an untapped well and satellite TV rises in the 1990's. People are willing to pay up to $100 a month for many channels they only watch once a month. Hey, if you think I'm lying, go to one of the poorest neighborhood areas in your town and count how many dish satellites are nailed on run-downed houses.

So, what else to do now?

Nothing.

So, we tell people to not watch TV.

I knew a girl in college who would boast that she didn't own a TV. She was a conservative Christian girl who ironically was a mass communications major.

It's the middle of the week and I urge everyone to watch all the damn TV you want. And if you want to read a book, do what I do, watch and read.

How can I have good sex without the porno channel on? I mean, c'mon, I need TV.

Sweeps and Heaps

2006-04-23T17:56:00.000-07:00

Now the Spring sweeps have begun blowing out a lackluster year of television.

That 70's Show is finally going off the air, becoming the Head of the Class-M*A*S*H of the Generation Y clan in which time and relevance make no sense to ratings.

The Sopranos has started its final season, which is cut up more than Tony Soprano's stomach. Do we really need a whole show where Tony is in a coma and another show where Vito contemplates starting over a new gay life in New Hampshire? No. Where are the fucking decapitated heads in bowling bags?!

My Name is Earl has given us the best white trash ensemble since Hee-Haw in its glory days. If Ethan Suplee doesn't get an Emmy for his performance as the dimwitted but loveable Randy Hickey, there is no God.

24 has proven that you can get around the greater Los Angeles area in less than five minutes and no one will give a damn about the continuity. I just wish they would show more of MILF Connie Britton who wearing yellow shirts hot.

Speaking of MILFs,

Katie Couric is moving to CBS to anchor the evening news, anything is better than Bob Schiffer who is so boring he can put Tom Cruise to sleep.

Family Guy is funny. American Dad is not.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is still a funny show despite the lackluster correspondents on their now.

The Colbert Report tries to hard.

South Park has gotten a little preachy, but still funny.

The Simpsons is now only watchable for its longevity. The movie better be the best thing since replacing Brian Cox with Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.

King of the Hill has become the worst show on the air that Fox keeps leaving on.

Survivor has become the worst show on the air that CBS keeps leaving on.

Invasion has become an interesting show to watch, just because we can never tell if William Fichtner's character is totally evil or if they is still some good in him. I just want to know how a man can cut off his own arm with a chainsaw and not die of shock.

Lost needs to stop with that TBS five minutes over the hour shit. Take away another commercial. By the way, no one really cares anymore how Locke lost the use of his legs. Hurly has emerged as the heart and soul of that show.

Prison Break has become the most addictive show on TV, with a U.S. Vice-President that makes Dick Cheney look like Mr. Rogers.

CSI:Miami has become the best show on TV with the worst acting. As long as they keep showing investigators Emily Proctor and Eva LaRue Callahan in tight pants and revealing blouses, who gives a shit about the acting. Maybe they should give David Caruso an Emmy for his Agent Smith impersonation.

Close to Home has become the silliest show on the air in which a murder trial can take place within a week of the murder.

And CSI:NY has made The Who's "Boba O'Reilly" a song no one wants to hear again for another seventeen years.

Here's to a long summer of reruns and TV promos for shows that no one will ever see. Remember Emily's Reasons Why Not?

The Divine Comedy Central

2006-04-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

The beginning of 2005 must have been a good time for Comedy Central. Jon Stewart had been named Entertainer of the Year by Entertainment Weekly. Chapelle Show was one of the funniest shows on air. South Park was the network's longest running series and still going strong.
Then, things went bad. Chapelle Show is no more. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart just doesn't seem like the same anymore. Rob Corddry is good, but his brother, Nate isn't. Jason Jones just seems like he's on a different show. That whole Trendspotting segment doesn't work. Where's Lewis Black? Stephen Colbert's new show just doesn't work.
Now, could they lose South Park, their golden goose?
After Wednesday's airing where they pussed out and didn't show the prophet Mohammed, I say Trey Parker and Matt Stone go somewhere else. Maybe HBO. The network kept Arli$$ on the air for so long and the executives still think Curb Your Enthusiasm is funny. Don't even get me started with The Mind of the Married Man. So, the network definitely has balls. The show has won a Peabody. A Peabody! Cartoon shows were characters curse and fart don't won Peabody awards each year, so this is something to celebrate.
But Comedy Central has cave into Christians&Catholics, Scientologists, and now Muslims.
About ten years ago, Comedy Central was a joke on The Simpsons. No one watched Comedy Central, especially when Craig Kilborn was hosting The Daily Show. Or at least I wasn't. So, what's the deal? I think Comedy Central should treat their bread winner with a little more respect. I mean, without South Park, they're have to air Sorority Boys more often.

Immigration Nation

2006-04-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Springtime for the Bush administration is here. It's not that the flowers are blooming and the grass is getting greener. It's not that my allergies are acting up and pollen is all over my car in the morning.
No, it's because another hot topic has come and is on it's way out, to take attention from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm talking about the immigration debate that has been hot for a few weeks, but no one will be talking about as much a month from now.
It's the way this administration deals with it's main problems. In Spring 2002, it was the fuss over Catholic priests molesting little boys. This has been a joke for the Catholic church for decades. Why start to change it all of a sudden? Because we couldn't find Osama bin Laden.
In Spring 2003, we went to war with Iraq? Why? Because we couldn't find Osama bin Laden, but maybe him and Saddam Hussein swapped recipies for Molotov cocktails once.
In Spring 2004, we debate gay marriage? Why? Because "Mission Accomplished" was becoming more and more of a joke. Oh, the war had hit it's one year anniversary with insurgents NOT greeting the troops as liberators.
In Spring 2005, it was Terry Schiavo. Why? Well, it was a slow month. Some shallow cunt who was pretty on the outside, but didn't love herself inside had gone into a coma because of eating disorders. Her brain was liquid shit, but Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) who is also a medical doctor thought she was A-Okay and there was no reason her husband should take the feeding tube out.
Now, it's immigration. Every few years, we bring this topic up and we forget to address the key issues. Syndicated columnist Molly Irvins said the U.S. Government should send employers to jail for hiring illegal aliens. Well, I agree with that, but, let's face it. We don't want to do that, because the corporations control lobbyists and lobbyists give money to politicians to vote their way. In Mexico, a worker makes about $5 a day in U.S. dollars. In America, minimum wage is $5.15. An employer plays a Mexican worker half or one-third of that and who's to complain. The Mexican worker is making more and the employer doesn't have to report taxes and if the worker gives him any lip, fire him and tip off INS. An employer likes an employee who will roll over on command and not pose a threat.
I know what you're thinking, Mexicans shouldn't be coming over here to work our jobs. About seven years ago as a writer for my college newspaper at Georgia Southern University, I attended a speech by Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers of America. She said that employers are shipping these Mexicans in to work in places. She cited a bust by immigration officials in Lyons, Georgia. Now, how many Mexicans are in Mexico right now searching for work in Lyons, Georgia, because they've heard good things about the town.
Let's face it, slavery helped build this country. Illegal aliens working are a new form of slavery and we slap the people on the wrist with fines.
This is all about brown people. We don't say anything about Peter Jennings working for ABC for so long without becoming a U.S. citizen. Charles Chaplin was never a U.S. citizen and America took an good moment to revoke his visa. We didn't care about them working in America, did we?
No. You know why? "Because Mexicans work the jobs we (Americans) don't want to work."
Bullshit!
Mexicans work the jobs the employers don't want to pay Americans a decent wage to work. You mean to tell me that if all your bills were past due and your utilities were about to be shut off, you wouldn't work $5.15 busting tables at a restaurant? You wouldn't work outside in a nursery planting trees.
Bullshit. It's total bullshit. But listening to that crap all these years, Americans more or less know feel that they're too good for low level jobs. "You got to start somewhere" has turned to "I'm not going to work for nothing." Granted, I've worked crappy jobs for low wages. But that's the way it is sometimes. But you can work the jobs until you can find something better.
I don't support this Minutemen bullshit. It doesn't bother me that somethings are written in Spanish as well as English. If you're going to bitch and gripe about English in America, then everyone should have the same dialect. I can't stand to listen to people like Boston Rob as much as I can't stand to listen to Larry the Cable Guy. But they speak English, so we don't care.
It's about time we stopped picking on those trying to chose a better life. I know they work over here for a few years, save up, and go back. But America is all about that. Work as little as possible, become rich, and never work again. It's about the pursuit of happiness.
And if you don't like it, you can get out!

As Wichita Falls..So Falls Wichita Falls

2006-04-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

John Cusack can't play bad guys. It never works. He can play slimey characters, like in True Colors, but he's still got a charm that makes him likeable. Rather it was as a hitman in Grosse Pointe Blank, a con man in The Grifters, or a juror trying with a personal agenda in The Runaway Jury, you want to root for him, because he's played underdog heroes in movies like Better Off Dead, The Sure Thing, Say Anything..., and One Crazy Summer.
Pushing 40 years old, the only physical change in him over the 20 plus years of acting in nearly 50 movies seems to be his hair. At one point, in The Ice Harvest, when his estranged young daughter runs to him and hugs his leg, it doesn't first compute that he is at that age to be a father.
Harvest is the tenth movie directed by Harold Ramis. It has its comedic moments in Oliver Platt, as a horny and lewd drunk, but Ramis has switched gears and made a movie that is an homage to film noirs of the 1940's.
Cusack plays Charles Arglist, a Wichita lawyer for mobster Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid.) On Christmas Eve, he and an associate Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton) who works in the pornography market, decide to steal over $2 million from Guerrard. Heist movies never really tell the audience about the actual robberies, but more about the aftermaths in which everyone is double-crossing each other. We are never told their robbery scheme, but notice that it involves walking out of a bank with a large withdrawl during business hours. I guess, the philosophy behind the robbery is, withdrawl the money in late afternoon on Christmas Eve. The next day will be a holiday and the money won't be reported missing until Dec. 26, at what time, it will be too late.
However, it's not that easy. Within an hour or so of the withdrawl, one of Guerrard's henchmen, Roy Gelles, played by Mike Starr, is looking for Charles and Vic. At the same time, Charles is trying to woo Renata (Connie Nielsen looking like Rita Hayworth, as seductive as Veronic Lake and as diabolicle Lana Turner) who manages a strip joint. Watching Cusack act like a little school boy around Renata reminds us that he is still a good guy, deep down, even though he drinks too much.
Platt comes in the movie as Pete Van Heuten, who is now married to Charles' ex-wife. While trying to remain calm with a henchman chasing him, as well as the suspicious that Vic is going to double-cross him, Charles must also baby sit Van Heuten who is so drunk he hits on a female barkeep and disrupts his wife's dinner with the in-laws, which he conveniently isn't at.
Charles's early teenage son despise him. His daughter adores him. He had been too busy with planning the heist that he forgot to buy the kids Christmas gifts. This leads to a last minute shop at a Citgo gas station.
To give any more away would be too much. Of course, people who have seen film noirs probably know where it's headed. Let me just say that Charles pulls a Dick Cheney on a major character with a shotgun.
The Ice Harvest is short, under 90 minutes, and violent. At one point, Nielsen's Renata has to wash the blood and brains out of her hair. Thornton is used well even though he appears less than the movie's billing would have you believe. However, it's Nielsen who steals the show. She can read right through Charles and tells her barkeep to get him a drink, knowing he will accept it even though he doesn't like it. She pulls off one of the best femme fatale roles. It's a shame she wasn't nominated for an Academy Award.
The Ice Harvest should have been marketed better than a dark comedy, but this is much more of a darker movie.
Even though it was filmed in Illinois, the tone is Kansas. At one point, Charles is standing on the side of a road after the rain as turned to ice and he looks like he's going to be blown over by the wind. That's what its like out here in the Plains. The scene is also metaphorical for Charles stranded in a cold, barren world all alone.
The Ice Harvest was one of the best movies of 2005 that never got the attention it needed.
Check it out!

Blast from the Past, Fargo at 10

2006-04-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons Fargo lost to The English Patient at the Academy Awards in 1997 was that it was still consider an indie crime movie. It was compared to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Yet, that's like comparing David Lynch to David Lean.
Tarantino likes to have his characters talk and what they have to say.
The Coen Brothers (Joel and Ethan) are interested in how their characters talk. People say "Ja" when they mean "yeah." There's a nice Scandanavian/Canadian/Midwest accent that everyone has that seems like it would be annoying, but isn't. Also, their conversations don't stick to the plot. An officer, relying information to his police chief, immediately starts inquiring about ice fishing. A scene in which a bartender tells a police officer about a shady character in his bar immediately turns to small talk about the weather. These conversations are quirky. They're how people actually talk.
Mike Nichols once told his acting class that anyone can read dialogue. The trick is making it seem like the character would really say it.
Fargo is not based on a true story, even though the crimes in the movie seemed inspired by real crimes in the Minneapolis area. But then, again half of the CSI episodes are inspired by real murder cases.
Fargo is a movie that is based on truth. The characters in my movie seem like real people. They probably are. A plot like Fargo's is so outrageous, we just assume it has to be based in reality somehow.
William H. Macy plays a Jerry Lundegaard, the executive sales manager, at his father-in-law's car dealership. He's into financial trouble. His father-in-law, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell) is a self-made millionaire and a bastard and a half. He's a bully who invites himself to supper. He lives to make things tough on people. He mocks his grandson, Scotty, for going to McDonald's after supper to hang out with his friends. He berates his wife Jean and Jerry for letting Scotty go. About the only person he listens to is his assistant, Stan Grossman (Larry Brandenberg), who more or less runs his company.
Jerry decides to hire to petty criminals Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife, so he can get ransom money from Wade to settle his debts. The only problem is that Carl and Gaear are two different criminals. Carl is a loud mouth lowlife, who can't even get a nice motel room to sleep with a prostitute. He uses the apartment of an associate. He's not smart. He tries to haggle with a parking lot attendant over a flat fee, not knowing that the agrument is going to make the attendant remember him more. Especially, after he was in the parking lot to steal a license plate.
Gaear is a cold-blooded murderer who doesn't talk much, constantly has a lit cigarette perched on his lips, and uses violence as the only answer.
Carl and Grear do the deed of kidnapping Jean, but get stopped by a Minnesota State Trooper in Brainerd, Minnesota on their way to a secluded cabin. Gaear shoots him dead, but a couple witnesses the crime, so Gaear chases them down and murders them as well.
That's the first thirty minutes of Fargo and it seems like a crime thriller on its own, but it's when Brainerd Police Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) is called to investigate the murders that the movie talks a change. Marge doesn't look like a police chief. For one thing, she's seven months pregnant and doesn't appear to be a police officer. She looks more like she should be a kindergarten teacher. But she knows her stuff. She can spot different foot prints. She knows a defensive wound with she sees one. And in a funny scene, she knows that "DLR" is shorthand for dealer license plates.
Marge doesn't cuss. She says, "Oh, jeez" and "For Pete's sake." She's quick to call people when they are rude or has she puts it, "snippy." But it's that duality that gives the movie it's human nature. She picks up her husband some night crawler's on the way back from a crime scene. She doesn't act mad when an old high school classmate, Mike Yanagita (Steve Parks) calls her late at night. When she goes to have a drink with him, she plays off her uncomfortable feeling when he wants to see next to her. When she is waiting in an office, she doesn't something we've all done in a doctor's exam room or other unfamiliar places. She looks around the room, fidgets with things on a desk for a second or two, and observes the pictures on the desk. Very few movies made before and since Fargo have put something like that in a movie.
She's a complete opposite to Jerry Lundegaard, who appears to be a nice guy, but is a weasel. I heard the character describe as Faust crossed with Willy Loman. That's not true. Willy Loman loved to be a salesman. For Jerry, it's a inconvenience. He keeps reminding people he's the executive sales manager at the car dealership, but it sounds like a made-up title. All his co-workers know he got the job for being the boss' son-in-law and they give him no respect. Imagine Jerry Lundergaard as an evil Ned Flanders who still says "The heck you mean?" and "You're darn tootin'." Jerry is a man to civil to be a criminal and too slimey to be a saint. He doesn't have a number for Carl and Gaear to contact them. He hadn't even though about the effect the kidnapping will have on Scotty. Macy does a brilliant double take when Stan asks him about his son. (The biggest problem with the Academy Awards was that they gave Macy a Supporting Actor nomination, even though it's really the lead role.) We never know how Jerry is overextended, but we learn through the movie that he can't manage things well. Jerry can't even work his way out of an impromptu interrogation with Marge. Most memorably is when a disgruntled customer calls him a "fucking liar" over sealant that was put on the car.
The scene involving the car customer is a rare one. He's quite angry. Many people accuse the Coen Brothers would overusing the f-word. However, only Carl, Grear, and Shep Proudfoot (Steve Reevis) use it. Shep is an ex-con who is an auto mechanic at the dealership who is the connection between Jerry and the kidnappers. Scotty uses it, but in angry and he is quickly call on for it.
The car customer says it, but in a way like he is trying to keep from using. His wife immediately calms him down.
One interesting thing to notice is the movie is how half of the scenes seemed to revolve around eating. Every other scene has something to do with food or beverages. Carl and Grear are drinking beers at the beginning when they meet with Jerry. Jerry and Wade discuss business and the ransom over meals. Marge's husband, Norm (John Carroll Lynch), brings her lunch. They go out to eat at a buffet. They eat potato chips in bed at night while watching a nature show on beetles feeding their children. Norm cooks Marge eggs while she gets ready for work. Scotty is eating cereal while his mother talks to him about his grades. Jerry interrupts his supervisor during his lunch. An auto mechanic eats a sandwich on the job. Marge wants to find a good restaurant in Minneapolis. Jean is watching a cooking show before she is kidnap. Graer wants to always eat pancakes. Carl wants a refill of his drink while out with a prostitute. Grear is eating a TV dinner when Carl returns with the ransom money.
A lot of people criticized Fargo for its blend of off-beat humor and gruesome violence. But the movie's violence is solely the work of Carl and Gaear. Gaear kills without conscience. Carl kills out of anger. He shoots Wade because he insisted on delivering the money rather than Jerry, which wasn't the plan. It doesn't help that he was just beaten and whipped by his own belt by Shep. If Carl had a gun in his possession, why doesn't he shoot Shep in his apartment? Because Carl isn't angry at Shep until after the beaten. Carl's all talk. He more or less doesn't mean to kill Wade, but Wade shoots back and Carl must kill him, as well as another parking lot attendant who just happens to meet him at the wrong time. One might wonder, why Carl doesn't just kill Gaear when he returns with the money. It surely would have saved his life. But Carl doesn't see Gaear as a threat until it's too late.
Two main points of criticism for the movie's violence is the killing off of Jean and the wood chipper scene where Gaear tries to dispose of Carl's body. First off, many recent movies like Van Helsing and Daredevil, to name a few, have killed off the female roles and no one has said anything. You think people would have a fit that Kate Beckinsale and Jennifer Garner die in movies, but no. Second, there is the wood chipper scene which is nothing new to movies. In Downtown, criminal Joe Pantoliani goes flying head first into a wood chipper and comes out a pile of goo on the other side and no one said anything. It's in Gaear's cold-blooded nature to kill. Maybe the criticism is over why Margie doesn't shoot him in the back, but only in the leg. Because Marge isn't trying to kill a suspect, just subdue one. I still wonder how a seven month pregnant woman is able to carry a wounded man, way bigger than her back to her squad car.
The Coen Brothers described the North Dakota/Minnesota area as Siberia with Hardee's restaurants. Fargo is set in the dead of winter, but unlike movies like The Thing and Eye See You, the snow and ice is used as a character (like in 2002's Wendigo) rather than a plot device. It does look like a desolate place to live, but like the movie's tagline reads: A lot can happen in the middle of nowhere.

At the Eleventh Hour

2006-04-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

At the eleventh hour of 24, it was revealed that the mastermind behind all the day's events of terrorism, Presidential assassinations, and mass chaos is none other than President Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin) himself.

So far, Itzin, has played as a gross between Nixon and Tweek from South Park, with enough paranoia to fill hourly content updates for about one dozen conspiracy blogs.

On Real Time with Bill Maher Friday, there grew a debate that Bush knew about the terrorist attacks and that's why he was in Florida on Sept. 11. Maher acted surprised, like he had been in a coma on Mars for the past five years and hadn't heard these conspiracy theories. Maher doesn't like blogs and I don't blame him, but a lot of people believe there was a reason Bush kept reading My Pet Goat, and it's not because he's an idiot and wants to know how it ends.

I like the angle 24 is taking with making a man, who should never be Commander-in-Chief, an bad guy. But what's amazing is the similarities between Logan and Bush. They seemed to act like a child who is going to take their ball and go home when people disagree. They're too quick to act with violence rather than think about the consequences. They both look like there's a communication breakdown from their brainwaves to the rest of their body.

I'm wondering how 24 is going to end the season. Will the public know about Logan's actions? Will Jack Bauer have to shoot the one man he must take orders from, no matter what? Or will Kurtwood Smith, Miquel Ferrer, Felton Perry, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, and Robert DoQui all pop up for a RoboCop reunion?

Keep watching.

Up the Creep

2006-04-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

Alien slugs arrive on Earth and get into people's mouths, turning them into zombies.
If you're think I'm talking about the new movie, Slither, then you're wrong.
I'm talking about Night of the Creeps, a forgotten movie from the 1980's golden age of crappy horror movies.
Creeps is a movie that seems to be a homage to every horror B-movie made in the postwar nuclear age of the 1950's and 1960's, which was when writer-director Fred Dekker grew up.
The movie starts on an alien spaceship in which two alien guards are chasing a fellow alien through the belly of the ship. The aliens are short, pale-pink and wrinkled. Imagina Mini-Me after being in a pool all day. The renegade alien puts a small capsule in the escape hatch and lets it fly through the air.
Cut to Corman University in anytown, U.S.A. The spaceship scene is in color. The college prologue is in black and white. Two college lovebirds go out parking. A young patrol police officer comes along and tells them to return to their homes. Their is an escaped lunatic with an axe on the loose. The cop and the co-ed dated while in high school. But then, they spot the escape capsule flying through the air.
The college boy wants to go investigate and finds the capsule in the woods while the co-ed sits in a convertible car on the side of a deserted road, listening to radio reports of the escaped lunatic. Wouldn't you know it? The college boy can't rush back to comfort his date, because the capsule opens and a long, black slug flies out and shoots down his throat. The co-ed's luck isn't any better. The lunatic approaches her and hacks her to pieces.
Flash forward a generation to pledge week at Corman University. Two first year students Chris Romero (Jason Lively from National Lampoon's European Vacation and the worst Rusty Griswald of the bunch) and J.C. Hooper (Steve Marshall), who walks on crutches, are attending the fraternity festivities, when Chris spots Cynthia Cronenberg (Jill Whitlow) and is smitten. And why not? Cynthia is the all-American girl. To impress her, Chris decides to join a fraternity. But a fraternity president Brad (Allan Kayser who had a recurring role on Mama's Family) or the Bradster as he likes to be called, see him and J.C. for two nerds and sets them out on an impossible task. They are to report to the medical school building, stel and then dump a cadaver in front of a rival fraternity's house.
However, Chris and J.C. stumble upon a secret labatory, which looks like something left over from an Ed Wood movie, where the college boy from the prologue is cryogenically frozen. Curious, they fumble around with switches and free him. Scared, they leave the building and return to their dorm, hoping that no one saw them. The frozen college student comes alive, somewhat, and shoots a slug from his mouth, into that of a med student played by David Paymer (Academy Award nominee for Mr. Saturday Night.)
In comes police detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins from John Carpenter's movies, The Fog and Escape from New York) to investigate the dead body of the med student, the break-in at the lab, and the disappearance of a once frozen body. Cameron is not just any other detective. He was the young cop from the prologue. Even more interesting, he was the one who discovered his ex-girlfriend's mutaliated corpse and killed the lunatic.
Pretty soon, more dead bodies turn up around the college campus as people wonder what is going on. You see, the alien slugs are parasites that use brains to plant their eggs. Once the slugs are at full size, the zombies' heads more or less explode. Even worse, Cynthia's sorority house becomes a hotbed because a biology student is storing animals brains in the basement.
If you think I'm giving too much away, I'm not. Plot is not important. For that matter, neither is common sense. Cameron buried the lunatic's body in the backyard of Cynthia's sorority house where a small cottage has been erected for the house mother. Well, surely, the grading companing would have uncovered the body when starting the foundation. Anyway, it would have been impossible for a person with problems walking to even help carry a cadaver. And let's not forget that it would have been completely unsanitary for brains to be stored in a basement. But horror movies don't have to make sense.
All the major characters in Night of the Creeps share last name with famous horror directors. Speaking of Ed Wood, Plan 9 from Outer Space is playing on a TV screen during a scene where the lunatic zombie comes alive.
Dekker's seems more of less to have constructed a comedy rather than a horror movie. I don't know if he was a member of a fraternity or went to college, but he sure sticks it to the frat boys by having them turn up as mindless zombies during the movie's climax. The scenes involving the frat boys pose for pictures before a formal are a dead-on send-up.
The dialogue in the movie is classic. When the zombie frat boys attack the sorority house, Cameron tells the girls. "I got some good news and I got some bad news. The good news is your dates are here." "What's the bad news?" a girl asks. "They're dead," Cameron says. He also refers to Chris and J.C. as Spanky and Alfalfa.
Night of the Creeps came out in 1986 and fell quickly into obscurity. It's not out on DVD and video copies are hard to find. Occasionally, it pops up on late night cable TV. Every now and again, the Sci-Fi Channel, among others, will show the movie with it's original ending.
Spoiler alert: The ending of the movie has Cameron blowing up the sorority house to kill all the slugs. The theatrical version as the zombie poodle attacking Cynthia for a scare ending. Dekker's original ending has the charred body of Cameron walking toward a graveyard. His brain is infected with zombies and he collapses to the ground. His head splits open. The slugs rush out into the graveyard. While overhead, the spaceship, after thirty years of searching, appears in the sky.
Night of the Creeps is crap, but it's terrific crap. Years before Peter Jackson would have his hero fight zombies with a lawnmower in Dead-Alive (or Braindead, considering what country you're in), Chris revs up a rusty old mower to fight the zombies.
Many of the actors in Night of the Creeps didn't achieve stardom, except for Paymer. Suzanne Snyder, who played Anthony Michael Hall's girlfriend in Weird Science, which also starred Whitlow, would later star in another zombie movie, Return of the Living Dead Part II as well as the cult classic, Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Dick Miller from Gremlins pops up in a small scene as a police department armory officer. Dekker went on to direct The Monster Squad, a few Tales from the Crypt episode. and the lame RoboCop 3, and that was all she wrote on him as a director.
I've seen Night of the Creeps more than I'd like to admit. It's so bad, it's good to watch.

DVD Pick of the Week, 3-30-06

2006-03-30T16:45:00.000-08:00

The main difference between The Muppet Show and Sesame Street was that the Sesame Street was intended solely for children. The Muppet Show had more jokes geared toward adults, especially with their guest stars.
Over the years, the Muppets have had their ups and downs. Their television show was popular. It branched out into movies and the popular Muppet Babies cartoon series. But in the 1990's, the movies weren't that funny. They had been reduced to a joke on The Simpsons with The Muppets go Medieval starring Troy McClure. The Muppets Tonight show wasn't that funny and Muppets in Space was a big let down.
And we can all forget about Kermit's Swamp Years.
However, It's a Very Merrry Muppet Christmas Movie returned to the dual exchange of slapstick for the kids and satire for the parents. It's worth watching just for the one scene in which Sam the Bald Eagle pops up as at a nightclub rave twirling glow sticks.
Recently released on DVD in celebration of 50 years of Kermit the Frog is The Great Muppet Caper, the second full length Muppet movie. Of all the Muppet movies, this is quite possibly the best at developing a plot. While other movies were loaded with cameos, it was rather a distraction. The Great Muppet Caper has John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Peter Faulk, Jack Warden, and Robert Morley. As a kid, I didn't know who those guys were but I knew they were in the movie as part of the fun of the Muppets. What other movie has an Oscar winner like Ustinov sharing a scene with Oscar the Grouch.
Even some of the puppeteers pull Hitchcock like cameos. Jim Henson, who also directed this movie, pops up in a restaurant. Frank Oz has a cameo as a newsroom worker. Jerry Nelson (most well known as the voice of Emmet Otter in Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas) has a small scene in a park where he corrects his daughter when she thinks Kermit the Frog is a bear. You see Kermit and Fozzie are identical twins and a running joke is that people keep confusing them.
The plot of the movie is complicated for a children's movie. Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear are identical twins working as reporters on a newspaper for their editor (Warden.) Gonzo is the photographer. When a fashion designer, Lady Holiday (Diana Rigg) is robbed by her own brother, Nicky (Charles Grodin) in front of trio, who blow the story to take pictures of chickens, their boss goes nuts and fires them. To win back their job, they go to London in the cargo hold of a plane to interview Lady Holiday and track down her robber.
While in London, Kermit confuses Miss Piggy, an assistant of Lady Holiday, as the fashion designer herself. Fascinated by Kermit, she tries to keep the facade going and catches the eye of Nicky, who continues to rob his sister with the help of three models Lady Holiday berates without caution. The scene in which Nicky hits on Miss Piggy has the most cheesiest pick-up dialogue to which she responds, "Yuck!"
What makes The Great Muppet Caper enjoyable is that it finds room for all the memorable Muppet characters. Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo stay in the Happiness Hotel, a dilapidated building where Dr. Teeth and his band stay, along with Scooter, Rowlf, Doc, Lew Zealand, and the Swedish Chef. Rizzo the Rat works as a bellhop. Every now and again, Sam the Bald Eagle will pop his head out of a door to make a comment.
While some of the jokes went over my head as a child, I like them now. I liked how Lady Holiday goes into a monologue about how irresponsilbe Nicky is to Miss Piggy, who abruptly asks why she is being told all of this.
"It's plot explosion. It has to go somewhere," Lady Holiday says.
When Miss Piggy is framed for a robbery and arrested, a reporter asks Lady Holiday if she intends to hire any more pigs in the future.
When the newspaper editor talks about how well the bold type headline is on a rival newspaper, Kermit sarcastically answers, "Yes, it's very easy to read."
The musical numbers are a homage to old movies, especially a fantasy in which Miss Piggy sees herself as the top model in the world and does a water ballet.
One well respected critic said that Kermit had been reduced to a supporting character and accused the filmmakers of slimming down Miss Piggy.
But the joys of The Great Muppet Caper is that it gives all the Muppets something to do. I always thought Rowlf and Scooter didn't get much attention in any of the movies until the Muppet Babies show. It still focuses on the main characters of Kermit, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, and Fozzie.
The DVD does offer much except the movie in both full screen and widescreen. I recommend watching the movie in widescreen because there are things that have been missing for years from the full screen version. You finally see the jar of hot mustard Floyd has that he suggests might eat through iron bars at the Mallory Gallery.

Mmmmm

2006-03-28T19:49:00.000-08:00

I have only one thing to say about this sculpture of a pregnant Britney Spears: Some guy will be arrested for crossing the velvet rope and sticking his pelvic area up against this statue. I'm just wondering how long will it take and how many more will copycat the crime. I mean, c'mon, it's going to be placed in a Brooklyn museum.

I bet on the first day, it will be violated.

This Week in God, 3-26-06

2006-03-26T16:18:00.000-08:00

Well, everyone is talking about Abdul Rahman, who reportedly violated Afghanistan's Islamic law by converting to Christianity and can be sentenced to death. My only response to this is that the Afghanistan government not execute Rahman. C'mon, do they really need to give the Bush administration more reason to hate the country and Muslims, in general. Anyway, does the Afghanistan government want to make all the Christians in the red states be more cynical of Islam? Because that's what is going to happen?
Speaking of red states, Oklahoma is the home for Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. This week, several protestors were arrested for misdemeanor trespassing because they were speaking out against the Code of Honor agreement all students are expected to sign. These protestors were especially opposed to a section that the students will not engage in any homosexual activities.
Now, I'd hate to agree with ORU, especially when it was rumored they at one time didn't want any obese people at their school. So, I'm not. If you go to Oral Roberts University, don't be surprised to sign a Code of Honor agreement, which states that you will only worship God, and not engage in premarital sex, as well as smoking tobacco. It's not Gloria Steinem University. It's not Alec Baldwin University. It's fucking Oral Roberts University. It's a college named after a man who more or less scammed people into giving him $8 million or else God would call him home. I know Christians aren't supposed to tempt or mock God, but I think that should have been an exemption. He did get his $8 million, which goes to show people will do whatever Roberts tells them to do.
You go to Oral Roberts University to stay away from Jews, gays, Muslims, and Democrats. You don't go there to express yourself, unless you are expressing your Christian faith. This isn't like the University of Georgia, the oldest public college in America, or any other public college discriminating against people. It's a very exclusive college for people who can't deal with the real world. That's why they got their asses handing to them by Memphis in March Madness.
In related news, Roberts reportedly broke his hip at his Californian home this past week. Maybe God was trying to tell him something.

Rules to Live by

2006-03-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

Bill Maher is a funny guy. He might be one of the best comedians out there, which may explain why he hasn't had good movie roles. His filmography includes movies like D.C. Cab, Tomcats, House II: The Second Story, and Pizza Man. Richard Pryor and George Carlin had a tough time trying make good comedies. Dave Chapelle and Patton Oswalt are often casted in supporting roles.

But Maher isn't just a comedian. He's also a political comedian. Rather than talk about things that are topical, he forms an opinion. And like other comedians (Jon Stewart, Al Franken, and Dennis Miller) who have turned political, there stand-up routine seems more like they're on a soap box rather than telling jokes.

After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Maher made some comments on his now-defunct show Politically Incorrect about the American military being cowards by bombing countries from far away. A lot of people didn't like it. It was the truth. But Maher said the right thing, instead of the nice thing and the wrong time. The show was off the air within a year, after several advertisers refused to buy slots. ABC owned by conservative Disney told Maher to hit the road. It was really a blessing in disguise.

Anyone who had watched Politically Incorrect from its beginnings on Comedy Central know that something changed once it switched over to ABC. One panelist (political analyst Lakita Garth, especially) seemed to want to dominate the whole show. Maher seemed less like a host and more like a station manager, constantly reminding the panelists that the show had to cut to commercial. Gimmick shows that focused on the Mafia and tapings from the Playboy mansion were just silly.

Maher wasn't a First Amendment martyr. He was just another Hollywood personality who the conglomerates tried to tone down.

Now, he has his own show on HBO, Real Time. No commercials, more than twice as much air time, and more control over the panelists, Maher seems to speak his mind easier. He seems to enjoy it more than he did during the last years of Politically Incorrect.

Why am I saying all this? Because Bill Maher is a different type of comedian from Miller, Stewart, and Franken. Granted, we might not always agree on them, but they seemed to get more leniency. Why? Probably because they're married with children. Maher is nearly 50 and single. Unlike George Clooney, who can rely on his looks to even hush his toughest critics, Maher seems to be the guy everyone hates to love, but loves to hate. Maher is neither a Republican or a Democrat. He says he's a Libertarian. His views are those of a man who's sick and tired of the way things are being handle. But he's smart enough to know what he's talking about.

His latest book is taken from his show, Real Time. It's called New Rules: Polite Musings From a Timid Observer. Maher takes stab at topics in writings that generally two or three sentences long. The chapters are from A-Z. Each chapter ends with a rant, but unlike Miller, you don't feel like you need to consult a thesarus to understand what Maher is getting at.

Some readers might not like what Maher has to say, but he doesn't say the nice thing. He says the right thing. Granted some of his new rules seem dated now in 2006, like the Britney Spears-Madonna kiss or how Schwarzenegger has the right to run for president.

However, this is an interesting book by someone who sees the bullshit for what it is. Rather than just gripe, Maher suggest ways to fix them. Most of them are outrageous solutions, but at least he has a solution.

This Week in God, 3-19-06

2006-03-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

You got to love Scientology. It's members are Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Beck, and Lisa Marie Presley to name a few. I had no idea Isaac Hayes was a member. I say member because isn't that what all religion takes us for, just another member to the organization. "Follower" sounds too much like a cult.
This week, Hayes on the eve of a rebroadcast that never was, publically announced he was quitting his duties as Chef from South Park. Well, considering that he his last memorable episode was "You Got Fucked in the Ass!"and that was two years ago, I say "Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Isaac!"
Hayes was mad because of the infamous "Trapped in a Closet" episode of South Park where Stan is confused as the second coming of L. Ron Hubbard.
Scientology is still a young religion and like most of today's youths doesn't like to be told "No" and must be the center of attention on everything.
The episode was not re-aired and has led to one of the biggest rumors of the week that Tom Cruise pressured Comedy Central, sister company of Paramount, that he wouldn't do any publicity for Mission: Impossible 3 if the show was rebroadcast. The show hints at Cruise's homsexuality because he is in a closet and is told to come out of the closet.
First off, why does Cruise still get mad when people make fun of his sexuality. He's been married to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, been romantically involved with Penelope Cruz, and is currently dating Katie Holmes who he got pregnant. I say his next movie should be a remake of Deep Throat, so all of Hollywood will actually see him fucking a woman. Maybe that will shut them up a bit. C'mon, if you were having sex with Katie Holmes, you would be jumping up on the furniture, too? You can't act that excited about getting pussy unless you've actually gotten the pussy. Brando, Nicholson, De Niro, Pacino, Olivier, none of them could act like that. He's getting some. That's the bottom line.
Second, doesn't anyone really care about the third Mission:Impossible. Why doesn't Cruise go back to making movies like Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July and The Color of Money? Those were great movies.
Third, Scientologists just need to lighten up. If Cruise wants to stop a rebroadcast, he needs to keep Battlefield Earth from ever been shown. When this movie first premiered on HBO in 2001, even the cable didn't want to transmit it. Honestly, at least twice, the cable went out briefly for the first fifteen minutes.
If Scientology gives some people the spiritual guidance they need, then all power to them. But please, quit acting like someone just shit in your chocolate pudding when a TV show or a political cartoon makes fun of your religion.
People might actually take Scientology more seriously if ever PR photo didn't contain John Travolta and Tom Cruise hugging over each other like two drunken frat brothers.

Quite Contrary

2006-03-18T15:22:00.000-08:00

After eleven books, it's getting quite impossible for Alex Cross to function properly. He has stopped murders, criminal masterminds, and terrorists. In the real world, he would be up there to Dr. Baden, the famous forensic pathologists, but an LAPD officer doesn't know him from Adam. That's the difference between the fake world and the real world.
The written word isn't just for intellectuals. Take Harry Potter.
But those books are written for children. James Patterson should know better.
His latest work, Mary, Mary, has its moments, but it feels like it should have had a better editor. He presents a list of characters who might be potential suspects and even suggest the possible of a female serial killer. Mary, Mary would have worked better if Patterson had decided to focus entirely on the plot and leave the subplots (especially those with Cross and his family) alone.
Morgan Freeman has played the character twice in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. It's not hard to picture anyone else but Freeman. If he's smart, he would option this book for the next Alex Cross movie. Cross has sex with two women in this book and dates a third. Go Doc.
Welcome to Hollywood where a serial killer is going after famous people. Enter Alex Cross, the famous criminal psychologist, who can solve cases but can't keep his family life running normal. His vacations are interrupted by his work. He's in the middle of a custody case with his youngest son. Things aren't going smoothly.
But who cares?! We all know it's going to work out in the end (it does, with little explanation.)
However, the best parts of the book are when Cross and his colleagues are tracking the killer who goes by the psuedonym "Mary Smith."
I like the title, because we are dealing with two Marys, but I won't tell anymore.
But there are a few loopholes that Patterson doesn't clear up, like what really happened at Disneyland on the It's a Small World ride and what's the explanation of that hair in the movie theater.
Those who are unfamiliar with Patterson's writing might feel like Mary, Mary is an easy read. His chapters are 2-3 pages long on average and he writes one-line paragraphs. The book moves from first-person with Cross to third person omniscient.
Mary, Mary isn't the smartest book to come out here lately but it does propose some interesting ideas. I just wish Patterson didn't write the book like he was fulfilling some contract obligations. Parts of it feel rushed. At times, I felt like I was reading of some work from a person who just began a creative writing course at a community college.
The ending hints that Patterson might be ending things for Cross as he goes into retirement. But as long as Patterson's book keep selling, he will keep writing. And writing he has. I just wished his Alex Cross novels would return to what they once were.

No Pension for Bush!

2006-03-17T19:24:00.000-08:00

You ever heard the term, "What he can't fuck up; he'll shit on!"
Or how about "He could fuck up a cup of water!"
I know I haven't been kind to President Bush but he hasn't been kind to this country or this world. The Republican Party has finally realized they couldn't have their cake and eat it too. The Christian groups got the one President they had been hoping to get into the White House and now they might have to wear stars of David on the back of their jackets. Okay, maybe they won't.
With reports that the war (let's call it a war, enough of this Operation bullshit) in Iraq will top $1 trillion (that's $1,000,000,000,000) as the third anniversary comes on Sunday, the American deficit is going to be reported at $9 trillion (that's $9,000,000,000,000). Bush's approval ratings are closer to Nixon than Reagan at this time. A lot of people will say that Bush has had to contend with a lot of things in his Presidency, like 9/11 and well, Hurricane Katrina. Everything else is just the same shit a President deals with. Clinton had to deal with the genocide in Somalia, Rwanda (okay, he really did dick with that country) and Kosovo. But he did have Columbine. In fact, he had Columbine, Jonesboro, Arkansas, Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, Springfield, Oregon. There were a lot of school shootings during his administrations. He also had to take shit from the Republicans day in and day out.
Up until a few weeks ago, Bush didn't have to take shit from the Republicans. Now, things are different. Democrat Senator Russ Feingold said the President should be censured for his wiretaping business. Townships are starting to petition their congress representatives to impeach Bush. Don't they realize that Cheney will be the President and we might have him for eight years. Hey, strangers things have happened.
I think Congress shouldn't waste taxpayer money on another impeachment that goes nowhere. Also, considering that they didn't take the time to investigate the allegations of Weapons of Mass Destruction, no sitting Congressman who was in office in 2003 should point a finger at Bush without first pointing a finger at themselves.
No, Bush needs to get no pension.
On January 21, 2009, when Bush wakes up as a private citizen again, he should be as fucked as every other American out there. No Secret Service agents following him around. Who wants to harm an ex-President anyway? Gerald Ford was President for 29 months and had two assassination attempts. He also couldn't walk a flight of stairs without falling down. He can't even walk without tripping. He didn't need a Secret Service agent. He needed more comfortable shoes. He is the oldest American President (92 years old and counting) as well as the longest President out of office, 29 years and counting. He might still trip but no one wants him any harm. In fact, his recent illness was the first time he was in the news since the revelation of Deep Throat.
Bush is in good health and for the occasional Sedgway mishap, he takes care of himself. He is also the highest paid American President so far. At $400,000 a year, he has so far made more than $2 million and he's already a millionaire.
The new deficit is estimated at every American at $30,000 a year. That's every adult and child.
Many people out there make no more than $30,000 a year. Some make no more than $20,000. I've never made more than $20,000 in one year. Bush only has to work for 8 years. My mother has been working for more than 40 years. In a good year, she has never made $400,000.
Clinton makes more doing speeches than his pension for being an ex-President. Since President Clinton left America with a surplus, he deserves his pension. Bush has to have an ace in his sleeve to deserve his pension. Ford is in his 90's. George Sr. is in his 80's. Unless Bush is standing on the wrong side of one of those trees he likes to cut down, he's going to have one hell of a long time after he leaves the White House. Do we really need to pay this prick for another few decades?
I urge Congress not to pay this asshole one cent after his term is up.
Bush will have made $3.2 million (that's $3,200,000) before taxes when he leaves the White House in 2009. That's twice as much as Clinton and Reagan made. If Bush can't invest that money into some good savings, then he deserves to spend his 70's, leaving on Social Security and working as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

Shut the Fuck Up!

2006-03-14T18:17:00.000-08:00

First Ang Lee. Now E. Anne Proulx is bitching because some obscure short story she wrote nearly ten years ago that didn't win every award under the sun when it was turned into an overrated movie. I say, overrated, because I'm not really sure Brokeback Mountain can be that good. Even Lawrence of Arabia wasn't that good, and I believe the love between Omar Shariff and Peter Toole more than Jake G. and Heath Ledger will ever convince me.
Proulx says that it sounds like a "Sour Grapes Rant" (No?!?)
I say her 15 minutes were up a long time ago.
Ang Lee said the movie should have won because it had won everything else. That's like saying the Atlanta Braves should win the World Series every year because they make it to the playoffs. Both sited that the movie won the Independent Spirit Awards, which means the Academy Awards finally did something right.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park made fun of independent movies once in their show. Cartman said they were nothing more than gay cowboys eating pudding. Who knows independent filmmakers would take them seriously?
By all these people saying that Brokeback loss is homophobic makes the stupid theme of the movie null.
By the way, how come homophobia is the only phobia that is always used in a negative context. Don't these liberals realize that homo is a derogative term?
All the outcry over Brokeback Mountains loss proves the movie didn't deserve to win.
If people really want to complain about injustice against Brokeback, they ought to get angry at corporate America which is selling the sole short story in movie tie-in form for a retail price of $9.

Technology at its Worst

2006-03-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

In 2002, Stephen King proclaimed to Entertainment Weekly, which he know writes a column for, that he was through with publishing. His novel, From a Buick 8, had come out. Since then, he published the three remaining books in his Dark Tower series, co-authored a book about the 2004 Boston Red Sox series in which they won the World Series. Last year, his short novel, The Colorado Kid, was published in paperback.
Now, he's got a new novel, Cell, out.
Nice retirement, Steve-o.
Anyway, in the past three and a half years, cellular phones have pretty much taken over American pop culture. There are about as common now as laptops and DVD players. I know people who use their cell phones as their regular phones. Land lines are a thing of the past.
In 20 years, cell phones went for being play toys for the yuppies to being a common accessory. There are hundreds of millions of cell phones in use. Last month, I was in a bookstore at a mall when I observed a young boy, no older than six, talking on a cell phone. Quite possibly, cell phones have become this decades thing to hate. The one thing people despise but otherwise can't do without. Ten years ago, when you went to town to run some errands, you went. Now, you can't go without taking your cell phone.
They're everywhere and just about everyone has one. Well, King claims he doesn't own one. He might be serious. After reading his latest novel, you might think differently about talking on your cell while waiting in line at The Gap. Then, again, you might not.
The novel starts off in Boston with a thirtysomething artist, Clayton Riddell, who is in town trying to sell his comic ideas. All of a sudden, everyone around him, who's on a cell phone, goes nuts, acts violent, and becomes mindless zombies, all thanks to the Pulse.
Clay teams up with a fellow Bostonian and heads north through New England to Maine to save his son from the Phone Crazies, as they are called. They hook with with people, some who live and some who die and contemplate how to fight the Phone Crazies, Along the way, he learns that the Phone Crazies and the Normies, those not affected by the Pulse, are heading toward TR-90, an unincorporated community in Maine where there is not much cell coverage.
King fans might remember TR-90 as the setting of Bag of Bones.
Cell isn't as scary as it is a comment on modern technology. Set sometime in the near future, the book has reference to Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attacks, but the year definitely doesn't feel like 2006. King, who is no friend of the GOP, makes stabs at George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfield. The book seems to be set after the Bush administration ends.
King has been publishing his stories for decades now. As he goes from middle-aged to senior citizenship, he seems to have gotten more cynical about pop culture the way Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and George Carlin have.
Cell is dedicated to George A. Romero and Richard Matheson and it is a rightful homage. While the idea of violent zombies is nothing new, this isn't a Living Dead book. Romero's movies were more commentaries on ideas at the time rather than straight horror. Matheson is a writer for The Twilight Zone series, most notably, the episode in which there was a gremlin on the plane wing. A good horror/suspense writer takes something that is considered harmless and makes us afraid like Jaws did with swimming.
A lot of King fans might not like the older writer. But I like his evolution. His early works were true horror. Then, his works in the 1980's seemed to refleck his struggle with celebrity status, such as The Dead Zone and Misery. In the 1990's, he focused his attention on spousal abuse, child abuse, child neglect, incest, racism, and the death penalty.
But ever since his near fatal accident in 1999, his works seem different. The Dark Tower series seemed to end with a bit of a whimmer. Flagg dies easily in the first part of the seventh book leading for a confrontation with The Crimson King (?) and there's a bizarro world in which Gary Hart is the President of the United States (???)
The ending of Cell doesn't really resolve matters as it leaves the reader's imagination open for what might happen afterwards.
After the publication of From a Buick 8, critics said that he had recycled the concept of Christine. Anyone who read both books knows that not the case. Cell seems to have similarities with The Stand in the end of the world plot. The Raggedy Man, the book's antagonist, seems similar to Flagg.
Anyway, King still knows how to write characters who seem like actual people. That is his specialty. Cell is only about 350 pages which is half the size from his other books and there are parts that seem to lag, even though he gets the ball rolling within the first 10 pages.
True King fans will like this book.
As well as anyone who hates cell phones.

Half Season, Twice as Good

2006-03-06T22:12:00.000-08:00

Please, a moment of silence for Edgar of 24, who died of nerve gas poisoning on Monday's show. While the show brought back Elisha Cuthbert, dating a creepy looking C. Thomas Howell, and put them in a dangerous position within the hour, I like the halfway point so far.
Maybe the whole thing with the First Lady Martha Logan (Jean Smart) getting a little to close to her Secret Service agent hero was silly, but the final scene of Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) crying as Edgar gagged for air was a way to end a show.

Academy Awards Recap

2006-03-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, so maybe the Academy did listen to a bunch of people who thought Reese Witherspoon was better than Felicity Huffman, who's nomination was helped in part by a 60 Minutes interview in January.
But wow, thank God, they voted for Crash.
I know Brokeback Mountain was supposed to be the movie to win and some people might debate how a movie about two men hiding their love for each other from everyone for 30 years is better than a movie about racial intolerance. Not me. (I'm sorry but I don't believe Jake Gyllenhaal looks a day over 30 when he pops up with his mustache and grey streaks in hair.) But let's face it, a lot of people in the red states probably breathed a sigh of relief when Jack Nicholson said, "Crash!"
Crash won because of a number of reasons.
Reason #1: It's damn good!
Reason #2: It's an ensemble piece, with big name stars and character actors from a diverse background. It also knows to use Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser only when needed.
Reason #3: Parents would rather their kids watch a movie about racism in America than gay love in America.
Reason #4: Both sides of the politicial fence, the conservatives and the liberals, blasted this movie. The conservatives hated it because it doesn't show the America they wished existed and the liberals hate it because it shows that it's not just whites who are responsible for racial tensions.
Reason #5: The Academy likes a little excitement. Everyone wants Brokeback Mountain to win and it was projected to win, but nothing is ever certain.

Brokeback Mountain might be a good movie. I haven't seen it. I have seen Crash many times and can say it was one of the best movies of 2005.

I'm glad Witherspoon won. Didn't she look so cute in that dress? Is she does a Legally Blonde 3, then I think the award should be taken back.

As for all the people who thought Jon Stewart would blow it as host. He worked best when he was working off script, as in his reaction to 360 Mafia winning best song. And he got the Death to Smoochy joke out first. Maybe they'll let him come back next year. Maybe

Academy Awards Predictions

2006-03-03T20:12:00.000-08:00

With the 78th Academy Awards coming on Sunday, I want to present a rundown of who should win and who will win.

Zane's Picks

Best Picture: Crash

Best Director: Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain, after the mixed reviews of The Hulk, he bounched back without looking back.

Best Actor in a Lead Role: David Strathairn for Good Night and Good Luck, a character actor for decades finally gets his due

Best Actress in a Lead Role: Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line, a former child actress turned box office gold finally has her talents recognized.

Best Supporting Actor: Matt Dillon for Crash, another former child actor who's done everything under the sun.

Best Supporting Actress: Catherine Keener, for Capote, it would at least make for a good Death to Smoochy joke with host Jon Stewart

Who the Academy Awards will pick:

Best Picture: Despite an upset by Crash, Brokeback Mountain is going to win.

Best Director: Ang Lee, he's already won in the Foreign Language category for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but the Academy wants to make a statement by having the first Asian director to win.

Best Actor in a Lead Role: Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Capote, like Strathairn, he's a former character actor and he's playing a real person. However, voters might think Hoffman did a better Capote than Strathairn did a Edward R. Murrows.

Best Actress in a Lead Role: Felicity Huffman for TransAmerica, because she does the beautiful actress turned ugly role. Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf. Charlize Theron as Aileen Wournos. It's no contest.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Voters might think George Clooney does a good job by changing his physical appearance in Syrianna, but they might also like to hate Matt Dillon's character in Crash, so Dillon has the momentum now.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Rachel Weisz has gotten all the recognition for The Constant Gardener because she plays a character who dies and she shows that she can do more than act in The Mummy movies.

I mention earlier that Clooney is up for a Best Supporting Actress nomination as well as a Best Director nomination for Good Night and Good Luck. Let me tell you that he won't go home empty handed. Even though the Academy likes actors turned directors, Clooney's talents will be recognized in the Best Original Screenplay category. Clooney along with actor, Grant Heslov (True Lies) scripted the movie. The Academy loves it win actors can write screenplays, i.e. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting.

We'll see on Sunday night who the winner is.

Gimme a Break!

2006-02-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

Why is it that everytime some wins the lottery and it's a huge jackpot, like yesterday's reported $365 million, no one comes forth immediately?
If I had won more than one-third of a billion dollars, I would contact the lottery commission immediately and hire about a dozen off-duty cops to escort me to the headquarters office to claim my prize.
I'm tired of these people being noble and not wanting to come forth, but you're fucking rich now. Who cares what other people say about you?

DVD Pick of the Week, 2-15-06

2006-02-15T20:06:00.000-08:00

Even if Richard Pryor hadn't asked to cut the ordered number of episodes of The Richard Pryor Show from ten to four, they all would have probably never aired anyway. The variety show was just that, a variety show, mixing comedy and drama, slapstick and satire, goofiness and thoughtfulness. It was one of the best worst ideas for 1970's television.
With Pryor's death in December of last year, BET made homage to him, but showing such movies like the disappointing Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling and shows like I Ain't Dead Yet. Quite possibly, a lot of Pryor fans put The Richard Pryor Show on their Christmas list at the last minute and were probably disappointed with what they say.
Pryor was a comedian who made the horrible humorous. He was funny and dangerous to mainstream America. So, NBC tried to follow on the success of Saturday Night Live with a ready for primetime cast. But Pryor has said the censors got in the way and decided to quit while he was ahead.
Still, the four aired episodes and special are together on a three-disc collection. It's not just for Pryor fans. Familiar faces such as Marsha Warfield (Night Court), Paul Mooney (Hollywood Shuffle) John Witherspoon (Friday) Sandra Bernhard (The King of Comedy), Tim Reid (WKRP in Cincinnati) James Martinez (Life Stinks) and Charles Fleischer (the voice of Roger Rabbit) appear in the skits along with some guy named Robin Williams before Mork and Mindy made him famous.
But this is The Richard Pryor Show and he is the star. It probably would have worked better as an ensemble.
Some of the skits are great. There is a funny parody of the Star Wars catina scene. Pryor and Warfield have a great scene of pantomine in a restaurant. Performers do improv and later roast Pryor. But the dramatic sketches don't work. A bit about gun violence becomes too preachy. There is also a small story about a WWII soldier returning home to find out his girlfriend, now a singer, is engaged. But Pryor shows his soft side in a bit performing as a circus clown to kids. However, bits about a woman talking about being sexually assaulted and Maya Angelou speaking to a passed out drunk about how much she loves him don't seem to fit. Also, there is a corny bit on the bonus special where kids give us a song and dance history lesson about innovators and inventors who are of different races. It probably wouldn't have seemed so bad if the kid's 1970's fashion wasn't so tacky.
Some of the jokes are about as topical as your latest Spiro Agnew office joke. Pryor does a funny impression of General Amin, but you might be wondering, who the hell is General Amin?
One of the best parts of the DVD is on the special features where Pryor does a Q&A with the answer and it's uncensored.
After sitting through the three hours plus of this show, you might find yourself asking, what was so bad about it that made the censors angry. This show came out in 1977, the same year George Carlin did his first HBO special and disclaimers appeared warning viewers of Carlin's language and that was cable TV.
The Richard Pryor Show is only for those who are true Pryor fans or if you like John Witherspoon, Robin Williams, Sandra Bernhard, etc. This is a like it or hate it DVD. I like it. Maybe you will too.

Where is the Love?!

2006-02-14T07:22:00.000-08:00

On Valentine's Day, about 12,000 people have found themselves without a suitable residence. I'm talking about the U.S. Government's refusal to keep paying hotel bills for Katrina and Rita evacuees. I know what you're saying, it's been six months. Surely, they could have found a better place to stay by now, right?
You got a good argument. I just want to know how this hasn't been handled better by the so-called "liberal" media.
No, all they want to comment on is Britney Spears and Dick Cheney. Listen, both of them were acting stupid and doing something that was against the law. Spears didn't properly restrain her child and Dick shot a man in the face, neck, and chest, accidentally, but since he was hunting without the proper stamp of approval, he was breaking the law.
So many people, including our Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta, are criticizing Britney Spears for what might have happened. A lot of things might have happened. But mights are on chicken butts. But the truth is that the second most powerful man in America was reckless with a shotgun and injured someone else.
Firearms and automobiles are the two most deadliest weapons out there in America. But at the end of the day, Britney Spears' child was never harmed. Harry Whittington was. Dick Cheney is going to have to live with that the rest of his life, so it's about time we stop getting onto the former teenie bopper. When she takes a 28 gauge shotgun and fires it in the direction of a fellow hunter, then we can talk about her recklessness.
In other news, Saddam Hussein has refused to eat in protest of his trial. Well, don't eat. I don't give a shit. I give him a week. Pussy.

Blast from the Past, 2-13-06

2006-02-13T19:27:00.000-08:00

Anyone who wants to criticize the value of comedy in American pop culture, need look no further than Ruthless People for proof that laughter is the best medicine.
In 1986, the directing team of ZAZ, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker and Jim Abrahams, was still flying high on the success of Airplane! despite the failed TV show, Police Squad! (basis for The Naked Gun movies) and the lesser recognized Top Secret! with a young Val Kilmer.
Then, they decided to direct someone else's script. The result is one of the funniest comedies ever, comparing to Airplane! Loosely based on O. Henry's "The Ransom of the Red Chief," the plot is complicated, so just bare with me.
Danny Devito plays Sam Stone, the spandex mini-skirt king, a greedy little weasel of a man, who is married to Barbara (Bette Middler) a pampered heiress who is so annoying "Ghandi would have strangled her." Sam Stone is having an affair with Carol Dodsworth (Anita Morris) who is having an affair with Earl Mott (Bill Pullman) who is as one character observes might just be the dumbest man on the planet. Sam trusts Carol so much that he tells her his plans to murder Barbara to inherit her money. Carol double-crosses Sam and gets Earl to videotape the murder in attempt to blackmail him.
This has all the workings of a flim noir, but I remind you this is a comedy.
However, Sam Stone can't murder Barbara because she has already been kidnapped. When Sam hears that the kidnappers will kill Barbara if he doesn't follow their exact orders, he does the opposite. The blood will be off his hands and he's rich.
There's only one problem. The kidnappers, Ken and Sandy Kessler (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater, respectively) are more Ozzie and Harriet than Bonnie and Clyde. They want a little reparations on Sam Stone after stealing their idea for the spandex mini-skirt
To tell anymore would give too much away. If you think I've told a mouthful, well, there's more that happens. I've just described the first twenty minutes of a ninety minute movie.
Ruthless People works because ZAZ knows that dramatic irony works well in comedy. Every character in this movie knows just as much as they should know to know nothing at all.
Throw in subplots about a serial killer and a prominent public official engaged in a lewd act, it's amazing that writer Dale Launer was able to bring it altogether in the end.
DeVito has never been better than in this movie. He is the type of actor who can take slimy creeps and turn them into likeable characters. Just watch his face go from anger to confusion to relief and excitement as he hears his wife is kidnapped. DeVito is actually having to act well at acting badly around the police to show that he cares about Barbara.
Middler has a more difficult role of being totally loathed for the first half and then liked for the second half. But she does it.
DeVito and Middler should have gotten Academy Awards for their roles.
Reinhold and Slater are perfectly casted as Ken and Sandy. Bill Pullman, in his first movie role, is great. The late Anita Morris gives a good send-up of the femme fatales in her role.
Ruthless People is vulgar, so it's not for everyone. It is also noteworthy for being the last movie David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams directed together.
For them, the third movie was the charm.

Shut the Fuck Up!

2006-02-13T08:08:00.000-08:00

Why do people hate Britney Spears?
Is it that she achieved fame and fortune by the time she was 18?
Could it be that she hasn't gone into the child star downward spiral of sex, drugs, and alcohol?
Or could it be that we are jealous of what she has?
I think it's the third option.
We don't like Britney Spears for the same reasons we don't lilke Bush, Michael Jackson, and Martha Stewart. It takes more effort to dislike, so we feel like we are doing something constructive.
I don't agree with how Ms. Spears held her child in a car, but it doesn't mean she's a bad parent. If the news media did stories on every reported parent who hadn't properly restrained their child in a moving vehicle, well, we'd have to create a new news channel.
What we want to do is complain and explain how Britney Spears should be thrown in jail. Yeah, that's right. Let Kevin Federine take care of the child 24/7. Believe me, Britney is the better parent regardless.
Parenting is a job that you're never fully prepared for even if you think you are and that never ends. There are no coffee breaks, no vacations and no early retirement. You have good days and you have bad days. Some days, you're an employee of the month candidate and others you feel like you're hanging by a thread. But you get through it.
Britney Spears just wanted to get away from the papparazzis who are now going to act like they are Bill Cosby for taking these pictures.
One time, I was a gas station and a very rude motorist was blessing out a woman who was straping on the seat belts to her children. When she pulled away, she yelled for everyone to hear, "I'm sorry, but I wanted my kids to be safe!" Amen.
People are asking what would happen if she had been in a wreck. Rather than play Monday morning quarterback, use this energy to help actual victims of traffic accidents.
Britney Spears probably has learned her lesson. If anything else, it's made more parents a little more careful with their children in a car.

It Had to Happen Sometime

2006-02-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

Politicians are always taking their cronies on hunting trips.
And there are always accidents on hunting trips.
Yet, this weekend's events might be a first and it couldn't have happened to a nicer man.
Vice-President Dick Cheney has reportedly and accidentally shot Harry Whittington, an attorney from Austin, Texas.
It's a good thing Whittington survived getting hit with a 28 gauge shotgun from thirty yards away and regardless of his politics, I hope he recovers well. But I don't think a man like Cheney even should operate a water gun.
Just because he wants to look and act like The Penguin from Batman doesn't mean he should be able to carry and operate weapons like shotguns

Welcome Back, Sawyer

2006-02-09T19:39:00.000-08:00

To say this season of Lost has sucked would be too kind, it's been all Ana Lucia and Jack and Locke. But after a piss poor season focusing more on the tailies, Sawyer is back to his old tricks and it's about time.

The writers and producers deciding to put Locke and Jack in their place and thank God, because they were getting kinda boring.

Before this show gets permanently lost, its starting to be interesting again.

I still say they should lose Locke. He's starting to be a little like Potsy on Happy Days now.

Last Movement

2006-02-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

After a long week of moving, things are finally getting back to normal. I will resume my post tomorrow.
Take it easy.

Some People Call Me a Gay Cowboy

2006-01-31T09:36:00.000-08:00

Well, surprise! surprise! surprise!
Any efforts by Hollywood actors to prove to those in Bumblefuck Eqypt, Alabama that they are not all homosexuals was poo-pooed for another year today.
Four actors have been nominated for playing gay characters. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal got nominated for their work in Brokeback Mountain. Phillip Seymour Hoffman got a nomination for his work as Truman Capote and Felicity Huffman got a nomination for playing a man, yes, a man who wants to be a woman in TransAmerica.
Today's nomination came as no shock to anyone, except for those wondering why Wedding Crashers was snubbed.
I must admit I am glad to see that the Best Picture nominations included movies that had messages rather than safe plot shit like The Full Monty, Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient, Forrest Gump, and Chicago.
It's cold-blooded killers, gay cowboys, Los Angelesans who are angry at those of different color and race, Isrealis killing people, and McCarthyism communist witch-hunting. This has got to be one of the most politicial Academy Awards races in years. No cute little puppy dog stuff here. No talking pigs, and best yet, no Harvey Weinstein.
I'm just mad that they go no nods to The 40-Year-Old-Virgin. What's the matter Academy?

DVD Pick of the Week, 1-27-06

2006-01-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

George Orwell was on to something when he titled his work, 1984. With Ronald Reagan re-elected by get the electorial votes of 49 states, the Moral Majority seemed to take over America. With the invention of the PG-13 rating code, filmmakers had some middle ground to make movies. Let me just say, the PG-13 rating has pretty much ruined America cinema for the past 20 years.
Gross-out sex comedy movies like National Lampoon's Animal House, National Lampoon's Vacation, Up the Creek, Bachelor Party, and Porky's prevailed in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Then, some fucker named John Hughes came along and comedy for the next ten years from 1984-1994 was clean. Sex was bad. I mean, this is the decade that saw five Nightmare on Elm Street movies, eight Friday the 13th movies, three Halloweens (none of that Season of the Witch crap), and endless more slasher movies in which premarital teen/college sex ends in violence.
The Police Academy movies began to hold back as the movie sequels went on from R to PG-13 to PG.
Even Mel Brooks, a man who once proclaimed his movie The Producers rises below vulgarity, had calmed down with Spaceballs. Only the team of Zucker-Abrahama-Zucker was able to make the R-rated Ruthless People, before toning down their act for The Naked Gun/Hot Shots movies.
But God bless Clinton. His infedility and pot smoking made it A-Okay again to have dick and fart jokes in movies again.
What I'm getting at here is Dumb and Dumber. Sure Ace Ventura: Pet Detective had these jokes. But the critics bashed it and they expected people to stay away. But they didn't. After the spoof craze of 1993, audiences needed something different. Jim Carrey was the ticket for comedy in 1994.
This is the first movie by Farrelly Brothers and it is the first in their trilogy that was followed by Kingpin and There's Something About Mary. Everything since Me, Myself, and Irene has gone a different route.
Recently released on DVD as an unrated version, Dumb and Dumber is six minutes longer, but about the same. It's still pretty much PG-13 stuff. Well, maybe old school PG-13. There's more Sea Bass (Cam Nealy) as his scenes in the truck stop diner and gas station bathroom are extended. There's an scene in which we see Harry (Jeff Daniels) dressing up in his skiing tights, which explains why he was wearing shorts over the pelvic area in a later scene. In that same scene, Lloyd (Carrey) points out that if he and Mary wed, then she will be Mary Christmas. This scene was probrably cut from the original version because funny names aren't funny.
Also extended is the scene in the hot tub at the motel in which Lloyd listens to a couple next door have sex and then there's more talk about Freta Felcher.
Probably the funniest new bit is watching Harry tear about the toilet and dump the contents out the window as he is talking to Mary.
There are two scnes that aren't funny and extraneous. One has Mental (Mike Starr) actually breaking the parkeet's neck. (Well, we don't see it. He does it underneath the frame and we hear the snap.) Harry talking about his parkeet's head falling off is funnier without any prior knowledge. We know the parakeet is killed.
Speaking of Mental, the scene in which he hitchhikes with Lloyd and Harry has been extended to show Shay (Karen Duffy) squating to "squeeze a lemon." This was added because Mental keeps telling her to stay down as the Shagging-Wagon pulls up.
Sadly, Crash Test Dummies "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" is missing from the soundtrack while Harry, Lloyd, and Mental bicker over the atomic peppers.
Also missing from the special features documentary "Still Dumb After all These Years" are the Farrelly Brothers and Jim Carrey. But it does have Brady Bluhm who played the blind boy, Billy, who says that he improvised, "Polly want a cracker."
Okay. Whatever.
However, watching the parts with Charles Rocket are hard, considering that he committed suicide in October of last year and filmed his interview before his death.
One piece of information on the documentary that is interesting is Jeff Daniels talking about the infamous Turbo Lax scene. He says that Clint Eastwood told him about a similar situation the man from Malpaso had with a date.
The deleted scenes are interesting, but not funny. There's a scene in which Andre (Rocket) and Shay talk with Mary's husband, Bobby, who is trapped in a steamer box. There's a scene in which Carrey does an Exorcist bit. The alternative endings are nice, but I'm glad the Farrelly went with the Hawaiin Tropic models.
There is a hidden special feature in which Jesse Borja who played the cook who knew martial arts talks about how Jim Carrey improvised their scene. By now, hearing that Carrey improvises his scenes is like hearing that De Niro likes to stay in character between takes.
One of the best special features are the trailers which poke fun of action/adventure and feel-good comedy movies.
Despite its cons, this edition of Dumb and Dumber is a must for its fans. True, it doesn't have any commentary from the Farrelly Brothers and Jim Carrey, but what are they going to say that they haven't said already. Bobby Farrelly has said numerous times that they had no idea how to direct a movie.
But then again, it doesn't take Martin Scorsese to direct a movie like Dumb and Dumber, even though that's an intereting thought.

In Memoriam

2006-01-26T10:16:00.000-08:00

It would be foolish to say that Chris Penn never escaped from the shadow of his brother, Sean, especially since Chris Penn worked with Robert Altman, one of the best directors of movies. On January 24, the actor died of reported natural causes, ending an acting career that started in the late 1970's. Penn was only 40 when he passed away, but he was as famous as his brother, thanks to roles in movies like Footloose, All the Right Moves, Reservoir Dogs, and Short Cuts.
Comparing the Penn brothers is like comparing, well, apples and oranges.
Like most Hollywood siblings, they hardly ever worked together. But when they did, it was one of the greatest crime movies ever, At Close Range, based on actual events. Chris and Sean Penn played brothers, who admire their father played by Christopher Walken, who is a criminal. They work for him and then are betrayed by him. Chris Penn has a good scene with Walken in which they have gone out to a field. Walken is going to kill him and bury him. When asked if he will testify against his father, Penn's character obviously lies. Then in a last moment of sympathy, he yells, "Daddy!" and is shot.
It was Penn's performance as a daddy's boy that would make him an icon in the independent film craze of the early 1990's. Penn was cast as Nice Guy Eddie Cabot, a second generation criminal who is more bark than bite. Just listen to him yell, "Larry, stop pointing that fucking gun at my dad!"
Penn has a good piece of dialogue when he is telling a revenge story of a cocktail waitress to his fellow criminals. But Nice Guy Eddie was a daddy's boy and Penn played him too a T, with all that bad jewelry. Nice Guy Eddie was just sleazy and worse, a wannabe.
Of course, Reservoir Dogs brought a big discussion of "Who Shot Nice Guy Eddie?" because of malfunctioing special effects.
Sadly, Penn never was cast in many leading role. He was often portrayed as the buddy in movies like Footloose, All the Right Moves, and Made in U.S.A. It's sad that his weight kept him from getting many bigger roles. He was often playing either bad guys or police officers in movies.
Quite possibly, his best performance was in Short Cuts as Jerry Kaiser, a pool cleaner who listen to his wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh, talk dirty as a phone sex operator.
Like many actors, he found one of his performance on the cutting room floor. It's a shame that the filmmakers of American Pie 2 cut Penn's performance as Stifler's dad. It could have brought him a whole new audience.
Rest in Peace
10-10-1965 to 1-24-2006

American Justice

2006-01-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

I just got selected for jury duty next month. The letter had all these words about doing my duty to my country. Let me tell you that it makes me feel so great that we live in a country that feels that Richard Hatch, Bobby Fischer, and Martha Stewart are such a threat to national security. I mean Robert Blake, O.J. Simpson, and Michael Jackson are out there behaving like model citizens. But a chess match with a resident of a nation that we don't like. Bring down the hammer.
Let me tell you, that I would rather piss off Richard Hatch than Robert Blake. I definitely would leave kids in the custody of Martha Stewart than Michael Jackson.
I know what you're going to say that Jackson, Simpson, and Blake were all acquitted. I like the word "acquitted." It's not the same thing as saying "not guilty" or "innocent." Acquitted basically means that you were probably guilter than sin, but our judicial system fucked up and didn't do what it was supposed to put your ass away.
Even when we use "not guilty," we got to use it in a condescending way like "He was found not guilty" rather than "The jury determined that he was not guilty." It's almost like we're ashamed to admit that the jurors are idiots. You can't find that someone is not guilty. This is Hollywood thinking or last minute evidence. Having covered courts, I know the judicial process is full of procedures. You more than likely don't go to trial unless you're guilty.
For the most part, Simpson, Blake, and Jackson probably did what they were accussed of. Come on, Simpson was found liable of wrongful death in civil court. That means he was capable of doing the murders. Not that he actually did them, but he was capable of it.
But poor Richard Hatch. Now, it's going to become a celebrity thing. Or a gay thing. Or a nudist thing? Like they tried to play the race card with Simpson and Jackson. Richard Hatch is not a celebrity in my eyes. He's a hack. He's a game show winner. Nothing more. Nothing less.
But I will feel safer knowing that he isn't out there doing anymore tax evasion.

Bad Locke

2006-01-25T19:12:00.000-08:00

Hey, hey, ho, ho! John Locke has got to go!
I wonder when the producers of ABC's Lost are going to change the show's title to Locke, in reference to the character of John Locke, the one-kidney paraplegic turned boring survivalist. At first, I liked the character, but the writers have overdone it. Why do they think we only want to watch his character walk around in that grungy green shirt? He's in almost every fucking scene of every fucking episode squinting his eyes at everything going on.
Wednesday's episode really showed that he's turning into a Hank Hill and that's not a compliment. I agree that Charlie shouldn't have started that fire and left little Aaron alone. But Locke's actions are the exact same thing he would bad mouth another character of. Of all the characters they could have killed off, why not Locke?
Every episode of Lost I tune into now, I hope and pray that Locke only has one small scene, but no, that ugly mug of his permeates almost every scene. If it wasn't for the flashbacks, I would quit watching altogether.
If I was a writer for this show, I would have Mr. Eko beat him to a bloody pup with that big club of his and toss him into the ocean.
I like Terry O'Quinn and this is nothing against him as an actor.
I just want more of the other characters. I urge you out there to join me in the LoseLocke campaign before Lost losses his audience. It's very close to jumping the shark if Locke dominates another consective episode.

Virgin Territory

2006-01-23T17:14:00.000-08:00

Hey, hey, hey, hey, mutha fucka!
With the Academy Award nominations about a week away from being announced, I can already predict what this year will be like.
Movies like Munich, Walk the Line, Brokeback Mountain, Crash, Capote, and even The New World will probably be familiar titles nominated. It wasn't a good year for movies, both commercially and critically, so you don't got to be a Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Periot to use deductive reasoning to determine that this might be one of the most boring years for the Academy Awards.
After watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin again this weekend, I've decided that you got to give props to a comedy that doesn't use a fart or shit joke, even though there are vomit and piss jokes. Oh, and dick and tit jokes. Jokes about pussy, bestiality, masturbation, and pot smokers to say the least are sprinled throughout the movie.
Yet, there is something strange about Virgin that I couldn't put my finger on the first time I saw it. Even though it is a comedy, there is something real about it. Most comedies often seemed to have a huge suspension of disbelief on them. Unlike Judd Apatow's previous work, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin actually gives us characters we like rather than one-dimensional caricatures.
It would be a bold movie for the Academy to nominate the movie for Best Picture and Apatow for Best Director, but then again, they have nominated Airport and The Towering Inferno. If Forrest Gump could win, the door is wide open.
Steve Carrell might not be a Brando or De Niro, but there is definitely some method acting to the chest hair waxing scene. There has been a rumor that Jack Nicholson actually let Roman Polanski cut his nose on Chinatown. Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken used a live round in the Russian roulette scenes in The Deer Hunter. Also, it's a hard job to make people laugh, intentionally. So, why not a Best Actor nomination.
She will probably get a nomination for her role as Harper Lee in Capote, but Catherine Keener's performance as the "hot grandma" Trish helps keep the movie from going in the directon of Porky's. Her character is just as hung up as Carrell's Andy and the two make a perfect match. The scenes between Carrell and Keener pull us back to reality.
The supporting cast is great as well. Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Romany Malco, and Gerry Bednob are casted as Andy's co-workers who really want to help him get laid, but are too stupid to do it the right way. Even better, a lot of people can draw comparision between their friends. Rudd's scene with the porno tapes, Rogen's advice about being David Caruso from Jade, Malco's scenes with the hostile black customer, and any of Bednob's scene would make great clips to be shown on Oscar night.
Now, for the dark horse candidate would go to Michael McDonald. Now, the Doobie Brothers keyboardist never actually appears in the movie except for constantly being shown on a TV making things miserable for Rudd's character. Surely, the man must have had a sense of humor about his own status in the adult contemporary/easy listening scene.
Both Apatow and Carrell have composed a script that walks the line between being clever and being stupid.
While Virgin seems to get its due on the dreaded MTV Movie Awards, which has hailed Napoleon Dynamite as the greatest film of he year, it's about time the Academy Awards gave comedy what it deserves.
Wouldn't it be fun to see host Jon Stewart mess with Carrell at the Oscar show?

This Week in God, 1-21-05

2006-01-21T20:26:00.000-08:00

This past week, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagan joined the many of religious zealots who blame bad weather on an angry God. He said the hurricanes that hit New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and everywhere else in North America was punishment from an angry God over everything that more than two people view as immoral. (I'm not going to mention his chocolate comment because that is too stupid even for a blog like this.)
Keep in mind this is the same Mayor Nagan who said several bureaucrats at the state and federal level need to get off their "goddamn asses" and help them. I guess blaspheme is another one of those reasons for the wrath of God. It is one of the Ten Commandments.
When I attended Sunday school as a young boy, I was always taught that God loved us. Why is it that people always assume that everything bad that happens is because of an angry God? What ever happened to Satan? Doesn't he do a lot of bad things, like David Berkowitz and Richard Ramirez.
Okay, so maybe we can all be followers of Jonathan Edwards, who believe we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, but shouldn't we just assume shit happens. More appropriately, God happens.
How come people only thank God when they win some silly sporting event? I once met a woman who thank God every morning she got up. That is something to thank God for, life.
Apparently, by the rhetoric of all these people who believe we are living in end times, God loves us, but it's tough love. It's the tough love many fathers give their sons when they toss them into the deep end of the pool so they can learn to swim. It's the tough love a man gives his wife in the way of a fist for not obeying him.
If God is angry at anyone, he is probably angry at all the people who always want to paint him as the avenger. I know God isn't supposed to play favorites. He's supposed to love everyone equally and evenly. But maybe, He holds a special place for those people like the little old woman who thank Him for one more day on Earth, regardless of how bad things might have seemed.

Where Have all the Gay Cowboys Gone?

2006-01-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

With all the talk over Brokeback Mountain, it leads me to think that movie critics have no memories anymore. I know they're all saying that it's not a gay cowboy movie, but it is a gay cowboy movie. In fact, if you look at almost all cowboy movies, there seems to always be a somewhat homoerotic connection between the characters. Well, maybe not in those John Wayne pieces of crap, but there has been talk that Randolph Scott and Cary Grant were more than roommates if you know what I mean (wink-wink, nudge, nudge, say no more.)
A few filmmakers knew there's something going on with the cowpoles. Take the 1994 Eugene Levy movie, Sodbusters, in which a blacksmith and a farmer fall in love, much to the confusion of lead actor Kris Kristofferson, who wonders why the farmer has naked male statuettes all over his house.
Or what about Wagons East, which had John C. McGinley, as a fey gunslinger. Or how about Tombstone, in which deputy Jason Priestley admired Billy Zane's acting a little too much.
But three of the greatest Westerns ever made all had cowboys who were a little too close than they should have been.
In Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, William Holden's Pike and Ernest Borgnine's Dutch seem to have a relationship that is more like a marriage. They fight and then they make up. Why doesn't Dutch go see a prostitute at the end like the rest of the bunch? Also, Robert Ryan's Deke Thornton has a past with Pike that is more than revenge. Thornton still has feelings for Pike after all the betrayal, which is why he doesn't go off with the bounty hunters at the end. Let's not forget, the bunch risking their lives to save the life of their friend, Angel. If that isn't love, I don't know what is.
Flash forward about twenty years and you have Lonesome Dove. The 1989 miniseries based on the book by Larry McMurty, who co-wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain, has two aging Texas Rangers Gus McCrae (Robert Duvall) and Woodrow Call (Tommy Lee Jones), who live together and have been friends for years. Call is an emotionless man who is forced to hang one of his old friends, and watch two more friends die as he travels from Texas to Montana. He also tiptoes around the fact that he is Newt's son. In the end, Gus dies of an infection and Call takes him hundreds of miles to his burial. Why does Call do this? Because he's made a promise to his friend. From the grave, Gus made Call prove that he could be a man of compassion and love.
Okay, so maybe the reason they are making a big deal out of Brokeback Mountain is that it has pretty boys Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. If given the choice between watching a sex scene between Ledger andGyllenhall and Duvall and Jones, I'd take neither, but I would settle for the former.
So, in comes pretty boy Kevin Costner, at one time, before he got chubby and balding, in Dances With Wolves. There's the infamous butt scene of Costner's character after he first encounters Graham Greene's Kicking Bird. The extended edition has Kicking Bird making referene to the sex. But there is something between Rodney A. Grant's Wind in his Hair and Costner's character. At first, they are rivals. Then, they become close friends. Wind in his Hair kills for Dances with Wolves and in the end confesses that they are good friends. It's a little corny, but it's obvious that there is platonic love between Dances with Wolves and Wind in his Hair, two men who are cautious of each other to begin with.
If you are interested in any more gay cowboy stuff, I suggest you try to find the King of the Hill episode in which Dale confronts his gay cowboy rodeo star father, voiced nonetheless by Charles Nelson Reilly. The scene in which Dale's father has to rope a cow and put panties on it is priceless.

Here's to the New Season

2006-01-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

Okay, so maybe Elisha Cuthbert has gone to the 24 Grey Havens forever. Nothing on 24 is etched in stone, but we can always hope Kim Bauer will never come back. (Thank God.) It looks like the fifth season of the show has taken out not one but two major characters in the show's history in the first ten minutes. Former President David Palmer (Dennis Hasybert) got assassinated. Tony Almeda (Carlos Bernard) is in a coma. His wife, Michelle (Reiko Aylesworth) is dead.
As a new season approaches, it leaves me with a little wonder. Why are they going after the same old plots twists? The current President has a mole. I would roll my eyes and groan at this often used tactic if the character wasn't being playing by John Allen Nelson, star of such 1980's crap like Hunk and Killer Klowns From Outer Space. Also, I like that Gregory Itzen is playing the current President Charles Logan in a cross between Richard Nixon and Tweek from South Park. He's still a better President than Bush. Also, former Designing Women Jean Smart is his neurotic wife, who makes Betty Ford look like Betty Crocker.
Then, there's Diane (Connie Britton) Jack Bauer's landlady/possible love interest/candidate for Hottest TV Mom of 2006. Something tells me that next week's confrontation between Diane and Audrey Raines (Kim Raver) Jack's former girfriend, while be a catfight worthy of Dynasty status.
I still don't know what to think of Sean Astin as the governmental beaucrat Lynn McGill, but here's hoping the new season will be as good as the previous four.

This Week in God, 1-15-06

2006-01-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

Well, Pat Robertson apologized for the comments he said about Ariel Sharon, prime minister of Isreal. This is a tactless move by the aging televangelist and I will tell you why. First, he says whatever he wants about someone, giving caution to everything he is supposed to be preaching about. Then, when everyone gets upset, he apologizes and asks for forgiveness, expecting us to do it. Because if we don't, we aren't following Jesus' teachings. To him, He thinks won twice.
Enough of Robertson for one day.
The NBC affiliate in Nashville became the fourth station in the country to refuse to carry The Book of Daniel. So far, NBC affiliates in Amarillo, Texas, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Terre Haute, Indiana have reportedly refused to air this new series.
I agree with the Christian groups partly on this subject. I, for one, am sick and tired of all these shows that are supposed to be religious, but yet go for shock value instead.
I like 7th Heaven, but I didn't care for Nothing Sacred. Nor did Touched by an Angel, Promised Land, or Revelations make me want to tune in.
If these four news stations are willing to lose money in advertising and the rating numbers for something they feel is more significant, then all power to them.
Also, a movie theater in Utah has refused to show Brokeback Mountain, the infamous "gay cowboy" movie. I'm working on another blog about gay cowboys for a later posting, but let me just say this. Today, it's movies about gay cowboys. Tomorrow, it's R-rated movies. Next thing, you know, nothing rated higher than PG can be shown in Utah. The theater might lose money, but it might also lose support from its frequent customers.
Tolerance isn't something you can force on people. It's a virtue they have to find their own way.
What we have seen in this past week are examples of intolerance by people who say they are just doing God's work.
If God's work is really intolerance and discrimination, then you can consider me an atheist.

DVD Pick of the Week, 1-14-06

2006-01-14T09:45:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I've found it difficult to find people who have seen The Frighteners, Peter Jackson's first mainstream Hollywood movie, nonetheless admit to liking it. A girl who lived in my freshman dorm said that she saw the VHS copy at Wal-Mart one day for about $10 and debated buying it. Reportedly made for a modest $30 million, it didn't even break even with a worldwide box office. In America, it made a reported $17 million and a $28 million worldwide.

That was before Peter Jackson became a well-known director and won three Academy Awards at one time.

After the critical and box-office success of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Jackson said in a 2002 Entertainment Weekly article that the movie was badly marketed from the beginning. Originally intended as Halloween movie, Universal Studioes moved it to the summer schedule in 1996.

The Frighteners has been a textbook example of what happens when Hollywood has too much involvement in a movie, especially since the majority of the filming and special effects were shot in New Zealand. Reportedly, some scenes were shot here in Oklahoma in Tulsa, but I don't recognize any familiar places. The Motion Picture Association of America said the movie was too intense to receive a PG-13 rating, which was originally intended when the movie began production. On the extras, Jackson says that scenes of actress Dee Wallace Stone shooting holes in doors with a shotgun were too intense for a PG-13 rating. Of course, this was the same summer in which aliens destroying New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. and its inhabitants were A-Okay for a PG-13. But a door? Just another example of the MPAA letting some filmmakers get away with murder.

The plot of the movie is interesting. For about five years, at least two dozen people of a coastal northern California town have been dying of mysterious deaths similar to heart attacks, but they have been in the perfect health. The police are baffled. Enter Frank Bannister, played by Michael J. Fox, as an architect turned paranormal investigator, i.e. con man. Frank actually can see ghosts. He more or less shares his half-finished house with spirits Stuart (Jim Fyfe) , a 1950's looking college boy, the Judge (John Astin), an old West lawman who's jaw is just hanging on by willpower and Cyrus (Chi McBride) who died in the 1970's and has a huge afro and a polyester suit that is vintage disco. They help him run his cons on the locals.

One night, while trying to get out of footing the bill for damages a fence of the Lynskeys, a young couple that has moved to town, he notices the number 37 on the forehead of Ray Lynsky (Peter Dobson.) Shortly thereafter, Ray is dead and his spirit is running around town wondering what just happened. Ray's wife, Lucy (Trini Alvarado) starts a friendship with Frank to communicate with Ray's spirit. At the same time, Lucy, who is a doctor, is also interested in Dee Wallace Stone's character, Patricia Ann Bradley, who is plagued by spirits. Bradley is the local quackpot because her and her teenage love Johnny Charles Bartlett (Jake Busey) shot twelve people at the local hospital about thirty-five years earlier trying to one up that score of Charles Starkweather. He was electrocuted. She was sentenced to prison but has been released.

As Frank and Lucy's friendship grows into an inevitable romance, he notices an image of the Grim Reaper stalking the locals. Another victim has the number 38 on his forehead. An FBI agent, Milton Dammers, played by Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator fame, comes to town to investigate the growing rate of mysterious deaths and thinks Frank is behind it all.

If all of this seems confusing, then that might explain the poor box-office tally. This was also the same summer in which Mission:Impossible made a lot of money despite its complicated plot. Many critics didn't like it. Entertainment Weekly was one of the few that gave it a positive review. Jackson suffered from the same disease that hits a lot of directors. In 1994, his movie Heavenly Creatures based on a true murder in New Zealand got a lot of praise from critics. They were probably especting the same thing next, but got an action/ghost story. Rather than applaude the movie for being made out of Hollywood and even its special effects being done by WETA, the now famous special effects department, (like many critics do on other movies that are not as entertaining as this), some people just deeply hated this movie. Roger Ebert called it a demo for a far better movie. Like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was such a great movie. Some critics didn't do their homework and realized The Frighteners was similar to his ealier movies, Bad Taste and Dead-Alive (or Braindead as it is also known.) Maybe they weren't used to Jackson's mix of comedy and carnage. Neither was I when I first say it, but I liked it anyway and it made me want to see Dead-Alive, but I stayed away from Meet the Feebles (and so should you out there.)

Finally, on DVD as a director's cut, rather than the generic "Unrated" DVDs that are everywhere, The Frighteners is about about 14 minutes longer its theatrical release. There is a longer section where we are introduced to the characters of Stuart, Cyrus, and the Judge, including a scene where Stuart and Cyrus dress up as a grim reaper in a somewhat foreshadow of later scenes. Jackson's cameo as a punk rocker is extended as he calls Frank an "asshole" in a very nice Californian accent. There is an addition of a scene in which the swastika tattoo on Dammers hand is explained as well as some scenes of Patricia getting freaky with Johnny Bartlett's spirit.

Like his extended DVD versions of The Lord of the Rings movies, there is very much in depth explanation of how the special effects were constructed. Jackson says that WETA got so many computers to do the special effects that he began to get the wheels moving on The Lord of the Rings movie while The Frighteners was in post-production.

Some of the interviews have interesting facts. Robert Zemeckis, who was the executive producer, explains that the movie was originally considered as a Tales from the Crypt movie. Danny Elfman, who composed the score, says that he was so impressed by Heavenly Creatures, he wanted to work with Jackson regardless of what the movie was about. Many of the actors like Fox and McBride say they were impressed by Heavenly Creatures so they decided to do the movie.

One of the best parts of the DVD are the outtakes in which Fox keeps calling Astin's character "Doc" confusing him with Christopher Lloyd's character from the Back to the Future movies. It's funny as Fox realizes his mistake, but knowing that he was going through the first stages of Parkinson's Disease on the set, might make some people feel uneasy at his screw-ups.

One of the interesting facts of this movie which is never discussed in the DVD extras is the characters of Ray and Lucy Lynskey share their surname with Melanie Lynskey, who was played the lead role of Pauline in Heavenly Creatures. Melanie Lynskey has a small scene as a deputy in which she is talking to the character of Lucy Lysnkey.

The Frighteners is a movie for everyone who enjoys a nice ghost story as well as a nice action movie with funny scenes to laugh at. Despite its R-rating, it's not at all that violent. Because of its intended PG-13 rating, there is some foul language but no use of the F-word or any other crude language. Elfman says he took his daughter who was eleven at the time to see the movie and she was confused as to what it was she was not meant to see because of the R rating.

Now, almost ten years later, what Jackson and his long time partner Fran Walsh had imagined has finally received the recognition it deserves.

TV Superlatives 2005

2006-01-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

There's too much TV to do a good/bad list, so here is my breakdown of 365 days of the boob tube.

Best New TV Show - My Name is Earl: TV is often seen as a stepback for many actors, but the cast of this show pulls it off. The characters are loveable and believeable and the writing is terrific. Only a show this ballsy would constantly make reference to Carson Daly like he's a genius.

Most Obviously Cancelled Show - Night Stalker: Stuart Townsend is a likeable guy. It's just that everything he is in isn't. Bringing back an old TV show that didn't do good the first time is never a good idea. With Invasion, Threshold, Surface, and many more vying for plots on strange occurrences and aliens, it was just a matter of time with this show.

Most Addictive New Show - Prison Break: What might have seemed like a show with a gimmick has actually got one hell of a story and back story to it. The twists and turns are well done as well. Unfortunately, they had to kill off Peter Stormare character too early, but I'd like to see what happens next.

Most Arrogant Show - Arrested Development: You want to know why this show isn't pulling in the ratings? It's because it's trying to be too funny while at the same time, thinking it's too innovative for the audience it wants. Having too many weird characters isn't a plus and the acting is somewhat below par. The George Michael joke hasn't been funny for a while.

Best Ressurrected TV Show - Family Guy: Entertainment Weekly might be groaning, but the fans are cheering. The first show back proved that Fox didn't know what it was doing by cancelling the show for other finer TV programming like Skin and Oliver Beene.

Worst Ressurected TV Show - Greg the Bunny: Fox cancelled this show for one reason. It wasn't funny. Puppets cursing and drinking is funny for five minutes, but not for a 22 minute show. Now on IFC with cart blance to swear and be naughty, it still isn't funny.

Biggest Fall from Grace TV Show - King of the Hill: This was at one time one of the funniest and best TV shows on. Now, it's just a mean-spirited show that has turned Hank Hill into an asshole. Peggy Hill is annoying. Bobby Hill has become irritating. Even Dale, Bill, and Boomhauer aren't that funny anymore. Kahn is the only funny character on this show. Maybe that's why Brittany Murphy limited her role of Luanne after her movie career took off.

Show in Most Need of Cancelling - Joey: The Joanie Loves Chachi of this decade. This is a boring show that gave Joey a sister and a nephew and little to do with that. Cast members of Cheers sometimes popped up on Frasier. You won't see Jennifer Anniston coming near this show with a 10 mile pole. Currently on hiatus, maybe NBC will make it permanent.

Worst Spinoff Show - The Colbert Report: Stephen Colbert was funny on The Daily Show, but his whole stuck-up act is just that, an act. But it takes two to tango. Granted, the show makes fun of all those news shows, but the gag can only go so far. Also, having David Cross appearing as a fake shock jock wasn't funny. It would help if the audience didn't sound like they were at a soccer game constantly cheering. It would help if Colbert didn't jump up and down waving his arms as he goes to interview his guest. Also, that set looks a little like the one on The Chevy Chase Show. And we all rememeber what happened there.

Most Unfortunate End to Good Show - Chapelle Show: Dave Chapelle is one of the funniest comedians out there and his skit show was edgy. But it suffered the same fate as In Living Color by being too topical in the bad way, i.e. making too much fun of white people. Whatever happened between Chapelle and Comedy Central, we'll probably never know. Well, Keenan Ivory Wayans probably has a few ideas.

Best Series Finale - Everybody Loves Raymond: For those who have hated this show for its entire run, remember that not everyone who watches TV is looking for wit and cleverness. They are just looking for escape and something to laugh about they can relat to. By not going all out, this show and a subtle and poignant end. Well done.

Worst Series Finale - The Osbournes: Dr. Phil on The Osbournes to analyze them. Gimme a fucking break. The problem with this show is that it peaked too early and could never recover.
The Osbournes have enough problems without having to hear Dr. Phil's crap.

Best Cast Addition - Sam Anderson on Lost: Growing Pains' fans rejoiced as one of the tail end survivors was Mr. DeWitt, Mike Seaver's arch nemesis. There was something very touching and romantic when Bernard met up with his estranged wife, Rose on the beach, without making it corny like some of the other scenes on the show.

Worst Cast Addition - Michelle Rodriguez on Lost: Ana Lucia is nothing more than a stereotypical Hispanic woman. Also, this season has devoted too much time to her and not enough to the rest of the cast. No one cares about Ana Lucia. Maybe Rodriguez's DUI, which she shot off her mouth, might lead to her being written out of this show soon.

Most Pretentious Network - HBO: Not every show on this network is good. Actually, Sex and the City, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under went stale before their ends. I refuse to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm because it is too much like Arrested Development. Entourage is just silly. Carnivale is too weird. Remember, this is the network that held on to Arli$$ for so long.

Most Outrageous Network - Fox News: Fox News ran out of so many things to badmouth that it finally got so mad at itself over The Simpsons' episode in which it is revealed that Patty is a lesbian. This is a matter of Fox vs. Fox. You just can't take Fox News seriously when it starts complaining about its sister network.

Best Use of a Talk Show Couch - The Rev. Al Green getting a little too close to the couch on The Daily Show. When are you ever going to see a man of God hump a couch? After the crew moved to the new set, the old couch was probably never the same again. I bet they gave it to Green.

Worst Use of a Talk Show Couch - Tom Cruise going all Roberto Benigni on Oprah's couch. Yes, we know that you're having sex with Katie Holmes and oh, you love her, but you don't got to rub it in. Brad Pitt bagged both Jennifer Anniston and Angelina Jolie last year. He's been modest about it.

Best Soundbite of the Year - "The Pope is dead"-Fox News producer Rachel McEntee: Not only was it erroneous information in regards to Pope John Paul II, but it made it easier for Rita Cosby to take that job at MSNBC. Fox News producer Rachel McEntee brought a Valley Girl tone to news reporting. I now know why so many of my college friends in journalism and broadcasting had a hard time getting jobs in their fields after graduation. They had common sense.

Worst Soundbite of the Year - "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."-President George W. Bush: If "heck" is Bushspeak for "terrible, piece of shit, half-assed, no-good, disrepectful, fucking shameful," then, yes, I guess former FEMA director Michael Brown was doing a "heck" of a job in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Most Overrated Soundbite of the Year - "President Bush doesn't like black people"-Kanye West. What is he thinking? Bush likes black people, so well he keeps a few around him just to show that he knows black people. Would a man who doesn't like black people appoint two, not one, but two to the position of Secretary of State. We're talking third in secession to the White House here. In the top three.

Best Double Take of the Year - Mike Myers after Kanye West's comment about Bush: Not only was it one of the funniest double takes ever, but you can actually pinpoint the moment in which Myers realized his speech went from being sentimental to silly.

Best Exhibition That the News Media in This Country Still Has a Set of Brass Cojones - The Hurricane Katrina coverage. They had been told by the federal government to not show photos of dead soldiers returning from war. They had been told by the federal government that its negatives stories are anti-American. But when the federal government told them that everything was just peachy in the Gulf Coast, they said bullshit. All the news mediums, even Fox, dropped their biases and reported the awful truth. People were starving and dying. People were being assaulted and raped. Governments, at all levels, were slow to respond and they were all at fault.

Worst Response to a Joke - Sean Penn: Who is Jude Law? Chris Rock asked at the Academy Awards. More than three hours later, Penn called Law one of the best actors working. I'm sure Penn had one hell of a headache after seeing the Abbott and Costello "Who's on first?" bit.

Best Career Move - Jon Probst: He decided to stay as host as the Survivor series. Of course, like there are so many other options out there for pompous assholes, such as being on the panel for another I Love the 70's episode.

Worst Career Move - Geena Davis: She's a member of MENSA or says she is. She's won an Academy Award and dated Brad Pitt. So, why make a sexist and misogynist piece of shit like Commander-in-Chief? That episode when her daughter spills her grape juice on important government documents is so bad, words can't describe it.

Best Celebrity Cat Fight on Talk Shows: Tom Cruise vs. Brooke Shields. Yes, the cast of Endless Love is fighting over post-partum depression and the use of psychiatric drugs. What's Martin Hewitt have to say on the subject?

Worst Celebrity Cat Fight on Talk Shows: Paris Hilton vs. Nicole Ritchie. I don't know what Nicole Ritchie did, but anything short of anal raping the corpse of Paris Hilton's great grandfather while pouring sugar into her gas tank and then cutting off all the heels on her shoes and then filling her Prada purses with chicken grease and chopping up her little dog up into a Teriyaki fondu doesn't constitute the attention this friendship breakup got.

Best Reality TV Show - (tie) American Idol and America's Next Top Model: I don't like reality TV, but I like these two shows because Carrie Underwood is from around where I live and a good friend of mine, Robert Gardner Linn, is a producer on America's Next Top Model.

Worst Reality TV Show - Survivor: I don't know who the critics are who keep saying that every new season of Survivor is the best one ever, but I feel they are paid by CBS to say so. It's no longer the summer of 2000. It's time to move on with better ideas than having them assemble puzzles. Anyway, let's get some actual outdoor survivalist on this show rather than the yuppie scum. I don't care if a stockbrocker can make a fire out of flint and wood.

Hottest Cop on TV: Emily Procter on CSI:Miami: Jerry Bruckheimer might be the spawn of Satan, but he does know how to cast well. By casting Procter as the perky but smart cop/scientist Calleigh Duquesne who knows her firearms better than anyone else in Flordia, she makes viewers want to do something bad just to be questioned by her. And that Southern accent...

Hottest Mom on TV: Kari Matchett on Invasion: Is there any other reason to watch this show than to watch Matchett pull off the complex role of Dr. Mariel Underlay who hasn't quite been herself since that hurricane. Matchett's character might be an alien, but one hot alien, I admit.

Country Comforts

2006-01-09T17:43:00.000-08:00

It's easy for a lot of people to dismiss Kurt Vonnegut as a cranky old Jewish fart after reading A Man Without a Country.
But instead of turning into a Grandpa Simpson rant, Vonnegut proves that he's done some research before writing.At 83, there really isn't much left for Vonnegut to accomplish. He's one of the few remaining writers of literature, not books, alive. Yet, like The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, commented. He hasn't lost his edge.
Actually, he seems to possess the same anger George Carlin has against today's society and at one point doesn't hold back on the foul language. Vonnegut has always been one to use curse words whenever needed.A Man Without a Country is in the same league as his previous works, Palm Sunday and Fates Worse Than Death. This is nonfiction instead of fiction. Of course, Vonnegut has always seemed to mix the two together.
In his latest books, he takes stabs mainly at the Bush administration and society in general. He compares today's people to members of Alcoholics Anonymous, living one day at a time with no thought of future plans. But Vonnegut admits that things weren't better when he was younger. Even though he fought in World War II, he says that it wasn't the "Greatest Generation."Once again, Vonnegut also talks about the notorious bombing of Dresden, one of the biggest offensive movements of the allies during that war. Vonnegut never comes out and says it, but he hints that it was one of the most chickenshit moves of the allies, considering that many German citizens were killed. Anyone who's read Slaughterhouse-Five knows how the German troops hid with allied POW as the town was literally wiped off the map.Some critics have wondered why Vonnegut would still talk about this after more than sixty years. Easy. He was there. Many people were killed. Vonnegut himself was of German descent. It was a horrifying thing for all those who survived Dresden to witness.
While Vonnegut criticizes Bush, I wouldn't call him a Democrat. Vonnegut considers himself to be a socialist and even has a part of the book devoted to how America made the socialist movement into a sign of evil in the early 20th Century, even though Socialist believe in the same things Democrats and Republicans do.
A Man Without a Country is a short book. It is only 145 pages and that includes many pages that only have Vonnegut's drawing of his anus. The print is larger than average and I read this over a matter of two days. It is definitely for long time fans. Anyone who hasn't read Vonnegut before needn't start with this one.Read Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, or Cat's Cradle before this one. Of course, by then, you might have had your fill.Vonnegut isn't for everyone and for many, he definitely wasn't for the "pro-American" sentiments of this early decade. He was basically a man without a country.

This Week in God, 1-08-06

2006-01-08T14:11:00.000-08:00

Once again, Pat Robertson has opened his mouth and stuck his foot in it.
If you haven't been living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears this past week, you know that Israeli Prime Minister Sharon suffered a stroke and was in a coma.
Robertson said Sharon's health was the work of God who is mad because Sharon has divided Israel. I don't know about all my Jewish friends out there, but Steven Spielberg would be considered a better friend of Israel than Robertson.
True, Isreal is God's land. But, isn't every land, God's land? Who is Robertson to say what land God can claim has his own?
The Jewish people are the chosen people. If you ask me, anyone who believes in a higher diety and has a strong spiritual connection is a member of the chosen people.
Robertson is probably just mad because that dang liberal media which is composed of Jews and Democrats is making such a big deal about this. Well, anytime, a world leader is in bad health rather it is Sharon, Yassar Arafat or even Dick Cheney, it is a big deal.
If the same bad health would befall Roberston in the future, I'm sure Jews would pray for his recovery, because a lot of people out there are able to forgive.
Robertson needs to think more about the teachings of Jesus before he opens his mouth again.

When the Bough Breaks...

2006-01-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

People have said that 1968 was the year that changed America. I don't believe that. It surely tested America, but it didn't change much.
2005 might be called another year that changed or tested America such as years like 1929, 1941, and 1861.
Granted, 2005 might be one day remembered as the year the GOP began to crumble. Not to make this a liberal blog, but you got to admit that the Republican party fucked up royally in the year 2005 and tried to do an death bed redemption during the final few months.
For the first time in decades, the Republican party had controll of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate, as well as having pull in the Supreme Court. Basically, they were in charge. Having so many people with similar beliefs in charge of so many things is a recipe for disaster.
Why?
Because they are in fighting among themselves. At first, they tried to get along.
But some woman named Terry Schiavo fucked it up and she didn't do anything except die. With the majority of the Repulican party pushing to keep this woman alive because of the sanctity of life, they seemed to contradict their agenda from 2004 that marriage is sacred. Marriage is only sacred when it's between a man and a woman and they both agree to let the in-laws walk all over them, I guess.
Then, there was Bush's choice for an ambassador at the U.N. who looked like the drunken crooked sheriff in some grade-C cowboy movie. Not good.
But what really divided the party and the nation was Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. For nearly four years, people have let the President and the Republican party say whatever they want as if it was the Gospel. But "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" is a big pile of bullshit. After the mess in New Orleans, being a Bush supporter was not a sign of American pride, but a show of ignorance.
Sure, there were some to admit that the Emperor is still wearing clothes, such as Ben Stein who shot off his mouth saying we were blaming the weather on Bush. Well, Bush does think he's God, so why not? No, Ben Stein, we weren't saying that Bush was in charge of the weather. But as the leader of this country, he should have been in charge of helping these people get relief.
Granted, if Hurricane Katrina had happened 365 days earlier, John Kerry would have became the 44th President of the United States by a landslide. Hell, Mickey Mouse would have became the President.
Finally, for the first time in four years, John McCain didn't stand alone in the Republican party. Republicans showed that despite the cold jokes, they still have a heart and common sense. They criticized Harriet Myers. The told Sen. Ted Stevens to give all that money for that bridge to nowhere in Alaska to the relief effort. He loudly said, "NO!!" and proved to be the biggest baby of the year.
Republicans finally admitted that they were wrong for voting for the war in Iraq. They began to back away from Tom DeLay. Even Bill Frist had some questions about renewing the Patriot Act.
So, where to go in 2006? The Republicans in Washington, D.C. must decide what to do. Instead of being called the Grand Old Party, they can become the Brand New Party, composed of people who listen to their constituents rather than their lobbyists.
Some of the greatest leaders in this country have been Republicans. Then, again, some of the worst were also Republicans.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

DVD Pick of the Week, 1-5-06

2006-01-05T20:20:00.000-08:00

Depending on who you talk to, Airplane! is either one of the funniest movies ever made or one of the dumbest. I think that's what the filmmakers had originally intended.

In 1970's, Mel Brooks and the Monty Python troupe were so busy making fun of Hollywood movies and genres that they seemed to have exhausted everything by the end of the decade. However, no one anticipated players from the Kentuky Fried Theater comedy group to break through for the new decade.

They also found a new genre that was topical to lampoon. It was the disaster genre. While Airplane! seems to be a parody of the Airport movies, filmmakers David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams admitted that it was a remake of a 1957 movie Zero Hour, which they discovered on TV late one night. Mel Brooks said that you always make fun of the movies you love. It's obvious that ZAZ loved Zero Hour.

Their technigue was different from Brooks and Monty Python. Instead of casting comedians in movies, they cast serious actors and Jerry Zucker said they were told to act like they didn't know they were in a comedy. The cast includes Robert Stack, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, all of which were renown for their TV dramas and serious roles. Along for the ride was Kareem Abdul-Jabaar playing himself playing a airline pilot. To top it off, there was Barbara Billingsley, June Cleaver, as a jive-talking woman.

Basically, the movie seemed serious but with a comedic twist, by playing with dialogue and sight gags like the infamous scene of shit actually hitting the fan, which is revealed in the DVD extras hit actor Stephen Stucker in an early take.

The DVD offers three versions of the movie. The first is the basic theatrical version. The second is a pop-up style version in which trivia appears on the screen, such as none of the directors had seen From Here to Eternity, when they obviously spoofed the famous beach scene or that they named many of the characters after their friends. The third version labeled the "long haul" version lives up to its title. This version isn't meant to be seen by regular viewers but by long-time fans as the scenes are constantly interrupting by cast and crew talking about the making of the movie. There's only two delelted scenes shown that aren't funny because Jerry Zucker says early on that there is nothing funny on the cutting room floor.

Strangely, missing from the version is Julie Hagerty, who played the perky and sweet airline stewardess Elaine Dickinson. Also MIA is Kareem Abdul-Jabaar who has said in previous interviews that he nearly pulled little Joey too much when the little kid kept nagging him. Bridges, Stack, and Stucker have all passed away which is a shame, because it is revealed that Stucker improvised all his lines as the quirky air traffic controller Johnny. I would have loved it if Stucker was present to describe being sprayed with fake feces

The DVD also breaks down the long myth that Airplane! ruined Leslie Nielsen's career. He says that he was on the brink of just doing grandfather roles and Airplane! gave him a new career path because he was wanting to do a comedy. We also learn that Nielsen kept a fart machine hidden in his possession and even embarrassed the filmmakers.

For over twenty-five years, Airplane! has entertained people and fans out there definitely need to get their hands on The "Don't Call me Shirley" edition because it is definitely worth it.

Every Rose Has its Thorn

2006-01-05T07:59:00.000-08:00

After watching last night's final few minutes of the Rose Bowl, I must admit I was disgusted. I was disgusted that the reporters felt the need to spend more time talking with Leinart rather than Vince Young. More importantly, ABC didn't give Texas more screen time for celebration, before it cut over to that old fart Lee Corso, who praised Texas for their win. Lee Corso is an asshole and a half. If you pet him enough, he'll say good things about you. The man's not a sports commentator. He's a mercenary.
Yes, sorry, all you USC fans, but you're big winning streak is over. I really thought they were just going to give them the national championship regardless of the score. They gave them more wins than they deserve. I don't like Texas, but I must admit Texas shut them all up.
I remember seeing an article on line that said USC could play a pro-team. Yes, it could. It wouldn't win, but they could still play them.
A lot of college football fans hate the BCS system. Well, I got a modest proposal to all you out there. Just don't fucking watch the BCS games. I didn't this year. This is the 21st century or constant updates on line. I got better thinks to do than watch Bobby Bowden fart around on the sidelines.
If football fans are ever going to get the NCAA to change the BCS system, then they are going to have to hit them where it hurts. In their wallets. Don't attend games. Don't watch games. Then, maybe they'll start to listen. Maybe.

At the Movies 2005: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2006-01-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

Below are the 2005 movies I saw this year. Rather than do another generic best/worst list like all the other critics, I've composed a list of movies that I liked, movies that I liked but could have been better, and movies that I thought were just plain terrible.
(Note: This does not include the recent King Kong or Brokeback Mountain, both of which I haven't seen yet, but have gotten a lot of good press. I still got a beef with critics from last year. Million Dollar Baby? Best picture of 2004?! I don't think so.)

In no particular order, here we go:

The Good

1. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - Okay, so maybe Jar Jar Binks didn't die like so many people thought, but he merely has a walk-on performance. Not as dark as The Empire Strikes Back, this latest installment is still too light, but a far superior movie that the previous two movies. I also like that Anakin Skywalker's descent to the Dark Side of the Force was more a matter of envy and spite over the Jedi Council. The only problem is that Natalie Portman's character isn't given much to do. She phones in the performance. Hayden Christiansen's facial expression as the dark mask of Vadar is put on him is one in a million. He must have been thinking: My God, what have I done to myself?!

2. Batman Begins - No nipples on the Batsuit. No buttock shots. Christopher Nolan took a once-exhausted franchise and redid it, starting over fresh. I like that he used Chicago as a backdrop for Gotham City. I also liked that he didn't go overboard with Scarecrow and gave Batman a worth adversary in Liam Neeson's Henri Ducard. Tom Wilkinson does a fine accent with Carmine Falcone. He's British, if you didn't already know. Despite a cast of familiar names and faces, the movie uses them whenever needed rather than throwing them into the pile, like previous Batman movies did. It is also nice to finally see Gary Oldman in a good-guy performance after years of playing baddies.

3. George A. Romero's Land of the Dead - Not as good as Dawn of the Dead, but far better structured than Day of the Dead. Romero once again turns his flesh-eating living dead into a social satire that looks at America. Even in a time of chaos and near-apocalypse, there will still be a division between the haves and the have-nots. Dennis Hopper plays another devilish character with the right amounts of laughs. He picks his nose as he calls the living dead "mindless." Also, after nearly four decades of making these movies, Romero has still came up with creative ways for the living dead to look and be killed.

4. Crash - Paul Haggis breaks the old archetypes of racism in America which was a division between white people and everyone else and sets L.A. as a backdrop for racial tension. Like Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, this movie shows us that racism is based more on selfishness, misunderstanding, and helplessness rather than skin color. Don't get me wrong. The characters in Crash do good things while also doing bad things. Also the performances are terrific. Sandra Bullock has a monologue that will one day be recited by a lot of acting students. Ludacris plays a car thief who is more confused about race than he liked to admit. Matt Dillon is a cop who's anger and loathing is due partly to the helplessness of his ailing father. Terrence Howard is a TV director who witnesses an unspeakly act when his wife is violated. A lot of critics dismiss this movie as hokey and it has turned up on some of the worst lists . It's hard to make a movie about racism without picking a side, but then again this movie isn't about that.

5. Fever Pitch - There are two people in this movie that just have to be inspired by real people. Two Boston Red Sox fans have been divorced for over twenty years, but neither one wanted to give up the season tickets in the settlement. So, every baseball season, they sit side by side to cheer on the Red Sox, then go back to their separate lives. The Farrelly Brothers have decided to lay off the tasteless gags mostly and present a terrific adaptation of the Nick Hornsby novel. Jimmy Fallon plays a school teacher who loves the Red Sox with a passion. He has season tickets and his closet resembles that of a 10-year-old. He attends spring training with his friends who fight over dates on when they can go with him to games. Drew Barrymore is a career woman who knows the elementary basics of baseball but doesn't see what the big deal is. Characters like Barrymore's and Fallon's exist in real life and are not caricatures. Their love for each other is true and their ignorance to each other's hobbies is understanding. The Farrelly Brothers are now a select few of the filmmakers who understand that to make a relationship work is a mixture of sacrifices and compromises.

6. Sin City - Robert Rodriguez's adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel series is more about style rather than story, even though "The Hard Goodbye" with Mickey Rouke as a disfigured goon tracking down a murderer, Elijah Wood playing a silent cannibal who wears a Charlie Brown like short, who killed a female companion is nice story in itself. This is Rodriguez's Pulp Fiction, a world in which time doesn't exist and violence is the only way to negotiate things. While the female parts are mainly hookers and strippers, they are smart and more than meets the eye. Devon Aoki gives a creepy and sexy performance as the murderous Miho, who never says one word but speaks more with her eyes. The third story, "The Yellow Bastard" with Bruce Willis protecting a girl, Jessica Alba, over the years from the hands of sexual predator Nick Stahl, walks the line between serious and silly. However, Rodriguez has made a movie with all the look and feel of a graphic novel.

7. The 40-Year-Old Virgin - Steve Carrell, I can believe, might be a virgin for four decades. Jimy Carrey, no. Steve Martin, not a chance. Bill Murray, no fucking way. But Carrell wearing clothes that look like they were chosen by his mother, there's a slim chance he ever got laid without paying for it. Carrell plays Andy (nice name), a retail clerk salesman who rides a bike and collects action figures like The Six Million Dollar Man. One night while playing cards with his coworkers, it is revealed that he has never had sex. Rather than mock him, his coworkers go to all ends to get him laid with hilarious results. However, he meets a nice woman played by Catherine Keener who is just as quirky as him. Crude, yes. Vulgar, you bet. But there is a lot of heart to this movie in Keener's character as well as his coworkers who become his close friends. Paul Rudd is funny as a "ladies man" struggling through depression after a run in with a former girlfriend. The chest hair waxing scene has already become a classic.

8. The Devil's Rejects - Rob Zombie's sequel to his overblown House of 1000 Corpses is not one of the best horror movies ever made but one of the best horror sequels. If you were to run into Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding and Bill Mosely's Otis in a store, you would more than likely piss your pants. Haig's creepy character is in a class of its own. With teeth so green, they would make Austin Powers sick, he mixes mayhem and mischief as a murderer. Zombie's movies is similar to Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, as a Texas sheriff, William Forsythe, hunts down his brother's killers and then proceeds to torture and kill them after they are captured, but not before the murders torture and kill a traveling country-western band. Unlike his first movie, which was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre wannabe, this movie seems to be an homage to all the violent thrillers and horror movies that came out in the late 60's and 1970's. Haig appeared in several blaxploitation movies like Foxy Brown. P.J. Soles, who was in Carrie and Halloween, has a small role. There's also Ken Foree of Dawn of the Dead and Michael Berryman of The Hills Have Eyes who have a funny scene involving the topic of chicken fucking. I don't know how Zombie came up with the dialogue and I don't want to know.

9. In Good Company - Welcome to the American workplace of the 21st Century where you can work twenty years up to a nice executive or vice president position. Then, the next thing you know, your company is bought and some twenty-something college graduate has your position and you're his assistant. Even worse, you must fire the people you've work with over the years due to budget problems. Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace show us that friendship and business can't coexist, especially when you're job is on the line. A subplot involving Grace dating Quaid's daughter played by Scarlett Johansson is extraneous but it does have a realistic outcome. Writer-director Paul Weitz has made a movie that can be understood by people from twenty to sixty. Anyone who has ever worked for a company can relate to this movie.

10. The Interpreter - A slow movie yes, but a smart movie at the same time. This is the story of a United Nations interpreter (Nicole Kidman) who overhears a plot to assassinate a controversial president of a fictional African country. Sean Penn is the Secret Service agent assigned to investigate her and then protect her. The climax is different, but ballsy. Also, I liked that Penn's character keeps confusing the names of the other law enforcement officers he's working with. Also, after a key scene, Penn and Kidman would have ended up in bed in another movie, but just hold each other in comfort. That's a very ballsy move.

The Bad
(These are movies that were either overrated or I liked but felt they could have been made better.)

1. The War of the Worlds - Not to jump on the backlash bus, but I liked this movie. I just wished they had released it under its original title Saving Dakota Fanning. Has any child ever come into so much danger in a movie and needed rescuing? It starts with something simple like lightning and then escalates. At one point, Tom Cruise is having to save her from a married couple who nearly kidnap her thinking she is delirious. And the scene between Fanning and Tim Robbins is just plain eerie. Speaking of which, it probably was intended as a joke to have an actor is an opponent to the death penalty and civil rights activist be a crazy militant, but Robbins is overacting. The special effects and direction is good. The story could have been a little better. Sure, the ending is terrible, but this is Spielberg and he gets to do whatever he wants.

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Another movie with great special effects and it has a good story. There's just one problem. The acting is TERRIBLE!! So terrible I had to keep stopping the movie to get some relief. Mos Def seems almost to be reading his lines. Sam Rockwell overacts to the point of sheer annoyance. Martin Freeman seems to be in a different movie entirely. John Malkovich brings nothing new in his glorified cameo. Even Alan Rickman's manic depressive Marvin the Robot gets odd after a while. Only the sweet Zooey Deschanel manages to hold things together, but there are too many scenes in which she is given nothing to do. I heard that this big screen adaptation of the Douglas Adam's novel has been in pre-production for nearly twenty years. Movies that take this long are never good (i.e. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and the first Spider-Man movie.) If they do decide to make The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, then something is going to have to be done to the cast.

3. Kung Fu Hustle - Sure, the special effects are good and the fight scenes are thrilling, but the acting is terrible and the story is lame. This is the type of movie that makes me wonder if the critics took a little payola to say good things about it. For the most part this is a silly movie that doesn't know if it wants to be taken serious or not. The love story doesn't work. The top villian doesn't show up until late in the movie at which point, it doesn't matter. This is one of the most overrated movies of the year.

4. White Noise - I liked the first 2/3 or 3/4 of this movie in which Michael Keaton discovers that his dead wife is trying to communicate with him. But the movie decides to go into idiot mode in its final act by trying to bring things with Keaton trying to track down his wife's killer while at the same time protecting the life of a new friend against the bad ghosts. This could have been a lot better in so many ways but it's still enjoyable on an elementary level.

5. Hostage - By now, is there nothing as goofier than Bruce Willis with a full head of hair? How about a beard to boot? The good news is that Willis' Grizzley Adams look is only for the first ten minutes or so. The bad news is that the rest of the movie has him walking endlessly through the movie as a small town police chief who's family is kidnapped while he is trying to bring another family kidnapping to resolution. I like the set-up. It's just that everything else is generic. Jonathan Tucker proves that only white trash where denim jackets and Ben Foster proves that only psychopaths wear their hair longs. At least in the movie. Foster and Tucker play the first set of kidnappers. But the second set that kidnap Willis' family are never really seen except in masks. A good thriller works when the antagonist has charisma. There is none of that here. This is just another Hollywood thriller that proves when you can't kill the black man first, then you got to kill the dog. For shame.

6. Hide and Seek - This is a supernatural thriller that turns out to not be a supernatural thriller. Robert De Niro plays a psychiatrist who moves his daughter, played by Dakota Fanning, to the countryside of New England after her mother's death. It's one of those New England towns where there is only one law enforcement officer in a hundred mile radius who always seems to be in the right place at the wrong time. At first, I was intrigued by Fanning and her imaginary friend, Charlie. But once we find out who Charlie is, it doesn't make any sense. I wish the movie had the balls to have Fanning's character struggle with death from a child's point of view. It might have been even better if she was doing all the bad things, instead of Charlie. But it goes on idiot pilot. Even worse, the movie cast three actresses, Amy Irving, Famke Janssen, and Elisabeth Shue, and gives none of them anything to do except be there for the sake of the script.

7. Miss Congeniality 2 - This unnessecary sequel has FBI agent Sandra Bullock starting to act more like the plastic beauties she was paroding in the first movie. In contrast, she is paired with Regina King, who must have needed the money, because she is the stereotypical sassy don't-give-me-any-attitude black woman. They bicker for the first half of the movie before concentrating on some kidnapping plot in the second part. Sandra Bullock is a nice and likeable actress who can do comedy. Her retired Jewish woman bit is noteworthy, but she deserves better than this. Regina King deserves a lot better than this.

8. Hitch - For every smart romantic comedy, there are at least two or three dumb romantic comedies made each year. Guess which one this is? Will Smith plays a matchmaker who, surprise, surprise, can't work his same magic on himself when it comes to winning Eva Mendes. At the same time, he is trying to get shy accountant Kevin James matched up with wealthy billionaire heiress Amber Valleta. Granted Mendes and Smith have great chemistry together as well as James and Valleta. Even Smith and James have some funny scenes together. But this is the type of movie in which the actors could have phoned in the performances. Man and woman get together, have a good time, then they realized that it's not going to work out, but, wait, it is going to work out. Unlike Fever Pitch, which used this formula with smarts, this movie has them doing it just for the sake of the plot. I wonder if writer Kevin Bisch or director Andy Tennant had any idea that the heiress' name of Allegra Cole is similar to that of Allegra Coleman, which was a fake rising star that Esquire created to mock media sensationalism. I'll give them credit enough for that.

9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Having watched the 1971 Gene Wilder movie and Tim Burton's version as well as a staged production this year, I can say there are many ways to adapt Roald Dahl's book. Unfortunately, Tim Burton's version isn't one of the good ways to do it. I liked the whipped cream gag as well as having all the Oompa Loompa played by the same actor, Deep Roy. However, none of the kids this time seem like, well, kids. They seem to act like cartoon characters. Unlike the 1971 version which only had Willy Wonka in half of the movie and focused more on Charlie Bucket, this version has too much Willy Wonka and not enough Charlie Bucket. Speaking of Wonka, Johnny Depp looks like the lesbian love child of Parker Posey and Laurie Metcalf and he plays the character as if he's channeling Michael Jackson. It is a little creepy. Aside from that, it's the same story and everything.

10. March of the Penguins - Surely, I'm not going to say something about the cute little penguins, am I? Yes. I liked this movie, but I really didn't see what the big deal was. While watching the mating rituals of the emperor penguins is interesting, the movie is a little too dark to be billed as a family movie. Baby penguins die in the harsh cold of Antartica as well as being attacked by predators. If anyone thinks this isn't a problem, well, I still remember a small kid crying after the toon shoe got dipped in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Now, I know I shouldn't dislike a movie just because of Madison Avenue, but I learned my lession after Spaced Invaders. Hiring Morgan Freeman to narrate was a smart move. The man could read a phone book and make it interesting and he makes this movie interesting, despite its problems.

Now, it's time for the worst of the worst. Movies that I wish to never ever see again. Movies that shouldn't have been made in the first place.

I call the movies The Ugly

1. Son of the Mask - Another unneccessary sequel that only has a motivation of greed. It's been 11 years since the first movie, so why the hell make another one, especially when the first one is bad. That's the $64,000 question I guess. The plot involves a Norse god trying to find his mask from a cartoonist who impregnated his wife while wearing the Mask, so his son has all the cartoonist characteristics of the Mask without wearing the Mask. Lame. We never got to see what Rosemary's Baby really looked like, but I can imagine the baby would look a lot like the one in this movie. This is the creepiest baby ever put on film.

2. Assault on Precint 13 - More like an assault on the audience's intelligence. After watcding this movie, I asked myself, would this movie had been better if it hadn't starred Ethan Hawke, by far the worst actor living, and probably the worst actor of all-time. (Keep in mind that Quentin Tarantino and Paris Hilton are technically considered actors.) Hawke acts as if he's playing characters who know there is no fourth wall. It's all show for him. Now, moving aside from my hatred of Hawke, the plot leaves little to be desired. It involves bad cops, not so bad bad guys, and good guys. I was not an admirer of the John Carpenter original but I liked it as a modern day western. This update is terrible. Drea de Matteo is for lack of a better word, playing a slut and she's acts terrible. Mario Bello is given the general hysterical woman role. We never know if Laurence Fishburne is supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy or an anti-hero. The action scenes hardly let us know who is shooting who. This movie brings new ways to how a movie can be made badly.

3. Are We There Yet? - You'll ask yourself this question in reference to the end credits. Ice Cube has officially become a Hollywood star by staring in a piece of dogshit like this. Cube plays a store owner who falls for Nia Long. However, she has two little urchins who give new meaning to the term menacing. Their antics are meant to be cute, but they are mean. To win browning points, he drives them over the Pacific Northwest to be with their mother on New Year's Eve. In the end, his precious Lincoln Navigator, like all vehicles in movies like this, becomes destroyed beyond all recognition. Long's character is one-dimensional because she doesn't see her children as the little assholes they are and Cube's character is a saint, but yet the movie has him admitting his faults. This movie is as much a family movie as I Spit on Your Grave is a sex ed instructional video.

4. D.E.B.S. - I've heard more people praise this movie for what it isn't (a Charlie's Angels padody) than what it is. Well, it isn't good. I like the idea that the S.A.T. is a test with hidden codes used to recruit an elite band of law enforcement avengers, but we never know what those codes are. D.E.B.S. is a movie that wants to be an action movie, but doesn't have any action. It thinks that its being innovative by introducing a lesbian love story. It isn't considering that Sara Foster and Jordana Brewster have as much chemistry as a cheap lesbian porno. Those no plot here. It's just a bunch of people standing around talking about what they're going to do or what they should have done. This is not a movie. It's an idea. Nothing more.

5. Cursed - Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson reteam again to tackle the werewolf subgenre of horror. Cursed might have worked better under its original title A Jewish Werewolf in L.A. The special effects are terrible and the jokes miss the mark, even with Scott Baio making fun of himself. Maybe if Scott Baio was the werewolf, I would have liked this movie, but the movie decides to give the werewolf a motive for its killing. It's a fucking werewolf, for Christ's sake. Christina Ricci continues to disappoint us after a good start as a child. Portia de Rossi must have thought she was still on the set of Ally McBeal or Arrested Development, because her whole psychic bit is silly and not funny. It almost seems to hurt Joshua Jackson to smile. Cursed should be required viewing in acting class on how not to act.

6. Boogeyman - If this movie was made fifty years ago by Roger Corman on a small budget and shot in under a week, it might have been forgiveable. It isn't. It takes the myth of the boogeyman and turns into some silly story about a grown man finding out what really happened to his father. You see, little Tim had to watch as his father was pulled into the closet by the boogeyman. Now grown, he returns home and spends an hour of film walking around. When we finally do see the boogeyman at the end, it is so silly that I just stopped watching.

7. Racing Stripes - This is a nice movie that should have been better. It's the story of an underdog or zebra who is turned into a racing horse. However, the movie never makes us care about the zebra, the little girl who believes in her, or the rest of the farm animals who support him. Wendie Malick proves that actresses get to a certain age in which they start playing Cruella de Vil characters. Academy Award winners Whoopi Goldberg and Dustin Hoffman should have stayed away from this movie instead of lending their voices. Must have owed somebody in Hollywood a favor.

8. Elektra - Will their ever be a Wonder Woman movie? Word is that Joss Whedon is set to direct one. After Catwoman last year and Elektra this year, it probably won't fly, especially after his disastrous Serenity. That's a three strikes and you're out. Elektra is a movie that asks the questions: People watch Alias, so why not Elektra? Well, maybe not after this season. Jennifer Garner is a charming actress, but she hasn't made a movie worth half her talents. The plot involves Elektra as an assassin who must protect a mysterious little girl and her father from supernatural assassins with tattoos that come to life. Of course, this movie would have been a blockbuster, right?

(I tried to make this list an even 10, but I couldn't watch anymore. Also, note that seven of these eight movies were released during the throwaway months of January and February. Only D.E.B.S. was released in spring time. When will Hollywood give us better movies in the winter months to go see?)

This Week in God, 1-1-06

2006-01-01T07:36:00.000-08:00

A new year has started, so it's best that people would learn to forgive and forget, but certain Catholics seem to want to limit who they can forgive.
Last month, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights was upset over a South Park episode in which a statue of the Virgin Mary is believed to be bleeding from her rectum.
Okay, I can see how the Catholic League can be offended.
But wait, it doesn't just end there. It turns out that the Virgin Mary is actually bleeding from her vagina and Pope Benedict XVI claims it's not a miracle. The new Pope is also sprayed in the face with a lot of menstrual blood.
What's the matter, Catholics, can't take a joke?
You see, this is why a lot of Protestants I grew up with in the south, hate Catholics. I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but we are talking about the Catholic Church that publically admitted to passing around priests they had concrete evidence had molested boys and girls for decades, rather than throwing their asses in jail.
South Park is a cartoon show. It isn't a scripture.
Even more sad, was that the League got their way after they strongarmed Joseph A. Califano Jr., a member of the Board of Directors at Viacom, the company that owns Comedy Central, to stop any reairing of the show. The League reported that Califano is a "practicing Catholic."
This brings me to my next complaint. I've met a lot of Catholics. A lot of my friends are Catholic. They are either practicing or not. I've never met a practicing Baptist or a practicing Methodist.
This whole deal about "practicing Catholics" is just a way for the Catholic church to make their own feel bad for missing a Sunday mass or not attending a routine confession. It's a shame that the Catholic church puts labels on its own members like this. Who are they to tell someone that they are not a true Catholic or not. The faith is inside, for Christ's sake.
Like I've said before, I don't need to remind myself of my spiritual beliefs every Sunday.
This past Friday, my girlfriend did something that can either be an act of goodwill or something stupid. She notices a family at Wal-Mart, who needed gas money to get to Minnesota. She gave them the $20 she had in her possession. Why did she do this? One time, when she needed gas money, a local church known for giving out gas money, closed their door on her. Why? Because they only gave money to transients. Which do you think showed better Christian love?
If the Catholic League wants their religion to be portrayed in a more positive way, maybe they should do more positive things rather than make fuss over a 22 minute TV show. Maybe their should focus more on the civil rights of all those children whose lives were forever changed by molesting priests.

High School Hell

2005-12-27T16:27:00.000-08:00

The protagonist of Sam Lipsyte's Home Land is the type of high school student who is ignored by the faculty and administration and berated by much of the student body. After graduation, this student turns out to do...absolutely nothing.
Lewis Miner is in his early 30's. He works at his father's restaurant busting tables and hangs out with his childhood friend, Gary, who may have been hypnotized into making false accusations of how his parents sexually abused him as a child. His mother is dead and the only woman in his life, Gwendolyn, may have lusted after her late brother.
Miner is a 1989 graduate of the East Vally High School in New Jersey. Frustrated over hearing about how well other classmates are doing in the alumni newsletter, Catamount Notes, he decides to tell just how fucked up things have been for him since graduation.
This has angered his former high school principal and a former female classmate, who views the Catamount Notes as her own baby.
After reading this book, you might recognize some of the people you went to high school with. Old classmates still call Lewis his nickname of Teabag even after fifteen years. What is ironic is that Lewis thinks he's moved on while all his high school classmates are still living in the past, but Lewis' constant updates to the newsletter just show that he hasn't gotten over it either. When one of his updates is censored and rewritten to sound like a generic update, Lewis gets frustrated rather than just shrug it off.
Lewis still harks on why the school mascot is the catamount when they went to school in a valley. I think there is a national law that you got to have a school every twenty-thirty square miles or so that has a mascot that is part of the wild cat family. The school ten miles from where I grew up was called the tigers. I lived in a town that had panthers as their school mascot. Two schools within a thirty mile radius from me have tigers as their school mascot.
Lipsyte's book does seem to be a little quirky toward the end where the classmates meet at a Togethering, a psuedo reunion. His characters turn more into cariacatures rather than real people.
However, he tells us that we never let go of those four years when we were just kids, no matter how hard we try.
We all hang on to something that we should just let go.