Brief Review: Quantum of Solace

I enjoyed the movie and thought Roger Ebert was too harsh in giving it the two stars of death. I do think that, for all of Casino Royale's flaws, it is the superior of Daniel Craig's two outings. QOS's action sequences are too messily edited, at times bordering on incoherent. Michael Bay's long and awful shadow falls over them. Aside from Judi Dench's M, I found the female characters in QOS to be too sketchily written. And I'm beginning to wonder whether it's advisable, in a series that's based primarily on wish fulfillment fantasies about the wild life of "00" agents, to turn James Bond into yet another moody adventurer bent on avenging himself upon an unfair world. It's not Daniel Craig's fault. His Bond clearly does want to have a good time and enjoy some luxury; it's just that QOS never takes time to allow the character to savor the more fun aspects of the 007 life.

That said, I did enjoy Craig's work as 007 and Judi Dench's work as M. I thought the dialog was frequently close to witty, and that the villain, while not in the first rank of Bondian adversaries, brought enough menace to the role to keep me interested. All in all I had a good time with Quantum of Solace. It's in the middle of the Bond pack, fun to watch but not outstanding. Think Thunderball or Octopussy.

Oh, two final quibbles. I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated the title sequence, which stands as the most pedestrian one since License To Kill, and loathed the meandering, pointless title song. I also question the decision to save the gun barrel sequence for end. I missed it at the beginning, and I really want them to put it back. It just doesn't feel like a Bond movie without it.

Atlas Shrugged II: Electric Boogaloo

I've never been able to take anyone who takes Atlas Shrugged seriously seriously, at least where politics, economics, or aesthetics are concerned. And no, I haven't read more than a few pages of this literary cement overshoe, mainly because, after ten pages or so, I kind of figured a) that the novel's odds of improvement were long and b) that the siren call of thousands of more interesting diversions, including doing the dishes and cleaning my computer screen, easily lured me from Ayn Rand's cardboard characters and turgid prose. Besides, I'm not a book reviewer by trade, so nobody's ever offered to pay me to endure 1,100 pages of Rand's nonsense, the gist of which I had already absorbed from a political science class in the form of Rand's equally silly but mercifully shorter essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness.

Still, it is gratifying to see that one of the charming someones at McSweeney's spent enough time with Atlas Shrugged to write this brilliant, timely parody.

Diary of A Superfluous Man

I just thought I'd mention, since it's been consuming my life for the last three months, that Diary of A Superfluous Man will premiere on the MMIP website and at the iTunes Music Store as a free podcast Dec. 12th. It's exciting to finally have the play realized, if only electronically. The production process improved the script markedly, and, as with Let Us Sit Upon the Ground, I was damned lucky in casting. I've seldom had trouble finding talented actors to devote vast swathes of time to my projects, in spite of inability to pay. (Hopefully the MMIP's move to nonprofit status, and the generous support of listeners...hint...hint...will deliver us from this penury.)

You can listen to a sample scene here.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Every year, the War on Christmas comes earlier and earlier.

Where does the time go? My meeting with the Northwestern Division Atheistical Sanhedrin (NORWESDAS, for short)--at which Julia Sweeney (looking quite fetching in a Prada-made black cape and cowl), me, Henry Rollins, and the Mythbusters set fire to a ceremonial Christmas Tree while singing the A side of the fifth Black Sabbath album and popping man-sized balloons inflated in the shape of TV Pundit William Bennett--seems like it happened just yesterday. I remember how we plotted all night to place ourselves, by means both insidious and foul, in key positions to rename the Christmas decorations slated to hang in the town square of Chitting Switch, Montana "holiday decorations". I remember cackling "WHERE WILL THEIR PRECIOUS GOD BE THEN! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

After the orgy (a bacchanalia of absinthe and Vietnamese spin-fuck chairs), we said goodbye to each other with the traditional NORWESDAS salute, and melted away in the night mist.

Now it's time to buy the onyx candles and heroin again. I swear, if it keeps up, we'll be starting the War on Christmas on Labor Day.

We Done Treated Him Bad

Because I am relieved that Barack Obama is now the President-Elect, I laugh a little louder at arguments like this one from the Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Scott Shapiro:

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Just a few weeks ago, I'd have used this argument as a chance to launch into another jeremiad about why people like Jeffrey Scott Shapiro make me ashamed of my connection to the human race. Now, I smile, as I did whenever Archie Bunker whined about the treatment of his beloved "Richard E. Nixon".

One argument deserves a response though. Shapiro says that one day people will recognize Bush's leadership in difficult times and accord him a higher degree of respect. Even though Bush's administration was a political, financial, and moral disaster of world-historical proportions, Shapiro may be on to something. Among Russians, Josef Stalin's reputation, which suffered greatly in the Khrushchev and Gorbachev eras, has rebounded. His approval rating among Russians (47%) is nearly double Bush's current rating with us. So, yes, Mr. Shapiro, Bush can take comfort. Any country sufficiently motivated to ignore the facts of its own history can rehabilitate even its most hideous leaders.

If this ever happens, then I'll have something to blame the people for.

The Unbearable Lightness of Palin

I've been consumed with both paying work and my labors on the next MMIP production. (Diary of A Superfluous Man coming to the internet in November). Consequently, and perhaps mercifully, I've been unable to follow the adventures of Sarah Palin all that closely. I did catch a segment of the debate last night, though, and I watched her interview with Couric on Youtube.

Palin is an ignoramus: a hustling, bullshitting featherhead completely out of her depth. But that's not the worst bit. Such creatures are legion in the world, and life is generally kind to them. What troubles me more is that a sizable percentage of the American public doesn't mind that she's running for Vice President as a hustling, bullshitting featherhead completely out of her depth. Indeed, they try to sell her glib ignorance and sad unwillingness to look facts in the face as evidence that she's a Real American, an authentic, two fisted, meat eating, faith holding exemplar of the Good, True, the Red-White-and-Blue. I would have thought that the farce of the last eight years would have sated all but the most stupidity-hungry voters, but no. Tens of millions of people actually look upon Sarah Palin, smile warm smiles, and say "She's so me!".

I remember, years ago, sitting in my friend Neil's apartment and watching evangelical TV. We did it for a laugh. Anyone who can tune in to Jack Van Impe or Paul Crouch and not laugh at the combination of piety, syrup, bombast, hairspray, eye shadow, and gold-painted particle board can never hope to laugh at anything. But even as we chuckled we knew that most of the people watching and giving money to these clowns weren't laughing. They believe in this gilded tripe. When Jack Van Impe claims that UFOs are the angels foretold in Revelations, or when Pat Robertson claims that feminists are witches, their congregations, millions strong, not only swallow their stories, but they also write checks to sponsor the spread of these important messages. Sarah Palin would have gotten nowhere in life if these same people weren't willing to stuff envelopes and knock on doors to spread the word for her.

Of course, every nation can boast its resident population of boobs, and they often wield substantial political power. But it's always been strange to me that the U.S., a country with magnificent cities, great universities, and more than its share of great thinkers in every field of human endeavor, would choose the benighted clodhopper as the symbol of its national identity, and judge politicians on the basis of how closely they match that image. You'd think that George W. Bush would have spoiled this symbol for good and all, but no. It lives and appears immortal. Hence, Sarah Palin.

The rest of the world might want to start interviewing for the next last best hope of humanity.

Irrationality Among Secular People

Yglesias picked this up from Douthat, who picked it up from the Wall Street Journal. Apparently Baylor University commissioned Gallup to conduct a poll that showed that secular people credit non-religious superstitions more readily than traditional Christians. Yglesias isn't surprised, and neither am I, I suppose, but I do have some questions and observations to toss out as well.

I wasn't able to see the poll's sub-data, but the article suggested that the big dividing line between secular and religious voters is the difference in frequency of religious observance. That's okay as far as it goes, but how far does it go? My father is a believer, but isn't a churchgoer. There are lots of people out there who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" who eschew services but believe in a everything from astrology to Zoroastrianism. And there are lots of people who are "Christmas/Easter" Christians. Are they lumped in with people like me, or does the poll separate the "secular" with the same rigor that it sifts the "traditionally religious"? The article doesn't say.

The reluctance of traditional Christians to go in for tarot cards or communication with the dead doesn't shock me either. Traditional Christianity frowns on such practices, not so much because they are irrational, but rather because they're ostensibly Satanic. That's why some of the more Ned Flandersey Christians become such pains in the ass about Harry Potter and Halloween. They think that depictions of magical practices or of ghouls and goblins, even when done in fun, will lead them and their children to hell. Christian superstitions proscribe other kinds of superstition. That's all.

And in the end it should be said that everyone is, to some degree or other, susceptible to irrational beliefs, particularly when the belief touches on an area where the victim either has limited expertise or feels certain the belief can grant their long-held wishes. Bill Maher's rejection of conventional medicine and Frank Tipler's Omega Point are examples of both impulses. We're all of us capable of being conned, or of conning ourselves. And we all look a little crazy to each other. Here's Mark Twain to explain:

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.
Those of us who are not in the asylum, and not demonstrably due there, are nevertheless, no doubt, insane in one or two particulars. I think we must admit this; but I think that we are otherwise healthy-minded. I think that when we all see one thing alike, it is evidence that, as regards that one thing, our minds are perfectly sound. Now there are really several things which we do all see alike; things which we all accept, and about which we do not dispute. For instance, we who are outside of the asylum all agree that water seeks its level; that the sun gives light and heat; that fire consumes; that fog is damp; that six times six are thirty-six, that two from ten leaves eight; that eight and seven are fifteen. These are, perhaps, the only things we are agreed about; but, although they are so few, they are of inestimable value, because they make an infallible standard of sanity. Whosoever accepts them him we know to be substantially sane; sufficiently sane; in the working essentials, sane. Whoever disputes a single one of them him we know to be wholly insane, and qualified for the asylum.

Very well, the man who disputes none of them we concede to be entitled to go at large. But that is concession enough. We cannot go any further than that; for we know that in all matters of mere opinion that same man is insane--just as insane as we are; just as insane as Shakespeare was. We know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours.

That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic--for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his. All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad. To mention only a few:
The Atheist, The Theosophists, The Infidel, The Swedenborgians, The Agnostic, The Shakers, The Baptist, The Millerites, The Methodist, The Mormons, The Christian Scientist, The Laurence Oliphant Harrisites, The Catholic, and the 115 Christian sects, the Presbyterian excepted, The Grand Lama's people, The Monarchists, The Imperialists, The 72 Mohammedan sects, The Democrats, The Republicans (but not the Mugwumps), The Buddhist, The Blavatsky-Buddhist, The Mind-Curists, The Faith-Curists, The Nationalist, The Mental Scientists, The Confucian, The Spiritualist, The Allopaths, The 2000 East Indian sects, The Homeopaths, The Electropaths, The Peculiar People, The----

But there's no end to the list; there are millions of them! And all insane; each in his own way; insane as to his pet fad or opinion, but otherwise sane and rational. This should move us to be charitable towards one another's lunacies. I recognize that in his special belief the Christian Scientist is insane, because he does not believe as I do; but I hail him as my mate and fellow, because I am as insane as he insane from his point of view, and his point of view is as authoritative as mine and worth as much. That is to say, worth a brass farthing. Upon a great religious or political question, the opinion of the dullest head in the world is worth the same as the opinion of the brightest head in the world--a brass farthing. How do we arrive at this? It is simple. The affirmative opinion of a stupid man is neutralized by the negative opinion of his stupid neighbor no decision is reached; the affirmative opinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by the negative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman--no decision is reached. Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value any but a dead person knows that much. This obliges us to admit the truth of the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above--that, in disputed matters political and religious, one man's opinion is worth no more than his peer's, and hence it followers that no man's opinion possesses any real value. It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get around it: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions.

It is a mere plain, simple fact--as clear and as certain as that eight and seven make fifteen. And by it we recognize that we are all insane, as concerns those matters. If we were sane, we should all see a political or religious doctrine alike; there would be no dispute: it would be a case of eight and seven--just as it is in heaven, where all are sane and none insane. There there is but one religion, one belief; the harmony is perfect; there is never a discordant note.

You can listen to this part of Twain's Christian Science, and more besides, here. Where I'm concerned, I try to hew close to what I take to be objective reality, cognizant of the limitations of my grey cells and my senses, and aware at all times that I could be wrong. It seems to me the safest, most civilized course, and it frees my Sundays for football.

The Seinfeld Microsoft Ad

I suppose I'm joining a general consensus here, which makes me itchy. But I just watched the first Jerry Seinfeld commercial for Microsoft, and I think I know what it demonstrates about Microsoft. It's abundantly clear that they still have enough money to hire top talent and put it in the service of mediocre material.



Jerry, I hope you took Bill for a bundle.

Palin's Speech

As I figured, Palin is effective on television. She delivers speeches well, and she knows how to serve the red meat to the crowd. Much of it was made of lies, but it worked in a Young Tory of the Year kind of way:



I did find something curious though. Palin delivered, toward the end of her spiel, a long hagiography about John McCain's military service, and how much we should honor it, and how it proves that his character is one vastly superior to that of his opponent. I'm not surprised McCain/Palin is making this argument. It's the best one they've got. But I think back to four years ago. That time the Democratic nominee was the Vietnam veteran, and many of the people who cheered Mrs. Palin's remarks tonight were there, wearing band aids to mock John Kerry's military service. Later in the campaign their side invested millions in scurrilous ads that purported to show that Kerry's military record was a fiction. I guess the Right's sentimentality about military service kind of comes and goes, doesn't it?

Sarah Palin

Bristol Palin's pregnancy appears to have thrown the political world into a rage. I'm not quite sure why. The only dimension of that situation that is political is that Bristol's pregnancy is yet another symptom of the bankruptcy of one of the right's pet causes: abstinence-only sex education. In the end, I don't think it'll amount to much by itself. The only people who get really upset at this sort of thing--social conservatives--will give it a pass because Sarah Palin's a social conservative. (Imagine if Chelsea Clinton had turned up pregnant at seventeen. James Dobson would have never let us hear the end of it.) Now, if Bristol had been caught with another girl...

That said, I have plenty of better reasons for disliking Sarah Palin. First, she's a Republican, and if the last eight years have taught us anything, it's that Republicans are by and large disreputable creatures. Next, as Wasilla's mayor, Palin tried to ban books she deemed naughty from the library. When the librarian resisted, Palin tried to have her fired. Next, there's the whole matter of her firing the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner because he refused to (improperly) fire her ex-brother-in-law. Then there's the whole issue of McCain's method of picking Palin, which seemed to boil down to right-wing+XX chromosomes=running mate. If that's the way McCain'll pick his potential successor, what about the rest of his cabinet, or his Supreme Court justices? Then there's the matter of her courtship of radical right wing groups like Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and the Alaska Independence Party. (Yeah, I thought the Civil War closed the question of secession, but I guess since George W. Bush took us back before the legal precedents of the Magna Carta, the question is open again.) Then there's her support of creationism in biology classes. (Another issue that was, for all rational people, closed in the mid-nineteenth century that she'd like to reopen.) Then there's her lying about her fight against the "bridge to nowhere". And there's her global warming denial, and her support for Pat Buchanan. (Has anyone asked her what she thinks about the Holocaust?)

All that's just in four days. I'm sure I'll see other things down the line. But those aren't reasons for her to be dumped from the ticket. The contemporary Republican party seems to like everything that I listed, and though I'm not watching cable news right now, I'm guessing an army of hacks has already fanned out to argue the virtues of book banning, creationism and abuse of power. After eight years, they've grown awfully good at it.

Sarah Palin's apparent failure to see that her children are properly educated about contraception strikes me as irresponsible and stupid, but that falls under the heading of her problem. (I do wish that her public policy choices wouldn't inflict this same problem on people far less able to bear the costs, but that's tantamount to wishing she weren't a Republican.) I dislike her because her policy interests and political goals would place cruel burdens on people I care about, starting with me. I dislike her because she's a symptom of this country's advancing decadence; she's another crackpot that too many people will take too seriously and defend too loudly.

But don't worry about her being dropped from the ticket. The Right will love her whatever she does, or did, for no other reason than that the Left hates her, and that's what counts.

Catching Up

Oh, the places I've been and the things I've seen!

Auditions for Diary of A Superfluous Man: I love holding auditions. As an actor, I always loathed auditioning. Whenever the audition counted for a damn thing, nerves consumed me. Whenever I didn't want the role, I was always relaxed enough to get it. It made for an irony filled career, if nothing else. But I love being on the other side of the table, particularly this time around, when there were more talented actors than there were roles. (So many, in fact, that I changed a character's gender to bring in one actress who I thought was too special to let go.) Auditions are my first chance to see what people can do with my work. Their readings suggest possibilities I hadn't considered, and give me a chance to think anew. I have high hopes that this play will succeed, and help expand my nascent empire.

The convention: I haven't had a chance to watch as much as I'd like. Hillary Clinton delivered a good speech, and Biden surprised me with his performance. I don't fall in love with politicians, but I like his brashness and energy in asserting his ideas, which, mostly, line up with mine. (I'm to the left of Biden, but that's okay. I'm to the left of everybody.) The whole thing seems about as good as a four-day infomercial where everybody's trying desperately hard not to fuck up has a right to be.

The Dark Knight: Bitterspice and I saw it this weekend. We both liked it, though I was slightly more enthusiastic. Neither of us loved it. I admired Heath Ledger's performance, even though it wasn't as iconic as the hype had led me to believe. I thought the acting across the board was strong, and the Joker's antics posed some interesting moral tests for Batman and company (tests they ended up failing, in many ways). That said, I found the ending unsatisfying (maybe the sequel will clear it up, but I don't think it's too much to ask, after 150 minutes, to get a satisfactory conclusion now), and I thought that Two-Face came and went way too quickly--unless of course they're planning him to have a Michael Meyers-esque comeback. I always thought that Two-Face, along with Mr. Freeze, were the most compelling, tragic, Sweeney Toddish Batman villians; why kill him off so easily, or even kill him at all?
I thought the movie was a success, not a triumph. And those who consider it the best movie of all time need to grow up and, along the way, see some of the best movies of all time.

A Brief Encounter With a Con Man

On my way back from auditioning actors for Diary of A Superfluous Man (and a fine collection of actors they were), I pulled into the left turn lane and stopped at the light. As I watched cars rumble through the crowded intersection, I heard someone shouting to my right. It was the guy in a huge black SUV next to me, calling for me to roll my window down. I did, and he told me a tale about some extra speakers he had for an expensive home theater system that he wanted to give me cheap because he "couldn't take them back to the shop." I said no. He pressed on with his pitch, his voice rising with almost-convincing urgency. I said no again. The light turned green, and I was gone.

I figured he was a con man, and that whatever speakers I'd have gotten would have fallen apart upon contact with Earth's atmosphere. What I didn't know was that this con has a specific name: The White-Van Speakers con. Fat Tony was right. Crime boasts a rich lexicon.

There's only one part I think the grifters flubbed. The con calls for them to prowl a high-traffic area for someone who looks flush with cash. I don't know what it was about me--the Costco clothing, the filthy ten-year old Nissan Sentra with a missing right turn signal--that screamed money to these guys, but I think they need to work out a better system for identifying their mark.

Isaac Hayes

It saddened me greatly to hear of Isaac Hayes's death. As a tribute, I've been playing his music here, and I watched his first appearance as Gandy Fitch in the Rockford Files episode "The Hammer of C Block". Wonderful stuff.

Dispensing Judgment

John Edwards has admitted to an affair that he'd previously denied having.

As a one-time supporter, do I feel betrayed? Hmm. Not really. After all, he never told me he wouldn't see other people. Do I think he should get a day or two of shit for having cheated on his wife? No doubt the moral guardians of the nation will hurl shit at him regardless of what I think. That's what society pays them for, when society isn't blowing its mad money on internet porn. I can hear them now, even though I'm deliberately avoiding cable news, "To think this man was almost President! A man who can lie to his wife about an affair can lie about anything!"

Actually, I think we can disprove that one. American history overflows with men who were respectable specimens in private, but lying reprobates in public. America has endured, just in the last half century, a pair of miserable sods who, as Presidents, lied about malfeasance, conspiracy, and fraud in the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, the Pentagon, the NSC, the NSA, the Committee to Re-Elect the President, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, and the White House. Neither Richard Nixon nor George W. Bush approached a microphone during their respective presidencies without declaiming a dozen hand-crafted lies into it. George W. Bush has lied so profligately during the last eight years that, if he introduced himself to me right now, I'd demand three pieces of identification and a DNA sample. That said, to the best of my knowledge, neither Richard Nixon nor George W. Bush ever cheated on their wives. If asked about that, they could justifiably put up an indignant front and speak truthfully of their devotion to their spouses.

I've always taken it that a man who can lie about cheating on his wife is a man who's capable of lying about cheating on his wife. In this area alone can I assume his credibility is suspect. In other areas I try to assess his credibility by comparing his statements to reality, as I understand it. When John Edwards described the two Americas, he was describing something that matched my experience of how this country operates. When he told me the merits of his health plan, I gleaned from others who know more about the field than I do that Edwards knew what he was talking about. These statements and policies of his retain credibility, even though the man was a jackass where his marriage was concerned.

It's too bad that Edwards has damaged his reputation by lying about sex, because it allows stupid people to conclude that those lies negate everything of value the man has ever said. Ah, well. What's to be done?

The Original Maverick

I understand that John McCain has recently taken to touting himself in his advertisements as the "original Maverick". While a few who probably don't know any better have claimed that the original Maverick should, in fact, be Tom Cruise's character from a movie that helped finance one of Don Simpson's 1980s drug buys, the smarter of us all know that the original Maverick is the gentleman pictured above.

Parenthetically, Mr. Garner is now in poor health, but I'm willing to bet that, should he get a chance to vote, he'll vote for Obama.

Excused Absence

Sorry I've been away so long. I've been busy outlining a movie script so that I can win a bet with bitterspice. (You'll learn not to bet me, Sweetheart.) I've also been preparing Diary of A Superfluous Man for podcast and organizing the auditions for same. And I've been trying to keep out of trouble with creditors and get a short story mailed to an editor who asked for it and...well, I could have just said I've been busy but where's the fun in that.

Thought to chew on:

Ten years ago, we impeached the President for saying, during an official inquiry into the adventures of his penis, that it depended on what the meaning of "is" was. Today we don't impeach a President whose administration asserts a difference between removing a detainee's clothes for "enhanced interrogation" and stripping him naked for torture. I guess it says a lot about what sorts of nudity we Americans prefer.

How Can You Go Wrong With Cute Robots?

Well you can, but Pixar didn't. I realize I'm joining a very large chorus, and taking on all the discomfort that comes with that, but I absolutely adored Wall-E. From its unexpected use of the secondary Broadway song-and-dance number "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" during an animated trip through the galaxy to the final, joyous scene on Earth, this picture owned me. I'd follow Wall-E, this cute little tramp of a robot, just about anywhere, and I'm glad this movie let me.

See it. Live it. Love it. Be it.

The Many Faces of Bad

As longtime readers, all three of you, already know, I'm come to know bad movies of many kinds and styles. And today I've decided, for my amusement, to break bad movies down by arbitrary categories, in hopes of groping toward my bad movie aesthetic.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

(This post, incidentally, is dedicated to the late Jesse Helms, a beacon to bigoted halfwits everywhere, whose long political career is one of the many things that North Carolina will have to spend the next ten thousand years apologizing for.)

Worst Movie I've Ever Watched on a Premium Cable Channel: The Lonely Lady

Because I was actively repressing my memory of this movie, I almost put Glitter here. Now Glitter is a singularly awful, cheesy, and exploitive look at the ugly side of show business; but nobody tried to rape Mariah Carey with a garden hose, or marry her off to an impotent guy who carries said garden hose around whenever he really needs to win an argument, or place her spread eagled on a pool table while some sleaze shoots pool balls up her crotch. Mariah Carey, even in the delicate mental state she was in during the making and promotion of Glitter would never have agreed to such humiliations. Pia Zadora, however, being of sound mind, agreed to it straight away. Indeed, her billionaire husband financed it. The Lonely Lady could be used in aversion therapy. Anyone who watches it will shun show business, movies, pool tables, typewriters, eurotrash, garden tools, or human sexual organs for at least ten years. This movie made me ashamed to be a multi-cellular organism.

Worst Movie I've Ever Watched on Basic Cable: Jaws: the Revenge

I will give this movie credit for this much: it gave me a catch phrase to use whenever someone does something impossible in a movie. In this picture, the shark attacks a plane that Michael Caine's character has crashed into the ocean. The plane goes under, and presumably Caine does to; but a moment later his cast-mates are fishing him out of the drink, intact, and wearing dry clothes. When they ask him how he evaded the shark and made it to the boat (they don't notice his dry clothing), he says "It wasn't easy!" I say that all the time when I watch wild, inexplicable action in pictures now. Thanks, Jaws 4! Basic plot of the movie? Mrs. Brodie suspects that the shark who attacked her husband in the first movie is now after her and her family. (Apparently, somewhere on the Paramount lot, the shark and Michael Myers merged into one.) So she flies to the Bahamas to be with her son and flirt stupidly with Michael Caine. Eventually, to save everyone else--because everyone else can't just pick up an move to Nebraska where the shark would have a really hard time--she decides to sacrifice herself to the shark. There she has flashbacks to moments in previous Jaws movies, and this is odd because she wasn't present for the moments she flashes back to. Eventually, the black guy dies, the shark roars, and the movie ends.

Worst Movie I've Ever Watched on Video: Monster A Go-Go

This movie contains two lies in the title alone. There's no monster, and there's no a-go-go. There's a lot of black screen to make you think your television is broken. There's a lot of tedious dialog that never goes anywhere. There's a long scene where an actor leads the camera away for a long walk down a long hallway, so that it won't see the "monster" tearing up the room the actor has left. There's an actor who, before he answers the phone, makes a "Brrring-Brrring" noise. There's a full cast change in the middle of the movie.

Roger Ebert once described a movie as being no improvement over a blank screen. This movie was a blank screen, occasionally interrupted by visible tedium. Stay away.

Worst Movie I've Ever Watched on An Airplane: Armageddon

Because I'm tired of bitching about this picture, I'll turn it over to the fabulous Bad Astronomy and the equally fabulous Roger Ebert. My only addition to what they'll say is what I said when I first saw this piece of shit: "I wanted to walk out of this movie, and I was on a plane!"

Most Morally Degrading Picture I've Ever Seen: tie Sidehackers, Amityville 2: The Possession, The Lonely Lady

Okay, in Amityville 2, a possessed teenaged boy barges into his sister's room one night and asks to take naked pictures of her. Eeew! Right? Y'know what's even more disgusting? She shrugs and whips her top off. The boy's possessed. I want to know what her excuse was supposed to be. Five minutes later, the two are having sex. Why is she involved in that? Is she supposed to be evil too? I thought the point of the movie was that this family was fine before they arrived in this house. It looks to me like they were pretty fucking evil to start with. I would have thought that Satan, or whatever evil hell beast held sway over the Amityville house in the movie, would have seen that and said, "Whoa! Okay! You motherfuckers are too sick even for me! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, Mr. and Mrs. Caligula! Keep the damn house, and may you rot in the filth of your incestuous fornication!" Repugnant!

(Also, there's a moment in the movie that just defies explanation. The demon has possessed the teenaged boy in the movie, yet the demon also barks instructions to the teenaged boy through his Walkman. Why would this be necessary if he's possessed the boy? Does the demon just need to think out loud a lot?)

The Sidehackers starts out as a pointless, but harmless movie about a ridiculous sport called sidehacking, in which a team involving a motorcycle rider and a guy who hangs off one side of the motorcycle, race around. Soon we meet two sidehackers. One sidehacker's girl tries to seduce another sidehacker, fails, and for revenge claims she was raped. In revenge, the aggrieved sidehacker kidnaps the other sidehacker and his girl, beats him, and rapes her to death. And then it gets grim. By the end, you wish that humanity would just curl up on the floor and die.

You know how I feel about The Lonely Lady.

Respected Film That I Dislike Intensely: Happiness

I respect many things about Todd Solondz's Happiness. Solondz gets good performances from his actors. His dialog is frequently witty and sharp. He has a good eye. But I came away from this film feeling as if it was saying to me that sexual desire inevitably makes people hypocritical, mean-spirited, neurotic, and violent. The characters felt over-determined, which might not have been a problem if they'd been over-determined in service of a picture whose theme struck me as true. Instead, his movie's view of sexuality brings to mind that over-celebrated twit Camille Paglia, whose view of sex the late Molly Ivins dissected in the following fashion:

Paglia's view of sex--that it is irrational, violent, immoral, and wounding--is so glum that one hesitates to suggest that it might be instead, well, a lot of fun, and maybe even affectionate and loving.

I don't know if the fun, affectionate, or loving aspects of sexuality had ever occurred to Solondz; or if he decided to ignore that reality because it wouldn't help him build his case against the upper-middle income suburbanites he apparently loathes. Either way, his denigration of human sexuality leaves me thinking of Happiness as a well-made picture that is also deeply wrong.

Worst Movie I've Ever Seen in a Theater:

I hate to punk out at the end like this, but because I know one of the people who was in this movie and wouldn't want to piss him, or her off, I'm going to demur on this one. (That person, if he or she has guessed which movie I'm talking about, should know that I thought that he or she was the best thing in it, for whatever that's worth.) Those who know me and promise not to tell tales out of school can email me for the offending movie's moniker.

Until next time, kiddies.

The Lighter Side of 007

Daniel Craig is brilliant in this sketch for British TV in which he is besotted with a woman who has no idea that he's the actor who plays James Bond.

Best Line: "She doesn't know what I do, but she knows who I am."

Longer Carlin Post

Because I live in Seattle, I got an extra treat the last couple of times George Carlin came to town. Seattle was either the first stop or one of the earliest stops on Carlin's last two tours, and, because he always showed up with new material, I was among those who heard it first. He'd come out to great applause, place a notebook or a stack of cards on a stool or tabletop, and tell us that, because he was still shaping and refining his material, he'd be referring to these notes throughout the show. I loved the idea that I was, in a small way, a part of his revision process, and that the work he was doing here would eventually shape his performance in an HBO special nine months or a year down the road. When I watched his last HBO special, I thought back to his performance at Seattle Center and, in between laughs, took note of the differences--what he left in, what he cut, where he changed cadence, where he added or subtracted pauses or looks. Yeah, I can forget my wallet or my keys any day, but I've a great memory for voices, and Carlin's was one of my favorites.

What amazed me most about him was his ability to stay fresh as he aged. Most comedians last, if they're lucky, five or ten years before their acts go stale and force them into talk-show hosting or some other menial occupation. But Carlin kept going. From middle-class observational comic to hippy to cantankerous old man, he both changed with the times and remained himself. It's an almost impossible feat, but he pulled it off. His material ranged over a universe of topics. Pick a subject. Carlin had something to say about it, and it was smarter and funnier than anything you'd say about it. His Tacoma show ten years ago (or so) made me laugh so hard that my ribs ached for a week, and kept me thinking long after the ache subsided.

Losing him hurts. He was something to look forward to on a planet that sorely lacks things to look forward to. I'm glad I got to see him as often as I did, but I'm a greedy person. I never got enough, and I guess I never will.