12/15/2003 “There is no great pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in
having lots to do---and not doing it.” --- Mary Wilson Little
AGE AINT’ NOTHING BUT A NUMBER---UNLESS IT’S REALLY HIGH Opening at number is Something’s Gotta Give which is being touted as the film wherein Jack Nicholson actually sucks face with a woman close to his age. What’s sad is that even in a movie about disparaged ages, the best they could do was Diane Keaton, who is almost a fully decade younger than Nicholson (nine years to be exact). The film’s biggest “in” joke is that Jack Nicholson is playing someone remarkably like Jack Nicholson. The other not-so-funny parallel is that Diane Keaton really doesn’t see herself as a leading lady any longer either. Her character has given up on dating after her divorce from---are you ready---Paul Michael Glaser! That’s right! She’s divorced from Starsky! Nicholson is originally dating Keaton’s daughter (Amanda Peet), but after a heart attack strands him at Keaton’s Hampton home (a real house so nice it was in fucking Architectural Digest), he begins to fall for her instead---just as she’s being courted by Keanu Reeves, the doctor who treated Nicholson. Now, the first hour of this movie is pure fun. Everyone is having a good time and it shows. And everyone looks great too. Much has been made about Diane Keaton’s fully frontal nude scene, but it’s literally a second onscreen, you see almost nothing and it’s not like she’s that old broad from Titanic. Let’s get real, people. I’m pretty sure Diane Keaton could probably fit into her old wardrobe from Annie Hall. Aging is different for the naturally thin. Nicholson, however, is a bloated pig. But this is the first time I ever saw Keanu as good-looking. I mean, I’ve always known he was good-looking, but in other movies there were too many other things going on. Here, he just plays The Cute Doctor and he’s well-suited for it. It’s about freaking time he played the eye-candy he was always meant to be. Needless to say, it took a woman to get this right. Unfortunately, after the first hour or so, things take a turn for the worse, because this movie has about four different endings and each one drags the film down a bit further. Not to mention the wasting of Frances McDormand as Diane Keaton’s sister. If there’s anyway I could change this film, I would’ve had a full-blown sex scene between Frances McDormand and Keanu. I like her just that much and even in her small role she’s great. SIZE MATTERS
The Last Samurai is down to number two and I personally believe the prime
motivational factor Tom Cruise for Tom Cruise making a film in Japan was
height. There are maybe two men in this whole film taller than Tom Cruise
and he kills one personally (“I’m TOM CRUISE! How dare you be taller
than me in my own movie!?!”) and the other is dead in the first half
hour. Everyone else looks him dead in the eye just the way the diminutive
egomaniac likes it. And did I mention the scene where the widow lovingly
helps him put on her dead husband’s armor? The man Cruise killed!?! Needless
to day, there is some spit swapped at this point. We never see the late
husband and father, because, unlike Cruise, he chose to actually try and
protect his face and head with the armor. Guess he must have been ugly
or something. Either that, or by not showing his face, the producers deny
him a sense of humanity, thus making it easier for us to try and swallow
this bullshit about his family loving Tom Cruise EVEN THOUGH HE FUCKING
KILLED THE MAN! No, I’m not going to let this little plot point go.
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT HOW THEY AREN’T THAT FUNNY Stuck On You opens at number three and the Farrelly Brothers have gotten my money for the last time, so I’m never going to see this. Face it, people: they peaked with There’s Something About Mary and it’s been downhill since then. Some filmmakers only have one good film in them and once they’ve made it, they’re pretty much filling in 3am cable programming after that. Also, it’s become this thing for actors to try and prove how subversive they’re willing to be. Yeah, so long as it’s in a mainstream studio film, which may duplicate There’s Something About Mary’s $100M+ take. And lets face it, just what the hell else did Cher have to do? I’m sure that five year “farewell tour” must be just about over now. And despite the pseudo-star power, it’s not exactly setting the world on fire with its $10M opening. Can we stop kidding ourselves now that Greg Kinnear is actually a star? YEAH, WELL LOVE CAN’T PLAY THE RENT Love Don’t Cost a thing opens at number four and you know you’re old when they start remaking the teen comedies of your youth (though I was actually out of my teens by the time this came out in ‘87). This is a remake of the not-so-classic 80’s film, Can’t Buy Me Love, which starred Patrick Dempsey. It’s been remade and darkened considerably into this. Since the first film was hardly great, I didn’t bother seeing this either. Not to mention it seems to have carried along the not-so-subtle sleaze factor of the first. Even then I noticed the excessive T&A factor in what was supposed to be a romantic teen comedy. The bump and grind show of the cheerleaders in the commercials shows that little has changed. Besides, I don’t remember a role for an annoying father in the first, so what the fuck is Steve Harvey doing here? But now biggest mystery remains “Directed by Troy Beyer.” WHAT. THE. FUCK? Have we fallen so far that even C-list ethnic starlets are directors now? For those of you old enough to remember when Lena Lovitch’s “New Toy” was actually considered “alternative music” (thus making that Target ad even more extraordinary) you remember that Troy Beyer pretty much peaked when she appeared on Dynasty. Even in the Black community she was a second-rate star, so her survival becomes all the more impressive. In fact her most notable job may have been as the video ho in Prince’s “Sexy Muthafucka” video and they were rumored to be dating (this ironically came after she proclaimed her “Christian values” in an interview, back when she thought Dynasty would actually make her a star). Her vault into the world of cinematic infamy came when she wrote B.A.P.s, the film Halle Berry would most like to forget. I actually saw her first directorial atrocity, Let’s Talk About Sex on cable and it’s pretty bad. It’s a pseudo documentary of women in Miami talking about sex. As if that’s a barometer for the country, much less the world. It was around this time she cut her hair and stopped looking like a Black Kyra Sedgewick and started looking like a Black Mia Farrow. And did I forget she once showed up on the arm of George Lucas? I hope she didn’t hurt her back from all that golddigging. At least we know how she managed to keep her film career afloat now (not to mention why she’s such a bad director). If you’re fucking George Lucas, you’ve got a pathway to some of the most powerful men in Hollywood and can get a deal just on the hope George will swing by the set and maybe bring his good friend Stevie. SERIOUS, WHO WANTS TO DO AN OLD, FAT GUY IN A RED SUIT?
Haunted Mansion is down to number five, followed by Bad Santa at number
six and probably the most entertaining aspect of this film is Lauren Graham
of The Gilmore Girls (and about a hundred other TV guest spots) appearing
as a Jewish girl (yeah, right) who gets off on fucking Billy Bob while
he’s dressed as Santa. “Fuck me, Santa. Fuck me, Santa. Fuck me, Santa…”
is her mantra and apparently the filmmakers thought it was so funny they
use it twice.
LIKE BEN AFFLECK, HE AIN’T COMING BACK FOR DAREDEVIL 2 EITHER Elf is down to number seven, but at $147M it’s all good, as the kids like to say. Jon Favreau not only directs this and appears in a small role, but he’s also in Something’s Got To Give as Jack Nicholson’s personal assistant. The man is rolling in it. Lucky for him the stink of Daredevil came off very easily. Especially when his character wasn’t even given a name onscreen. ACTUALLY YOU CAN BUY THIS GUY’S LOVE Honey is down to number eight and judging by the huge drop apparently seeing it once was enough for the kids. There was a rumor she was seeing the co-star of her next film, Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker. A shame it seems not to have been true. Though dumb as a rock, he was a tremendous step-up from her last pretty boy, her costar from her show Dark Angel, Michael Weatherly. She was 18, he was 32 and while I can’t blame him for wanting to hit it, but when they got engaged you knew something was amiss, because he was a far cry from your usual, pathetic middle-aged man trying to find his youth between a pair of young thighs. He was just he opposite; a relatively young pretty boy. So what gives? What can I tell you? Golddigging knows no gender. The show was James Cameron’s baby and was touted to be the next big show and she was its star. But once the show was canceled, their engagement suddenly ended. Gee, wonder why? Apparently he concluded she was the wrong the star to hitch his wagon to. But recently they reconciled. Think her opening at number two last week had anything to do with that? With this drop he should be gone again. CELEBRATING THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD----BY SHIPPING THE KIDS OFF TO WATCH CRAPPY MOVIES Cat in the Hat is down to number nine and this piece of crap may not even break $100M. Sadly, the time-honored Christmas day tradition of dumping kids already bored by their presents off at the movies might still get it there before the end of the year. AND SHELLY WINTERS, WE WANT YOURS TOO Finally, Gothika closes out the top ten at number ten, but it’s okay, Halle. You’re so fine it doesn’t matter. And no matter what you do, they can’t take your Oscar back. If they could, Marlon Brando would have forfeited his long ago. And we won’t even get into Cuba Gooding Jr. THIS WOULD HAVE KILLED LORNE GREENE---IF HE WEREN’T ALREADY DEAD So someone decided that Battlestar Galactica needed to be remade. You remember Battlestar Galactica, don’t you? At the time, it was the most expensive TV show ever made. It was ABC’s attempt to cash in on Star Wars. They even hired John Dykstra, who did the special effects for Star Wars. In retrospect it was a serial version of the “Jews In Space” segment from History of the World Part 1. Seriously, it was about the search for the lost “tribe” by the survivors of the other “tribes” who were fleeing a “holocaust.” It couldn’t have been more Jewish. The irony was the show suggested that the ancient Egyptians, who enslaved the real Jews, were from space. The budget even allowed filming amongst the pyramids in Egypt. In any case, the show did suck big time. All the special effects made for the pilot were used over and over again, something that I, as young annoyed (not yet angry) geek noticed immediately. Also there were the incredibly stupid plot points. A human aided in the genocide. Why? What did he think they were going to do with him after it was over. What was he going to do as the only human left? Then, every week the Battlestar Galactica would visit a new world with humans. Uh, considering the Cylons (the robots out to destroy all human life) were chasing them, just what exactly did they think the Cylons did to these people? They were pretty much serving them a buffet of humanity. Then there were these “angels” that showed up to help them---but not showing them the way to Earth or, god forbid, use their powers to fight the evil robots. It was a lousy show, but strangely, after seeing this new version I was nostalgic for it (a quick trip to one of the loser websites devoted to it, cured that). The problem is (other than there being no reason at all for this to be remade) is the pretentious assholes behind it. These morons talked about how they wanted to make it more “realistic.” Yeah, that’s why you have a sex scene with a nymphomaniac blonde robot girl (whose spine glows when she has sex) in the first fifteen minutes. That’s realism. And it doesn’t end there. These idiots were obsessed with showing you the cruelties of war, with soldiers being sacrificed and women and children being left to die. But they fail to realize that the impact is lessened because IT’S HAPPENING IN FREAKING OUTER SPACE! Apparently no one told these people they were making a space opera. Then there are the changes. The actual Galactica is an old spacecraft (now a dull gray rather than white) about to be decommissioned. The Cylons now look human and their ships look like the heads of the old robots with that red eye going back and forth. The old theme music is now used in a ceremony showing the old Viper spacecraft (which I built as a model). See, the technology was deliberately retro because the robots had the ability to control anything too advanced. Yawn. Then there’s the change of Starbuck and Boomer. Starbuck is now a blonde woman and Boomer is a Korean woman and secret Cylon robot. Apollo and Adama don’t get along and haven’t spoken since the death of Zak, Apollo’s brother and Adama’s son (who was played in the original by none other than Rick Springfield). Colonel Tighe is now a white guy with a drinking problem and Boxy does show up, but without Jane Seymour as his mother Serena or that ugly robot dog. And the costumes just suck out loud. The one thing I really miss is the gorgeous Maren Jensen, who played Apollo’s sister and Starbuck’s sometime love, Athena. Cassiopeia as the hooker (who was quickly made into a nurse, thereby fulfilling two male fantasies) I don’t miss as much. I also miss that they were actually trying to entertain you. This show isn’t bad per se (the special effects are, of course, better than ever), but it’s not the least bit fun. The old one would at least have funny moments, like when Athena catches Starbuck nailing that hooker in his ship. This thing plays it as straight as scotch. Not to mention giving you not even a small victory by humanity. The first one at least let you have that. In this, humanity is whipped and driven away and Earth is just a legend, not thought of for a second as being real. I would have preferred they just spent this time and money on just wrapping up the first one (we’re going to pretend Galactica 1980 just didn’t happen). In fact, the fanbase for this lame show is so great that they actually made one. Richard “Apollo” Hatch used his own money, got a lot of the original actors together (though no Starbuck because Dirk Benedict actually found work after the series had ended) and actually made a short film hoping to get the networks to do just that. Yeah, I think that’s really sad too. Dirk Benedict, however, appeared with the new Starbuck on a promotional special for the show. It’s called moving on, Richard. Look into it. THAT LITTLE DOG ON FRASIER BETTER WATCH HIMSELF And you know Death is serious when it starts killing even the animal celebrities. This week Keiko a.k.a., “Free Willy” died of pneumonia. Apparently Death was frustrated at missing Ozzy Osbourne yet again. Though at the rate he’s going, George Clinton, master of the P-Funk will be dead soon enough, busted this week for possession of coke and he’s had a habit for years. WHY I’M BETTER THAN YOU Not only do I not watch Paris Hilton on that dumb show, but I think Kelis’ “Milkshake” song really sucks.
“GIRL, I HEARD YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED…”
While I personally don’t think Gwyneth Paltrow’s quickie secret wedding was a big “fuck you” to JLo and Ben Affleck, you can’t help but think it’s not lost on them. Elvis Costello and Mary J. Blige also got married on the downlow (he married Jazz vocalist, Diana Krall), so basically if you don’t want a lot of shit, you can avoid it. The simple truth is JLo wants the pomp and circumstance. She wants dozens of helicopters competing for a shot. It’s proof she’s a superstar. She’s didn’t claw her way out of The Bronx and onto Hollywood’s A-list to get hitched in a roadside dump in California. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, I’M ACTUALLY NOT BUYING AS MUCH THESE DAYS
Finally, the DVD collection grew to 280 (not counting the porn) this
past week with the addition of Terminator 3 (got it for free) For Love
or Money (a Michael J. Fox movie that only I love and it also was free)
and The Ben Stiller Show (this one I paid for). I was a huge fan of The
Ben Stiller Show when it aired on Fox a decade ago. When the Museum for
Television and Radio History did a marathon of all 13 episodes, I was
there (thank you, Movie Buddy ’98). I was thrilled to get this collection
as it also contains unaired sketches and a little of the show Ben Stiller
did for MTV, which was funny too (“My U2 Dads” was a personal favorite).
Most of the skits still hold up (there’s even one making fun of Tom Cruise’s
Oscar begging), but a few are obviously dated, but nothing more so than
guess star Rob Morrow (where’s that Northern Exposure box set). Even James
“Scotty” Doohan as a guest star holds up better than that. The Sarah Jessica
Parker episode is now fresher than ever, because in 1992 she was hardly
the A-list star she is now. What’s really funny are the honest moments
like when Ben Stiller asks Janene Garafalo (back before she became a humorless
political shrew) what would she say if he told her she was attractive,
“Well then I’d say you were a chubby-chaser, sir.” Not to mention
the incredibly masochistic “Diary” segments. As his movie career also
shows, no one is more willing to degrade himself for humor than Ben Stiller.
Fox didn’t get the show and its Sunday 7:00 timeslot meant that it would
be sacrificed in a heartbeat for football (like the late, great Futurama).
Revenge was sweet when it won an Emmy a year later for Best Writing. Co-creator,
Judd Aptow’s career has pretty much continued in this vein. He created
“Freaks & Geeks” which was critically acclaimed, handled badly by the
networks and canceled. He created “Undeclared” which was critically acclaimed,
handled badly by the networks and canceled. Needless to say, Ben Stiller
guest-starred on both of those shows.
12/8/2003
“A man has missed something if he has never woken up in an anonymous bed
beside a face he’ll never see again, and if he has never left a brothel a dawn
feeling like throwing himself in the river out of sheer disgust with life.”
--- Gustave Flaubert
SAMURAI NIGHT FEVER Opening at is The Last Samurai and I didn’t expect too much from this. After all, not only is it an Edward Zwick movie (thirtysomething, Glory, Legends of the Fall) it’s also another Tom Cruise vehicle, which means the film’s sole purpose is to serve him and make him look good. All I wanted were a few good sword fights. Well, I was sadly not disappointed in the former and a little in the latter. Cruise plays a tortured Civil War hero and Indian War hero recruited to modernize Japan’s army (actually the new Japanese army was based on the Prussian model) to put down insurgent samurai who refuse to change. When his army is sent into battle too soon, they are defeated, but because he is TOM CRUISE, he acquits himself on the battlefield so well, he impresses the head of the rebelling samurai so much that he takes Cruise prisoner and forces his sister to take care of him. She’s not thrilled because one of the many men Cruise killed was her husband. But of course, because he is TOM CRUISE, he works his way into her heart and the hearts of her children WHOSE FATHER HE FUCKING KILLED! Of course Cruise learns to love and respect the samurai and eventually joins their ranks against the government, leading to an ending only Tom Cruise and his fans could love. Where do I start? As always, the fault lies in the original story, which presents the government as misguided, the emperor as weak, his ministers corrupt and the samurai all that is good and pure in Japan. Well, the simple truth is Japan had kept itself in isolation for over a century and the world had passed it by, so it did have to play a game of catch up pretty damn quickly. It only “opened up” to the world again at the point of a gun to begin with (yes, I’m flexing my Minor in East Asian History), so unless they wanted to live like that, they had to get guns of their own or wind up like almost all the other Asian nations. This meant the introduction of horrible new ideas like religious freedom and the destruction of the rigid caste system, which put the samurai on top (not to mention the end of the shogunate, which held the real power in Japan). This means the die hard samurai were ultimately wrong and a better script might have introduced this and made it a bit of an issue, that as noble as the rebel leader might be, he was wrong and his time was over. And the samurai weren’t so pure. Like the knights of the middle ages, once you strip away the myth and legend, you find a bunch of nasty bastards with swords who spent most of their time abusing the peasants who did all the real work. That a samurai would kill a peasant to test his sword’s sharpness isn’t entirely, true but it’s not a lie either. While a prisoner, Cruise learns the sword in the space of a season. Yeah, right. Granted, he was a seasoned fighter before he got there, but you are not learning a new discipline in a season to the point where you can take on people who spend their lives studying it. But again, he is TOM CRUISE, so when we have our nice ninja attack scene (yes, ninja do show up in this movie) he’s throwing kicks to the head and dealing out justice with a sword. Of course, these ninja oddly show up without guns, whereas in reality, the ninja were the first in Japan to grab modern weapons. The problem with the fight scenes is that they’re over cut so you really don’t see much. Thank goodness for Tom Cruise’s ego, so the scene where he single-handedly takes out a group of assassins is shown not once, but twice. The second time in slow motion to show you the greatness of TOM CRUISE. But as always, he shows infinitely more chemistry with his primary male co-star than he does with the woman. Heh-heh-heh. You can’t fight Mother Nature, Tommy. SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE/SHAKE YO’ BOOTY Honey opens at number and I was going to see it just to watch Jessica Alba bump and grind like the dirty old man I’m slowly becoming, but in the end I just couldn’t waste even ninety minutes of my life in a movie I know will be awful. Even if it is Alba finally playing the minority she really is after years of the “dark complexioned” white girl. Of course this is the end of her career, because all the dumb Hollywood execs who just thought she was something “exotic” like Shannyn Sossamon (who’s Hawaiian if you must know) now know she’s no different than Salma Hayek. She’s now officially a minority actress and we know what that means. Maria Conchito Alonzo will now find a new career playing her mother. And Mekhi Phifer has to be the happiest man in show business. Here’s a list of the women he’s been paid to kiss onscreen: Jessica Alba, Julia Stiles, Ming Na, Angelina Jolie, Nia Long, Brandy and Beyonce. When Black actors complain about the work they’re offered, I’d better not hear from this muthafucka. FROM FIGHTING SUPERMAN TO THIS The Haunted Mansion is down to number three and pity poor Terrance Stamp. He went from being one of the hottest pretty boys in Hollywood to doing this shit, especially after a great, great film like The Limey, which was supposed to do for him what Pulp Fiction did for John Travolta or Jackie Brown did for Robert Forrester. I suppose now even being hung up on wires and saying lines like, “You will kneel before Zod,” looks dignified. By the way, he also does the voice of Jor-El on Smallville. THERES ALSO A CURIOUS GEORGE MOVIE COMING. I’M NOT KIDDING. Elf is down only one notch to number four, followed by The Cat in the Hat, which drops a wonderful four notches, perhaps suggesting that even kids have recognized this as shit and would rather see Elf again than see it a second time. And at $109M budget, it’s simply not going to make the $300M plus it needs to be a real hit. Heh-heh-heh. But alas, it’s too late. A movie version of “Where The Wild Things Are” is coming and there seems to be nothing we can do to stop it. SANTA’S A JERK! GET IT? Bad Santa is down to number six and the director of this, Terry Zwigoff was offered Elf before this but turned it down because he didn’t like the forced nature of it. Well, Terry, I got bad news for you, even with those aspects, it’s got more wit than your little one joke film. Not to mention, now Jon Favreau will be able to send his kids to the best colleges in the country, something Bad Santa ain’t gonna do for you. And did I mention how wasted Bernie Mac is in this? He gets one scene where he gets to harass a preteen shoplifter and that’s it. Why? Well, because I guess because we needed yet another scene of Billy Bob drunk. “AYE, BOYO. GET YERSELF A HANDFUL OF BOOBIE, THE IRISH WAY.” Gothika is down to number seven and the point of this title remains a mystery to me as there is nothing inherently gothic, much less German gothic about it. And the ultimate ending of this film is dumb beyond reason. Not to give too much away for those of you who still strangely want to see it, but even if supernatural forces make you commit a crime, I hardly think the current criminal justice system is going to let you slide on it. “Yes, your honor I did grab that woman’s breasts, but only because a horny leprechaun made me” is not going to get you back on the streets. If it could, my cousin would be a free man today. RON HOWARD MUST HAVE BEEN OFF THAT DAY The Missing is down to number eight and while Cate Blanchett is the heir apparent to Steep, the next generation is right on tap with Evan Rachel Wood as her teenage daughter whose abduction sets the entire film in motion. She was perhaps, the best thing about the show Once & Again as Billy Campbell’s daughter who quietly slips into anorexia. She was also the star of this year’s controversial Thirteen about teenage girls on the edge of self-destruction. There’s a buzz around her and it is well deserved. She’s one of those actors who essentially becomes to the character they’re portraying so that you don’t see “the acting” going on. One the best scenes in the film occurs early on when Cate Blanchett and Evan Rachel Wood where Wood competes with her mother for the attention of Aaron Eckhart, who plays Cate’s lover. The moment is complex and honest and makes such an impression that it’s a disappointment when the film can’t maintain this level. TITANIC IT’S NOT Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World is down to number nine and the Academy Award nominations had better come through big time for this to make some money. It’s such a large film, it took three studios to make it and at $72M it’s nowhere near breaking even. SO MUCH FOR TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE Finally, Love Actually closes out the top ten at number ten and its box office is also disappointing, but it was never given the big rollout that I expected it to. I don’t think it ever broke more than 2000 theaters, whereas Universal shoved the fucking Cat In The Hat into over 3000. Will they ever stop fucking up a film’s release? I’m still pissed about Out Of Sight and that was how long ago. Not that Love Actually is perfect. It should have been cut in the writing stage down to under two hours and the unhappy plotlines dropped outright or made happy. It’s a film set around fucking Christmas! It’s miserable enough now during the holidays without paying good money to be additionally depressed. WHO’S GOING TO BE MY IMAGINARY LOVER NOW? I knew it was coming after the car accident when her Jaguar flipped over, but now it’s official: Bridget Fonda is married. And she married that ugly bastard Danny Elfman too. See, if you’re a musician, no matter how ugly you are, you can always get the best girls. I add this to the grand tradition of Keith Richards/Patti Hansen and Ric Ocasek/Paulina Porizkova. You’d think this would make me practice guitar more, but no. And he’s fucking 50 on top of it all. Granted, she’s almost 40 now and at that age, the difference between 40 and 50 is nothing, but still. And you know she going to get pregnant now as soon as possible. Sigh. My life no longer has meaning. Only Halle Berry’s single status keeps me going. SO, YOU LIFECYLE HERE OFTEN? Speaking of aging, because playing with my three-year-old cousins over Thanksgiving (again, I went to The Bronx to see my aunt) made me break out into a hard sweat, I find myself doing the gym scam again, where we try the two week free plan for a brief respite from the inevitable prospect of having to buy jeans a size larger. This bothers me so much I actually kept my appointment on the night of the snowstorm to go---only to find the guy I was going to meet didn’t show up. So I worked out anyway and was quickly reminded how much I truly dislike working out. When are they going to come out with a pill that puts you in shape? And no, diet pills do not count. And all the gyms are the same, as are the people that populate them. While in the weight room, I was able to see the time honored tradition of the gym pick-up, wherein a girl new to free weights is set upon by a guy who feigns interest in actually helping her learn. He knows he’s lying, she knows he’s lying. It’s a game we all play. But this time, however, it was coupled with another time-honored tradition: Minorities picking up the White girls. Yes, there was a brutha and a Spanish guy running their game on two little, blonde, white dancers. Since I’d left my discman at home, listening their conversation kept me distracted and entertained through my workout. It was the usual, “Oh, I don’t want to get big. I just want muscle tone” from the girls and I’m sorry, but who is in better shape than a freaking dancer? They probably had the best muscle-to-fat ratio in the whole place, so they were obviously in on the game as well. As I was leaving I was even able to witness the exchange of numbers. Now the only question is will I get off my fat ass to go back and see how it all works out? Let me put it this way, this is the free pass I signed up for in May. HIT ME, BABY I’M LIKE A VIRGIN IN CONTROL So, it was a momentous occasion in my home a few years back when I actually purchased my first Madonna album. Fourteen years into her career until I finally heard something to warrant its inclusion---and even then I got the album two years after it’s release. Well, it didn’t take that long for me to get my first by her heir. Yes, I now own a Britney Spears album (right now there’s a young girl hastily typing a triumphant email for the years I’ve spent mocking her devotion to Britney). What brought this on? Well, first the ever-snide Blender magazine actually gave it a good review, so that piqued my curiosity. Then came the evil influence of those notorious homosexuals when a friend let me borrow his copy to listen to. What can I say? It’s not awful. While most people compare her to Madonna, to me she’s more like Janet Jackson (another whose work I didn’t buy for years), especially with this album. No matter what you think of Madonna, she is at least self-made. No one chose her. And even her “art” is hers. It wouldn’t exist without her. On the other hand, Janet Jackson is here because she’s the sister of one of the biggest stars ever and she lucked into the production team of Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam and what they did for her they could have done for anyone. How much do you think those songs she “wrote” with them would change if Janet didn’t give her two cents? Exactly. Her career is a masterpiece of production and choreography, just like Britney. Subsequently, this is the equivalent of the “Janet” album, where Janet appears topless on the cover and she started talking about sex a lot---exactly what Britney Spears is doing here (though she like to pull her pants down rather than take her shirt off---wait, she does both). The song she does with Madonna is the worst thing on the album, which makes sense because it’s one of the worst songs every made. The rest is your typical club-type music of pulsating beats, electronic sounds and a reed thin voice mixed in. In fact, she’s the weakest part of the album. What would be a half-decent dance song is dragged down by the whisper being forced on top of it. As far as her writing credits go, there’s a common practice in music where the super-producer leaves a song unfinished in a very obvious manner so his golden-goose of a client can fill in the gap and feel like an artist and make a little money as well. Britney, Beyonce, Janet, Madonna---they all do it. Let’s face it: the Moby song would be the same if Kylie Minogue had done it. And she just sounds dumb singing the R. Kelly track, not to mention that crap with The Ying Yang Twins. Also on hand to make a buck off the pop princess are The Matrix (who made Avril Lavigne and gave Liz Phair her first mainstream hit), Bloodshy & Avant (another team of Swedish hitmakers who’ve done songs for JLo, Cathy Denis and Ms. Dynamite) and Guy Sigsworth (another Swede who’s worked with Seal and Bjork). I also picked up Meshell N’Degeocello which has all the substance the Britney album lacks. It’s like the alpha to the omega of her album “Bitter”, which, if you haven’t guessed, was all about heartache and had the devastating track “Fool Of Me” which was meant to be listened to in the dark while you weep into a pillow. The new album, “Comfort Woman” has no less than three tracks called “Love Song” so she’s obviously over it now. It’s pretty much an album to get mellow and have sex to. And you can never have too many of those. DEATH BE NOT PICKY And the death train continues with David Hemmings the star of the seminal 60’s film Blow Up. And the near miss society gets a new member with Joey Lauren Adams, the baby-voiced star of Chasing Amy. She was caught driving drunk last week. Sigh. It can’t be easy being a 38-year-old, C-list sex kitten with a voice like a whispering ten year old, but that’s still no excuse to drive drunk. Especially in a year, when no celebrity is too obscure for the Grim Reaper. ME SO HORNY…AND SEXUALLY INSECURE Finally, my favorite website of the week is www.asian-man.com (how this came up in a discussion on a comic book site I’ll never know). Why you may ask? Well, the concept alone is hysterical. This Chinese guy was apparently so bothered by the lack of Asian men in porn (like we said before, ethnic porn is all about either Black men with White women or White men with Asian women) the he decided to do it himself. I kid you not. He pays porn girls to have sex with him and he tapes it and puts it on the internet. This site serves to destroy a myth that has haunted Asians for decades: that they are all smart, because I can’t think of anything dumber than this. Taping yourself is dumb enough to begin with, but why on earth would you share it with the world? Obviously he wants to show the world what a stud he is. Even that would make a weird sort of sense, only he then proceeds to blur his face because he’s got a real job. What. The. Fuck. Like anyone who knows you won’t recognize your fucking voice! It’s a pay site, but what’s free is entertaining enough. What’s really funny are the comments about the women, where he talks about hanging out with them and how they enjoyed having sex with him. YOU’RE PAYING THEM, YOU MORON! Dumb, dumb, dumb. Funny, but dumb. 12/1/2003
“Alas, the flesh is weary and I’ve read all the books.” --- Stephane Mallarme
MY NIGHTMARE: THE LORAX, STARRING DANNY DEVITO
Holding on to number one is Cat In The Hat and I cannot believe this evil abomination didn’t come from Disney. That’s how evil it is. But it’s making money (and I don’t want to even think about the fucking merchandising) so you know there will be others, but I tell you now, I’ll kill whomever tries to adapt my precious “Go, Dog, Go!” Not to mention “Green Eggs & Ham” and “Horton Hears A Who.” I only need make one example to stop the rest. One horribly mangled studio exec body with a Dr. Seuss book shoved up its ass (sideways) to get the point across. Thank god it’s impossible to adapt the Richard Scary
books (“Cars, Trucks and Things That Go” was my favorite).
PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF/I’M A MAN OF WEALTHY AND TASTE
Opening at number two is Haunted Mansion, yet another film based on a Disney ride and the latest installment in Eddie Murphy’s payment plan to Satan for his career success. I hated the Beverly Hills Cop movies and thought none of them were funny, not even the first, but still they succeeded. Now you know why: he sold his soul for it and now it’s time to pay up with shitty family film after shitty family film until the day he dies. Because these are Satan’s tools to destroy the minds of our country’s youth. On the other hand, everyone else in the film (Jennifer Tilly, Wallace Shawn) is lucky merely to be working.
THAT OWL IN CLASH OF THE TITIANS IS PROOF EVEN GODS MAKE MISTAKES
Elf holds at number three and Ray Harryhausen actually does the voice of the Frosty-like snowman that turns up in an inspired stop-motion-animation sequence at the North Pole. This simultaneously pays homage to both the Christmas classics that used the technique (Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, etc) and the master of it, Ray Harryhausen (Jason & The Argonauts, The Sinbad Films, 50 Million Miles to Earth, etc). This is the kind of shit that makes geeks happy. Special geek note: Ray Harryhausen was the protégé of Willis O’Brien who essentially created the technique and who did the special effects for King Kong, The Lost World and Mighty Joe Young.
SHE’S SO FINE IT’S TERRIFYING
Gothika is down to number four and such is the wonder that is Halle Berry, that even when they try to dress her down, her bodacious curves still make themselves known. Word to the wise: if you want me to pay attention to what she’s saying you have to put her in loose-fitting clothing. I know she wants to “stretch” as an actress, but you have to realistic about this sort of thing. Even if you play a doctor or a lawyer, you’re still going to be the “Hot Doctor” or the “Hot Lawyer.” It’s unrealistic to suggest that people don’t notice these things or that they don’t matter. It matters for men and it damn sure matters for women (studies show good-looking men are expected to be leaders and when they aren’t are resented by other men). This was my problem with Monster’s Ball. Every guard at that prison would have known who she was. And the simple reality is, hot women who are down on their luck in working-class, small-town America, wind up stripping, period.
WHY A GOOD AGENT IS REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT
Master & Commander: Far Side of the world is down one notch to number five and one of the ugly little hobbits from Lord of the Rings (there was only one good-looking one you’ve got three others to choose from) is in this, and if it eventually makes money, he may have lucked into another franchise. He’ll need it too, because being a supporting player in big science fiction/fantasy movies doesn’t exactly lead to career longevity (Harrison Ford being the exception that proves the rule). This may have saved him from a lifetime of showing up at comic book conventions in big rubber feet. Not that being a lead is any better guarantee. Mark Hamill anyone?
SANTA IS MERELY SATAN MISSPELLED
Bad Santa opens at number and this movie is seemingly perfect for people like me who get severely annoyed at this time of year with all the fucking happiness that’s being shoved down our throats. Unfortunately, all it really has is a nasty attitude and doesn’t really back it up with any real wit; just bad behavior. Santa curses, has anal sex with large women (something they hammer home) and drinks---a lot. But that’s it. No real attack on this mind-numbing Christmas culture that now starts before fucking Thanksgiving. It’s pretty much a one trick pony and after a bit---though a foul mouthed dwarf never ceases to be amusing---gets tiresome and you find yourself looking for either greater depths of vulgarity (of which there are sadly, none) or a break from it. I mean, watching a drunk, angry Santa curse out kids is funny the first time and maybe even the second, but the third time it’s grown stale. The very least they could have done was have the kids be brats who needed to be cursed out, but no, they’re just normal kids so you actually feel a bit sorry for them.
WHILE YOU’RE LOOKING, TRY TO FIND ANOTHER LEVEL FOR YOUR SCRIPT
The Missing opens at number seven and a few years back when Elizabeth came out, much was made of Cate Blanchett being the heir apparent to Meryl Streep. Unfortunately for her, she’s done a lot of good work in a lot of mediocre movies (Pushing Tin, Bandits, Charlotte Gray, etc). But one thing has remained the same: she’s never the same person twice. She was the only person in The Gift to get the southern accent right (Keanu Reeves and Katie Holmes should be seen and not heard) and her accent streak continues here with a frontier woman who loses her oldest daughter to Apaches slavers. Tommy Lee Jones is on hand as her father who ran off decades before to live with the Indians and has now conveniently returned to seek redemption just before his granddaughter is abducted. Essentially a variation on perhaps John Ford’s greatest film with John Wayne, The Searchers (which was imitated once before on TV as The Quest, starring Kurt Russell and Tim Matheson as two brothers looking for their sister who was kidnapped by Indians), this isn’t a bad film but ultimately fails to reach the heights of that one. First of all, The Searchers stretched out over years, giving the film an epic quality, whereas this film has a time limit of days built into the plot. Fine, then there should have been more tension generated by their “race-against-the-clock” scenario, but there isn’t. There are tense moments, but overall, you never feel the pressure. Also, in The Searchers, one of driving elements was John Wayne’s hatred of the Indians he was tracking, so after a while you came to realize he wasn’t trying to rescue his niece so much as he was trying to find her and kill her, since she’d been tainted by a race he despised. That kind of character complexity is sorely missed here. Cate Blanchett’s character is a bit of a bigot, but that’s all. And of course, by the end of the film, she’s learned the error of her ways (that’s to a good-looking Indian and his son who join their quest). Also, her hatred of her father vanishes much too quickly given the enormity of what he did. Obviously, her forgiveness is part of his redemption and you know it’s coming (especially in a film directed by Ron Howard), but there should have been more obstacles to it, if he got it at all.
HE’S SO GONNA NEED FAST & FURIOUS 3 AFTER THIS
Timeline opens at number eight and this movie had a horribly run ad campaign. As a science fiction adventure movie, you know you’re not going to get a high female quotient---unless you have something girls like, like say Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker starring in the goddamn thing! How could they not put his face in every fucking ad running!?! Not to mention doing whatever you had to do to create a scene where he takes his shirt off. Don’t these people know anything? After all, it’s not like he’s an actor or anything. He’s just man-meat designed to get young girls to the movies. And there is no other way you’re going to get your average girl in to see this. For me, it’s old school science fiction when people go back in time and find that all their knowledge isn’t much help in the reality. And it’s as clichéd as all time travel movies are. What do you think is going to happen to the guy who loves the middle ages, practices the sword and speaks lovingly about how it was a better time (played by hunk in his own right, Gerald Butler, who actually does take his shirt off)? Gee, think he’ll find love and stay there? And what do you think happens to the ex-marines who are sent back to protect our scientists? Hell, they might as well be wearing one of those red shirts on Star Trek, their time on this earth is so limited. Despite this---maybe because of this---I did enjoy it. It was like an old, comfortable Superman shirt you put on. It’s worn geek, but it’s still comfortable geek.
BAD PRESIDENT
Love Actually is down to number nine and Billy Bob Thornton is also in this as The President of the United States who gets on Prime Minister Hugh Grant’s bad side when he makes a move on the office worker Hugh Grant has got a crush on. Obviously this is Clinton based, but there’s also a Bush allusion when the Prime Minister’s staff is bitching about doing whatever America wants. Well, I got some bad news for you, mate. When the big dog says, “jump” then you’d better jump, old chap. Besides, you think we give a shit about a couple of islands off the coast of South America? Well, we don’t, but you still had US support during that bullshit attempt to restore your long, lost pride.
THE MOVIE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME
Finally, Brother Bear closes out the top ten at number ten. May it never be spoken of again.
DEATH SAYS YOU LOOKED AT HIM FUNNY, SO YOU’RE GONE TOO
And Death wants everyone it seems. First the girl who played the hooker Rachel Griffiths hung out with briefly on Six Feet Under (Kelly Waymire) died suddenly for “unknown reasons” which are genuinely genetic and not drug-related. Also, Penny Singleton who played Blondie in the movies and was the voice of Jane Jetson died (though she was 95), then Jonathan Brandis kills himself (apparently and finally, Gene Anthony Ray, a.k.a., Leroy died. Technically, it was a stroke, but “technically” Rock Hudson died from pneumonia. Yes, he was HIV positive. Are you surprised? I mean, he was a dancer for god’s sake. Still, damn. If your dream is to be an actor, there are going to be lots of opening next year, because these people are dropping left and right. And there should have been three more openings because Yancy Butler (the Witchblade woman with the spooky eyes), Wynona Judd and Glenn Campbell were all busted for drunk driving. Okay, so Yancy Butler was just walking around drunk, but still. These people are toying with death, which is a big mistake this year of all years when death is killing people for no reason at all.
WHILE I WAS IN
So, the home improvement attempts continue. I bought curtains. I won’t say new curtains because I never had curtains before. I had blinds. Plain white blinds that didn’t even cover the length of my 8-foot window. Now I have two burgundy and gold sari I bought on eBay (from a guy in Queens, though they were shipped directly from India) acting as my curtains. Needless to say, I know dick about hanging curtains, so it was a crash course in it for me in which I only did so-so. I mean, they’re up there on rods, but it doesn’t look as nicely as I’d hoped. But now I’m so tired from measuring (I even got a chance to use my leveler) and drilling and spackling the holes where I shouldn’t have drilled, that I just don’t care any more. Now, I’m thinking about touching up flaws in the painting that still continue to annoy me. I doubt anyone else could see them, but that taunt me at night (“Oooo, look at me. I’m a glaring inconsistency in texture and tone. Ooooo!”).
“SO TELL ME, TELL ME/HOW TO BE/A MILLIONIARE…”
So, I finally saw the HBO documentary Rich Kids and it was hysterical. Apparently, even before it aired some of the kids who appeared were upset about they came across and one even sued. Well, if you were dumb enough to appear on-camera, chances are you were dumb enough to embarrass yourself and did they ever. First of all, apparently no one understands that money can actually improve your looks. Get the $1000 facials, you zit-face heir to a billion! Get the $500 haircut, pubic head! The women understood it, but the men were clueless. The best was the guy who sued. His family runs the gaming all over the world (gee, think there’s any mob involvement there). He told it like it was with pure arrogance and it was great. He was obnoxious in all the ways you want the rich to be, so you can console yourself with, “Well, I may not be rich, but at least I’m not a dick like that guy or vapid like that bitch.” And by vapid, I of course mean ugly Ivanka Trump and some other silly twit who likes to buy $800 designer handbags on a whim. My other favorite was an Italian textiles heir, whose idea of rebellion was to become a model. When he gives hi speech on the differences between being rich in Europe and being rich in America, you understand just why we run the planet and they don’t. And his “pussy” speech is the kind of shit you hear from drunk guys in bars when they honestly think they’re being deep and profound but are just revealing they’re as shallow as you always thought they were.