Harry:... That girl tonight, man, I'm tellin' you, she had this ... quality, like ... like the girl in high school, you know the one you could never have? The one that still haunts you?
Gay Perry: I had that. (Beat.) Bobby Mills.
Harry: (Beat.) You should, um, track him down. I got five bucks says you could still get him.
Gay Perry: That's funny. I got a ten says, "Pass the pepper." And a couple quarters that do harmony on "Moonlight in Vermont."
Harry: Huh?
Gay Perry: Talking money.
Harry: Talking monkey?
Gay Perry: Yes, a talking monkey. Ugly sucker. Traveled here from the future, only says "ficus."

— From Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which you should really all see, if you haven't already.

Friday, Feb. 23:
I can barely bring myself to come up with another list of Oscar predictions. I did this last year, but this year my heart just isn't in it. It's not that I suddenly realized that the correlation between cinematic quality and awards recognition is tenuous at best, and usually outright incompatible; I've felt that way for a while now. No, there are several reasons, mainly this: The awards aren't so much won as bought. Sure, every now and then a dark horse comes along and dominates, as The Silence of the Lambs did in 1991. But for the most part, Oscar recognition is the result of a long and arduous PR campaign meant to sell the Oscar voters (and the public at large) on the worthiness of the film in question. Miramax didn't just luck out when it came to distributing Oscar winners in the 1990s; the Weinsteins shamelessly sold their films as Oscar winners, and then sat back and watched the self-fulfilling prophecy fall into place. That's what was so shocking about Crash's victory last year over Brokeback Mountain; Paul Haggis' film wasn't just the lesser of the two, but Ang Lee's film had been so flawlessly marketed — with playdates platforming out a week at a time leading up to the Oscars, not to mention its branding as part of a national movement — that it was literally supposed to win.

I'm making two predictions this year, a main one and a "dark horse" selection that's meant to hedge my bets or just let me be a little hopeful for upsets. Last year I hit 18 of 24 only making one prediction per category, and I'm bound to do at least that well (I hope) by spreading out the guesses. I'm also playing two ballots in the office Oscar pool instead of one, in hopes of taking home some cash. Then again, I live and work in L.A. with some horribly well-informed coworkers competing against me in the pool; if this were Texas, I would clean up, but as it is, I'll probably have to settle again for a four-way tie for fourth.

Sunday, Feb. 25:
Well, it seems I'm getting my ass kicked in all new ways. Pride goeth before a great loss in the office pool.

This year I went for 19 of 24 categories, only one better than I did last year. I'm a little surprised that I managed a 79% accuracy rate this year even by making two guesses per category, but then again, this is far from an exact science. Sometimes I was happy to proven wrong: I liked seeing Melissa Etheridge win for original song for An Inconvenient Truth over the bloated, melismatic crapfest that is Dreamgirls. And I was happy to see Thelma Schoonmaker win for editing The Departed; she's worked with Scorsese for years, and his films aren't the same thing without her skill informing their relationship as director and editor. But I was disappointed with several other outcomes, most notably Alan Arkin's win for Little Miss Sunshine instead of Mark Wahlberg's work in The Departed. Sure, Arkin's performance as the lecherous grandpa (He's horny! He's profound! He's dead!) was entertaining, and the cast still managed to successfully pull off the prefab quirk of the comedy, and Arkin deserves some of that credit. But whereas Little Miss Sunshine was the ready-made indie-that-could — funny, sad, sweet, but still ready-made — Scorsese's fierce, sweeping crime drama contained the year's best everything: Story, performances, even the atmosphere. (Who could forget that gorgeous shot of the mobile of mirrors as Leonardo DiCaprio pursued Matt Damon over the wet streets and down that alley?) Wahlberg's ferocious but loyal cop was an integral part of Scorsese's film, which is fantastically, beautifully, wonderfully beyond its inspiration, the Hong Kong flick Infernal Affairs. It was fitting that Scorsese was presented his award by Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas, the fellow kings of his era, the first kids to blast out of film school and change the face of American cinema. But Coppola has been phoning it in since Jack, and Lucas is a brilliant set designer and conceptual artist who long ago lost whatever connection he had to human emotion and his ability to write from the heart. Spielberg continues to grow as an artist, yet while he tackles the daddy and Holocaust issues that have colored his work from the beginning, Scorsese has become the most truly American filmmaker of the bunch. The Departed isn't just an adaptation of another film, or even a crime story, but a film that's relentlessly American, pulsing with the homegrown hate and love and despair and fratricide of the spacious boroughs and blood-stained waves of grain. A few of my coworkers have alternately referred to Departed as a "guy movie" or "popcorn actioner" (thus casting eternal doubt on their ability to actually discern good films from bad), but they're missing the point. From Jack Nicholson's coke-fueled Caligula to DiCaprio's lonely yearning to find a father in Martin Sheen, The Departed really was the best film of the year.

Anyway, on to my predictions and the winners:

Best Picture
Prediction: The Departed.
Dark Horse: Little Miss Sunshine.
Winner: The Departed.

Best Actor
Prediction: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland.
Dark Horse: Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond.
Winner: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland.

Best Actress
Prediction: Helen Mirren, The Queen.
Dark Horse: Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada.
Winner: Helen Mirren, The Queen.

Best Supporting Actor
Prediction: Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls.
Dark Horse: Mark Wahlberg, The Departed.
Winner: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine.

Best Supporting Actress
Prediction: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls.
Dark Horse: Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine.
Winner: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls.

Best Director
Prediction: Martin Scorsese, The Departed.
Dark Horse: Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima.
Winner: Martin Scorsese, The Departed.

   more »

Sis: there was a body found in a field here. the big country is falling apart
me: ...whoa
wow
murder?
suicide?
Sis: i have no idea
just a body
me: wow
"just a body"
were any fingers missing or anything?
Sis: haha, i don't know
[...]
brb
Sis: back
me: did you go out to see the body?
Sis: haha, no
i moved my car
me: ah
did avoid seeing the body because you're actually the killer?
it's ok. you can tell me
Sis: ...
me: ...crap, sarah
not again
not the murders AGAIN
Sis: :-/
me: way to let down mom and dad
and the state of texas correctional system
Sis: sorry
me: ah well
just don't do it again
now go out and play, you rascal
Sis: ok!

Did John Hughes ever sink so low/soar so high as he did with Weird Science? Of the four films¹ he wrote and directed between 1984-1986 — Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off — he was never more relentlessly cornball, more sexually outgoing, or more ferociously devoted to overly romantic young-male fantasies than he was in Weird Science, his 1985 ode to cars, boys, and falling in love with emotionally empty women. Think about that for a minute: He gave us Jake Ryan on the dinner table, a softhearted Judd Nelson, and Alan Ruck's unbearable little monologue about standing up to Dad, and Weird Science is cheesier than all those combined. Just let that sink in.

As Gary and Wyatt, Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith are two amazingly horny losers whose sad, lonely high school existence revolves around fantasizing about the hot girlfriends of their school's popular jerks and consoling themselves in their mutual troubles; in other words, they're pretty average teenagers. But they go the extra step by using their computer — which can do anything, this being the 1980s — to create an actual woman to serve as their sex slave. (Needless to say, this premise could have gone way, way darker.)

But Hughes, like his randy heroes, is squarely in PG-13 territory here, meaning (a) sex will be minimal, (b) it will be usurped by true love, and (c) things are going to work out so well that the fantasy of the willing sex robot will seem normal by comparison. What's more, the guys won't just turn their lives around in the relatively minor ways of the characters in Hughes' other films, but will have their fantasy lives actually handed to them by digital/virtual Lisa (Kelly LeBrock).

Despite their references to Lisa as a "sexpot," Gary and Wyatt never come close to engaging in any onscreen antics with her: They wear pants in the group shower, they don't do much touching, and they barely even kiss her. Lisa and Wyatt share a pretty awkward scene where she teaches him to kiss², but the scene isn't established as foreplay. Hughes injects a tone of such rampant sexuality into the rest of the film that it's almost hard to believe there's almost no real sex, but there isn't. This is just as well, because Gary and Wyatt are about 45 minutes away from turning into really sappy poetic types to be engaging in mindless lovin' with their dream girl.

Gary and Wyatt have true love in their futures, or at least the kind of one-dimensional relationships dreamt of by the very young and very foolish. Lisa's goal, ostensibly, is to help these guys realize just how much they've really got going for them, give them a shot in the arm and a boost of confidence, and in general make them comfortable talking to women. These are all noble goals, and really, any 16-year-old guy would welcome such a teacher. And the film still makes me laugh, too; I'm nostalgic like that. But things don't just "turn around" for Gary and Wyatt, or start to look up; they become so freakishly wonderful that the film goes from being a somewhat sweet sex comedy to a saccharine take on fictional love as only exists in the hearts of the simple.

After throwing a giant party and standing up to a marauding biker gang, Gary and Wyatt spend a little alone time with, respectively, Deb (Suzanne Snyder) and Hilly (Judie Aronson³). These are the two girls that Gary and Wyatt have been pining for since their party started, but it's not clear if they've had any earlier contact with them. Sure, they saw them around the mall, but it's not like Hughes gave Gary or Wyatt even a moment's exposition to say, "Wow, Deb's looking good today," or, "I'm pretty sure Hilly is my soulmate. Now if only I could talk to her." But they're cute, and they're around, so they'll do. And then Hughes has the girls do the unthinkable: They ask for the boys to love them. Hilly even comes right out with it, staring right at Wyatt and asking, "Would you kiss me?" This is the ultimate juvenile male fantasy: Not just the attainment of a woman, but not having to do any work to get her. It's pornographic in the most cinematic sense of the word; she throws herself at him with literally no provocation.

Gary and Deb have a similarly ridiculous hook-up, when Gary tells her that he created Lisa to have everything he wanted in a woman before he knew what that was, and that if he could do it all again, he'd make her just like Deb. This is a pretty ballsy statement, especially considering this is the first real conversation Gary and Deb have ever had, and he doesn't even know what kind of music she likes, much less what she's actually like as a human being. So of course they sleep together, and even when Wyatt's brother Chet (a typically crappy Bill Paxton) threatens them with a shotgun, Deb stays snuggled up against Gary's chest because, well, why not.

The thing about Weird Science that appeals to young men isn't just the idea of fashioning a sex slave with a computer, or seeing Kelly LeBrock make out with what could be a parallel-universe of themselves. But the real kicker, where Hughes goes just screaming over the abyss and rejects the pseudo-realistic touches of his other films in favor of outright fantasy, is that Gary and Wyatt finally "move on" from Lisa into an even more imaginary version of real life. They didn't meet women; they met warm bodies that begged to sleep with them and offered to serve as a willing continuation of the sexual self-delusions that led them to create Lisa in the first place. Of course, most of Hughes' stories end in harmony and bliss; like it or not, Duckie should have gone home alone, not hooked up with Kristy Swanson. But in Weird Science, Hughes doesn't just present a fantasy as reality; he holds up two fantasies and claims that one might actually be feasible.


<sup>1. Howard Deutch directed the Hughes-penned Pretty in Pink (1986) and its gender-reversed duplicate, Some Kind of Wonderful (1987). And while I recognize that the director is not the sole crafter of a film and that Hughes is a more recognizable screenwriting presence than most, I'm gonna stick with auteurism for the sake of this little piece. So, deal.
2. Just typing that creeped me out.
3. It's another awesome moment to realize that Wyatt steals Hilly from Ian, played by Robert Downey Jr., and that Aronson had a bit part in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, also with Downey, two decades later. Did she audition? Did they just need a random actress, so Downey called her up and threw her some work? Do they still hang out? I could think about this all day.</sup>

[Some clips very NSFW. You've been warned.]

This never gets old:



A thrilling scene, and a fantastic beatdown:



I dream of saying this and then quitting some job:

Queen Amidala, dejected by her planet's involvement in a murky galactic civil war, becomes a smokin' hot stripper in a pink wig. (Good grief, would this have helped the movie.)

Qui-Gon Jinn attempts to steal the seven-league boots from a local dealer on Tatooine, but eventually becomes so moved by the plight of the oppressed there that he assembles a list of people he plans to save. He becomes obsessed with the list and at one point just bawls like a baby.

Chancellor Valorum gets fed up with Palpatine's meddling and throws him off a balcony overlooking the Valley in the middle of a swanky party. He then briefly dates Lesley Ann Warren before founding Mindhead, a mental health facility to the stars.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, still reeling from the death of his mentor, starts booting heroin between his toes.

Anakin Skywalker gets shot in the face.

Of all the random little motifs floating through film and TV, none guarantees a specific kind of heartbreak quite like the story of a man who, against the warnings of friends and pretty much all common sense, gets involved with a woman who makes a living by selling herself to some degree. (At first I thought all these stories were just coincidences, but it seems to be a legit little sub-subgenre of dramatic storytelling. I mean, it's not like I sat on the floor in front of my DVD shelves, listening to The Heart of Saturday Night and waiting for a pattern to appear. I was watching "Sports Night" and the whole thing just kind of fell into place.) The characters and specific situations may vary, but things always wind up turning sour, and eventually lead to pain, loss, and/or bloodshed. Given those built-in dramatic elements, it's easy to see why writers keep re-using the same tale in different permutations. And it works for a variety of reasons. Using the male character as a combination of coldness and vulnerability — he's willing to pay for sex, but also dumb enough to romanticize it — wouldn't work if it was a female character; for starters, she wouldn't be fool enough to make anything more out of it, and she wouldn't likely even go after it in the first place. What's more, the story is a reversal of the stereotypical roles usually found in film/TV: Instead of the callow man breaking the woman's heart, this is a vulnerable man getting gutted by an often equally vulnerable woman. It's unexpected, and it breaks with the messiah/martyr complex bred into every man that inevitably makes its way into fictional male characters. (TV being littered with men who go to great lengths doing stupid things for women they deem need saving; off the top of my head, Jack Bristow blowing Stephen Haladki's head off springs to mind.)

But what seals the deal is that the viewer knew things would never work out. From the first frame, no matter how great or different or unique this version of the man-loves-whore story seemed to be, it was bound to fail. Some might argue that romantic pap like Pretty Woman would contradict me, since everything ends well for that particular man and his prostitute. But that's because that story's a lie (if for no other reason that most women in L.A. don't look like Julia Roberts, least of all the streetwalkers). That movie won over audiences because it turned what should have been a tragedy — man hires hooker for a week, she gets raped by George Costanza, fade out — into a cheesy film that dilutes the legitimate power of romance in other works. Pain, as the man once said, is where the best stories hang their hat; that unavoidable moment of the relationship's dissolution that always hurts but somehow never kills, but instead makes things oddly okay. That's what I'm talking about, and that's what these scenes have.


"Sports Night" — "Draft Day, Part II: The Fall of Ryan O'Brian"

In the second season of "Sports Night," Jeremy (Joshua Malina) and Natalie (Sabrina Lloyd), the resident cute couple, have broken up, and Jeremy meets a girl named Jenny (Paula Marshall) when he's out drinking away his blues. Jenny turns out to be a porn star, and Jeremy being the decent guy he is, and Jenny being apparently one of the idealistic adult film actresses, they start seeing each other socially. It's awkward from the start, and barely gets off the ground before Jeremy begins to unwittingly sabotage things by condescending to Jenny because of her profession or else outright mocking her. Jenny visits Jeremy at the office, after he's already lied to his coworkers about what Jenny does for a living; he says she's a choreoanimator, some nonsense profession. Jenny meets Natalie and gives a sad, sad, sad little monologue about why she wound up in her chosen profession. Sad. Jeremy and Jenny exchange a few more words, but really, this one's been over for weeks. As is always the case with these stories, he couldn't get past her day job.


"Battlestar Galactica" — "Black Market"

The second season of "Battlestar Galactica" put all its characters through major emotional changes, particularly Lee "Apollo" Adama (Jamie Bamber), who gets his heart broken by Starbuck and decides to briefly shack up with a prostitute named Shevon (Claudette Mink). (Bonus martyr points: Shevon has a kid.) The episode ostensibly revolves around Apollo's investigation of the black market thriving within the fleet, headed up by awesome character actor Bill Duke, but it's really about his sad, doomed relationship with the hooker. The cold open throws the viewer into the middle of the action, and at first you're wondering if Apollo hasn't just moved on and found some nice healthy relationship. It's morning in Shevon's quarters, and Apollo gives her daughter a teddy bear. Things get a little weird when Lee says, "Look, I'm not sure when I'll be able to make it back." But then Shevon delivers the killer: "I know. Oh. Um … I'm gonna have to ask for an extra hundred since you spent the night." And all the desperation and guilt and self-loathing and horrible mix of emotions that led Apollo to Shevon's rented bed shoots across Apollo's face, and it's heartbreaking. The kid gets pretty predictably kidnapped, and when Apollo finally rescues her and attempts to barter Shevon's freedom from Duke, Shevon does what you can tell for Apollo is the unexpected: She tells him to get out. Apparently she isn't okay with Apollo projecting his past relationship failures onto Shevon — which way to be a holier-than-thou working girl — and makes him leave. But as bad as this is, it's just the merciful closure that's been coming since Lee had to fork over extra cash for actually sleeping with Shevon. Never a good idea to fall in love with a public commodity.


"The West Wing" — "The State Dinner"

Aaron Sorkin loses a few marks for originality by recycling most of his man-loves-hooker story arc from "Sports Night," but he did that with pretty much every major character. In the first season of "The West Wing," Sam (Rob Lowe) liked Laurie (Lisa Edelstein) enough to sleep with her, after which he found out she was a high-priced call girl; being a pretty prominent political figure, Sam decided that the best career move would be to continue seeing her surreptitiously, since D.C. is full of tolerant people who are happy to let White House advisers get away with that kind of thing. He gets all puppyish and insists that she do her best to get through law school and quit her night job, and she agrees that she needs the change. But it all comes skidding to a messy halt when she shows up at a state dinner on the arm of a rich Democratic fund-raiser, who introduces "Britney" to Sam and his coworkers. Sam's face falls in a wrenching and predictable way, and it only gets worse (of course) when he talks to Laurie later. She tells him: "You know, I'm sorry, Sam. But this isn't exactly your business. I'm not here because of you. I'm just here because I'm here. I would be here even if you were here or not. You're just some guy who happens to know me." Man. Twist the blade a little, too. Sam then offers her $10,000 not go home with her date, at which point she walks away offended (way to be picky about who pays your tab, lady). Sam and Laurie aren't done with each other yet — Sam, like any good Sorkinian male character, is a huge glutton for emotional punishment — but the state dinner catastrof**k is the first nail in the coffin.


Moulin Rouge

Even in Baz Luhrmann's world, love can't overcome the world's obstacles: Money, class, tuberculosis. In Moulin Rouge, Christian (Ewan McGregor) enters a relationship with Satine (Nicole Kidman), knowing full well she's a pricey hooker, because he's romantic enough to think that it's worth the risk of 19th-century venerial diseases to sleep with a girl in a sparkly hat. They have an inevitably tortured relationship, made even harder when Satine promises to love Christian forever even as she's leaving to go sleep with the Duke (Richard Roxburgh) to secure financial backing for a play. The best number of the entire musical is the darkest one, "El Tango de Roxanne," a reworking of the Police song into a mournful, screaming elegy for Christian and Satine's polluted and dying relationship. The rousing finale doesn't hold a candle to the haunting tango at the center of the film, in part because it's only prolonging Satine's unavoidable and messy death by consumption. But the finale is all smiles, and only regains its credibility when the curtain closes and the doom that was promised in "Roxanne" finally comes calling.


Paris, Texas

Wim Wenders' 1984 masterpiece Paris, Texas follows Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) as he tries to reconnect with the young son, Hunter (Hunter Carson), he left several years earlier. Travis, an amnesiac, is taken in by his brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell), who's been caring for Hunter since Travis' abrupt departure. Travis and Hunter set out together to find Jane (Nastassja Kinski), Travis wife, and Travis eventually finds her working at a weird little sex parlor. The film is deliberately paced, and has been building to this reunion the whole time: Jane in a small room, with Travis watching her through a two-way mirror, talking to her on the phone. She doesn't know it's Travis talking to her. They have a long conversation there in the peep-show room, and another one the next day. Their exchanges are heartbreaking because it becomes clear just how much they loved each other, and how much pain they managed to inflict for no real reason. Travis' old jealousy flares up briefly — he badgers Jane, asking if she goes home with any of her clients — but eventually dies out as he finally starts to bury the past. When I was putting this piece together, this scene, this example, seemed to fit in with the rest. But I realize now that this is the one that transcends the others, and almost redeems them. Jane didn't start to sell herself until Travis left, and it's with his return that things start to maybe change. It's not clear where things will go, but it doesn't need to be. This is the one where they just might able to save each other after all.

Over at the Chicago Reader's movie blog, Jonathan Rosenbaum recently mounted a defense of spoilers. He doesn't see why people get all riled up about being informed of plot twists before seeing a movie, and he addresses the matter with intelligence and thought. But he's still wrong.

1. He first mentions that spoilers have been appearing in literature, even/especially in the titles or chapters of certain works, for hundreds of years. He cites Death of a Salesman and The Taming of the Shrew as only two examples of this, saying that if people don't complain about these spoiler titles, then they shouldn't complain about plot spoilers. I'm surprised he finds the two worth comparing. Obviously, any action contained in the title isn't a spoiler, but a framework for the story's tone. It doesn't detract from the film to call it The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, but rather enhances the experience by focusing the action in on a specific subject, namely, the death of Liberty Valance. By giving away such prominent information in the title, the author isn't "spoiling" the story, but establishing it.

2. He then makes an interesting point by correctly stating that "spoilers invariably [privilege] plot over style and form." This part of his argument is well-founded, but ultimately tries to be a little too broad. Of course spoilers value story over style; that's their entire definition. To say that Children of Men finds its emotional climax in a continuous take lasting 7-8 minutes in the third act merely provides information about the film's technical aspects; to describe in detail the events of that take and the characters involved would be, well, to spoil the story. There are even stylistic parts of a film that can be considered spoilers when they directly relate to the plot, and Rosenbaum names one: The switch from black-and-white to color in The Wizard of Oz. Aesthetic decisions that directly affect the plot are obviously spoilers, e.g., "Man, that slow-mo computer-aided shot when Edward Norton shoots himself in the mouth in Fight Club is great." But ultimately, what sense does it make for Rosenbaum to complain that spoilers value story over style? I thought that was self-evident.

3. It's completely possible to be a functioning film critic and describe the film (or book, or TV series) without actually spoiling the relevant action; more than that, it's expected. What's so impossible about laying out the ground rules for a movie without revealing the twists that happen in the second or third acts?

4. I don't like spoilers because, yes, I do want to "experience everything as if it were absolutely fresh" when it comes to film/TV/whatever, but I don't think that means I'm trying to regain some kind of "infancy." Rosenbaum again goes way, way broad by thinking that resisting spoilers must lead naturally to refusing any foreknowledge of a film, including stars, director, you name it. The nonsensical leap ignores that the joy of seeing a story for the first time is that you don't know where it's going. Yes, it's also pleasing to re-watch (or re-read) something when you know what will happen, because you can pull back just a little and really appreciate the structure and build and flow of the story. But that initial viewing should be as devoid of spoilers as possible to preserve the story's power, to maintain that gut punch you get when the hero is suddenly shot or the villain suddenly appears. Is Rosenbaum saying it really doesn't matter if, before you ever see the film, you know that Vader is Luke's father? Or that Keyser Soze has been under our noses the whole time? Is Rosenbaum really saying that having that knowledge beforehand wouldn't damage the film's impact? Because to suggest that would be foolish. Nothing beats the emotional thrill, whether it's joy or heartbreak, of seeing a film with unspoiled eyes.

RMS: saw one flew over the cuckoo's nest last night
RMS: for the first time
me: classic
RMS: yup
me: if i had to, i would smother you
me: for your freedom
RMS: hahaha
RMS: good
RMS: if I had to, I would push you into a room with a hooker
me: *hugs ryan*
me: thank you
me: well now i know what you're getting me for christmas

me: oh man
i'm editing a review for a reality show called My Bare Lady
about porn stars taking an acting class
and it turns out that imdb has these women in their system
AND titles
ew
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799887/
...
Sis: man, these titles are out of control
me: Fine Ass Bitches 5
that's amazing
hehehehehehe
Invasian 2
brilliant
Sis: Grand Theft Anal 9
me: hahahaha
Sis: Party at Butts Place
hahaha
oh man
most of these titles are from this year. she's had a busy year
me: apparently so
jeez
these are amazing
Absolutely Adorable
that one's kinda cute
The Maintenance Girls
that one just sounds like a drama
Sis: how deceiving
me: yeah
like maybe you rent it b/c you like maintenance
then BAM
boobies
so confusing
Sis: haha
that's how they get ya
me: "what the ...? that's not how you fix a coolant leak. OH GOOD LORD"
Sis: hahahaha
me: they should totally make educational porn
like car repair
home building
etc.
Sis: wasn't that what they made in "The Girl Next Door"?
me: no
the lesson there was "dating a porn star is probably a bad idea"
i want the lesson to be "here's how to install drywall"
Sis: no, i thought that the porn they made at school was like that
me: oh
but that was a sex ed video
everybody already knows that
wear a condom, don't sleep with girls named after cities, etc.
i want basics of modern living
painting the dining room, roofing, auto maintenance, etc.
Sis: haha
nice
me: i think porn sales would get even bigger
"hey, i love this girl! and now i can do my own grouting and tile work!"

Am I the only one who noticed the typeface similarites between the new trailer for For Your Consideration and the works of Wes Anderson?

It's like some subliminal trick to make me like the Christopher Guest movie, when I already like Guest, no tricks needed. What gives, Warners?

(See the first three installments.)

Singles (1992)

• I'm calling the movie "weird" to fit in with this random little set of ramblings, but a better word would be "awesome."

• I'm fascinated by movies from the early '90s. It's like somehow the era gets overlooked; it's not recent enough to be culturally relevant, and it lacks the kitsch factor of the '80s. But any movie where they guys and girls both have long hair and ripped jeans is okay by me.

• Singles also is a shameless attempt by writer-director Cameron Crowe to latch onto the Seattle music scene. Pearl Jam plays Matt Dillon's band. It's also got Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. It feels like Crowe bought "Gen X for Dummies" and set about to make a movie. And it'll blow your mind.

• Jeremy Piven has a pretty fantastic cameo as a drugstore cashier, but he's easily topped by two appearances that are far more amazing: (a) Victor Garber, sporting the porniest mustache I've ever seen, and (b) Paul Giamatti playing one half of a young couple shamelessly making out in a coffeeshop. Paul Giamatti. It's worth renting just for that 10 seconds.

• Was Kyra Sedgwick really ever hot enough to play a female romantic lead? She's got a squint horseface and tiny teeth. It's hard to believe no one ever called her the Nibbler.

• The Nibbler hooks up with Campbell Scott, who is probably way too talented to even be in this movie.

• Eric Stoltz as a sarcastic mime. Enough said.

• Whatever happened to Bridget Fonda? She was all over the place 10 years ago, and now nothing.

• This movie is maybe the only time Cameron Crowe wrote a movie without whoring himself out soundtrack-wise. The music is never overdone, and works to complement the scene without overshadowing it. It's completely un-Crowe.

• The Xavier McDaniel fantasy sequence could be one of the funnier things Crowe's ever done.

• Bill Pullman plays a plastic surgeon who's supposed to be 33, though he's clearly 40. And Fonda is 28 and acting 23 and is emotionally 19. And they almost hook up.

Anyway, I'm young, and would love it if anybody else had good suggestions for other good early-'90s Gen X-ish movies, especially ones that have been forgotten. Basically anything with a flannel shirt over a Mossimo T-shirt will work.

I've seen Top Gun a few too many times, but it wasn't until a recent viewing on cable that I realized a powerful truth:

Iceman killed Goose.

It was Iceman's jetwash that played hell with Maverick's plane, causing it to spin out to sea. Yes, we could debate all day about the freak nature of the accident, including the F-14's physics-defying canopy that stayed around long enough to crack Goose's neck but somehow spared Mav's life. But Iceman was the one flying selfishly enough to cut off Maverick and go for the kill shot instead of letting Maverick snag the easy victory, and it was Iceman's sudden maneuvering that led to the accident. It was his selfishness that killed Goose, and instead of owning up to it or at least just letting it go, he kept rubbing it in Maverick's face. Iceman was a douche, and he was the one who should ultimately be held responsible for Goose's tragic, untimely death.

Seriously.

Sing me one more song about them dusty plains / Them honky-tonk angels and their lonely beehive pain

I've made my bed, so here I'll lie / I'm rollin' West Texas teardrops in my eyes

There's a seat for you at the rodeo, and I've got every slow dance saved / Besides the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway

It's written all over the face of the daughter of the mayor of Marble Falls / When she winds up in Denton town, doing the Valium waltz

There only two things in life that make it worth livin' / That's guitars that tune good and firm-feelin' women

Alison in Galveston somehow lost her sanity / And Dimples who now lives in Temple's got the law lookin' for me

She lived in Berkeley till the earthquake shook her loose / She lives in Texas now, where nothing ever moves

Nighttime would find me in Rosa's cantina / Music would play and Felina would whirl

Well there's floodin' down in Texas, all the telephone lines are down / And I've been tryin' to call my baby, Lord, and I can't get a single sound

I sure do love them red-haired girls / I'm just like all the boys from Texas

A Lone Star State of Mind

Over at Pajiba, we do our best to not only review movies and TV, but also to make you better people. Dustin's latest entry in the Guide hits it out of the park once again. I'm kinda pissed I didn't think of it, and of course I can now never do anything remotely resembling it without hating myself, but that's beside the point. You shoul all just go read it right now:

The Guide to What's Good For You — The Mix Tape.

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Call it derivative or just a canny throwback, I still say this is the best poster I've seen in a long while. More info about the film here and here.

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In case anyone missed it, here's a round-up of Clinton's appearance on Fox News:

• The interview (part 1 and part 2)
• Jon Stewart's take:

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This week's EW cover story is all about Caprica. Awesome.

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Finally, someone who hates electricity as much as I do:

Within days of signing up for the HBO package, I realized that the network's bread and butter was moderately successful films from the mid-1990s. One of the movies they always seem to have in rotation is Wayne's World, and after what feels like the 700th viewing, I realized that the movie is still watchable. A few reasons:

• Wayne uses totally random slang that in no way bears a resemblance to things people ever said. After reminding his psycho ex Stacy that he'd dumped her, he said, "Are you mental? Get the net!" This never fails to entertain me. It's like taking a field trip to an alternate universe.

• Meat Loaf plays a bouncer named Tiny. Every time I see that scene I think/hope/pray he'll start doing "Paradise by the Dashboard Light."

• The Grey Poupon gag. Oh man, it's like I'm a kid again.

• I love that Wayne and co. go to a joint called the Gasworks that they describe as an "excellent heavy metal club," when in reality it's completely lame. Related: Cassandra's band is ssaid to play metal, when they're really just playing awful, watered-down, soundtracky pseudo-rock. This is the equivalent of making a film with Creed and Nickelback and referring to them as rock acts, i.e., this is outright wrong. The film came out in 1992, a year after Metallica's black album, and yet the music it sells as "metal" is pretty much Poison with slightly less make-up. This never fails to make me smile.

• Even 14 years later, the film remains semi-quotable: "If Benjamin was an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and dick." I said this last week.

• Remember that whole "schwing" thing? Man. What were we thinking? I learned what the phrase meant the hard way, after my best friend dared me to say it to the girls sitting behind us in the auditorium while my class was on a field trip. I can't blame him, either. It's pretty funny to think of me in elementary school turning to classmates and giving a pelvic thrust while not having a clue what I was doing.

• Tia Carrere's pidgin speak. It's kinda awesome.

• Chris Farley's cameo as a security guard. Seeing him onscreen with Mike Myers is both an interesting generational overlap of "SNL" performers and a sad reminder that it's been at least a decade since "SNL" was good.

• That's pretty much it.

I'm glad that someone else is looking forward to Feast, though my anticipation isn't so much based on the film, which looks to be a pretty standard horror retread, as it is that I enjoyed watching director John Gulager go absolutely balls-out crazy on the latest season of "Project Greenlight." I mean, who gets the chance to make a film with studio money and decides to cast their dad and girlfriend? And the rest of the cast is just as stunningly godawful: Balthazar Getty, Judah Friedlander, and a girl who got her start in softcore porn.

Keep it up, Gules. Keep it up.

Well worth the purchases. Even more reasons to love the Criterion Collection.

P.S. One of the highlights of the bonus features on Dazed and Confused has to be footage of McConaughey auditioning while wearing a c. 1992 "Headbanger's Ball" T-shirt. No words can capture its magnificence.

Well, it's finally here. After months of hype, a few creepy phone calls, and hundreds of articles written by befuddled reporters who use words like "blogosphere" and speak of the Internet culture with both the barely repressed fear and arrogant inaccuracy that seems common among the elderly, Snakes on a Plane is hitting theaters this Friday. And I, for one, can't quite believe it's happening. I barely know where to begin:

• The film itself is the kind of ludicrously plotted pulp that should only really exist within other films as a mild dig at the industry. Think of the cheesy adventure script Julia Roberts' character had to learn in Notting Hill. Samuel L. Jackson as a cop fighting killer snakes on a jetliner? This can't be real.

• But it is real, which is the exact hell of the situation. It's like a metafictional glimpse of lowbrow American culture come to life, which if you think about it is pretty frightening.

• It's one thing for a bad film to take itself seriously and, in so doing, become a cult classic. This is the Red Dawn Theorem, in which a film that is in no way good becomes liked and accepted for its inherent crappiness. Although it's not quite accurate to say that people like these films; really, they "like" them. The first would be weird, and display a definite lack of taste, but the second is defined by ironic distance and posturing in regard to the film itself. (See "Saved by the Bell" and its effects on my generation for further proof, namely, that a show can totally suck and still act as a valid cultural reference point, e.g., saying that someone has a "Zack Morris phone").

• But Snakes on a Plane isn't taking itself seriously, and yet also wants badly to be a thrilling action film. How can you like a crappy movie for being crappy if the movie is in on the joke?

• You can't.

• The film is a result of Internet culture, but it marks one of the few times that the online crowd, usually so wary of ads and fakery, allowed themselves to be played. Studios do not want you to be happy; they want your money. If you get happy along the way, then enjoy it, but the bottom line is cash, not creativity. New Line simply took this to new heights by utilizing input from online fans to craft the movie, even going so far as to insert specific lines of dialogue suggested by fans into the final cut. This might seem to be catering to the masses, but it's really the most shameless attempt in film history to earn a quick buck. Instead of making what they hope is an entertaining movie, the studio let the fans participate in the reasonable hopes that those fans will turn out in droves to see the story they "created."

• This is why there's nowhere for the film to go but far, far down. I've already heard Jackson say, "I'm tired of these motherf***ing snakes on this motherf***ing plane!" When that moment arrives in the film, people will probably cheer, but for the wrong reasons. It won't be a moment of sublimely cheesy filmmaking, but a chance to see just how far some studios will go to create a successful film.

• The film will either (a) live up to its hype, which will mean that the film itself offers nothing more than the hipsterish humor of simultaneously hating and loving something that we've all pretty much experienced plenty of by this point; or (b) the film will actually suck, in which case it will be remembered as a thriller that wanted to be bad and joked about being bad but actually turned out to be genuinely bad, and not so bad-it's-funny, but so-bad-it's-painful. Either way, no good can come of the film's actual release. Ultimately, you can't plan the kind of fluke that Snakes on a Plane is intent on becoming.

Seth Rogen:
b. 4-15-82
glasses
beard
surly
sidekick
profane
tall
etc.

If the universe were kinder, this would have been my life. I was just a few months off.

The new trailer for Hollywoodland is online, and it looks promising. It's interesting, though, that the film's title has been altered from the working title of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Maybe the old title was deemed to clunky, or maybe Focus and Miramax got all worried that the title might place a little too much emphasis on George Reeves, TV's Superman, and not the investigation of his controversial suicide, which seems to be what really drives the plot of the film. Ben Affleck is playing Reeves, yet most of the ads and merchandising are playing up Adrien Brody and Diane Lane over Affleck. This is what makes the following quote from the trailer so great:

"What's true or false doesn't really matter. If it hurts the studio — if it stops one person from buying a ticket — I have to fix it."

Were the title change and subsequent choices to downplay Affleck's role made because, well, he's Affleck? I have no idea. It's a good story, though, and feels like it might be right. And when the legend becomes fact, you print whatever you want, or something.

I think this whole Gibson story is absolutely, violently, painfully, woefully unnewsworthy. It's tabloid gossip being reported as news. Not that that's a new thing, but still. I go out of town for four days and all this crap starts falling apart; it's like I can't even leave you people alone for a few days without everything coming unglued. The one and only funny thing — the best thing, in fact — to come out of this is the mix and match guide to degrading women just like Mad Max himself:



I called my boss "Caramel Nipples" and got a promotion. Thanks, Mel Gibson!

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In all seriousness, The Sis pretty much knocks it out of the park when it comes to grounding this sensationalist gossip reporting in the context of world war and strife.

Today in the Guide: All about Rushmore.

Clickety-click.

P.S. I spent a lot of time writing this, so eat up.

P.P.S. Rushmore is Wes Anderson's best film. This is beyond dispute. Thanks for your time.

Who wants trailers? I know you all do.

• A dystopian sci-fi tale that pushes the boundaries of the medium.

• Visually stunning, good concept. It all depends on the execution.

• Another great idea, and a good director, to boot.

• This looks almost impossibly dumb, but I'll be honest, when it finally lands on HBO, I'll probably watch it.

• Because Hollywood loves originality so much that it makes every movie twice (at least), enjoy a pair of trailers for period mysteries about magicians: The Illusionist and The Prestige.

• This looks like it was upgraded from straight-to-Skinemax. Will this be the film that finally sees Elisha Cuthbert get naked? Her star power's fading, and if she doesn't do it know, she'll wind up doing it for less pay on cable in ~7 years. Trust me.

• Wow.

Oh man, just when I thought I couldn't love YouTube any more.