You Are Dumb - Movies

Thinking Problem

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:41:43 -0500

Republicans, 8 August 2008

Memo to David Zucker and Stephen Hayes: I'LL NEVER BE OVER HOW DUMB YOU ARE.

Yesterday, we began our own special making-of commentary on the Weekly Standard's right-wing fellation of David Zucker and his new movie, "An American Carol". In "Carol", the ghost of General Patton attempts to guide a bad Michael Moore parody away from left-wing, terrorist-abetting activism and toward the proper, moral, upright American way of fearing and shooting brown people.

Yesterday, I offered up a few examples of the lame-ass "satire" Zucker is going for here, but there is one other scene that deserves a quick crushing. Let's keep in mind that the beloved Zucker Bros. comedies of the 80's didn't start out particularly fucking subtle. Add a couple of decades to that, plus the Dennis Miller defunnification factor that automatically comes with a post-9/11 political shift, and what have you got? This:

"In the film, a rotund comedian named Rosie O'Connell makes an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor to promote her documentary, The Truth About Radical Christians. O'Reilly shows a clip, which opens with a pair of priests walking through an airport--as seen from pre-hijacking surveillance video--before boarding the airplane. Once on board, they storm the cockpit using crucifixes as their weapon of choice."

See? Rosie O'Donnell said radical Christians were as dangerous as radical Muslims, so Zucker has Rosie O'Connell saying that radical Christians act exactly like one particular bunch of radical Muslims acted seven years ago. Which is such a ridiculous strawman I can only assume Zucker's secret inner fantasy is to remake "The Wizard Of Oz".

But let's set the movie aside for a second. There are two other aspects of this article that make it so awesomely bad. First is the loving attention given to the bravery and importance of the "Friends Of Abe". Named after Abraham Lincoln, it's a regular meeting, circle jerk, and group therapy session for Hollywood conservatives. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Such revelations are common occurrences at the periodic meetings of the secret society of Hollywood conservatives known as the "Friends of Abe." The group, with no official membership list and no formal mission, has been meeting under the leadership of Gary Sinise (CSI New York, Forrest Gump) for four years. Zucker had spent a year working on a film with Christopher McDonald without learning anything about his politics. Shortly after the film wrapped, he ran into McDonald, best known as Shooter McGavin from Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore, at one of these informal meetings."

Where to begin? First of all, any group mentioned in the Weekly Standard and dozens upon dozens of Google pages is the worst fucking secret society ever. Second, any secret society with no schedule, no member list, and no goals is the worst fucking secret society ever. And third, any secret society where the big insider info you get is that the guy from Happy Gilmore likes Bush is the worst fucking secret society ever. Why are these people so scared? They're scared of Muslims, they're scared of Hollywood liberals, they're scared of being associated with modern Republicanism... why not call yourselves the Friends of Ronnie? Why do you have to go back to the 1860's to find a respectable member of the Republican Party?

The other great thing about this article is the ridiculous, almost casual bias that author Hayes throws in unbidden. He treats his transitions like a wingnut talking point Mad Libs. It's awe-inspiring devotion to a moronic cause.

"But Zucker's film... is once again reviving hope that conservatives will have a battalion in this exceedingly influential battleground of the broader culture war. - I love how wingnuts militarize everything so that they can serve just like soldiers without actually, you know, being shot at.

"His brother Jerry remains an unreconstructed liberal and recently optioned a sympathetic movie about the life and times of serial fabulist Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame." - A gratuitous shot at Joe Wilson? Did I die and wake up in Lambert's Personal Hell Circa 2004? Should we bake up a yellowcake to celebrate?

"He contributed another $600 to an outfit called the "Hollywood Women's Political Committee" which, with members like Jane Fonda, Bonnie Raitt, and Barbra Streisand, probably wasn't calling for low taxes and abstinence education." - This, from a lengthy section describing Zucker's liberal past, just drips with the kind of generic, namedropping scorn you can only get from a douchebag at the top of his game. Stephen Hayes, I salute you. Well, it's been called a salute. It involves at least 20% of my hand.

OK, I lied. There is one more thing I have to mention about the movie. It would be incredibly offensive if it weren't so completely fucking ridiculous that I know it doesn't actually apply to anyone who actually exists. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"David Alan Grier plays a slave in a scene designed to show Malone what might have happened if the United States had not fought the Civil War. As Patton explains to a dumbfounded Malone that the plantation they are visiting is his own, Grier thanks the documentarian for being such a humane owner."

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have found the polar opposite of the Rosetta Stone. If we can decipher this paragraph, it will be possible to never understand anything ever again. Anti-war doesn't actually mean anti-Civil War, first of all, which the FUCKING SOUTH STARTED, second of all, so they could keep their slaves, third of all. So if the South had seceded, and the North had acquiesced and not fought, slavery would not only be thriving in the South, but would spread to California (not actually part of the Confederate States, mind) where liberal filmmakers would have adopted the practice wholeheartedly!

If that seems even remotely like a cogent political argument to you, you should probably give Gary Sinise a call. I hear they don't have any volunteers yet to bring the brie and wine coolers to their Rambo marathon in September.

Overly Macho and Grande

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:12:40 -0500

Republicans, 7 August 2008

Memo to David Zucker: SURELY, YOU ARE DUMB.

And so is Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, by the way. The two have joined forces to produce what may very well be the defining right-wing puff piece of our generation - a lengthy profile of "Airplane" director David Zucker and the cast of his new movie, "An American Carol".

This thing has it all, I tell you. Persecution complex? Check. Uncritical fawning? Check. Unfounded paranoia? Check. And vivid descriptions of scenes from the movie that accidentally make it clear just how awful it's going to be? Check squared.

You see, David Zucker is a conservative. And not just any conservative, but a piss-stained, post-9/11 conservative convert. These are the most annoying conservatives of all, because they don't have any real convictions. They're just lashing out in the dark, looking for someone to hold them and tell them they'll be safe from the boogeyman... As long as they keep making donations to the GOP, and maybe the occasional ham-handed political satire. They truly put the "reaction" in "reactionary". Take a look at the first scene from "Carol" that Hayes describes.

"Just as the officer pulls on the zipper, however, a small army of ACLU lawyers marches up to the policemen with a stop-search order. The cops look at each other and shrug their shoulders. 'This says we can't search their bags.' The young men are relieved. They smile fiendishly as they walk toward the crowded platform. As the lead terrorist once again slips the backpack over his shoulder, he mutters his appreciation. 'Thank Allah for the ACLU.'"

Yes, the ACLU, pursuing it's crazy, left-wing agenda, is the best friend of terrorists, allowing them to bypass common-sense security measures and kill us all. Yawn. I am so mind-numbingly bored with this weaksauce bullshit. Yet, according to Zucker and Hayes, there's no way I could possibly be bored. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Zucker's latest movie, An American Carol, is unlike anything that has ever come out of Hollywood. It is a frontal attack on the excesses of the American left from several prominent members of a growing class of Hollywood conservatives. Until now, conservatives in Hollywood have always been too few and too worried about a backlash to do anything serious to challenge the left-wing status quo. David Zucker believes we are in a 'new McCarthy era'."

It's pretty fucking amazing how every single time one of these pisscon propaganda pieces come out it's seen as the only movie ever to break the ultra-liberal lockdown in Hollywood. Somehow, despite the New McCarthyism, I've had no problem whatsoever finding people getting paid to say the things Zucker wants to, and currently is, being paid to say. So cry me a fucking river. What other great conservative ideas are the Hollywood bigwigs keeping me from seeing?

"[T]he film follows the exploits of a slovenly, anti-American filmmaker named Michael Malone, who has joined with a left-wing activist group (Moovealong.org) to ban the Fourth of July... When terrorists from Afghanistan realize that they need to recruit more operatives to make up for the ever-diminishing supply of suicide bombers, they begin a search for just the right person to help produce a new propaganda video... When they settle on Malone, who is in need of work after his last film (Die You American Pigs) bombed at the box office, he unwittingly helps them with their plans to launch another attack on American soil."

Wow! I can't believe Zucker is finally getting onto film the subtle imagery of a fat, stupid Michael Moore parody whose liberal beliefs cause him to directly aid America-hating terrorists! I feel so liberated. It's like I'm back in 2004, watching the exact same joke play out in Team America: World Police. Only they had puppets in Team America, so they didn't have to resort to Chris Farley's brother Kevin, who is also, conveniently, a persecuted douchebag.

"There was this dance that we did--a dance familiar to conservative actors in Hollywood. Lots of actors have done it. I usually just bite my tongue unless it gets too ridiculous. The only thing that really bothers me is when they go off about the president. It just gets annoying."

Yes, Kevin. As a Hollywood conservative, you are the only person who's ever had to keep a lid on your beliefs because of imagined retribution from a co-worker or boss with different beliefs. I'm sure all those Wal-Mart employees forced to watch Powerpoint presentations about how voting for Democrats will lead to unions, and unions will destroy Wal-Mart, pity you and your forced silence in Craft Services. What must it have been like, thinking constantly that defending our shit-ass president might cost you your next bit part in a shitty sitcom or direct-to-video movie? You must wake up every night in a cold sweat.

Of course, I'd wake up in a cold sweat too if I knew I was getting my feature film debut because people fondly remember my dead brother AND Larry The Cable Guy couldn't take the part due to scheduling conflicts. When will those particular stars line up again? I wouldn't hold my breath.

TOMORROW: THe saga of "An American Carol" continues, with more drama and more trauma as conservative Hollywood bands together to make conservative movies while complaining they can't make conservative movies.

Why So Stupid?

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:54:43 -0500

Republicans, 6 August 2008

Memo to the Wall Street Journal, the entertainment media, Mark White, and Robert Arp: SAME DUMB TIME, SAME DUMB CHANNEL.

How does he get such wonderful quotes? Well, it's all the product of an extensive research and development budget that allows me to manipulate cellphone signals and instantly locate stupidity on a global scale. "The Dark Knight" is a huge success, and like any huge success, will inevitably cause IDIOTS to SAY THE DAMNDEST THINGS about it. Here we go.

"Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past. And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell. - Andrew Klavant, in the Wall Street Journal.

Now, in the week or two since his ridiculous fucking article got posted, Klavant has been, quite justly, mocked along the entire length of the Internet for saying it. But I couldn't do a Batman column without mentioning it, because it's so goddamned stupid. it's not just stupid, it's stupid circa 2003. Even the majority of wingnuts these days don't use the "Dubya as bold leader doing unpopular things to fight the Evil Hordes" framing much anymore.

Klavant, on the other hand, is so delusional he thinks Bush is somehow going to restore civil liberties in the next six months, that he's even bothering to pretend to "confront terrorists" anymore, and that "cherished in moments of folly" isn't just "Love it or leave it, hippie" in a rented suit and a comb-over. Here's a hint, dipfuck. When 78% of the country doesn't even think W's a hero, much less a superhero, it's NOT a parallel to a vigilante unfairly becoming the focus of public scorn. It's just a long line of people slowly coming to their senses, while you march in the other direction hoping against hope that the slag heap they're marching away from has a free buffet.

"...curse..." - IGN, The Telegraph, the LA Times, and countless others.

Look, fuckers, THERE IS NO CURSE. Yes, a camera guy died. Yes, Heath Ledger died. Yes, Christian Bale allegedly beat up his family. And yes, Morgan Freeman got in a car crash. You know what all these things have in common, besides the individuals involved all being in "The Dark Knight"? NOTHING. Stunts go wrong all the time. Actors OD all the time. Car crashes happen all the time. And Bale's alleged domestic abuse isn't some externally-imposed accident, he's just an alleged dickhead.

Maybe the Dawkinsian school of atheism has it wrong by going after the big guns of organized religion. Maybe we should instead start a campaign to eradicate the casual mysticism that permeates every aspect of society we live in. Three bad things happen to three actors from the same movie, and it's a CURSE. Three very bad things happpen to three actors who were never in a movie together, and it's "they always die in threes". The Huffington Fucking Post is running the daily horoscopes of McCain and Obama. Maybe this is the shit we should be eradicating. Maybe we can stop slowly indoctrinating people with the existence of supernatural banality. Of course, try taking the horoscopes out of the daily paper and you'll probably get burned in effigy. Or effigy ascendant, depending on what part of the month it is.

"But if we say that Batman should kill the Joker, doesn't that imply that we should torture terrorism suspects if there's a chance of getting information that could save innocent lives? Of course, terrorism is all too present in the real world, and Batman only exists in the comics and movies. So maybe we're just too detached from the Dark Knight and the problems of Gotham City, so we can say 'go ahead, kill him.' But, if anything, that detachment implies that there's more at stake in the real world - so why aren't we tougher on actual terrorists than we are on the make-believe Joker?" - Mark White and Robert Arp, in the International Herald-Tribune.

Before I delve into some specifics, I'd just like to point out that the above is not logic. It's not reasoning. It bears no resemblance to any of the verbal and mental constructs humans have developed to forge a path between ideas and conclusions. It's just the clumsy juxtaposition of Something People Like and Something I Want. It's the semantic equivalent to "Pie is delicious, so why hasn't anyone given me a Playstation 3?"

Clearly, White and Arp like hurting people and are desperate for a way to feel good about it. How else can you explain their rhetorical backflip from a fictional obsessive vigilante unwilling to violate his own ethical codes even when it would make his life much, much simpler, to a nation deliberately abandoning its moral compass for the illusion of greater safety? It is, as I believe Sigmund Freud put it, "fucked inn der kopf".

These two, by the way, are the authors of "The Philosophy Of Batman: The Dark Knight Of The Soul", which is one more point in my Unified Shit Theory, specifically, the corollary that any book entitled The Blank Of Blank, where the first blank is some intellectual discipline, and the second blank is some nerdy pop culture thing, IS SHIT. The Genetics Of The X-Men? SHIT. The Physics Of Stargate: Atlantis? SHIT. The Epidemiology of Halo 3? SHIT. Stop writing these books, and stop excerpting them in major publications as if they weren't desperate cries for help.

Tiny Blue Dinosaurs

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:22:06 -0500

Movies, 12 June 2008

Memo to Hollywood: YOU ARE DUMB.

Stop trying to appeal to me. I beg you. I know I'm a child of the 80's. I know I play the videogames. I know I have the nostalgia for the beloved icons of my youth. But that doesn't mean I'm actually craving modern-day re-imaginings from the likes of Michael Bay, or worse, the legions of half-assed directors who learned everything they know about movie-making from Armageddon.

I didn't need a new Indiana Jones movie. Really. Even assuming I was nostalgic for that time in the 80s when Spielberg and Lucas were nostalgic for the 40s, it's not actually possible to satisfy that nostalgia. Especially not by hiring Shia LeBouf.

I don't need a Smurfs movie. I especially don't need a live action Smurfs movie full of CGI Smurfs written by the Shrek 3 guys. But I'm gonna get one. We're all gonna get one. Never mind that Smurfs have zero narrative potential. Never mind that even the ironic possibilities have been strip-mined.

Yes, we know they say "smurf" a lot. Yes, we know there's just that one chick for all those guys. And yes, we know there are lots of mildly inappropriate adjectives we can use to name Smurfs with. Odds of us getting references to all three anyway? 100%. Odds of us getting all three IN THE TRAILER? 94%.

I don't need a Turok movie. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter grew to something approaching fame as one of those shitty comic books everyone was putting out during the unfortunate and foil-embossed comic boom of the late Nineties that to this day keeps Todd Macfarlane from having to wear a Home Depot apron 32 hours a week.

But most of us know Turok from the video games. Turok is a rarity in the games industry - a long-running franchise that gets resurrected every few years despite the fact that the number of gamers with fond memories of Turok started at near zero, and manages to shrink with each new game. But they're making a movie of it anyway. Which means they'll probably make a movie-based game, which is a problem, because a movie-based Turok game could create a vortex of suck large enough to swallow the Earth.

Turok, by the way, shoots dinosaurs. That's the whole concept. Sometimes he's a Native American shooting dinosaur-man-aliens with a fancy bow and arrow in a mysterious valley, and sometimes he's a space marine shooting actual dinosaurs on a planet where, for no good reason, there are dinosaurs. I'm actually amazed it took Hollywood this long to get around to a Dude Shoots Dinosaurs movie. It plays to three of Hollywood's big strengths - dudes, shooting, and dinosaurs.

The problem is, the Turok games have provided exactly one moment of entertainment in total, and I simply don't think the American public is ready for a movie where, for 100 minutes straight, people randomly turn into monkeys while other people try to shoot and kill those monkeys.* Not even if they brought in the entire cast of "Sex and the City" to star in it.

So cut it out. I actually like it better when you make horrible movies for stupid, clearly-not-me type people. So maybe you should, as much as it hurts me to say this, get Larry The Cable Guy's agent back on the phone. I think there are some unanswered questions left after Delta Farce.

* Wikipedia search: "Turok frag tag"

Ideas This Bad Can't Wait

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:56:28 -0500

Video Games, 21 April 2008

Memo to Tom Cruise and Midway: YOU ARE DUMB.

As a webcolumnist of long standing, I reserve, maintain, and in many ways demand the right to come up with ideas, let them lie fallow for years on end, and then resurrect them for no good reason. And it's in that spirit that I'm resurrecting BAD IDEA FRIDAY, a compendium of bad ideas that will, when they reach fruition, torment us all. And I'm doing this even though it's not Friday, because I also reserve the right not to give a damn what day it is.

Making a creationist propaganda film: BAD IDEA. First, a shoehorned-in update on everyone's favorite atheist-communist-nazis-want-to-turn-our-children-into-monkeys-to-kill-God movie, "Expelled". Because in our capitalist society, monetary success equals validity, I thought you'd like to know that Ben Stein's attempt to drop Agent Orange on the forest of reason pulled in $3.2 million over the weekend.

Since nobody involved with the movie can run that math, allow me. That's just over $3,000 per screen. Now, the multiplexes around here showed it around four times on Sunday, so four Sunday, four Saturday, and because I'm feeling kind, two Friday showings means that each showing pulled in around $304. Assuming a very generous six-buck average ticket price, to account for church group discounts, that's fifty asses, literally and figuratively, in each theater.

Now, this next bit is a bit tricky. A vast percentage of those fifty people went into the movie believing in the literal word of Genesis. Let's say 40. A much smaller percentage went so they could make informed rebuttals. Let's say five. That means, in your community, approximately 5 people per theater showing Expelled may have come out dumber than when they went in. Of such numbers are revolutions totally not made. And you know the best part? Even with all the assumptions I made and numbers I pulled out of my ass, this column still has more scientific rigor than the entire Expelled movie.

And speaking of cultists and movies, hiring Ron Moore to write three sci-fi movies for Tom Cruise? AWFUL FUCKING IDEA.

Tom Cruise, the world's most famous Scientologist, has his own movie studio, the resurrected-in-name-only United Artists. And he wants to make a sci-fi trilogy. Now, it's not like we don't know what happens when Scientologists decide to dip their very clear wicks into the high holy nerdgenre. We've read Battlefield Earth. We've even read parts of Mission Earth. And, though those parts of our brains have mostly burned themselves out in protest, I'm pretty sure we've seen the Battlefield Earth movie.

And worse, they've got Ron Moore. "Battlestar Galactica"'s Ron Moore. Now, I like BSG about 70% as much as the next guy, but think about it. The original Battlestar Galactica was balls-deep in fringe religion to begin with - planets named after astrological signs, Von Daniken alien-visitation mysticism, and a dusting of Mormons In Space. And the new Galactica wastes scads of time on mystical visions, weird prophecies, and robot gods*. Put these two powerhouses together and the potential result should terrify us all.

And finally, Mortal Kombat Vs. D.C. Universe: BADIDEALITY.

The truly awful fighting game is, at this point, almost established as a video game tradition. From Shaq-Fu to Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi, to... Bad Ideas past.. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Midway is pairing up the bone-cracking, blood-spewing, viscera-eviscerating fighters from the Mortal Kombat games with the for-truth-fighting, child-friendly, fish-commanding, lasso-wielding, bat-shark-repellent-wielding superheroes from D.C. Comics.

I have to admit, the game will answer the kinds of deep-seated mythological questions we've all held deep within our secret hearts. Like what would happen if Darrius, the messianic resistance leader who is leading a rebellion against Orderrealm, got in a fight with Superman, the alien from Krypton who feeds off solar energy, can fly, shoot lasers from his eyes, and is virtually indestructible. Oh, wait, nobody wondered that.

On one hand, you have the Superfriends, who have never been in a good or entertaining fighting game. On the other hand, you have the Mortal Kombateers, who have, well, never been in a good fighting game. And since I suspect Time-Warner won't let we, the players, take off our hats and cut Green Lantern in half with them, I believe that takes "entertaining" off the table as well. So we've got no compelling story, no over-the-top ultraviolence, and no decent fighting mechanics. Unto every generation, as they say.

*A.K.A. Dyslexic Aibos

Let's All Go To The Movies

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:04:29 -0500

Movies, 18 April 2008

Memo to my audience: HAPPY EXPELLED DAY!

Yes, it's finally here! Like the rest of you, ever since I first learned about Ben Stein's Creationist Citizen Kane, I've been looking forward to its theatrical release. And today is the day!

Now, I realize the target audience for a movie about how Darwinists are all a bunch of Communist Nazis who use their awesome power and influence to suppress the truth about Intelligent Design* is a fundamentally skeptical audience. Before you pile your five kids in your Range Rover with the Jesus fish on the bumper and head down to the multiplex to watch the anti-evolution movie with some selectively-bred and/or genetically modified popcorn, you want to know if this movie is any good. Well, luckily for you, I found me one of them experts.

And not just any expert, either. This is Greg Steir, founder of the oft-mocked Dare 2 Share youth ministry, whose Christian Post review I stumbled upon in one of those happy accidents the Internet makes possible. He brings teenagers to Christ using his uncanny blend of media savvy and web design, so you know his opinion on "Expelled" can be trusted.

Steir didn't just like "Expelled", he liked it so much he titled his review "Expelled Is Excellent". And lest you think that alliteration is his only skill, check out a critical analysis so refined and complex that it couldn't have arisen by chance. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"This documentary exposes the hypocrisy of the high brow intellegensia and shows that most are only open to free speech and debate if it happens on their side of 'the wall' (a term that is coined to describe the closed thinking of many evolutionists to consider any other origin options than evolution.) 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' pulls their fancy pants down and spanks em good."

Note the clever way he subtly mocks the intelligentsia by not spelling their name right. And I have to say, there are few phrases more reassuring coming from the pen of a youth minister who spends a lot of time on the Internet than "pulls their fancy pants down and spanks em good".

Now, some of you may question whether a man like Steir, obsessed as he is with exposing the tender bottom-flesh of his intellectual betters, might have the scientific and rational grounding required to correctly evaluate Ben Stein's creationist propaganda. Allow me to put those fears to rest! Steir has anticipated your skepticism and provided a curriculum vitae so astonishing it will, quite literally, leave you speechless:

"Where do I stand in the Creation vs. Evolution debate? Suffice it to say that I take Genesis chapter 1 at face value. Call me a brute. Call me a literalist. Call me a Neanderthal (actually don't call me that one). But don’t ever accuse me of not taking the Bible seriously. Although I have friends that vigorously debate with me on this, I just can’t get away from how plainly the first chapter of Genesis describes how everything began…and I believe it. Because I’m a scientist? No. I wasn’t even that good at science. I believe it because the Bible says it.

For the record? Any twinges of guilt I might have had over mocking Dare 2 Share in the past? You know, because they come across as essentially clueless but well-intentioned given their worldview? See that window? Well, the twinges just went right fucking out it. If scientific process depended on how plainly things were described, we'd still be burning shit for warmth and fighting over which neighbor was the witch who caused our cow to wither and die. The only reason a movie like Expelled can make the kind of headway it does in our culture is that our culture is filled with fuckwits like Steir who desperately need to reconcile their dung-fire beliefs with a world full of airplanes and motion pictures.

And today, Ben Stein just gave them a big dose of the crap they need to keep themselves mentally warm through the cold, dark, secular, atheist, Nazi, communist, Darwinist night. Yay!

* Well, except for the big-budget documentary opening in 1000-plus theaters, including seven Twin Cities locations. But other than that, Darwinists are more about suppression than Valtrex.

August Flush, More Like

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:40:04 -0600

Movies, 21 November 2007

Memo to the readership: STOP AUGUST RUSH.

It's almost Thanksgiving. Which has many potential meanings for a left-leaning, politically-motivated web columnist. There's the whole genocide of the native peoples angle, but my stockpile of smallpox blanket jokes is a bit low.

There's the traditional critique of American overindulgence and consumerism, as exemplified by hormone-fed mutant industrial-farmed turkeys and Black Friday "doorbuster" sales, but I'm not actually a socialist when it comes to nonessential consumer goods, and I'm not exactly planning on a locally-farmed, slow-food feast come the morrow.

So what I'm really thankful for is that Hollywood loves to release movies on Thanksgiving weekend, and that Hollywood hates America.

Lest you check you browser's address bar in shock, or check your calendar to see if you forgot Opposite Day again this year, I don't mean it like crazy wingnuts mean it. I just assume that Hollywood hates America because it keeps trying to convince us that shitty movies are actually meaningful and award-worthy explorations of the human spirit. Remember "A Beautiful Mind"? They gave an Oscar to Akiva Fucking Goldsman for that steaming pile. And now we get August Rush.

If you love trite, melodramatic crap, this movie has it all. To start off with, it's the tale of the rise of a child music prodigy. Now, you could make an entire bad movie out of that alone. Let's face it - the trials and tribulations faced by twelve year old orchestra conductors are precisely the kind of thing audiences eat up, even though it may be the least universally relatable character concept ever.

I mean, your average audience member is more likely to identify with Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal Smith, or even just plain Hannibal than with a preteen Amadeus. So maybe that's why the bastards behind August Rush upped the ante.

He's not just a preteen prodigy, he's a preteen prodigy separated from his family! It's like those movies where the pets get stranded and have to walk across the country via every major landmark to get home. Only this time, the animals have an innate grasp of syncopation and were the love child of a rock star and a cellist, abandoned at birth. And he doesn't swim across a river. I don't think.

Not only is our prodigy separated from his family, but it appears that they get reunited through some previously undocumented mystical power of music. I'd love to see if the movie takes a position on whether ALL music has this power. Can death metal and that Crazy Frog ringtone also traverse the psychic bond that apparently binds us via our genetic material? Because that would be funny.

But I won't see it, and neither should you, and neither should those you care about. In fact, consider warning off complete strangers and your worst enemies. Because even the magic power of culturally approved classical and gospel music weren't enough for these people. They went the extra mile to ensure reverse peristalsis.

Robin Williams. As an eccentric homeless dude. An eccentric homeless dude who mentors the prodigy. Who, in fact, mentors an entire band, literal and figurative, of musically-inclined urchins. Oh, and his name is "Wizard". And "August Rush" is what he names the kid, because apparently there is no end to the shameless depravity of Nick Castle, James V. Hart, and Kristen Sheridan.

Prevent people from seeing this movie. Physically, if you have to. I know it sounds extreme, but I think you'll agree that it's ultimately in the best interest of art and society. Both of which will end up much the worse for wear if Hollywood is encouraged to believe that shit like this is a good idea. I mean, FUCKING WIZARD?

NWO Joe!

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:14:30 -0500

Wingnuts, 2 November 2007

Memo to Glenn Beck and ilk: DUMB IS NOT THE OTHER HALF OF THE BATTLE.

A right-wing ubersnit can be, depending on the target, one of the most hilarious or most infuriating things on the planet. When they don their self-righteous apeshit mantles and stalk working families, then it's reprehensible. But when they go after an offense that requires a complete detachment from reality to be affronted by, well folks, that's where the high comedy kicks off.

Especially when they get all foot-stompingly grumpy about their favorite enemy of America, Hollywood. You see, Paramount has announced they're making a G.I. JOE movie. You, the reader, being a sane person of reasonable intelligence, will of course think back to the sales numbers of the Transformers movie, which exceeded its actual quality by an amount that would stagger Carl Sagan. And since that kind of success makes Hollywood's panties wet, you realized very quickly that other 80's cartoons would be getting the big-budget, low-IQ blockbuster treatment. And after Transformers, Joe is the next, perfectly logical step.

So when you hear that in the new movie, GI Joe is a multinational fighting force that takes on a group of terrorists led by a Scottish arms dealer, you sanely and rationally figure that this is actually a bit CLOSER to the source material than Transformers was, since odds are this Joe movie won't actually be focused on the epic struggle between Shia LeBouf and his parents. You will think this because you are not a jingoistic wingnut fuck. Because what jingoistic wingnut fucks think is this:

"Well, thank goodness the villain -- no need to offend anyone by making our villains Arabs, Muslims, or foreign dictators of any stripe these days, though apparently Presbyterians who talk like Scottie on "Star Trek" are still OK -- is a double-crossing arms dealer. Otherwise one might be tempted to conclude the geniuses at Paramount believe arms dealing itself is evil." - Vin Suprynowicz, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Suprynowicz seems to be under the mistaken impression that at any point in GI Joe's mythology, he (pre-1982) or they (post-1982) had as its mission fighting Arabs, Muslims, or foreign dictators. Well, OK, the World War II ones technically fought Hitler, I suppose, but Hasbro didn't actually make a Hitler doll for them to fight, is my point. In Surpynowicz's defense, knowing anything about GI Joe would completely derail the rest of his article, which tells the true heroic story of World War II Marine Mitchell Paige, then goes on to make this startling claim:

"When the Hasbro Toy Co. called some years back, asking permission to put the retired colonel's face on some kid's doll, Mitchell Paige thought they must be joking. But they weren't. That's his mug, on the little Marine they call "G.I. Joe." At least, it has been up till now. Mitchell Paige's only condition? That G.I. Joe must always remain a United States Marine."

MY GOD! Hollywood is raping the memory of this dead Marine, who was the original model for GI Joe. And they're breaking the solemn vow they made to him to always keep GI Joe a Marine! It's yet another example of leftist Hollywood troop-hating, and is not mitigated in the slightest by the fact that it's entirely made-up.

Mitchell Paige did give his permission for his likeness to grace a GI Joe doll. In 1998. Decades after "GI Joe" had been a Marine, a Navy SEAL, a rugged mountaineer, an astronaut, and a name for a terrorist-fighting organization. Mitchell Paige's own posthumously-preserved web page doesn't make any of the claims this Vegas fuckhead makes. In fact, these claims are found nowhere on the Internet except this guy's article, and dozens upon dozens of right-wing blogs quoting this article. Apparently they love the troops so much they're willing to pretend other people hate the troops so that they can feel like they love the troops EVEN MORE.

Anyway, the usual Parade of Douchebags made its ceremonial lap around the Echo Chamber until one of their cable news patrons picked up on it and put his own spin on the story. Could have been O'Reilly, could have been Cavuto, but this time, through pure random chance, it happened to be Glenn Beck. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"For starters, he's no longer Government Issue Joe. G.I. Joe used to stand for that. Now it stands for -- and I'm not kidding you -- Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity. What? When did entities stand for anything but evil? I'm just saying. Poor Joe has now been discharged from the American military, and Hollywood now has him answering to some bullcrap international force like the U.N. We all know that the U.N. is a toothless bunch of pansies. They don't deserve somebody like Joe, even the little plastic version."

First of all, if you get to host a cable news show, even one that nobody watches, you should either know what the fuck "entities" means, or be required to have someone on staff who can tell you. Beck clearly fails both those tests in spectacular fashion. And second of all, let's all think back to the most recent example of a group composed of military members from a variety of countries, including America, whose mission was to fight terrorists all over the world.

Was it, as Beck states, "some bullcrap international force"? "A bunch of pansies"? Or, as he also implied, a group designed to "indoctrinate our kids into hating their own country, turning us into some one-world-government nightmare"? No. It was called the Coalition Of The Willing, George W. Bush Propaganda Version. And as you may recall, anyone who suggested that perhaps it wasn't much of a global coalition, but instead a whole shitload of Americans and a few token foreigners whose governments were bribed into signing onto the list, well, you were a troop-hating Hollywood liberal.

I can't remember the last time a four- to twelve- inch piece of molded plastic got a right-winger this worked up. Oh wait, yes I can. But let's leave Bill O'Reilly's vibrators out of it. This whole subject is messy enough.

At Least One S Missing

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:32:25 -0500

Republicans, 10 September 2007

Memo to the various and sundry at Libertas: YOU ARE DUMB.

Not everyone who reads this column gets in touch with me to tell me I suck dick. Some of them throw tips my way, which is something I normally don't acknowledge because it's not relevant to the narrative. But after the four hundred thousandth link to Libertas had passed without me taking a swing, I figured it was overdue. Because they really aren't that bright.

Libertas bills itself as "conservative thought on film", and I suppose one out of three ain't bad. Two, if you don't accept the distinction between a "movie" and a "film", and think that a Kevin Bacon vigilante movie needs to be critiqued as art.

But what prompted me to finally write about Libertas wasn't their Death Sentence review (which bemoaned its attempt to inject political correctness into the vigilante genre) or the review of the Dixie Chicks documentary, which, I realize in retrospect, was solely responsible for the national shortage of cheap shots last month.

No, what inspired me was their topmost editorial, in which, for the first time ever, a member of a blog has successfully concern-trolled himself. Since I know there's a subset of my readership not steeped in Net minutia, concern-trolling is a person with position X posing as person with position Y, pointing out the problems with position Y in order to "help fix things" out of their concern for the cause.

Since the article is titled "Conservatives Are Just As Guilty", author "Dirty Harry" of course must start by establishing how guilty the liberals they're just as guilty as are, which he does in traditional-but-amusing Over The Top Conservative style. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Hollywood has declared war on America. In the coming fall season we will suffer through no less than six strident very high profile anti-American films designed with the precision of a smart bomb to undercut the American people’s will to fight this war. This is the only way the terrorists know they can win. This is the only way Hollywood knows America can lose. And so they have joined forces."

He doesn't list the six films, but checking IMDB, I can only assume he's referring to Mr. Woodcock (mocking gym teachers, whose star pupils are most likely to be The Troops); D-War (everyone who's seen the trailer has told me they're against D-War); Hitman (for being based on a video game other than America's Army); Bee Movie (obviously SOME kind of fucking allegory); Fred Claus (mocking Christmas, ergo pro-Muslim); and Sweeney Todd (in this post-modern update, Sweeney isn't a barber, he's a Halliburton exec with a very lucrative contract to produce MREs).

But at least we now know what kind of person actually believes the surge is working.

Anyway, apparently conservatives are guilty for not taking their vast stocks of wealth and using it to produce pro-war movies to compete with Hollywood's leftist agenda. While establishing this point, "Dirty Harry" inadvertently lets slip the kind of truth he would hang Sean Penn in an instant for expressing:

"I keep waiting for one of the tens-of-thousands of conservative millionaires — millionaires because of this country’s foreign policy — millionaires because of incredibly brave young men and women who fight the wars for us — millionaires because of America herself — to announce they’re ready to drop $50 million into a pro-war/pro-American film should someone only bring them a great script and director."

Is Harry really suggesting that America's conservatives are getting filthy, stinking rich off of the Iraq war, and are therefore ungrateful little bitches for not financing propaganda films to keep it going? That's awesome. He's asking fucking war profiteers to give back to the community. And people call ME a socialist? But wait, there's more!

"The time for the Fox News of Hollywood is now. We’re at war. Where are you people? You don’t want nineteen year-old Marines and soldiers surrendering to al-Queda, but you’ve already surrendered to Sean Penn? Tim Robbins? Bill Maher? Those soldiers and Marines are risking their very existence on this earth to fight this war and you won’t risk a fraction of your wealth? Think about that."

Well, I'll try, but I don't think you can underclock a brain. It starts with the unintentional admission that Fox News produces pro-war fiction. provides a transliteration of "al Qaeda" that I've never, EVER seen before, and then asserts, through the rhetorical Rule of Three, that Bill Maher makes anti-war movies. Or movies at all. And no, "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" doesn't count.

I just love that to Dirty Harry, the only thing keeping us from soaring-eagle, flagpole-boner success in Iraq are a half-dozen movies coming out FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AFTER "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED". Yes, Genius. That's the fucking problem. Sean Penn's going to fuck it up for everybody just as the Iraqi security forces were putting the finishing touches on the "Thank You, Liberators!" float. But that's what you get when you ask a conservative to think about film.

A Pronouncement Of My Own

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:02:47 -0500

Movies, 20 July 2007

Memo to Adam Sandler and Kevin James: NICE TRY.

Quick caveat. For the purposes of this column, I am not criticizing the film "I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry". I can't criticize the film, because I haven't seen it, and more importantly, YOU CAN'T FUCKING MAKE ME. Instead, I will be criticizing everything I know about the movie to date, plus related items I know about society and media.

With that in mind, you know what the most astonishing thing about "I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry" is? It's less palatable to me than Three's Company, because, in a sentence I never, ever thought I'd write in my life, at least Three's Company is intellectually honest.

Hear me out. Three's Company features a character who pretends to be homosexual for personal gain, and wacky hijinx ensue when authority figures try to prove that they're really straight. "I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry" features TWO characters who do the exact same thing.

What Jack Tripper gets out of the deal are cheap rent and access to Suzanne Somers' 1970's breasts. He doesn't understand homosexuality. When necessary, he puts on a ridiculous flaming gay stereotype, because, well, it was the 70's, and that's what people did. Not people in the 70's. People on TV in the 70's.

In "Chuck and Larry", though, it's much... "nicer". It's all about a pension for Kevin James' kids. Providing for family. Presenting gay stereotypes, but in an allegedly enlightened manner. It's these man-children who have all these misconceptions about what being gay is like, and it's funny, and by the end I'm sure they'll learn something about the gay community... and themselves.

Like I said, at least Three's Company is honest about it. "Chuck and Larry", like so many other modern comedies, want to make the coin that comes with sophomoric audience members who want to laugh at the icky, uncomfortable fake gay. But they need plausible deniability to get away with it. And that's where the heartwarming shit comes in. You know, like the kids asking if Chuck and Larry are "homosexicals". Awww. Don't it make one want to fwow up?

Beyond that, though, do we really need a movie about how straight, white Average Joe Americans just can't cut a break, so they have to masquerade as minorities to get all the sweet, sweet extra benefits being gay gets you? I don't think we do.

You know what version of "Chuck and Larry" I want to see? I want to see the version where they have to have sex. They could do it tastefully. Actually, please do it tastefully. I don't need to actually see Sandler and James having sex - gay or straight, individually or together. But the movie should make them have sex.

In fact, the movie should have them have sex, and then the movie should have one or both of them enjoy it. Now THAT'S some uncomfortable, awkward comedy. And heck, if they both enjoy it, you could even give the movie a happy ending. So to speak.

But there will be no happy endings in Chuck and Larry. Just a lot of jokes about man-kissing, underpants, and Rob Schneider in Charlie Chan yellowface (but it's OK. Really. Because he's half-Filipino.) Hollywood must actually think there still aren't enough movies I want to punch.

Larry The Keen Sociopolitical Observer Guy

Sun, 13 May 2007 21:09:22 -0500

Movies, 14 May 2007

Memo to Larry and Jack: YOU ARE DUMB.

Obviously, an important event like the World Congress of Families is going to disrupt schedules a bit. As a result, you're getting your Spastic Topic Monkey Friday on a Monday. It's a good thing I'm not a strict constructionist.

I'm sure regular readers of this space were surprised to not see Friday's column given over to Delta Farce, the exciting new Larry the Cable Guy wacky military comedy. I was a bit surprised myself. I mean, it's everything I hate, tied up in a neat little celluloid bow. But on the face of it, it's too easy - at least in a week where I had plenty of other material. But then I realized the funny thing about Delta Farce:

They actually went and made a movie whose premise is that a bunch of inbred, retarded redneck pigfuckers grab their guns and start shooting at brown people, because they CAN'T TELL which kind of brown people they are. That's the plot. The framework on which they hang their imitation processed cheese comedy. Which means that Delta Farce is the only Larry the Cable Guy movie with a socio- and geo-political subtext AND fart jokes. Even if it's just the fart jokes that are on purpose.

Normally, I have a strict policy of not responding to e-mail in the column. For a number of reasons, 99 times out of a hundred, it's a bad idea. But I'd like to extend a tiny modicum of thanks to some guy who signs his e-mails "Jack", but whose e-mail ID is the porntastic John Long, for the information he imparted.

That information is that Michael Patrick McPhail got off. Or, rather, he didn't get off. OK, he got off on account of not getting off in the way he was arrested for getting off, i.e. balls-deep in a pit bull. Washington State's first criminal bestiality charge is now its first bestiality acquittal. So, you know. Yay justice.

Upon the acquittal, which occurred on Thursday, apparently John "Jack" Long took it upon himself to find all the old webmockery based entirely on the arrest of McPhail and send them the news. Of course, not understanding that time is in fact LINEAR, he seemed to think that I should therefore have retroactively not written the October column. Or should have been following the case. Or something. I mean, yes, I'd be a bit touchy if every time someone googled my name DOGFUCKER came up in Arial 16 point, but that's no reason for some other guy to call me a prick.

Let me explain, to all of you and perhaps to Long how this column works. It works a whole hell of a lot like the Incredible Hulk. Specifically, the Bill Bixby / Lou Ferrigno version. Every day, I breeze into a new town. Every day, I see something that pisses me off or cracks me up. I get big, I get green, I metaphorically throw some metaphorical dudes through metaphorical doors in metaphorical slow motion (or actual slow motion if you're not that good a reader). And then I wake up, wearing nothing but torn jeans, and head off to a new day and a new town as mournful piano music plays.

I do not look back. Even if I wanted to, it's just impractical. I don't mind admitting I was wrong. I don't even mind admitting when the facts, as laid out in this column after being gleaned from reasonably reliable news reports, change in a way that slightly impacts my rhetorical thrust. Hell, even though John "Jack" Long somehow expected me to know, three days later, the outcome of a six-month old case I only covered in the first place because it was a much-needed distraction from Election 2006, and sent me an e-mail that contained the word "femi-nazi", thereby firmly establishing his douchebag credentials, I've taken it upon myself to make changes in the original McPhail column to account for the new circumstances.

Because that's how much of a fucking mensch I am.

While I Was Out

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:15:50 -0500

Movies, 30 April 2007

Memo to America: YOU'RE LESS DUMB THAN I THOUGHT.

Man, there's a bunch of stuff I need to get caught up on after the whole SIMPtastic week last week. Lots of stuff happened. I didn't get to talk about the latest scandalplosion, I didn't get to talk about Earth Day, but most importantly, I didn't get to talk about KICKIN' IT OLD SKOOL.

Part of me would like to think that the fact that none of you bothered to go to see it this weekend (#11, and about three million) shows an ability amongst the entertainment consumer to learn and grow. But I know that's not true, because it turns out you were all just going to see fucking Disturbia again. Plus, with Larry the Cable Guy's "Delta Farce" just two short weeks away, this is no time to get complacent about crappy movies.

Running the math on this proves interesting. Assuming a three-day opening weekend, five shows a day, and an average six-buck ticket price, that means the average theater showing this movie had seventeen fucking people in it. That's seventeen people who SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THE HELL BETTER. It's not as if there's a lack of historical perspective here.

First, and foremost, Jamie Kennedy sucks. This is not just one man's curmudgeonly opinion, either. Analysis and research has shown conclusively that Jamie Kennedy has not produced one single worthwhile piece of art or entertainment commerce in his life, and that the odds of him ever actually doing so are approximately 3,720 to 1. And that's IF he does Shakespeare in his late 60s. I think it was Lloyds of London who ran those numbers.

Second, it's a movie about breakdancing. There aren't many, and they aren't good. Oh, we all have a good laugh appending Electric Boogaloo to every known instance of the numeral two. But that doesn't mean we know what a boogaloo is, or why it has to be electric. Unless it's to keep the Amish from breakdancing, a goal I wholeheartedly support.

Third, movies about white nerds aping black culture are never, ever, ever, ever good. Have we already forgotten Marci X? Soul Man? Or the hundreds of other uncomfortable moments in hundreds of other comedies? Dear god, the life's work of Robin Williams alone should be enough to have drummed this into our collective ancestral memory by now.

Fourth, the last time someone crossed the streams I point out as numbers one and three above, we got Malibu's Most Wanted, and we're lucky our civilization survived.

And lastly, Harland Williams. Harland Williams is what you get if you take Jamie Kennedy, feed him paint chips for about three months, then remove all desire to get up before ten in the morning. So instead of leading roles and TV shows with his name in the title, Harland Williams ends up with bit voice parts and small roles in Dane Cook movies. I realize I'm the only one who remembers his big breakout pic from a decade ago, RocketMan, which firmly cemented him into the Hate list in my mind*, but the presence of Harland Williams should be a canary in anybody's cinematic coal mine.

Any one of these reasons would be a deal-breaker, and I haven't even mentioned that Jamie Kennedy plays someone who's been in a coma since the 80s. They put that in the commercials! In what must be a violation of every marketing law known to man. Telling people your movie has Jamie Kennedy awaking from a 20-year coma is like telling people how many baby seals you accidentally impale each year on your offshore drilling rigs. It's NOT A FUCKING SELLING POINT.

And I can't even take comfort in its awful box office, because at some point, the DVD's going to be 9.77 at Target, and a bunch of you who should know better are going to grab it on your way out on a whim, thinking it might be funny. And then some studio asshole will carry the two, decide Kickin' It Old Skool made money, and greenlight the sequel. And then we all die.

*Yes, it's a very long list.

Busted Motivator

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:15:45 -0500

Politics, 20 March 2007

Memo to "Dr. Rusty Shackleford": YOU ARE DUMB.

And you're not alone. You're just the example, the outlier, the pointy tip of the bell curve that stands as a shining example to us all of why we should discontinue a particular practice. In this case the practice of applying ham-handed political analysis to big-budget summer blockbusters.

Oh, sure, we all should have seen this coming years ago, when Revenge Of The Sith was seen as an attack by George Lucas on the Bush administration. This kept us from focusing all of our attention on the fact that Revenge Of The Sith was an attack by George Lucas on our aesthetic sensibilities*.

Blockbusters have no political content. Period. Even the ones that do. I know that seems like a conceptual oddity, but let's face it. Even assuming the writers and directors of big-budget movies are trying to put political content in there, it's in all of our best interests to pretend that they didn't. Otherwise, we end up with more shit like Smokin' Aces, and we know we don't want that. If I wanted to know what Michael Bay thought about global climate change, I'd be able to sit through more than five minutes of The Day After Tomorrow.

Achieving political detente with the movie industry not only prevents turgid, ham-handed analogies from getting in the way of important Shit Blowing Up, it also would prevent turgid analysis posted by reactionary nerds like "Shackleford", the King-Of-The-Hill-inspired alias of the man behind right-wing blog "The Jawa Report".

The title of which, by the way, does not seem to stem from "Shackleford"'s love of half-height berobed junk salesman. No, The Jawa Report exists to report on Jawas, which he uses as a sort of nerdracist slur against Arabs. See, the Arab world is divided into Jawas and Tusken Raiders... oh, for fuck's sake. I can't even get into the details. Let's just take it as read that he hates people in robes in the desert, and leave it at that. So, of course, he fucking loved "300" to death.

Now, I don't have an opinion either way about the movie, but everything I know about it tells me that it is a movie with two, and only two, driving ideas: shouting and stabbing. Any analysis of the movie should thus be limited to the volume of the shouting and the quality of the stabbing, and not extend to things like this. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"There was no hidden agenda in "300". It was not a "metaphor" about Western Civilization standing up against the Asiatic hordes. There is no Rorschach effect here as I thought going into the movie--Leftists and Islamist apologists seeing the Persians as a metaphor for U.S. imperialism, while those on the Right and Liberals of all stripes seeing Sparta as representing the U.S. fight against Islamofascism."

Look, sparky. It's either a metaphor, or it's literal. And last time I checked, during the battle of Thermopylae, "Western Civilization" was busy building stone pyramids so that Bush's daughters could dance drunkenly near them a couple of millenia later. It'd be a while before they had to stand up to any hordes from another continent, Asia or otherwise.

There are a few clues in this piece that "Shackleford" enjoyed this movie even more than he says he did - hints that, were it not for the blatant evidence that is the rest of his blog, I'd chalk up to deliberate, irony-tinged self-parody. But no, this is not the case.

"Sometimes a rose is just a rose. And sometimes the rose is a metaphor for something else. But I got news for you: a picture of a giant penis isn't a metaphor for something phallic. It is phallic... Go see "300". If you don't like it you probably hate America. That, or you're gay."

Sounds like SOMEONE left the AMC Cineplex with an erection lasting more than four hours. And instead of calling his physician, he found some way to blame it on the Islamofascists who'd managed to set off a very dirty bomb indeed in his pants. The clincher is this bit, which again, in any other context, I would swear was a fucking put-on of epic proportions:

"As you know, I wasn't going to see the movie for fear that it would be a 2 hour advertisement for joining the gays. You know, something about a bunch of guys prancing around in banana hammocks that creeps me out. To quote Sarah Silverman: 'it doesn't really matter if you're homosexual or bisexual--both are equally gross.'"

First, doth protest too much. Seriously, can't these people realize that the mere use of the word "prancing" opens up a nice, clear window to their secret, cock-hungry souls? And second, who the fuck takes a Sarah Silverman joke at face value, like it's a Diceman or Ann Coulter routine? That's insane. It's like watching a fake SNL commercial and then writing an angry letter demanding that Happy Fun Ball be taken off the market, because if that's what you people consider "happy" or "fun" then you are a bunch of sick bastards.

This is why we have to send blockbusters and politics to opposite corners, people. So that the "Rusty Shacklefords" of the world don't get to enlighten us all by calling Arabs "sandpeople" and hiding their man-lust behind the Global War on Terror.

Well, that, and the Smokin' Aces thing. Sweet goddamn, did that movie suck.

*And no, you nerds, it was not neither better than the other two. That's just the Stockholm Syndrome talking.

The Other Loneliest Number

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 20:05:52 -0600

Movies, 23 February 2007

A couple of weeks ago, I thought about writing one of my usual cautionary missives about not going to see "Norbit", a fucking stupid movie. But I didn't bother, because I figured nobody would be stupid enough to go see a movie like "Norbit".

Since that was obviously a huge error in judgment on my part, I will no longer shirk my duty. And in that spirit, I present you twenty three separate reasons to NOT go see "The Number 23" this weekend.

Director Joel Schumacher. Doody comes out of there.*
Director JOEL SCHUMACHER. I don't need 21 other reasons where doody is involved.* But you'll get them anyway.
Numerology is for retards.
Especially numerology around the number 23. Two and three are the first two prime numbers. That means that every single odd number except one, and every even number past four, can be expressed as some combination of "2" and "3".
The writer, Fernley Phillips, has no track record at all. I'm not against giving new writers a chance as such, but even assuming good writing could struggle its way to the screen in a Joel Schumacher movie, there's no reason to believe that's the case here.
Also, his first name might lead to trademark confusion for readers of this column.
Seriously, have you seen the trailer? The convoluted ways they pull "23" out of their butts just in three minutes is enough to curdle the milk in James Randi's cornflakes.
Jim Carrey.
No, this isn't some knee-jerk anti-Carrey reaction. I kind of like the guy, despite hating most of his movies. But this is a serious role, and I'm not sure if it's possible to balance the karmic load of shit that was "The Majestic".
Also, the last time Carrey and Schumacher were supposed to work together, it was on "Phone Booth", and look how THAT turned out.
Also, the last time Carrey and Schumacher DID work together, it was on "Batman Forever", and look how THAT turned out.
It's a numerology movie, for fuck's sake. Numerology is for people who think The DaVinci Code is too realistic and complex.
Rhona Mitra. I have no idea how important her role is, but the name jumped out at me, because she was the first model to go around dressed as Lara Croft. Well, the first one Eidos paid, at any rate.
You could go see Reno 911: Miami instead. Now, if you're the type of person who needs to be dissuaded from seeing "The Number 23", you'll hate the Reno 911 movie, too, but if you're gonna hate your 90 minutes in the dark anyway, you might as well not make Joel Schumacher any richer.
By presenting a simple and glorified view of torture, "23" gives credence to right-wing anti-terror wank fantasies.
Actually, that last bit was about "24", which is just ONE AWAY FROM TWENTY THREE! It's so spooooooooky.
It's a thriller being released in 2007, so you know it's gonna have a shitload of jumpcuts and scratchy-film effects. And probably some strobes. Yawn.
There wasn't a creepy child intoning anything in the trailer, and the premise doesn't seem to support the existence of one, but you can never be sure. Best not to chance it.
If Paul Hardcastle had made this movie, I'd be done by now.
Twenty-three skidoo! This isn't actually a reason, just an antiquated bit of slang advice for what you should do if you should accidentally purchase a ticket to this movie.
You know, if they haven't already, the fuckers you sit next to at work are going to be talking for days about where they've seen the number 23.
My god, it's the 22nd reason! 2+3+2+3+2+3+2+3+2 = 22! It's a 23 palindrome! Which means numerology is just as inane backwards as it is forwards!
Joel. Schumacher. I can't be any clearer than that.

*Adapted/stolen from Sarah Silverman, yes, I know.

Another Iraq Casualty

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:44:58 -0600

Movies, 29 January 2007

Memo to Joe Carnahan: YOU ARE DUMB.

I normally wouldn't do this, as it borders a bit on bloggy confessionalism, but I went to see "Smokin' Aces" over the weekend, and oh, what a steaming piece of shit it was. In this column, I'm going to spoil the crap out of it, and you're gonna read it and not see it. That's the unspoken agreement between writer and audience at work.

Normally, I'll admit, going to see a lousy movie wouldn't spark an entire column. Caveat emptor, and all that. But I was expecting Aces to be a mediocre version of the movie they were advertising in the trailer - lots of hit men, lots of bullets, emphasis on the goofy. I didn't expect it to be an entirely different movie about internal FBI politics and the emotional turmoil of Ryan Fucking Reynolds. Which it was.

Even then, the many flaws of the movie might not qualify it for columnhood. Although I would like to point out that it doesn't matter how many times you jump-cut among five groups of people, opening your movie with FORTY-FIVE MINUTES OF EXPOSITION is still a mistake. Maybe if all of it had come from Jason Bateman, it might have worked. Maybe. Which is a really odd sentence now that I read it.

Back to the point. You see, I read an interview with the director that revealed WHY the movie sucked so hard. ACTUAL QUOTE WITHIN A QUOTE TIME!

"When he was writing "Smokin' Aces," American forces were in Iraq searching for weapons of mass destruction, and he was thinking we were 'being b.s.'d a little bit. So when I look at 'Smokin' Aces,' I see the entire film as misinformation. The twist at the end is completely immaterial to me. I just loved the idea that misinformation could lead to this horribly chaotic violence.'" - Joe Carnahan via the Daily News' Bob Strauss

I'm not sure you can actually stretch the term "immaterial" to describe that twist. Which is, by the way, that Buddy Israel, the Vegas magician and mob guy who's the target of all the hitmen, is actually the illegitimate son of a dying Italian mob boss, who wants Israel's heart for a transplant. Oh, and also, the Italian mob boss isn't an Italian mob boss, but actually a deep-cover FBI agent from the 40s who, after being shot in the face repeatedly by the FBI who suspected he'd gone rogue, got lots of reconstructive surgery and actually did go rogue, but the FBI wants the information in his head so they want to get Israel and perform the transplant themselves. Which pisses off Ryan Reynolds, whose old partner died because of a vague Iraq war metaphor.

I'd like to extend my condolences to the family of the word "immaterial", bits of which were found several miles away from the Carnahan interview site.

Not only does this twist take up about a third of the movie (or 80% of the non-exposition parts of the movie), but it's seriously at odds with the crappy movie I thought I was going to see, which had neo-Nazi hit men with chainsaws in it. And a master of disguise. And about 3 other bosses from 90s video games, now that I think about it. I want to like a movie with those things in it, but Carnahan's got a message, dammit.

"I certainly didn't go through this as an empty-headed exercise in violence and confusion and deliberately troubling the viewer with trying to stay ahead of all this stuff." Yeah? Well, it's better to make an empty-headed movie and have people suspect you're an idiot than to try an inject meaning into it, thereby removing all doubt.

Oooh, government misinformation leads to horrible bloodshed and violence. Just like in Iraq. I can't imagine how my sociopolitical life managed to go this long without an action movie pointing this out to me in the most ludicrously convoluted way possible. Thank you, Joe Carnahan, for incorporating your vague feelings of being bullshitted by the government into your cinematic masterpiece.

And you know what the worst part is? Here's the worst part. For years, one of the slurs the right has heaped on liberals is that we blame everything on George Bush. That we hate him so much that even seemingly unrelated bad things that happen are Dubya's fault. It's a ridiculous stereotype that builds the myth that "liberal anger" isn't meant to be taken seriously.

But this time, it's true. George Bush made this movie suck. And those two hours of my life are the latest, tiniest casualty of the Iraq War.