Insert Clever Editing-Related Title

It’s been a while…

When I haven’t been working, I’ve been visiting my niece & nephew. They’re cute, I don’t have to clean up their poop, and they’re conveniently located near the beach. I am way behind on my movie going and renting. Superman, X-Men, Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars, and Nacho Libre all remain unseen.

I did finally get around to renting City of God. It’s the story of kids growing up in street gangs near Rio de Janeiro, and is pretty amazingly shot and edited. A couple of years ago, I went to an editing seminar at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. All five of the editors nominated for an Oscar that year were there to show off a scene from their movies and discuss The Craft of Editing. It was a fascinating and entertaining program, which surprised me because I think discussing The Craft of Editing is pretty boring and aimless. Unless you have seen every frame of footage shot for a movie, you really have no idea how well a movie is cut, but anyway… City of God’s editor, Daniel Rezende was there, along with William Goldenberg for Seabiscuit, Lee Smith for Master and Commander, Jamie Selkirk for The Return of the King and His Editorial Majesty Walter Murch for Cold Mountain.

The place was packed. There were the usual nerdy discussions about Avid vs. Final Cut Pro and the digital revolution. Everyone knew that Jamie Selkirk was going to win the Oscar, so there wasn’t any debate about awards. I’d wager that half of those in attendance were film students who had just read “In the Blink of an Eye” by Walter Murch and wanted to see their new messiah in person. For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Murch cut picture and sound for a few great movies – most of which came out a couple of decades ago – and wrote the aforementioned book which every editing student at every film school is forced to read. Mr. Murch is a talented and articulate guy, and was smart enough to put his theories about editing down on paper to be devoured by movie geeks everywhere. It’s a good book, and is really the only book on the subject. Thusly, he is revered like a god in the post-production world. At the seminar, he was clearly relishing his professorial status, delighting in the spotlight. Then something interesting happened…

Enter Rezende.

Daniel Rezende looked about sixteen years old. He spoke softly with a thick Brazilian accent and was visibly intimidated by his surroundings and fellow nominees. He looked totally out of place. Then they showed the opening sequence of City of God. It was astounding. It is an amazingly constructed scene of gang members chasing a chicken through Rio’s slums. There are shots you’ve never seen before cut together with stunning energy and originality. It was the most exiting piece of action movie editing anyone in the room had seen in years. When the clip was over there was thunderous applause. Rezende was flooded with praise and questions. He did very well considering his limited English, but he was a bit stunned by the adulation. The film students had a new hero - one only a few years older than themselves. Walter Murch may have packed the house, but Daniel Rezende emerged as the star.

I had some sympathy for the other editors on stage. They had all done some terrific work. Jamie Selkirk showed the Shelob scene from Return of the King, was unpretentious and somewhat dismissive of all the film theory talk. You got the sense that he’d rather be off cutting King Kong than yapping it up in Hollywood. Lee Smith was funny and seemed like he’d be a good guy to work for. William Goldenberg gave off an I’m-just-happy-to-be-here vibe. It was like that scene in Amadeus where Mozart takes Salieri’s ho-hum march of welcome, plays around with it on the harpsichord and turns it into a vastly more entertaining piece. Rezende didn’t have Mozart’s arrogance or delight in his own talents, but you got the feeling that the older editors went home thinking “Who is this little punk and how did he get so good?”

Anyway, it was one of my more interesting days in L.A.

On a completely unrelated note, I encourage all of you to watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX. Imagine an episode of Seinfeld as directed by Kevin Smith and you’ll get an idea of the show’s tone. It’s hilarious and you all should watch it. It's on right after Rescue Me, which you should also be watching.

That is all.

Eye of the Tiger

I have a nephew! My sister gave birth to the first male in my immediate family since the late 1970s. Not that I wouldn’t have been thrilled with the arrival of another beautiful, healthy niece… but c’mon! My dad and I have been outnumbered for more than a quarter century. At last, Devlin Moran Towers has arrived to balance out the Estrogen Extravaganza of the last three decades! We shall eat bacon double cheeseburgers! Leave the toilet seat up! Scratch ourselves with impunity! Gold Bond Medicated Powder will be proudly displayed next to the soap dish! ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRR!!! Belch! Fart!

All this reminds me how female-dominated my house was as a child. Not that my two awesome big sisters were Super Girly Girls. They weren’t. But there were plenty of things that typified 1980s American boyhood that just didn’t make their way into our house, and if they did, they weren’t welcomed with much enthusiasm. To this day, I have never seen a Rocky or Rambo movie in its entirety. They were forbidden in my house for being too violent. My room overflowed with Star Wars and Transformer action figures, but I don’t recall owning any G.I. Joe paraphernalia – too militaristic. It’s okay if robots blow each other up, but not people.

The same philosophy carried over into sports. Consider my experience with hockey. I know a lot of people reading this grew up in the South or California, where no one gives a crap about hockey. And what is hockey, really? Hockey is a game in which two teams of guys don heavy padding, strap on shoes with knives on the bottom, slide around on a surface as hard as cement, and use wooden sticks to knock a puck into a net. Slamming into your fellow players is mandatory. Fighting is not only acceptable, but encouraged. And it’s all done in the freezing cold. Ballsy.

In Massachusetts, hockey is a pretty big deal. My neighborhood was no exception. There was a pond in my backyard that froze over in the winter, and all the local kids went there to play. Of course, I wanted to be one of the cool kids, so I wanted to play, too. Problem: I was a small kid with bad eyesight who was taught that it wasn’t nice to slam into people. My best friend, Justin, didn’t have those difficulties. He was a little scrawny, but it didn’t matter. He had boundless energy and loved everything about hockey, especially the brutality. His house was the antithesis of mine. He had a brother and no sisters. His mom was a housewife and his dad was a firefighter and Vietnam vet. The three dominating odors of their house were sweat, smoke, and aerosol deodorant. It wasn’t long before I followed Justin to the local Pee Wee team.

Somewhere in my house, there are pictures of me on the way to my first practice. My mother, who grew up without any brothers who might have taught her better about the humiliations that boys go through, dressed me as she saw fit. In addition to the baffling pads and helmet, she made me put on three sweaters, two pairs of snow pants, a winter jacket, hand-knit mittens, and worst of all, double-bladed skates (hockey’s equivalent of the Short Bus). I might as well have worn a shirt emblazoned with the word “LOSER” writ in neon. The coaches must have thought my parents were either crazy or retarded.

My hockey career didn’t last. I could skate but couldn’t stop without crashing into the boards. I have a hunch that my parents were secretly happy about it. Mom probably thought that I would get horribly injured or grow up to be a toothless thug. Dad probably figured out that hockey is one of the most expensive sports one can participate in, and waited patiently for my interest to wane. It did.

I tried other sports - although Mom made it clear that boxing and football were barbaric and out of the question. I was too short for basketball and soccer was for Freedom Haters. My most vivid memory of Little League baseball was making a diving catch in left field on a 100° day when my ungloved hand landed in a pile of dog shit. I was pretty good at gymnastics. The rings, high bar, and vault were lots of fun. But who, for the love of all that is Holy, invented the pommel horse? Who sat down and designed a big log with wooden handles on top of it upon which a guy is supposed to support himself with his hands whilst swinging his legs around wildly, praying to God that he doesn’t slip and destroy his genitals? Anyway, I could never land a handspring, so I quit gymnastics, too.

I settled on swimming. My dad and his brothers were swimmers, so it was in the blood. And my mom was no doubt pleased that the worst injury I would suffer (short of drowning) would be a groin pull. Swim meets were fun, but practices were incredibly monotonous. My best event was breaststroke (huh-huh, huh-huh), and I probably would have been a captain if I didn’t quit my junior year out of sheer boredom. Doing shows, singing stupid songs, and obsessing about movies were much easier - and there were more chicks around.

Anyway, being a boy is tough. I hope my nephew has an easier time of it than I did. Over the last few decades, America has been so focused on redefining what girls should and should not be taught that boys have been left in the dark in a lot of ways. I hope that changes, and I hope that I can help my nephew out when he needs it. He already has two great parents, a fantastic big sister, and gets to grow up on Cape Cod, so he’s off to a good start. Someone has to teach him to belch the alphabet, however. I think I can do that.

Billion Dollar Babies

I have been neglecting my blog lately. Life has been full. Golf season is officially on at the club, and those dudes love to drink. Also, my sister is about to give birth to her second child. I wasn't around for the birth of her first, so this should be interesting. Hopefully, the new kid will be as cool as his or her older sister, pictured above with Alice Cooper when he made an appearance at my sister's radio station.

With the little time I have had for myself, I've seen a few movies. "The DaVinci Code" was pretty good, although I think it completely wasted Tom Hanks. Seriously, I don't think he's ever played a less interesting character. The best thing about the movie was Ian McKellen, who could read a phone book and make it sound intriguing. I only read the first hundred pages of the book, but I correctly guessed who Audrey Tautou's character really was about 1/3 of the way in. Still, it was entertaining in a hokey way. I think Opie missed a golden comedic opportunity when Tom & Audrey pulled up to the intercom at McKellen's chateau. Gandalf asks them three questions before he lets them pass. They really should have referenced the Bridge of Death scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" here:

MAGNETO: What is your name?

FORREST GUMP: Robert Langdon, Professor of Symbology at Harvard University.

MAGNETO: What is your quest?

FORREST GUMP: To seek the Holy Grail.

MAGNETO: What is the capital of Assyria?

FORREST GUMP: I don't know that!

(FORREST AND AMELIE ARE FLUNG INTO THE GORGE OF ETERNAL PERIL)

I also caught "Art School Confidential." It started out really well. I recognized many of the characters from my days at NCSA. If it had just been a quirky ensemble comedy, it could have been great. Sadly, it all goes to Hell. The movie turns nihilistic and hugely depressing, and I just wanted it to end.

The only other summer flick I'm really looking forward to is "Nacho Libre." If that turns out to be crap, well... that would just suck.

Thunder From Down Under

Last night I had a dream that Naomi Watts was my girlfriend. The dream was very PG-13, but it was very nice.

Oh, The Humanities!

I took a lot of crap courses during my senior year of high school. During the previous year, I did the hard-core academic stuff that would look good on my college applications (two math classes for fuck’s sake!). Knowing full well that my destiny lay in the world of filmmaking, a field in which academic achievement isn’t nearly as valued as is the ability to spin quality-sounding bullshit, I chose the appropriate courses to further my aspirations. Instead of Calculus, I took Problem Solving (a full semester of impractical brain teasers). In place of Honors Biology, I opted for Oceanography (guaranteed monthly field trips!) and Anatomy (when I actually showed up, we spent the entire time eviscerating fetal pigs and cheating on tests). But there was one class that truly stood ahead of the pack – a class that has stuck in my mind, shaped my life in innumerable ways, and has come back to haunt me. That class was Humanities with Miss Soave.

As defined by my computer’s dictionary, Humanities is the liberal arts as subjects of study, as opposed to the sciences. That’s a pretty broad definition. The class itself could have been called An Introduction to Beatnikery or Blue State Attitudes and Aesthetics 101. We studied Jazz, wrote “music-inspired” essays, analyzed Robert Mapplethorpe’s tamer photographs, watched clips from “The Breakfast Club,” and learned to Samba with our illegal Brazilian classmates. We also went on two field trips that I’m pretty sure put us on NSA watch lists for future communists and NEA contributors - one was to an exhibit of Herb Ritts’ Uber-gay portraits of naked dudes holding tires, and the other was an all-day visit to Harvard Square in all of its druggy, intellectual splendor.

Miss Soave was sexy in a nerdy/hippyish way - an attractive, female version of Mr. Van Driessen from “Beavis and Butthead.” I am guessing that she was only about 28 at the time. She made great pains to be the cool young teacher. On our first day, she let us know that we’d all have “a really rockin’ year” and that she didn’t want to hear any “dissing of anyone in this classroom.” Her grading system was awesome. I could have vomited on a piece of canvas, explained that it was a metaphor for fascist oppression, and gotten an A for it. Dayna somehow got a score of 120 on a paper she wrote contrasting the book and movie versions of John Grisham’s “A Time To Kill.” Seriously, 120 points! I didn’t know that grades like that even existed.

Near the end of the school year, Miss Soave had us write a letter to ourselves in ten years. In it, we were supposed to write our dreams and aspirations for where we would be in a decade. She assured us that she would mail them out to us at the appropriate time. I received mine in the mail a few days ago. She mailed these letters out a year early, perhaps so that her former students could take that extra year to accomplish any unrealized adolescent dreams. Here is the abridged version of my letter:

May 13, 1997

Dear Me (what are those things coming out of her nose?), (a cheeky “Spaceballs” reference)

In ten years I will hopefully be working on a movie set somewhere, filming what will become a huge worldwide box-office success. I will probably be engaged, if not married. I will NOT be married to Dayna Pell. Ms. McPherson will be watching me become successful and she will be eternally bitter. I will be a perfect physical specimen, and might have a Southern accent.

At this time, a #3 at McDonald’s costs $3.77. A gallon of gas is about $1.60. A movie ticket costs $7.25, but I get in for free.

Much Love,
Mike

So, how am I stacking up? I have worked on several movie sets. None of them have become huge worldwide box-office successes, as of yet. I would be as shocked as anyone if I become engaged or married in the next 12 months. For those of you who don’t know her, Dayna Pell has been my close friend and partner-in-snarkiness since the eighth grade. Many of our high school friends speculated that the two of us would eventually hook up. It will never happen. We are way more Jerry & Elaine than Harry & Sally. You can read her take on this blast-from-the-past letter by clicking here. Ms. McPherson was my evil drama club advisor who was making life miserable for all of my friends at the time. To this day, I would relish the opportunity to make her seethe with envy at my successes. I am far from a perfect physical specimen, but hey, I’ve made some progress since my college days. The Southern accent thing was a reference to the fact that I would soon be leaving my native New England for four years in North Carolina. The accent didn’t stick. For the sake of my aforementioned physique, I wish that I didn’t know how much a McDonald’s #3 cost. I weep for the gas prices of yesteryear. And I don’t get into movies for free anymore (although, I still use my NCSA Student ID to save a couple of bucks).

It is pretty obvious that I haven’t changed a whole lot since high school. Having observed human nature as a camp counselor, lifeguard and bartender, I don’t think that most people do. I was in Harvard Square a few weeks ago on a perfect sunny day. I perused foreign magazines at the world-famous newsstand, dodged Christian and Scientology missionaries, was never far from Smart People discussing Important Subjects, or Stoned People discussing Stoned Subjects. I couldn’t help but think about the day I spent there at the age of eighteen, and the class that brought me there. As goofy as that class was, I can remember it in greater detail than virtually any other class I took in four years of high school. It was a godsend during a particularly shitty year in my life. I actually got to discuss, write, and joke about things that I actually found interesting.

Goodnight, Miss Soave, wherever you are…

MUM #1: Empire of the Sun

Here’s the first in a series I am calling Mike’s Underappreciated Movies. MUM #1 is Steven Spielberg’s most underrated directorial effort, Empire of the Sun. I remember seeing it in the theater when I was about eight years old, and it became one of those movies that was always in my house even if none of my friends had ever seen it.

In a nutshell, it is the story of a spoiled English boy named Jim (played by a 12 year-old Christian Bale) living in China with his wealthy parents at the outbreak of World War II. When the Japanese invade Shanghai, Jim is separated from his family. He lives on the streets, befriends some shady Americans (John Malkovich and Joe Pantoliano), and ends up in a prison camp next to a Japanese airfield for the duration of the war.

If all that sounds pretty depressing, it is, but Spielberg goes through great pains to show these events as a kid would see them – horrific and sad, to be sure, but with a child’s sense of excitement, beauty and even humor. Empire of the Sun contains many of Spielberg’s recurring themes: the Lost Boy, the distant father, flight, and a World War II setting. You can see him warming up for later projects. The scenes on the streets of Shanghai and the prison camp are echoed in “Schindler’s List.” The terrifying invasion sequences (especially those in the car) and images of rivers choked with corpses would resurface in “War of the Worlds.” One could argue that this movie has several parallels to the Spielberg-produced “An American Tail”, which was released around the same time.

What sets this flick apart are the settings, style, and performances. If there’s another movie out there about rich Brits in China during World War II, I haven’t seen it. In fact, how often do we get World War II movies with an Asian view (even if it’s filtered through American and English eyes)? Sad to say, I have very little knowledge of what the Chinese went through during the war. Based on this movie, I would like to know more. Also, why haven’t we seen more Japanese films about the era? God knows they have some stories to tell and some fantastic filmmakers who are up to the challenge, but I digress. The film’s contrast between the lifestyles of the wealthy Europeans and the impoverished Chinese is very striking. One early shot nails this point home brilliantly: Jim’s family and friends are on their way to an opulent costume party just before the invasion. To get there, they must be driven through the crowded streets of Shanghai in their expensive cars. One of the rich women is made up to look like Marie Antoinette. She stares out of her car’s window in a daze at hundreds of desperate peasants. She feels safe in her fancy car, but is completely surrounded. The revolution is coming, along with the guillotine.

Another brilliant but strange sequence comes late in the film. The British and Americans have been uprooted from their prison camp and have migrated across the plains to an abandoned stadium. The stadium has been filled with chandeliers, grand pianos, and fine furnishings that were looted from the Westerners’ homes after the invasion. There is very little dialogue, and the way cinematographer Allen Daviau captures the surreal setting with gorgeous early-morning light is magical and creepy all at once.

In terms of spectacle, Spielberg does not disappoint. On that basis, this is probably the closest he has ever come to emulating his idol, David Lean. Since this movie was made in the mid-1980’s you can be sure that the thousands of people fleeing tanks and crossing vast wastelands are not digital extras. Many of those 1940s planes flying past the airfield in perfect synch with practical explosions are quite real. Whatever miniatures were used are impossible to spot.

If for nothing else, rent this movie to see Christian Bale. I can’t think of another performance by a child that covers such a breadth of emotional and physical demands. He starts off as an effete brat that you want to slap (thankfully, his Chinese nanny does that for us), loses his parents, nearly starves on the streets of a war-torn city, becomes a gutsy, peace-keeping busybody in a refugee camp, crawls through mud, has a nervous breakdown, is betrayed by a friend, and somehow emerges as a peculiar but likeable kid. Bale is in nearly every scene, is always convincing, and there is never a split second of Child Actor Cuteness. Put this flick next to “American Psycho” and “Batman Begins” and you will see that this guy has tremendous range, and should be around for a very long time.

The movie isn’t perfect. John Williams’ music is absolutely gorgeous, but a bit overbearing. I wish I knew more about Miranda Richardson’s character. The kamikaze pilots saluting Jim is a beautiful image but is kinda cheesy. These are minor quibbles. There’s a lot of great stuff in this flick, and you should definitely check it out.

Oh, yeah. Ben Stiller has a couple of lines in it, too.

Under the Table and Dreaming

Last night I had a strange dream. I hope that my loyal readers can interpret the symbols within said dream and tell me which psychiatric drug I will no doubt be prescribed. In the dream, my mother was giving me a lift home from some unknown place. We were both hungry, so we stopped at the McDonald's drivethru. At window #1, we placed our orders and paid the cashier. At window #2, a weary looking woman gave us our food and asked if we wanted ketchup. She looked familiar to both of us, and then we realized who she was - none other than Claire Huxtable herself, Phylicia Rashad. She had dyed her hair orange, and there were some lines under her eyes, but there was no mistaking it - this was Phylicia Rashad in the flesh, slinging out Quarter Pounders to the masses. My mom got all excited and told her how much she loved the Cosby Show. Phylicia thanked my mom and told her how tough things had gotten for her since her second show with Bill had been cancelled. She even pleaded with us to let her know if we knew of any acting gigs that might be coming up. My mom promised that she would. We all parted amicably, and I ate my fries.

What triggered this dream? Maybe it was because I caught the last ten minutes of a Cosby Show rerun yesterday afternoon. It was the one where Vanessa had snuck out with her boyfriend and Cliff used two apples to illustrate how close the two of them had gotten in the car. It wasn't a Claire-driven episode, so I don't know why it was Phylicia Rashad that got stuck in my subconscious. In real life, Ms. Rashad has gone on to a very successful career in theater. She even won a Tony a couple of years back. I'm guessing that the royalties from her 80s heyday are keeping her and her kids fat, happy and educated. Unless she was doing research for an upcoming role as a fast food worker with orange hair, there would be no sane reason for her to be working at McDonald's. Why did my twisted mind concoct such an image? What is it about middle-aged black women that has captured my imagination so much of late? Enlighten me, please, someone.

Are You Hungry?!

There are some things that I find oddly fascinating - things like maps, conservative Christian movie reviews, and those mini-roller coasters for marbles that you can buy at museum gift shops. They do not so much inspire affection or joy as do they stimulate regions of my brain that don’t normally get utilized. Once these things enter my line of sight, any and all neurons that attempt to distract me are soundly overpowered. One of the stimulants of this brainy arousal is a person – a very special person with true star quality that defies conventional standards of attractiveness. Of course, I am referring to the Honey Bunches of Oats Lady.

You know her. She’s everywhere (except Google Images). She is the middle-aged black woman wearing a shower cap and protective goggles whom Post Cereals has chosen to be the face, voice, and spirit of Honey Bunches of Oats in their national commercials. I doubt that many would call her beautiful. I must confess that I don’t find anything sexy about her. Indeed, there is something psychotic in her folksy cackle. But damn it all to Hell, when she pops out from behind a doorway excitedly screeching “Are You Hungry?????!!!!??” I cannot turn away. Yes, Honey Bunches of Oats Lady, I am hungry – hungry for knowledge!

Who is this woman? Why does she love Honey Bunches of Oats so much? What possesses her to promote said bunches to apparent strangers with such ferocity? Does she work at the Honey Bunches of Oats Factory? Is that why she wears that shower cap that seems like one small step up from Aunt Jemima’s old school doo rag? Are she and the Burger King lovers? Who is the actress who so fully embodies this character? Was there a large search put out seeking enthusiastic, heavyset, mildly deranged yet pleasant black ladies who don’t mind being portrayed in a somewhat subservient light? Is she Pepsi to the Pine Sol Lady’s Coke? Is it actually Halle Berry packing on the pounds and prosthetics to stretch herself as a performer?

Why do you haunt my dreams, Honey Bunches of Oats Lady? I mean, when you say that a spoonful of Honey Bunches of Oats is “like a mouthful o’ joy,” adding about four extras syllables to the word “joy,” I really believe you! No breakfast cereal has ever made me feel that way, but you make me suspect that this particular cereal might just do the trick. You, Honey Bunches of Oats Lady, could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. You are a superstar!

Royale With Cheese

Ah, Europe - the continent from which I got most of my genetic material! I’ve only been there once. At the age of 18, I went to Russia for a couple of weeks to sing a bunch of goofy songs with my classmates as part of a cultural exchange program. We sang in a bunch of schools and went on endless tours of magnificent palaces and cathedrals. We were also treated to the leftovers of the Soviet Bloc – gargantuan apartment complexes that were crumbling to the ground, shantytowns with thousands of people living in shacks the size of my bathroom, and food so old, terrible, and ridden with parasites that I prayed for death on my toilet. It was an amazing experience, but I returned home extremely thankful that I was American.

Europe puts out a lot of movies. A lot of them are awesome, and a lot of them are mind-bogglingly pretentious, bizarre, and annoying. Our Euro brethren seem more concerned with creating Art with a capital “A” than entertaining people, and I’m cool with that. Variety is the spice of life. Something I find interesting are the crowd-pleasers that are made by Europeans for Europeans. It’s in those movies where you begin to see the subtle differences between cultures, because everyone likes to laugh, but we laugh at different things.

For instance, there is a particular kind of British comedy that has flourished over the last decade. All the films within this genre contain variations on certain themes:

1) An economically depressed industrial village
2) Colorful villagers who need money fast
3) A quirky taboo being experimented with to bring prosperity back to the village
4) Pasty naked Brits who have no business being photographed in such a state

Classics of the genre include “The Full Monty,” “Calender Girls,” “Billy Elliot,” and “Waking Ned Devine.” Actually, Ned Devine is set in Ireland, but it was filmed in the UK by an English director so it still counts in my book. All of these movies were made on low budgets and were hugely profitable. Something about naked old people being silly drives the Brits into hysterics. I dunno. They’re kinda funny, but in an old people sort of way. There’s a new entry in this genre entitled “Kinky Boots,” which has more repressed English people raising their spirits, this time with slutty boots and a drag show or something. Your grandma will love it. I will not.

Not to be outdone, the Germans have come up with a crowd-pleasing sub-genre of their own: The Gay German Sports Comedy. I was not aware of this phenomenon until I perused the Apple movie trailer site and came across previews for two new movies. The first has possibly the funniest movie title I have ever seen: “Guys and Balls." Seriously, they named their movie “Guys and Balls!” It’s about a gay soccer team that defeats the odds and teaches us about humanity and all that crap. The American voice-over actor they chose to narrate the trailer had to have been laughing his ass off in the studio. The way he annunciates the title at the end is fucking hilarious. Gay German Sports Comedy #2 is called “Summer Storm” and seems to be about gay rowing teams that defeat the odds and teach us all about humanity and all that crap. Whatever. The Germans have a long way to go before they can teach me much about tolerance, but I guess that these movies are a step in the right direction for them as a people. Although, I am wondering, are there any Straight German Sports Comedies? Is that a contradiction in terms?

Anyway, I think it is fair to say that no American studios would have financed these movies. I also doubt that many Americans will go see them, myself included. When it comes to comedies, we’re currently more amused by the antics of Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, and Steve Carell… and I like it that way. They all make me chuckle on their good days. I’m not a complete philistine, though. Check out the trailer for “Art School Confidential.” I can’t wait to see this movie. I miss you, NCSA!

I WANT YOU!

Am I the only one who is really pissed off by the new wave of military recruitment ads? You know the ones I’m talking about – a young guy returns home in full uniform and he and Dear Old Dad have a man-cry moment about how much better he is at handshaking, a fatherless kid of about 18 decides that he can prove his manliness to his mom (WARNING: Oedipal overtones!) by joining the army so he can go to college, etc. Dear God, do these disturb me.

Liberal-leaning art school wuss that I am, I still think this country needs a strong military. I also think that in order to have a strong military you need people who want to be there, like any organization that aims for success. For a lot of people, the military can be a terrific opportunity to get ahead in life. Immediately after 9/11, even I considered it. I was unemployed at the time, unsure of what I wanted to do next, and felt like I was contributing nothing to society when society clearly needed all the help it could get. I have three uncles and a cousin who were in the Navy, so it is in the blood. But then I reminded myself of all the things that I would hate about life in the armed forces: the mind control, the humorlessness, the lack of free will, and the real possibility that I might play a role in killing people. I would have gone crazy. I also realized that there were plenty of other ways to improve the world we live in without enlisting. But hey, that’s just me. A lot of people love that disciplined environment, and I’m glad that they’re out there fighting for us and making something of themselves. Too bad a lot of them are fighting and dying in an unnecessary war that is now three years old, declared by a president who has never given a good reason for its being declared, and now doesn’t seem to care that there’s no end in sight, but I digress.

What angers me about these recruitment ads is how misleading they are. Instead of showing any kind of reality about military life, they show young kids how proud their parents might be if they join the army. No marching, saluting, guns, planes, ships, rockets, or national monuments. Certainly no explosions, screaming civilians, hospitals, or body bags. All we see are ambitious kids having heart-to-heart talks with Mom and/or Dad. I’m guessing that since enlistment rates are at such a low point, the military figured it needed to try a new marketing strategy to loop in kids that normally wouldn’t be interested, which apparently includes the kind of kids who fix radios, like snowboarding, have engineering ambitions, and are incapable of simultaneously shaking hands with Dad while looking him square in the eye. It all reeks of trickery to me, and I hope that those targeted kids see through this line of bullshit. I hope that they take some time and find out exactly what they are in for. If, after doing some investigation and hard thinking, they want to join up, more power to them. I respect that. I just really hope that no one joins up and dies because he saw a piece of melodramatic propaganda from a desperate and dishonest administration.

Let's Dance!

Back in my high school days, I was quite the drama dork. I was frustrated that in order to get any kind of acting experience, I had perform in the lame-ass 30+ year-old shows that suburban high school drama clubs always do (Anything Goes, Annie, Fiddler on the Roof). They were the kind of shows that didn’t offend anyone and packed the house with Grandmas. As a young, energetic, heterosexual male who liked to go onstage and kick some theatrical ass (granted, there weren’t many of us), something was always missing. I just couldn’t get pumped about Dolly and Mr. Vandergelder getting married, or Tevye and Golde finally packing it up to leave Anatevka. There just wasn’t much I could sink my teeth into. Now I realize what had been eluding me: the twin colossal forces of Kung Fu and Rock & Roll.

According to a recent item on imdb.com, your one-stop shop for journalistic integrity, a new Broadway musical is in the works about martial arts legend Bruce Lee. As is if that aesthetic pairing was not weird enough, the music for the show will be provided by none other than David Bowie! That’s right, kids! The Way Of The Intercepting Fist will be put to glorious song by The White Duke, himself. I envision vast battalions of singing, dancing, kung fu warriors doing battle with Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in the show-stopping finale “AAAAIIIIIIYYYEEEEEEAAAAHHH!” Wouldn’t it be awesome if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made an appearance, so that he and whoever’s playing Bruce could duet on “Anything You Can Kick, I Can Kick Better?” I can’t wait for the inevitable Jackie Chan/Iggy Pop follow-up, which I think should be titled “I Gotta Rust for Rife.”

Why weren’t there shows like this in the mid to late 1990s? If only my evil drama club advisor had had the foresight to inject some heavy metal and ass kicking into the shows we were doing! “The Sound of Music” would have totally rocked if Fraulein Maria had traded in her nun guitar for a kick-ass Stratocaster and whipped those little von Trapp bastards into a band of sword-wielding blonde assassins that put an end to Nazi tyranny. That would have been The Balls!

By the way, I haven’t had time to learn Photoshop yet, so those of you who want to see what Bruce Lee would look like in full 1970s Bowie makeup (and who doesn’t?!), please have at the two (crappy) photos posted above. I have a feeling it will be amazing.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

I decided to skip out on the parade in Southie today, and instead went to see "V For Vendetta." All I can say is WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? The media has informed me that it has parallels to today's political climate, the Thatcher years in Britain, Nazi Germany, and other totalitarian states. Outside of the political stuff, I spotted references to works in various mediums (Batman, Phantom of the Opera, 1984, Amadeus, Zorro, Triumph of the Will, Joan of Arc, Apocalypse Now, and others). I'd warn you about spoilers, but since every commercial and trailer shows you what happens at the end of the movie, why bother? The plot was muddled and confusing. I never really understood why Natalie Portman was so bound to this guy and what exactly he meant to her. The super duper IMAX theater I saw it in comes equipped with Tempurpedic chairs that have subwoofers wired into the seats, so that every time something loud happened on screen my balls were jiggled accordingly. When Parliament blew up, I experienced something I've never come across in a movie theater - I was kind of horrified by the sight of a building that houses one of the world's great democracies exploding spectacularly to the delight of the onscreen crowd, and at the same time Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and stupendous sound effects were being pumped into to my undercarriage with such force that I damn near creamed my pants. I walked out of the movie feeling confused and a little violated. Maybe some of my faithful readers could enlighten me as to what it all meant, and calm me down.

They can't cancel us. We're Public Access.

St. Paddy's Day at the club was lame, although the old ladies (one of my key demographics) loved my scally cap. There was no way I was actually going to don one of those stupid bright green plastic derbies that fake Irish people wear on St. Paddy's. I'm authentic, you bleedin' tossers!

Instead of going out to party after work, I got myself a pizza and turned on the local public access cable channel. Pathetic, you say? A little, but there's something kind of fascinating and train-wreckish about it. There are some innocuous shows where my neighbors talk about cat grooming, and another one where incredibly old people talk about how much the town has changed since 1872 and how the giant dome that topped the Jordan Marsh at Shoppers' World was one of the great architectural wonders of its time. It's gone now, replaced by an Olive Garden. Who needs a dome when you can have neverending breadsticks?

Sandwiched between shows like this are a couple of interesting programs. One is a broadcasting of video production projects from my high school. There was no honest-to-Allah video production class when I was there a mere nine years ago. These kids are so damn lucky. They have real equipment and giant plasma screens for their editing! Most of their projects are music videos. I'm actually kind of impressed that most of them pick halfway decent music. I was shocked that a kid born in 1990 would be compelled to make a video for Bohemian Rhapsody rather than something by Fall Out Boy or some other crappy current band. After watching a few of these videos, certain motifs began to emerge:

1) A good 75% of these videos feature the hero of the piece being awakened from a blissful sleep by an alarm clock

2) Teenagers spend a lot of time running down hallways (these are the AV geeks, so there's no athleticism to their running)

3) Teen girls (especially the AV geek ones) feel a lot of pressure to be pretty, when sadly, they're not

4) Heart wipes and pixelated dissolves are the editorial transitions of choice for the iPod Generation

5) Skater kids think anything they do that is captured on video is hilarious, particluarly when they're not wearing shirts

In addition to the high school video stuff, there is a whole series featuring this guy in my town who is determined to rid Framingham of those awful illegal immigrants (this isn't an actual picture of him, but you get the idea). Over the last couple of decades, thousands of Brazilians have moved to my town. I'm sure that some are illegal, and some are not. Naturally, this scares the shit out of old white people who have nothing else to do but complain. Framingham is actually nicer than it was 10 or 15 years ago, so I don't really see the problem. If your beloved New England hometown is going to be "overrun" by illegal immigrants, you could do a lot worse than the good folks from Brazil. Brazilian food is awesome, the chicks are hot, they know how to party, and our soccer team will be kicking some major ass. But anyway, this dude with his lame ass show has made it his mission in life to keep these people out of his town. He's so crazy, he actually took a video crew and some fat dude with a rifle to the Mexican border in Arizona to show how serious he is. I have no idea how two pasty-ass middle-aged dudes with guns in the Arizona desert are supposed to keep us Framinghamians (some 3,000 miles away) safe from illegal Brazilians, but whatever. They get an "A" for effort, and a big fat "F" for geography.

I’m Alriiiiiiiight! Ain’t nobody worried ‘bout me!

Thursday, March 16, 2006 – St. Paddy’s Eve

Since November, I have been bartending at a country club. The average club member is about 55 years old, plays golf, flies down to Florida on a regular basis, and probably voted for Bush - both times - even though some have come to regret it. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably not the ideal bartender for such a setting. A good barkeep should be able to chitchat about topics that his or her clientele give a crap about. I just keep the Dewar’s and Bud Light flowing, smile a lot, and hope for the best. I try, but it is damn near impossible for me to shoot the shit about golf, or pretty much any professional sports topic outside of the Red Sox - and even that’s a stretch this early in the Spring. Don’t get me wrong - I have nothing against golf. In the summer of 1999, I played nine holes as a goof and had a good time doing it. But to fork over several thousands of dollars each year to whack a ball across a field into a tiny hole 18 times is just something I have no interest in doing. If there was a country club for movie, music, and comedy fanatics… now that would be something. I would dazzle the patrons with my encyclopedic knowledge and rake in tips like the hottest stripper at Scores.

Tomorrow night, there is a St. Patrick’s Day party at the club, which I have to work. Kinda sucks, ‘cause St. Paddy’s Day in Boston totally rocks, and I’ve never been able to really enjoy it, either because I was underage or out of town. I should be able to swing over to Southie on Sunday for the parade. I went there last year and had a blast. It made me want to be a fireman for a day. When the firefighters march down the street, the women of Southie go absolutely insane. Many of them drape banners from their windows emblazoned with “Men In Uniform Drink For Free.” Lucky bastards. If only assistant editor/bartenders were invited into anonymous women’s homes for free drinks and good times! Oh wait, firefighters run into burning buildings and save thousands of lives every day, and I don’t, so I guess they do deserve it, and I don’t. Maybe I could get a job on “Rescue Me” where I could digitize footage of actors pretending to be firefighters running into burning buildings to save people’s lives. It’s sort of related. I bet then I could weasel my way into some residual safety worker adulation. I was a lifeguard for a while, and my grandfather was a volunteer fireman back in the day, so it’s not totally preposterous – just 99.9%. Hey, even a wuss can dream.

Baby, here I am, I'm the man on the scene

People asked for it, so here it is... my very own blog. I have no idea just yet what I will be writing about. My friends with blogs tend to jibber jabber about movies, comic books, politics, literature, cars, macs, and 20-something cynicism. I may touch on those subjects from time to time. Well, probably not much literature, 'cause people who read too many books end up drinking a lot of Earl Gray tea, develop bad eyesight, and are afraid of social interaction. Here in Moranadu Earl Gray tea sucks, my eyes are pretty well fucked already, and I love a good party. I don't care much for comic books, either... unless they get turned into cool movies. Talking about macs is retarded. Cynicism is pretty pointless. Politics are important. I vote all the time. Talking about politics kind of blows, though.

Once I start doing real posts, my style will emerge. I hope you enjoy the ride.

- Captain Mike of the USS Awesome