Tom the Dog's You Know What I Like?: February 2005

Monday, February 28, 2005

TV: Celebrity Poker Showdown

I was all upset when I finally got around to watching last week's episode of Celebrity Poker Showdown, featuring Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Fred Willard, Jesse Metcalf, Heather Graham (growl!), and Andrea Parker (nice sweater! Double growl!). The stupid TiVo had recorded it incorrectly; I only had an hour of the program, rather than the full two hours.

Well, turns out it wasn't TiVo's fault. (I'm sorry, TiVo! Let's never fight again!) The show actually was only half its usual length, due to the unbridled, unprecedented domination of Malcolm-Jamal. Metcalf eliminated Parker (on a tremendously stupid play on her part), and M-J took care of the rest in brutally efficient fashion. There literally was not enough card-playing on tape to fill out two whole hours. The blinds had only increased once by the end of the game, and I may be wrong here, but I believe they increase in thirty minute increments. If that's right, there was less than a full hour of poker before M-J's incredibly lucky cards and the other players' vast incompetence brought the show to a close.

That's an ass-kickin', plain and simple.

I look forward to seeing M-J in action at the Finals tomorrow night. I have to think he's a huge favorite to win it all, though we hardly saw him play long enough to judge his true skill. It will help him that the other finalists aren't exactly poker experts -- Colin Quinn, Bonnie Hunt, Brad Garrett, and, by strange coincidence, M-J's co-star on the horrible, horrible Listen Up, Jason Alexander (who will probably be M-J's only real competitor).

MOVIES: Friday Night Lights

First of all, thanks to all of you who checked in on my Oscar liveblogging, and left such nice feedback, both here and at your own sites. Especially as I was still updating it. This is the first event I've ever truly live blogged, with constant updates throughout the night; usually I just wait until the event is over, and my coverage is complete, before posting my entry. It was challenging, but fun, and I look forward to doing it for the Emmys.

Before the Oscars I watched the DVD of Friday Night Lights. I generally like sports movies -- they're mostly predictable, but in a very comforting sort of way -- but despite a great deal of praise, this is one of those films that I just hadn't gotten around to seeing before (still haven't seen Miracle, either).

This is based on the true story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team, and holy crap, those Texas boys are out of their freakin' minds for football. It's not that I question the reality of the maniacal devotion the town shows to the team, and their truly unhealthy obsession with winning the state championship at any cost, but I just can't relate to it. At all. Maybe it's a Southern phenomenon only, but I can't even imagine anyone, let alone an entire town, getting so worked up over a high school game.

But the movie does an incredible job of pulling you into that world, that mindset. It's great in portraying the pressures on the teen athletes ("It feels like we're going to war," says one, and he doesn't mean it lightly; he couldn't be more frightened if he were about to be shipped out to Iraq), as well as on the head coach (when he loses a big game, a dozen For Sale signs are planted in his front yard). Billy Bob Thornton is the coach, and he plays it mostly with a quiet, powerful determination; he doesn't seem as crazy as the townsfolk, but he truly wants and needs to win every bit as much as they do.

The younger actors are mostly effective as well. For the longest time, I had a nagging feeling that I recognized the actor playing Mike Winchell, the quarterback -- something about his voice, his accent, rang familiar to me. Finally it hit me -- I remembered him as a child actor, from the TV show American Gothic, from the X-Files movie (he's the kid who gets infected with the black oil right at the beginning)... and from Billy Bob's Sling Blade (in one of the extras, he mimics Billy Bob's performance in that film, and it's hilarious). His name is Lucas Black, by the way.

Derek Luke (of Antwone Fisher) plays star running back "Boobie" Miles, and his story is the most heartbreaking. He's spectacular on the field, cocky, charismatic, with obvious NFL potential, until a career-ending knee injury in the first game of the '88 season. For these kids, almost the only way to get out of that small town was through football. Boobie never made it out. In the extras on the DVD are interviews with the real-life people the movie is based on; Boobie Miles is still cocky and charismatic, but you can see in his eyes when he talks about football that it eats at his soul. It's devastating. As is Luke's portrayal of him in the film.

There's a good deal of football action in the film, and the final game certainly pulls out all the cliches, but it's not really about the action. It's about how these characters survive in a town like this, with pressures like these. Despite the liberties taken (reportedly a great many) in translating the original non-fiction book to the screen, it's far more realistic than nearly any other sports movie I've ever seen. It's a smart film, by turns bleak and uplifting. Don't rent this looking for Varsity Blues.

Minute-by-minute at the 2005 Oscars Ceremony

5:30 -- The ceremony begins with a montage of great film moments narrated by Dustin Hoffman. My favorite clip -- and what will almost certainly be one of my favorite moments of the night: a clip from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is included, with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter saying, "Whoa!" That is genius.

5:33 -- They show the inside of the hall, and there are giant TV screens plastered all over the ceiling, so that the action on the central movie screen can appear to burst forth and soar over the audience. Nice touch.

5:34 -- Chris Rock emerges, and the audience is very slow to get on its feet and give him an ovation. They stand in bits and pieces until the ovation is total, while Rock says, "Thank you! Thank you!" And the way he says it is part, "Let's get on with this," and part, "I won't stop saying 'thank you' until all your asses are out your seats, motherfuckers." He then of course says, "Sit your asses down."

5:34 -- He scores instantly with, "Welcome to the 77th and last Academy Awards," and I can already tell this is going to be a brilliant hosting job.

5:35 -- Rock contrasts the Oscars with other awards ceremonies. "You go to the Source Awards, there's singin', dancin', and shootin'." Cut instantly to P. Diddy in the audience, with a half-hearted, almost sheepish smile: "Who, me?"

5:36 -- He gets off a zinger at Nicole Kidman's expense (re: her phony reaction to losing the Oscar to Halle Berry). She doesn't appear to be present. I hope to hell Rock isn't limiting himself only to targets outside the theater. (He mentioned Morgan Freeman a second ago, but in a less pointed way than he named Kidman.)

5:36 -- He nails Cuba Gooding a moment later ("I saw Boat Trip the other day, and I immediately sent Cuba Gooding a check for eighty dollars"). He ain't there, either.

5:37 -- Tobey Maguire is next on the dissed in absentia list ("Clint Eastwood is a star. Tobey Maguire is just a boy in tights"). Jude Law immediately follows. Come on, Rock, rip on some people right in front of you. Please!

5:38 -- Rock pulls the ultimate deflation on his act by turning it on himself. Regarding making movies before you can secure a star: "If you want Denzel, and all you can get is me -- wait!" Some good jokes so far, but relatively toothless (relative for his usual act, that is; for the Oscars, it's scathing).

5:39 -- A Michael Moore fat joke? Dude, that is beneath you.

5:40 -- First great bit of the evening is about Dubya, and how he had the nerve to reapply for a job while there was a movie in every theater that showed how much he sucked at that job. Regarding Bush's deficit: "Now, just imagine you worked at The Gap. You closing out your register, and it's 70 trillion dollars short. The average person would get in trouble for something like that, right? Not Bush!" He fucking kills on this bit.

5:41 -- "I saw Passion of the Christ. Not that funny, really."

5:43 -- He finally takes a shot at someone in attendance: presenter Halle Berry, who "will next be seen in the eagerly awaited Catwoman 2."

5:44 -- Jesus, they're really going through with it. All the nominees for Art Direction are already on stage, revealed by a curtain drawing back, before the award is presented. This is so incredibly tactless it boggles my mind.

5:45 -- The Aviator wins, making me an early 1-for-1 on my predictions.

5:47 -- Yo-yo dieter Renee Zellweger presents Best Supporting Actor. She's on the emaciated end of the scale again, by the way.

5:49 -- Morgan Freeman wins! (Making me 2-for-2.) He gets a huge ovation, which is wonderful. Guess they went the "lifetime achievement" way after all. Not that he didn't deserve it, far from it, but this was a damn tough category, and I think his previous nominations (and losses) helped seal the deal.

5:51 -- Freeman could give a seminar on simple, gracious, dignified awards-accepting. He's such a class act. Strangely, as he leaves the stage and we go to commercial, the orchestra strikes up the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme song. Nice segue...?

5:55 -- Robin Williams does a bit on which cartoon characters might be gay, and punctuates each one with, "Hello!" Robin, on behalf of America, may I say: "Goodbye!"

5:58 -- The Incredibles wins Best Animated Film. I'm 3-for-3. They appear to be not so quick on playing people off in the middle of their speeches this year, which is nice, and long overdue. For some of these people, it's the one big moment in their lives. Give them thirty extra frickin' seconds, would you?

6:00 -- Oh, Christ, they're going through with this, too! Cate Blanchett is out in the audience to give out the award for Best Makeup. See my previous comment. Let them take the stage to get their frickin' awards, would you?! P.S. Cate Blanchett is hot.

6:01 -- Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events wins, making me 3-for-4. It's so sad, the way these people have to just stand in the aisle and make their speeches. Very shoddy treatment, Academy, very shoddy.

6:02 -- Drew Barrymore (always an inspiration to those with speech impediments -- much like Alicia Silverstone) presents the first Best Song nominee, which is something in French from a film you've never heard of (unless you're French -- and probably not even then). It is sung -- in French -- by Beyonce, which makes perfect huh wha??

6:06 -- Okay, previous snotty comments aside, that was quite a beautiful song. And Beyonce? Smokin' hot.

6:10 -- As we come back from commercial, a man in tuxedo rushes madly on stage to hand Rock a mike, then rushes madly behind the curtain again. Now that's comedy.

6:11 -- A taped bit, in which Rock apparently wants to make black moviegoers look stupid. He goes to the Magic Johnson theaters, and asks the patrons what the best movie of last year was. "Alien vs. Predator," one answers. "Saw," says another. "Chronicles of Riddick," says a third. He asks them if they've seen the nominees for Best Picture, and none of them have, then he asks if they've seen White Chicks, and all of them have, and loved it. It's like Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" bits, only specifically targeting the black moviegoing audience. Rock's willingness to exploit them for cheap laughs, combined with the plethora of cheap laughs elicited from the live audience, makes me wince. I guess Rock achieved his objective: he made this white boy uncomfortable.

6:12 -- Suddenly, one of the patrons he's talking to is Albert Brooks, and the bit turns on a dime from questionable to genius. "Did you see Sideways?" "Yes." "Did you see Finding Neverland?" "Yes I did." "Did you see Million Dollar Baby?" "Oh yes." "Did you see White Chicks?" Straight into the camera: "Best movie of the year! They got robbed!!"

6:13 -- Scarlett Johansson comes out on a balcony to talk about the Scientific and Technical Blah Blah Blah Awards that aren't important enough to be given out tonight. In other breaking news: Scarlett Johansson is sexy as all git-out. (Except that damn hair!)

6:16 -- Pierce Brosnan is demeaned into co-presenting with a cartoon character. I don't care if it's Edna Mode, it's still fucking demeaning.

6:18 -- The Aviator wins Best Costume. I'm 3-for-5. I'm going to regret every pick against The Aviator tonight, aren't I?

6:22 -- Tim Robbins, presenting the same award he presented at the Golden Globes, makes sure to pronounce Closer correctly this time (you know, as in "one who is more close," rather than "one who closes things"). Well done, Timmy!

6:23 -- Blanchett wins, bringing me up to 4-for-6. Still hot!

6:25 -- A Sierra Mist commercial makes me strangely happy. It features Michael Ian Black, Jim Gaffigan, and from Mad TV past and present, Debra Wilson, Aries Spears, and Nicole Sullivan. I love Nicole Sullivan. These are better commercials than the Super Bowl so far!

6:26 -- A nice tribute to Johnny Carson hosting the Oscars, including his classic line, "I see a lot of new faces. Especially on the old faces."

6:30 -- Leonardo DiCaprio presents for Best Documentary Feature. The poor bastard nominees are all gathered on stage again.

6:31 -- Don't you ever tell me I don't know the Oscars! My reasoning on this category was dead perfect. I know exactly how the Academy thinks! Born into Brothels wins, making me 5-for-7. Don't you question my skills, bitches!

6:33 -- Film editing (presented by Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom, who are equally pretty) goes to The Aviator, making me 6-for-8. I'm a god among men!!

6:35 -- Mike Myers presents Counting Crows singing the second Best Song nominee, "Accidentally in Love." And you know what? I love this song! That's right! Love it! I don't care what you say! It's very sweet. So there.

6:42 -- Presenters Adam Sandler and Catherine Zeta-Jones are announced, but only Sandler comes out, setting up a very funny bit in which Rock pretends to take Z-J's place. Rock slays with the line, "As a little girl growing up in Wales..."

6:44 -- Once again my Oscar reasoning is dead on, as Sideways wins for Best Adapted Screenplay. 7-for-9.

6:46 -- Jake Gyllenhaal and Ziyi Zhang co-present for Visual Effects, apparently for the sole purpose of making me have to look up the spelling on their names.

6:47 -- The nominees are packed on stage together like sardines. Ridiculous! Spider-Man 2 wins, making me 8-for-10.

6:50 -- Al Pacino presents the honorary Oscar to Sidney Lumet. You will forgive me if I fast forward through this part on the TiVo, to try to get a little caught up on the broadcast.

7:04 -- Emmy Rossum presents Beyonce to sing the third Best Song nominee, from Phantom of the Opera. Which Minnie Driver sings in the film. I'm sure Beyonce is a much better singer than Driver, but still. Burn!!

7:09 -- Rock introduces "Comedy superstar Jeremy Irons," which gives me the first big laugh in a while. And how shocking it is to say that -- there's more than one big laugh in the entire ceremony! Unprecedented! Irons, sadly, is out in the audience, as Blanchett (still hot!) was, which sucks for the nominees for Best Live Action Short.

7:09 -- As Irons is delivering his spiel, a very loud BANG! occurs offscreen. Irons shows that the gift for cool, calm, witty ad-libbing at the Oscars is not restricted to David Niven when he says, "I hope they missed."

7:10 -- Best Live Action Short goes to Wasp. Whatever. I'm still 8-for-11. I do admire winner Andrea Arnold for saying "this is the dog's bollocks." Saucy monkey!

7:11 -- Laura Linney presents Best Animated Short. She is also stuck out in the audience, but guess what? No, guess. Go on, guess! She's still hot. You could've guessed that!

7:13 -- Ryan wins. Double whatever. I'm 8-for-12. The short categories screwed me!

7:15 -- Kate Winslet gives the Cinematography award to The Aviator. 9-for-13! Is Aviator going to be one of those films that wins all the side awards but loses the big one, or does this indicate (as with Return of the King last year) that it's a mortal lock for Best Picture and Director? I'm so far behind on this telecast, all of you probably know by now. I'm still on the edge of my seat! (Because I'm drunk, and I'm sliding off.)

7:20 -- Rock introduces the accountants who tabulate the Oscar votes, but instead of the weedy little white guys you'd expect, out come two gigantic, red bow-tie wearing Nation of Islam brothers. Awesome.

7:20 -- "You won't be able to take your eyes off these next four presenters: Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek!" Get it? Get it??? I don't.

7:21 -- Oh! He's talking about their gigantic breasts! Ha! HA HA HA HA HA!!! No, wait. Lame. What is he, Benny Hill?

7:23 -- Ray wins for Sound Mixing. My Oscar theories let me down there. Huh. 10-for-14.

7:25 -- I reversed it. I should've picked The Incredibles for the Sound Editing category, not Sound Mixing. I didn't. 11-for-15*. Frick!

7:27 -- The Best Song nominee from The Motorcycle Diaries is performed by Carlos Santana and... Antonio Banderas?? Weird. He ain't that great. Should've used Beyonce again.

7:35 -- Natalie Portman flitters out on gossamer butterfly wings to present Best Documentary Short. The award goes to Mighty Times: The Children's March. After taking a couple of blows, my Oscar logic has been restored to legitimacy. I am triumphant! Actually, I'm only batting .750. But it's better than you, dammit!

7:38 -- Rock puts this whole monkeying around with how the Oscars are presented in its place: "Next you're gonna give out Oscars in the parking lot... be like a Oscar drive-thru lane. Get your Oscar and a McFlurry and keep it movin'!" Rock RULES.

7:39 -- Travolta presents Original Score. Part of his speech is, "Whether someone is walking down a New York street with attitude..." He pauses, waiting for the audience to acknowledge his iconic movie moment from Saturday Night Fever. They don't. BURN!!!

7:40 -- Someone with a difficult name to spell wins for Finding Neverland. John Williams will have him rubbed out within 48 hours, I'm confident. 12-for-17, dammit.

7:43 -- Martin Scorsese presents the Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Roger Mayer. Fast forward, fast forward....

7:48 -- Yo-Yo Ma performs during the Obituary Page portion of the evening. Applaud for the most popular!

7:51 -- Ronald Reagan, Peter Ustinov, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Orbach, Janet Leigh, Christopher Reeve, Ossie Davis, Rodney Dangerfield (who gets a "Whoo!"), and Tony Randall are among the early leaders. But then, of course, there's Marlon Brando. Brando wins! Brando wins!!

7:52 -- All of you definitely know who won the major awards by now. I'm still playing catch-up. That's a little frustrating. I hope I'm done before I have to go to work tomorrow.

7:55 -- Rock introduces "Sean Combs." As opposed to P. Diddy. He comes out and nods somewhat menacingly at the audience for a while, like, "If you do not applaud for me, I will have your ass shot." A waft of dry ice smoke curls behind him as he introduces the fifth Best Song nominee -- from Polar Express? Whaa?? It's sung by Josh Groban and -- say it with me -- Beyonce.

8:00 -- Prince comes out to present the Best Song Oscar, to what sounds like a riff from "Carry on My Wayward Son." Now that's odd.

8:01 -- Motorcycle Diaries wins. Kind of cool, first Spanish-language song ever nominated. But it continues screwing up my picks. I'm 13-for-18**.

8:02 -- Sean Penn comes out to present Best Actress. "Forgive my compromised sense of humor," he says, and actually goes on to defend Jude Law from Chris Rock's jokes of, like, two and a half hours ago. Compromised? Try non-existent. Douchebag.

8:05 -- Hilary Swank! FUCK YEAH!! This was the award I had the highest hopes for this evening. This is just incredible. (14-for-19, by the way.) I hope Chad Lowe doesn't cry like a little girl again. And I hope she doesn't make a big deal out of thanking him, after forgetting him last time. But I know she will.

8:06 -- She does.

8:09 -- Another Sierra Mist commercial, with Debra, Michael Ian, and Nicole. Did I mention I love Nicole Sullivan? I do.

8:14 -- Gwyneth Paltrow presents Best Foreign Language Film to The Sea Inside. Apparently, it's the only one the Academy has heard of, too. I'm 15-for-20. I'm back to .750 again!

8:17 -- My Oscar logic holds solid once again, as Charlie Kaufman wins for Eternal Sunshine. Kaufman refers to the countdown for speeches as he says, "Thanks to the Academy... 29 seconds, 27 seconds... that's really intimidating." 16-for-21.

8:22 -- Charlize Theron comes out to present Best Actor. She's all ruffley! (And hot.)

8:25 -- Jamie Foxx! 17-for-22. Please don't do that thing where you try to get the audience to do the Ray Charles call-and-answer "Oooh!"

8:26 -- He does. Seriously, he is always making an acceptance speech! You know, bless him for all his awards, so richly deserved -- but thank god this is the last one.

8:28 -- All my bitching aside, he gives one of the most heartfelt, touching Oscar speeches ever. To his dead grandmother: "I can't wait to go to sleep tonight, 'cause we've got a lot to talk about!" That will become a legendary line in Academy Awards history. Beautiful, just beautiful.

8:32 -- Julia Roberts comes out to present Best Director. Damn, she's got the boobs now to play Erin Brockovich without falsies! I guess that's what twins do for you.

8:33 -- Holy crap, Eastwood wins!! Un-freakin-believable. He gets an instant standing ovation. Criminy, Scorsese could turn lead into gold and he wouldn't get an award. Poor, poor bastard. Well, that drops me to 17-for-23, but still, yay Clint! (And sorry, Marty.) Wow, even after all the previous awards for The Aviator, this throws Best Picture back up in the air. I could've sworn the Oscars would be split between Director and Picture. Now (since I picked Baby to win, and since I love it so much) I hope they aren't.

8:36 -- Legends Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand come out to present Best Picture, but how sad is it that they can be announced as "the Fokkers"? What a messed up business this is.

8:38 -- MILLION DOLLAR BABY!! INCREDIBLE!! This is so, so awesome. It's very, very rarely that the film I thought was the best of the year wins the Oscar -- in fact, the last time this happened (without doing research) might've been 1993, when Unforgiven won. Damnation, Clint is the best! I'm so thrilled by this. And that puts me at 18-for-24, 75% for the night. Not bad.

8:40 -- Chris Rock calls it to a close with "Good night Brooklyn! Yo! A-huh-huh." He likes laughing at his own material a little too much. But all in all, it was a great hosting job: very, very funny, with a few well-planned, controversial bits, but nothing so racy or charged to send the viewing audience into conniptions. If he hosted again, I wouldn't be adverse. Although I think Mike Myers and Conan O'Brien need a shot at it sometime soon, too. Anyone, anyone, as long as Whoopi Goldberg never, never, never, never, NEVER does it again. NEVER. Never.

*EDIT: I'm surprised nobody caught me on this, but I credited myself with a correct guess on Sound Editing when I shouldn't have. So that drops me to 17-for-24 for the night. Which is still pretty good, I think. And hey, I got 7 out of the top 8 categories (Picture, Director, Acting, Writing), which ain't bad at all!

**EDIT AGAIN: Crap! I did it again on Best Song! Well, that goes to show you the hazards of drinking and liveblogging. 16-for-24. I'm down from 3/4 right to 2/3. Bummer. I should stop proofreading before I find out I missed every category! Dumbass.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Minute-by-minute at the 2005 Oscars Pre-Show

The pre-show begins at 3:00 on the West Coast (that's L.A. coverage, featuring Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper for ABC 7; I don't think the national coverage starts until 5:00). Now, I like the Oscars, but that's a little much even for me (although I have started drinking, to get in the proper frame of mind). I'll be checking in only occasionally until the "official" pre-show -- featuring that abomination against nature, Billy Bush -- begins.

3:20 -- Richard Roeper agrees with me that Best Director and Best Picture will be split between The Aviator and Million Dollar Baby. He even agrees with me in the way it's going to split -- Scorsese for Director, Baby for Picture.

3:37 -- Laura Linney. Oh, Laura Linney. I could write sonnets about her. I could too! You don't know!!

3:42 -- When they go in for a close-up on Ebert talking to Catalina Sandeno Moreno, you can see a flesh-colored bandage underneath Ebert's chin, a fairly big one. Chin tuck? Is he the new Joan Rivers?

3:48 -- Sophie Okonedo is adorable, very clearly overwhelmed by the pomp and glamour but holding up gamely. She is asked if she's replaced the $500 car it was reported she owned six months ago. "'No, I'm still driving the same car,' she says shyly," she says (shyly). Adorable!

3:55 -- P. Diddy equates wearing a $100,000 bracelet with "sophistication." "You know, 'cause I'm a chameleon," he says.

3:57 -- We can only assume that Melanie Griffith equates her gigantic boobs hanging out the cleavage of her gown with "sophistication" as well. She's leaning on a cane; when asked about it, she claims to have broken her foot scaling Mt. Everest. Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what happened. If by "Mt. Everest" she means the bathtub, and her sherpas were a bottle of oxycontin.

4:05 -- Ebert and his reporting partner marvel over Hilary Swank and her skin-tight gown for a moment, and I can not blame them one bit. It looks like it was painted on her, bless her heart. Not only can I judge the exact temperature outside from looking at her in that dress, I think I can actually tell how many freckles she has.

4:17 -- "Scarlett Johansson -- Has a twin brother" the onscreen caption tells us. You've got to love this kind of hard-hitting, insightful reporting we've come to expect from the Academy Awards. By the way, her bleached hair is awful. She's still hot as a very hot thing that's hot, don't get me wrong. Now she just has kind of a hooker-clown hair color to complement that hotness. Like a lazy eye, or a cold sore.

4:40 -- Cate Blanchett. I could write poetry about her, too. Look, here's a haiku:

This is a haiku
I forget how many syllables go in the second line
Cate Blanchett is hot

See? Easy.

4:41 -- If Johnny Depp is not the coolest person in the world, well... I don't know how to finish that sentence. Because clearly he is. He's got gold teeth in his mouth -- he's filming the Pirates sequel. Most actors in that part would have gold teeth that could easily be removed in between takes. Depp is not most actors. I think if he played Popeye he would gouge out one eye.

4:45 -- Samuel L. Jackson. Does he throw into question my declaration of Depp as the coolest person in the world? No. Sam is the baddest person in the world. Please make a note of that.

4:53 -- While Ebert's partner talks to Jamie Foxx, we can see over Foxx's shoulder Martin Scorsese, who is grinning and waving at Ebert. Ebert then introduces Foxx to Scorsese, and both of them start talking to each other, exchanging compliments, completely ignoring the interviewers.

4:55 -- Clint Eastwood has sauntered up, and now he and Scorsese talk to Ebert. This is the kind of meeting that makes me love a night like this.

5:00 -- The "official" pre-show begins. Chris Connelly, Jann Carl -- ahh! Billy Bush! My ears! My eyes! Make him go away!!

5:02 -- I love Hilary Swank, but if I have to hear once more about how she and her mother had to sleep in a car when they first came to Hollywood, I'm going to smash my TV. Hilary, go tell it to Jewel, okay?

5:04 -- And Jamie Foxx can put a cork in it, too. It's a great success story, and it's very nice he thanks Ray Charles and his family at every opportunity -- but he never stops giving an acceptance speech.

5:04 -- Halle Berry. Holy cow. Everybody always talks about how beautiful she is, and I always think, "Yeah, she's okay, but there's plenty of women as pretty as her." And then I actually see her again, and my jaw drops -- it's hard to conceive how impossibly gorgeous she is when she's not right in front of you. It's like, "Nobody's that beauti -- oh, lord, I take it back."

5:08 -- I would mention again how lovely Laura Linney is, but I'm right in the middle of composing a sestina to her. Look at this, I've got links and everything right in the middle of my liveblogging! Those other livebloggers ain't shit!

5:19 -- Okay, I refrained from mentioning Cate Blanchett again, and I wasn't going to mention Scarlett Johansson, either, but then they did a slow pan up the full length of her hourglass figure, and I had to go sit down here in the other room for a while and catch my breath. Whew! Still awful hair, though.

5:24 -- Billy Bush asks Penelope Cruz about her dress, and the way she says, "Oscar de la Renta made it for me," it's the sexiest sentence spoken in human history. Narrowly beating out whatever sentence she said just before that, and losing the crown to whatever her next sentence will be. Some people just got it. And she got it.

5:27 -- Connelly and Carl sign off. Let the main event begin!

Saturday, February 26, 2005

COMICS: Wed. 2/23/05 continued

Grimjack: Killer Instinct: Loving this series. I'm digging how it's explaining parts of John Gaunt's backstory (now we know why he uses the alias "Joe Chaney" in his later years) while adding more mystery to it at the same time (like how he became "Brother John" of the Knights Sewar -- funniest line of the issue: "...according to the holy text of Uncle John's Reader, Volume 19..."). Also nice to see Gaunt making the progression from thoughtless hired gun to becoming his own man. And hey, cameo appearance by Bob the watch-lizard! (Now, where's Munden's Bar?) Timothy Truman's artwork continues to amaze -- the airbike/wraith collision on page 3 is particularly nice, as is the zombie/wraith encounter on pages 10-11 -- although there were a couple of Liefeld-like perspective irregularities, especially on pages 18-19. And I still don't get why Gaunt's ears are so damn pointy! When did he become an elf? Overall, though, it's such a damn treat, I feel petty for nitpicking. Great stuff.

Fantastic Four: Okay, this is not Waid & Wieringo's last issue, as I said before. Wouldn't that have been an ass-kicker of a cliffhanger to hand off to a new writer? This was great fun, and exemplifies everything I'm going to miss about this team on this book. Each character is handled so well. And the wrap-up to Galen/Galactus' story is satisfying, while being intentionally open-ended -- Waid knew he couldn't even begin to pretend he had gotten rid of Galactus forever, so he didn't try to, but still gave a decent resolution. Okay: next month, we'll say goodbye to Waid & Wieringo -- and I'll say goodbye to Fantastic Four, once again.

Spider-Man/Human Torch: I loved every single panel of this comic. It fits so perfectly into continuity -- Capt. Stacy is aware of Spider-Man's identity, but doesn't let on, Mary Jane is flirting with Peter shamelessly while Harry watches (MJ's dreamy expression when she has her head on Peter's shoulder is so gosh darn adorable!) -- while poking fun at it as well -- Spider-Man's "And what's with the big black dots everywhere?!" is a hilarious nod to classic Kirby cosmic artwork. Dan Slott should be given a continuing Spider-Man title to work with -- I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have Norman Osborn boning Gwen Stacy (which is probably why he won't get a regular Spider-title -- he's just interested in being entertaining, rather than playing the short game of shock value).

Powers: I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but at the end I just thought, "Did we really need 22 pages just to get to Blackguard's wife as the bad guy?" It's like, Bendis comes up with big, cliffhanger, chapter stops to his stories, then uses the rest of the issue to monkey around until the page count is full. I generally like the characters and dialogue enough to enjoy the pages and pages of monkeying around, but it's wearing on me more and more. Recently, I've dropped Daredevil and The Pulse over similar complaints; I'd thought Bendis wouldn't allow his flagship title to suffer in the same way, but it's starting to appear I was wrong.

Invincible: This was a weird, funny issue. I appreciated the joke at Y: The Last Man's expense, and I loved the bizarre London street cult that is worshipping the crap Mark has thrown into the sky in earlier issues. Some good character moments, like Mark's mother finally recovering, and Amber showing that she's no Lois Lane or Mary Jane -- she's not going to stand for being abandoned in the middle of a crisis.

Y: The Last Man: Speaking of which. Hero finally redeems herself, to a certain degree. And who is the letter Yorick gave Hero for? Looks like the next story's gonna be all about Dr. Mann, as the Simpsons go to Japan! Hey, Australia's just a hop, skip, and a jump from there -- I bet we'll be seeing Beth story after next.

Seven Soldiers of Victory: I had no idea what kind of an event this was setting up until I got to the end of the issue. And I think I liked this issue enough to sign on for the rest -- which will be a good year's worth of an investment on my part. This is great Grant Morrison stuff -- weird, but not so inexplicably weird for the sake of being weird that it makes no sense. Gorgeous art, too. And, like I said, I knew nothing about the whole upcoming event, so I sure as hell was surprised by the ending.

Friday, February 25, 2005

Oscars 2005 -- My Picks

The Oscars are on Sunday, and, as with the Golden Globes, and the 2004 Emmys before that, I will be liveblogging the event. In preparation for it, and as a service to all you people playing in your local Oscar pools this weekend, I will now give you my 100% foolproof guaranteed winners for every category.*

I previously picked the top six categories. I'll include them here as a reminder. I did change my mind on one of those early picks; I thought Portman was strong, coming off the Golden Globes, but I think it's Blanchett with the edge now. My picks are in boldface.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Don Cheadle - HOTEL RWANDA
Johnny Depp - FINDING NEVERLAND
Leonardo DiCaprio - THE AVIATOR
Clint Eastwood - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Jamie Foxx - RAY
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Alan Alda - THE AVIATOR
Thomas Haden Church - SIDEWAYS
Jamie Foxx - COLLATERAL
Morgan Freeman - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Clive Owen - CLOSER
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Annette Bening - BEING JULIA
Catalina Sandino Moreno - MARIA FULL OF GRACE
Imelda Staunton - VERA DRAKE
Hilary Swank - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Kate Winslet - ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Cate Blanchett - THE AVIATOR
Laura Linney - KINSEY
Virginia Madsen - SIDEWAYS
Sophie Okonedo - HOTEL RWANDA
Natalie Portman - CLOSER
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

THE INCREDIBLES
SHARK TALE
SHREK 2
ART DIRECTION

THE AVIATOR
FINDING NEVERLAND
LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT

I still don't think The Aviator is going to win Best Picture (though I'm still only 51% sure on that), but I think it's going to be strong in pretty much every other category it's nominated in. Like this one.
CINEMATOGRAPHY

THE AVIATOR
HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT

And this one.
COSTUME DESIGN

THE AVIATOR
FINDING NEVERLAND
LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
RAY
TROY

They usually give this one to big, historical epics, don't they?
DIRECTING

THE AVIATOR
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
RAY
SIDEWAYS
VERA DRAKE

I really believe Scorsese will finally get his Directing Oscar, but again, I'm not strongly sure. Could very easily go to Eastwood, even though he's already got one.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

BORN INTO BROTHELS
THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL
SUPER SIZE ME
TUPAC: RESURRECTION
TWIST OF FAITH

Tupac? No. Here's my impression of the average Academy voter: "Who-pac?" Super Size Me? Too popular. The most popular docs almost always lose. I'm picking Brothels for the sole reason that I saw a clip of it on Ebert & Roeper last week, and it looks appropriately depressing enough to get the Oscar.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

AUTISM IS A WORLD
THE CHILDREN OF LENINGRADSKY
HARDWOOD
MIGHTY TIMES: THE CHILDREN'S MARCH
SISTER ROSE'S PASSION

A story about Birmingham, Alabama, from previously-nominated directors. Seems like a solid choice.
FILM EDITING

THE AVIATOR
COLLATERAL
FINDING NEVERLAND
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
RAY
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
THE CHORUS
DOWNFALL
THE SEA INSIDE
YESTERDAY

I'm going with the only one I've heard of.
MAKEUP

LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
THE SEA INSIDE

It's gotta win something, right?
MUSIC (SCORE)

FINDING NEVERLAND
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
THE VILLAGE

These are some pretty weak nominees. But it's hard to pick against John Williams.
MUSIC (SONG)

"Accidentally In Love" - SHREK 2
"Al Otro Lado Del Río" - THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
"Believe" - THE POLAR EXPRESS
"Learn To Be Lonely" - THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
"Look To Your Path (Vois Sur Ton Chemin)" - THE CHORUS

Wow, no Disney song! That leaves it wide open. I'm gonna have to say Phantom because, while none of the voters will have heard this new song, they've all probably seen and loved the original musical.
BEST PICTURE

THE AVIATOR
FINDING NEVERLAND
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
RAY
SIDEWAYS

Tough, tough call.
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

BIRTHDAY BOY
GOPHER BROKE
GUARD DOG
LORENZO
RYAN

It looks like a Pixar film (even though I think it has nothing to do with Pixar), which should give it the edge.
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)

EVERYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY MUST
LITTLE TERRORIST
7:35 IN THE MORNING
TWO CARS, ONE NIGHT
WASP

Just a hunch.
SOUND EDITING

THE INCREDIBLES
THE POLAR EXPRESS
SPIDER-MAN 2

Big action movies usually win this category.
SOUND MIXING

THE AVIATOR
THE INCREDIBLES
THE POLAR EXPRESS
RAY
SPIDER-MAN 2

Hey, it's also a big action movie, right?
VISUAL EFFECTS

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
I, ROBOT
SPIDER-MAN 2
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)

BEFORE SUNSET
FINDING NEVERLAND
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
SIDEWAYS

In my experience, the writing categories are often sympathy awards for the best films that don't have a shot at the main categories. Which here would be Sideways.
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

THE AVIATOR
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
HOTEL RWANDA
THE INCREDIBLES
VERA DRAKE

Same reasoning as above.

*Not a guarantee.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

TV: Lost

Among the many things I enjoy about Lost is the emerging interconnectedness of the castaways' lives before they even got on that plane.

In an early episode, we saw a flashback to Jack at the airline check-in desk; in a later episode, following Sun, we saw that she was in line directly behind Jack at that moment. In another episode, we saw Sawyer and Boone (I think it was those two) at the same police station at the same time. Two weeks ago, we saw Sawyer have a fateful encounter with Jack's father. And this week was the most subtle connection so far.

When Jin went to the minister's house to deliver his father-in-law's message, the minister's daughter was watching TV. I almost missed it, but something caught my eye and made me rewind the TiVo. Did anybody else see who was on that TV?

Hurley.

That's bitchin'. I can't wait till we get to Hurley's backstory, and we find out what the hell that was about.

By the way, this episode was called "...In Translation." I didn't get it until I saw it spelled out on TiVo's info bar -- "Lost: '...In Translation.'" Funny.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

COMICS: Wed. 2/23/05

It's time again to play, "What did Tom buy this week?" in which I try to remember, without looking, which comics I spent all that money on.

First of all, there's the Scurvy Dogs TPB, which is just a fantastic package. I was laughing out loud just at the foreword. I've got all five issues, and still I had to buy this. For one thing, it's nice to have them all in one book, because they're so damn funny they can be reread time and time again. Secondly, there's a ton of extra material, including author's notes introducing each issue, a previously uncollected story, and pages and pages of annotations for the whole series at the end. I love that kind of stuff, even when the material pretty much speaks for itself ("I'm damn funny," it says). And finally, you can't beat the price -- $12.95, which is a real steal, these days. Try to tell me $12.95 isn't worth seeing a gasoline-drinking Rod Stewart carrying around Dr. Theopolis like Twiki from Buck Rogers. Just try!

Then I got seven other comics. Let's see if I can recall them all! First and foremost, of course, is Grimjack: Killer Instinct #2. The revival of this series continues to make me so happy I just wanna muss up my hair and quack like a duck. (That's a line from one of my favorite comic strips, by the way.)

Then there's Spider-Man & the Human Torch, by Dan Slott and Ty Templeton. Sad though it is that She-Hulk is out of commission for the time being, at least I'll still be getting a monthly dose of the funny from Slott on this book.

Also got Fantastic Four, the last issue of what has been an incredibly entertaining run by Mark Waid & Mike Wieringo (guess FF drops off my buy-list again next month); Invincible; Powers; Seven Soldiers of Victory, one of those Grant Morrison titles which I'm sure I'll enjoy issue to issue, but which I'll probably eventually wish I had waited for the collection instead; and...

There's always one I forget. Give me a second.

Dammit. I'm gonna have to cheat and look it up.

Y: The Last Man! Stupid! Only my favorite comic. (Well, bumped down to second favorite again, now that Grimjack's back.) I actually said to myself, "Did any Brian Vaughan comics come out this week? Nope." D'oh!

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

TV: Potpourri

Battlestar Galactica: I see on executive producer Ron Moore's blog that the second season has been confirmed. That's great news. This is an absolute must-see series for me, right up there with Lost, or Arrested Development.

I'm fascinated by the way religion is depicted on the show. The humans are multitheistic; they worship "the gods of Kobol." Their religion has yet to be fully explored, but I'm wondering if their gods are like one Christian god, times, say, twelve, or if they all have individual personalities and stories, like the Greco-Roman pantheon. Whatever it is, it seems to me that the typical religious viewer of the show wouldn't identify with this "Kobol" religion -- would, in fact, hold that religion to be as quaint and absurd as modern society regards Ares, Aphrodite, and Apollo. (Hmm... Apollo. Maybe their gods are the Greco-Roman gods.)

The Cylon god, on the other hand, appears so far to be remarkably similar to the Christian god. There's just one, first of all -- the Cylons are devout monotheists. (Actually, I'm only assuming it's all Cylons; the only Cylon yet to speak of religion has been Number Six, whom I will presume, until proven wrong, speaks for all Cylons.) He's a benevolent god, the creator, the source of love -- but he can be vengeful, too, as Baltar found out in this last episode. I find it tremendously interesting that the religious belief that translates most directly to the dominant Western religion is held by the evil Cylons.

I get the feeling that the Cylon god is not as unknowable and intangible as the Christian one. I think before too long we're going to find out exactly what or who it is.

Celebrity Poker Showdown: It's so frustrating to watch this show sometimes, with its dumb players and their lucky cards. Last week's episode with Colin Quinn was agony to watch. He was so bad, so very, very bad. Played any two cards, never folded. And he kept winning. There is no way for a good player to beat a bad player with lucky cards. A good player can bluff, and another good player can read the odds and know when to fold. But a bad player will just keep throwing money at the pot, completely oblivious to anything else. Usually, they'll lose their shirts in ten minutes. But sometimes, like Quinn did, they'll win it all. Unbelievable.

I've also got on TiVo the latest Hollywood Home Game edition of the World Poker Tour. Mekhi Phifer (the last Celebrity Poker Showdown player to win with blind, stupid luck) is playing, as are Andrea Parker (Less Than Perfect), Adrian Young (No Doubt's drummer), John Hensley (never heard of him), and LeVar Burton and Wil Wheaton. I'm guessing it's going to come down to the two Trek vets, and I'm rooting for Wheaton to get the win.

Teen Titans: Everybody caught the Battle of the Planets reference in this week's episode, right? Just checking.

Desperate Housewives: A friend of mine told me he'd read that they're already working on a spin-off to this show, to star (he said) one of the four main actresses on this show. That can't be right, can it? Has anybody else heard this? Because that is just stupid. No better way to sabotage a successful show than screwing with what makes it work.

Loonatics: Have you heard about this? The WB plans on updating the classic WB cartoon characters by making them EXXXXTREEEEME!!! superheroes in the distant future. Wow. Just, wow. This is the most idiotic marketing idea -- and perhaps the most idiotic idea, period -- since New Coke. Everyone involved in this fiasco needs to be put in a line, and then slapped across the face one after the other, Three Stooges-style.

Monday, February 21, 2005

COMICS: 100 Things I Love About Comics

Apologies for my extended absence. Hopefully you all muddled through it somehow. Assuming you're still there. Hello? Is this thing on?

Anyhoo! Here at long last is my list of 100 Comics-Related Things I Love. Apologies again for how long it's going to take these images to load.

Scroll over images for additional notes. Click on 'em to check out sample art pages, sketches, and other nifty stuff. (You might want to right-click and open them in new windows, since, seriously, this is going to take a long, long time to load.)

This is the first time I've ever done anything this elaborate, so please bear with me if there are glitches. For all I know, Photobucket (my image host) may instantly shut down, leaving a plethora of the dreaded red exes in place of my pretty and oh-so-painstakingly and time-consumingly Googled pictures.

Oh! And I omitted mentioning all you fine, fine folks in the comics blogoverse. I could do a top 100 list with just you people alone. And frankly, that would be boring. So consider my love for the lot of you to be a given. (Well, if not love, a very strong like. I'm not quite ready for that level of commitment. DON'T PRESSURE ME!!)

In no particular order -- well, except for #1:

John Ostrander & Timothy Truman's Grimjack.
Evan Dorkin.
"Alright! So I'm back! -- Now I quit again!!!"
The classic dumb green Hulk's catchphrases: "Hulk smash!" "Hulk is strongest one there is!" "Puny humans!" "The madder Hulk gets -- the STRONGER Hulk gets!"
Calling everyone "Larry."
Garth Ennis.
The greatest fictional character in the history of the English language.
Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman and Mark Hamill as the voice of the Joker.
Zander Cannon's The Replacement God.
Phil Foglio.
Mike Baron & Steve Rude's Nexus.
Frank Miller.
Peter David's The Incredible Hulk.
Sergio Aragones.
Chris Claremont & John Byrne's Uncanny X-Men.
"Continued on 3rd page following." As if they thought all the readers were going, "What the hey! The story just stopped! I am frightened and confused!!"
"Stupid, stupid rat creatures!!"
Grant Morrison.
Mad Magazine.
Steve Dillon.
Cerebus: Church & State, one of the most ambitious and most impressive stories ever told in comics. Way back before Dave Sim went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
The good-natured mockery of the letterer in the credits of early Marvel books.
Steve Moncuse's Fish Police.
The team of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.
Garth Ennis & John McCrea's Hitman.
"Did I err?"
Kyle Baker.
The facial expressions in Linda Medley's artwork.
J. Jonah Jameson.
All those L.L. initials in Superman's life.
Ten Ever-Lovin', Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo, by Walt Kelly.
The ever-lovin', blue-eyed Thing.
Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury.
Matt Howarth's Those Annoying Post Bros.
"Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
"I'm a carton of hate!" "I'm a wedge of spite!"
Geof Darrow.
Destroying the Marvel Universe.
"With great power there must also come great responsibility."
The Winslow.
Alan Moore.
Ty Templeton's Stig's Inferno.
John Romita, Sr.'s run on Spider-Man.
"Holy jumping mother o' God in a side-car with chocolate jimmies and a lobster bib!"
Ralph's Comic Corner in Ventura.
Those Hostess Fruit Pies ads.
Harvey Kurtzman.
Nick Fury.
Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn.
"Something tells me to stop with the leg. I don't listen to it."
Will Jacobs & Gerard Jones' The Trouble with Girls.
Gilbert Shelton's Fat Freddy's Cat.
Joe Matt's Peepshow.
Marvel's Essential Library. (Except for the Ant-Man one. Ant-Man is not Essential.)
Sam Henderson's The Magic Whistle.
John Totleben.
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' Watchmen.
Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!
Neil Gaiman.
Eric Haven's Angryman.
Mike Allred.
Jim Rugg & Brian Maruca's Street Angel.
That a pair of eyeglasses keeps the world from knowing Clark Kent is Superman.
James Kochalka's American Elf.
The incredibly strange and funny world of Jay Stephens.
"Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot."
Mark Martin's Gnatrat.
Bill Sienkiewicz.
Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.
Fred Schiller's Rust.
Brian Bolland.
Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon's Preacher.
Comic Relief in Berkeley.
Joe R. Lansdale & Timothy Truman's Jonah Hex.
"Mustn't. Black. Out."
Mile High Comics, a great online store with great online images.
Miracleman, both Alan Moore's and Neil Gaiman's versions.
Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo.
James Robinson and Tony Harris' Starman.
"Whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch!"
Ert!
Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's Y: The Last Man.
Batman: The Animated Series and all its follow-ups.
Dan Slott & Juan Bobillo's She-Hulk.
Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo's Shade: The Changing Man.
Frank Quitely.
Peter Bagge's Hate.
"I'm the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn't very nice."
Spoon!
That every Marvel superhero in the '60s got their powers from radiation, and every Marvel villain was a Communist.
Andy Garcia's Oblivion City.
That a primary color can be a superhero's weakness. (I'm looking at you, Green Lantern. You big sissy.)
Doug Gray's The Eye of Mongombo.
Terence Stamp as General Zod: "You will bow down before me, Jor-El!"
Julie Newmar as Catwoman.
That SNL sketch where Belushi as the Hulk stinks up the bathroom.
Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth.
Spidey! on The Electric Company (entertaining and educational).
Boxing Glove Arrow!

Thursday, February 17, 2005

COMICS: Wed. 2/16/05

Still working on my 100 Things I Love About Comics list. Thanks for asking.

Apocalypse Nerd: I'm always happy to see a comic by Peter Bagge. Unfortunately, this one, like last year's Sweatshop, just isn't very funny. The big punchline at the end is blowing a deer's head off with a flare gun? It's so outrageous it should be funny, in a sick way, but it's not. There are a number of interesting ideas in the book, but they just don't quite come together to make good comedy, or a good post-apocalypse tale. On the other hand, I found the back-up feature, "Founding Fathers Funnies," strangely fascinating. The based-on-history adventures of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin in Paris shortly after the American Revolution. What a strange concept for a comic. And yet it completely worked for me.

Ex Machina: Love this comic. What's the deal with the twin FBI agents? They get beaten and bloodied by Mayor Hundred (in a case of mistaken identity), and they just brush themselves off and accept it without a word? You'd think at least one of 'em would be pissed. And what's up with "Project 1490"? Hundred starts explaining it over dinner, then says, "What's the other possibility?" ...So what is the other possibility? If it was supposed to be obvious, I missed it. Or are we supposed to understand that the other possibility is that he was bullshitting her, just like she accused him of doing?

Runaways: Another Brian K. Vaughan (wow, I just realized -- I think I've been misspelling his name as "Vaughn" every other time I've ever written it) book. Back from hiatus, and better than ever. Dude, Julie from the Power Pack! What a crack-up. Hey, how does this gibe with the new upcoming Power Pack series? It looks like they're all still supposed to be really young in that book, but Julie looks much older here. Anyhoo. I love Adrian Alphona's art; along with Juan Bobillo, he's my favorite new artist from the last few years (or new to me, anyway; has he been around for a while?). I really hope this series catches on in a bigger way this time around. It really is better than before, and it was already pretty good.

She-Hulk: And as one comic returns from hiatus, another takes its place. I can't believe this is the last new She-Hulk I'll be seeing for the next eight months -- if it even comes back then. This was another great issue, which will make me miss it all the more. I was afraid Dan Slott really was going to kill off Awesome Andy. The poor guy. "Help... dying... scared..." So sad! I loved how Mr. Fantastic wouldn't stop to help Andy until he was told Jen Walters was taking care of Titania. "Really? Well, why didn't you say so? I have the utmost faith in Jennifer." Almost forgot she used to be a member of the FF! And then there's the bit in the comic book store. I'm sure some readers will be offended -- but hey, those nerds helped save the day, didn't they? And of course, the final pages, in which Jen and Holliway talk about rebuilding the office building, when they're really talking about Marvel's crazy plan to revamp the title, was just brilliant. This book just couldn't be better (well, Bobillo could do the art every issue...). It can't come back soon enough. Oh, and hey, Slott even linked to yours truly on the She-Hulk message board. What more evidence do you need that there is a great mind behind this comic?

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

I got nothing

Like the title says. I just don't want to go two days without posting anything.

Rather than regular posts, I've been working on my 100 Things I Love About Comics post. I wanted to add images and links to it, so that it's worth taking time to investigate. Sadly, my HTML knowledge barely exceeds how to boldface or italicize words, so I've been having to learn while I work. I hope to post it by Friday. At which time, everyone will say, "He took a week to make this??"

I will say I've been greatly enjoying reading the lists from all you other goofballs. I won't try to list them all here; leave that to good ol' Mikey Sterling.

In other news, I'm up to episode 7 of Deadwood's first season. Man, if the first two episodes didn't completely overwhelm me, I sure am overwhelmed now. There are so many fantastic performances, in every role, great or small. William Sanderson's E.B. Farnum has become my favorite character; with his off-kilter line-readings combined with the character's crafty intelligence and barely concealed rage, he's just dazzling to behold. W. Earl Brown as Swearengen's bartender, Dan Dority, is also tremendously impressive in a relatively minor role, as is Jim Beaver as prospector Ellsworth (when asked by the new gambling house's "madame," "Will you keep a girl company?" he replies with great amusement, "I will... but I'm expensive"). And hey, who should show up in episode 7 as a prostitute/con artist, but Veronica Mars herself? I think she'd better be careful; Deadwood's a lot rougher than Jupiter, CA.

Monday, February 14, 2005

TV: The 2005 Grammys

There are exactly two things I'm sorry I missed by not watching the Grammys last night: Green Day's performance, and Sheryl Crow's dress. Well, I've got American Idiot playing right now, and as for Sheryl Crow:

Growl.

So, I successfully avoided 87 hours of a horrible awards show, and I missed literally nothing. And they wonder why the Grammys did so poorly in the ratings this year.

I keep seeing reports describing this year's program as "surprising," and that absolutely baffles me. Is anyone surprised that Ray Charles won eight Grammys (including Best Record and Best Album, which I still do not understand -- but please do not attempt to explain it to me)? When he just died? And his immensely successful biopic is poised to win an Academy Award for Jamie Foxx? And he's Ray frickin' Charles?

And similarly, is anyone surprised that Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Usher, Norah Jones, and U2 won multiple awards? Really? Then you are very easily surprised, my friend. Because I hardly even listen to new music anymore, and I could've made those predictions. In fact, that may be why I don't listen to much new music anymore: I find the vast majority of it wildly unsurprising, crashingly predictable*. I mean, Best New Artist goes to Maroon 5?? Wow, that just sucks. (But this does put them in the same category as Starland Vocal Band, which is kind of fitting.)

The one surprise to me is that someone who died didn't win a Grammy: Johnny Cash (but he was up against Charles). But that was balanced out by Loretta Lynn winning two Grammys. She represents a similar old-school kind of country (despite her collaborating with the very new-school Jack White) which I admire.

I was also pleased (but again, not surprised) that Green Day won for American Idiot. I loved reading about Quentin Tarantino introducing their performance, saying they had released "a concept album with a very novel concept: all the songs are good." Right on! Okay, maybe I am sorry I missed the show, if only for that.

Wait, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony performed a duet? Forget I said anything.

*Not all of it. I think Alicia and Kanye are wildly overrated, for example, but I also think Norah has a heavenly voice, and U2 are -- well, come on, they're U2.

POTPOURRI

Still working on my 100 things I like about comics post. It won't be up today (like Mike's is), but it will be coming soon.

Also: Dorian filled out the music meme after I passed the buck to him. Yes, blame Tom, indeed.

Last week's Veronica Mars got kind of meta in a cool way. In the opening sequence, Veronica's pal Wallace asks her about her relationship with a classmate who's been kidnapped. "We used to be friends. A long time ago," Veronica says. Cut immediately to the opening theme song by the Dandy Warhols: "A long time ago/We used to be friends." I dig that kind of thing, when done well.

Finally! The Flash is back! After an entire season of pretending he didn't exist, the Flash returns to Justice League Unlimited, with some fair complaints. "I was one of the original seven," he laments to the Elongated Man (yay, Jeremy Piven!), who also is seemingly relegated to near-joke status in the new League.

Unfortunately, Flash's big return involves Jack Kirby's Fourth World. Look, I like Jack Kirby as much as the next guy (well, assuming the next guy hasn't built him up to demigod status), but the whole Fourth World thing is... well, it's kind of stupid. Darkseid is a pretty cool villain, but Mister Miracle? Big Barda? Granny Goodness? Vermin goddam Vundabar? Forgive me for jettisoning all my sensitivity protocols here, but -- those are some seriously fucking retarded characters. (Hmm, maybe I don't like Jack Kirby as much as the next guy!) I know that any comics fanboy is legally required to love every single thing Jack Kirby ever looked at, but... I can't. They're horrible, just horrible, and if anybody other than Kirby had created them, they would no longer exist. But they are Kirby's babies, so we have to endure a "villain" so laughable that Arte Johnson can provide his voice -- the same voice Arte used for his German soldier from his Laugh-In days, complete with catchphrase: "Verrrry innnnteresting!"

Loved, loved seeing the Flash back, and hope it's not a one-time thing. But those other characters could disappear forever, and I'd be just fine with that.

I finally saw Sideways yesterday, and, while I felt it's been overpraised just a little, I did thoroughly enjoy it. Paul Giamatti is especially great in an Oscar-worthy role; too bad the Academy has unconscionably snubbed him for the second year in a row (following last year's brilliant performance in American Splendor). I used to say he was my favorite actor that nobody had ever heard of; now I think it's safe to say he's my favorite actor, period.

I at long last roused myself to see it because it was playing at the theater only two blocks from my house. And I wish I had made myself go see it at a nicer theater in Ventura instead. This little Ojai theater gets the worst prints. It was spliced together poorly in several spots (ruining a really funny moment, when wine-snob Giamatti declares, "I am not drinking any fucking Merlot!!"), and the entire film was scratched all to hell. This is one instance where waiting for the DVD probably would've been a preferable first-time viewing experience.

I noticed a funny thing while watching the movie, prompted by the DVD commentary for Deadwood. In that commentary, Kevin Carradine remarks several times about the sparing use of music on the show, and how well it's used, when it is used. By contrast, Sideways had a seemingly never-ending soundtrack. Basically just a piano, alternating between jaunty and somber; fairly unobtrusive under other circumstances, but with Carradine's words still fresh in my head, I couldn't help being distracted by it. It's especially noticeable when it stops during Virginia Madsen's wonderful soliloquy on how wine ages (how could you possibly not fall in love with her in that scene?). It's playing all while Giamatti delivers his ode to the pinot grape first, but then when Madsen begins to speak, the music cuts out, so we can hear her words uncluttered by background noise. And just as I was thinking, "That's great, they should've done that more often" -- it starts up again, before she's even finished speaking. Probably not one other person noticed the music in that moment, but it really bugged me.

I don't want to nitpick too much, because I did really enjoy the film -- but one more thing: a lot of critics have called out writer/director Alexander Payne for his supposedly contemptuous view of middle America and the lower class. And I've mostly disagreed with that charge on his earlier films, thought they were judging him unfairly. In this film, though, it was really noticeable to me. Payne uses a bowling alley at one point, and a tow truck in another, to make a broad comment on the people associated with those things. He clearly thinks anybody who would enjoy bowling has to be a dumb, classless hick. Or that anyone who would drive a tow truck for a living is pure trash; he even makes sure the truck driver's house is filled with trash, to emphasize the point. Those things struck me as glaringly cheap and ignorant shots in an otherwise smart, perceptive movie.

P.S. Happy Greeting Card Industry Day, everyone!

Saturday, February 12, 2005

MOVIES FROM HELL: Saw

Before I get into the movie, I want to acknowledge Fred Hembeck's quick response (the third entry for February 11) to my passing the buck on the music meme. I knew Fred was a Beatles fan, but I had no idea he was such a big Who fan, too (as am I). I mean, listen to what he says:

...the all-time [live album] champ, "The Who: Live At Leeds" (original, expanded single disc, OR the expanded double disc version--any and all will do! Forget the Stones--the Who ARE the world's greatest rock and roll band! Listen to this and try and tell me otherwise, just TRY!...)

And in naming his five most-listened-to songs, he cheats and lists the entire double album Tommy:

...this whole crazy thing could easily be viewed as one long, looong song, weaving its way in and out through any number of variations. It's naively pretentious, simultaneously nonsensical AND deep, and played and sung with such riveting conviction, that it's no wonder that I've been completely under its spell since I first received it as a Christmas gift back in 1969!

I've always been a fan of Mr. Hembeck, but now... well, shucks, I think it may be love!

From the high of tender young love we go straight to the low, the very, very low of Saw, a truly awful and supremely incompetent horror film.

Spoilers ahead, if you can spoil something that's so rotten to begin with.

It baffles me, it truly does, how a film like this can even get made. It's like a vanity project for Leigh Whannell, who both wrote the script and cast himself in the leading role, as one of the men trapped in a room by the "Jigsaw Killer". The end credits even bill him as "And Introducing Leigh Whannell". Introducing. Charmed, I'm sure.

Vanity projects can be successful, along the lines of Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin biopic, Beyond the Sea (not Under the Sea -- thank you for the correction, Catherine), or legendarily disastrous, like Costner's Waterworld or The Postman... but a vanity project requires someone with clout and standing to push for it to get made in the first place. How the hell does this guy Whannell get the go-ahead on such a horrible script, get himself cast as the lead (and if you think his writing is bad... well, okay, it's still worse than his acting, but his acting's pretty damn bad), attract actual Hollywood actors (B-list names, sure, but solid B-listers, like Cary Elwes and Danny Glover) -- any of it! How does a complete nobody like him get someone to put up the money for this mess? (Admittedly, it's not a lot of money; my favorite sign of cheapness is when cameras whiz past two cars to make it look like they're in an exciting chase, but it's painfully obvious they're not even moving).

I will admit, the central premise was intriguing enough to me to want to rent it (despite the many horrible reviews); the killer never kills anyone himself, but rather puts his victims in situations where escape is possible, but death is far more likely. And the opening set-up has promise: Whannell is chained by the leg across the room from a similarly-trapped Cary Elwes (who delivers one of the very worst performances I have ever seen), and each are given clues and items to help them escape. Some items are in the hands of a dead man out of reach in the center of the room, including a gun. Elwes is then told (via audiotape) that if he doesn't get the gun and kill Whannell by a certain time, his wife and daughter will be killed instead.

Neat idea for a horror film, I thought. But it's all so wretchedly executed and filmed (the director loves to spin his camera around the room in fast motion for no reason whatsoever), with such stupid, stupid characters. Stupid. At one point, toward the end, a cell phone the two have been given, which has fallen inches out of reach, begins ringing; if Elwes could reach it, he'd find that his wife and daughter have escaped. But rather than take off his shirt, say, and use it to drag the phone those scant inches, he goes into a grandly hysterical freak-out (so embarrassingly bad that it's more horrible to watch than all the film's copious gore), and he cuts his own foot off with the hacksaw the killer has provided. Geez, talk about overreacting! And Whannell's character is equally dimwitted; when a clue indicates something is hidden in a nearby toilet, he immediately plunges his arm into the shit-filled bowl, rather than taking the top off the tank first (which indeed is where the items are hidden). Later, when a bad guy (but not the bad guy -- I'll get to that) comes to finish them off, Whannell overpowers and kills him, retrieving his gun in the process. Now, if you were chained by the leg, and you had a gun at hand, what would be the first thing you'd try to do? Shoot the chain, maybe? Hell, I don't know, maybe the chain is bullet-proof -- but wouldn't you at least try? Heck, you can hardly blame him -- when Elwes' wife got the gun from the bad guy earlier, she didn't use it, either. Instead of shooting the guy who has threatened to kill her only child, she foolishly bides her time until she can be distracted and have the gun taken away from her. Nobody knows how to use a gun, I guess!

Or, best of all is when cop Danny Glover and his partner find the Jigsaw Killer's hideout. The killer is out when they get there, but they do find the killer's next intended victim, trussed-up and hidden under a sheet. Just then, they hear the killer entering. Do they corner him, and free the victim? No, no they do not. Glover says, "I want to see what he's going to do," puts the sheet back over the poor, innocent victim, and makes his partner hide with him. "I want to see what he's going to do"? That is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. What the killer does, Glover, you moron, is to get close enough to his victim that, when the cops finally jump out, he's able to activate the mechanical death trap the victim is tied to and distract the cops long enough to cut Glover's throat (he gets better), and then blow his partner's head off. "I want to see what he's going to do." IDIOT!! Every single character's total obliviousness to logic and common sense just infuriated me.

Most of the film is told through flashbacks, and at one point, flashbacks within flashbacks, which tell what the Jigsaw Killer has done to other victims. One guy is forced to crawl through razor wire before a timer closes a door. So the guy flips out and tears himself to shreds trying to escape in time. The thing is, there are no repercussions if he doesn't escape in time. Just -- the door closes. He couldn't take his time and be more careful? (Of course not -- then where would we get the gore?) Also, a jigsaw-shaped piece of flesh has been cut from him (or from one of the guy's victims, I can't recall), but this little detail, which gives the killer his name, after all, is maddeningly unexplained. Why do it at all? And why only from the one victim? If you're going to name a killer after his M.O., you should at least A) explain it eventually, and B) be consistent, rather than just forgetting about it immediately after you introduce it.

And then there's the dumbest twist of all: the dead guy in the middle of the room with Elwes and Whannell? He's not dead after all. The guy who's been holding Elwes' family captive, and who eventually comes to try to kill the two of them, is just another pawn in the game. The actual Jigsaw Killer is the supposedly dead guy, who's just been lying completely motionless, without flinching or involuntarily twitching at anything that's gone on in the room, without even breathing, apparently, for the whole eight hours or so they've been trapped in there. Elwes, a doctor, can't even tell a real gunshot wound to the head (which was the apparent cause of death) from the makeup appliance that it is. Did he get his medical degree from a box of Cracker Jacks?

Maybe it's pointless to pick on such a nothing film in such detail. But I love horror movies, and let's face it, horror movies are pretty easy to do right. It's the horror movies that seem to think they have ideas, or pretensions to being something new and different -- and which usually, like this one, are nothing but a warmed-over Se7en rip-off, complete with overly elaborate death scenarios and a preaching, moralistic villain -- that really set me off on a rampage. I'd rather see a Jason X* that knows it's nothing more than a delivery system for blood and nudity, and doesn't try to pretend it's something more, than something which does think it's something more, but fails miserably in every way possible.

*Sorry, Corey. I hope seeing the "J---- -" word didn't traumatize you too badly.

Friday, February 11, 2005

COMICS: Wed. 2/9/05 continued

Inspired by Fred Hembeck's 100 things he likes about comics, and Alan David Doane's incredible pictorial on same, good ol' Mikey Sterling has announced he will also be compiling a list of his 100 favorite comics-related things, to be published on Valentine's Day (awww!). And he has suggested the rest of us comics bloggers do likewise. Well, I'm going to give it a shot. I don't have a scanner, and most of my comics are difficult to get to for research, but I'll see if I can do the subject justice through mere words and my hopefully not-too-faulty memories. Why not give it a try yourself?

Young Avengers: I liked the opening conversation between JJJ, Kat Farrell, and Jessica Jones, but however well-written and funny it was, I got to thinking, "Enough's enough. Show, don't tell." I thought Heinberg'd never get to actually showing us the Young Avengers in action. And then, when he did, it got kind of lame. Above and beyond the supreme lameness of their names. The action was poorly presented, the dialogue was hokey, the conflict between the team members was forced and phony. At least nobody said, "Welcome to the Y.A., bitch!" I may give the next issue a try, I may not.

Fables: I loved this Hollywood story. Most intriguing. I can't wait to see how making these movies is benefiting Jack.

Jubilee: So, what, is it over? Is this the final issue? Pretty damn abrupt and unsatisfactory end. Was it always meant to be a mini-series? Whatever. The bad fill-in artist didn't help, either.

The Punisher: The various plot threads are finally making sense to me. Two fantastically brutal sequences here, with Frank pounding his pint-sized enemy against a desk like a rag doll ("I'm twisting his leg off like a drumstick when I realize I'm frightening the kid"), and Fury whipping a superior officer to shreds with his belt buckle. I like Frank's (comparatively) gentle interactions with the little girl -- "What do you never do?" "Play with guns...?" "That's right." And the cliffhanger ending -- talk about upping the ante! This storyline has been such a welcome relief from that last disappointing one.

The Walking Dead: I'm sick of not being able to tell one character from another. Either this book needs a new artist, or it needs to start including a cast page every issue, or I'm going to drop the monthlies and wait for the trades. That said -- that was a hellishly brutal ending.

The Incredible Hulk: I don't really know what's going on here, but I like it. I mean, he actually said, "Hulk is strongest one there is!" God bless Peter David.

Batman: The Man Who Laughs: It was decently written, with cool, creepy art, but it's completely inessential. If you're going to release a prestige format book about the Joker, you should at least have something new to say about him.

MUSIC: Meme

I've been memed!

1. Total amount of music files on your computer:

I currently have no music that I didn't copy directly from a CD that I own. I used to have something like 600 downloaded songs, but that was on the computer that went kerplooey. So I've got 16 complete albums from various peoples, from Foo Fighters to They Might Be Giants to Joe Jackson to David Cross, plus another 17 songs picked from various other albums.

2. The last CD you bought was:

Green Day, American Idiot. My favorite new release of 2004. Also, the only new release I bought in 2004.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?

Billy Idol -- "White Wedding". I turned on the radio real quick, just so I'd have an answer.

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.

The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again". Greatest rock song of all time.

Green Day, "The Grouch". Because it kicks ass, and because I am one. "I was a young boy that had big plans/Now I'm just another shitty old man/I don't have fun and I hate everything/The world owes me so fuck you."

Joni Mitchell, "The River". Joni's voice on this song may be the most beautiful sound I've heard in my life.

Barenaked Ladies, "If I Had $1,000,000". This was the song I used to play for people to convert them into BNL fans, way back when the only American airplay they were getting was on the Dr. Demento show. "But not a real green dress, that's cruel."

Bruce Springsteen, "Born to Run". The other greatest rock song of all time.

5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?

Dorian, because I bet he won't do it, and I think that's funny. Evan Dorkin, because he won't even be aware that I did it, and I think that's funny, too. And Fred Hembeck, because he actually might do it, and he's got good taste in music. (Plus, he's a Wonderfalls fan, too -- I gotta get me those DVDs!)

Thank you, Rick, for giving me an excuse to do a fill-in-the-blanks post, and making my Friday that much easier!

Thursday, February 10, 2005

POTPOURRI

I love Bonnie Hunt*. Looooove her. And her appearance on this week's Celebrity Poker Showdown only strengthened that love. At one point, alleged TV heartthrob Scott Wolf is low on chips. "What would I have to do to get you to give me one stack of those purple chips?" he asks Bonnie. She grins coyly and jokes, "French kiss me." When Wolf pushes back his chair as though he's going to do it, she screams, "No, no, no" and giggles hysterically, blushing bright red. It was such an endearing, adorable, girlish reaction. She's swell. (Also, she won! And she beat J. Jonah Jameson to do it.)

Watched the first two episodes of Deadwood on DVD last night, and I liked it, but it didn't quite grab me the way Carnivale did.

The acting is everything it's been cracked up to be, especially Ian McShane as the violently unstable unofficial master of the town, Al Swearengen (and does he ever swear!). Timothy Olyphant is also very good as Swearengen's foe, Seth Bullock; Bullock is meant to be the hero of the story, I guess, but he's almost as hot-headed and ruthless as Swearengen, which I like. Keith Carradine gives a strong performance as Wild Bill Hickok, but if you know anything about poker and the dead man's hand, you know he's probably not going to be around for too many episodes. Other stellar performances include Robin Weigert as Calamity Jane, Brad Dourif as Doc Cochran, Molly Parker as prospector's wife (and drug addict) Alma Garret, and I always get a kick out of seeing William Sanderson, aka Larry ("This is my brother, Darryl, and this is my other brother, Darryl") from Newhart.

The dialogue is great, savage and clever and terrifically vulgar. And I've always been a sucker for Westerns. But I was bugged by the poor sound quality; I had to keep rewinding and turning on the subtitles to catch lines that I missed due to all the ambient noise in the saloons or the streets. And there's so much going on in the first two episodes, so very many characters to meet and so many relationships to establish, that my head was spinning. I do like it so far, and I'll keep renting the DVDs; it just hasn't amazed me right off the bat the way other HBO shows have.

San Francisco Chronicle TV columnist Tim Goodman spends an entire column talking about his Celebrity Fuck List, and why Jennifer Garner is no longer on it.

Think about that: somebody's paying him good money to write about which famous girls he'd like to pork. God, what a great job! I want that job! All you do is watch TV and write about it, and when there's nothing good on TV, you talk about which actresses make you tingly in the giblets. And then someone gives you a paycheck? That's awesome. How come nobody's paying me for all the stupid crap I write about TV?

*Her IMDb Bio page says, "Has never done a nude scene or posed nude in her career." I just think that's a very strange thing to specifically take note of. If you're going to pay special attention to something she hasn't done, why stop there? "Has never bungee-jumped from the Eiffel Tower." "Has never eaten an entire cow in one sitting." "Has never killed a man just to watch him die."

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

COMICS: Wed. 2/9/05

Just a quick rundown of my loot for the day, before I head out for trivia night.

Batman: The Man Who Laughs -- Another Joker story, but hey, it's Brubaker. I'll give it a try.

The Punisher

Jubilee -- Yes, I'm still getting it. Yes, I'm still a little girl.

The Incredible Hulk -- I'm still so thrilled Peter David is back on this, it's a little embarrassing.

Fables -- Dang it, a fill-in artist again.

The Walking Dead

Young Avengers -- I couldn't be more surprised that I picked this up. But I paged through it at the store, and I really liked the way J. Jonah Jameson was written. If you get JJJ right, how bad can the rest of it be? (I'll find out, I guess.)

Also, I picked up The Couriers books 1 and 2, after I enjoyed the hell out of book 3 last week. I need to write an entry just about this series, when I finish these two books. Thanks again to Dorian, for making me aware of this book, and then giving me a price I couldn't refuse last week so that I had to give it a try. Who says the blogoverse isn't good for the industry?

TV: Carnivale

I finished watching the first season of Carnivale on DVD yesterday. I was blown away with this series from beginning to end. Damn it, yet another reason I have to get HBO!

"Into each generation is born a creature of light and a creature of darkness." Nick Stahl plays Ben Hawkins, the light part of that equation*. Stahl is kind of like Joaquin Phoenix, or Eric Stoltz, in that I always think I'm going to hate him, but usually wind up liking him. The whole season is about him learning about his powers and his destiny, mostly via dreams which show him his long-lost father, Hack Scudder, who also had (has? Is he dead or alive?) powers. Ben is interesting so far, stubborn, naive, and haunted, but he'll probably become even more interesting when he begins to gain more knowledge and control (in the season finale, he seems to have taken his first big step in that direction by resurrecting a woman from the dead -- but only by taking another man's life to do so).

The other main figure in Ben's dreams is Brother Justin, the "creature of darkness", played powerfully and with frightening charisma by Clancy Brown. Ben and Justin seem destined to meet in conflict sometime down the line, but this series sets a most uniquely deliberate pace; the two don't meet (outside of dreams, and there infrequently), don't even set foot in the same state for the entire first season. Justin's storyline plays out completely separate from Ben and the Carnivale. I like that the show seems to know exactly where it's going, and feels no need to rush.

It's the Carnivale where the real excitement happens. It's populated with one of the most original and impressive casts of characters I've ever seen -- in personality as well as profession. There's Lodz, the blind mystic, who shacks up with Lila, the bearded lady, who is every bit as deceptive and ambitious as he is. There's Apollonia, the catatonic fortune-teller, and Sofie, her daughter, who is the only one who can "hear" her mother; their one-sided conversations often leave Sofie devastated by her mother's manipulations and cruelty. Jonesy is the foreman, an ex-baseball pitcher, crippled in one leg, and in love with Sofie. But he's hooking up with Rita Sue, a "cooch dance"** performer, behind her husband Stumpy's back. Stumpy is the barker for the cooch show populated by his wife and their two daughters, Libby (who is also in love with Sofie) and Dora Mae (who meets a terrible fate). Adrienne Barbeau plays Ruthie, the snake charmer who is smitten with the much younger Ben, and who also has a history with Ben's missing father; her simple son is the circus strong man. And Michael J. Anderson (who once danced in dreams on Twin Peaks) is Samson, the dwarf manager of the Carnivale; he reports only to the dangerous but never-seen "Management".

There's a lot about good vs. evil, often played out in grand scale, via dreams, magic, and visions, but just as often it plays out in human nature, in the most banal situations. In one memorable episode, Samson and a prostitute play mind games with each other; they degenerate from happy hooker and longtime satisfied customer into two bitter, petty, spiteful people, each trying to hurt the other as much as possible. Or there's the poor, out-of-luck father whose family is stranded due to a car with a flat tire; Ben shows him kindness and pays for the repairs, but the man has no qualms about reporting Ben to the police in the hopes of collecting the reward on a wanted poster. And the whole show plays out against the backdrop of the Great Depression, which turned many honest citizens into liars, thieves, and worse, out of necessity and desperation.

It's a totally enthralling show, terrifically written and acted. I'm sorry I don't have any more DVDs to rent; I'm dying to find out what's happening in season two, currently airing on HBO. Well, at least the video store has the new Deadwood DVDs to occupy my time. And Penn & Teller's Bullshit! -- damn, now I want to get Showtime, too!

*G = CoL + CoD.

**AKA the "Hootchy-Kootchy". Entertaining and educational, that's Tom the Dog's You Know What I Like? in a nutshell.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

COMICS: Various trades

Amelia Rules!: Last year's Free Comics Day sampler got me interested in this title, but the trade was out of stock for a long, long time at my local comics shop. Long time. That's poor planning on the part of the publisher, I'd say -- raise interest in your product, then make it unavailable. I finally got it last week, and I enjoyed it a great deal. It's a great mix of cartoony, over-the-top antics -- one character, Pajamaman, wears pajamas (natch) with a symbol on the front that changes from panel to panel, reflecting his emotions; another character gets squashed literally flat by a medicine ball in gym class -- and the realistic experiences of a child of divorce. It's especially accurate in reflecting the cruelty of kids; when Amelia calls her friend/enemy Rhonda ugly, Rhonda responds with, "You talk a lot for someone whose parents don't even want to be with her." Ouch.

There are nice touches for grown-ups -- the kids attend Joe McCarthy Elementary ("Weeding out the wrong element since 1952"); Santa's naughty list includes Ken Starr -- but it's primarily all-ages fun. The artwork sometimes bugs me -- there are an awful lot of unnecessary computer effects. And damnation! I wish one indie comics creator would use a proofreader. Just one, to show all the others it's not so bad, having words spelled correctly, and punctuation where it belongs. As a whole, though, I enjoyed the heck out of it, and will now be bugging my local comics shop to get the second trade in stock. I'm sure they'll be thrilled.

Legend of Grimjack Volume 1: Man, this is a nice book. Very durable, thick paper -- same thing with the Amelia Rules! trade. The two books were almost heavy enough to tear the handles on the comic store's plastic bag. It's got an all-new eight-page framing story, which I hadn't expected; the art is fantastic, but it's basically one of those, "Oh, I didn't see you come in! Sit down and I'll tell you a story" kinds of things. Not vital (though it's nifty to see how much Tim Truman's art has evolved). But the old stories which are collected here -- those are vital.

It's all the back-up stories from Starslayer, a Mike Grell comic which had been taken over by John Ostrander by the time the Grimjack stories started appearing. It's through Starslayer that we first meet a number of subsequent Grimjack fixtures, actually, like Chris Heyman, and Crayne, and I think even Grimjack's hometown of Cynosure first appeared in Starslayer. (Or maybe it was first in Mars; I know it wasn't invented specifically for Grimjack.)

The stories involve Grimjack battling vampires, and gods (crazy Cynosure, where all dimensions meet; a god in one dimension is a mortal when he crosses to the next), and, as always, his own personal demons. I always loved the depth of this character; you knew he'd had a long, brutal life, and had been hurt by a lot of people, but it took years for that backstory to be revealed.

The trade ends with Grimjack crossing over from his back-up feature into the main Starslayer storyline. I'd imagine it's a little disorienting for new readers to encounter the Starslayer cast and plot for just one issue. But overall, this trade is a better introduction for newbies to the wonders of Grimjack than the new mini-series. It's just tremendous stuff, so different and fascinating, with such great dialogue and art. I'm glad to have it so I can stop reading my old copies of Starslayer to pieces.

Monday, February 07, 2005

POTPOURRI

This week's Justice League Unlimited really highlighted the ensemble nature of the show. It's the first time none of the original cast had a speaking part (Martian Manhunter shows up in a silent cameo at the end -- and what exactly was J'onn going to do with Wildcat? Could be a simple counseling session, but in these post-Identity Crisis days, maybe Wildcat was up for some mind-reprogramming). Pretty brutal episode, complete with bone-cracking sound effects during Black Canary's show-opening fight, and a little racier than usual, also -- "You want to go a few rounds with me? ...I'm talking about sparring." "That'd be nice, too." I don't much care for Green Arrow's voice (soap opera actor Kin Shriner), and I didn't like Canary's voice, either (Morena Baccarin -- she used to be on Firefly -- the voice itself is fine, but the voice acting isn't very good), but Dennis Farina was excellent as Wildcat, as was Virginia Madsen as Roulette. She's smoky!

Super Bowl stuff:

Man, they couldn't get enough of Michael Chiklis, could they? He was popping up all over the place. The most surprising thing (HA! "Thing!" Because he's in the oh never mind), though, was seeing how tiny he is. He's so powerful on The Shield (new episodes next month! Sweet!) that I never really noticed what a relatively small guy he is. Tom Arnold made him look puny. Yikes.

The halftime show, while certainly tamer and less elaborate than in recent years, was still tremendously enjoyable to me. Hey, a Beatle's a Beatle! Still, with the history of surprise guests and the nature of the performance (huge audience, tons of money, finished quickly), I was actually expecting Ringo Starr to pop out for a quick round of "With a Little Help from My Friends," and I was a little disappointed when it didn't happen. I know, crazy to get my hopes up -- but if the two remaining Beatles were ever going to get together on stage again, wouldn't that have been the time and place to have done it?

The commercials were a mostly lackluster lot this year. I liked seeing all the superheroes together for that Visa spot, especially Underdog's cameo at the end -- Underdog is the best. I also liked seeing all the old commercial mascots in that MasterCard ad -- Count Chocula, Charlie Tuna, and the Groucho Marx-voiced Vlasic Pickle stork. Visa and MasterCard must have the same ad agency.

The GoDaddy.com spot, with the busty woman almost losing her top in the middle of a Congressional-type hearing, was a bit more risque than I thought they'd allow the ads to get this year. I thought Fox canned one ad for making reference to the Janet Jackson incident. I guess this one wasn't specific enough to get the hook. And the Napster ad almost made me want to sign up for it -- 30 days free to download all the songs I want? I'll try that! -- until I read the microscopic fine print -- subscription must be maintained to continue access to downloaded songs. I'm not entirely sure how they're able to do that, but basically they're telling me I need to keep paying $15 a month to listen to the songs I download, for as long as I want to hear them, is that right? That sucks. What kind of an idiot system is that? Only the people who know how to break the code will sign up, I'd imagine.

The real star-power spot, of course, was Brad Pitt's Heineken ad. Very unusual for a AAA-lister like him to make a commercial (at least, in the acting world; equally famous singers make commercials all the time), especially for a cheap beer. Maybe that break-up with Jennifer shook him up more than we realized. That P. Diddy Pepsi commercial -- also packed with stars (and star-fuckers, like Carson Daly). But as far as recognizable actors in the ads went, I preferred the FedEx spot with Burt Reynolds getting kicked in the groin by a talking bear. Hell, who didn't?

And, oh yeah, there was a game, too, wasn't there? A lot closer and more exciting than I would've expected from two teams I picked a rooting interest in solely on the basis of one of the quarterbacks' names (Tom Brady, of course). My favorite player: the Patriots' Tedy Bruschi -- pronounced "Brewskie". Don't mind if I do!

And the after-shows. The Simpsons had its moments, highlighted by Ned Flanders' religious gore-fest, The Passion of Cain and Abel. (And his children's Biblical questions -- If Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve's only children, where did the rest of the people come from? Rod -- or maybe Todd: "Did they have babies with their mommy? Or with each other?") But it wasn't a great episode overall. American Dad, on the other hand, just seems so unnecessary. Geez, Fox goes from needing zero Seth MacFarlane cartoons to needing two? Each with the same style of animation, basic setting and premise, and sense of humor? Maybe they just didn't get enough satisfaction out of cancelling Seth last time, so now they want to cancel him twice.

Scott of Polite Dissent makes a good point in the comments to yesterday's post (in which I marveled at the fact that 20 million people watched The Simple Life). He reminded me that Fox also claimed forty million people watched House. I saw that claim, too, and the only thing I could think was -- "Yeah, but surely not all at once? That's 40,000,000 viewers for all the episodes so far combined, right?" Because those are C.S.I. numbers there, and House is no C.S.I. Hell, it's not even American Idol, which I guess leads into House now. As much as I like it, there is no way that every viewer of American Idol is sticking around for House. No way. This is some creative accounting kind of thing.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Or not

Looks like I won't be watching the Super Bowl at home after all, so no liveblogging the commercials. Maybe I'll post something about the best and the worst later this evening. After The Simpsons and American Dad, of course. Enjoy the game. Go my favorite sports team!*

*That would be the Dodgers. I don't think they're playing.

TV: The Simple Life

According to Fox, 20 million people watched the debut of the new season of The Simple Life.

There are times when I really hate this country.

Speaking of which, Tom Arnold is delivering a monologue on The Best Darn Super Bowl Road Show Period right now (yes, that's an indication of how cowardly the network will be during this year's game -- they're afraid to say the word "damn"). Later today, I plan on "liveblogging," if that is the term I want, and I don't really care if it is, the major Super Bowl commercials (which are always the best part of the program), starting about an hour pre-show. I got the idea from Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag's Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog; she's done it for the last two years, but can't this year. So I'm stealing it. HA! (With her blessing. Ha.)

Saturday, February 05, 2005

MOVIES: The Village

I rented The Village last night. I'm a fan of M. Night Skamahefnsjhsalmmalan's, but for some reason never felt like seeing this film in the theaters. Maybe because it was the worst-reviewed of his films yet. But I thought it was a decent enough rental, with some nice performances from Joaquin Phoenix (who I always think I'm going to hate, but usually end up liking), William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver (who, frankly, is mostly wasted, but I always like to see her), and especially Bryce Howard, Ron Howard's daughter, in her first major screen role. She's surprisingly good, sweet and pretty and full of joy and energy.

I went into this film already having guessed what the big twist surprise was, same as I did with The Sixth Sense. When someone tells you there's a twist, you can't help but try to guess at it, and I haven't found the guessing too difficult so far. (I didn't guess the twist in Unbreakable, which may be partly why it's my favorite of his movies.) But, same as with Sense, I still liked this film. I knew where it was going, but I enjoyed the trip there. There's also a kind of secondary twist in the film, which I also guessed the moment it was raised -- so again, as a mystery, I didn't think it was that successful. But as a mood piece, as a character study, as a vehicle for accomplished method acting, it worked.

What most impressed me was the economy of the film. Most of the scenes, especially at the beginning, are tremendously clever about establishing the setting, the story, the village and its inhabitants, without taking one second more than is needed. The film jumps into the middle of various moments in the lives of these people, and then moves on, having given you exactly what you need to care about the people and learn about their world, and no more; it never belabors the point. It's a film seminar on cutting right to the heart of the matter.

That said, it's a slight film, at best. It doesn't have the weight or the impact of any of M. Night Snbhwefnlasmegblan's previous films, not in the set-up, nor in the payoff (especially if, like me, you've figured it out way in advance). But I'm glad I saw it, and I continue to look forward to anything this director comes up with.

Friday, February 04, 2005

COMICS: Wed. 2/2/05 continued

Marvel Team-Up: Like I said before, this is my first exposure to the X-23 character. I like that Kirkman has no qualms about voicing (through Spider-Man) the mockery every right-thinking Marvel reader must feel on meeting X-23: "Wolverine! Good Lord! What have they done to you?" Unfortunately, Kirkman then has to try to make that character interesting. And he fails, completely. Because how could he not? What a stupid, stupid, stupid character. Seriously. Stupid.

The rest of the comic didn't thrill me, either. MTU is becoming a bit of a jumbled mess. Even the little soap opera thing going on at Peter Parker's school, with the one teacher putting the moves on him, failed to amuse me this time. I mean, she's hitting on Peter immediately after she acknowledges Peter's wife is a supermodel. That takes some balls. "What has she got that I don't got? Aside from worldwide fame, a vast fortune, and being one of the five most beautiful women on the face of the Earth?" And the guileless, shameless way she's going about it -- she might as well have been twirling her mustache. Or saying, "He will be mine. Oh yes: he will be mine." It started out as a cute and potentially entertaining sub-subplot, if handled delicately and with humor, but is now a little too blunt and ham-fisted to work. Probably she'll turn out to be Mysterio in disguise, or something.

Supreme Power: This continues as a kind of borderline book for me. I dig Gary Frank's art, and the characters and story work for me more often than not. That's it, I guess.

Superman: Strength: I don't read a lot of Superman, but this has to be the most purely enjoyable Superman story in the past decade or so. A nice reflection on Clark's formative years mixed with crazy sci-fi goofiness and globe-spanning action (although a flood scene in India is unfortunately ill-timed, in the aftermath of the tsunami) -- it's just tremendous fun. I'm still not entirely sold on the artist, and the six dollar price tag is a bit steep, but this is such a wonderful, welcome, all-ages superhero tale in the midst of all the Identity Crisis, grown-ups-only, dark-and-grim, rape-and-immolation comics currently dominating the market, that I hope Strength finds its way to younger and older audiences alike.

Concrete: The Human Dilemma: Wow, this was a departure. Check me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Concrete expressed his feelings for Maureen in the past, and been rebuffed? What changed her mind? The trauma of the violence that preceded it, the alcohol? Or has this just been a long time developing? In any case, Maureen's seduction -- if that's what you'd call it -- of Concrete was handled very well: frank, awkward, shocking, poignant, thoughtful, and erotic. It takes a talented creator to pull off a scene like that and not shatter the integrity of the comic, and Paul Chadwick certainly is that talented. (I mean, imagine it written by Chuck Austen!) And he still manages to put some compelling thought into the population control theme of the series. How young is too young to decide not to have children? How will Concrete's feelings on the subject change when his alien body changes in the way it looks like it's going to?

Grimjack: WOOHOOOO!!! John Gaunt is back. I loved seeing all three of them back in action -- Gaunt along with creators John Ostrander and Timothy Truman. I still want to know what happened to Grimjack after the end of the previous series, over thirteen years ago (maybe they'll get to that after more of the reprint volumes have come out), but a story from Gaunt's younger days does seem like a better way to get new readers in on the book. And yet, I worry that new readers won't find it nearly as accessible as Ostrander seems to think it is. First of all, there's the price. $3.99 is ridiculous for a standard-sized issue. I mean, Grimjack is my favorite comic ever, and while I didn't hesitate at four bucks, even I wouldn't pay the $15 for the variant cover that Mike tried to tempt me with. (The fiend!) Fifteen bucks was a deal breaker for me, and I have a feeling that for an awful lot of new readers, who don't have anywhere near my love for this character, or even an awareness of him at all, four bucks will be the deal breaker. And then there's the sheer density of the plot. The Arena, Dancer's Rebellion, Roscoe, MacCabre, the Trans-Dimensional Police, BlacJacMac, Mayfair, Cadre, the Demon Wars, Sphinx, Crayne, and of course the city of Cynosure itself -- you don't need to have a working knowledge of all those characters and events to get full enjoyment out of this issue, but it certainly helps. (Anyone new to the series, please let me know -- did this issue work for you or not?)

Well, I do have full knowledge of it all. And I loved this issue. Great, hard-boiled writing from Ostrander, featuring typical John Gaunt tunnel vision getting his friends hurt (so that's how Roscoe lost his eye!), and beautiful Truman art, featuring his usual crazily inventive characters and fashions (ah, lizard-men with starburst makeup/tattoos around your eyes! How I've missed you!). And I loved seeing the return of "Spill Yer Guts!", the classic Grimjack letter column, through which I became familiar with the likes of Uncle Elvis and T.M. Maple. Probably could've used some of that space to fill in a little more of Gaunt's backstory to new readers, though (maybe the website will be helpful in that area, especially this page).

Mike says that his store has sold out of the Legends of Grimjack TPB already (I bought one... so I hope they had more than one in stock, or that's not nearly as impressive), so I hope the new series will sell well, also. 'Cause I can't go back to a world without Grimjack. I won't!!

Thursday, February 03, 2005

TV: Enterprise

I wish I felt sadder about the announced cancellation of Enterprise. I like Star Trek in all its forms, and I admired a great many things about this series, especially Scott Bakula as Capt. Archer, and, recently, I've felt that the romantic interplay between Connor Trinneer's Trip and Jolene Blalock's T'Pol was done especially well. But I also saw Enterprise as a bundle of missteps and missed opportunities, which suggest to me that maybe it is time to give the franchise a little rest.

I mean, let's start right from the top -- and I know this has been nitpicked to death a million times over, but: that theme song. What in the hell were they thinking? It's so thematically inconsistent with this series and the Trek franchise; it starts every episode off on a jarringly wrong note (literally!). And it's indicative of the producers' failure to recognize and correct weaknesses in the show. After two years of fan complaints, rather than admitting defeat and properly revamping the opening credits, they "fixed" it by simply adding in a jangly, up-tempo guitar track. Whoopty-do.

Another fault of the show was its complete inability to find anything of interest for Ensigns Mayweather and Sato to do, just a complete lack of development for those two characters. A recent episode in which Hoshi was locked up in quarantine showed how interesting the character could have been; it set up a background story of failure at the Starfleet Academy, established some martial arts skills, and showed that her innate talent for understanding languages applied to the mathematical language of the ship's computers as well. I was fascinated, and I found myself liking Hoshi for the first time since the earliest episodes of season one. This is a full three and a half years into the series -- that's how long it took for any writer to give her anything more than the blandest, most token of development. Mayweather, though: a cipher from beginning to end.

And I've talked before about my disappointment with last year's season-long Xindi storyline, and the ludicrous alien Nazis time travel story that opened this, its fourth and now final season. The show grew much better as this season progressed, from the visits to the Vulcan homeworld, to Brent Spiner's three-episode guest shot, to the always-welcome return of Trek veteran Jeffrey Combs (he's played more different aliens on various Trek series than anyone in the history of the franchise) as the Andorian Commander Shran. But the damage had already been done. Clearly, I wasn't the only fan who had been turned off by the Xindi arc, and who in turn turned off the show. After its huge debut, Enterprise never stopped losing viewers, and I think a year of 9/11-inspired stories in uncharted space, with new and crushingly boring alien races, rather than the return to the familiar and beloved Klingons and Romulans that the fans seemed to want following the end of Voyager, sealed the show's fate -- even if it did manage to hold on for one more season.

Overall, I enjoyed the show. I'll miss it, and I'll feel the absence of any Trek product, on TV or in the movies. (I liked Nemesis -- was I the only one?) But hopefully in a couple years' time, and with some long-term thought and development, Trek will come back bigger than ever.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

COMICS: Wed. 2/2/05

Just a token update today. I've got my weekly trivia contest tonight, and frankly, I could use a nap before then. Ah, the wonders of getting older!

The second I walked into my local comics shop, Mike and Dorian were both thrusting long-awaited comics into my hands. The Amelia Rules TPB I've been waiting for for so long, the first Legend of Grimjack TPB (collecting the back-up stories from Starslayer), which I've been waiting even longer for, and yes, the brand spankin' all-new issue of the new Grimjack series, which I've been waiting half my life for, it feels like. Woohoo! Comics gold, baby!!

And it didn't nearly stop there. Oh no. I found a new PvP collection, the third Runaways TPB, and I also acquired The Couriers 03: The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker, which Dorian recently wrote about. It looks like it's geared exactly toward my sense of humor; the dateline on the very first page reads, "NEW YORK CITY NINETEEN MOTHERFUCKING NINETY-THREE". Which cracked me up. And hey, I couldn't resist the price. (Thanks, Dorian! And thanks for loaning me the Wet Hot American Summer DVD last week, too. Two words: high-larious. I should write a post about it.)

This was all before I even got over to the new issues racks. There, I picked up The New Avengers (I always forget which Bendis comics I've decided to give up on. I think I'm still onboard with this one; it's Daredevil I've dropped. Oh, and The Pulse. And Secret War, if that next damn issue ever even comes out), Marvel Team-Up (which will be my first exposure to this X-23 character everyone keeps talking about -- so, basically, it's a chick Wolverine? How creative), Supreme Power, Concrete: The Human Dilemma, and Superman: Strength.

And I would've gotten the new Bizarro Comics collection, too, but, damn! Thirty bucks in hardback? No thank you. I waited for the paperback on the first collection (which took forever), so I guess I can wait on this one, too. As it is, I already dropped plenty enough cash in one day. Bizarro would've put me over a hundred bucks. And that's just sick and wrong and tremendously frightening.

Wow, that's a long token update. You really get your money's worth at this blog, don't you?

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

I may be an atheist, but God still hates me

Proof that the universe is out to get me:

NBC has rewarded Medium, a show whose pretensions of depicting "real-life" psychic crime-solving I find to be morally repugnant and infuriating, with advance commitment to a full second season in 2005-06. Sure, it's all based on real events! Psychic crime-solving is totally not fake at all! And hey, did you know The X-Files was based on real life, too? Agents Mulder and Scully were fashioned after real people, and they really did solve paranormal cases for the government! And they really did meet really for-real aliens! And they all rode around on unicorns and ate food made out of rainbows and happy thoughts!!

Last week on Joan of Arcadia: Hilary Duff. Next week on Joan of Arcadia: Haylie Duff. About to be deleted from my TiVo Season Pass list: Joan of Arcadia.

Robert De Niro recently told a reporter (Salon link, registration or day pass required) that he and Martin Scorsese were thinking about a sequel to Taxi Driver. "We're planning a sequel built around the character when he is older," he said. Yeah, that should be great. That shouldn't be an abomination which tarnishes the memory of the original at all. Look at how well-received and universally beloved all those other years-later sequels of cinematic masterpieces are: The Two Jakes*, Texasville, Return to Oz, The Odd Couple II, The Godfather: Part III, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, Psychos II and III. Unparalleled triumphs all!

*I was actually in The Two Jakes, as an extra. The scene on the golf course was filmed at the Ojai Valley Inn, where I worked as a busboy when I was a teenager. I played a waiter -- promotion! I'm one of those tiny dots in a white jacket roaming around the outdoor dining area in the background. And I was great. The movie itself: it wasn't horrible, but lord was it unnecessary.

Labels: De Niro, Joan of Arcadia, Ojai, Psychics are bullshit, Scorsese, TiVo, TV, X-Files

: Name: Tom the Dog; Location: Austin, Texas, United States

"I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it."
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"The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music."
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"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
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