August 30, 2008
This reminds me why I don't go out of my way to watch television; I don't think it would do much to improve my blood pressure.
But having subjected myself to a few minutes of Michael Moore's idiocy leaves me counting the days until An American Carol comes out.
(Cross-posted at Right-Wing News.)
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August 29, 2008
Stole it from AllahP.
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August 28, 2008
Please discuss.
UPDATE:
I'm glad they can't revoke your soul for tryin'--watch Bobbie flub a line, here:
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August 25, 2008
• We didn't get to see Heath Ledger without any makeup on. That was sad.
• I liked Heath Ledger despite my (doubtless somewhat Electral) crush on Jack Nicholson, and though I haven't read enough comic books to discuss fidelity to any of the original sources, I feel Ledger really nailed a certain type of psychopathic / sociopathic personality, here. So, yes: I'd still dig it, even if the film hadn't turned into his swan song.
• Christian Bale doesn't take his shirt off enough.
• Aaron Eckhart doesn't take his shirt off nearly enough.
• There is, in fact, a certain paucity of shirtless scenes.
• Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman both have that sort of timeless, Sean Connery-esque quality wherein one doesn't precisely want to do them (I'm not that Electral), but sort of sit at their feet and listen to them talk in Those Voices—all freakin' day long.
Not so much "may I give you a blowjob, Sir?" but more like "may I get you a drink? Some ice cream? Pictures of my younger sister naked? Candy? The dead bodies of my neighbors, stacked up in the corner with a light dusting of lime on 'em? Watermelon cubes? What's your pleasure?"
Whatever it would take for them to keep talking in those amazing, dulcet tones until they just went hoarse.
I'd be digging through my books, finding the poetry I thought was best-suited to each of them. "Here. Read this. Oh, and here are the deeds to my husband's, my brother's, and my mother's assets, since I don't have any of my own. Just keep talking."
You know how it is with those fucking older actors—including James Earl Jones, minus the Star Wars roles (because I'm not quite that kinky): the first few readings are free. After that, you have to pay. I'm just not clear yet on what the price is.
* * *
It could be that communicating with me is just as, um, refreshingly challenging with me as it is with my mother. Like doing a crossword puzzle without having to wear down your #2 pencil.
Joy: "I'm as amazed as everyone else by what Heath Ledger accomplished, but I also thought that whathisface did a great job as well."
A the H: "Christian Bale."
Joy: "And, you know, I'm always happy to see whatshisotherface in any movie; how many have they done together at this point?"
A the H: "Right: Michael Caine. Well, there was The Prestige, and Batman Begins. And this one, of course. I think it's only three."
Joy: "He hasn't changed at all since Sleuth."
A the H: "I'm not so sure about that."
Joy: "Oh, like we're a couple of spring chickens."
A the H: "Hm. Who was the first guy to play Batman?
Joy (startled, because she's not used to answering pop-culture questions that don't have to do with James Thurber, obscure poetry, or Franco Zefirelli's version of Romeo and Juliet.): "Okay. On the TV series with the great theme that my mom rarely let us watch, it was Adam West. Michael Keaton did it in a feature or two, a movie-series or two ago, and the pick was controversial because some people thought, for crying out loud, that he didn't have the right jaw for the part.
"And I believe Val Kilmer played Batman it at least once, and I sure hope they didn't complain about his jaw, since I don't think the whole thing fits into the state of California, at least from side to side—as I recall, they have to film Kilmer so his face is parallel to the ocean, or one side of his jawbone pokes into Nevada or Arizona."
A the H: "Not bad. I mean, the number of actors—not the overwrought metaphor."
Joy: "Even in my senility, I can occasionally crank out a factoid or two. But the best Val Kilmer movie was Heat. Agreed?"
A the H: "Oh, yeah. Best shootout ever."
Joy: "And bitchinest characterizations in a crime movie ever. Though remember that one little character discontinuity in Heat? Did I ever tell you about that one?"
A the H: "Countless times. Oh, please: don't start. Not tonight."
Joy: "So I'm right about that."
A the H: "No. Not even a little bit right. No."
So, there you have it: one never knows when I will or will not be able to recall proper nouns without a little help. And there was one small problematic characterization in Heat—something just tad inconsistent.
Remember? The history books are written by the victors.
And the victors are the ones who never give up.
There is one person who can get Mandy—and other terrier-types of dog—let go of a favorite toy or tennis ball. That person is me. I've never seen anyone else do it, unless they had a golf club and hit the dog over the head until he or she relinquished the toy. Not necessary. And not easy, anyway, give the pit bull's famous/infamous pain tolerance.
There's a trick. I know it. Mandy won't admit it, but I'm the Dominant Dog in the relationship. Sure: she's powerful, and if she's feeling frisky and threatening to break out on her own for a bit of a romp, I will give the leash to my mother, because that extra 80-100 pounds helps. One is, after all, up against the laws of physics, and in order to keep her in one place I have to have the right kind of leash and lie down on my tummy, which is not the right message to send to a teenaged pit bull.
But if i have the tennis ball and I want to keep it, the Jaws of Death don't stop me. She respects that.
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btw, you gonna do a post on Chris' bleg? Cause you probably have about 100x the number of readers I do...August 21, 2008
The thing about Shivaree is, you listen to the song—it's melodious and sweet with just a bit of a sinister undertone.
Then you watch the video, and you see that the composition was, from the beginning, a lot darker than you realized.
Ms. Waldorf Salad sort of scares me. But . . . in the good way. I mean, this is sick and disgusting . . . and yet. And yet.
As Martin G. once said about the Wicked Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe . . . "I'll take two."
Thanks to Professor Purkinje for creating, as he once put it when the hiking boot was on the other foot: "a major rupture in my musical tastes."
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August 13, 2008
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August 12, 2008
The Variety write-up:
Vivendi Entertainment has picked up North American rights to David Zucker's new comedy "An American Carol" and will release it in the fall.
Pic tracks a cynical, anti-American filmmaker who sets out on a crusade to abolish the July Fourth holiday. He is visited by three ghosts who try to show him the true meaning of America.Directed, produced and written by Zucker, known as one of the masterminds of the "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun" franchises, the pic is also produced by Mpower's Stephen McEveety and John Shepherd.
The cast includes Kevin Farley ("Monk") as the filmmaker, plus Kelsey Grammer, Leslie Nielsen, Dennis Hopper, James Woods and Jon Voight.
Lewis Friedman and Myrna Sokoloff co-wrote the script.
There's a great article by Stephen F. Hayes in The Weekly Standard about the An American Carol, which may serve as a "coming out party" for some of Hollywood's closeted [and semi-closeted] conservatives. (Those who are not action heroes like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and therefore aren't in a position to tell the H-wood establishment to "go fish"—though even Willis couldn't get a movie made based on Michael Yon's writing about Deuce Four. Yet. If Zucker and Company can end the blacklist on those who support the War on Terror—or at least diminish its power—that could change.)
Hayes:
I spoke to Lee Reynolds, who plays the New York police officer whose efforts to search the terrorists are thwarted by the ACLU. Reynolds, too, is a conservative--something David Zucker did not know when he cast Reynolds in the anti-Kerry ad he produced in 2004. Reynolds was active duty military for 12 years and shortly after 9/11 worked as the chief media officer for detainee operations at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.When he returned, he took a job as a production assistant on a film--he asked me not to name it--shot in several locations across the United States. Reynolds worked hard and, he says, won the confidence of the film's directors, who gave him more responsibility. But just as he was making a name for himself, word began to spread that he had been in the military and, far worse, that he supported the efforts of his uniformed colleagues in the war on terror.
"Once they found out I was a Republican, unfortunately for some people it was a problem," he recalls. Several people who had talked to him regularly throughout the shoot simply stopped. And a trip that he was to have taken to participate in an offsite shoot across the country was abruptly cancelled. Another person was sent in his place. Reynolds says that he had only two colleagues who treated him the same way they had before, including "an anti-Bush lesbian" who was disgusted by the dogmatism of the others on the film. Reynolds, now a reservist, is scheduled to leave for Iraq in early 2009. The more Zucker is known as a conservative, the more frequently he has encounters with others who consider themselves conservative.
On one of the days I was on set, McEveety had invited Vivendi Entertainment president Tom O'Malley to meet Zucker. Vivendi had just agreed to distribute the film and had promised wide release--news that had the cast and crew of An American Carol in particularly good spirits.
O'Malley and Zucker chatted about the fact that O'Malley is the nephew of Candid Camera's Tom O'Malley and that they are both from the Midwest, among other things. Zucker thanked him for picking up the movie, which will be one of the first for Vivendi's new distribution arm. O'Malley told Zucker that he was particularly interested in this film in part because he, too, leans right.
Such revelations are common occurrences at the periodic meetings of the secret society of Hollywood conservatives known as the "Friends of Abe" ["Lincoln, not Vigoda," as the Standard article points out elsewhere]. The group, with no official membership list and no formal mission, has been meeting under the leadership of Gary Sinise (CSI New York, Forrest Gump) for four years. Zucker had spent a year working on a film with Christopher McDonald without learning anything about his politics. Shortly after the film wrapped, he ran into McDonald, best known as Shooter McGavin from Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore, at one of these informal meetings.
"It's almost like people who are gay, show up at the baths and say, 'Oh, I didn't know you were gay!' " Zucker says.
h/t: About a week and a half ago, Ace of Spades quoted extensively from the Standard article, playing up the "blacklist" angle. I would have linked him then, but he uses too many dirty words.
Actually, it was—and is—a sensitive subject around here. I would hate to count up how many media jobs I've failed to get because people were able to figure out that I was right-of-center. And I'm sure my husband has lost out on entertainment jobs for the same reason, though as an improv actor and comedian he's a bit quicker on his feet, and is much better at "the Los Angeles tapdance," wherein one is confronted with some sort of remark about how evil G.W. Bush is, or how the War in Iraq is just "making us more enemies," and one is sort of forced to smile brightly and change the subject.
It never fools people when I do it, and I'll bet that even A the H hasn't managed a 100% success rate in hiding his convictions.
A conservative estimate would probably suggest that we've lost tens of thousands of dollars to the prejudice. The true figure is probably in the hundreds of thousands.
Yes, yes: I've spoken with Joel Surnow of 24, and I know he doesn't believe in the blacklist. He's all, like, "if you're a good writer, you'll make it." But, again: his genre is action, and the rules are more flexible for action TV/features. There's that whole "Clint Eastwood" excuse that people make to themselves: "well, if they work on that sort of project, it probably warps their thinking; they begin to see things in black-and-white after a while. Can't help themselves, the endearing little money-makers."
Support alternative points of view in the entertainment industry. End of lecture, for now.
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August 04, 2008
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